Chapter 29

Yes, that is really what I did. Cold-cocked, you don’t know what that means? OK, I hit her.

Yes, I hit her, it was the only thing I could do. What, do you want me to tell you what happened or not?

Well, something that Dianne-Dire Wolf, Chris-Bohica, and Alicia-Gabor had told me all came to me right before that. Especially Gabe telling me that they had to at least have some clarity to change their forms. Di was in incredible pain, probably shock, and likely could not think straight. And she had been for the longest time insisting that much of this had to be engineered, in a way to keep us alive. Even what Gabe had told me, about the effects of body parts when they transformed.

It was a gamble, but the only one I could think of before she bled out. I hit with just the right amount of force, and Fang barely started to growl when he gave a small yelp. And as I saw Dire Wolf’s eyes roll back in their sockets and close, a moment later it was Dianne Wong sprawled in front of me.

A pool of blood on the ground, but thank goodness no body organs. I reached out and checked her pulse, and it was weak and fast but there. I looked at Mister Jangles, and it was obvious he was concerned. “Buddy, I had to do that. She could not change, and she had to change. Here, lie with her. She needs your body heat.”

I had him lie along her body, and pulled out the mylar blanket from another of his pouches and covered both of them with it. I checked her pulse again, and it was the same. I then got on the radio.

“Control, get an ambulance to West Elmore and Jefferson. Civilian down, I recognize her from Control. It’s that blind woman, I have her under a silver blanket behind a car.”

I was already up and moving, changing to the command frequency. “Bo, we have a casualty, I want you to move towards Riverside, I have a feeling he is heading to the river. Racer, you keep up the sweep. Dire Wolf, you head towards the vic, make sure there are no other casualties. Feather, I want you to drop down to the street and check out the civilian casualty. Any location on Dagger before you do?”

“Sensei, he moved east one block, but I lost sight of him. I have your drone overhead, I see nothing.”

I was moving as fast as I could, using the four legged lope I rarely used to leap over cars until I got to the corner. I looked around it, and saw nothing. I started to move north, and stopped. The manhole towards the east side was partially open. It was in the shadow of a minivan, and the street had recently been repaved. That was why Feather likely could not see it from the drone.

I pulled it completely open, and heard splashing to the north. I got back up as I moved as fast as I could, following manholes every block as I directed the others to their positions. By that time Feather had reached Di, and said she was unconscious but stable and the ambulance was a block away. I figured I was now about two blocks north of where El Daga del Diablo was, and in my head I went through what I knew of the street drainage system. In another block if I was right, there would be an intersection. And one channel would go east to the river.

I directed Racer to where the manhole I first saw open was and told him to be the “back door”. I then ordered Bohica to drop in two blocks north of where I was. “I’m about to go in, and the radio may not work. Hold those positions, I will try and flush him out.”

I growled, and dropped into the hole. Glad that I was able to fit as I dropped almost six feet into darkness.

I crouched down and started to slowly move west. I could hear the splashing growing closer, but I got to the intersection first. It was like a T, and if I was right Bohica was about now dropping in a similar hole to my left. And to my right, would be Racer, and between him and me El Daga del Diablo. I crouched on the ground and waited.

The splashing footsteps were growing closer, and I waited. Taking deep breaths, knowing that I had to take him out fast. And running through my head his known powers. Healing factor, speed, able to materialize steel daggers with force.

I could hear he was almost there, and I came out around the corner. And I will give him this much, he was fast. I felt one dagger hit me in the shoulder, and another pass over my head. But I was already upon him.

I clenched my fingers together into a cone, and thrust. Hitting him right in the abdomen, the pseudo-claws at the end of my fingers digging into his body. My fist was in his guts. He gave a loud grunt, and staggered back. He looked down, and I saw that even as my fist was withdrawing, the wound was closing. Holy shit, that guy did have a high healing factor! Even higher than mine!

He then cackled in Spanish, saying I would have to do better than that. Then he cast several more daggers at me, one hitting my arm and another my chest. I slammed my fist out again, puncturing his abdomen and pushing him against the wall.

Then the feeling of his body trying to heal, with my fist still in his body. I pulled my hand out, and he just laughed. “I can’t die like this, asshole. You can’t kill me! But I killed that Chink whore, her guts are on the street as she is cooling right now!” I roared as I felt three daggers slam into my back, and knew this could not go on.

And I reached up, grasping his chin with one hand and the back of his head with the other. Then with as much force as I could muster, I pulled. And almost like the movies, I could hear the “crack” as I pulled, and could feel a crunching sensation in my hands as I twisted his head so he was almost looking behind himself at the cement tunnel.

And as in the movies, I could feel his entire weight with my hands as he lost all sensation below his neck. I lowered him there onto his back in the dirty street water, and saw his eyes were almost panicked looking. His mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out.

“Wrong, you piece of filth” I said. “She’s not dead, she is going to be just fine. What, nothing to say?” I had turned his face so he was looking into mine, and I smiled.

“El Daga del Diablo, what a load of shit. You are just another piece of crap, and you are going nowhere.” I could see his lips were turning blue, and then I heard him gasp. And I looked closer, he was fucking breathing again!

I grasped his head and twisted again in the other direction. And the snapping sound was repeated, but not as loudly. And again he was silent and not breathing. “What, you thought you could heal your way out of this? What, so you can escape again? Guess again, you are going nowhere. No escape for you, soon you will be meeting el Diablo yourself.”

And as I said this, I punched my fist into his body cavity three more times. On the final one opening my fingers and moving them around, likely tearing up his inner organs. I saw his eyes roll up in his skull, but he did not pass out. And now his entire face was blue, not just his lips.

“No, you fucking piece of shit. There is no prison for you, no court, only Saint Peter will be judging you before sending you where you belong. You got me?” I twisted his neck again, and was looking into his eyes as the lids finally drooped, and he was gone.

I yelled down the channel for Bohica and Racer to come to me as I removed the radio from my belt. I dropped it into the water, and then crushed it with my foot. Racer got there first, and he grunted in shock at the scene. He was just removing the last of almost a dozen daggers from my back when Bohica arrived. I had no idea he had gotten me so many times.

“Holy shit, what happened?”

“He caught me as I came around the corner. It was pretty brutal, but I finally took him down. Lost my radio in the fight, no idea where it is. Racer, can you go topside and tell Control where we are?” He nodded and ran to where the cover I used to enter was.

Bo looked into my face, and shook his head. And in a soft voice asked “Di?”

“He got her, Bo. Got her bad. Bo, her guts were falling out! I did the only thing I could think of, that was to knock her out. But it worked, she reverted as soon as she was unconscious.”

He rested his hand on my shoulder, and nodded. “And him?”

“He was fucking bragging he killed her, called her ‘Puta China’, or ‘Chink Whore’. And I knew he could not be allowed to live. So I killed him, broke his neck.”

Bo looked at the rips in the front of his shirt, and shook his head. “Dude, you did more than that. The look in his eyes is pure horror, you gutted him also. Healing factor?”

I nodded. “One of the highest I have ever seen. His body was trying to heal even with my hand inside of him. Even his neck started to heal and he started to breathe again. So I put my fist in him over and over again, and broke his neck a second time. I think that overloaded his body. It saw the penetrations as the worst damage, not knowing that his not being able to breathe would kill him first. He died right before I called you to join me.”

He shook his head and sighed. “And that is how we will report it. You fought him, had no choice, I got here after he fell. And this is where the Devil’s Dagger ends.”

Thankfully a few minutes later the Control Response team arrived, and started to take photos and collect the evidence as we headed out. A few minutes later a bus arrived to take Bo to Control for debrief, and I shook my head and jogged to my trike. I could not get inside the bus, and did not feel up to crawling onto the roof.

First we had a full debrief with Racer and Feather, and Bohica. They gave their sides of what had happened, then Feather asked where Dire Wolf was.

“Feather, she is in Chinatown, trying to find out who it was he killed. His name is Frank Choy, a businessman. She has connections there that can help us run this down I hope.” One thing about Dr. Tran, he was fast on his feet.

Soon the debrief ended, and Racer and Feather left. He looked at both of us, and sighed. And I could tell from the look in his eyes he was not taking this well. “Doc, how is Di?”

“Clint, she’s going to be fine. I admit that was unorthodox, but it worked. She is still unconscious, but they think she will make a full recovery. Now, off the record what are you not telling me?”

And I told him everything. He looked at me hard as I repeated it, but at the end nodded. “So you know, this will never go into a report. I have to report it to another, but it will be verbal only. There was no other choice?”

“Doc, I was there when Racer was pulling out the daggers. Clint here had around eighteen of them in his body, and that was just from the sewer fight. And at least another dozen on the surface where they first fought. If it had continued, eventually he would have gotten lucky and we would have lost him also. You know how I feel about killing, but he had no choice. No more than I did when The Punisher attacked me. Sometimes, these guys are just too dangerous to let live.”