Soul of the Swordsman

by J A Stone

  “Brittany, Jim says you guys need help?” Danica tried to redirect.

  “Just Brit and not from country bumpkins, but thanks anyway. Take your tour today and go back home is my advice. This way please,” the elf-woman chirped with a smile, heading for the door as Danica and Jim followed.

  Brit went straight for the Chief’s office, pushing the door back, catching him picking his nose.

  “Chief?” she asked nonchalantly.

  “Detective—who is this?” the man pointed to Warfell.

  “Buddy of mine from Nepal, she’s good. What’cha got Sir?”

  The Chief took it as fool’s gold and raised his voice to a roar.

  “THREE CIVILIANS! Fifty-five Cosa Nostra. Jenkins is dead but you know that,” the Chief paused, allowing the anger to pass.

  “52nd South is free now. The media gets a statement from you…”

  “No Sir…”

  “AAAND!” the Chief resumed undaunted. “You will give that statement, goddammit Faith they listen to you. Public appeal in the heartland is critical to what we are doing here. America wants these cities under control. Our jobs…”

  Brit interceded. “More than half our men are simply trying to regain possession of their family’s homes, then they quit to guard their properties, praying one day to bring their wives and children back—I know Chief, fine. Tonight, from my home at nine, synch-up first on my private com and it’ll filter through the Federal Server.”

  “Done,” the old man smiled, concluding that day’s ass-chewing. They turned to leave.

  “HEY SASQUATCH,” the Chief barked, Danica turned to meet his eyes. “I gotta take a shit, so you are clear today, but I’ll need to see authorization papers for your tour by tomorrow, don’t let your girl here kill too many people out there—I’m holding you personally…” he waived Danica away, hurriedly moving for a side door.

  They left the building. Warfell, Faith and—Jim.

  Okay the carriage-ride was worse than a dark dungeon. Warfell had to close her eyes as the two New Yorkers smirked and giggled. Eventually, the embarrassment alone forced Danica to stuff her fears in a hole and ride with it like an out of control Bronco. A Bronc that rode like an elevator—smooth, lightning speed, Warfell found herself concentrating on the word Tesla emblazoned on the leather consol.

  Brit drove like a maniac, Warfell saw her death at least a dozen split-second times, quickly giving in to it, accepting her demise at any moment. When the vehicle finally stopped, Danica met eyes with the beautiful crazed pilot of the black-death machine and spoke calmly.

  “Does your world have pain meds?”

  “Sure Storm, look in the glove box,” Brit.

  “She does look like Storm huh? but a white Storm,” Jim.

  “Or one of the Elder Elves from the Pitch Chronicles.”

  “Naaaaaw…Storm, from Norway—wait! What was the name of Thor’s babe?”

  “Okay ENOUGH!” Warfell interrupted her characterizations with people she did not know. “I am tall with long white hair, I get it, I look like an elf—oh my God,” Danica realized the irony, swallowing two hydrocodones dry.

  “You still have your teeth, so watch the pills honey,” Brit replied as she bounded out of the cockpit on to the street, un-holstering a chrome-barreled weapon. Warfell noticed the pearl handle like her trusty ol’ Chesterborne, the massive barrel—it was a hand cannon!

  “Like your stick,” Danica said as she surveyed the buildings for signs of movement.

  “Largest Magnum made, I call it…”

  “The Blunderbuss? Danica interrupted.

  “No the Peacemaker, what is wrong with—where are you from?”

  “Silvercrest,” Danica remarked, pointing to three men leaving a doorway from a dark alley—bolting into a different door when they were noticed.

  “Okay Silver, you get to guard the Tesla, she cost me an arm and a leg, so no touchie-touchie, got it?” Too late to answer, as Brit and Jim took off at full speed, looping wide to come around from the back of the building the three men disappeared in.

  Danica stood there, placing a hand on the smooth black surface of the sports car and then taking that hand away quick, as if it were hot. “Now what?” she said aloud. Her answer came from half a block away—three shots rang out. Warfell ducked behind the Tesla rolling away instantly as four more bullets shattered the side window into a million pieces next to her face No time! Warfell drew the Colt and returned fire…three shots, the third snatching a man’s head backwards.

  She ran for an interior threshold, clinging to the stone as more slugs zinged past.

  “Shit biscuits,” she told herself. ”Pinned down, great,” her mind raced as she calculated, finding her path to advance—close the distance.

  Warfell bolted into the open like a gazelle, sprinting for another safe hold, cracking two more shots for cover. She rolled, throwing her slender back against a vehicle, holding the Colt high aside her face. Intact glass across from her displayed her attackers advancing, rifles trained on her position. Six men and two women, wearing black, padded garments and helmets—no doubt some sort of armoring. Okay, head shots only. Eight targets…seven bullets. “Seen worse,” she reminded herself as she rose to a stand.

  Six shots, four more bad guys on deck as Warfell rolled and leaped, ducked and ran amid a hail-fire of lead—directly for her assailants. At ten paces, the Bayonet flew free, landing in the neck of the last standing woman. Warfell grabbed the closest man, jabbed the throat, spun the body to accept incoming fire, leaped toward her throat impaled Bayonet, snatching the blade and releasing it again.

  The Colt boomed the final round into a startled face just as the Dagger’s tip broke past the last man’s teeth, sinking through the palate and lodging firm in the cerebellum.

  Danica retracted her blade as Brit and Jim came in running, holstering weapons. She stood tall over the bodies, face spackled with hot red dots.

  “What the Hell did you do?” Jim panned eyes about the scene.

  “They started it,” Warfell’s meek response.

  “To my TESLAAAAAAA!” Brit fumed with rage, yanking her cannon out aggressively, approaching a thug still twitching on the road. “Hey Broheem, did you just shoot my car dude?” she asked politely, bouncing anxiously side-to-side on the balls of her feet.

  “No…please.”

  BOOM! The Peacemaker set forth the correct answer: Yes he did, dammit—yes he did. Brittany shot her browns to Warfell, daring her to say something, anything—good. The pixie girl surveyed what Danica had done in her peripheral vision.

  “Jimbo?” the angry little beauty asked without breaking contact to Warfell’s bright blues.

  “Yeah?”

  “Get your Grandma outta New York while you can. Use some of that fortune you cashed in at Eddie’s.” Jim opened his mouth and Brit shut him down fast.

  “AUP!” of course she knew about his visit to Eddie. “Listen to me Jim, I’ve been wanting to take a good run at these guys for a long time, clean house a bit, even the odds, but I need someone military trained—good trained like Labyrinth here.”

  “Partner?”

  “Please James Foster; I see the look in your eyes when I turn a perfectly good face into a cup o’ chum on the sidewalk—what’d you think was gonna happen? We’d hook up? Get Nuru blood massages from pink-haired Asians with red oils and have athletic sex every single goddamn night, shitfaced to Rob Zombie and Slipknot speed metal?”

  “Jesus—that’s what you’re into?”

  “Wait, what? No no no, this is about you James…saving your family…being a man. Brittany kept her eyes glued to Warfell.

  “Well? What’cha think Chewie—tired of traffic citations in downtown nowhere? You want a real job?”

  Danica smiled. Yes she did, dammit—yes she did.

  Following the sack of Washington D.C. in 2020, the Inner City Reformation Act of 2021 passed from the new Capital, Denver Colorado, now gives law enforcement the unbridled freedom to detain
, pursue and execute violent criminals without fear of reprisal. The Act was the result of a decade of rampant criminal organization uprisings. America’s largest cities were out of control. Rather than sending the military to the streets, forging a civil war, the Act gave existing Departments and Agencies the training and equipment necessary to take the cities back.

  Four long years later, New York, Boston and Chicago were the last three holdouts, still under the control of the Mafia—the real Mafioso, the Cosa Nostra.

  Danica watched the flat-screen, stupefied, fascinated. This was truly the most fantastic thing she had ever witnessed.

  Never say you’ve seen it all, she mentally repeated the mantra that kept her going in the face of horror for so many years.

  Across the high-rise apartment, Brit was sitting at a lavish wooden desk surrounded by books, her face lit up by yet another glass screen.

  “Okay Chief are we on the Federal Feed?”

  “Rodger, Detective 1st Class Brittany Faith, this is Dani Weathers with District News. Miss Weathers, before we go live, please keep your questions direct, non-accusatory—nothing personal please.”

  “Understood,” a youthful voice followed by the face of a teenager. “Miss Faith, can you tell us about the progress being made towards the freedom of New York?”

  Brit reclined in an oversized leather office chair. She lit a cigarette, blowing the smoke at the screen as Danica came closer to watch. Without realizing it, Warfell found herself sitting in the background, watching intently. Brittany spoke.

  “Okay, first off, we need the weapons promised. Our boys and girls are taking heavy casualties. We need the body armor. I’m told 52nd south is free territory now, but this has been achieved through great sacrifice…”

  “Is it true you were seen in a Manhattan nightclub fist-fighting with Viggo Stefani Frantz, Son of a high ranking Cosa Nostra Don?”

  Warfell stood at the mention of the name, unconsciously placing her hand on the grip of the Colt she now wore on her hip.

  “Who is that?” the Disney Reporter asked, pointing to her own screen.

  “My new partner, Captain Danica Warfell, and yes, Victor and I suffered a disagreement on ethics. I beat him up pretty bad, but he used the refractions from his scalp to blind me. It was a mighty duel between historical adversaries, locked in deathly combat. Ah, but the light! I traveled the fold of those electromagnetic prisms to the very gates of Hell and back, returning to this earthly demesne with a message from God…Male pattern baldness is only curable through suicide.”

  The teenage face of America did not know what to say—her training took hold.

  “Is it true you were once romantically involved with Frantz? Miss Faith? Need I remind you, you are under contract to reply.”

  “Yes, the answer is yes, before his hair went away and I must say to America that his penis is very small, like little piggy small…to any future lovers, between the bald head and the tiny tinkle, I am so sorry—at least he’s filthy rich.”

  “I see…Miss Faith, I am being told that District East will be sending more of the supplies you heroes need up there. As always, we are behind you and the Knights of America. Thank you for everything and God bless. This is Dani Weathers…”

  The feed went static and Brit turned the screen off, facing Danica.

  “I have something for you to wear—do you like to go to bars and drink beers?” Warfell was already nodding yes.

  “I do. Will your enemy see that message?”

  “Absolutely, I’m counting on it.”

  One of the fates of being very short is the overflow of pants that are simply way too long. Actually, all of Brit’s pants fit perfect, save the length. But when she pulled the suede boots up past the knee, everything worked!

  Warfell rifled through a closet as big as a room…clearly, the personae of British Fey was wealthy in any dimension. The apartment was expansive, filled with old world relics, books and medieval weaponry. Danica knew her British would solemnly approve.

  She settled on suede leggings, the boots, a suede vest for a shirt, and the flight jacket once belonging to Contessa.

  “You like that leather, huh?” Brittany remarked with eyebrows raised—the unspoken wow! She tossed Warfell a shoulder-strap for the long-barreled Colt, stepping in to show how it went on. Danica liked it a lot.

  “Thank you British…Brit. I’d be lost without you here,” Warfell smiled.

  “I’m not into chicks man,” Brit smiled back.

  “What? Sure you are.”

  “No I’m not.”

  “Yes you are sweetie, trust me,” Danica held the pixie’s gaze until Brit was forced to look away, HA! Gotcha!

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Warfell stood motionless one hour later, staring up to the flashing neon sign for the Golden Goblet nightclub.

  “Look, Cosa Nostra Lieutenants and Captains are known to hang out here. Follow my lead. I got you these,” Brit handed Danica four fully loaded clips for the Colt. She winked, turned, and turned again with a finger aloft.

  “Also, don’t start with the firearm; I’ve got this stupid thing about taking bar-fights in stages—Fists, knives, guns in that order. Oh! And if we run into Victor, um, don’t hurt him, please.”

  Danica hustled a fresh clip in place with a snap and smiled wide. “Got it boss, are we here for a mark or to rattle cages?”

  “Both,” Faith loosened the Peacemaker. “Lookin for a man named Guido Sans, he’s Frantz’s right-hand man. Beating him down will be a personal insult. Besides, Sans dabbles in black market human trafficking—a real shit bag. Him, you can feel free to kill outright. He’s also a badass with a knife, so watch out for that. Can’t miss Guido, he’s curly black hair, all jacked up crazy-like in his face and everything…you ready?”

  “Live for it,” Danica looked at her reflection in a car window and blew herself a kiss…

  Robert Johnston was loving the new job—entourage Lieutenant for a rich Sicilian bitch he could care less about but was guarding like a hawk. Most musclemen would not take on a security shit-detail chasing a forty-year-old brat like Isabella Frantz around, but Robert loved it. Why? Isabella ran the fight rings for her aging Grandfather. Yes, she was a drunken whore at night, but by day, Isabella was a shrewd executive, wrangling nearly half of the Frantz interests—one of which being the multi-million dollar fight rings.

  Robert Johnston was an insignificant babysitter at night, by day, he was a champion fist fighter; an eight-foot God in the ring. Isabella took care of his family for him…She said they wanted for nothing and that made Robert very happy. Soon, he will have earned enough to visit with them, (it’d been awhile—months), get them out of New York, his Mother, Grandmother and two Nieces.

  He knew Isabella would never allow him to leave willingly, and she had all of his earnings, but he had an idea full of holes, a desperate plan destined for disaster.

  Warfell was stoic in the lift. She wondered what the club was like, given the only ones allowed entrance below on the street seemed to be women, pretty ones at that.

  “Will the crowd be mostly women?” she asked little Brit for no real reason.

  “Nah, mostly hard legs,” the lift bell dinged. “Remember, Viggo bald no-hurt, Guido curly-head, yes hurt.”

  The door opened and Brit was suddenly fixing her hair, smacking Danica on her perfect apple ass, walking forward to the crowd as if she just got lucky. The brash girl found a table and leaped for it—already snapping for one of the waitresses.

  Not what Danica expected, no loud music, lights, or half-naked dancers. Quite the contrary, soft music played. People ate, drank and smiled quietly.

  “Ello…we are drinking first,” Brit grinned to the rail thin, bruised skinned addict of a waitress approaching.

  “Names,” the zombie spoke.

  “Used for identification,” Faith replied.

  “Yours,” she spoke without moving the skeletal lips. Warfell couldn’t resist.

  “My name is
Abbey Norma Lee Tall and this is my ex-wife Amanda B. Tapping. Can you score me some reds? Pain pills? The kind that work? Please?”

  Brit smiled inside, Warfell was working an angle—who better to ask for drugs and cool the eyeballs everywhere than Julia-junkie here. The waitress grinned, nodding yes, accepting several thousand dollars from her new tall friend with white hair and all of her teeth, scurrying away.

  “The reds she will get you are heroin Danica.” Brit commented, eyes surveying the crowd.

  “I learned long ago to judge the drugs by the health of the dealer—you’re right, that girl is taking poison. Don’t worry the pills aren’t for me—they are for him.” Warfell peeled the white silk hair from her eyes, landing them on the target. Brit followed them and grinned.

  “Looks like you found my dick,” Faith said as the bone skinny server returned with beers, shots and a small envelope. The girls smacked the shot glasses back and grabbed the beer mugs like calves on a teat. The waitress shot her head back in surprise, waiting for them to finish.

  “Whoa-yeah,” Danica wiped her mouth with the back of her hand as a man would. She looked in the envelope—twelve shiny red pills. “That’s a lot, are they fresh, strong?”

  “Very strong Ma’am, my boy gets the potent shit,” she answered proudly.

  “You like working here?” Danica asked and the girl tensed. She’d heard those kinds of words before, usually what a cop says before they tell her to get the hell out of there. Or a hero, come to rescue her from indentured service…slavery. Then the Bosses kill him, or her, or them.

  To her surprise, the tall woman set six sparkling diamonds next to her drink. “You want them? It’s enough to live in the heartland, rich, for the rest of your life.”

  “What do I have to do?” she asked, already knowing she would never leave New York and her now endless supply of smack.

  “Put all of these in Guido San’s next drink.” Warfell opened the envelope, removed one red, and pushed the rest into the trembling girl’s hand. The waitress nodded yes, carefully picked up the diamonds and swallowed them, palming the pills and walking away.