by J M Hemmings
William sighed; the mention of his former mentors always churned a tumult of emotion deep within his core, as did talk of Parvati and her tragic fate, for while she had escaped the massacre of the Eastern Council with her life, neither her mind nor her body had remained intact. Intense feelings that fermented and festered in a bitter percolation of sadness, regret, anger, and crushing grief sent their tapeworm tendrils slithering through his every vein, artery and capillary.
‘May God rest their immortal souls indeed,’ he murmured. ‘But now is not the time for grief,’ he continued, his whisper morphing into a raspy snarl, ‘for sorrow, for dwelling on what has been lost. Now is the time for anger. For vengeance.’
‘Looks like we got to you at just the right time,’ Njinga remarked.
‘Just in time to save my life, yes,’ William said. ‘A rather fortunate piece of timing for me.’
‘That was no coincidence, William,’ Zakaria said. ‘We’ve been keeping an eye on you for a while, waiting for the right time to move. We’ve been organising something really big, you see, and we need you with us for this.’
William stared for a few moments at the three of them, moving his glance from person to person, temporarily dumbfounded.
‘Well why the hell did you wait until they almost killed me? Christ, that was cutting it a bit bloody fine, wasn’t it?’
‘We couldn’t have moved any sooner than we did,’ Njinga answered. ‘In fact, we were planning on waiting a few more days, but your killing of Hernández, and the subsequent attention that that lil’ act of foolishness drew from the Huntsmen, well that forced our hand.’
‘Wait, what? You consider my elimination of Hernández to have been an act of stupidity?’
‘I don’t mean to put it like that, but—’
‘He was one of the most powerful members of the Alliance, and what’s more, he was pure scum!’ William spat, his hackles raised. ‘His existence has been a blight on the face of the earth for five hundred years! The man was a human trafficker, a slaver, a rapist, and someone who helped engineer a genocide, for God’s sake! I do not revel in violence, my friends, and I do not celebrate anyone’s death, but I do believe the world is a better place without him in it. And I can’t bloody well believe that you lot would label my getting rid of him as “foolish”!’
‘It wasn’t the getting rid a’ him that was foolish, William, it was the timing of it, an’ the way you did it,’ Njinga countered. ‘You attacked him in an alley in New York City! In public, where there could have been witnesses! C’mon William, where’s the foresight an’ planning in that shit?! An’ you know what? There were witnesses; someone called the cops, an’ someone reported the sounds a’ big cats roaring. They thought some animals had broken out of the zoo! An’ there’s at least one photo, grainy as hell, thank goodness, that someone took with a phone camera, a’ you in your tiger form! Thankfully most online sceptics are calling it a fake. Still, the mangled bodies a’ the two skinheads that Hernández killed, they were found by the police, an’ there was no mistaking that their deaths had been at the hand a’ a wild animal. Now Hernández, he’s killed thousands of mortals over the years, an’ he knows all about avoiding attention an’ disposing of bodies … but you attacked him before he was even able to do that! An’, after killing him, you took his phone with you to your apartment! How could you have been so careless, William? Was it any surprise that the Huntsmen came for you as quickly as they did? You’re lucky that we’d been watching you. Very, very lucky.’
William turned away with a scowl, looking sullen after Njinga had delivered this somewhat scathing lecture.
‘Hernández was hunting me,’ he grumbled, the fire taken out of his voice by the sting of defeat, of guilt, of shame. ‘I was just defending myself.’
‘Hernández wasn’t hunting you. He was sent to track you, yes, but not to kill you,’ Zakaria said.
‘And how do you know this?’
‘You’ve been away from us for too long, my brother,’ Zakaria answered, his voice softening. ‘You don’t know how expansive our intelligence sources have become. We need you back in the fold, William. You’ve been flying solo for too many years.’
William turned his face away from Zakaria and stared out of the window for a while before he replied.
‘Aye … I ran,’ he murmured. ‘I chose the path of fear, rather than that of courage.’
‘Even though you did run,’ Zakaria said, ‘I know you were always there, in the background, doing what you could for the survival of our kind. I know that you have spent at least some time in recent years infiltrating Huntsmen intelligence on your own, and warning various beastwalkers across the world of Huntsmen missions against them.’
‘Aye. One I tried to do it for was Nandi, but I was too late. Too bloody late, again.’
William shook his head and squeezed his temples between his forefinger and thumb, massaging the skin with his rough fingertips. Zakaria walked over to him and clamped a hand on his shoulder, gripping it reassuringly.
‘You did all you could for her, William. You know how she was; she was a lone wolf, well, leopard. We Rebels had been trying to get her into our ranks as an active member for decades, but she had no interest in it. We could have saved her … if she had made that choice for herself.’
‘But she chose herself,’ Njinga interjected, ‘instead of community. And in the end, that choice was her undoing.’
‘It was,’ Zakaria continued, ‘and it shall be for any others of our kind who try to resist the terrible might and power of the Huntsmen and the Alliance on their own. We all know this.’
A sadness was heavy in William’s eyes as he looked up at Zakaria, wearing the expression of a child recently bereaved of his parents.
‘Aye,’ he murmured in a voice that barely cleared a whisper. ‘Aye, such is the truth of the matter. No one of us can stand alone against such a depth of evil, such a vastness of hate.’
Zakaria gripped William’s forearm and squeezed it with his powerful fingers.
‘That is why you need to return to us. The time is ripe, William, the time is ripe for what I have wanted to do, what we Rebels have needed to do for a long, long time now. And we need you to help us do it.’
William nodded.
‘I’ve been feeling the same, brother. I’ve been wandering like a lost soul for years now, for far too long, without the brotherhood and support of my kind … of our kind.’
A fire burned in Zakaria’s eyes, and a grin of quiet triumph spread across his face.
‘Yes! Yes, William, yes! Finally, we are ready to make a counterattack, a precision strike against our enemies. A last stand!’
‘Tell me the specifics of this mission.’
‘I know that when I give you the answer to that question, you will want to lead the charge yourself.’
‘Sigurd? The Ice Bear?’
‘Indeed. Your nemesis, the leader of the Alliance himself! Yes, we have been planning a major strike against him, at his headquarters.’
William nodded and clasped his hands together.
‘Bold, audacious … and extremely risky. There can be no other way though, I suppose.’
‘Damn straight,’ Njinga said. ‘To ensure that we kill the snake we gotta cut its head off, an’ the body will soon follow in death. Anyway, we picked up a lead that’ll take us directly to the Ice Bear’s headquarters. They’re in—’
‘Bangkok yeah?’
Njinga raised both eyebrows with surprise
‘How did you know?’
‘Hernández’s phone got a call from Bangkok. My own prior research indicated that the Ice Bear was most likely in Thailand, and that call confirmed it for me.’
It was at that moment that William remembered Ricky again, and a debilitating depth of pain billowed inside him like the collapse of subterranean caverns in on themselves. Swallowing the agony, he clenched his fist and bit into the foremost knuckle, turning to gaze out of the window so that his friends would not s
ee the tears welling at the corners of his eyes. Zakaria seemed not to notice William’s silent grief, however; the big man simply nodded, his face grim.
‘Yes,’ he muttered. ‘We have known their exact location for some time. Indeed, we have a mole working on the inside for us, and another mortal we have recruited. Our intelligence has confirmed that the time and date of our battle will be perfect for striking a mighty blow: a number of members of the Huntsmen Board of Directors will be there too. We will kill them as well … as many as we can.’
Flashbacks of battles, fights and violent death came crashing to the fore of William’s consciousness. His mouth became uncomfortably dry, and he shifted in his seat, his recent wounds and injuries now pounding a throbbing agony through his bones. A chill swept with sudden violence through his body, and he licked at his dry, cracked lips.
‘It is … unfortunate,’ he whispered, ‘that we have to use violence ourselves, my friends.’
Zakaria’s heavy jaw tightened and he turned, folded his thick arms across his barrel chest and drew in a deep breath, flaring his nostrils.
‘Believe me, it grieves me as much as it does you. Yes, I was a warrior before I became a monk, but had I also renounced my martial skills when I renounced my lands and title, my brothers and I would never have founded our Order, and I would likely have died in some quiet monastery in Alwa or Ethiopia nine hundred years ago, having made little difference in the world. As it has stood, my sword has been put to use over the centuries in fighting those who would crush the weak beneath their heels, and my shield in defending the meek and helpless from all manner of tyrants and warlords.’
‘Saint Francis of Assisi made as much difference as any of us have without swinging a sword. And so have many other figures. Ghandi, Mahavira, Tolstoy, Thich Nhat Hanh, Dr Martin Luther King—’
‘They were not up against a force as dark and terrible as the Huntsmen.’
‘Many of them were up against the Huntsmen, Zakaria,’ William countered. ‘They just didn’t know it.’
‘And had they known the full extent of the Huntsmen’s depravity, ruthlessness and cruelty do you think they would have remained pacifists? Could anyone who uncovers the secrets of the Huntsmen, and who realises just how insidious and far-reaching their influence is, and the ultimate endgame they wish to achieve … could anyone who understands this simply be content with singing songs and chanting slogans at them? While the Huntsmen commit genocide against an entire race of beings and prepare to turn the vast majority of humanity into virtual chattel slaves and the entire living world to ashes, all in the name of profit and power? You know the answer as well as I do, William. The Huntsmen would laugh in the faces of those who tried such things, and then they’d put bullets between their eyes without a shred of remorse. The Council had the noblest of intentions, but their methods ultimately failed them. Sometimes, as ugly as it is, war is necessary. That is a fact that cannot be worked around, that cannot be avoided. The Huntsmen will not listen to reason, and they do not possess the capacity for empathy or compassion. You know this as well as I do. For the sake of all that is good in this world, for the sake of all the innocents whose lives are at stake, brother satyaduta, we must take up arms.’
‘So much violence. So much bloodshed,’ William murmured, the words drifting about the room in stuttering flight paths like dying moths.
Zakaria draped his arm over William’s shoulder and gave him a reassuring squeeze.
‘In these days of hopelessness and despair, we must use every tool at our disposal to combat the darkness. We must burn brightly, William, ever so brightly. We must be torches, aflame in the crushing blackness of this eternal night, for at this moment we are the only ones who can stand up to this evil.’
William’s shoulders crumpled into a slump of resignation.
‘I know, old friend, I know. I just wish that there was some other way.’
Zakaria’s visage assumed a look of almost feverish intensity.
‘I pray and meditate every day, as I have for almost a thousand years, and the answer is always the same. Always. Despite what the Council Masters believed, there is no other way but war.’
A strange light gleamed in William’s eyes.
‘There is another way.’
Zakaria shook his head.
‘What the Eastern Council knew, and what they planned to awaken … the world is not ready for it. Not at all. You know this as well as I do. That knowledge you possess, as the last survivor of the Council, it will change everything … but only when the time is right, not before. Remember what happened last time the Ancient Powers were used?’
Njinga answered that question.
‘The Tunguska event in Siberia, 1908. The biggest explosion in recorded history. More force than a thousand atomic bombs.’
‘Zakaria and Njinga are right,’ Lightning Bird added, finally stepping back into the conversation after having observed the whole thing in contemplative, attentive silence. ‘Think of what happened at Tunguska, William. The power of the Mothers cannot be safely handled, not yet.’
‘You’re right, I know,’ William said with a sigh. ‘I understand that we don’t really have any option but to strike back … if we must fight though, we have to hit them hard.’
‘Hell yeah!’ Njinga cried, her whole being shining blindingly with intensity. ‘We can do this! The iron is hot! If we succeed, we’ll be winning a great victory, one that could turn the tide of this war. Extinction is not our fate, not by a long shot. The Rebels are risin’ again … they risin’, oh yes they are.’
William balled his hands into fists, and the flames of reckless courage whooshed to life in his eyes.
‘No, we will not. You’re absolutely right, Njinga. Extinction will not be our fate, my old friends. We won’t stagger quietly to death’s door and crawl through it on our hands and knees! We will fight with tooth, claw and steel against the forces of evil, and we will not stop fighting until each of our hearts beats its very final beat! We will fight back, and we will destroy the Ice Bear and his Huntsmen friends and wipe the stain of their evil from this earth.’
William delivered this impromptu speech with such rousing passion and burning conviction that he almost believed it himself. If anything, it seemed that the others did; all three were on their feet, their faces shining with new determination like freshly forged blades.
‘I knew I could count on you, William,’ Zakaria rasped, his voice cracking with emotion. ‘You are with us again, with us with the last powers of the Council burning like wildfire in your soul!’
William’s entire being was a raging inferno of focused purpose.
‘That I am, my friend, that I am. Before we talk about battle plans, though, there is something very important that we need to take care of. You said that Parvati has been moved out of harm’s way, yeah?’
‘Do not worry, William. She has been moved to a place of safety,’ Lightning Bird said, standing up as he spoke, the tone of his voice deep and stern, the motion of his body slow and deliberate, his every movement quietly alive with the stirring confidence and proud courage of a whale drifting serenely through the ocean depths. ‘And I will soon leave you three to accompany her to a place of greater safety. Even though she is mostly broken, sometimes flickers of her former powers return. In her shattered shell of a body, there are moments in which her mind is still as sharp as it was before the Huntsmen destroyed her. I wish I too could fight against Sigurd and the Huntsmen, but someone must protect Parvati.’
‘I can’t think of a better protector than you, my brother,’ William said.
Lightning Bird dipped his head slightly, a phantom of a smile flickering across his broad mouth, and this hint of lightning on the horizon was mirrored in his eyes.
‘Come, my fellow satyaduta,’ Zakaria said. ‘Let us now discuss the specifics of our battle plan.’
***
Inside her room in the cabin, Paola was sitting alone and weeping. Daekwon had just finished a spirited
sparring session with Zakaria and was walking past her door on his way to the shower when he heard her sobbing. He paused outside her door, engaging in a quick internal debate over whether he should knock, or whether it would be better to tiptoe past and pretend he hadn’t heard anything. After a few moments of silently arguing with himself, he decided to do the compassionate thing and at least try to comfort her.
‘Paola?’ he said softly, knocking on the door. ‘You o-, okay in there? Can I come in?’
‘O-, okay,’ she whimpered between sobs.
Daekwon opened the door and stepped in, and saw Paola curled up on the bed, her eyes puffy and her cheeks damp with a sheen of tears. She had been writing something; there was a pen in one hand and a scrap of paper in the other. When Daekwon stepped into the room, though, she hurriedly tossed the pen aside and stuffed the paper into one of her jeans pockets and began nibbling on her nails. Daekwon had no interest in whatever it was she’d been writing, though; her obvious pain and distress was too immediate and acute for him to care about anything else. Empathy pierced his skin like a swarm of zipping arrows with jagged steel heads; in that curled-up foetal ball of grief and sorrow was all the naked pain that he himself had been doing his best to quash. A tight knot materialised in his throat – a solidification of every phlegmy molecule of his own bottled-up sadness, anger, frustration and melancholy – and he coughed, and had to clench his fists at his sides and tense the muscles of his core to prevent a sudden gush of tears.
