He heard the whisper of a Shoji door sliding open. A shadow flitted across the room. It crouched by the only modern object in the room: a safe.
Jones knew it was not the abbot, he also knew the safe contained the Ryus Densho Scrolls. The figure turned its head for a second, and Jones was shocked to see it was Ohana.
Silently, he vaulted over the ledge into the room.
“Ohana, what are you doing?”
His temple brother turned as he was rising to his feet, leaping into the air he lashed out with his left foot. The blow caught him unawares, knocking Jones back against the window.
Jones saw the safe door was already open, and the scrolls already secreted under Ohana’s dark garb.
“Don’t try to stop me, little brother, this is beyond you.”
“You’re a thief, and no brother of mine.”
He threw a stamp kick. Ohana sidestepped, and delivered an Atemi strike to the nerve cluster in his thigh. He collapsed. Ohana put him in a neck lock, using his weight to pin him to the floor. He squeezed to the point that Jones was about to pass out, then bounded up and away.
Jones was determined, Ohana or Dan-Te, or whoever he was, would not escape him this time. Ashikaga had discovered Ohana worked for the Black Dragon Society, the enforcement arm of the Ichigumi Yakuza Clan. He had infiltrated the Ryu with the intention of learning its secrets, also to steal the scrolls, which were worth a considerable amount of money.
Jones employed a reversal, getting hold of Dan-Te’s arm and locking it out. The man was like an eel, easily escaping it. Jones found his wrist locked.
They fought on the floor like this for several seconds, joint lock to strike, back and forth. They fought until they were back on their feet. Jones kicked Dan-Te away. He came back, attacking him with the chain punch of Wing Chun. Jones backed away, palm blocking each strike. Dan-Te switched to the White Crane style, attacking with his palm before switching to Praying Mantis, attacking with twin beak strikes, fingers hardened by years of training.
The man seemed to be a veritable encyclopaedia of martial styles. The switching had the effect of keeping Jones off balance, always on the back foot. Dan-Te was fast as well, his attacks coming in from all angles. Dan-Te would feint high before striking low. He would attack circular before switching to straight blasts.
Jones was taking a real beating, only just managing to hold him off from the killing blow. Dan-Te’s defence was perfect as well, never leaving an opening.
Jones pushed him back with a palm strike fake, before hitting him with a stamp kick to his chest. This gave him a few seconds to steady his breathing.
The black clad figure before him shook his head; only his eyes could be seen through the mask he wore. They held no anger, or malice, just a grim determination.
They eyed each other, circling the room, like two fighting cocks looking for an opening. Dan-Te quick-stepped forward, then backwards.
Jones waited, Dan-Te came at him with the Wing Chun punches again, followed by low kicks to his shins. Jones timed his move for the next attack to his shin. When it came, he sidestepped and hit out with a reverse roundhouse kick to the head. He followed this up with a punch to Dan-Te’s kidney. An elbow strike finished the combination.
Dan-Te backed off, the tension in his body telling Jones he had hurt his former temple brother. He smiled inside knowing his opponent could be beaten.
Dan-Te was still shaking off the effects of Jones’ blows when he struck again, attacking with a flurry of foot and hand strikes before firing the coup de grace: a throat strike, delivered with enough force to take off the man’s head. A split second before Jones hit him, Dan-Te twisted out of range. He dived out of the window behind him. Glass shattered, the wooden boards splintered like plywood.
“Damn it!” Jones swore.
There was no time to go after his temple brother. He ran over to where Jennifer was chained on the stage. He removed the chains, and she collapsed into his arms. Her eyes fluttered open.
“It’s okay. Don’t be scared. I’m Jerryko Jones, you’re safe now.”
At the mention of his name, her eyes clouded over. She seemed to fill with an unearthly strength. Grabbing one of the chains, she wrapped it around his throat. A guttural growl escaped from her throat.
“Saimin-jutsu, a wonderful weapon to use in defeat, little brother!” The voice was deep, not a woman’s. Dan-Te – Ohana – had transplanted his essence into the woman’s subconscious.
Jones had heard of this skill before, from the esoteric arsenal of the ninja. He’d always believed the supernatural skill to be a myth. He now bore witness to that myth as Jennifer/Ohana/Dan-Te tightened the chain around his throat.
Jones managed to grab her leg, and yanked her off her feet. The grip on his throat released, he apologised before unleashing a hard strike to her jaw. She slipped into darkness, and Jones lay back rubbing his throat.
“I really have to get a new job, one that doesn’t hurt so much.”
Slinging Jennifer over his shoulder, he headed out of the bar, knowing his temple brother was out there, somewhere, and had unfinished business.
BIO:
Andrew Scorah was born in Doncaster, South Yorkshire, but moved to Swansea in 1999. Andrew has worked in a variety of jobs over the years, mostly in the security industry. His main interests are music, an avid Springsteen fan, reading and his family. He describes himself as a journeyman in training, a writing Ronin. His writing has appeared in Action Pulse Pounding Tales Volume 1 alongside best selling thriller authors Matt Hilton, Stephen Leather, Adrian Magson, Zoe Sharpe and Joe McCoubrey. He also has a couple of books published on Amazon, A Collection in Time, Eastern Fury and Other Tales, The Beast, which is a short story, and a short story Dalton's Blues which is a prequel to Homecoming Blues a tale of revenge and redemption set in gangland London, and the sequels Border Town Blues and Jericho Blues. Check out his web site for more info on his work http://goo.gl/ibzNZ or contact him via email a_scorah@live.co.uk.
GET CUTTER! by James Hopwood
Nathan Cutter's life had been turned on its ear, beginning with the senseless death of his wife, Helen, and his three year old daughter, Charlotte. They were the innocent victims of an underworld gang war that spilled onto the city streets.
Their lives were taken, when Triad Crime Lord, Zheng Li's car tore through a red light, colliding with Cutter's family, as they drove home from the local shopping centre. The impact wasn't what killed them. The collision only served as the beginning to a bloody chain of events.
Another vehicle had been chasing Zheng Li. Traveling in that vehicle was the number two crime figure in Sydney, Eddie Conlan. It had been his car, that barreled into the vehicle Helen and Charlotte Cutter were traveling in, as it sat at the intersection, immobilised from the previous collision.
Both, Conlan and the Cutters died almost instantly. However, Zheng Li had got away, and the local authorities were too toothless to go after him.
But not Nathan Cutter. Cutter had just returned from three years as a peace keeper in Iraq. He had seen war up close and personal. He had smelt its fetid breath in his face. Every day he had lived with violence, bloodshed and the threat of death hanging over him. For a man with Cutter's combat experience, Zheng Li was not a man to be feared, but a bug to be squashed.
Zheng Li had believed he was above the law. Well, he wasn't above Cutter's Law. Cutter went after the Crime Lord, tracking him to his lair, and then extracting his own bloody retribution.
That evening, Cutter killed seven people, including Zheng Li, but not without cost. He had been shot and stabbed, and collapsed unconscious from loss of blood, after he had completed his act of vengeance.