Path of the Tiger

by J M Hemmings

  With new fear numbing her extremities and branding hot flushes across her skin, Adriana inched closer to the edge until her toes were hooked over the corner of the rough concrete, where the yawning maw of the drop sucked ravenously at her limbs, willing her to slip and fall into its wide-open jaws of blackness. Her head felt light and her heart thundered in her ribcage; vertigo was working its voodoo-magic on her, and it was all she could do to stay upright. William leaned out as far as he could off the ladder, stretching his hand towards her.

  ‘Come on love, come on! You have to jump, go on, jump!’

  He was only a couple of feet away, but from Adriana’s perspective a gulf like an ocean or a gargantuan canyon might as well have stood between them.

  ‘I can’t,’ she whimpered, tears condensing at the corners of her eyes. ‘I can’t do it!’

  ‘You can,’ he said, gently urging her on. ‘You can, jump, do it, jump!’

  At that moment they heard the distant but unmistakable drumming of Desert Eagle fire, followed by the booming of combat shotgun fire, coming from a few floors below. This new threat spurred a fresh sense of urgency into Adriana’s veins, and she swallowed a mouthful of fear, forcing it down into the depths of her core and regurgitating it as raw courage. With a cry that was half terror, half exhilaration she sprang off the edge, sharp pain driving a jagged spur up her leg from her injured ankle as she did. For a dizzying split-second she was airborne, soaring over the abyss below, and then William’s fingers slammed around her forearm and pulled her to safety.

  As his skin touched hers lightning coursed through their veins, strobing its ultraviolet light and blistering its sizzling energy through every atom of their bodies. As uncanny and almost overwhelming as it was, there was no time to dwell on this surreal sensation; a battle had erupted below, and they had to flee from it. The Huntsmen reinforcements had no doubt arrived. There was now only one way out now, and that way was up.

  William lowered Adriana to a spot where she could put her feet on one of the ladder’s rungs. When she felt safe, despite her ankle hurting awfully, she climbed down on cautious, trembling limbs to the point where she could support her own weight.

  ‘There’s no time to talk now,’ he said, ‘but you absolutely have to trust me completely, and do everything exactly as I say. That’s the only way we’re going to make it out of this alive. Can you do that?’

  Adriana nodded, too confused and scared now to do or say otherwise.

  ‘Take this. Do you know how to use it?’ William asked as he handed her the AK-47.

  She shook her head and her eyes widened as William dangled the rifle by its strap in front of her face.

  ‘The safety is off, so all you have to do is point it at whatever you want to shoot and pull the trigger. It’ll pack a kick, but it’s not too bad. It might seem intimidating, but think of it this way, love: six-year-old children in Central Africa can shoot these, so you can too. Quickly, sling it over your shoulder!’

  Adriana nodded, biting her lower lip as she took the rifle. Luckily, she had once held one of these before – in a darker time, when all hope had seemed to have deserted her – so she knew what kind of a weight to expect when she wrapped her free hand around it. With some effort she managed to slip the strap over her shoulder.

  ‘Right, that’s that,’ William continued. ‘Now, like I said love, you must trust me. I’m going to take my clothes off, and I need you to hang onto them. Here, put them in this bag.’

  ‘Wh-, what?’

  ‘Don’t ask questions,’ he replied as he handed her the bag and took his motocross boots off – both of which tumbled past Adriana into the darkness below when he discarded them – after which he started to hastily disrobe. He tossed the heavy jacket, reinforced all over with bulletproof sections, down the shaft – he wouldn’t be needing that anymore – and then he pulled his trousers off and removed his tee shirt. These he handed to Adriana, who took them with her features scrunched in an expression of complete confusion. Nonetheless, she did as William said and stuffed them into the bag he had given her.

  ‘Right lass, now I’m going to do something that may well be the most terrifying thing you’ve ever seen in your life. Nothing I can tell you is going to prepare you for what you’re about to witness, but I promise you, whatever happens next, I am still me, even if I look completely different. I know that sentence seems to make no sense, but it will when you see what I do. When I’m done – and you’ll know when I’m done, trust me – I want you to climb up my back and wrap your arms around my neck. Grip my flanks with your thighs, as tightly as you can, and stabilise yourself with your core. Have you ever ridden a horse?’

  ‘I … I have, I know how to ride a horse, yes,’ she replied, feeling very confused. ‘Well a, um, a donkey, not a horse.’

  ‘Excellent. Then you’ll find this easy, because I’ll be a lot more cooperative than any donkey you’ve ridden, I guarantee it.’

  ‘What?!’

  ‘Trust me, love. You’ll understand why I say this in three, two, one…’

  And with that, William enacted the change that would transform him into a tiger. Adriana’s eyes almost popped out of their sockets as she saw William’s human body distort and ripple at speed beyond speed. It was as if she were watching some sort of massively sped-up horror film sequence. His underwear and socks exploded into shreds and tatters that fluttered all around the elevator shaft like a flock of lightning-struck birds plunging earthwards, while his limbs, torso and head twisted and surged and billowed grotesquely. Then, where his human body had been, mere inches above her, there was now a majestic Bengal tiger, gripping the rungs of the ladder.

  Adriana was too shocked to scream, too stunned at what she had seen to try to flee, if that had even been an option. No, she was too terrified and awe-struck to do anything but remain paralysed in place, with the beast’s striped tail swishing like an agitated cobra in her face.

  ‘I told you lass, you must trust me.’ It was William’s voice, but it was not coming from the tiger above her. Instead, it was in her head. ‘I know you can hear me, so do as I say and climb up onto my tiger body. Hold my neck tight and clamp your thighs onto my flanks. Grip my fur, my skin, anything you need to; it won’t hurt me. You’ll be perfectly safe, I assure you. But hurry love, hurry! They’re coming, and God help us both if they catch us.’

  Adriana had no choice but to do as he said. With icy fear shooting through her body, like some virulent infection, with every move she took, she scrambled up William’s tiger body, positioning herself on his back just as he had told her to.

  ‘I’m on,’ she said. She couldn’t believe that she was talking to a tiger, let alone riding one. Everything had become so surreal in the last few hours, though, that she merely accepted this as a further step descended down the spiral staircase of insanity.

  ‘Hang on tight,’ she heard William’s voice say, and she locked her arms around his neck. It was strangely comforting, being on the back of this enormous wild creature; in a bizarre dualism of madness, she had never before felt safer nor in greater danger.

  William turned around to face the side, and then launched himself off the ladder and onto the ledge Adriana had just jumped from. This – leaping in near blindness to land on tiny ledges, off of which the slightest slip would lead to certain death below – was truly terrifying, and it was all Adriana could do to hold on. Beneath her, she felt the tiger’s muscles contracting as he bent into a crouch and prepared to jump. He sprang again, and she couldn’t help shrieking with fright as they sailed upwards – a good fifteen feet across and up – but to her immediate relief, he landed on the ledge above with a smooth and sure-footed stability. The respite from fear for Adriana, however, was short-lived, for as soon as they landed William turned around and jumped up another level.

  He continued to spring from level to level until they had almost reached the top of the elevator shaft. Now instead of jumping again, William turned to face the elevator doors next to them,
reared up onto his hind legs and bared the claws of his forepaws, using them to pry open the doors. Adriana found that although the corridor they had stepped into was dimly lit, illuminated only by the pulsing red glow of the emergency lights, to her dark-accustomed eyes it looked as bright as a cloudless summer day.

  William walked cautiously out, scanning for the presence of any other living things, friend or foe alike, and found that they were alone. However, his enhanced hearing was able to pick out the muffled sounds of combat boots racing up the stairs below; time was extremely short, and the window of opportunity for escape was almost closed. Once again, Adriana heard his voice inside her head.

  ‘I want you to shoulder the AK-47, love. If you see anyone hostile, shoot ‘em, and by God I mean that. Don’t hesitate, not for a second; it’s a life or death situation, this is.’

  ‘I don’t think I can,’ she murmured.

  ‘You can. Forget about all this self-doubt; you can do it. You must. Remember, stabilise yourself with your thighs and your core, and squeeze my flanks tight. It doesn’t hurt me. And be prepared for that rifle to kick when you shoot it. It’s on full automatic mode, so if you hold the trigger in it’ll keep spitting out bullets.’

  William began padding along the corridor when he detected the presence of another beastwalker. He stopped in his tracks, sniffing gingerly at the still air. The beastwalker was approaching from behind and was moving with deliberate stealth. But now he knew that they were there, and they too were surely aware of his presence. He spun around to face the corner from around which the newcomer would emerge. After a few tense seconds someone familiar stepped out into the open – someone familiar to both William and Adriana.

  ‘William, Adriana. Quickly, come with me.’

  ‘It’s you!’ Adriana exclaimed. ‘You were with me in the truck!’

  Despite the fact that Kimiko was clad in her samurai armour, Adriana still recognised her.

  ‘Come with me, both of you,’ Kimiko said, her voice low with urgency. ‘Hurry, we don’t have much time.’

  William sensed right away that something was off; with his tiger vision he could see with perfect clarity through the red-tinted gloom into Kimiko’s eyes, and something ominous festered behind them; its presence, although partially masked, was an unmistakable as the odour of a rotting rat corpse in a duct.

  Betrayal.

  He didn’t how he knew, but he did. He felt it in the very marrow of his bones, and this instinct gave him a split-second in which to prepare for what was to come next. In a blitz of an attack Kimiko jerked her bow up and loosed an arrow, which was aimed directly at Adriana’s heart. William, however, had already moved, rearing up onto his hind limbs in a burst of feline power and agility. The flying arrow caught him in the mouth, piercing his left cheek and sticking there. With a furious roar he catapulted himself into a charge, steaming towards Kimiko. Undaunted, she threw down the bow – there was no need for deception now – and whipped out her sidearm, a .45 pistol, her temperament utterly calm even in the face of the furious tiger hurtling towards her at sixty kilometres per hour – but before she could fire her weapon a sudden jackhammering of AK-47 fire tore through the walls and ceiling above her, raining down debris and masonry dust all around.

  Adriana’s desperate, madcap shooting was way off the mark, and the recoil from the jumping gun kicked her hard in the shoulder, bowling her off the sprinting tiger. She tumbled along the ground while the gun clattered off to the side. The short burst of firing had missed its target by a long shot – intentionally, for Adriana did not have it in her to shoot someone – but it had provided just enough of a distraction to throw Kimiko’s concentration off, and the precious second or two it bought was all that William needed.

  From twenty feet away from his target, sprinting at full tilt, he launched himself into a leap, roaring with bestial fury. Kimiko managed to recover from the unexpected shock of being shot at, and squeezed off two quick shots before William smashed into her with the momentum of a plummeting meteorite. One bullet punched into one of his leading legs, bouncing off a bone, which remained intact, and exiting the flesh without doing much damage, while the other zipped through the ruff of his neck, but only grazed his skin. Upon impact he plunged his claws through her armour into her back and pulled her into a savage roll as his weight and hers combined hit the ground with a tremendous impact. As they rolled he kicked at her with his feet, his claws slashing through her armour and opening up deep wounds across her midriff.

  When they came to a stop Kimiko tried to reach for one of her tantos, but William pre-empted this and lunged for her arm, biting down on it with bone-crushing force, snapping her forearm with a sickening crack. She screamed with pain, but her warrior’s muscle memory had already kicked in with full force, for with her other hand she had already grabbed another tanto, with which she tried to stab at William’s face. With his tiger reflexes he jerked his head swiftly back, evading the slash, and in the same motion he swatted her arm with a massive paw, battering the blade out of her hand and sending it skittering down the corridor. He sprang back off her, and as she tried to sit up and reach for her katana, he walloped her hard across the side of her face with a forepaw in a brutal slap – a slap in which his claws were fully extended. They tore huge, gaping cuts across her face, ripping a chunk of her nose off, leaving half her cheek hanging like a butcher’s cut, and tearing her left ear entirely off of her head.

  Kimiko fell forward, dazed and nearly unconscious from the power of the blow, and William grabbed her by the shoulder in his jaws. He could have killed her then – part of him was urging him to, for he did not know the extent of her betrayal – but he simply could not. Whatever she had done to them, he could not forget the friendship that had existed between them for so long. Bellowing out a roar of cold rage as the heart-crushing pain of betrayal gnawed at his innards, he flicked his neck and head, flinging her frame as easily as if it had been that of a mere doll. She hurtled through the air, hit the top of the stairs, and then tumbled limply down the stairwell, disappearing into the darkness.

  And now, coming from another stairwell on the other side of the building, William’s tiger ears picked up the sound of many combat boots racing upward. The Huntsmen were almost here.

  He sprinted around the corner and saw Adriana propped up against a wall near the spot where she had fallen off his back, groaning with pain, with her elbows skinned and bleeding. The sight of her injuries, even though they were not serious, shoved blunt razor blades through William’s flesh. He hurried over to her, and the sight of the tears flowing freely from her eyes almost made his heart explode with both anger and grief.

  ‘Come on love, climb back on. We have to flee, we have to flee right now!’

  Adriana nodded through her tears and heaved herself up. She started hobbling over to the AK-47, but William’s voice echoed immediately in her mind.

  ‘No, leave it. We don’t need that now, just the bag. Quickly!’

  She nodded, slung the bag over her shoulder and climbed onto William’s back.

  ‘Lock your arms around my neck, love, and dig your knees into your ribs. Hold tight with your arms and thighs, as tight as you can.’

  She did so, closing her eyes and immersing herself in his presence. Despite everything that had just happened she felt so at ease, so swathed in calm that it almost blew her mind. This feeling, this sensation of belonging was so intense that it was, paradoxically, far more frightening than anything else that had happened thus far. She inhaled this mystical being’s scent; rich and musky in its rawness. She felt his muscles moving beneath her, felt him building up speed. She thought she heard hostile shouts echoing behind her, and she may have even heard a gunshot or two.

  It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered any more.

  She opened her eyes and saw a smashed-open window, through which a huge moon, like a laughing yellow Buddha, levitated above the scattered, inverted Milky Way of dirty lights that was Bangkok.

  Then they
were sailing through the window, flying through the air with the ground so far below that the cars and scooters looked like little matchbox toys. Their trajectory was taking them towards the faraway and seemingly impossible target of a balcony of a neighbouring building, rushing towards them at an incredible speed.

  And for the first time in a very, very long time, Adriana was not afraid.

  She was not afraid.

  PART TWENTY-ONE

  70

  WILLIAM

  November 1856. Darjeeling Himalayas

  The new dawn brought with it heavy rain, and the charging sheet of water rapidly roused the sleeping camp. Kelly, as usual, was the first to whine and complain about the situation, with as much vociferousness as he could manage while soaked to the skin, but the others all went about the business of striking camp and readying their weapons and packs in stoic silence. Bingham strutted around the campsite, having already risen and packed an hour before dawn, chastising and praising people alternately, depending on their rate of progress and the enthusiasm with which they went about their tasks.

  William was slow to rise as he had stayed up late, smoking his chillum pipe and contemplating the stars and the multifaceted intensity of the night forest. Bingham stopped as he passed by William’s prostrate form to jab a sharp kick into his ribs.

  ‘Get up, man!’ he chided. ‘Everyone else is nearly packed and ready to go, and you’re still half asleep in your damned bedroll! Come on!’

  ‘Sorry sir,’ William grunted, forcing himself to push through the woolly haze of semi-consciousness.

  Bingham checked that nobody was paying particular attention to the pair of them, and then he squatted surreptitiously down next to William and spoke in a hushed voice.

  ‘Remember what your primary orders are, Gisborne. You do remember them, yes?’

  ‘Tae keep you alive by any means necessary, sir. Flight being the preferable method, sir.’