David Robbins - Capital Run

Near the door, a stud with a rifle sighted on the swordsman in black, but a redheaded woman burst into the room, her machine gun chattering, and the stud’s chest was stitched by a line of heavy slugs.

Lex had entered the fray.

Blade backed up another step as the stud with the knife lunged again.

Grotto’s head and shoulders were clear of the pit and his body was still rising.

Rikki spotted Blade’s danger, but before he could race to his friend’s aid he was confronted by two sisters, both with drawn revolvers.

One of the sisters fired.

Rikki grimaced as his right side was creased, the bullet tearing a furrow in his ribs. He doubled over, feigning acute anguish, and when the sisters closed in to finish him off, he suddenly straightened, slashing the katana from right to left, hacking off the first woman’s left arm, her gun arm, and cleaving open the second woman’s stomach. The first woman seemed petrified by the loss of her arm: her terrified eyes frozen on the sight of her blood pumping from the severed stump. She barely noticed when another slash of the katana split her forehead, and she was dead before her body struck the ground. The second woman dropped her revolver and spread her hands over her ruptured stomach, futilely endeavoring to prevent her intestines and other organs from spilling out.

The sword strike through her heart was anti-climatic.

Blade ducked yet another knife swipe, and caught the stud’s wrist in his powerful hands. He swept his right knee up into the stud’s elbow, and heard the pop as it cracked.

The stud grunted and tried to jerk free.

Blade floored him with a right cross. He saw Rikki heading his way and took a step toward him, but a strident roar stopped him in his tracks. He whirled.

Grotto was almost on top of the pit. Except for its pumping rear legs and tail, it was actually out of the pit, squatting on the rim.

Damn!

Blade broke into a run, making for Rikki.

Lex downed two of the Knights with a burst from the Commando. The sole Knight left in the room, a tall blonde sister, was cowering against one wall.

Rikki darted toward Blade, but he was still 12 feet away when Grotto surged over the rim of the pit and went after the giant Warrior.

Rikki grabbed the hilt of one of the Bowies. “Catch!” he shouted, and tossed the knife.

Blade deftly caught the Bowie on the fly with his right hand.

Rikki threw the other Bowie.

Blade stopped, his keen eyes following the knife’s trajectory, and his left hand plucked it from the air with deceptive ease. He spun, sensing the monster was right behind him.

He was right.

Grotto was six feet from the Warrior, its mouth wide open, displaying upper and lower rows of small but pointed teeth. The motion of its ungainly legs and tail caused the creature to weave from side to side as it advanced. The first, bite of its gruesome jaws closed on empty space.

Blade leaped to the right as the creature attacked, driving his left Bowie up and in, under the mutant’s jawbone, into the fleshy area fringing the thick neck.

Grotto recoiled, feeling the pain, jerking his head away from the Bowie.

Knowing he would be too exposed if he tried to flee, Blade opted for the unexpected. He aggressively charged forward, under Grotto’s neck, and buried both of his Bowies in the thing’s vulnerable underbelly.

Grotto roared and scrambled to the right, not far from the pit, hissing as it swiveled and snapped at the puny human.

Blade felt the creature’s foul breath on his face, like the rank stink of a decayed corpse, and flung himself backwards.

Grotto’s teeth crunched together mere inches from its prey.

Blade stumbled, landing on his left knee. He saw Grotto rushing him, and he extended the Bowies to meet the assault.

A streak of masterfully crafted steel sliced the mutant from its neck to its shoulder as Rikki came to Blade’s rescue. Green fluid sprayed from the wound, spattering the Warrior in black.

Grotto turned to face this new threat, enraged. Its jaw distended, it pounced.

Rikki rolled, avoiding the cavernous maw, and came up with the katana in a swirling motion, tearing open the side of Grotto’s face. He backpedaled, scurrying to Blade’s side.

“Glad you could make it,” Blade quipped.

“Wouldn’t have missed this for the world,” Rikki rejoined.

Further conversation was precluded by Grotto; the mutant bellowed and charged the two Warriors.

Blade dived to the right, toward the pit, while Rikki sprinted to the left.

Grotto hesitated for a moment, uncertain of which victim to pursue. It snarled and went after Rikki.

The Family’s consummate martial artist held his ground.

Grotto reached its quarry and hissed, spreading its jaws, its tongue flicking outward in spasmodic anticipation.

Rikki swung, slashing his katana up and around, the keen blade severing a third of the creature’s tongue from its mouth.

Grotto recoiled and uttered a rumbling, shrill cry. It lashed its head from side to side, in misery, tormented by the loss of its tongue.

Blade found himself standing behind the monster, not four feet from its tail. He saw Rikki take another swipe with his sword, and Grotto try to take Rikki’s head off. Rikki avoided the slavering jaws, but his left foot caught on the leg of a slain Leather Knight prone on the ground, and he lost his balance. He fell, landing on his left side.

Grotto roared and surged forward.

A desperate plan, a blaze of inspiration, pervaded Blade’s consciousness, and with the idea came action. He ran toward Grotto, and when just three feet from the creature’s tail he leaped, his coiled leg muscles carrying him over Grotto’s tail onto its back, at the junction of the tail and the spinal column. His knees clamped on the tail, as he sank his Bowies to the hilt in the genetic deviates back.

Grotto stiffened, then whipped its tail in an arc, striving to dislodge the man-thing.

Blade was clipped by the broad tail. He felt something hard strike his left shoulder, and he was knocked forward, the Bowies wrenching clear of the mutant’s rancid flesh. He rolled twice and came up on his knees, perched on Grotto’s squat neck.

Grotto snapped its head up and down, shaking its whole body, attempting to toss the man off.

Rikki closed in and delivered a deep slash to Grotto’s throat.

Blade, clinging to the pliant skin on Grotto’s neck with all of his strength, racked his brain for a means of destroying the creature. There had to be a way! But how? It had sustained several severe injuries, it was pumping a sickly green fluid from its body by the gallon, and yet still it fought on, endowed with a fearless nature and a ravenous appetite. The Bowies and the katana seemed unable to deliver a death blow. Where would it be most vulnerable? In the heart? Where would the heart be located in a creature of this size? All these thoughts passed through his mind in the twinkling of an instant.

And then it hit him.

There was a way!

Blade lunged forward, wrapping his legs around the mutant’s neck. He extended the Bowies as far as his arms could reach, one on each side of the creature’s face, one next to each eye.

“Do it!” he heard Lex scream.

Blade plunged the Bowies into Grotto’s brown orbs, all the way in, and twisted.

Grotto reacted as if electrified by a bolt of lightning, its huge form convulsing and contorting, hissing all the while, its head shaking from right to left and up and down.

Blade could scarcely retain his grip. He felt the creature moving from side to side, and he could see Rikki yelling something to him, but he couldn’t hear the words over Grotto’s hissing.

Grotto’s violent throes intensified.

“—pit! The pit!” Rikki yelled in alarm.