by JT Brannan
But suddenly, Cole reached out towards him, touching his neck, his temple, his elbow and his chest, all in rapid succession, pecking with his fingertips like the beak of a bird.
‘You’re probably thinking of how to negotiate this,’ Cole said, copying the words of Albright back in Austria. ‘The trouble is, there is no way.’ Cole grinned, but there was no humour, only the promise of death. ‘Punishment for destroying my family.’
And with that, Cole pushed past Hansard, walking casually towards the screen door at the far side of the room.
Hansard watched him, confused; what had just happened? But he knew he couldn’t let Cole leave alive, and so he withdrew the short-barrelled semiautomatic pistol from the shoulder holster he wore under his tropical-weight cotton jacket and raised it at Cole, centring it on the man’s back.
As Cole reached the door, Hansard’s finger tried to squeeze the trigger, but nothing happened; he tried again, but still nothing.
In fact, Hansard could not move at all, paralysed, rooted to the spot and unable to control any muscle in his body.
Of the 107 vital points of the deadly art of marma adi, four of Charles Hansard’s had just been struck in the pattern known as Śiva kā śāpa, the curse of Shiva.
Forbidden even within the art itself, the curse of Shiva interrupted the blood flow of the victim’s lower body and channelled it back up to the heart, where it was then forced upwards through the vital organs and up into the brain.
The pain started instantly, and Hansard’s legs shook as they drained of blood, collapsing his body to the floor. He choked and coughed as the pain continued through his core, and he felt hot liquid in his anus, and he knew it was blood.
He coughed again, the pain so intense he couldn’t even scream, even though he wanted for anything in the world to be able to let out a piercing, shrieking yell, crying with all his might at his agony.
And yet his screams had to be swallowed, and then he watched as blood leaked from his ears onto the bamboo floorboards, the pain even more intense now, causing green bile and vomit to eject from his mouth, even as his vision turned red and he felt warm blood pour from his eyes, down his face onto the floor, his head sticking to the floorboards.
It felt like every part of his body was on fire, each piece of him pierced with needles and pulled apart, and yet he still could not scream.
Hansard coughed again – once, twice, and then blood sprayed out of his mouth in a fine red mist, covering the floor in front of him.
His body convulsed – again once, twice, and then the blood being forced into the brain finally did its work and the brain haemorrhaged, expanding outwards until the skull cracked open, the dark grey matter spilling out of the tiny fissures even as his eyeballs were forced from their sockets.
And then the body stopped moving, and Vice Admiral Charles Hansard was dead.
Outside, Cole breathed the tropical jungle air into his lungs.
It was done.
About the Author
J.T. Brannan trained as a British Army officer at Sandhurst, before deciding to pursue a writing career.
A former national Karate champion, he now teaches martial arts in Harrogate, where he lives with his wife and two children.
