The Third Key (GUARDING THE LIGHT)

by Ramsey, V. K.

  He sat on the stairs in front of the entrance of the Temple of Tyn – from there, one could enter the secret corridors that led down to the Altar Room. In front of the gate was a place where three narrow streets connected. Fortunately, the beggars and street musicians were all gone and only a few people could be seen on the streets, walking by. It was already dark and quite chilly, so tourists were already in their warm hotel rooms, in restaurants and the well-known nightclubs of Prague. It was peaceful before the storm - more dangerous and devastating than any storm known on earth.

  That peaceful feeling subtly began to change. First, it was just a ‘feeling’ that Jason had already met in the past while carrying out his duties as Guardian, though this feeling was stronger and more overwhelming. Coldness crept around his heart, followed by a sense of disgust, like he had smelled or heard something horrible. Jason knew – Quabil was near.

  From where he was sitting, on the staircase in front of the massive doors of the Temple, Jason could hear footsteps coming towards him, coming out from the narrow street that led to Old Town Square. The footsteps in their leather-soled shoes echoed in the narrow space of the street. As the steps grew louder the ‘feeling’ grew in strength, until Jason felt like he was swimming in a sewer – pressed down on every side with evil. He jumped up and took a few steps down the staircase in order to see the street, and to meet the oncoming wave. There, about fifty feet away from where he was standing, between two high buildings, he saw three dark figures moving towards him. With the bright light of the Old Town Square behind them it was easy to see two men with guns in their hands, or something equally sinister. Those men were walking ten feet ahead of the third figure. Protecting both sides of a man in the middle, they moved with caution, sweeping the space before them.

  Jason knew the man in middle; not so long ago, he had fought that man and won. He had left a lifeless body lying on dusty ground near Punakha, in an odd country named Bhutan. The ribs were broken and most of the internal organs were damaged beyond repair, due to the severity of the blows. For a second, Jason relived the shock he’d felt at knowing that man had come back to life! Judging on the basis of how fast he had killed two Guardians and what he’d done to the third Guardian, the demons who had raised him up had done an excellent job – Quabil was more powerful than ever.

  As soon they noticed him, the two bodyguards pointed their weapons towards Jason’s chest, preparing to fire. Both turned towards their leader, expecting to see him give them permission – but no sign came. As they moved closer, they could see the figure of a man under the streetlight. Dressed in a white T-shirt with a red Hayabusa logo across the chest, in dark pants and Army boots, he looked like he was waiting – poised for attack. The blue glow of the neon light carved out the shape of his powerful arms, chest and shoulders - he seemed to have no weapons but it was obvious that this warrior waited for them.

  Both men moved with intent to kill. They squeezed the triggers to fire - but they couldn’t!

  “Hold your horses!” snapped Quabil. His assistants, confused, kept their guns trained on their target, but it didn’t stop them from thinking:

  “We’re minutes away from blowing open the Diamond Gate. Our army is ready, the Alliance can end the freedom of the Human Race …why does the commander stop us from wiping out this cockroach? Why does he care? “ Obedient but confused, the two men watched their master pace panther-like toward the man in the Hayabusa T-Shirt.

  Jason was standing in front of evil personified, not able to fully realize his powers. The Demonic Alliance had invested everything into this person. Jason’s horrible ‘feeling’ reached the highest intensity – his skin crawled with it. He tried to focus his mind but the peace was gone. He felt overwhelmingly small, face-to-face with an enemy whose next move would destroy everything Jason loved and lived for. Images poured through his mind of the Alliance moving through men, women, babies, sick and old … humans enslaved, raped … annihilated. Knowing the effect he had, and savoring the moment, Quabil stood right in front of him looking straight into Jason’s eyes.

  “Nice T-Shirt! Last time you had on shiny armor!” Quabil’s voice had a vibrating tone to his mockery that stabbed at Jason.

  “I was hoping we would meet, human. You see…” the demonic soldier looked eager to unleash the rage but he wanted slower revenge…“…I was sure that when I saw your face, I would just kill you that same moment…” His smile would have frozen anyone’s guts. “But now, seeing you I just want to laugh! This is just hilarious, don’t you think?”

  Jason did not answer. He just kept looking at him, ready to move.

  The malice in Quabil’s voice grew stronger, wave piling on wave. “You made my day! Correct me if I am wrong: you came to stop me, alone without any help. You have no protection of your funny friends from above, no armor, no weapons but those two funny knives hidden in your boots…” His short laugh made the whole scene ridiculous.

  “…And you probably expect me to be afraid of you … and your T-Shirt?”

  Jason did not answer anything but smiled. War would start soon.

  “Did the cat eat your tongue? Or do you just consider me not ‘worthy of your words’?” Quabil raised his voice, gathering power.

  In deep level tones, Jason responded with one question:

  “Empty words come from a man I have already killed once. It is useless to postpone your inevitable destiny of dying from my hand again. Who has eaten your courage?”

  Part 8

  The War

  XXVI.

  The rage inside Quabil erupted - the smile of ridicule changed into a furious grimace. He jumped as if he had been doused in boiling water!

  “As you wish”, he hissed. “Why don’t I simply relieve you of your pitiful existence!”

  With no further warning, Quabil unleashed his rage on Jason, who felt a strong pressure around his neck. An invisible force lifted his whole body from the ground. While Quabil raised his erect arm, slowly the pressure around Jason’s neck made breathing hard - he was fighting for air. This fighting with an invisible enemy appeared weird and grotesque.

  “Now, he needs a few holes on his arms and legs. DO NOT kill him!” Quabil ordered his assistants, who were just waiting for that.

  Jason then realized that for some reason, Quabil needed him alive. He stopped fighting the pressure of the invisible hands that were strangling him, reaching instead for the butterfly swords in his boots. The first few bullets were surprisingly easy to avoid. Their weapons fired orange beams that were more damaging than bullets but the cold, mirror-like surface of butterfly swords redirected them effectively.

  His years of martial art practice and intense training now did pay off, more than ever before. Jason successfully redirected the orange beams with his blades, so they smashed into stone walls and the roads below them, melting holes the size of tennis balls into the stone. The baldheaded attacker on the left was shooting at Jason more, and with much better precision than the other attacker, but the handles of both swords got hotter after each hit. Jason could smell skin and wood coming dangerously close to the point of ignition. He had to end this soon.

  Quabil decided the same for different reasons. It had been intriguing to watch at first, but now Jason’s demonstration of skill, speed and reflexes annoyed him. In an attempt to end this, he closed his fist forcefully. That made the pressure around Jason’s neck intolerable. His face became red, and movement slowed. He started to lose focus and felt he would faint any second …

  Using practically the last molecules of oxygen, he moved both arms almost simultaneously. A double throw attacking movement, when used diagonally with a sharp-edged weapon, cuts the target at an unpredictable angle that is very hard to block. There were three enemies in front of Jason, and only two swords. He had to choose the targets in a split second. The sword catapulted from his left arm with surprising speed and momentum. Cutting the air in a downward diagonal rotation, it ended deep in the left side of the bald man’s neck. The m
an instantly fell down bleeding from a severed carotid artery. The right sword was thrown towards Quabil’s neck, but he deflected its killing rotation to his right arm, just between the shoulder and bicep muscles.

  Quabil did not even move. His arm remained in the same position, but he took his eyes off Jason’s face to glance at the sword sticking out of his arm. The cold steel blade had sliced through the rich surface and straight line of his black Alexander Amosu jacket. His disbelief was obvious. With his attention redirected, the power around the neck Jason’s neck weakened and his body fell a few feet lower but remained in a grip of invisible power.

  Taking a much-needed breath, Jason filled his lungs with oxygen. He glanced below, noticing a streetlight chandelier on the right very close to his feet.

  “If I could reach it somehow…” Jason knew now was a perfect moment to get out from the invisible grip.

  Quabil seemed hesitant about what to do about the sword sticking out from his upper arm, as if he’d never planned for Jason’s resistance. Taking a step back, he moved his other hand toward the sword handle sticking out of his flesh. Continuing to ‘struggle’ with the invisible force around his neck to avoid unwanted attention from his legs, Jason began his next move. The light chandelier had ‘branches’ with three lights on the top – maybe he could reach a branch with a metal-covered lid and use it as a lever. On the first and second attempts, his boots made a flat, clunking sound as they bounced off the metal. Jason knew it was the last chance before Quabil regained his focus for the next devastating move.

  Jason turned away, back to the chandelier and bent over, lifting his legs as high he could. He threw his spine backwards, the heels of his boots reaching under the u-shaped metal. From the corner of his eye, he saw Quabil reaching the handle of a gun, aiming and ready to shoot.

  “It's now or never”, he thought calmly.

  Doing the most powerful ‘leg curls’ of his life, Jason flexed the muscles of his legs and calves, until they contracted to the point of tearing apart. The massive metal structure of the streetlight chandelier began bending over, making a short squeaking sound. The pressure and pain in his muscles was overwhelming. Jason body now stretched between ‘nothing’ and the chandelier, his face and belly button facing the ground. This attempt to escape looked impossible even for him but it was the only thing he could do – and it worked. Suddenly, he escaped the power that pressed around the neck, but the vigor of his leg-pull catapulted his head towards the hard massive metal body of the chandelier. He instinctively used the power of movement, redirecting it around the round surface of the street chandelier like a gymnastics high bar. With all of that acceleration and power, as he spun around, his boot kicked the handle of the sword sticking out from the flesh wound on Quabil’s forearm, nailing the sword deeper at the exact moment when Quabil tried to pull it out. The sharp sword practically severed Quabil’s arm, and the power of the kick threw him a few feet away.

  As Quabil flew back towards the wall, Jason managed to land safely. He saw the gunman’s move, and jumped aside to avoid the shots. Zigzagging towards the attacker, Jason searched for the best way to attack without getting shot. The real danger was a few feet away but he had to get rid of this distraction. The third zigzag step allowed him to reach the attacker’s hand, slapping the gun with his open palm while attacking with the elbow. Using full kinetic power, he connected his elbow with the temple of the gunman. With a grating sound of ‘bone on bone’, his head flew back and smashed onto the stone wall. Jason knew the guy was dead before he could hear the crack of the skull hitting the stone wall, so he immediately turned towards the real threat.

  Quabil was smiling, looking straight into his face, while pulling out the butterfly sword from his arm. No pain showed in his face – no, more than that - he looked delighted.

  “Jason, Jason, Jason… you love to piss me off, every time we meet…” His bloodthirsty voice contained a bigger dose of arrogance and egoism than any sane person could possibly generate.

  The sound of the blade pulled out from flesh echoed between the high walls in that narrow street. Still smiling, Quabil began playfully rotating the sword covered with his own blood on his side. His wounded hand hung at his side as if paralyzed, but there was surprisingly little blood – only a few drops dripped down from his fingers.

  “One arm less to care about”, thought Jason while keeping his eyes on the playful movement of the sharp-edged weapon in the hand of the demonic master. Fighting against a knife or a short sword needed a special skillset. He took a neutral guard stance without sticking his arms out – a position known to all who master close combat and barehanded defense skills against edged weapons. Without any limbs to sever, the attacker is forced to come close in order to slash and cut, opening the doors for efficient defense. Jason was focused on neutralizing the arm with the weapon, then the attacker. He felt happy to see the fight reduced to this – hand-to-hand combat.

  Quabil wielded the sword like a true master. The playful rotations on the side were switched to diagonal slashing movements in front, the sound bouncing off the stone walls. Jason simply waited for Quabil to move.

  What happened next, he really couldn’t have expected. The hand of the killer didn’t move an inch but the sword did! Impossibly fast for the human eye to follow, the sword moved straight upwards in a diagonal slashing direction, missing Jason’s groin by half an inch. It would have connected, except for the palm block he used while moving sideways. It was really hard to fight against the invisible ‘opponent’ - nothing could be blocked or controlled - only an unpredictable and free-moving sword in front of his face, ready to slash him to pieces.

  Without hesitation, the sword moved to stab him in the chest…and nearly succeeded. A fraction of a second afterward, a powerful blow into his ribs made his head explode in pain. He could hear the sound of bones cracking. His body bent over in pain but his mind searched frantically for a way out. That hit had just broken at least two ribs, and it was only an appetizer – what would come next? He tried to guess ...and again he was taken by surprise.

  “You are the master, right?” The cunning voice of Quabil was filled with ridicule. “Come on, show me your skills!”

  The flying butterfly sword attacked the main artery on Jason’s legs, behind the knees. The sword moved swiftly and parallel to the ground, moving faster and more dangerously now. Jason jumped up and trapped the flying sword with his left boot, then deflected it, managing to use the force of its movement against the attacker. The powerful round kick landed on the head of the demon soldier with extreme power and precision. With only one arm, it was very unlikely that he would be able to block it or move away.

  Since he jumped high, the kicking boot was moving slightly downward, aiming at the pressure points on the back of the head with 240 pounds of muscle behind it. It felt really good! He knew that anyone should go down after taking that hit on the back the head. But he was wrong! When that jumping round kick connected, Quabil was shaken, his body was out of balance for a moment but he was still standing right there. In shock, Jason just turned his back to a wall, expecting the next attack by his own weapon in the grip of demonic powers. The sword was there, levitating and ready to strike again. These tense moments were short but it seem like hours to Jason. Any moment Quabil could attack… but he didn’t. The sword just simply fell down as if dropped onto the stone, and the loud clang echoed for a moment. That sound was overpowered by a very loud, angry voice emanating from a raging mind:

  “I tried to be kind to you and kill you gently! I am done playing games, pitiful human being…” The fire in his eyes could be seen from distance. But Jason hadn’t waited for permission to move.

  While Quabil spoke, Jason already had thrown himself halfway forward, knowing that emotional expressions lower the attentiveness and ability to react. The last words were still echoing in the air when a ‘superman punch’ was thrown expertly. When executed properly, it’s a powerful attack where one’s body focuses on one point l
ike a spear – but Jason missed the cluster of pressure points on the side of his target’s jaw by less than an inch. Feeling the disappointment of missing the target, Jason knew he had opened himself to the negative ‘make it or break it’ side – he was open to attack.

  Fortunately, Quabil could only escape the attack by moving left, allowing him to use his one arm to counterattack, but that was the wounded arm. The punch Jason received was not a devastating one, but it hit him right on the solar plexus. Air exploded out of his lungs. Fortunately, this was not his first fight. He instantly relaxed the chest area to keep the ability of breathing, acting as if he was breathless and in pain – a trick used in one-on-one close combat. The force of his ‘superman’s punch’ move and counter-strike positioned his right shoulder above the head of his enemy, and the trick he used gave him just enough time for his next move (not attractive but very effective). Bending back as if suffering, he placed his arm below his chin and secured that position with another arm. From there, he moved onto Quabil’s back in no time, locked both legs on his waist and started strangling him with both arms. When attacked like that by a skilled master, unconsciousness usually results in less than a minute!

  Quabil obviously was not one of those people. He stood straight under Jason’s choke of death, as if nothing was on his back and neck. Despite Jason’s strong squeeze, Quabil started to speak:

  “Game over, you annoying human cockroach!” The only sign that Quabil was affected was the rough tone, from the pressure on both sides of his neck.

  Part 9

  Face Off Demon

  XXVII.

  Jason felt his sixth sense, his inner alarm going wild.

  “Why? How? There is nothing Quabil can do!” His mind raced, reviewing every possible option.

  Then it all started. At first he felt only a strange sort of trembling, something like earthquake but he just continued squeezing his arms around the neck and his legs around the abdomen, hoping to quickly ‘put a sleep’ on the enemy. His grip had started to change but he couldn’t understand why. A second or two later, he realized that now he was trying to choke a neck that had become somehow bigger, and an odd size. Though his common sense rebelled at what he saw, the body of his enemy started to change in shape and size so much so that he couldn’t keep his hands and legs connected anymore. Jason released his grip and jumped backwards more out of disgust than out of fear.