“You’re getting me all misty-eyed.”
“Look. I don’t expect you to forgive me, not after what I’ve done. But what you’ve done has exceeded any chance of salvation in my eyes and in the eyes of the Church. You killed your two best friends.”
“Job and Joshua were nothing but an extension of you,” he stated sourly. “Do you have any idea how much I truly hated them? I hated everything that revolved around you, anything you had anything to do with. My passion for you and everything you were about became my hatred. And my hatred became my passion and crusade. Job and Joshua were a part of you like the Pieces of Eight. And I wanted you to watch everyone close to you die. But unlike you, I had absolutely no intention to reach out to you with any sense of humanity once they were gone.”
“You could have killed me at Hawk’s ranch.”
“Sure I could have. But my agenda was quite clear. I wanted to destroy everything that was about you. I wanted your legacy to die by the proverbial pieces. And I wanted you to watch everyone who had been a part of your life disappear until you had nothing left to draw from. I wanted you to see your life minimized to nothing, before the moment of your death.”
Kimball couldn’t help feel a hurtful pang: such hatred. And then he removed his long coat and draped it over a sarcophagus.
Ezekiel quickly noted the knives sheathed to the warrior’s thighs, but expected no less since they were Kimball’s weapons of choice.
“There’s no turning back,” said Kimball. “Not now. Not after what you’ve done.”
“What I’ve done was no different than what you’ve done. So perhaps you’re right. Perhaps there is no turning back after what we’ve both done. No salvation, no true hope of ever achieving redemption… Now you can stand there all day if you want and tell me how sorry you feel for all the horrible things you did and why you did them. But let’s face it; confession doesn’t always save the soul.”
Kimball nodded. “And that’s why I’m going to kill you with the feeling that I want to. Not because I have to.”
Kimball took a quick and worried glance at the cardinal.
“Don’t worry about him,” said Ezekiel. “I’ll keep my word regarding his welfare. Even though he’s a major part of your life, he’s still a clergyman. My war is with you. And besides, perhaps on the Day of Judgment, this moment of letting him live will give me a pass into White Eternity.”
“You really believe that?”
Ezekiel nodded. “No more than you believing that your salvation is within reach.”
Without comment Kimball slowly reached down and undid the snap of the first KA-BAR sheath with his right hand, then followed up by undoing the second snap with his left. Grabbing the hilts of the knives, he retracted them slowly from their holds, the sound of the slide between leather and metal minimal.
Ezekiel also approached the situation with the same sense of caution by never taking his eyes off Kimball and readied up. Reaching up and over his shoulder, he grabbed the handle of a katana and slid it free from its scabbard that festooned his backside.
“I see you have your toy,” said Kimball.
“One of many. But unlike the wooden one you trained me with, I promise you this one is very real, very sharp, and very deadly.”
“I appear to be at a disadvantage.”
“I always said mine was bigger than yours.”
Kimball held up his KA-BARs. “But two is always better than one.”
“We’ll see.”
The men slowly converged on one another with Ezekiel holding the polished blade of the katana in front of him with both hands, while Kimball gripped the knives tightly within his.
In trained combat fashion they sized each other up, the men looking for gaps, creases and moments of weakness.
The warriors were closing in, circling, seeking.
And then came an opportune moment.
Ezekiel came across in a horizontal flash of the katana’s polished blade and struck Kimball’s knife, the attack easily deflected with such casual ease on Kimball’s part that it slightly unnerved Ezekiel.
“Is that all you’ve got?”
Ezekiel reflected a cautionary smile. “I haven’t even started.” As the last word left his lips, Ezekiel pivoted on the balls of his feet and attacked Kimball with a flurry of blows. The blade came downward, then across, followed by jabs and strikes, all neatly deflected by Kimball as sparks flew, danced and died. The momentum of the fight carried them across the chamber, close to a sarcophagus, Kimball running out of space.
The katana struck in rapid succession, the arcing sweeps of the blade moving too fast for the cardinal to see anything other than brief flashes of light from the blade’s luster.
Kimball countered defensively, his arms and hands moving with incredible speed, more by intuition than thought, the KA-BARs matching the same lightning speed as Ezekiel’s, strike, jab, defend.
Numerous sparks began to fly, the pace of the men gathering impetus as the blades struck repeatedly against one another, metal against metal, sparks flying everywhere as if the weapons were forged from flint rather than steel.
Kimball moved backward, losing ground, the stress beginning to weigh on him as his face began to contort with the strain of effort. His arms moved in blinding motions, up, down, across, deflecting the blade of the katana time and again.
Ezekiel appeared to pick up his effort, sensing a kill, the arcing strikes fluid, poetic, the speed of the blows wearing down his opponent.
Blow after blow Kimball was forced into a slow retreat, his back against the sarcophagus with less than a meter to spare.
And then in a vertical blow, Ezekiel brought the blade downward as if to cleave the man in half. But Kimball crossed his knives so that the blades made a perfect X and caught the blade within the upper-V portion of the X.
For a long moment time stood still, the men eyeing each other as their chests heaved and pitched for oxygen, the instant a welcome respite from the activity, the blades locked.
“You’re getting old,” said Ezekiel, his breathing labored.
“Yeah, well, for someone half my age you shouldn’t be sucking wind the way you do. I should have trained you better.”
Ezekiel smiled with malicious amusement. “I will admit… you are good.”
“And I’m about to get better.”
“Really?”
“Yeah… Really.”
On that note Kimball went on the offensive. He cast aside the katana’s blade and went after Ezekiel with a series of blows and moves that were so poetically smooth that it seemed like a choreographed ballet to Cardinal Vessucci. Kimball’s arms moved with such incredible speed that it seemed impossible to defend against. But Ezekiel did so, marginally, his face taking on the look of someone who had misjudged his opponent and was quickly losing confidence.
His mentor was now in his element, striking blow after blow, steel against steel.
And Ezekiel began to look choppy, his motions uneven as he desperately deflected wave after wave of Kimball’s attack, the continuous barrage driving him backward as Kimball gained ground, the momentum now his as his confidence waxed, the blows becoming quicker, stronger, the intent to kill Ezekiel set by the determination of his squared jaw flexing.
After casting aside the blade of Ezekiel’s katana, Kimball came across with his KA-BAR and sliced Ezekiel across the abdomen, tearing the flesh but not gutting him like he intended to. Ezekiel stumbled backward, confused, the tip of the katana lowering toward the floor, slowly, his defenses totally shut down.
And then he fell to his knees, a hand over the wound as blood seeped steadily through the cracks of his clenching fingers. “You killed me.”