78.
Black John spat blood from his mouth and prowled towards me, his shaking hands raised in a classic kickboxer's stance. I spread my feet, raised my Zap Knuck, and while my stance didn't look anywhere near as put together as Black John's, I was ready. I was outmatched, outsized, outskilled, and I lacked his experience. But, there was no way I was backing down, and there was no way I was walking out of this warehouse without destroying those drugs.
I noticed Black John was moving gingerly. The accumulated damage he had taken across our two brawls was starting to catch up with him, and he was favoring one of his legs. One of those tumbles must have jarred his already battered knee. He didn't have the sudden dynamism he had a few minutes ago, but that didn't make much difference when you were as dangerous as he was. He closed the gap on me with a few shuffling steps and flicked out two quick jabs. Instinctively, I pulled my head back, feeling the air brush past my face from his knuckle. I flinched and pulled my arm to my stomach, expecting the right hook, but it didn't come. He pulled out of the punch, and I realised that was his injured hand. In the intervening minutes, it had begun to swell horribly. He had definitely broken it. Well, that might even the odds a bit. I might just be able to survive a fight against Black John if he only had one arm and one leg.
He flicked out two more quick jabs with his good hand, and I danced back. This time, there were no kicks to follow. He hobbled after me, unable to place weight on his injured right leg. He was hurt far worse than I had thought. Maybe he'd been that hurt the entire fight and had been hiding it well. It would make sense why he tried to end it so quickly. I decided to push the advantage, knowing that every second I spent fighting with Black John meant more pigeons being hurt and killed.
I pounced forward, throwing wild, uncoordinated haymakers, not really trying to hurt Black John just trying to get hold of him with the Zap Knucks. They crackled as I pushed energy through them, but Black John was smart and skilled. He used his forearms to deflect my blows, never letting the flat of my knuckles touch him. I clenched my teeth, and maybe I became a bit overzealous in pressing the attack, because I suddenly found myself far too close to a very dangerous man.
He pushed both of my arms out wide with his forearms, grabbed hold of my head, and slammed his own straight into it. Pure luck saved me from having my face entirely caved in. I managed to turn my head just enough so that our foreheads smashed together with a sickening thud that sounded like two goats battling. The noise was absolutely nausea-inducing, and the damage was shared almost equally between us.
I fell onto my backside, the world spinning and pain lancing through my brain. Black John had stayed on his feet, but his bad leg gave way underneath him, and he careened into the crates of drugs as he tried to keep himself upright. I felt blood spreading across my balaclava. I looked up and saw that Black John had a similar split just above his eyebrow, blood dripping down his face. It was a kamikaze move but it was effective. The whole room was spinning, and I felt my vision blurring in and out of focus. Black John shook his head like a wet dog coming in from the rain. He floundered around on the boxes, desperately trying to find his footing. He looked like a newborn deer walking for the first time. What was he doing? I gathered my wits enough to see what he was looking at: the gun!
He lurched away from me as fast as he could, making a clumsy beeline for the weapon. I was too dizzy to get back to my feet. I fell forward onto my hands and knees and crawled after him, blood dripping down my face. I reached desperately into my pockets, took out a handful of Bang Rocks, and threw them, but I was so disoriented that I couldn't summon up the energy needed to actually set the damn things off. I ended up just throwing a bunch of clay balls across the floor like marbles.
I groaned and gave up the chase. I dabbed my fingers against my painfully swollen, split-open skull, and then pressed it against my belt, trying to activate the Cloaking Charm, but nothing happened. I didn't have the focus needed to set off such a powerful spell.
Black John had the gun, He whirled on me, and I used the only weapon I had left: my Grapple Cord. I flung out my left arm at him. I'd intended to grab hold of the gun or at least his wrist, but that hadn't quite worked out. My aim was off, and instead, the Grapple Cord ricocheted off the inside of Black John's forearm, spat upwards, and hit him in the face, slicing open the left half of it across his eye and cheek.
Black John screamed and clapped a hand to his bloodied face. The Grapple Cord had done serious unintentional damage. He leveled the gun at me and blindly squeezed the trigger. His equilibrium was shot, and he was now shooting on his blind side. For all his discipline and good training, Black John missed all four shots. I cried out and raised my arms to protect myself. When I heard the clicks of the empty gun, I lowered my hands, opened my eyes, and realized not only was I alive, but I had no new holes in me.
Black John shrieked, his frustration, anger, and pain made an inhuman sound. He pulled his bloodied hand away from his face, and I saw the damage the Grapple Cord had wreaked on his flesh. It had cut him down to the bone, and I could see white meat beneath the pools of blood gushing from his cheekbone. He began fumbling at his belt trying to find a fresh magazine.
I let out an equally inhuman roar of defiance and charged him, taking him around the waist and sending us both crashing into the crates of drugs. The fight became scrappy, bloody, and feral. We rolled around on the crates and then off them, punching, elbowing, kneeing, and clawing. I'm pretty sure I even attempted to bite him at one point. Black John tried to headbutt me again, but there was no power behind it. Eventually, he managed to force me underneath him, getting those big hands wrapped around my throat and began squeezing. I had a flashback to our last battle as he tried to rip my head from my shoulders, but I knew exactly what to do this time.
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I lashed out with the Zap Knucks, but Black John reared back, pulling himself away so I couldn't get at his neck. So, I reached for the only thing that was vulnerable and within reach. I'm not proud of this, but I'll be honest, I zapped that man square in the balls. The shriek that emanated from Black John's mouth was something like I'd never heard before, and I would never forget it. It was not only inhuman, it was unearthly. He screeched in sheer agony as I sent volts of energy through his manhood.
He convulsed, twitched, and stumbled off of me, grabbing his crotch and rolling around in sheer, unbridled agony. I pulled myself to my feet gingerly and looked at the bloody, battered mess, I had reduced Black John to and I felt bad.
"Sorry," I said to him. "That was pretty low."
“Fuck you!” Black John spat. “Brick’s gonna fuckin’ kill you, you little shit! He’s gonna kill everyone you ever…”
“I wouldn’t worry about Brick,” I said, cutting him off. “I’ve already taken care of him.”
“What do you…”
He didn't get to finish his sentence because I kicked him straight in the side of his face. It took two heavy blows to finally knock the man unconscious. I fell to one knee next to his slumped body, gasping for breath, woozy and unbalanced. My entire world spun before my eyes. As silence fell in the warehouse, I finally began to hear the gunfire outside, and it sounded like it had slowed down. I had to move quickly; there was no way the Pigeons could have kept up their assault for this long, and I'd wasted far too much time in my battle with Black John. It was time to do what I came here to do and maybe even try and get out alive.
I limped across the warehouse to where I left my backpack, picked up my Grandad's bat on the way, and sheathed it. Then I unzipped my backpack, pulled out the jerry can full of petrol and doused the crates in the acrid chemical accelerant. I stood back. One of my eyes was almost completely swollen shut, and my balaclava was a bloody, sodden mess that stuck to my skin. I wanted to say something really cool here. I'd actually thought of some lines on the way over, but I was too exhausted and beaten up, so I picked up the lighter and flicked it. It took four attempts before the damn thing stayed lit. I hesitated for a moment, took a surreptitious step back, and then tossed it onto the crates. There was a 'woomph' of combustion and the crates went up in a roaring flame.
I stood for a moment and watched as the fire spread, completely engulfing the entire shipment. Flames danced in my eyes as I watched, and then the fire began to spread. I hadn't really thought this through. The warehouse was full of so many dried cardboard boxes, old sheets, and mystery chemicals, all just waiting to feed the flames. The fire spread quickly, first catching onto a sheet, and that sheet then caught onto a pile of cardboard, and within what felt like seconds, half the warehouse was suddenly engulfed.
"Shit, shit, shit!" I said, backing away from the inferno.
This whole place was gonna go up. I had to get out of here quickly. I knew that I could open one of the side doors from inside; I planned that far ahead at least. So, I turned and began limping, and then came to a screeching halt. The foul smoke was already biting at the back of my throat and my eyes, making them water. I looked over my shoulder and saw that Black John was still slumped on the floor.
"Damn it," I growled, turning back and running towards him. He'd been right, I wasn't a killer, and I wasn't about to let a man burn in a fire that I had started.
I bent down and tried to pick up his limp body but quickly gave up on that. Black John was heavy, and I was weak and wobbly. I grabbed his boot and started dragging as hard as I could, barely shifting him along the rough ground of the warehouse. I snarled again as the flames licked us, and I could feel it burning my exposed flesh. I took my Grapple Cord, flicked it around Black John's ankle, turned, and began pulling him like a sled. The first few steps were absolute torture as my injured body screamed in protest of what I was trying to force it to do, but eventually, I got him moving, and I began a slight jog towards the exit.
Even though I felt I was getting further from the flames, I could still feel the heat licking at me. I could hear the screech of metal burning and collapsing, and that spurred me on to move quicker. I arrived at the exit door. This one hadn't been welded shut, but it was protected with a key code.
"Oh shit," I groaned.
I looked down at Black John, wondering if he knew the code, but he was still unconscious, his head lolling about wildly as I dragged him behind me. I didn't have time for this; the whole warehouse was bathed in orange, the fire roaring and consuming the whole back half already, filling the rest with smoke.
I reached into my pocket. I only had three Bang Rocks left. I took two, jammed them between the door jamb and the key lock, and then staggered a couple of steps back. I took my slingshot out, aimed, and fired. My hand shook, and my body protested at the torque being applied to the slingshot, but thankfully the Bang Rock flew straight and true, hit the other two, and exploded with enough power to blow the lock. The keypad fell away, and the door swung open. I let my Grapple Cord go slack, grabbed Black John around both of his legs, and began pulling him as fast as I could out of the scorching warehouse.
As soon as we crossed the threshold, cool air bathed me, and I felt how hot it had become inside. I pulled Black John free, coughing and spluttering as smoke began to billow out of the warehouse. I dragged him as far as I could, and then dropped him. Black John groaned and lay still. I looked around me. The yard was silent. There was no more gunfire. There was one spotlight still swinging listlessly about, maybe half a dozen injured men laid out on the floor, some completely still, some groaning or clutching at torn faces, and there were dozens of dead pigeons. The sky was empty though, and there were no more active mercenaries. Then I realised why, I could see blue lights far in the distance but rapidly getting closer, and then I heard the wail of the police sirens. I looked down at Black John, then at the warehouse, before turning and sprinting away into the darkness.
Do you think Alex has finally won? Has he broken the back of the Syndicate?
