David Robbins - Capital Run

“I’ll go first,” Rikki offered. He cautiously opened the stairwell door and peered around the jamb.

A solitary Knight, a lean man with a crooked nose and armed with a holstered revolver, was leaning against the wall about ten feet from the stairwell. He appeared to be bored to death.

The knife in his right hand, Rikki eased from the stairwell and silently advanced toward the unsuspecting guard.

The Leather Knight raised his right hand and began examining his fingernails.

Rikki was eight feet from the guard.

The Knight coughed.

Six feet.

The Knight sensed another presence. Not anticipating trouble, he glanced to his right, his eyes widening in alarm at the sight of the small man in black.

“What the hell!” the Knight blurted out, and went for his gun.

Rikki was already in motion, leaping forward and sweeping his right hand back and out.

In the act of drawing his revolver, the Leather Knight was impaled in the throat. The horrifying shock of the knife in his neck stunned him. He opened his mouth to scream.

Rikki sprang, his legs arching upward in a graceful Yoko-tobi-geri, a side jump kick, his right foot, extended and rigid, slamming into the guard, catching his crooked nose dead center and smashing his head against the wall.

The guard grunted as his nostrils were crushed.

Rikki landed, his coiled frame in motion, spinning, executing a flawless Mawashi-geri, a roundhouse kick.

The guard was struck on his right cheek. He toppled to the floor with a faint gasp.

Rikki looked at Lex. “Which room is it?” There were three doors on either side of the hallway.

Lex hastened to the closest door. She tried the knob. “It’s not locked,” she said, and shoved.

Rikki darted past her into the room.

It was empty.

“I don’t get it,” Lex stated. “I thought Terza was warm for Blade’s form. Maybe she changed her mind about him. They might have decided to feed him to Grotto.”

“Where?” Rikki asked.

“There’s a special room downstairs hooked up to the sewers,” Lex disclosed. “He might be there.”

“Why the sewers?” Rikki inquired.

“That’s where Grotto lives,” Lex explained.

Rikki scanned the room. “We need weapons.” He noticed a closet to the left of Terza’s bed and walked to it.

“I’ll keep watch,” Lex offered, turning to the door, closing it.

Rikki opened the closet and found a dozen black-leather garments on wire hangers. Piled on the floor were sandals, black boots, and peculiar shoes with spiked heels. He closed the door and moved to rejoin Lex, but a pile of white clothing heaped on the floor by the bed attracted his attention.

“I hear voices!” Lex warned him.

Rikki knelt and touched the white clothing, a white-lace affair undoubtedly intended to expose more skin than it covered. About to stand, he detected a glimmer of silver from under the bed.

“They’re coming this way!” Lex whispered urgently.

Rikki dropped to his knees and peeked under the bed. His pulse quickened at the discovery of the items he most wanted: Blade’s Commando and Bowies and his own scabbard lying next to his katana.

The Spirit was with them! He grabbed the scabbard and slid it through his black belt, then withdrew the katana from under the bed and with a practiced flourish returned the sword to its scabbard.

“They’re almost here!” Lex said.

“Let them come,” Rikki told her.

Lex turned from the doorway and glanced at him. “Why…” she began.

Rikki grinned and rose, the Commando and Bowies in his arms.

“Where did you…” Lex started to ask a question, then stopped as a loud shout filled the hallway.

Rikki ran to her side and handed over the Commando and the Bowies.

“Hold these,” he instructed her. He tiptoed to the door and pressed his left ear to the wood.

“—dead. Who the hell could have done it?” a man was demanding.

“The big guy is downstairs,” mentioned another. “It has to be the runt or Lex.”

“Let’s check Terza’s room,” the first man said.

“I don’t know,” hedged the second. “She doesn’t like anybody in her room without an invitation.”

“She’ll understand,” declared the first man. “Come on.”

Rikki motioned Lex away from the door. There were three lit lanterns in the room, and no time to extinguish them. He eased the katana from its scabbard and flattened behind the door.

Lex took cover behind the couch.

The door slowly opened, inch by inch. The barrel of a revolver materialized, jutting past the edge of the door.

“I don’t see anyone,” remarked the second man.

“We’d best check the whole room,” said the first man.

Both studs entered, each with a revolver, and neither bothered to glance behind the open door.

“There ain’t nobody here!” the second man groused.

Rikki rushed from concealment, his katana streaking up and in.

The first stud, a short man with a flowing mustache, never knew what hit him. The katana angled into his neck, severing half of his throat, causing large quantities of blood to gush from the cut vessels and pour over his chest and legs.

Rikki didn’t wait for the first man to collapse. He took two lightning steps and aimed a slash at the second man.

The second stud crouched and whirled, pointing his revolver at the man in black. He was squeezing the trigger when the sword hacked his gunhand from his wrist.

Anyone could have heard his shriek a mile away.

Rikki finished him with a well-placed reverse thrust into the stud’s heart.

The Knight gurgled, spitting up blood and bile, and tumbled to the carpet.

Lex emerged from hiding. She had seen the entire encounter by looking around the lower corner of the couch.

“We must hurry to Blade,” Rikki said.

Lex nodded. “I hope you show me how to do that someday.”

Rikki wiped his katana on the second stud’s black vest. “Considerable practice is required.”

“It’d be worth it,” Lex said. “If I get half as good as you, no one would dare mess with me again.”

“Take me to Grotto,” Rikki directed her.

“What am I going to do about these knives?” Lex asked, referring to the Bowies. “I’m liable to poke myself before we get there.”

Rikki debated a moment. Both Bowies and the Commando were quite an armful. When the Knights had stripped Blade’s weapons, they’d merely removed the Bowies from their sheaths. So Lex was compelled to carry the Bowies with their keen blades exposed.

“I’ll take them,” Rikki volunteered. He carefully aligned each knife under his belt, insuring the belt supported each knife by its guard, and slanted their points away from his privates.

“That doesn’t look too safe,” Lex remarked, worried by the proximity of the knives to his groin.

“Just hope I don’t sneeze,” Rikki joked. “Come on.”

They left Terza’s room on the double, Rikki leading until they had descended the stairs to the bottom floor. Lex took over, cradling the Commando in her arms, making for the pit room where Grotto was fed.

The hallways were a virtual maze, and Rikki chafed at the delay.

“Isn’t there a shortcut?” he asked at one point.

Lex stopped. “I’m sticking to the halls we don’t use too often. We might avoid the Knights this way.”

Rikki glanced at the Commando. “Have you checked it to see if it’s loaded?”

“Damn! Never thought of it!” Lex admitted. She fiddled with the magazine release until the magazine popped free. She held it in her left hand and studied it by the light of a nearby lantern. “The clip is full,” she announced, “but I don’t have a spare.”

“Blade usually carries those in his pockets,” Rikki informed her.