“Ah, Jin,” Victor called warmly, bringing Jin back to the world. “How nice of you to join us. I assume then that Jessie has been…dealt with?”
“Yes,” Jin replied coldly.
“Too bad,” Victor shrugged, before nodding at his men.
Following his silent order, the six men sitting in the lounge stood up and began to walk toward Jin.
“So is this it then, Vicky?” Jin asked snidely. “You’re just gonna have your men off me right away? No taunting, no mocking, no self-righteous speech?”
“No, I’m not in the mood right now. I’m too bored. Amuse me, Jin.”
“With pleasure,” Jin growled.
As Victor’s men approached, Jin crouched down into an aggressive stance, waiting for one of the men to give him an opening. They kept their approach tight, however, and Jin remembered the man who had led him to the lounge. Just as he began to twist around to grab this man, the man in question had just begun to reach into his suit for the gun he had holstered under his arm. Yet Jin was faster than him, and before the gunman could draw his weapon, Jin grabbed his arm with his left and then crushed his windpipe with a single hard punch. As the gunman gagged and gasped for air, Jin grabbed him with both hands and hurled him at the rest of Victor’s men. The shock of it broke their focus on Jin, and that’s when Jin struck.
He felled his first target by first doubling him over with a brutal straight punch to the stomach and then sliding behind him to snap his neck. The next man attacked by popping open his switchblade and thrusting it at Jin’s throat. Jin parried this with his left arm, and with his right he delivered another power-packed body blow. As Switchblade fell to the floor, gasping hoarsely, Jin broke the jaw of Victor’s third man with a sharp rising roundhouse kick. Man Four came at Jin with a swift right hook, which Jin sidestepped easily. He then drove a devastating side kick into the middle left side of Man Four’s ribcage. Jin felt several of the ribs crack under the force of his kick, and he knew Man Four was out of the fight.
Man Five actually came at Jin with his sword, and though the move was unexpected, Jin nonetheless stopped his overhead chop by firmly grabbing both of Man Five’s wrists. Man Five struggled against Jin’s superior strength, and rather than play that game, Jin kicked Man Five hard in the groin and grabbed the sword from his slackening fingers. As Man Five fell to the ground, Jin finished him with a sharp stab from his own sword. Just then, Jin groaned out loud as the sixth of Victor’s men kicked him sharply in the back. He fell forward, but then rolled back to his feet just in time to block another hard kick from Man Six. In retaliation, Jin back-fisted Man Six across the face and drove his foot into the man’s knee. The joint broke with a truly sickening crunch, and Man Six fell to the floor howling in pain.
Jin was just about to return his attention to Victor and Leah when Switchblade suddenly came back into the picture, having recovered from Jin’s body blow. Jin jumped back in surprise, dodging Switchblade’s opening swipe, and cursed the fact that he’d neglected to truly incapacitate Switchblade earlier like he should have. Growling with furious frustration, Jin lunged at Switchblade and grabbed the arm that held the offending weapon. Before Switchblade could fight Jin off, Jin snapped his arm, stole his knife, and then plunged it through Switchblade’s throat.
Still seething, Jin pulled the knife out of Switchblade’s throat and kicked the dying man away. When he did, he was greeted by the slow clapping of Victor Malakai.
“Very impressive show, Jin,” Victor called. “Truly great. I am very much amused now.”
“You savage fuck!” Jin spat. “You set your own men on me just because you were bored?”
“Now, now, Jin,” Victor admonished. “There’s no need for name calling. After all, who’s more savage? The man who gives an order to his men, or the man who butchers them all like animals?”
“Don’t play word games with me, Malakai,” Jin shouted. “You and I both know who the real savage is. After all, I may be a killer, and I may be brutal about it, but I’m not the one who sawed off a little boy’s head while he was still alive!”
Victor’s expression soured considerably, and a hard silence filled the air.
Though his breath was coming in a half pant because of not only the adrenaline of battle but also his intense fury, Jin glared hateful death at Victor. The memory of what Victor had done to his son was so clear in his mind that Jin could practically see it side by side with what was really before him. Victor glared coldly back at him, and that’s when Jin saw Leah slowly trying to scoot away from Victor.
That sight alone was enough to temper Jin’s emotions and bring his focus back to the reality of the situation.
“Let her go,” he growled.
“If you want her,” Victor growled back. “Come and get her.”
Jin started to lunge at Victor, but the second he took the first step, Victor’s hand shot into his suit and Jin froze. Victor had a gun concealed under his jacket. Panic and fury combined within Jin’s mind, and for a second he had no idea how he was going to get Leah out of this. He clenched his fists in frustration, and felt the switchblade still in his left hand. A wild, crazy idea flew into Jin’s head then, and without a second thought, he hurled the knife at Victor with all his might.
Despite his massive size, Victor managed to duck away from the oncoming blade. Next second, Victor pulled his gun from within his suit and leveled it at Jin. Yet by that time, Jin had closed the distance between him and Victor almost completely. Before Victor could pull the trigger, Jin continued his forward run, leapt into the air, and kicked Victor in the face with both feet.
The force of Jin’s blow was so great that both Victor and the couch he was sitting in fell backward. Jin landed awkwardly on top of them but scrambled back to his feet as fast as possible to get over to Leah. Without thinking, Jin grabbed hold of the ropes that bound her, and between his own incredible strength and the adrenaline coursing through his blood, he simply ripped them apart.
“Run!” he shouted at her.
Leah did so with hardly a moment’s hesitation, and then Victor was back on his feet and pointing his gun at Leah’s fleeing back.
“No!”
Reacting solely on instinct, Jin lunged forward as he roared his refusal, throwing his entire body at Victor. Victor turned his head in Jin’s direction far too late, for Jin was already airborne. As they collided, Jin grabbed Victor’s gun arm with his left hand and Victor’s throat with his right. They hit the floor with an almighty thud, and Jin drove all his strength into his arms, hoping both to keep Victor’s gun arm immobile and to choke the life straight out of him. Yet Victor was stronger than Jin, and he grabbed Jin’s right arm, slowly but surely pulling it and the hand it bore away from his throat. Jin growled, and then used what strength he could gather in his left arm to painfully wrench Victor’s wrist, making him drop his gun. At that point, Victor let go of Jin’s right arm and slugged him hard across the face, knocking Jin completely off of him.
Slightly stunned, Jin only managed to get halfway back to his feet before Victor was all the way up. Never once actually thinking about it, Jin knew that his only hope for the moment was to keep Victor as far away from that gun as possible. So when Victor moved to pick it up, Jin lashed out with his left leg and kicked it across the room. Never missing a beat, Jin dove after the gun and managed to snatch it off the floor before Victor could get a real chance at it. And before Victor could try to take it back, Jin ejected the clip, followed by the round already in the chamber, and tossed both the gun and the clip to opposite sides of the room.
For moments after that, Victor and Jin just stared at each other. Jin was panting, desperately out of breath with terror mixing with the adrenaline to make his entire body and mind intensely reactive. It was dangerous, and Jin knew it. If he became pure reaction…
But then that was it. If he became pure reaction, he would become dangerously unpredictable. Victor wouldn’t know how to fight him!
On that spur of the mo
ment thought, Jin charged. Victor met this charge with a strong right hook, which Jin ducked under the second he saw Victor’s arm move. Following another split-second impulse, Jin drove both of his fists, one after the other, into Victor’s body just above his pelvis. Victor groaned and doubled over in pain. Taking advantage of the precious few seconds he had before Victor recovered, Jin darted to the back of the couch Victor had been in and retrieved the switchblade he’d thrown. Victor got back up onto one knee just before Jin returned to him, switchblade in hand, and plunged the blade through Victor’s back, stabbing him in his right kidney.
Victor roared with pain and whirled around, backhanding Jin across the face and sending him sliding back across the floor. Groaning with every move of his muscles as he stood back up, Victor wrenched the knife out of his back and cast it aside. Turning around, his face contorted horribly by pain, Victor glared at his adversary with savage hatred burning in his eyes.
“You son of a bitch!” he growled. “I’ll kill you!”
“Oh yeah?” Jin retorted as he got back to his own feet. “You gonna kill me like you killed my son? Saw my head off while I’m still alive?”
“Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Victor grunted through the pain in his back. “To die so quickly, by my hand? No, you’re not gonna get that lucky!”
“Well then come on, Vicky,” Jin taunted in a vicious hiss. “Make me unlucky!”
Jin’s taunting voice enraged Victor beyond reason, and he bellowed this rage to all who could hear as he jerked his legs into motion, running at Jin with all the speed he could muster.
Jin grinned with savage glee, for he knew now that he was mere seconds from finally killing the man who’d butchered his only son.
As Victor swung his arm in a vicious blow that was intended to shatter Jin’s jaw, Jin ducked to the inside, dodging Victor’s attack, and bringing himself level with the stab wound in Victor’s back. Using every thread of muscle fiber in his body, Jin pulled his left arm as far back as he could, and then shot it forward with all the force of a cannonball, driving it into Victor’s wound.
The agony that blasted through Victor’s back right then stole away all thought and reason from his mind. He screamed once, but that too was taken away as pain paralyzed his brain and throat. Before he could find his breath to truly release the scream trapped in his throat, Jin coiled the muscles in his arm again and punched him once, twice, thrice more in the exact same place. Victor dropped down to one knee and gasped for air, but once again his chance was stolen from him as Jin moved behind Victor in full, and with even more force than before, drove his right fist into Victor’s wounded back.
Victor’s vision blacked out, and the blast of sound that came raging out of his vocal cords was so horrifyingly loud that Jin’s ears began to ring. Nevertheless, as Victor collapsed onto his back, Jin felt satisfied somehow. His blood was cooler, the hatred he felt for Victor had all but dissipated – he’d won.
All that remained was one final little detail.
“You know, Victor,” Jin said as he walked around to Victor’s other side, drawing one of his Desert Eagles. “You’re a lucky man. I mean you’re about to die, so that’s not so lucky. Still though, all things considered, you’re a pretty lucky guy.”
Victor only half heard Jin’s words, his brain still addled by the burning pain in his back. As he continued to groan and whimper, Jin knelt by his head.
“I could be so wonderfully cruel about all this,” he continued. “I could taunt you, I could mock you, I could humiliate you to the ends of the earth, and you’d still be in far too much pain to stop me.”
Ever so lightly, Jin let the barrel of the Desert Eagle lay gently on Victor’s sweat-beaded forehead.
“But I’m not going to. Do you know why?”
Victor’s only response was another series of hisses, grunts, and groans.
“Because that’s not the kind of person I am. Because I’ve already won, because I don’t need to kick people when they’re already down, because I’ve got nothing to prove to anyone.”
Jin slid the barrel of his gun down to Victor’s temple and pressed it firmly to Victor’s skin.
“Goodbye, Victor. Give my regards to the others, if you see them.”
Victor growled then and made a move as though to grab Jin, but Jin pulled the trigger of his gun, and Victor Malakai died.
One more down, Jin thought as he heaved a heavy sigh. Only one more now to go. Dorigan.
Just by thinking the man’s name, a shiver of rage rippled down through Jin’s spine. Yet it could not take hold on Jin’s system. Just now, Jin was exhausted, and weary of fighting. As he stood up and walked away from Victor’s corpse, Jin holstered his Desert Eagle and pushed through the door to be greeted both by the stupidly loud club music and a startled gasp from someone to his left. Jin jumped at the sound, and turned to see who it was.
It was Leah.
“Come on,” Jin shouted above the din of the music. “Let’s go!”
Leah nodded and followed after him quickly. As they made their way to the back door of the club, Jin noticed that all the people around him were acting like nothing had happened.
Although I should’ve expected as much, Jin thought. Between the volume of the music and the soundproofing of the lounge, I really shouldn’t be surprised that no one heard anything.
As he finished his thoughts, Jin also pushed through the back door of the club and walked outside with Leah. At the sound of the door opening, Will shot to his feet, looking anxious.
“Mom! Are you alright?” he asked his mother.
“Will!” Leah gasped, running forward and wrapping her son in a tight embrace.
“Are you alright?” Will asked again.
“Yeah, yeah Will, I’m fine,” she answered. “How are you?”
“I’m alright, Mom, I’m good.”
“Oh thank God.”
“Listen, you two,” Jin said. “I really hate to interrupt this, but we need to go. I really don’t want to be here when someone discovers the mess in the VIP lounge.”
Leah and Will separated, and they both nodded. Jin nodded back, and the three of them walked out of the alley and disappeared into the endless flow of New York City’s foot traffic.
Chronicles of the Apocalypse
--<(0)>--
Part 1: Revenge, Everything is Nothing
Chapter 21: Love and Sorrow.
After a number of hours that Jin hadn’t bothered to keep track of, he finally pulled his Mustang up to the front of Mark’s building. Shifting the car into park, Jin laid back against his seat, exhausted. Now that the adrenaline rush he’d been riding for the last twelve hours had stopped, and the effects had worn off, Jin found himself on the very edge of passing out.
Of all the things I’ve been through, he thought. Of all the horrific injuries that I’ve survived, not one of them has prepared me for this.
With an exhausted sigh, Jin leaned up to pull the keys from the ignition and then leaned back again, bringing his hands over his face.
“Ugh, what a night,” he groaned, gaining some chuckles out of Leah and Will, for they’d never heard him use such a normal phrase for such a crazy series of events.
Smiling at Leah and Will’s chuckling, Jin turned to face the two of them, who were sitting together in the back seat.
“Listen, guys, Mark’s not going to be here,” he said. “When I came back from the lake, I found Mark lying unconscious in the aftermath of the fight, and after he woke up and told me what happened, I told him to leave and erase himself. He won’t be here, but after this is over, we’ll find him. Okay?”
Leah and Will nodded and then the three of them filed out of the Mustang.
“Are you sure it’s safe to stay here?” Leah asked. “I mean, Dorigan knows that we stayed here. Won’t he expect us to come back?”
“Yes, he would,” Jin replied. “But he also knows that if we came back, you two would be alive and all three of us would be exhausted
. Dorigan’s two greatest flaws are his pride and his arrogance. A smart man, whose mind was unclouded by such faults, would have posted a sniper on the building across the street, but as you can see, we haven’t been shot yet.”
This answer did not seem to alleviate Leah’s anxieties, and Will looked no less troubled. Sighing, Jin leaned against the door to Mark’s shop.
“Dorigan and I know each other quite well. We know each other better than we know ourselves. Therefore, I know that because of his pride, he would never want to face me at anything less than my full ability. He would also want to face me personally, on his own ground.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” Will objected. “That’s giving you way too many chances to beat him!”
Jin smiled. “You’ve learned well, and you’re right. But that’s just the way Dorigan works. He’s too proud to come face me himself.”
Leah and Will still didn’t look convinced, but Jin had nothing else to say so he merely shrugged and opened the door.
The shop was dark and deserted, and Jin led Leah and Will up to the second floor and through the back door, which held the staircase up to the third floor. Opening the door to Mark’s living room, Jin was greeted by the sight of a perfectly clean living room. All the blood, bodies, and discarded weapons had been removed. Shaking his head in utter amazement, Jin walked into the room in full with Leah and Will behind him.
“It’s clean?” Leah asked.
Jin nodded. “Yep, all courtesy of one Martin James Dorigan.”
“Why would he do this?” Will asked.
“A backhanded nicety,” Jin explained. “Designed to allow me a perfectly restful night’s sleep while also displaying his belief that no matter how rested and ready I am, he will still kill me.”
Jin pressed a hand to his forehead to fight a wave of exhaustion, and then he looked over at Leah and Will.
“If it’s all the same to you guys, I’d rather not talk about Dorigan any more tonight. I’m tired enough as it is.”
Chronicles of the Apocalypse: Revenge, Everything is Nothing Page 24
