The Revelator

by D W Bell

  “Closer to eighty, but don’t be so cocky, boy,” Boudreaux chuckled and packed his pipe, “Charlie was nearly sixty and a cripple, but he almost punched your ticket.” He puffed through the false light and second light of his freshly packed pipe then tossed the spent match into pit. “No, sir. Aside from the unfortunate reproductive difficulties, which make him useless for our purposes, that beautiful Nazi-born bastard is a nearly perfect physical specimen.” Boudreaux leaned back into the chair with a creak, blew a cloud of smoke skyward, and wistfully stared off into the distance, “It’s like my daddy always said, ‘If you want to hear God laugh, tell him your plans.’”

  The quiet and menacing Hans took his place at the right shoulder of Master Fu, who crouched on the old stump he always oversaw training from and growled, “Your boy ready?” The old man had donned the heavily brocade ceremonial robe that Boudreaux required of him for these dog and pony shows.

  “Does the pope wear a funny hat?” Boudreaux smirked at the little man across the sand.

  “He understands?”

  “He will. He’s a quick study.” Boudreaux favored John with a conspiratorial wink.

  “Very well. By the laws of combat and our ancient charter, we are met and agreed in the place of contest. Once the demonstrations have commenced withdrawal from the trial will not be permitted. Challenger John Smith, do you choose to proceed in contest with my champion for breeding rights?”

  “He does.” Boudreaux answered for him, absently tamping his pipe with his thumb, suddenly bored with the whole situation.

  Master Fu’s eyes narrowed at Boudreaux’s attitude, most of these theatrics were his idea, after all, “The contract is satisfied. Hans will demonstrate first.”

  With a gasp of truly surprised glee Boudreaux turned to John with a beaming smile, “I forgot about this part! You’re going to have to dance for your supper. Just a bit of theater so each combatant can get a feel for what the other is capable of. Watch Hans close and you might learn something,” with a sneer Boudreaux turned back to lock eyes with Master Fu across the sand, “Just do that thing Charlie taught you when he made you king dick of his Redshirts. That should suffice.”

  ―

  Hans’ performance was frankly amazing. He was fast and smooth, hard and soft, agile and powerful, and displayed both fiery aggression and cold subtlety. Stone-faced and silent, showing no signs of exertion, he returned to his post to the right of the now smiling Master Fu.

  Across the sand Boudreaux clapped slowly in mocking but genuine appreciation, “Flawless. Your boy is always a wonder to behold. A shame that he’s not quite a real man.”

  With a derisive chuff the tiger master fired back, “A man is not defined by his genitalia, but by legacy and the mark he leaves on the world.”

  “Ha! That may be, but even excrement can leave a mark in an imprudent man’s undergarment, and I wouldn’t consider that a legacy.”

  “True. And shit is born, in its way.”

  Boudreaux chuckled, relishing the tit for tat, and adopted an offensive kung fu movie voiceover accent, “Very well. My Scheißeborn will now try your Wu-tang style.”

  “Fine. Let’s see what your little shit smells like. If he hasn’t already left his legacy in his panties while watching Hans’ display.” Master Fu cackled at his own wit, and even Hans seemed to crack one corner of a smile as he stood staring blankly straight ahead, one could almost imagine a tiger’s incisor exposed behind the curl of the Aryan lips. “This is no fucking movie.”

  Smiling cruelly at the insolent little man, Boudreaux snapped his fingers, “Mr. Smith, if you please.” Understanding the gesture, John stepped out into the gathering dusk and prepared himself.

  Charlie had said it was a cherished form from his family art, going way back into Korean history. As such, to John’s novice eye, it looked like a generic external, hard-style set, albeit with a few unique soft touches to smooth out the edges, but he was honored to learn it as a reward for his hard training. The one bright spot in all the chaos.

  Injured and broken as he was, he would still try to do the routine justice. John still did not fully understand all that had transpired with the Charlie situation, but things hinted at by the doctor cast positive light on what may have been a sacrifice for the greater good. A little unsteady and slow, he carefully worked his way through the form and bowed with great reverence at its completion.

  Rather than the mocking laughter he expected, John was met with an unnerving silence as he finished the exercise, broken only by the soft rustle of tweed as Boudreaux shifted in his chair behind him.

  Distractedly brushing a stray speck of pipe ash from his shooting jacket, Boudreaux did not notice the quizzical way in which Master Fu now stared at the challenger, but John did. Finally noticing the silence, Boudreaux looked up with a smile, “All done? Are we ready for the main event?”

  Master Fu quickly recovered his affect of annoyed boredom, “Disrobe. To the death.”

  “Ah, John. My apologies. I neglected to tell you that the fight will be as Nature intended. Nude as the day you were born and until only one man is left standing. But we both know you aren’t shy.” Boudreaux gave a lusty whistle as he gazed almost longingly at Hans as the fierce looking man removed his clothes and prepared for combat, “Truly magnificent,” and then clucked his tongue in real disappointment, “How in the hell does such a god-like appendage not work?”

  ―

  John was getting his ass kicked, again. The big tiger was playing cat and mouse with him with disinterested impunity. The once smooth sand of the torch-lit arena was scattered and rutted with their exertions. There was no space where Hans wasn’t, and no opening he did not casually exploit, as if an afterthought. It was all John could do to desperately protect himself, and that was wearing him down.

  He had held his own at first, but the impossible heaviness of his opponent’s strikes when they did land and the extra exertion required to counter the unpredictable lines of attack were beginning to overwhelm him. Despite all his probing, John had been able to find no weakness in Hans to exploit. He was fucked.

  “Damn it, John! Did I drag your sorry ass out here for nothing? You better tighten up!” Boudreaux was more annoyed than angry. Either way Hans was giving a good show. Not even yet breathing hard as John gasped and panted in crippling fatigue.

  In a last-ditch effort, mainly just to make the passionless giant feel something, John gathered himself for a final, literally, balls-out attack and proceeded to fall flat on his face.

  As is the nature of all such contrived environs, the actual workmanship behind the veneer of fantasy is often shoddy and ill-conceived. Such was the case when John’s front foot found an errant gas hose supplying the tiki torches that had snaked out into the sand of the arena as he lunged forcefully forward. Entangled and tossed to the ground by reality, it was over.

  With an imperious grunt Master Fu gave the order, “Hans, you may finish.”

  John scrambled to his knees, fighting to catch his breath, as he watched his still emotionless executioner draw nearer. It was then, in this moment of clarity before death, that he noticed something.

  Boudreaux would have probably described it as “a little hitch in his giddy-up,” but there it was, a slight bow-leggedness to Hans’ movement that attempted to avoid irritation of the groin area. From his now lower vantage point John could see why. Sweat glistening in the firelight, the big German’s scrotum appeared swollen and inflamed. Running off instinct and desperation, John took his final shot. A nut shot.

  John distracted the Teutonic terror with a handful of sand tossed into the man’s eyes, planted his off knee to pivot, and applied a prescription strength heel kick to the affected area with immediate and devastating results. Hans crumpled with a pained expulsion of air and John quickly clambered atop the stricken man, looping the loose gas line that had almost been his undoing around the neck of his opponent and pulled for his life.

  The scuffle had crashed to the ground on
Master Fu’s side of the ring, and John found the man calmly staring at him as Hans fought to buck his strangling rider. The tiger master broke eye contact only for an instant, appearing to nod to his struggling champion, and returned his gaze to John.

  John looked down in shock as he felt Hans slacken in his efforts, even leaning in to the makeshift noose. Still fighting for his life, and wary of a trick, he obliged and tugged harder. The big man expired with a resigned, almost grateful sigh as his last breath left him. Whether anyone noticed it at the time, he probably had it coming. The ultimate product of Nazi propaganda strangled to death with a gas hose. Poetic justice.

  John rolled off the corpse and lay gulping air as maniacal laughter broke the internal silence of the life and death struggle. It was Boudreaux clapping and howling with mirth, “John, you animal! You magnificent bastard! I can’t believe you kicked him in the balls!” Then sweet oblivion took the stricken victor, thankfully falling unconscious.

  ―

  John jerked awake and immediately fell back into the bed, buckling in pain. He was tied up again. These weren’t the chafing restraints of the gurney. The cloth wraps that held him now seemed supportive, but still he was held. White stars of agony flashed and went super nova behind the curtains of his tightly shut eyelids.

  “Relax. He’s gone.” As the flash of intense pain subsided to a dull, constant ache John’s eyes fluttered open enough to see it was Master Fu who had spoken, standing in the doorway of a small bedroom with a glass of whiskey in his hand.

  Slowly coming around he began to take stock. He smelled the sweetly acrid scent of dried herbs, he saw the fake décor of the simulated monk’s cell he lay in, and he heard the Chinese muzak as it floated faintly through an open window, but he could not stifle the instinctual query, “Where am I?”

  “Boudreaux said you would ask stupid questions.” Master Fu set his glass on the small altar table against the wall and stepped over to John’s bedside, “Let’s have a look at you. See if anything is worth salvaging.”

  John lay still as Master Fu rolled back the sheet and looked over his broken down and burn-scarred body, wincing as the old man jabbed a finger into the discolored handprint still plaguing him from his first mission. “Charlie didn’t do that.”

  “You know Charlie?” John’s jaw gaped in incredulity.

  “Cousin. But we’ll get to that. Who did this? Charlie did not possess this technique.”

  “A bodyguard on my first mission. Some Chinese sex trafficker was the mark.” John winced as Master Fu poked the multi-hued inflammation again, “They can’t seem to heal it.”

  “Of course they can’t. Peasants.” Master Fu was justifiably haughty in matters of medicine. It was said his family had been personal physicians to various leaders for generations. “You killed Xing?

  “I don’t know their names. It was probably in the mission file, but all I needed to know was the crime.”

  “Indeed. That would make it Tie Quan’s doing then. And my nephew who you tortured to death.”

  “Your nephew was a fucking sex trafficker?”

  “All in due time. Not everything is as it seems. I would have thought Boudreaux’s harping on perception would have taught you that.”

  “And Charlie is your cousin?”

  “In a way. I suspected he sent you when I saw your shameful rendition of his family art. Truly terrible. I fear he may have misjudged your potential. But, beggars can’t be choosers they say.”

  “What do you mean Charlie sent me? He tried to kill me! And Boudreaux brought me here to restart his little breeding program.”

  “Oh, so sorry!” The old man adopted an insulting, movie-stereotype accent, “No boom boom, for you, G.I.!” Master Fu laughed cruelly as he poked the USMC tattoo on John’s upper shoulder, “Get some rest so I can train you properly. You’ll need it. You’re going to help me take down Boudreaux.”

  “What the fuck?”

  ―

  Things truly are never what they seem. Master Fu’s apparent nephew, supposed child sex trafficker, was not that at all, and probably truly neither. Quite the contrary, Xing was actually the figurehead for a sort of reverse trafficking operation. While others rescued victims and apprehended suspects through more traditional law enforcement routes, he was given the role as fellow criminal to make purchases on the black market, which served twofold.

  Firstly, it was a perfect method of intelligence gathering for the more overt law enforcement operations. Secondly, sadly, it was just cheaper to save the exploited that way. As Master Fu had explained it, “It’s cheaper if they think you are a fellow dirt bag. They overcharge crusading saviors. True villains require a constant supply, so they expect repeat business and give volume discounts. The righteous are only good for one, maybe two purchases. It’s purely economic.”

  Whether Boudreaux knew of the familial connection between Master Fu, Charlie, and Xing was still an open question. It could certainly be interpreted that the message John was commissioned to send with the torture and killing of Xing was intended for Master Fu and Charlie et al. Perhaps he had caught wind of the rebellious rumblings. Maybe it was just a general warning about his depth of knowledge. He could have done it just to be evil. A rival trafficker could have even randomly ordered the hit through Boudreaux in an unlucky coincidence.

  But one thing was for certain, the true thoughts or motivations that lurked behind the cold, dead eyes of the old conniver could never be known. Besides that, the universe has its own strange Way of bringing those who can perform a needed action together through non-action. Thusly, the limited release of Smith’s cinematic debut in his lurid adaptation of The Man from Hong Kong made it to those who needed to see.

  However, if the torture and murder of Xing had been Boudreaux’s way to bring Charlie and Master Fu to heel, it had produced the opposite effect. It even seemed to have pushed up whatever long held timetable they may have had planned. Charlie had chosen to sacrifice himself to the cause, as did Hans subsequently at Master Fu’s behest, to set the wheels in motion to achieve whatever their ends may be.

  Unwitting to all this as he was, it still seemed to John that Master Fu held a grudge against him for his role in the demise of Xing. Especially when he was deemed fit to train and the old man smiled at him and snarled, “Welcome to Hell.”

  ―

  And it had been like Hell. John had been practically boiled alive in huge vats of various herbal potions, but the results were amazing. Although still visibly burn-scarred, his skin was now supple, pliable, even youthful. Through the use of traditional medicine, and the rough but therapeutic ministrations of Master Fu, John had regained full mobility in all his joints and ligaments. There was no trace left of Tie Quan’s handiwork that had marked and weakened him since first he chose the wicked path of sin. He was a new man.

  And a good thing too as the combat training was intense, brutal, and savage. The program was obviously designed to produce results quickly, but Master Fu seemed to take particular pleasure in the verbal reprimands—the old man seemed to know a lot about the sexual history of John’s mother—and the corrective beatings portion of the training. There was no part of John’s freshly healed body that didn’t sport the rounded mark of the staff’s instruction.

  It was Master Fu’s staff wrapping harshly against the bed frame that woke John from his slumber. “We are out of time. Gather your things. We must go.”

  “Yes, sifu.” John robotically rose and began to gather his few belongings. Master Fu pulled a dense black object from his waistband and extended it, butt first, to John. A Glock 19.

  “You know how this works?”

  “Yes. I used to have one of those.”

  “Good. Try not to fucking shoot me. Or yourself, for now.”

  “Yes, sifu.”

  “Pack quickly. The Dragon is in retrograde. Sacrifices must be made.”

  John started to ask after the meaning of the statement but thought better of it as Master Fu downed his whiskey an
d brusquely left the room, obviously brooding and in no mood for explanations.

  Chapter 25

  “My master, Papa Koulèv, bids you welcome and cordially invites you to join him for tea!” The handsome youth materialized from the impassable, overgrown underbrush, flawless brow furrowed with the false imperiousness of a haughty herald.

  Nearly naked, his beautifully unblemished swamp-tanned skin was nevertheless unscathed by the abundance of intertwined brambles and poisonous thorns. The boyish young man could have stepped out of any pastoral painting of an idyllic shepherd, if it were not for his precisely gelled dirty-blonde hair fixed in the most au courant style. It seemed to John that Master Fu gazed upon this mysterious Adonis emerging from the muddy and fetid swamp with a knowing leer.

  “We send our warmest greetings to your master, as well as graciously and gratefully accept his offer of refreshment to weary travelers.” Master Fu punctuated his good-natured response with a deep bow and gestured that John do the same.

  Satisfied that decorum had been properly observed, the young man turned curtly on his heel and began to melt into the deadly embrace of the swamp, “Come. I will take you to my master. Mind your step as his kith and kin are everywhere, and not as hospitable as he.”

  John jumped as the entire world began to writhe, hiss, and rattle from every tree branch and blade of grass as Papa Koulèv’s serpentine and amphibious guardians made their presence known. Shooting a wicked smirk over his shoulder at the two men frozen in snake-fear the young man gestured for them to follow, and, in his glee at their discomfort, could not help but revert to his inner coonass from his previously lofty language, “C’mon, city boys. Step where I step and they won’t git’cha.”

  Mindful to step in the muddy puddles left by their guide’s bare feet John and Master Fu trudged forward on a trail they could just now barely perceive. Never taking his eyes off the swampy ground underfoot, John turned his head to whisper, “How did they know we were coming?”