Black Warrior

by Tiffiny Hall

  I turn sharply and run down a small side street towards home. An abandoned bicycle lies across the path. I scoop it up, hook my leg over the seat and begin to pedal. The bike is hard to grip with my stinging arm. I see a herd of people up ahead and pump my legs harder. I am nearly past them before they notice me. I glimpse their open mouths, but they are too late and their fire flashes behind me.

  I near the mall. The car park looks deserted. If I take the shortcut through the car park, across Kumgang Crescent, I can swing around the back of my street and go home to collect my weapons. I pedal so fast I can feel the blood congealing in my thighs, making them heavy and slow. My lungs are the size of footballs. ‘Ride, Rox. Ride!’ I tell myself.

  A crowd of people is huddled near the entrance of the mall. They turn towards me with black eyes, then heave fire. It catches my back tyre. I keep pedalling. Thud. The back tyre bursts. I throw the bike away, grasp my arm and run. I scurry under the boom gate to leave the car park and glance around. The mob is chasing me. I hear their footsteps as fireballs explode too close. I duck and weave, but I’ve never been in a firestorm before. I need cover.

  I skid around a corner into another street. I run past an abandoned car, screech to a stop and try the car door. It opens. I slide into the driver’s seat. No keys. I reopen the door and whip behind it to shield me from another onslaught of fire. Where are Hero and Jackson? I need my powers with me!

  I turn into a different street. If I cross the park, I’ll be home safe. The park looks deserted. No one is following me. I roll a nearby bin on its side and kick off the lid to use as a shield, just in case. I jog through the park, staying away from any shadows or pockets where there could be people. Not people. Fire breathers.

  I’m close to the dojang — maybe I should go there first? I didn’t even have time to put shoes on when I returned home from the blowhole. I look at the soles of my feet, all cut from running. Adrenalin had stopped me from feeling anything. I whip my head side to side as a fierce wind slices through my hair. I close my eyes for a second as the dream floods back; that voice and the slipping grip. I have to get home.

  As I open my eyes, a shadow steps out from behind a tree. He is tall, fat and carrying a baseball bat. Through the shifting moonlight, I can see his lips contorting in a snarl, as though he is trying to hold something back, poisonous as arsenic. A flash of light sparks his dead eyes. My stomach plummets to my ankles. I take a step backwards, he takes a step forwards and when he does his face shines fully in the moonlight.

  ‘Sabo?’ I whisper.

  Sabo, still dressed in his Taekwondo uniform, doesn’t respond. He looks deranged. He lifts his chin to the sky as the beating sound thunders from the other side of town. It’s coming. It’s coming for me.

  Sabo’s chin drops, his teeth heat red, then he looks at me. Cinnamon’s words fly back to me: ‘Everybody is gone.’ I search Sabo’s face for my familiar instructor. But he has gone too, gone with the rest of them under the darkness of the Tigon’s fur.

  As his chest expands, I swipe my bin lid up to my face and crouch behind it, bracing myself for the blast. Two tunnels of fire explode either side of the lid. I feel the plastic heat, the edges curl and melt like cheese toast. My hands begin to ache with the heat, until I feel the first blister pop. The fire stops. I throw away the bin lid and run, my elbows pumping to help me accelerate. Lucky Sabo is unfit; he’ll never catch me.

  The town is covered in smoke. I feel heat everywhere. I evade four more fire breathers on my way home and make it into my front yard safely. I climb up the side of the apartment and into my window. Weapons. I must find weapons! I run to my door and look down the corridor.

  ‘Mum?’ I call. Upstairs is deserted. I run downstairs and step carefully over the shattered window. ‘Lecky?’

  Glass cracks. I spin on my heels and Elecktra stares back at me. Her dark eyes fill her face, shrinking her other features. I can’t tell if her eyes are wide with panic or if she is about to fry me.

  My heart beats so hard it could bruise the kitchen walls. I am no match for Elecktra’s samurai powers, let alone fire breath. Before she can move, I grab the kitchen table with two hands, flip it on its side with a massive heave and take cover behind it.

  ‘What are you doing, psycho?’ Elecktra asks.

  I pop my head up. She smiles and brushes her hair behind her ears twice, the way Mum does when she is anxious.

  ‘You’re not a fire breather?’ I ask.

  Elecktra shakes her head. ‘A what? I have bad breath in the morning, but that’s about it.’

  ‘Where’re Mum and Art?’

  ‘They’re out looking for you,’ she says, pointing at me. ‘Hey, so who’s Kimo?’

  My heart stops. I rush to the kitchen window and look outside. People are walking the streets aimlessly with those same silver eyes Cinnamon had, coughing and panting fire. We can’t go anywhere. ‘Why?’ I ask.

  Elecktra throws a crumpled piece of paper towards me. I catch it like a feather between my fingers, then unfurl it and read: Meet me at FunEscape Park half an hour before dusk tomorrow. Kimo.

  ‘Why would I meet him? He made Cinnamon attack me!’ I say.

  Elecktra looks confused.

  I grab her hand and lead her upstairs into Mum’s room. ‘So much to tell you,’ I say, grabbing one of Mum’s T-shirts.

  She rubs her hands together. Elecktra relishes a good story. I used to read to her when we were little. She would sit up in bed, taller than me, and I would cuddle into her side and read to us. She loved that. I read to her all the way up to when she was fifteen years old. Then Lecky received a smart phone and she read stuff on that instead.

  Inside Mum’s wardrobe is a trap door that leads to a tiny attic. I push Elecktra up there. She doesn’t hesitate, but scrambles into the darkness and pulls on the lamp string. The sleeping bags and pillows we slept on when we used to hide up here and play still cushion the corners. We snuggle into the sleeping bags, both exhausted. I have just enough energy to tell Elecktra everything about Cinnamon’s and Art’s attacks, losing my powers and the samurai breaking into the house to talk to Mum.

  ‘We have to lie low tomorrow, then I’ll go and meet Kimo. Maybe he’ll help to lift the curse once he realises I don’t have my powers,’ I say.

  Elecktra shrugs. ‘Maybe. Or,’ she drags in a breath, ‘maybe he will kill you.’

  ‘We can’t stay up here forever,’ I whisper.

  She flops her blonde mop onto the pillow. ‘I’ll come.’

  ‘No way,’ I say. ‘I need you to find Mum and tell her where I am. Three against one.’

  Elecktra thinks for a moment, then I see her eyelids grow heavy and in three beats she is fast asleep, as always. I’m grateful that she falls asleep so easily because it gives me some time on my own.

  I remove the pillowcase from a spare pillow and tear it into strips. Lecky didn’t notice the blood on my black T-shirt, which was just as well, as I couldn’t deal with her fainting on me now. I inspect my arm in the light. Only a tiny flesh wound. My T-shirt has disintegrated where it was on fire, but luckily I was not burned — I rolled out the flames just in time. I’ll live. I bandage my arm with the pillowcase strips and change into Mum’s T-shirt.

  I slide back into my sleeping bag and it isn’t long until sleep kidnaps me into another nightmare. I’ll live, echoes as I’m taken. Or maybe I won’t.

  The air is smoky. Screams muffle in my cheeks. I’m reaching for the silver. My fingers feel the cool steel. The pendant burns around my neck as red rain drips down my face … blood.

  I startle awake. ‘Lecky! What time is it?’

  Elecktra rolls over, forgets where she is and sits up, panicked. I allow her time to remember, then grab her wrist to stare at her watch. It’s 11:30. Amazing how long teenagers will sleep without parents to wake them up. I can’t believe it’s Friday already. So much has happened this week.

  Elecktra and I crawl down into Mum’s wardrobe and listen for noise. Nothing. We
hover at the top of the stairs, straining to hear steps on the broken glass from the kitchen window. Nothing. Elecktra levitates downstairs to skip the creaking steps and checks for fire breathers.

  ‘Clear,’ she calls.

  I really should wash my arm, but my hunger pains are worse than the cut. We make toast with melted jelly babies on top and hot chocolate, taken from Art’s forbidden side of the pantry.

  ‘What if they never go back to normal?’ Lecky asks. ‘What if they have dragon breath forever?’

  I don’t know what to say. I’m all shaky with the thought of meeting Kimo. There’s something about him that is so familiar yet terrifying.

  ‘I’m going to have a shower and change,’ I say. Soon the shower is pelting down on my skull and I feel as if the water is rinsing out my mind so I can think clearly.

  ‘Our feet tell stories,’ Kimo said. He’s right, our feet do tell stories. Every step, mistake and triumph we wear into the mattresses of our soles. What story does Kimo have to tell me? Does he know who my father was before he became the Tigon? Our feet tell stories, but so do our hearts, and my heart is telling me my story is about to end.

  TWENTY

  Under a translucent sky, my feet swing in the air as the breeze cycles through my hair. Up here the air is fridge cold. We are at the highest point of Lanternwood, on the Ferris wheel at FunEscape Park, overlooking the whole town. Kimo sits beside me, elbows on knees, head in hands, pondering. We’ve been here fifteen minutes and he is lost in thought, really lost, as if I don’t poke him he will never return. My hair keeps sliding across my face in the wind. I tuck it into my white T-shirt.

  Kimo turns to me and squints his eyes. ‘Mmmm,’ he hums gently, still thinking.

  I try to search his eyes, but he is like Mum, hard to read.

  ‘Why am I here?’ I ask.

  He ignores my question. ‘I knew your mother years ago,’ he says.

  I lean in.

  His eyes blink hard. He runs a clawed hand through his hair. ‘She was brutal,’ he continues.

  I smile. I always knew Mum was a lethal fighter, a great assassin.

  ‘Not like that,’ he says. ‘Brutal with my heart. Broke it. Smashed it to smithereens with her sword. Knifed me in the back. The woman cursed me.’

  I don’t know what to say. His words hang between us, ornamental, both of us looking at them, searching their history and trying to understand.

  ‘You were in love with my mum?’

  ‘The kind of love that changes a person,’ Kimo whispers. He fades away for a few seconds, then adds, ‘You serious about that guy Jackson? Sabo said you two are, well,’ a smile cracks his face, ‘more than training buddies these days.’

  My cheeks flame.

  ‘I wouldn’t if I were you,’ he says.

  Embarrassed, I ask, ‘Wouldn’t what?’

  ‘Fall in love. It makes you weak. Powerless. You lose yourself.’ He looks out to the horizon. The dark has begun to chase the sun. Since I’ve fallen for Jackson, I have lost my powers.

  ‘So I came here for dating advice?’ I snap.

  He ignores me again. ‘She lied to me for three years. Made me love, love what wasn’t mine.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Elecktra. Never mine. Raised her as my own. But she was samurai. Your mother betrayed me.’

  My sister’s name stops my heart. Words become sticky in my mouth. I roll them around on my tongue like clay, but they refuse to form. ‘You are h-him,’ I manage to stutter. ‘M-my father?’

  He doesn’t answer me. ‘I felt like tearing the world apart,’ he says. ‘Something came over me. Something dark. Tigerish.’ His eyes begin to fever.

  I grip the rails of the carriage, the cool steel freezing under my warm hands. I see a flash of steel from my dream. My ankles wrapped around a bar. The silver lining dipped in blood. I start to shiver.

  Kimo looks out to watch the sun slip away. The glowing orb begins to disappear into a black glove. ‘At night, my darkness became as brutal as her betrayal.’

  As every ray of sun snaps closed, it kidnaps something with it. First, the hills surrounding town dissolve, then the neighbouring boulevards smudge to darkness until the houses turn black. Finally FunEscape Park starts to vanish, so that all that feels alive is this carriage Kimo and I are trapped in. A tiny world that is now filled with fear and resentment.

  ‘But she must be sorry. Why couldn’t you forgive her?’ I blurt.

  ‘Forgive?’ He coughs up the word like phlegm. ‘I wanted revenge. But I had to learn patience,’ he snarls.

  My head is spinning. My words catch on my tongue like hooks. ‘P-patience?’ I stammer. Then the puzzle clicks. ‘You were waiting for me to reclaim my powers, weren’t you? She hid them from you, right? In the Tiger Scrolls? You were the White Warrior.’

  Kimo’s face turns a violent shade of purple. ‘They were my powers. Stolen. I was then cursed to live my nights as the Tigon and my days as a broken man.’

  I try to string it all together. He was the White Warrior, his powers taken from him and given to me. My powers were then extracted to keep me safe from ‘tearing the world apart’, like he did. My foot was stamped with the Tigon, a lasting reminder of my father’s curse and my mother’s betrayal. No wonder Mum couldn’t bear to teach me the ninja arts. I wore her pain on my sole. Now my father wants his powers back.

  ‘And the curse?’ I ask. The sky blinks with purple shutters before the black sweeps in.

  ‘The White Warrior cannot use his powers for evil. I destroyed villages and families. The legend cursed me.’ His face falls in darkness and he is almost unrecognisable.

  Maybe if I can lift the curse, he’ll want to be my dad. The thought floats some courage to my lips. ‘So you don’t care about me. Only for revenge?’

  Kimo clacks his tongue to suck in air, then gently takes my face in his hands and peers into my eyes. His hands feel bristly. ‘You know what? I look at you and I don’t see a daughter, if that’s what you were hoping for. I see a thief. You stole my powers and my years, and now I’ve come to steal them back. He will take them back. He has followers. The fire from his blood has infected this whole town.’

  I think of how Sergeant Major, Cinnamon and Art all changed because of him, then Sabo’s black eyes pierce the air between us. Who is next?

  ‘Who is he? I don’t understand.’ I feel tears sting my eyes. I remember Elecktra once telling me: ‘Keep the past past; it gives you nothing to look forward to.’

  Kimo lets go of my face and my cheeks itch from his touch. He stands in the carriage and swings it violently. ‘He came looking for you at school, at the dance, at Mushroom Rocks, but I thought it would be better for you to learn the story from me first,’ he sneers.

  I grab the bars to hang on, cold drilling through me. I have no wind; if I fall, it will be lethal. I have to keep reminding myself that I have no powers. I can’t fly or flash my way out of this one. I must be strong, rely on my instincts and my training.

  ‘All I did was love her,’ Kimo says. ‘And she betrayed me.’

  I tense under his slithering glance.

  ‘Hey!’ a voice calls up from below. I lean over and see Mum. ‘Roxy has nothing to do with this!’ Her hair is fierce in the wind, flames against the night.

  Kimo looks down and smiles, but the smile doesn’t reach his eyes. ‘It’s too late,’ he croons, shaking his head. He rocks the carriage again. I scream. Suddenly I wish I had brought more weapons. My ninja star and nunchucks in the back pocket of my jeans may not cut it.

  He enswathes me with smoking breath. His hands cover my hands on the bar and grip tight. ‘Listen to me,’ he says urgently. ‘In a few seconds you’re going to die, burned alive or eaten, I haven’t decided. No one is going to save you. I know I’m meant to be all “daddy here I am”, but I’m not. She is going to watch the slaughter, just as she butchered my heart.’

  My eyes widen. The words stab. I can’t move. For the first time I
am truly powerless. ‘But Dad —’ I try not to let the hurt swimming inside me pollute my voice.

  Kimo drags in a long breath. The sky behind him explodes into opal, the orange and pink smashing onto golden slabs. The sun sinks in an angry gold eye, staring at me, then the horizon transforms into a flaming gold sword. The gold finger I’ve seen pointing at me in my dream. The eye blinks and I remember what happens at night. I turn slowly to look at Kimo. As the dark sets in, I realise I’m trapped.

  Kimo looks at me as he grips the side of the carriage with angry knuckles. I can’t read his expression. He seems to be searching my face, tracing my nose, my cheeks with an imaginary hand, maybe looking for my mother’s reflection. Then suddenly he leaps off the Ferris wheel carriage.

  I scream, reaching after him, as his body plummets towards the ground. He doesn’t take his dark eyes off me. Then he opens his mouth and a growl thunders upwards. Mid-fall, his body begins to transform. His eyes glow to turquoise stars and his black paws inflate to huge mattresses, his fingers extend to talons as long as meat hooks, his teeth elongate to the size of axe blades, his tail lights a bulb of fire burning at the tip. Kimo the Tigon flies up into the air, the body of a tiger and the tail and wings of a dragon. He is a third of the size of the enormous Ferris wheel. He breathes out of his nostrils and the force blows the carriages. I grip for my life. Mum screams below.

  ‘Hide!’ I yell down to her. She still thinks I have powers. Mum begins climbing up the Ferris wheel to meet me. She is fast and nimble, swinging her legs over bars and leaping from carriage to carriage. She makes it look easy, like monkey bars in the school playground.

  The Tigon extends his wings; they are as wide as the horizon. He beats them three times. With each beat, a crack of thunder blasts through Lanternwood. Then he arches his neck backwards and roars a fountain of fire into the sky.