The Way of Death

by James Von Ohlen

  “This man is already claimed.” Reiji spoke as he turned to face the newcomer.

  “I’m not here for him, Reiji. Though I suppose that will be a nice bonus.” Zirsens spoke as he opened the too large jacket and put his hand on the pommel of a large knife on either side of his waist.

  “I’m here for you.”

  The jacket blurred as he shot forward, almost too fast for anyone who was just a human. Augmented perhaps, the thought danced through Reiji’s mind as he moved to react. Not enough room or time to draw his own blade, and it would be next to useless at such close quarters.

  Reiji moved forward just enough to interfere with Zirsens drawing his knives. The two collided with a thud that drove the breath from both sets of lungs. Momentum carried them backwards into the confines of a stall caked thick with accumulated layers of human filth and narcotic residue.

  Zirsens was fast, but that would not avail him in a grapple like this. Reiji was bigger, stronger, and far more experienced.

  Close range was his fight for the taking.

  The two traded shorts punches as they tied up, fighting for a controlling position. A sharp elbow landed on Zirsens jaw and he wobbled enough for Reiji to take him to the ground with both arms locked around the other man’s waist. They landed hard and Zirsens head bounced off of the tile floor with a wet smack. The man retained consciousness though and worked to get a grip on one of his knives.

  The tip of the blade shot up and towards Reiji’s neck. He jerked his head back at the last second and came back with a thunderous punch that smashed Zirsens’ nose and instantly caused him to gag on his own blood as it poured down his throat. Reiji shoved the arm gripping the knife past him and pinned it against the wall of the stall. Another punch glanced off of the side of Zirsens head and Reiji’s hand smashed flat into the floor, sending pain jarring up his arm.

  That was likely a broken bone in his hand that time.

  Zirsens made use of the moment to wriggle free and bring his knife back towards Reiji’s neck. Reiji lifted his forearm and smashed it into Zirsens’ own on the side wielding the small blade. It came to a stop a hair’s breadth from Reiji’s exposed neck.

  The two fought for position once more until Reiji crumpled Zirsens with a knee to the gut that would have dropped him to his knees if there had been room enough in the stall. The knife clattered to the ground as Reiji spun Zirsens around, reaching over the other man’s shoulders to secure a choke hold.

  “What the fuck do you mean, you’re here for me?” Reiji growled into the other man’s ear.

  “The bounty.” He gasped as he grasped at Reiji’s thick forearms, trying to release the pressure on his neck and throat. Reiji relaxed just enough for him to speak.

  “What. Fucking. Bounty?” He spoke clearly, pronouncing each word as if it was its own sentence.

  “Some collector you are.” Zirsens croaked and then fought to suck in a breath. “You didn’t check the register today did you? You were added last night. Three counts of murder. You’ve got a big price on your head.”

  Reiji’s thoughts reeled as though his mind was a punch drunk fighter stumbling back into the ropes.

  “And how did you find me?” He asked.

  “I followed you home a few weeks back. I was going to try to steal your bounty.” Zirsens spoke and then took another large breath as he grabbed at Reiji’s arms. “I never got around to taking it.”

  He had been followed on more than once occasion and not even noticed. This was turning into a day of serious fuck-ups. Reiji clamped his jaw tight.

  He closed the hadaka-jime choke once more around his opponent’s neck and the man began thrashing. Intentionally or not, Zirsens managed to kick both of their legs out from underneath them, sending both men falling forwards. The edge of a toilet struck Zirsens in the chest as Reiji held onto his position.

  Zirsens bit deep into Reiji’s forearm, drawing blood and reached into the toilet as he did so. He grabbed a handful of the vile filth that had been accumulating there since the last time it had been flushed and cleaned, several years in Reiji’s estimation, and attempted to fling it back into Reiji’s eyes.

  Rage overcame him. It wasn’t the fact that Zirsens had just tried to blind him. It was what he had attempted to use in order to do so. Reiji shifted his grip to the back of the man’s head and swept his arms out of the way. Putting his full bodyweight and considerable strength into the effort, Reiji forced the man’s head down and into the cesspool.

  Zirsens groaned and then screamed as he thrashed madly, trying to dislodge Reiji, but he gained no ground. Inexorably Reiji pushed the man’s head down into the filth, until it covered his face. He held the man’s head there, beneath the surface as he struggled to free himself. Time passed and the man’s effort grew weaker and weaker. Reiji pushed his head lower into the filth. The stream of bubbles coming from the man’s mouth and nose grew weaker and weaker.

  Zirsens began twitching and still Reiji held his head down. It wasn’t the first time he had drowned a man, and he knew that a knowledgeable opponent might have enough wherewithal to play possum until he could escape. Reiji forced the man’s head deeper and counted. Zirsens contorted violently and finally went completely limp and Reiji still held him there, making sure.

  When he was satisfied that the other man was in fact dead, he let go. The humming bass of the obnoxious music being played back in the gaming hall died, and he realized that it had been there the entire time he had been in the restroom. Someone had finally turned it off. He searched through the man’s jacket and pockets, taking the remaining knife, and stood up.

  It was a revelation to Reiji that he had a bounty of his own. But that was an inevitability in his line of work. And also why he kept a good deal of money in a special fund. Many in his line of work did no such thing. They spent their money as soon as they got it with no thought to the future. And got themselves killed when a few credits would be enough to pay off their own bounties and move on with their lives.

  He had no intention of being one of those men. He would find a nice quiet place with a TotalWeb connection and pay the bounty himself.

  Reiji wiped his hands on Zirsens jacket, cleaning them on the one spot that wasn’t covered with liquefied shit. A brutal, horrible way to go. But he should have known better than to accept a contract on Reiji.

  He turned back to Meyer’s head before opening his jacket and removing a small packet. Within the packet he found a stack of thin plastic bags, tightly rolled-up for storage and transport. One of the bags was quickly opened and he placed Meyer’s head within it. As he closed the bag it vacuumed sealed itself around the head and a light green timer began to glow within the plastic. Counting down from twelve hours, second by second.

  The amount of time the batteries on the stasis field within had left. Or how long Reiji now had until the head started to rot.

  He took another item from his jacket. A small variable source scanner. The same he had used to tell him that four armed men had been waiting for him in Meyer’s apartment. After playing around with the control interface he passed it over Meyer’s body once.

  The readout confirmed what he already knew from seeing the man’s eyes. His internal organs were far too damaged to be of any value if they were harvested. Worth less than the batteries that ran the stasis bags. Swollen and warped by the cancers that were the result of any of a dozen native Lexington viruses that humans were still trying to adapt to some three hundred years after the first colonists had arrived here from other worlds.

  The sound of someone retching caught his attention and Reiji turned back to the woman who had tried to crawl away. She had managed to make it back to her hands and knees, but now violently dry-heaved. She looked up as if shocked by her surroundings.

  She stared at Meyer’s corpse for a few seconds before giving Reiji a questioning glance.

  “The fuck happened to him?” She asked before rolling over and passing out again.

  “The entire universe decided
to fuck him,” Reiji said to the unconscious woman before he began repacking his gear. Each piece went back into its precise place and then back into his jacket. Kai was adjusted in its sheath so that the handle would always be within easy reach. Always close to one of his hands.

  Reiji paused and looked at himself in the mirror for a moment as he prepared to leave. He was dirty. Beyond dirty. He was filthy. Just like everything else in this fucking slum. A clump of material from within the toilet, where Zirsens still rested his head, clung to Reiji’s forehead.

  Bits and pieces of garbage and what he hoped wasn’t human waste hung on him. Covering his clothes, his face, and even the close-cropped black stubble of hair on his head. He decided he was going to spend about an hour in a hot bath when he made it home, with a gallon of bleach for company.

  He spent a few seconds picking at the worst of the unwelcome passengers on his clothing and then gave up when he realized it was making no difference. Surprisingly cold and clear water came from the sink and he put it to use scrubbing his face for the moment. Reiji wiped his face with his hands and then shook them dry, looking at himself in the badly corroded mirror. A faded reflection in which filth hung about him like some stain on his aura.

  Stubble the same color, black, and almost the same length as that on his head covered a good part of his face with the occasional scar leaving an empty spot in the coverage. His nose was blunt and crooked. The result of having broken it a half dozen times. Brawling, working, and most embarrassingly, once walking into an open door while trying to find the toilet in his own apartment when black-out drunk.

  No one would have called him handsome. At one point in the past that may have been true, but now his features were far too battered for such a vanity. But he was taller than most, with wide shoulders and a broad chest. A form that spoke of strength. And it was no lie. Reiji was far stronger than most. At least most he had fought, killed, or trained with.

  There were professional entertainers out there that made a living lifting heavy things that were beyond the realm of possibility for the average man. But that was something entirely different than what he did. The way he put his strength into the strikes he made with his blade proved to be a lethal thing for many. Not a distraction for the masses.

  In that regard his strength was well and good, but it was his diligent training and practice over the course of his lifetime, starting when he had been old enough to hold a training blade in his tiny hands before he had even started school. Precise technique and impeccable aim with overpowering force behind it. There were not many who could stand against him in a contest of blades.

  Once or twice he had met his equal, and once he had faced a man whose skill was far superior to his own. Reiji felt no shame in what he had done to win those fights, or just survive them. One of the men he had considered to be his equal had been cut down when he had called for a truce and turned his back on Reiji. The other still lived, but minus a few fingers, lost when Reiji had done the dishonorable thing of striking at his opponents hands instead of his body.

  He laughed to himself about that as he looked into the mirror and wiped the last few drops of water from his face. “Dishonorable.” As if getting yourself killed in a fight was somehow preferable to winning. Some might even call him a coward for the things he had done, but none would dare to do so to his face. None save his ancestors.

  The man he’d crossed blades with who had simply been better than him… that had been a true bladeslinger. If any had been worthy of the title, it was that grizzled old man who had wielded a nanoforged short sword in each hand. He had been imminently skilled and possessed a quickness that bordered on the supernatural. Reiji had seen that in the first split second of their engagement. Then, he’d spit in the man’s eyes to blind him, even if only for a second. And then he ran. Ran like a thief in the night.

  With his great strength and quickness had come speed as well. He could run far faster than most men, and he put such to good use. Frequently.

  “Dishonorable.” Men would say things like that, but here he was, still living. If he had done the “honorable” thing, he’d have been fertilizer for quite some time, cut into countless pieces by the old man.

  Fuck ‘em, he thought. I’m still here, and I’ve got a bounty to collect. At least after I pay off my own.

  Reiji grabbed Meyer’s head, secure in the stasis bag, and pushed the passed out woman out of the way and then stepped around what appeared to be vomit as he left the bathroom. Light, far more intense than when he had entered, greeted him in the hallway.

  Men’s voices carried to him from the gambling hall, but he couldn’t tell what they were saying or see the source. Curious patrons perhaps, or neighborhood gawkers come to see what all of the commotion was about. People who couldn’t mind their own business were everywhere.

  More likely it was the gaming hall’s security, out in force. One of their men was dead and another crippled. It was unlikely they would let whoever did that just walk out unmolested. Kai slipped silently from the sheath, gripped firmly in Reiji’s right hand.

  He had a preference for holding the blade with both hands, allowing him to bring his strength to bear on his foes, but he could fight as well one-handed from either side. The stasis bag hung in his left hand, Meyer’s dead eyes glaring out through it at the hallway and gaming hall ahead of them.

  Reiji crept down the hallway, approaching the light and voices beyond. It didn’t appear that they knew where he was, or that he was still there for that matter. If he timed it just right, he would be able to sneak past them. He’d already taken his prize, so there was no point in putting himself in further danger. Slowly, steadily, he advanced without so much as a squeaking floorboard to give away his presence.

  Edging closer to the mouth of the hallway, he hugged the wall and risked a quick glance out into the room. The music had stopped and all lights were on, showing the poor state of the equipment and furnishings previously hidden in the darkness.

  A half dozen men stood over the dead man, conferring. Each was dressed like the hired muscle that he was. Rough, durable clothes that showed a disdain for current fashions and might be capable of hiding a few blood stains without a close inspection. Each was armed with a blade of decent quality. Apparently they were the rest of the security team for the gaming hall.

  They were all paying close attention to the dead man. Backs turned to Reiji. If he was silent and quick he would be gone before they could realize he was still there. He took a tentative step out into the hall, harsh lights leaving no shadows for him to cling to. Another step and no sound, and another and he drew closer to a door with a faded EXIT sign above it.

  Just then a door crashed open behind him, echoing out of the gaming hall. The bathroom door, thrown open from the inside and into the wall. Someone retching and stumbling down the hallway towards the gaming hall. The group of thugs turned to the see the source of the sound and froze as they saw Reiji. He bolted for the door as they drew blades.

  “That’s him!” A man’s voice shouted.

  “You need to clean up your fucking mess!” The woman who had nearly died of a narcotic overdose wobbled at the mouth of the hallway, pointing at Reiji with a hand that seemed to have a mind of its own. She took one uneven step before collapsing as she passed out again.

  Reiji grabbed the handle of the door and threw it open with a powerful pull from the same hand that held Meyer’s head. A blank brick wall looked back at him as laughter sounded behind him.

  “Only one way out of here, asshole.”

  So be it, then. Reiji turned and looked at the men. Six in total. Unskilled thugs to the last. He could tell by the way they stood and the way they held their weapons. They’d never trained seriously in any kind of fighting, likely relying on their size and strength to intimidate their opponents. A good approach, but only if the men you fought were smaller and weaker than you and didn’t know anything about fighting. Reiji did not fit that description.

  The thugs spread
out before him, blocking any possible avenue of retreat. That simplified things in his mind. Now instead of looking for a way around them, he would just kill them all.

  “I’ll let the chief know,” one of them said. He was staring at Reiji with eyes so wide that the whites were visible above and below the iris. He backed away holding his blade pointed at Reiji for a few steps and then turned and ran. The others were distracted for a split second by the man, and that was when Reiji struck.

  He closed the distance between himself and the five men who remained with a short sprint, dodging a thrown chair as he did so. These men had had enough experience in street fights that they knew how to force a man to change his plan of attack. That or the man who’d thrown the chair was just a born asshole.

  The five of them screamed and closed on Reiji, cutting the distance between them that much quicker. Reiji took three precisely calculated steps and struck out three times with his blade. Two men fell to the ground, clutching at the gaping wounds across their necks in an attempt to staunch the flow of blood there. The body of a third fell in a separate direction from his head, both hitting the floor at approximately the same time.

  The other two froze for a moment and then began backpedaling furiously, swords held before them like crucifixes warding off a vampire. One tripped over a barstool and fell backwards, nearly impaling himself on his own sword. Reiji laughed as he strode towards the man. His friend had no apparent intention of coming to his aid. The man on the ground began scrambling on his hands and knees cringing visibly at the thought of Kai striking down into his back.

  With the worm on the ground out of the way, the path was clear to the exit. Perhaps not the exit the hall’s designers had intended, but the way Reiji and Meyer had entered. The hole in the wall leading back out to the alley.

  He began moving towards the hole, looking back over his shoulder at the two remaining men. A dozen more paces and he’d be there. He passed by the body of the man he’d gutted on the way in. Stupid fuck should have just stayed out of my way, he thought.