James Axler – Cold Asylum

Jericho was stomping around in steel-tipped boots, hands clasped above his head, trying to psych the boy out. But Michael ignored him. He looked out above the tips of the trees, his dark eyes half-closed, his black hair, which betrayed his Crow ancestry, gleamed in the afternoon sunlight.

“No contest,” Mandeville said loudly.

“Wrong, Father.”

“What? You think that stripling boy has a chance, Marie? Seriously?”

“A wager, Father?”

“What?”

“If the outlander wins, then he dines with me in my rooms tonight.”

“And if he loses?”

Marie waved a slender hand dismissively. “Then let him dine alone with Jericho.”

Guiteau muffled a laugh.

Michael heard the noise and half turned. Ryan caught his eye and nodded slowly. The young man responded with a broad, confident smile.

“On with it,” Mandeville ordered, “or the day will be gone. Both ready?” Jericho saluted his master, and Michael dropped into a fighting crouch.

“A moment.”

Mandeville looked at Ryan. “What is it?”

“If my friend damages your man?”

“Then the fool deserves to be damaged, outlander. But I wouldn’t worry about that. Worry for the skinny boy once Jericho lays hands on him.”

But Jericho never really laid hands on Michael.

He moved in with all of the leering confidence of the successful bully, fingers crooked, intending to pull the younger, lighter, shorter man into his grasp and then rend and utterly destroy him.

During his lifetime at the reclusive monastery of Nil-Vanity, Michael had become an advanced master of the esoteric Oriental martial art of Tao-Tain-do, a skill that had turned him into the fastest fighting machine that Ryan or J.B. had ever seen.

He moved in a blur of action, feinting to duck away from Jericho, then closing with him and dropping beneath the gripping hands. The watchers gasped as the slightly built youth appeared behind the blundering jailer, snatching at his left arm and wrenching it behind the man’s sweating, oiled back, bringing him to his knees, crying out in pain, face whitening.

“Submit?” Michael asked, as calmly as if he were asking whether Jericho would perhaps tike more beans with his pork.

“No, nofuck you! Yeah, yeah. I give in. You’re breaking my fucking wrist.”

The teenager stepped away, turning toward Ryan and the others, unable to conceal a small smile of triumph. Marie Mandeville tapped her father on his arm.

“I win,” she said.

“I guess”

While Michael’s back was turned, Jericho lunged at him, driving up from his beaten position on his knees, smashing a huge fist into his ribs.

Ryan jumped to his feet, the SIG-Sauer drawn and cocked.

But Guiteau was faster, almost as if he’d second-guessed Jericho and anticipated Ryan’s reaction. He had his own blaster out, the barrel pressed into the one-eyed man’s spine. “Sit down,” he said quietly.

In the brief time that the exchange took, the fight had moved on.

The cowardly punch sent Michael staggering to his right, away from the furious jailer. The boy’s face had gone sheet-white, except for a spot of crimson on each cheekbone. He rubbed the spot where the blow had landed, turning to confront his opponent.

“Stop it, Baron,” Mildred called, but Mandeville ignored her.

“Tricked me, you little shit heap,” Jericho hissed.

“You gave in.”

“Sure. Just to make you let go my arm. No submission this time, outlander.”

“No,” Michael agreed, his color returning. “No submission this time.”

He started to skip lightly on his toes from side to side, jigging back and forth. Someone in the crowd giggled and Jericho frowned. “Stand still and take it, you brownholin’ little bastard!”

Ryan was watching intently, but it was so lightning-swift that he missed it. The young man darted in, seeming to flick contemptuously at the jailer’s face. There was a light crack, as though someone had slapped a naughty child across the back of the legs.

“Blessed Jesus!” The voice belonged to an elderly woman, bursting out of the crowd in shock.

Jericho had sunk slowly to his knees, both hands gripping his throat. His mouth gaped open, and he seemed to be battling to draw breath. The only sound in the sudden stillness was the harsh cry of a peacock, near the water.