Soul of the Swordsman Read online

  “She’s gonna do it,” Brit said, amazed.

  “Yup! Did you see the eyes when I said the name? she hates him.” Warfell tumbled the single red pill in her fingers. She snapped it in half, offering a piece to Brit.

  “I just met you, and yet I love you,” Faith accepted with a devious grin. Their waitress returned with another round of mugs.

  “Five minutes and he should start feeling it—he’ll know. I need to leave now.”

  “Go sweetie, thanks.” Warfell smiled and chugged her beer as the anorexic assassin left for the loo and hopefully a back way out.

  Danica studied the crowd—mostly men. A drunk woman in a beautiful dress stumbled by followed by a massive bear of a man who looked just like…

  ”Bigfoot?”

  He stopped at the girl’s table.

  “What did you call me?”

  Warfell’s eyes were wide, as a tear trickled down.

  “Bigfoot? Bigfoot Bob?”

  “Lady that is just not a very nice thing to say…I’ll get back to you in a minute,” the eight-footer took off after his charge—she was on the dance floor taking her bra off beneath the dress.

  “Okay, he’s a good guy and we need him boss,” Danica said it as fact and looked to her old friend in this new world.

  “What is wrong with you?” Brit asked as glass crashed near the bar. Guido just rose, knocking over the table.

  “What the fuck did you do to me?” he mumbled as his men gathered around, attempting to calm their boss. “GET OFF ME!” he shrugged a goon away. “The girl, she was talking to them,” he pointed to Warfell and Faith. “She was…talking…TO THEM!” Guido fell unconscious and twelve men in suits turned faces to the girls sitting across the bar with startled looks.

  “Yikes!”

  Danica Warfell felt at home for the first time since her strange awakening in the streets two days past as she sent her fists and feet flying into the faces and necks one after another. Her periphery caught Brittany Faith doing the impossible, spinning, kicking and punching with ineffable accuracy—felling thugs left and right. It was a crowded place, big enough that people fighting on one end had no idea what was happening fifty paces away; they just fought for personal interests.

  “Stop it kid—you’re not a kid,” Robert Johnston had picked Brit up and turned her around mid-air like a flailing doll. She growled at the beast-man and kicked him in the solar-plexus, leaping free as Robert dropped to his knees.

  “DON’T HURT HIM!” Warfell screamed with a palm up as four men dragged her away. Brit looked sideways at the knelt bear still taller than she. He smiled.

  “You are sooo very pretty,” Rob slurred as he passed out, dreaming of Faith’s big brown eyes. The pixie moved on, fighting her way to the unconscious body of Guido Sans.

  Seconds later, Danica tackled a man on the sticky floor three paces from her partner. Grinding the arm cruelly behind the back, pinching the nerves violently, she yelled in his bloody ear.

  “Where’s Mafia—where is he, TELL ME!”

  Faith stopped to watch with brows high.

  “What is wrong with you man,” she pondered, missing the goon leveling a pistol at her ponytail.

  A fist the size and feel of an iron kettle smashed that gun away and Faith turned.

  “Leave her alone, she’s just a kid, not really, but you understand.” Rob spoke to the man, following with four knuckles of pure business, “sorry.”

  “Save my life you will?” Faith whispered with a mischievous grin. She looked to Danica, now smiling, nodding.

  The house lights flooded the room with bright white, revealing the smoke, the blood, the glass on the tile. Brittany Faith crunched over to Guido Sans, heavily drugged, raising his head through sheer willpower alone.

  “Victor…kill ya,” he managed through the haze.

  “Guido Sans, by the authority of the Inner City Reformation Act and the NYPD, you have just been wounded in the field.” Brit fired her hand cannon, amputating the left leg instantly—Guido didn’t feel a thing. The pixie-devil moved eyes to Robert.

  “Would you like a real job?”

  “She has my family and won’t let them go,” Robert pointed to a now sober Isabella Frantz. Warfell closed the distance on the woman and stared her in the eyes, whispering.

  “Is this man’s family still alive? If they are dead, just tell me quietly and you can leave,” Danica asked assuredly. The woman was shaking, tears flowing down. She answered at barely a breath.

  “But they are not alive—what do I do?”

  Warfell looked back to the eight and four footers, shaking her head no. She then whipped her face back to the elegant rich-lady in the ball gown.

  “By the authority of nothing but my vengeance, you’ve just been executed in the field,” Danica’s gun touched her chin and fired before she could react—instantaneously pasting the once pretty face on the wall.

  “I’m sorry big guy, she had them killed weeks ago,” spoken with utter regret as Warfell approached her boss and friend. “We need to go.”

  “Ya think? That was Viggo’s Sister Danica. You just started…”

  “A WAR? If you knew me better, you’d know I stop wars—I end them British.”

  “You ladies are really scary, do you have a place to go? Missus Faith?” Robert was fighting past the sorrow. In the back of his mind, he already knew.

  Two hours later, Warfell, Faith and Robert Johnston paced nervously across Faith’s expansive loft apartment. Brit—British went first.

  “Just be honest with me—where are you really from?”

  “Newark,” Robert—Bigfoot answered faithfully.

  “Danica? Please?”

  Warfell moved to a large window, overlooking the fires of a war-ravaged city. She took a deep breath, turned to face Bob and Brit…

  “I am not from here, this place, this world…” she waited, nothing. “I am from a moon named Aleutha orbiting a gas giant named Ana. On my world, I hunt serial killers and I work for you, British Fey, the Daughter of the Aequitas Caelum.”

  “Who?” Bigfoot.

  “Aequitas Caelum, it means the Justice from Heaven and he is a Spirit—a very wise and powerful Ghost.” When Danica said it, Brit slowly took a seat, eyes wide in shock as though she had seen a…

  “Is your Father alive Missus Faith?” Bigfoot again.

  “No, no he’s not. He died when I was nineteen, eight years ago, but…”

  “What?” Robert leaned in, captivated.

  The girl moved her big glassy browns across the ceiling.

  “I dream about him all the time, now more than ever…he talks to me about murderers, gives me clues—answers. At dusk and dawn, I sometimes imagine I can see him,” a tear escaped. “I know it’s my sub-consciousness roaming wild at night, putting together the pieces of a case, reviewing the facts and waking with conclusions. It creeped me out at first, but I have come to accept it as a unique way my brain works.”

  Warfell left the window and sat across from the small woman with a perpetual baby face. She looked into the deep browns and took a shot.

  “You went to school with Viggo, he had long brown hair and you were in love for the only time in your bloodstained life.”

  “Anyone can find that,” Brit tried, but something inside her was screaming the truth of Warfell’s words. Danica held a finger up.

  “He murdered your sparring instructor to impress you when you were eleven—he used a technique you taught him the night before. You told no one, enemies since. The hair problem is not his trigger; it is yours—disturbs you to no end. You are a virgin, having never slept with a man because you believe you still look like a child. You have however, slept with women out of necessity for that human touch and love your Soul so desperately needs. You keep a diary of cases. You insert poems—you are the Misanthrope…”

  “Stop, please. Nobody can know these things,” Brit’s face was now awash with tears. She stared deep into Danica’s eyes. “Who are you?”


  “Your best friend on any world, and I love you with all of my heart.”

  “Okay…okay why aren’t you freaking out?” Brit.

  “I’m freaking out,” Bob.

  “What’s freaking out?” Danica.

  “Going insane,” the pixie.

  “I’m not crazy, but you both are,” the giant.

  “Damn good question,” the high elf stopped it. “I learned a long time ago to keep my calm when thrust into a strange atmosphere or environment. Pausing to reflect gets you killed. This has really been the first chance. I could be dreaming, in a coma, dead.” Warfell trailed away.

  “If I were to subscribe to a parallel universe theory, I could just as easily adapt a belief of psychics. You may be gifted and just know these things. What else do you know about me?” Brit was gathering her composure, regretting the question the second Danica began.

  “You have a mole shaped like a pair of rabbit ears right next to your…”

  “GOT IT!” Faith stood at attention to the one thing only a few women knew about her, so small was the mole it could only be seen from inches… “Did we?”

  “No, Alorica told me.”

  Brit thrust herself back into the chair, eyes popping. She slept with a dancer in a Tibetan Bar named Alorica…

  ”Oh my God.”

  Danica woke before dawn on the padded leather couch. Across from her, Robert slumbered like a hibernating grizzly, appendages splayed about over the undersized loveseat. She heard a voice…British’s voice whispering.

  “I don’t understand, yes Sir…I need answers Da…” Brit abruptly stopped and Warfell knew she was aware. She tapped on the thick wooden door quietly.

  “British? Are you awake? Where’s the loo—I can’t find the loo,” she tried to cover her eavesdropping with a line of shit. “I gotta go honey…Brit?”

  The door opened and Brit stood there in the soft light grinning. “You don’t have to poo, come here you,” she motioned with a finger and Danica got nervous, thinking, criminy, I cannot poke the boss—I really gotta take a…

  “Relax dumbass, sit on the bed and clear your thoughts,” Brit requested, Warfell complied and the girl sat next to her. A long moment passed as Danica awkwardly stared at the Salvador Dali reprint on the wall...

  “Can you see him?” she whispered and Danica looked again with an open mind. Slowly, in the painting, an image of a tall robed man appeared. He pulled back the hood and smiled at Warfell. Then he smiled wider, wider still until the face was twisting apart like the objects in the picture. The mangled visage spoke to Warfell as it dissolved.

  Be calm Swordsman. I put you here to save your life—you are below the surface strata, critically wounded and buried. Do not struggle against this, it is keeping your mind active and the adrenaline flowing while we search.

  Understand these words…you have less than three days before your body dies beneath Ft. Salvos from the wounds. Creatures are already gathering, waiting patiently to pick your bones. When you die in the dungeon, you are stuck here forever. I need you to be strong. Do not speak of this to Brittany Faith…

  “Well, did you see him?” Faith whispered again, hoping.

  She paused, quickly gathering her wits. “No…I…I do not,” Warfell replied to British. “Wish I did, sorry.”

  “Then maybe we’re both crazy. Danica, I need you to know and I don’t know why, but I believe you—now what?”

  “We have a war to end. I need to tell you something…” Warfell told Brit about the White Mountain Massacre and what she did to the Generals and Politicians inside the garrison, leaving nothing out…Soldiers stop fighting, armies go home when the Commanders are slaughtered and served for supper piping hot.

  Soon afterwards, Faith stood resolutely in front of her Chief, arms crossed over her flat chest, foot tapping.

  “It’s not good enough Brittany. Dammit girl, I’ve known you for five years—best cop I’ve got, but I’m not gonna do it; get her out of my office, she doesn’t even have a driver’s license.”

  “Chief, my word is good. I served with this woman.”

  “Get out of my office. Faith, you bring her into the field again and I got no choice here. Do not do it, video feed has already come back from your little fiasco last night. And who is the goddamned Gigantor leaving with you? Faith, if you are thinking what I think you are, just give me the badge now. Get out of my office and take Elsa here with you. Listen to me Faith—I know you want to do the right thing, or you believe it is right, but someone is going to cut you down by the roots if you don’t watch it. AND YOU! Shooting the Sister of one of New York’s most powerful crime lords? Who the fuck do you think you are? Get out of my office; you both make me sick—FAITH! I’m not kidding. Listen to my words…GET OUT OF MY OFFICE!”

  “He loves me like a Daughter,” Brittany Faith said to Warfell as they approached her meager desk. She opened a drawer, retracted a second gun, stuffed it in the back of her pants, and flopped her badge down next to the keyboard. “Won’t be coming back here again. Warfell ol’ buddy, I need to show you my tool shed…”

  Brit drove Danica to an underground parking garage, noting how the tall wraith gripped the dashboard fiercely when the Tesla took the ramp below the city streets. Three levels down, they came to a rolling bay door. Faith pressed a console button and the steel armadillo skin raised. She eased the Tesla in and fluorescent tubes popped on in succession row after row, revealing a well-stocked man/girl cave.

  Another identical Tesla, a racing motorcycle, a dirt bike and a thirty-year-old, bright white pickup truck raised up on massive mud tires. The walls held a twenty-foot pegboard packed with every firearm made and enough ammunition to supply a small army.

  Warfell moved to a smaller wall with bladed weapons, roving her blues over a Longsword with short quillons and a deep blood-groove.

  “Take it if you like it,” Brit said. Danica did, immediately carrying the weapon to a workbench to outfit a strap for the leather scabbard.

  “We need to go get Bigfoot,” Warfell.

  “In a minute…grab what you need or want and put it in the back of Snowflake,” said as Brit removed two riot shotguns.

  “What did you say?” Warfell hefted a sniper rifle.

  “The big beautiful white truck—in the back. That’s my baby.”

  Warfell turned her head and smiled wide…

  ”But of course,” she said. Now Faith was opening a thick steel door—the one with her highly illegal compressed hydrogen canisters, incendiary grenades, napalm, and RPGs behind it. “Ello my pretties,” the pixie cooed and walked inside holding a duffle bag as if to catch the boom-boom butterflies.

  Danica liked the pickup truck a lot—it was loud, big as the Seven Hells and considerably slower than the pitch-black Tesla. She noticed Brit sitting on an upraised seat, how strange, but fitting. This motor burned fuel—she could smell it. They made the parking lobby of Brit’s apartment building in thirty minutes.

  On the lift, Warfell listened to the unusual voice of a woman called Gaga. “Is this music?” she asked her friend.

  “Nope.” The lift bell chimed on the top floor penthouse. A woman was at the door.

  “Lady Faith, there is a brute here. Says he knows you—I have him in the sitting room,” she had long straight salt and pepper hair, shiny black eyes and the body of an athlete. “You have a guest…” the woman scurried away, pointing a finger to the living room and Robert Johnston, face down, bound from head to toe with climbing rope, gag in his mouth, eyes pleading to the girls for rescue.

  “Warfell, I’d like you to meet my Manager, Mishu. She maintains the apartment, takes care of me. She is trusted.” Brit pulled the gag free of Bigfoot’s mouth.

  “Missus Brittany, your maid does not like me at all,” Robert said. Brit started on the miasma of knots, giggling as she worked. Mishu approached with coffee for Warfell as Brit freed the big man.

  “Oh she likes you quite a bit Robert. You said or did something to charm he
r, or I wouldn’t be setting you free—I’d be helping to drag you to the window for flight lessons, ha!”

  “Do you have pay per view?” the big man asked. “I need to show you something…

  “That one, last year’s championship bout: Mangler versus Macho,” Robert pointed to the screen selection and Faith clicked the fight. “Fast forward to the punching part,” he directed and Faith complied. Thirty seconds later, Danica, Brittany and Mishu moved their astonished blues, browns and blacks to the behemoth sitting in front of the screen, grinning ear-to-ear like a kid, throwing mock punches in the air.

  On that screen an eight-foot monster of rippling muscles and rage brutally tore the arm away from the shoulder assembly of his opponent, throwing the limb into the crowd, howling like a mad man and then crushing his fist into and through the cranium, killing the poor sod instantly, ending the match two minutes into the first round.

  “That’s me…I won that fight.”

  “No shit?”

  “Are you the Mangler?” Warfell asked.

  “Yeah, my stage name—look, it was a you-nanny-muss decision!”

  “Ya think?”

  “Mishu, do you take up arms, or will you? Anyone who can do what you did to Bigfoot Bob must be formidable,” Danica asked when they were eating.

  “Only to protect Miss Faith or this building,” she answered solemnly.

  “The building?” Robert asked between mouthfuls.

  “My family owns this high rise and one more in the warzone—lost for now,” Brit answered Rob. “The lower levels are carefully selected tenants with lots of money. Above them are computer banks and hardware, three floors of just electronics. We rent the system to the highest bidder. Right now it’s Gravari Securities. They monitor the Federal Feed for the private sector.”

  “Are the Gravari’s triplets named Logos, Ethos and Pathos?” Danica asked.