Blood & Tacos #3 (3 page)

“Let me save you the trouble, Viper Ogata,” said a woman’s voice. It sounded tinny. “Interesting pillow talk. Good thing I decided to listen in.”

The door to the room made a thudding sound, just before ear-splitting psychedelic rock came crashing in from hidden speakers. Viper felt the bed moving underneath him. It was revolving, and the carousel horse started to bob up and down on its striped pole.

Mari screamed.

He caught a glimpse of movement in his peripheral vision. A bamboo shaft poked from between the vents of an air duct, set near the ceiling. The shaft angled down towards Mari.

He snatched up his tanto and threw it. The blade traveled straight, like an arrow, slipping between the vents. The bamboo sagged, convulsed. A purple-feathered dart struck the horse’s rump and stuck there.

Viper ripped the cover from the air duct, reached up and pulled. A woman’s limp form tumbled out and hit the carpet. She wore dark clothes and a partial face mask. The tanto’s hilt protruded from her left eye socket.

“Kunoichi,” he said, his words lost in the rock music’s din. Mari screamed some more. He cast the blowgun aside and searched the body for further weapons. The shadow warrior had a wakizashi thrust through her sash. Instead of shark hide, the hilt had been wrapped with pink suede. He grimaced, but took the sword anyway.

Mari shouted questions. He motioned her for silence as he pulled on his slacks. The door wouldn’t open; the thudding sound must’ve been magnetic bolts being thrown. He stepped back, spun, and kicked with all his strength. The door flew off its splintered hinges.

He checked the hallway. Empty, for now. He ducked back inside, grabbed Mari’s naked form, and dragged her from the wailing guitars.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” she said, eyes wide.

“Follow me.”

He padded down the hall to the elevator. Trying to escape by the ground floor was too obvious. Likely, there’d be an ambush waiting. Going up seemed the best option. If he could reach the topmost tier, he could try to signal Kanbei’s men through the windows. Provided they were actually outside.

Mari reached for the elevator buttons. He slapped her hand away. “Too easily trapped.” He led her to the stairs. A glance through the fire window showed the stairwell empty. He shouldered the door. His brain whispered an urgent warning and he looked up, in time to see a second kunoichi braced spider-like near the ceiling. She hurled an egg-shaped object at his feet.

He shut his eyes. A searing flash burned red through his lids, and he smelled acrid smoke. Eyes still closed, he activated technique five of the ancient Ryukyuan school: the Ghost and Body Spirit Emulsion. Like a bat navigating darkness, his mind reached out and pinpointed the woman’s ki energy as she leapt down. He thrust up with the wakizashi. There was the sensation of wet resistance, and then a groan. A weight slumped to the floor.

“Come on,” he said, snatching for Mari’s hand. He pulled her through the cloud of yellow smoke and bounded up the steps, two at a time.

They reached the last flight. Viper threw the door open and rolled out into a high-ceilinged chamber with wooden flooring and tatami mats. Plate glass windows let in the last of the evening’s graying light. He sensed subtle shifts in the air before him and whipped his sword up. A shuriken clanged off the blade. He parried three more, swatting them aside with lightning-quick swipes.

“Come out and face me,” he shouted, while motioning with his left hand for Mari to stay put in the stairwell.

A half dozen shapes melted out of the shadows, like phantoms made real. All women. All wearing the same dark clothing and head masks of their assassin caste. As one, they drew blades and closed on Viper from every direction.

His mind drifted back to his training in Okinawa. How the old man would spar with him while they were both knee deep in the freezing ocean. Viper used only his hands, while the master wielded a bo staff of ancient oak. For hours they would weave and feint and block, until Viper’s lips turned a chattering blue and his forearms ached with bruises.

He recalled that training now, his body moving on impulse to the rhythms of a lethal dance, sword flicking out like an extension of his warrior’s soul.

Seconds passed. When it was over, six dead kunoichi lay sprawled at his feet. The wakizashi’s blade felt heavy with gore.

“Impressive.”

A woman floated down from the ceiling. She wore a skin-tight pink bodysuit and pink satin veil. Rhinestones glimmered in a butterfly pattern across her chest. Viper knew this seemingly magical descent was another ninja trick; a coil of fine wire looped over a crossbeam, let out slowly. Still, the effect was uncanny.

Her small feet touched the floor. “I suppose it was only a matter of time before the yakuza showed up.” The veil muffled her voice, but Viper recognized it as the same one that had spoken to him and Mari.

“Pinku Serizawa.” He raised the wakizashi like an accusing finger. “You’re the one behind all the killings.”

She bowed. “Fine deductive work, Viper-san.”

“But why? And why have you trained these women in the Way of the Shadow?”

“Not well enough, it seems.” She glanced at the corpses strewn around Viper. “The murders are strictly business. I want to establish a monopoly on prostitution in Shinjuku, draw all the working girls away from their stupid pimps. The training is for their protection. And mine. I knew filthy men like you would eventually invade my temple, looking for their cut. That is why you’re here, isn’t it?”

Viper shook his head. “You owe me a debt. Of vengeance.”

Pinku’s bitter laughter rang through the chamber. “How ironic. It was my disfigurement, at the hands of yakuza scum, that led me on my personal path of vengeance. I suppose things have turned full circle.”

“For the death of my friend, Sachiko, I claim your life.”

She beckoned. “Come and take it.”

He rushed towards her, blade held low. She met him halfway, turning cartwheels gracefully as a pinwheel. He slashed. She vaulted without effort, up over the sword, her body tucking into a somersault. Viper felt a sudden pressure on the back of his neck. He sprawled forward, dropping the wakizashi but managing to keep his balance. She’d kicked him in mid-air.

“Slippery bitch,” he said. “I’ll—”

But she was on the offensive, her limbs blurring towards him in a series of palm and wrist strikes. He blocked two frenzied blows, only to have a third find his groin. Reeling, he tried the Gichin Fist. She dodged aside. Her fingers raked across his chest, tearing skin.

“You’ve met your match, Viper Ogata.” He sensed she was smiling beneath the veil. Steel climbing-claws jutted from the fingertips of her right hand. “I’m fast as you. Faster.”

As if to prove it, she feinted with her claws. Viper’s hands tracked upwards to block, and her left came out of nowhere trailing something shiny. There was a metallic click. Two chrome, fur-lined handcuffs encircled his wrists.

Pinku chuckled. “Who knew bondage gear made such good weapons? I doubt if you’ll be able to fight as well without your hands.”

“Try me.”

“Oh, I will.” Still chuckling, she drew a huge purple dildo from behind her back. Her fingers closed around the shaft, twisted. Out slid an eight-inch blade of gleaming steel.

A war-whoop echoed from the stairwell.

Mari came bolting past, shrieking, one of the downed kunoichi’s daggers in her clumsy grip. She aimed a blow at Pinku, but before it could connect the ninja master ran her through with the dildo-sword. Mari drooped to her knees, muttering Viper’s name.

He took two running steps forward. His legs leapt in the intricate movements of ancient Ryukyuan technique number three: the Yoko Tobi Geri, or Flying Side Kick. Distracted by Mari, Pinku had no time to dodge. Viper’s heel made a satisfying
crack
as it connected with her chin. She shot backwards. Her lithe form struck a window and sailed through in a shower of broken glass.

Viper landed close enough to see her slide down the eaves, shattering neon tubes as she went. She dropped out of sight. There were two distinct thuds moments apart, then the sickening wet sound of flesh striking concrete.

That
should be enough to signal Kanbei.

“Viper.”

Mari crawled to him, trailing slick blood across the varnished floor. He knelt and grasped her hand. Pinku’s thrust had opened her gut from hip to sternum.

“You did it,” she whispered. “You avenged Sachiko’s death.”

“
We
did it.”

“Viper, I’ve only known you a short time, but I …”

Her chest heaved. The rest of her words were lost in the death rattle.

Outside, through the shattered pane, he heard multiple clunks of car doors opening and slamming shut. Soon, gunfire would echo through the building as Kanbei’s men battled the remaining kunoichi. Pinku Serizawa’s reign was over. But what did that leave him with, exactly?

He contemplated the price of vengeance as the sky darkened, and Shinjuku skyline glowed in the distance.

THE END

Garnett Elliott
lives and works in Tucson, Arizona. Recent stories have appeared or are slated to appear in
Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Beat to a Pulp: Round Two, Needle Magazine, Pulp Modern
, and
Battling Boxing Stories
. Look for his novellas "Vin of Venus" from Beat to a Pulp publishing, and "The Shunned Highway" in Alec Cizak’s anthology
Uncle B’s Drive-In
, due out later this summer. You can follow Garnett on Twitter @TonyAmtrak.

By Scott Reder

As you probably remember, the dastardly Soviet Union launched a nuclear first strike against America in 1989 and left part of the country a wasteland. And in what was left of the USA, they invaded and set up a puppet government. Fortunately for the Russians’ plans, the deadliness of radioactive fallout seems to have been vastly overestimated, because they were safely able to invade Denver right after nuking Colorado Springs and other parts of the state.

The initial blasts left survivors trapped in the highway tunnels of the Rocky Mountains, and those brave Americans dug like gophers to reach mine shafts and build an underground complex they named Century City.

One might assume that a living space created underground after a nuclear war would be grim and desolate, but Century City seems more utopia than post-apocalyptic hellhole. The spacious cafeterias are stocked up with rabbit stew. Scientific research continues and has progressed to a point where amputated arms and legs can be replaced by servo mechanical limbs. There are even ‘street performers’ who do magic, which proves that even a nuclear holocaust can’t stop the likes of David Blaine. Women still wear halter tops and miniskirts, so American civilization continues to function at a high level.

In the fight against the Soviet invaders, one extraordinary American emerges as the key figure in the resistance: Ted Rockson, also known as the Doomsday Warrior.

Rockson’s arch-enemy is Killov, the head of the KGB. He has led an attempted coup against the Soviet military forces, which forces Rockson into a temporary alliance with the Soviet premier. Killov’s forces are defeated, but he escapes with five powerful antimatter warheads. Rockson has to track and disarm these warheads. This means leading a handpicked group of Freefighters north through the frozen Canadian wastelands in pursuit of Killov.

During their trek, two Freefighters are captured by a tribe of Sasquatch. These have not only become plentiful but gained rudimentary intelligence, and they use simple tools like stone axes and clubs. Unfortunately, they’re also hungry for human flesh and promptly barbecue one of the captives like a slab of Kansas City ribs. Rockson’s rescue team shoots a few of the Sasquatch but end up mostly fighting them hand to hand and with throwing stars. Even better, one has a special explosive throwing star that is used to blow the head completely off a Bigfoot.

That epic battle of Man vs. Sasquatch is not without humor:

The Sasquatch was left clutching air. And he got even madder when Rockson delivered a kick to his knee—or what he hoped was its knee. It howled “Frekkkkk!” Rock thought it might mean “Now I kill you and eat you, but first I pluck your arms and legs.”

Rockson and his men also fight wolves, endure the freezing cold, cross dangerous thin ice, and deal with Eskimo tribes that have incredibly advanced technology. Finally, they battle a small army of Killov’s KBG thugs to try and stop the missiles.

This series by Ryder Stacy (a pseudonym shared by Jan Stacy and Ryder Syvertsen) seems to carry over from one book to the next, and this one ends on a bit of a cliffhanger. There are also some scenes here with the puppet Soviet president of the US, returning from Russia, that have nothing to do with the plot. So presumably it pays off in a later book. Presumably.

The original covers of the series are also a joy to behold, with a defiant hand thrust into the air clutching a variety of weapons or American symbols with a mushroom cloud in the background. Although holding a knife as depicted on this cover would seem like a good way to lose some fingers.