by Allan Burd
He has me cornered. I have no place to run. He thinks the fight is over. He thinks I have nothing left in my arsenal that can hurt him. I un-holster the Lupara from my back strap and grab it firmly by the handle. Sat Gra Thing swoops in, grabs me by the neck, and lifts me into the air. His grip is strong, unbreakable. He could snap my neck like a twig anytime he wants. Fortunately, he wants to boast some more.
“That gun is small. Its bullets are small. Everyone compared to me is small. You are small. Any last words before I squeeze your head from your shoulders?”
“I know your secret,” I say.
He hesitates. He looks puzzled. I can tell he doesn’t even know what I’m talking about. I angle the Lupara, aiming it right at his heart, and pull the trigger. He feels it, instantly. Everything he thought about himself was wrong. He releases me, his hands now grasping at his chest as his blood refuses to stop pouring through the miniature wound.
“What… what did you do?”
He falls flat on his back, a look of utter bewilderment on his face as he struggles for his remaining breaths. I don’t want him to die in a state of confusion, so I stand over him and explain.
“Your secret. You’re not a Minotaur, asshole. You’re a were-bull. You were created by a devil named Balzuzu, same as the werewolves. That means you have the same weakness. You’re vulnerable to silver and I just placed a chunk of it in your heart, the same place Balzuzu reached into to malform your soul.”
His eyes flicker. There’s not a lot of life left in him and he can’t deal with the reality I just told him. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a ruby, one last desperate chance for him to try to communicate with the demon who made him this way; a demon I defeated with the help of some friends. I step on his wrist, snatch the ruby, and show him the jeweled face.
“It’s just an ordinary gem now and you’re just an ordinary piece of evil dying crap. I’m guessing you haven’t seen the devil’s face in there for awhile. Balzuzu’s gone. I killed him myself.”
It takes a moment, but now he fully gets it. I see the fear in his eyes. He finally comprehends how truly fucked he is. He’s not just dead. He has no one on the other side to lean on, no one beyond the boundary of death who might one day bring him back. Fully satisfied, I pocket the ruby. Then I put another silver bullet between Shahkrit’s eyes just to send him to Hell that much quicker. His body morphs back to his slimy former self. I snap another picture for the record books and exit, happy I took another one of Balzuzu’s pieces off the playing board. I use my phone to make a call. A few minutes later, approaching sirens sound the chords of justice and freedom.
My work here is done. It’s time to visit an old friend in China. An hour later, a constable gives me a ride back to the city. On the way, I see a place I haven’t visited in a while. The Fox Hole sign still blares bright in purple neon. I wonder if the Xiansing triplets still work there. Fuck it. I tell the constable to drop me off on the corner. I’ll go to China in the morning.
Chapter 3
I sleep through the entire flight—which is the best way to fly—waking up fully refreshed as the plane touches down in Zhengzhou Xinzheng airport. For obvious reasons, my weapons had to travel separately, so my journey to Dengfeng city in Henan Province is light and I hoof it by foot to Mount Song, the birthplace of Kung Fu. The young monk at the entrance of the Shaolin Temple volunteers to escort me. I tell him in perfect Chinese I know my way around and politely ask for the whereabouts of Master Yong. He looks cautious upon my request, so I explain to him that I’m a former student here. He bows respectfully and leads me in the right direction.
As we cross the courtyard, I admire the impressive displays of physical and mental acuity being performed by those who have trained here for a while. An elderly bald man I recognize as Master Lu is staring down two cobras at once, perfectly mimicking their movement as if he’s hypnotizing them. Another monk I don’t recognize is performing an iron cross, remaining absolutely steady while holding onto two hanging rings. I see two of my former teachers sparring so gracefully, it’s like they’re in a ballet and feel honored when they take a moment out of their session to respectfully bow to me. Of all the places I’ve been to, this is the most awe inspiring, a true display of what people can accomplish if they truly dedicate their bodies and minds to being their best. Fifteen hundred years of history, pushing and surpassing the boundaries of human limitation. It’s my definition of beauty, the complete antithesis of the underbelly I too frequently encounter.
The monk brings me to a hut. Master Yong is standing over a brewing pot of tea. He looks the same as when I left, save for a few more grays around the side of his otherwise full head of dark hair. If he wore a suit instead of a long robe, he’d look like the CEO of a multi-national corporation. He definitely has the commanding presence. He signals my escort to leave. I bow slightly to Yong, showing my respect. He strides closer to me, looking stern as ever. Then, uncharacteristically, he lifts me off the ground and gives me a hug.
“Ah… I knew you would return,” he says with a broad grin as he puts me down.
“This place will always be something of a home to me,” I reply.
“One you are always welcome to. How has my favorite student been?”
“Active,” I answer.
He knows all about my monster hunting activities. I produce the picture I took of Shahkrit the were-bull and show him. He nods, his lips pursed in a way I can tell that he’s impressed I survived an encounter with such a beastly being.
“The creatures that nature chooses to place with us on this world never fail to exceed my comprehension,” he says.
“This one wasn’t natural,” I say. “He was demon born, an evil thug that hit the loser lottery and was remade into a monster by a devil named Balzuzu.”
“He looks quite formidable. Did you use the skills I taught you to defeat this monster, or did you just shoot him with a gun?”
“A little of both. But yes, I have been keeping up with my training despite my preferential use of firearms.”
“Show me,” he says.
I rotate my hips, leap, spin and demonstrate a textbook flying round kick. After I stick the landing with grace, I block two imaginary strikes, and lash out with lightning fast thunder punches to end my impromptu Kata. Master Yong shakes his head and laughs. He walks outside and I follow him to a courtyard where dozens of young men practice out in the open. Their techniques are sloppy, novice, as raw as I was when I first arrived. Master Yong appraises them, each of the students increasing their focus as Master Yong’s gaze falls upon them. A monk throws a series of punches at empty air. Master Yong sternly grabs his wrist, straightens it, adjusting the man’s hips, demonstrating the proper form. As he does with many others, correcting their stances and footwork as we walk by them.
Across the yard a student cries out. He is being hoisted over the head of the rather large student he’s been sparring with as easily as if he were a doll. Then, like a professional wrestling match, he’s body slammed to the ground with no regard for his safety. Even worse, the rather large student is about to follow it up with an unnecessary punch.
“Hai!” Master Yong shouts out, halting the muscle bound student’s fist an inch before it would have smashed into the downed man’s face.
The large student stands at attention and bows to Master Yong with a grin of satisfaction that would please the devil. Master Yong looks none too pleased.
“Who’s Monkzilla?” I ask.
“He is Weng Chi Luann, but the other students have already nicknamed him the Breaker.”
“His spirit does not seem to align him with the principals of Kung Fu. Why let him train here?”
“My initial assessment was that he would be less danger here than he would be elsewhere.”
“Tell that to guy lying on the ground.” I point to the body slammed young student who slowly gets to his feet, limping away with his palm pressed against the sore spot in his back.
Master Yong strides
forward to the middle of the group, leaving me in his wake. He goes into full sensei mode, shouting out commands to everyone present. His students move quickly, fanning out to form a large rectangle around him, all except for the rather large student who proudly takes his place in the center of the student-made ring.
“Your technique is brutish,” Yong says, pacing as the large student he’s chastising doesn’t seem to care.
“Hai, but it is brutishly effective, Master,” Weng Chi answers, glaring menacingly at the young man he just injured who averts his eyes in shame. Then Weng Chi continues to stare at each student in the line, grinning as one by one they cower under his fearless gaze. Satisfied that he made his point, Weng Chi nods respectfully to Master Yong.
“So I see,” replies Master Yong calmly. “You pride yourself on being the dominant student due to your size advantage.” He gestures toward his other students. “Is there anyone among you that would care to challenge that dominance?” All their eyes lower even further. Then Master Yong turns to me. “Perhaps you, Silas? Your Kata was impressive. But air does not hit back.”
“Huh? Me?” I’m taken aback. “He’s just a student.”
“I will fight you,” shouts Weng Chi, proudly.
“Yeah… no,” I answer, with a crooked smile.
“Everyone is afraid of me,” boasts Weng Chi.
“I never said I was afraid,” I reply.
“Yet you stand far away,” he shouts back. “As you should,” he gloats.
Master Yong steps out of the ring and stands beside me. I say to him, “Is this guy for real?”
“He is,” replies Yong.
“How old is he?”
“He just celebrated his twentieth birthday by beating up three grown men in a bar.”
“And the purpose to this?”
“You said you have kept up your training,” Yong replies.
“Really? You need proof?”
“I have something more for you. But first I must see that you are still worthy.”
“Can I use my guns? He doesn’t look human,” I say, only half-joking.
“Your selection of weapon is limited to what’s on the rack.”
I stare at the big guy bouncing around like he’s the king of the world. His every gesture, especially his boastful smirk, is confirmation to me that he’s a total douche. What the heck.
I sigh, remove my shirt, and step into the middle of the ring.
Chapter 4
We stand about twenty feet apart. He has a round face with a close cropped haircut that looks like he shaved it himself. A battle scar graces his forehead. Burn marks cover a small portion of the left side of his neck. I smile at him. He smiles back with the gapped-tooth grin of a professional hockey player. Clearly the guy loves to fight, and based on his arrogance, he hasn’t lost many. He slowly removes his shirt and stretches like a big cat. His muscles are as large as I expected, bulging, and ripped like one of the Greek gods carved him out of iron. I feel like I just stepped into a gladiator pit with someone from Sparta.
Two monks carry a rack of weapons and place it between us. That’s a good thing because I’m going to have to hit this guy with something a lot harder than my fist. We both approach and appraise the selection: a black tiger hammer, a plum blossom spear, broad swords, monk spades, halberds, daggers, and staffs, a strange mixture of blunt instruments and deadly weapons. I already know the guy’s an asshole. Anyone who would so eagerly accept a mismatch between our sizes without the slightest hesitation already has a few dislodged screws, but I allow him to choose his weapon first to see how much of an asshole he’s going to be.
His hand slides around the handle of the broad sword. He twirls it around impressively, both to show he has some skill and also to see if it intimidates me. When he sees it doesn’t, he places it back on the rack and chooses the long staff. He doesn’t want to slice me. His intentions are simply to beat me to a pulp. So he’s as asshole but not a colossal one. Still, the long staff, the “father of all weapons”, is not the one I want him to have.
“What’s the matter? The reach advantage you already possess isn’t enough,” I say, hoping to talk him out of it.
He snaps the staff over his knee, fiercely gripping both ends, and assumes the stance of a stick fighter. Not the exact response I was hoping for but it’ll do. I pick up a long staff of my own. Gun in Chinese means long staff, so I guess I get to use a gun after all. I’ll need it, though unlike him, I don’t feel the need to give away anything I’m capable of in a meaningless display meant to impress my opponent. Instead, I calmly walk to the center of the ring and wait. The monks quickly remove the rack clearing our arena. Then Master Yong gives the signal for combat to get underway.
Weng Chi assumes a low, wide stance. I already see he’s made three mistakes, one of which tells me what attack he plans to use. He aggressively steps in, leading with a series of rudimentary stick strikes that rely more on brute force than technique. I easily parry them with my staff. He swivels his hips, spins, and performs a crescent kick. A showoff move I easily see coming. I lean back just enough to avoid his foot then jab the end of my staff into his thigh, causing him to rotate more than he expected, leaving him off balance.
I quickly notice the grip he has on his weapon is flawed. His index finger is extended too high up the shaft placing it in a vulnerable position. I whack it with my long staff and what he thinks is going to be an easy parry turns into a finger-crushing, disabling blow. He screams and drops the staff from his hand, wincing as he shakes off the pain. It’s not going to help. The damage I inflicted will prevent him from firmly gripping the weapon again. It’ll also ensure he’ll have a tough time making a fist.
“Boo,” I say, stepping forward threateningly. But I hold my strike, watching as he clumsily stumbles back to a defensive position.
The surrounding students enjoyed that. He didn’t. I’ve earned his respect but I’ve simultaneously earned his ire and he’s too arrogant to let the respect aspect fully sink in. He charges me, harder and faster than before with powerful punches and kicks that are as graceless as a three-legged rhino. He’s quick, but his telegraphing is ridiculously obvious, enabling me to effortlessly evade each blow. I glide beneath an awkward left hook, step inside his reach, pivot, and spin around his hips, slipping behind him as easily as if I was water. He doesn’t even realize where I am.
I see five places I can hit him before he does. Four would be physically devastating, so I firmly smack him in the arse with my staff to mortally wound his pride. The long staff I wield is made of a strong wax wood, thicker at the base, flexible and light at the tip. With the proper snap of the wrist it packs a hell of a whip-like wallop. He shrieks like his butt has just been stung by an entire nest of hornets. It’s a show of his resolve that he’s not on his knees. I could end this now but I have no desire to take this further. I rest the staff gently on my shoulder and stare into his flushed red face, which is filled to the rim with pain and anger.
“You know, most people have the decency to not want to fight me due to my being a dwarf. It usually takes a minute or two worth of fuck you’s to get them riled up enough to be interested and, even then, most people walk away. But not you. You didn’t hesitate at all. You’d be more than happy beating up anybody, even if they are half your size. That spanking I gave you. You deserved that.”
His neck muscles flex, his breathing calms, he loosens himself coming to terms with his pain. “A true Shaolin warrior does not hesitate to take on any enemy.”
“Do I look like an enemy to you?” I give him my most charming smile. “A true Shaolin warrior knows when to fight and when he doesn’t have to. This contest is the latter.”
“This battle has already begun and a true Shaolin warrior never surrenders.” He bends his fingers as well as he can, considering how swollen one of them is, and picks up his weapons. The fighting stance he assumes is wisely more defensive than before. “I will not yield,” he says fiercely.
I shrug and
place my weapon on the ground. “This confrontation is a waste of both our time. Do you still wish to fight an unarmed opponent?”
Unfortunately, he does. “Hai,” he bellows, as he charges at me full steam ahead.
Chapter 5
I remember why I don’t like fighting people. Monsters I can shoot and kill. I don’t mind shooting really evil people either, but with this complete butt wipe killing’s not an option. When I came here years ago, every day of my first week Master Yong placed me in contest like this one, except my opponent wasn’t literally twice my weight, width, and height. I got my ass handed to me every time. I thought it was Yong’s way to show me I didn’t belong here, to get me to quit. On the contrary, he was merely testing my approach as well as my resolve.
I remember the look on his face on the eighth day when, bruised and battered as I was, I asked him who was next. It was like he had found a lost son. He asked me, ‘Why do you lose every melee I place you in?’ I answered, ‘Because I’m too little to punch someone in the face.’ He simply replied, ‘Punch them elsewhere.’
He spent many hours after that explaining to me how all the parts of the body work together. The knees move with the elbows, the feet with the hands, the shoulders with the hips. Brute strength is not true strength. True strength comes from flexibility and the ability to hit something with the full force of your body striking in unison. He taught me the concept of inch power, the ability to generate an explosive amount of impact at very close range. Most importantly, he taught me there was no reason to only use that power on an opponent’s head or torso. Striking an enemy’s extremities disabled his fighting ability just as effectively. Hit what you can, when you can. I never forgot that.
I lost another week’s worth of fights too, but in those my opponent’s hands, arms, and legs hurt in a way that they remembered me. Even when I lost, they respected me. That’s when Master Yong imparted on me another important lesson by asking me if I thought it was a good idea that I be hit at all. For months he worked on my flexibility, pulling my limbs in ways that would impress an Olympic gymnast. The training was excruciating. Soon after, it became liberating. I found myself able to move in ways I never dreamed I could before and continued training until I became as elusive as water.