Path of the Tiger

by J M Hemmings

  At that moment, the lights went off, plunging the large conference room into darkness. Hrothgar stood up in the suddenly black room as exclamations of shock and indignation erupted from the guests who were seated around the table. His leap up onto his feet was not from surprise though; he had been waiting for this exact moment, and the night vision built into his hi-tech spectacles gave him perfect visibility in the darkness. He was not the only one in the room who sprang into immediate action; the nude ‘models’ on the table – a special table, chosen exactly for this occasion – scrambled to their feet and opened their eyes, which had been closed the whole time. They had kept them closed because they were unaccustomed to light; GH-3213, HC-413, CC-105 and GH-227 had been living in conditions of complete darkness for the last few months, training their eyes to develop acute night vision, almost as clear as that of any cat or wolf, in preparation for this exact mission, this holy crusade against the servants of the Dark One – a mission that had just begun in earnest.

  The assassins grabbed the knives that had been hidden inside the mounds of food that had adorned their bodies, and went straight for their targets – targets as deadly as themselves, but with one significant weakness: they lacked the ability to see in the dark. Each assassin was equipped with both a throwing knife and a nine-inch hunting knife, laser-sharpened to an atom’s width on its edge. Stationed near the walls of the room were eight adolescent bodyguards; one per board member. Four of them were killed a second or two after the darkness hit; each got a throwing knife plugged through their left eyeball and were dead before their bodies crumpled to the floor.

  Hrothgar’s four assassins, immediately after flinging their throwing knives with such expert precision, sprang over the heads of the board members, who had started shouting and screaming in panic at the sounds of blades thudding into bodies and knives whistling through the air in the darkness. The assassins barrelled straight at the remaining bodyguards, who were now drawing their weapons and relying on their powers of scent, hearing and touch – detecting minute ripplings of air currents and slight changes in temperature – to locate their targets; while they could not see in the dark, they had been trained to fight while blind by using all of their other senses in tandem.

  Hrothgar laughed like a crazed madman as the firing started, and with deft swiftness he flung his hardwood chair back behind him, as effortlessly as if it were made of cardboard, and then slid under the table feet first, his gleaming dress shoes gliding with slick speed over the plush Persian rug. There, hidden in a secret compartment built into the table by a master craftsman some three hundred years ago, Hrothgar wrapped his hands around the pistol grips of a pair of double-barrelled shotguns, each loaded with buckshot and sawn off at the barrel a mere eight inches from the trigger.

  ‘Fuck the Huntsmen!’ he howled as a barrage of firing started. ‘Fuck the Alliance!’

  With a sawn-off shotgun gripped in each hand he fired one barrel to the left and one to the right, the thunderous booms rocking the space with floor-shaking violence, roaring out hurricane-like sonic power over the chattering of submachine gun and automatic pistol fire.

  Hrothgar’s first shot took Jing-Sun Park in the midriff, tearing a basketball-sized hole in her lower body, and his second shot caught Pablo Silva right between his wide-open legs, obliterating his entire pelvic area and leaving nothing there but a mess of ragged, bleeding meat. In another second Hrothgar squeezed off the remaining two barrels, and their fiery lead loads of deathly hail kicked Duchess Younghusband and Mitchell Fletcher off of their chairs, ripping the flesh and muscles of their torsos wide open as if they were nothing but wet paper.

  Abruptly the firing of the other guns stopped, and the only sound that remained in the room was the anguished groaning and whimpering of those who were dying, and the hysterical screaming of those who were about to die.

  Hrothgar dropped the now-empty sawn-off shotguns and reached into one more secret compartment. His hand curled around the haft of his favourite melee weapon: his Dane axe. With a devilish grin smeared across his craggy-featured face, he pulled the axe out of its hiding place and crawled out from under the table, jumping up and gripping the weapon in his left hand. He saw the remaining board members stumbling about in fright and confusion in the impenetrable blackness; these people, these mortals, who were some of the most ruthless and powerful people on the planet, were now cowering in abject terror and soiling themselves.

  Exhilaration; euphoric and demonic at once. This was the only way Hrothgar could describe the violent delight flooding his system. Ten thousand orgasms couldn’t come close to this sensation, this feeling of absolute power, absolute domination.

  He surveyed the room before he began his butchery. The bodyguards had all been killed, but so had all but one of his own assassins. This didn’t matter; they had served their purpose and had won him the battle. Blood and gore were splattered over every surface in the conference room, and on the floor four of the board members lay wailing, writhing, moaning and gasping from the brutal wounds his sawn-off shotgun had dealt them. They would be dead soon enough, and they would suffer greatly on their passage to the underworld. It was exactly how Sigurd would have wanted it.

  Hrothgar’s thoughts immediately turned to Sigurd, his shield-brother. How he wished that he could have been here, but there was no way his shield-brother could have, not after the grievous wounds he had been dealt in his last battle. They had lost the opportunity to capture Parvati, but at least Sigurd had not been killed. Now it was up to their commander, Yaotl, to heal Sigurd up fully, and then their mission could be resumed in its entirety.

  Still, this evening’s section of the plan had to go ahead as discussed. This was the only opportunity that Hrothgar and Sigurd had had to strike such a devastating blow against both the Huntsmen and the Rebels at once. By luring both groups into a trap – a masterfully set-up snare devised by the brilliant strategic mind of Sigurd – they had not merely climbed up a few rungs on the ladder of power, they had vaulted clean over it.

  But how soon would Sigurd, architect and mastermind of all of this, recover? When would Yaotl decide that the time was right to trigger the next phase of the plan? How much or how little assistance would Mira and her co-conspirators, who had betrayed their Huntsmen colleagues, actually give them? Hrothgar did not know, and not knowing things made him worried. Worry, yes, a condition of the weak and pathetic, of the slaves and those-to-be-slaves. He could not shake it, though, as strong and fierce as he was. Still, what else could he do at this time? Worry became anger. Anger became bloodthirsty wrath. And wrath surged in flame-heated red washes through Hrothgar’s nervous system.

  He strolled casually up to Suntosh Gupta, who was fumbling blindly and whimpering like a lost puppy, and raised his axe above his head, pausing for a moment to chortle before bringing the blade down in a whistling arc. There was a crunching wet pop as the heavy axe head destroyed the tycoon’s skull in an explosion of bone fragments, splattered brains and spurting blood. Hrothgar laughed, digging the heel of his shoe into Suntosh’s neck so that he could pull the embedded axe out of the man’s caved-in skull.

  It was time to finish the slaughter.

  ***

  Zakaria pressed his back up against the corner wall, keeping his Uzi gripped loosely in his left hand while he signalled with his right to the others to wait.

  ‘Why are we stopping?’ Ranomi asked. ‘We have to get around this corner to get access to the stairs that’ll take us to the next level. Trust me, I’ve got the blueprint of this building memorized in my head.’

  ‘We’re not going that way anymore,’ Zakaria replied.

  ‘What?! Why not?’

  Zakaria pointed his gun at Adriana.

  ‘That’s why,’ he grunted. ‘This girl’s striking resemblance to William’s Aurora is no mere coincidence, no, not at all. It is a deliberate setup; I’m absolutely certain of this. Somehow, word of our mission has been leaked. And since Kimiko has suddenly disappeared, as has
Chloe, I have even more reason to suspect that we’re walking into a trap.’

  ‘He’s right,’ Njinga added. ‘I thought something was up when we were confronted by not two or three but twelve or thirteen Hunstmen troops, all armed to the teeth behind improvised barricades; it was like they were waitin’ for us, like they knew exactly where we were gonna be, when we were gonna be there. That’s why we’re switching to Plan B.’

  Ranomi’s face contorted into an expression that was both surprise and intense indignation.

  ‘Plan B?! What on earth is Plan B?! I wasn’t told about this!’

  ‘No, and neither was anyone else,’ Zakaria said. ‘Nobody knows about Plan B except myself and Njinga. We kept it a tight secret between us because of the possibility that something like this might happen.’

  ‘Something like this? What do you mean?’

  Zakaria smiled grimly, with an eerie light glistening in his single good eye.

  ‘Something like Sigurd and the Huntsmen knowing we were coming tonight. In other words, betrayal on the part of one of our number. If there had been but one plan, we would now be walking into a trap with no way out. But with another plan, a secret plan that only two of us knew about – the two of us who organised this entire raid – well then we would have a backup in case anything went wrong. You were not an organiser, Ranomi, and neither was William. Nor was Sharaf, nor Awang, nor Kimiko, nor the child. And that’s why all of you only got one version of the plan. The fewer that knew about it, the safer a secret it was.’

  Ranomi’s fiery temper had been awakened, though, and she refused to be placated by this explanation.

  ‘Well that’s just great, boss! I’ll be calling you that from now on, boss, as it’s painfully apparent that equality – something we all agreed on prior to the start of this mission – has been thrown out of the window. Hell, any pretences of egalitarianism were just a farce all along, weren’t they?! Why, I—’

  ‘Stop.’ Zakaria’s voice was calm and his tone was even, but there was an undercurrent of a powerful threat in it, and it carried enough weight to silence the feisty woman. ‘Have you forgotten what’s at stake here, Ranomi?’ he continued. ‘Now is not the time to talk politics, and it’s certainly not the place to let your wounded ego take centre stage. Feel free to castigate and excoriate Njinga and I with as much vehemence as you want … after we make it out of here alive. I don’t care if you hate us then, but right now there are more pressing concerns. There’s a time for opinions and a time for arguments. Now is not that time.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Stop. Just stop.’

  Ranomi scowled, the muscles of her jaw taut, bulging like frozen caterpillars beneath her tea-coloured skin, but she deferred to Zakaria’s authority.

  ‘That’s that,’ he said, calm and collected. ‘The elevators and stairwells may seem like the only ways to get to the upper floors, but there is actually another path we can take. Remember all that rock-climbing practice we did in training? Well, we’re about to put it into practice.’

  ***

  Hrothgar was breathing hard, and not just from the exertion of the slaughter he had just perpetrated. The bloodletting had awoken in him a ravenous sexual hunger, as it always did. His python-like member was pulsating, throbbing and hot as a glowing blade pulled fresh from a blacksmith’s forge, and it was pressing with an almost painful force against the inside of his left trouser leg.

  He needed to fuck, right now; all other concerns be damned. Around him the butchered remains of five of the most powerful people in the world lay scattered, their entrails, blood and strewn body parts a grisly tableau of brutality; the reds, crimsons, slick greys and glistening purples of various internal organs and viscera a jolting contrast to the subdued tones of the room, now re-illuminated after Hrothgar had turned the backup lighting in this section of the building on.

  The only other person left alive in the room was CC-105, a young, broad-shouldered Middle Eastern man, the only remaining member of Hrothgar’s team of assassins. Staring hungrily at CC-105, Hrothgar parted his lips in an evil smirk, revealing a flash of artificially whitened teeth with a hint of red tongue. Man or woman; it did not matter to him – although his preference veered more frequently towards males. And as he feasted on the sight of CC-105’s toned, muscular body, spattered as it was with blood, he felt an irresistible urge flooding his already-saturated organ with even more hormone-heavy blood.

  ‘CC-105, come over here,’ he rasped. ‘We have something to take care of before we proceed to the next phase of the mission.’

  CC-105, whose chiselled face was a calm, emotionless sketch of blankness, walked over to Hrothgar, casually stepping over the scattered limbs, severed heads and gore-slick body parts as if they were nothing more than toys left on the floor by some careless child.

  ‘Don’t you need to send your message?’ CC-105 asked flatly. ‘I was instructed that an urgent message had to be sent from your tablet immediately after these servants of the Evil One were taken care of. I have the password, so that I could complete the task in the event that you were unable to. Must I complete this task for you now?’

  Hrothgar stared into the assassin’s dead eyes, and even he could not help but shudder at the terrifying lack of anything even vaguely resembling a soul in the dull brown irises. Still, the body was alive; a heart, however cold and reptilian it may be, pumped blood through those veins while lungs drew in air as the man’s muscular chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm.

  ‘Let me do that,’ Hrothgar grunted.

  He retrieved his tablet from a drawer in the table and sent a message, already composed, to Mira, informing her of the success of phase one of this evening’s plan, and the resultant demise of her fellow board members. After this he stuffed the tablet into one of his pockets and turned back to CC-105.

  ‘Listen CC-105, I am an emissary of the Mighty One,’ Hrothgar said. ‘And as such, you must obey my every command, yes?’

  CC-105 nodded expressionlessly.

  ‘Well then, turn around. Put your hands on the table.’

  He watched intently as CC-105 capitulated, and lust throbbed with hot violence in his temples.

  ‘Good, good,’ he growled as he began to unbuckle his belt. ‘Now spread your legs apart. Yes … yes…’

  Before he could go any further there was a hammering on the door, and Hrothgar felt the telltale tingle in his blood and bones that heralded the presence of another beastwalker. As desperately aroused as he was, sex would just have to wait; this was either Joao and his troops, or Gisborne and the Rebels, and if it was the latter, things were looking dire for him and CC-105.

  ‘Fuck,’ he muttered under his breath. ‘Stand up, hurry!’ he said to the assassin, who complied immediately.

  He dashed over to where he had dropped the sawn-off shotguns and picked them up with deft haste. The banging on the door continued, and Hrothgar tossed one of the shotguns over to the assassin. Extra shells had been duct-taped to the exterior of each firearm, and both Hrothgar and the assassin ripped off the tape and snapped the barrels open to reload the shotguns.

  ‘Behind the table, hurry!’ Hrothgar hissed. He sprang back and crouched behind one end of the table, aiming his shotgun at the door, upon which the hammering was growing increasingly frantic.

  ‘Don’t fire until I give the command,’ he whispered to the assassin, who gave him a subtle nod.

  With a sharp crack the doors gave way. From the darkness of the corridor outside with its hellish flickering of red from a malfunctioning emergency light stormed Joao, brandishing his trademark pair of gold-plated and diamond-studded Desert Eagles. He was accompanied by a squadron of his own troops, loyal only to him and not the Huntsmen, for now that the Alliance had been so quickly and violently dissolved, the Huntsmen had become as much Hrothgar’s enemies as the Rebels.

  When Hrothgar saw that it was Joao, he breathed out a sigh of relief and eased his finger off the trigger.

  ‘Joao, my comrade!’ h
e shouted. ‘So good of you to finally arrive!’

  Joao’s nostrils flared and his thick-lidded eyes narrowed as he lowered his twin Desert Eagles.

  ‘Dey in, an’ they done gone take out whole Huntsman force on d’ ground floor,’ he half-growled, half-wheezed.

  Before Joao had become a beastwalker he had survived a gunshot wound in which the bullet had passed through his throat. Although the projectile had missed his spine it had irrevocably damaged his vocal cords, beyond what the power of his beastwalker blood could heal, and this meant that when he spoke, he sounded like a survivor of a laryngectomy.

  Hrothgar stood up, straightening himself up to his full seven foot height and stretching out his broad soldiers, subtly asserting his physical prowess before Joao’s ragtag band of thugs of various nationalities, some of whom had been soldiers under his command in the war, while others of whom were members of various criminal gangs from around the world.

  ‘Then the whore Adriana has escaped, as planned,’ Hrothgar said, ‘and has let the Rebels in. Good, good. Everything is going according to plan so far. The whore is the key to snaring Gisborne as well. We must take him alive at all costs. Your men know this, do they not?’

  Joao nodded, his heavily scarred face twisted into a permanent sneer from a network of deep gash-scars; souvenirs of a survived torture session, while a prisoner of war during the Mozambican Civil War.

  ‘Me an’ m’boys know ‘dis, Hrothgar. We take d’ Tiger alive. D’ others, d’ Rebels … we leave none alive.’

  His men murmured in agreement, cocking their weapons.

  Hrothgar nodded. ‘We take Gisborne alive … we have to.’

  ‘You send d’ messages, you send ‘dem yet?’

  ‘Shit, I sent one, but almost forgot the other one.’

  He reached into his jacket and took out his tablet, and then punched in his password and then swiped through to his email, where another pre-composed message was waiting to be sent. The recipients were all of the Alliance beastwalkers who were scattered across the world, and the contents of the email told them exactly what had just happened here: the abrupt dissolution of the Alliance by himself, Joao and Sigurd, and the immediate and irreversible consequences of it. They were informed that from this moment on they would be actively targeted by the Huntsmen, and that their only choice at this point would be to either join the Rebels or his new organisation, which was allied to an ancient power that was rising from the ashes of history.