Warren Murphy: Blood Lust

A millisecond from striking the blow, long-nailed hands reached out to snatch Don Cooder from the path of Remo's strike.

The speed was blinding. Elegant. Hauntingly familiar.

Chiun! Remo thought, even as Cooder faded from his sight and the force of his blow continued traveling in a straight line-through the empty space where Don Cooder had trembled and directly for the exposed breast of Maddas Hinsein, tyrant of Irait.

The burnoosed figure took the blow like a scarecrow shot with an elephant gun.

Arms jerking crazily, he was jolted backward, his burnoose flying like green wings. He fell backward over the railing to land with a mushy thump on the pavement below.

Grinning, Remo turned, joy in his heart.

"Little Father . . ." he began.

His grin washed away like a sand castle before a dam-burst.

For standing there was not the Master of Sinanju, but the abayuh-clad figure of Kimberly Baynes, holding Don Cooder with two long-nailed hands as two more pairs emerged from the ebon garment, snapping a yellow scarf between them.

"But I thought . . . ." Remo began. And he remembered. The Master of Sinanju was dead.

With a careless fling of yellow-nailed fingers, Don Cooder was thrown aside, and the silken scarf snapped around Remo's exposed neck. Kimberly wrenched. The force was quick and brutal.

Remo heard the brittle snap of breaking vertebrae. He staggered on his feet, his head lolling to one side brokenly.

As the reviewing stand shrank back in horror from the momentary impression of the human spider in an abayuh, the scarf was whipped away, revealing a blue bruise around Remo's neck. Remo's eyes snapped open. They were like burning coals.

Gathering his precarious balance, he faced Kimberly Baynes, who jerked off her garments, revealing blood-red eyes that were like twin suns in her face. Her neck tilted left. Remo's tilted right.

And from Remo's mouth issued a thunderous voice.

"I am created Shiva the Destroyer; Death, the shatterer of worlds! Who is this dog meat who stands before me?"

"I am Kali the Terrible; the devourer of life!" a voice that was no longer Kimberly's shrieked. "And I claim this dance!"

Their feet began to stamp the reviewing-stand flooring.

And in that moment, the world fell into the Red Abyss.

Epilogue

As if a small comet had struck a lake, Arab Renaissance Square exploded outward in circular waves of fleeing humanity as the reviewing stand was reduced to wood chips and splintering boards.

The great overhanging crossed scimitars trembled as if in an earthquake, while in the settling maelstrom of wood that had been the reviewing stand, two figures drummed their feet in violent discord, their heads thrown back, their voices roaring to shake the very sun from the sky.

It was from that hellish roaring that the assembled citizenry of Irait fled-unaware that they were but insignificant specks of bone and gristle and plasma in the Caldron of Blood that had begun churning.

One insignificant speck of bone, gristle, and plasma who plunged through the retreating multitudes wore a flowing black abayuh over shiny black paratroop boots. With his thick arms, he beat and elbowed helpless Iraitis out of his path, cursing in fluent Arabic.

He paused in his flight to glance back. Under the trembling scimitars-held aloft by massive replicas of his own mighty arms-Maddas Hinsein beheld an awesome sight.

The naked four-armed figure of Kimberly Baynes faced the American called Remo. She howled. Remo howled back. Their feet stamped the planks and joists under their drumming feet with such fury that the wood gave up tendrils of friction smoke. Their hands were about each other's throats.

If this was a dance, Maddas thought, he would hate to see them at war. For they looked as if they were intent upon strangling each other.

As they surged to and fro, their earth-shaking feet inched toward a prostrate form in a green burnoose, who lay before the wreckage, where he had fallen.

One foot Remo's-stamped the kaffiyeh once. The green cloth turned red to the accompaniment of a horrible melonpop of a sound.

And Maddas Hinsein knew that no one would ever identify the fallen man as Selim Fanek, his official spokesman. The world would think the Scimitar of the Arabs dead. He grinned with dark humor. Not even the Americans would think to hang a dead man.

But then he remembered his defense minister, Razzik Azziz, and the deadfall commands that would soon go into effect. His grin became a scowl. He faced a hard choice. Perhaps the most difficult of his presidency.

Gathering his all-concealing abayuh about him, he plunged into the fleeing crowd, taking care to inflict as much damage as he could on those who dared impede his flight.

"Call me Kebir Gamoose!" he muttered darkly. "If I allow the American bombs to obliterate you all, it will serve you right!"

TO BE CONCLUDED IN DESTROYER #86 Arabian Nightmare