But that was just in the martial arts world. The real world was a whole lot more complicated and brutal. When I had hired my trainer, I had interviewed hundreds of martial artists from all over the world. Everyone wanted to work with me, and they were all world class teachers. I had started off each interview by asking the men and women to take off their shirts. They all had gleefully complied to show off their chiseled torsos, but they had failed to realize what I was looking for.
When Bantog had taken off his shirt, I knew I’d found my teacher. The man wasn’t very muscular if anything his body was old and sagging in areas, but his chest, arms, and back were covered with hundreds of scars. The older man had seen some serious shit in his life, and there was no doubting that he had applied his martial arts training to real world situations.
My prediction ended up being correct, and the man had taught me more about martial arts, defense, and killing than I had ever thought I would learn.
Now it was time to apply it outside of a video game.
The pretty blonde woman hunched over slightly, pulled her right arm with the knife close to her breast, and then she extended out her left arm a bit. It wasn’t a bullshit martial arts stance or something fake I would see in movies. My opponent knew how to handle her weapon, and the sight made me relax a little. She was still going to hurt me, but I had practiced against this stance for hundreds of hours, and I could live through the conflict if I got lucky.
There were really only three strategies when fighting with a knife against an unarmed opponent: The first was to just surprise them and kill them quickly with dozens of stabs or cuts to vital areas. She’d kind of done that already to Dale, so that left her with options two and three. If she had been a man and weighed roughly the same as me, she would have just tackled me football player style. It wasn’t elegant, but it was very effective, and how most knife fights in prison went down. It would be too hard for me to fend off her grapple and the knife stabs at the same time. I’d die, and all the martial arts training or real life experience in the world wouldn’t help save me.
The supermodel assassin hadn’t decided to tackle me because I outweighed her by a hundred pounds. She was smart, and she knew she had time on her side. She was choosing to kind of duel me while standing. It meant that I’d be able to bring more of my training into play, and I guessed that the trio had planned for me to be killed by the gunman. The woman and the other man were probably just there to help dispose of the bodies or assist if something went wrong with the initial attempt.
She jerked her right arm forward a bit, but I saw through her feint, and didn’t bother to move my arm to block. Her left arm punched toward me, and I knocked it out of the way with my right palm while I kept my eyes on her knife shoulder. She stepped toward me with a quick thrust, and I twisted my stomach away while I slapped down with my left hand. I caught the top of her forearm with my slap, and the blade went wide of my body. She tried to slash it upward as soon as I hit her, but I’d moved my palm back up and then I smacked the outside of her wrist again to push her right hand across her body. For half of a split of a second, I thought I was about to trap her hand, but she danced a few steps away from me, and I didn’t want to risk reaching for her blade.
The woman hunched over slightly again and took up her fighting position. I was actually standing in almost exactly the same stance, but I didn’t have a knife tucked close to my right torso. Her blue eyes were cold and calculating. They were the eyes of someone who had done this before. They were the eyes of someone that knew she had all the leverage and plenty of time to carve me to pieces.
She made a slow reach for my left arm, and I smacked her hand away quickly. If she grabbed onto my wrist, bicep, or shoulder, she’d instantly start stabbing with her blade, and I’d be dead in less than four seconds. What I really needed to do was get her to extend her knife past her body line so that I could try and trap the weapon. It was probably going to be next to impossible. In the movies, the ‘bad guys’ always stood with the blade outstretched and ready for the hero to knock it free. Real knife fighters kept the blade chambered against their bodies, like this woman did, and would only bring it out to stab when she’d opened my defenses with her left-hand attacks.
“Not going to work, bitch,” I growled at her when she made a third grab attack that I knocked away. I figured that I might be able to get her mad or something, and then she’d let emotions get in the way and slip up, but she didn’t acknowledge my words.
Her blue eyes did glance to her left slightly.
I feinted to look to the side, and the woman moved to snatch my arm again. I had guessed that she was trying to distract me with her eye motion, and I almost smiled when she fell into my trap. As soon as her fingers dug into my forearm, she jerked her right arm forward. I twisted my body to the side with an explosive movement and then punched out my right arm. I felt her blade cut across the side of my stomach, but I’d managed to flip my arm upside down across her throat so that my palm faced the roof of the gym. My bicep cranked around her thin neck like a snake, and I grabbed onto the front of my shirt to keep the choke hold locked.
She moved to stab my arm with her knife, but I twisted her neck down, and her stomach bowed out. If the pretty assassin had kept her left hand on my arm she might have been able to keep me tied up, but she had let it go to try and pry away my modified guillotine choke, and it meant that I could reach my left hand over to grab onto her knife wrist.
Now she was fucked.
The woman was surprisingly strong, but I had her bent back so that she couldn’t get any power from her legs. My left hand grabbed over her hand, and I started to pull the blade away from my right arm.
“Muuurrgh!” she gasped through my choke, and she tried to kick out her legs so that we’d tumble to the ground. The movement backfired, though. I was strong enough to bear her weight with my single arm, and her movement just increased the pressure on her own neck.
The woman’s arm struggled against my grip, and I pulled the dagger toward her chest. My rage and hate seemed to add incredible strength to my arm, and I felt the tip of the blade penetrate the front of her tight lycra workout shirt.
“Muuuuummm!” I guessed she was trying to scream “no,” and I stopped myself from pushing the tip of her knife into her chest. I wanted to kill her, but then the cops wouldn’t be able to interrogate her and find out who she was working for. The other assassin was dead, and the third was--
I glanced over at the second male assassin and saw that he had crawled to the silenced pistol. I had been so focused on protecting myself from the knife-wielding woman that I had forgotten that the third assassin might have lived through Dale’s last attempt to defend me.
I lifted up on the woman’s neck and kind of pushed, kind of carried her the forty feet across the gym. She let out another choked screech, but the man’s hands wrapped around the grip of the pistol and time slowed down again. I was sprinting as hard as I could, and I slammed the woman’s back on top of the man before he could point the gun at me.
Her hand let go of the knife, and I pulled it from her limp fingers. The man was underneath her, and both of their limbs were tangled together like an octopus. He twisted to point the gun at me, and I twisted to find a spot where I could stab him. I was suddenly staring at the business end of the silencer, and I ducked my head out of the way half a second before I heard the weapon make a popping noise.
My right hand grabbed his gun wrist through the woman’s legs. I managed to do a rowing like move and yank the man away from her. We fell onto the open tile away from the bloody corpse of the first assassin and I wrapped my legs around him in guard position.
Then I brought my newly acquired knife into play. I stabbed at the man’s head, neck, face, and shoulders until I’d lost count of my attacks. Blood was all over my shirt, arm, and face. It was obvious that the man was dead, but I gave him one last stab through the skull before I kicked him off of me.
I rose to my feet with a growl of
anger and stalked to the woman. Hundreds of different flavors of rage spiraled through my head, and I readied the knife with a dark hope that she would give me a reason to act upon my emotions. I half expected her to beg for her own life, or to try and fight me again, but the woman didn't move when I grabbed her shoulder.
"Fucking shit!" I roared.
I didn't know if I'd accidently snapped her neck when I fell with her onto the other assassin, but there was no mistaking that her blue eyes were dead. I reached my trembling and blood-soaked fingers to her neck. Yep, no pulse. Fucking shit fuck damn it.
Then I noticed the tattoo on the side of her neck.
It was small, maybe the size of my thumbnail. It looked like a five-pointed star, only the corners were rounded. Inside of the shape was another five-pointed shape colored in with light tattoo ink, inside of this design was a third tiny five-pointed shape that was darkly colored with the ink. The tattoo wasn’t familiar to me, and I thought it looked like a flower.
I moved back to the man I'd stabbed in the face, and I checked to see if he had the same marking on his neck. Unfortunately, I had really done a number on his upper body with the knife, and the dead man was covered with wet blood. It would take me precious minutes to wipe him clean and look for the marking.
Sal didn't have minutes, and I kneeled on the floor next to him.
"Hey, buddy. It's okay. It's okay," Sal's chest and stomach were bleeding profusely, and his face was whiter than a cotton sheet.
"Leeee-oooh," he whispered through chattering teeth, and I grabbed his bloody hand.
"It's going to be okay buddy," I lied as I blinked away tears. No. It wasn’t going to be okay. The hole in his chest was right next to his heart. I looked around the gym and wondered why no one was here yet. Hadn't they heard the gunshots?
Were there other assassins? Did they send people after Jax and Garf? I gulped down a mouthful of terror and wondered if the entire resort had been invaded. Sal had told me that there would be a bunch of political bigwigs from around the world here this weekend. Was this some sort of giant organized terrorist attack?
"I'm going to check the door. It's going to be okay, Sal. Just stay awake. Okay?" The small man blinked at me, and I let go of his trembling hand.
I crawled across the bloody tile to the door of the gym. I stayed low and then cracked open the door. There were a few people walking outside in their tropical leisure outfits. They didn't seem to even know what had happened in here, and I guessed that the gym might have been sound proofed.
"Hey! Get help! There has been a murder!" I yelled at the group as I pushed the door open all the way. The resort guests stared at me with dumbfounded shock, and I realized I must have looked like a walking horror movie. I was covered in blood, but most of it wasn't actually mine.
"Get fucking help! Hurry!" I yelled at them again before I went back to my friend's side.
But Sal Gordon was dead.
Chapter 11
“Never thought I’d go to two funerals in two days,” Jax sighed as he rubbed the bridge of his nose.
“I never thought any of this would happen,” Garf whispered.
“Guys, come on. The rabbi is speaking,” I said.
“He’s speaking Jewish. I can’t understand him,” Jax shook his head.
“It’s Hebrew dude. Come the fuck on,” Garf growled.
“Shhhh,” Jax put his finger over his mouth. “I can’t hear him.”
“Oh, fucking--” Garf started to curse, but I put my hand on his shoulder when the rabbi glared at us.
We were at the Mount Hebron Cemetery in Queens, and I felt like I hadn’t slept in three days. My skull pounded with an exhaustion headache, my mouth was dry, and my skin was covered with a sickly oil that didn’t seem to go away with showers. I knew that I needed to rest, but every time I closed my eyes I saw the back of Dale’s bloody polo shirt, and Sal’s terrified face.
“If anyone would like to speak on behalf of our beloved Sal, please step forward,” The rabbi had stopped speaking in Hebrew and nodded to the crowd. The event had been private, but my manager was loved by many, and there were probably four hundred people stood around his burial site. The staff had set up speakers and a microphone so that everyone could be heard, and I saw Sal’s brother step around to stand in front of the microphone.
Gerald’s words poured out like a melancholy waterfall, and I had to close my eyes to keep the tears at bay. I replayed the events in the gym for the thousandth time, and I tried to think about anything I should have done differently.
There was a lot I should have done differently, and I’d been beating myself up about it for the last three days.
Sal’s brother finished speaking, and his sister approached the microphone. Their parents had passed away a few years ago, so I was used to attending Jewish funerals. I guessed that Sal’s uncle and aunt would speak next, then his cousins, then Jax, Garf, and I.
I just wanted this shit to be over. I wanted to crawl in a hole somewhere and just cry until there weren’t any more tears. I couldn’t though. Dale’s funeral was tomorrow, and his family needed me there.
“...he was like my crazy uncle. The man was so good with business and unbelievably nice, but he also could throw out the punches when he needed. I learned a lot from him, and I’ll remember how much he taught me for the rest of my life.” Jax was speaking, and I blinked a few times with surprise. I’d been lost in thought, and the other speakers had kind of skated by me. My friend’s handsome face was covered with tears, and he wiped some away as he nodded to Garf.
“I first met Sal Gordon when he broke into our locker room and started talking shit to us,” Garf began, and the audience snickered. I recalled the day fondly and took a deep breath to steady my nerves. The rest of my friend’s speech was well rehearsed, since Garf always prepared for stuff, and he did a great job of making everyone laugh. Then my Asian friend nodded to me, and I stepped around a crying Dini Hayes to stand in front of the microphone.
“I didn’t realize how lost I was until I met Sal. He brought me his business acumen, humor, and love of life. I always told him that it was a shame he didn’t have kids, but the man would just make a sour face and say: ‘I don’t have time for kids, I’ve got you three handsome idiots to look after,’ and then he’d tell me to get back to work.” The audience laughed when I did my impression of Sal’s voice, and I felt my words choke up a little in my throat.
“I feel lost now without my friend. Much like Jax and Garf, Sal Gordon always had my back, and I knew he would have given me anything to make me happy. I would have done the same for him. I grew up in the Bronx, and I didn’t know much about Jewish culture, but Sal taught me to love his tribe, and I’m grateful that he pulled me into his family. I ummm,” I paused a bit and wiped away a tear that I didn’t want to be there. “I’m going to miss him until the day we meet again. Thank you for letting me speak.”
I stepped away from the microphone and walked back over to where Dini, Calic, Bantog, Jax, Garf, and their girlfriends were standing. Chip was at the side of the group, and there was a perimeter of recently hired ex-military type bodyguards surrounding us, as well as the entire congregation. There were also a few hundred police officers and a battalion of FBI agents keeping the thousands of fans and reporters out of the cemetery during the funeral.
“It was a good speech,” Bantong whispered with a nod, and I smiled back at the small Filipino man.
President Arnesto spoke next, but I couldn’t even look at the man. The FBI, CIA, and various police departments were still investigating the forces behind the assassination attempt, but Chip’s network had hinted that the investigators were focusing their efforts within the investment house of Astafar Unlimited. Arnie had let it slip that I was thinking about retiring from the game, and word had quickly spread throughout the gaming community. The stock had taken a huge hit, and a bunch of megacorp investment companies had lost billions of dollars.
Arnesto finished his speech and walked ov
er to his family. His eyes met mine, and I forced myself to smile at the man. Sal’s death wasn’t his fault. I just wished that I could do more to aid in the investigation. Answering the FBI and CIA questions while holed up in my hotel room behind an army of bodyguards didn’t feel very empowering.
The rabbi was speaking in Hebrew again, and he pointed to the casket. The cemetery employees began to lower it into the ground, and then the rabbi gestured to Sal’s brother. Gerald reached for a small shovel that was stuck in the dirt pile to the side of the hole. He lifted up the spade with the wrong side facing upward, and then tossed what dirt was on the tool into the hole. I recalled this from Sal’s parents’ funeral, and I gestured for my friends to get in the line so that we could have our turn to help bury our friend.
“Why are we wearing these ribbons again?” Jax whispered to me as he pointed to the ripped black ribbon pinned to the left chest of his suit.
“You don’t remember from Sal’s parents? It’s a keriah. We are supposed to rip our garments to show mourning. If we aren’t Jewish, we can wear the ribbon instead.”
“Ahh, that’s right. Are they going to do that seven days of feasting thing? That was pretty awesome when Sal’s parent’s died.”
“Dude, it’s seven days of mourning. There just happens to be a lot of food,” Garf whispered to Jax.
“Whatever, I fucking love me some Jewud.”
“Jewud?” Garf asked.
“Jew-food. Jewud,” Jax let out a chuckle. “But seriously, if I stop making jokes and stuffing my face, I’m going to be a puddle of tears. So don’t get mad at me for trying to laugh.” Jax grimaced as he spoke and we nodded at him.
“Use the shovel upside down, and don’t hand it to the next person, just put it back in the dirt,” I reminded my friends as it came to our turn to help bury our friend.
My friends performed the burial task, and then they returned to their girlfriends’ sides. I moved to stand in the group next to Sal’s sister and his cousin. They greeted me warmly, and I gave them both hugs.
Lion's Quest: Undefeated: A LitRPG Saga Page 17