"The Mongoose Hunts Alone"
"The Mongoose Hunts Alone"
8/31/1988
I.
When he heard the gunshot from inside the house, Jeremy Bane broke into a full sprint across the huge front yard. He was not wearing the field suit with all its gadgets tonight but he still carried several concealed weapons and wore the full body armor under his black slacks, turtleneck and jacket. And of course, he seldom went anywhere without the matched silver daggers sheathed under his sleeves.
As he vaulted up the front steps onto the porch, a second shot sounded within. The Dire Wolf flung the screen door open, swiveled his body sideways and blasted out a straight side punch that snapped the lock and slammed the door inward with one hinge torn loose. In that same continuous motion, Bane leaped through the opening in a crouch, the dart gun swinging in his left door in an arc from side to side. In a tiny fraction of a second, he took in details of everyone in that room and was ready to deal with them. The room itself was almost bare, with only two chairs, a coffee table and single lamp standing in one corner.
There were three dead men on the floor. Bane knew from their postures and the arrangement of their limbs that two had been shot while trying to run and the third had been struck down with lethal impact.
Four living people were beginning to react to his sudden entrance. One was a woman in her mid-twenties... thin, red-haired with a white Stetson pushed back on her head and sporting a twin-holstered gunbelt holding Colt .45 revolvers. One was an Asian man about thirty, probably Korean, short but sturdily built, no visible weapons. The third was a black man, West African and not American judging by his facial bone structure and skin tone. He was immense, at least six feet six inches tall, lanky with long arms and legs.
The fourth man was elderly, at least in his seventies, with a thick mane of silver-white hair over a proud hawklike face. Bane's instant analysis warned him that this man was possibly even more dangerous than the other three. All these impressions raced through his mind almost instantaneously and he was moving into action before the four people began to respond to his appearance.
He had decided to take out the redhead first, because her guns were the most immediate threat and because of the implication that she had been the one who had killed two of the corpses on the floor. The Dire Wolf extended his arm full-length and triggered the air-powered gun with its soft coughing retort. To his complete surprise, the young woman was already hopping to one side and the dart missed her entirely. This caught him off-guard. All his life, Bane's enhanced reflexes had given him an advantage over normal Humans and he had not expected her to be moving at his rate. Far too fast for any normal quick-draw expert to match, the redhead whipped up her right-hand Colt and fired twice with bright white flashes from the barrel. The shots were deafening in the enclosed space. Bane took both bullets high on the chest, and although the impacts stung viciously, his Trom armor under his clothes dispersed the force enough that he remained on his feet.
She did not get a third attempt. The Dire Wolf bracketed her with two quick shots and one of the anesthetic darts pierced the thin flannel of her work shirt right below the sternum. The woman felt a sharp sting and a burning sensation, but the Trom-formula drug dazed her instantly and within another second she was sagging to the floor with the Colt falling from a limp grasp.
An enormous dark hand clamped tight around Bane's extended arm with agonizing tightness, cutting off the circulation. The dart gun dropped as Bane's grip was loosened. The Dire Wolf swung his body toward his attacker, slamming the heel of his free hand up under the man's chin so hard that the jaws clapped audibly shut. At the same time, Bane had hooked his foot behind the African's ankle and tugged sharply to throw the man off-balance. As his opponent lurched to one side, the Dire Wolf threw a backfist that cracked like a whip. The big man's head twitched but he did not fall as Bane had expected; instead, the African fighter rumbled deep in his chest and clutched at his much smaller foe.
Something unforseen was going on here, Bane thought. He knew his capabilities and he was at peak tonight. To match his speed and strength, as these characters were doing, was unexpected. But there was no time to think it over. As those huge open hands reached for him, the Dire Wolf chambered his left leg and drove his boot deep into the man's hard-muscled abdomen. The black man doubled up as air was forced from his lungs and this brought his head down to where Bane could belt a hard left hook to the cheek. As his opponent fell to one knee in dazed confusion, Bane swung around to check what the others were about to do.
He turned barely in time to roll with a high kick to the head that might have killed an unprepared man. As it was, that slippered foot grazed his jaw. It was the young Korean, spinning to throw a reverse roundhouse kick with the other leg. Bane swayed his upper body enough that the blow passed by him a hair's width away, and he immediately lunged in to catch the Korean with an uppercut that connected perfectly. The young Asian dropped back a step. Bane began a front shin kick that abruptly changed a high reverse crescent which smacked against his opponent's temple like a hammer. The Korean reeled back, raising his hands in automatic defense.
From the corner of his eye, Bane saw the big African coming at him again. This was getting annoying. The Dire Wolf met him with two left-right hooks that sounded like gunshots but still the giant did not fall. Bane lost his temper at the stubbornness of these two fighters. He exploded a wide roundhouse blow that spun the African entirely off his feet to crash onto a coffee table and wreck it. The Korean was attacking again. No ordinary Humans, no matter how tough, could shrug off blows the way these two were doing.
Normally, Bane restrained himself slightly in fights to keep from killing everyone he faced. With these two, however, he seemed to be facing his peers and he could cut loose. The young Asian threw a straight right. Bane stepped past it, seized that wrist with his own right hand and yanked the man's arm out straight, pulling him into a left backfist that smacked right above the eyebrows. The Korean's eyes rolled up to show only whites and he fell backwards without trying to catch himself. The other man was stirring feebly amidst the wreckage of the shattered coffee table and he was not going to be a threat for a few more minutes.
Who were these people, he wondered. They couldn't be Melgarin, not an African and an Asian. Not Gelydrim, either. But then what was their secret? How had they been meeting him on equal terms? Even as these thoughts crossed his mind, Bane wheeled to see the white-haired man pointing a small .25 Beretta Brigadier right at him. Against any common thug, the Dire Wolf would have been inclined to trust his body armor would protect him and a head shot was unlikely considering how quickly he moved. But with foes of this caliber, he didn't think the risk was justified. He stayed where he was and awaited the next move.
The old man was well-dressed in a lightweight white summer suit with a bolo tie. The dark blue eyes were sharp and alert under spiky white brows. His gunhand was perfectly steady. "Even for an Amrath, you're exceptional," he announced. "Still, no Snake man has ever been able to escape a shot from Jefferson Aubrey Pierce!"
II.
The Dire Wolf was already scowling, but now his eyes narrowed to slits. Amrath? He opened his mouth to protest but the old man motioned him to be silent. A board squeaked under pressure outside, so faint that only the fact everyone was motionless made it audible. There was the scrape of leather against wood, just as faint but closer. Pierce's eyes flickered for an instant toward the broken door and that was all the opening Bane needed. His hand flashed and, like a conjuring trick, a slim throwing dagger spun end over end to slice across the old man's wrist. Pierce gasped and involuntarily clasped his free hand to the shallow gash in his skin. Even as the silver blade slid over that wrist, Bane had closed the distance between them and wrested the Beretta free. He stepped back and retrieved his dagger from where it had fallen, keeping it in his other hand. Most combat experts dismissed the effectiveness of throwing knives except as distractions or in desperation, but Bane had developed extraordinary skill with those perfectly balanced knives.
Behind him, the Dire Wolf could sense the Asian and the African rising again. They had recovered from punishment that would hospitalize normal people. He had to get some answers fast. "Tell your friends to stand down," he ordered. "I took them both on without being armed. Who are you guys?"
The man who had introduced himself as Jefferson Aubrey Pierce drew himself up defiantly and placed fists on hips. "Kill me if you will, you cold-blooded reptile. You know perfectly well who Mongoose is. We have exterminated enough of your kind."
"Cold-blooded...? You think I'm a Snake man, is that it?"
"With those eyes? And the way you manhandled both Kim and Njimi, what else could you be but a Snake man? An Amrath, most likely." Pierce snorted. "Go ahead, shoot and be damned."
Lowering the Beretta slightly, Bane tilted his head. "This is unexpected. If you know about Snake men and Amraths, you must be in the Midnight War. I'm a little disappointed you don't recognize me."
For the first time, the old man's stern mask softed perceptibly. "Should I, suh?"
"Well, my name is Jeremy Bane. I'm a knight of Tel Shai and chairman of the Kenneth Dred Foundation. Some people call me the Dire Wolf."
"I knew Kenneth Dred," Pierce admitted. "But that was long ago. He had no son and no followers."
"I was Mr Dred's agent and protege for the final years of his life," Bane said. "He left me everything. I've been trying to carry on his work with a team of fellow Tel Shai knights." The hint of a wry smile touched the corners of his mouth. "My vanity is deflated, I guess, that you don't..."
In mid-sentence, Bane twisted around and again there was a flash of silver as he flung his dagger. In the doorway behind him, a man in dark clothing clawed at his neck but the blade had severed his windpipe and he was already dying as he toppled. His gaping mouth revealing sharp fangs where the upper canines should have been.
"I was expecting one of them," the Dire Wolf said, moving a few feet to one side where he could watch everyone. "All of you, stay put. Settle down. You can see your lady friend is breathing, she's just under an anesthetic. I think we might be on the same side."
"You... you killed him," Pierce muttered. "No Snake man would slay one of his own. It is their strongest taboo. You can't be a Serpent, then."
"I already told you who I am," Bane retorted. "I can show you my New York State PI license if you want. The question now is who you four might be."
"Very well," the old man agreed. "As I said, I am Jefferson Aubrey Pierce, late of Richmond, Virginia. The young lady you drugged is Susan Cody, formerly of El Paso, Texas. That young fellow there is Kim Chi Sung, a Korean student of Hapkido, and his tall friend is Njimi Shambasi, a wrestler from the nation of Danarak. We are sadly all that remains of the once proud Mongoose sect."
"Mongoose!" Bane said. "Of course I have heard of the Mongoose sect. Very secretive, dating back hundreds of years. The sect is supposed to be Humans dedicated to warring on the Snake men. There was a motto, let me think, 'Where the Mongoose stalks--"
"--The Serpent flees," Pierce finished for him. "Our numbers have dwindled over the years. I can tell you that we use a secret Velkandu serum to intensify our natural abilities. It's not surprising that our paths have never crossed, Mr Bane. The Mongoose hunts alone, it is a solitary animal."
Bane did not say so, but he remembered from Kenneth Dred's notes what the serum was. It combined the dangerous Tao-tsin crystals with Tagra extract. Also called Velocitin, Tao-tsin by itself sped up a person's reflexes but at a price of cardiac damage. Somehow, the Mongoose sect had gotten hold of some Tagra plants which were otherwise only available at Tel Shai. The Tagra allowed safe use of Tao-tsin for a while at least. But he saw no reason to reveal his knowledge. "Damn," he said. "I should have figured this out sooner. We must be working the same mission from different angles. I received a tip from one of my informers that Venom himself was going to be here tonight."
"That is why we came here also," Pierce said. "Kim, Njimi, help Sue up onto that couch. How long will she be slumbering, suh?"
"An hour at least," admitted Bane, "But I have an antidote that will revive her. She might be bilious and irritable for a while after waking."
"She is like that in any case. Hurry and restore her, if you will. Venom and his squad of Amraths may be here at any moment and we will need our full number."
Bane decided to trust these people. His reading of Pierce's body language and vocal patterns indicated the old man speaking the truth as he knew it, so he handed the Beretta back to Pierce. After retrieving and cleaning his dagger on the dead Snake man's clothing, he went to where the redhead was snoring gently on the worn-out couch. The Dire Wolf took a flat metal case from an inside jacket pocket and selected one of the five color-coded syringes to inject Sue Cody in the forearm. He pinched and rubbed the skin at the site, saw her face flush hot pink and stepped back. "She'll wake up in a minute or less," he told the others. Finally, he had an opportunity to fetch his dart gun from where it had fallen only a few minutes earlier.
"That will be not a minute too soon," Kim told him. "Look outside. Headlights."
"Damn," Bane said. "I had hoped to ambush those serpents at dawn, when they're at their most sluggish. But since I rather rashly knocked the door down and there isn't time to hide all these bodies, I guess a direct confrontation is the best way to go. What do you say, Mongoose, are you up to a fight?"
"Nothing I like better," laughed the big Danarakan.
"It's what we live for," Kim agreed.
Sitting up on the couch, Sue Cody was brushing out her hair with her fingers, shaking her head and getting her bearings. "What the HAYLL is goin' on here, chief?"
Pierce hastily helped her stand. "Venom is pulling up outside with his squad, Susan. Our new friend here is going to assist us in destroying them. Are you ready?"
"What? Really?" She straightened up and loosened her Colts in their holsters. "Sure, never more ready. Whar I come from, we step on snakes!"
"There's a second set of headlights now," Pierce announced, standing alongside the front window. "I expect some of them will be sent to guard the rear. Kim, Njimi, you lads go out the back door and intercept them, eh?"
"Right," said the towering Danarakan. From behind the couch, he picked up an axe handle that had been wrapped in black electrical tape. He and the Korean fighter rushed from the room toward the rear of the house. Left behind, Pierce examined his Beretta and gave Bane a nod before heading toward the opening where the front door still dangled from one hinge.
"I feel like death warmed over from whatever you knocked me out with," Sue snarled as she jabbed an accusing finger at the Dire Wolf. "When this is over, you and me are gonna have words, old son."
"Worry about the next few minutes. When you see me move, both of you turn your heads and close your eyes." Bane moved past where Pierce stood alongside the doorway and stepped boldly out onto the porch to be exposed by headlights shining directly on him.
III.
Two gleaming black sedans had pulled to a halt facing the bungalow, and eight figures in dark suits had emerged. Each car had a Snake man remaining at the wheel. Most of the creatures were holding pistols. Bane stepped down the front steps to stand boldly in plain view, hands down by his sides. He knew Snake men were proud creatures driven by status. They respected courage if nothing else and his defiance would stir them to react.
Sure enough, the dominent one among them strode ahead of the crowd. He was wearing a neatly tailored black business suit, and he unbuttoned the jacket as he moved. An inch over six feet tall, weighing a taut two hundred pounds, Venom was recognizable by his strongly arched nose and the thick black hair combed straight back off a high forehead. He obviously recognized the Human standing in his path. "You...!" he hissed. In his grinning mouth, the upper canines lengthened to reveal themselves as sharp fangs glistening with poison. Hardly noticed in the tense confrontation, two of the humanoid reptiles separated to circle the house and head toward its rear.
Bane did not speak. He had already taken two small metal globes from an inner pocket of his jacket and now he hurled them directly above the cluster of Snake men. The dazzlers were not as powerful as the flashbang grenades used by SWAT teams but their detonations still changed the night into a blinding white radiance and they cracked a sharp thunder that could be felt as a slap against exposed skin. The Snake men had instinctively looked up to see what had been thrown and now they were all effectively blind and deaf for the next minute. Despite their confusion, the creatures drew closer together as they opened fire without being able to clearly see any targets.
Before Bane could act further, Sue Cody shoved past him with a Colt in each hand. She began shooting quickly and accurately, alternating from one gun to the other. It was extremely rare to see any sharpshooter who could use both hands with equal dexterity. The Velkandu serum which Mongoose members took not only increased their speed and strength, it also honed their co-ordination to a fine point. One after another, the Snake men dropped with holes punched in their heads or chests. Only a few managed wild shots of their own which went into the air. Watching with admiration, Bane thought that if Dandelion had an equal in deadliness, it would be in this angry young Texan woman.
Only Venom himself was left standing. Sue smiled wickedly and raised her right, but the Dire Wolf forced it firmly down. The redhead jerked away and yelled, "Don't you EVER touch my gunhand, you damfool!" She hopped to one side and aimed at him instead.
"We need this one for questioning," Bane replied without being intimidated in the slightest.
"Come forward, Dire Wolf," Venom called in his cold tones. He yanked his necktie off and shrugged out of his suitjacket, then curled his hands into fists. "I have long awaited our meeting."
Answering the challenge, Bane likewise took off his jacket and dropped it on the porch. Against a serious opponent, the jacket offered too much loose material to be grabbed. He removed the needle-nosed dart gun from its holster behind his left hip and placed it on top of his jacket. If it came to grappling, he didn't want Venom to be able to seize the weapon and use it against him. Venom himself was well known to scorn carrying a firearm. He moved forward and his enemy stepped over to the most open space away from all the dead bodies. The two remaining Snake men remained in their cars and gave no sign of intending to intervene.
Venom's real name was Cir'Willa Shar and he was almost eighty years old. He was an Amrath, one of a subspecies of Snake men who had been bred for thousands of years to have more potent poison sacs beneath their fangs than the others of their Race, and he had been raised from infancy in fighting skill and assassination technique. Even for an Amrath, Venom was exceptional. He was the champion of his Race. As far as Bane knew, only Shiro Mitsuru had ever successfully fought with this creature and that had been a hard-fought struggle which could have gone either way. Venom had been at a disadvantage because he was posing as Human and could not use his fangs openly. He suffered no such restriction now.
Because of his years on the Tagra tea diet, Bane thought he could survive a bite from a Snake man long enough to recover and possibly make an incision to squeeze some of the poison out. But of course, during combat he would not have that opportunity. A bite would weaken him so much that Venom could quickly finish him off. Despite the risk, the thought of passing up this confrontation did not occur to him. Bane thought that if he could beat this monster hand to hand, it might break Venom's sense of worth enough to open him up for questioning. Snake men did not experience fear and had a high pain threshhold, so it was difficult to get any information from them.
For several tense minutes, the two fighters circled each other at ten feet apart. Each was studying the other's movements, judging balance and co-ordination, watching how their opponent placed his weight and how he responded to every move the other made. In their minds, Bane and Venom played out various attacks and tried to calculate what response would be made. It was as complicated and far-seeing as any chess match. Then, like tigers springing, the Dire Wolf and the Amrath leaped to clash for a furious few seconds before jumping back out of reach again.
A second later, they flashed at each other again. To the watching Jefferson Pierce and Sue Cody, it was all a confused blur of motion punctuated by sharp cracking noises and thuds. Venom managed to seize Bane's left wrist and yanked hard, intending to pull his foe into an elbow strike. Instead of resisting, the Dire Wolf went with it, spinning on one heel to whip a reverse hook kick that slammed against the Amrath's head. Venom rode the impact, but he was still stung and he broke away. The Dire Wolf swung his open hands up in a classic boxer's stance but that was misdirection; he shifted his weight and snapped a front kick that Venom blocked down with a palm. The two enemies found themselves facing each at close range and for a few seconds they were pounding at each other's torso so rapidly that it sounded like drumming.
Bane found that the Trom armor under his clothing gave him an advantage as far as taking hits to the body went. The armor dissipated impact over its entire surface. Venom realized this at the same time and rushed forward to wrap his arms around Bane. This was something Bane had not been expecting at all. The Amrath slashed with his fangs at his enemy's face and nearly succeeded in biting him. The Dire Wolf yanked his head back, felt sharp burning as some of that poison touched his skin, then slammed his head forward again to crash against Venom's face. The Snake man's nose broke and his lips split from that impact and he let go to backpedal out of reach.
That had been way too close, Bane thought as he wiped his face with one sleeve. That poison felt like acid. If he had been bitten, he would have been easy prey. A cold rage surged up inside him. Venom lunged again, thrusting two stiffened fingers directly at his opponent's eyes. The Dire Wolf slapped that attack aside and whipped a roundhouse with his other hand that only connected at an angle and did no serious harm. Getting enraged at not being able to do any damage to the Amrath, Bane caught himself in time and stepped back a few paces. His face lost all expression as he drew on his Kumundu training and threw anger away.
Venom saw that something had changed but he had no idea what. As he readied to attack, he was caught in the chest by a simple side kick that had every bit of power Bane could focus into it. The Amrath doubled up as if he were trying to touch his toes and he was completely vulnerable for an instant. The Dire Wolf raised a fist and brought it down like a hammer to the back of Venom's neck. Any Human would have been killed. Even the Snake man fell face down and struggled to rise.
IV.
Bane moved in closer, one fist drawn back for the finishing blow. From the ground, Venom kicked up and caught his opponent's outer thigh above the knee, making the Dire Wolf sway off-balance for an instant. The Amrath turned over and drove his other foot up into Bane's stomach but although those hard-toned muscles did not give way to the impact, the blow did force him back a step. Venom spranfg up and lunged forward with a furious barrage of punches from all directions.
Blocking and parrying, Bane stood his ground. He deliberately left an opening and Venom tried a high side kick to the throat. Seizing that ankle, Bane raised it high and his enemy fell hard onto his back. Before the Amrath could strike with his other leg, Bane flipped him over face down and knelt to smash a leopard's-paw strike to the back of the creature's head just above the neck. It was the same technique used to break tiles and bricks in practice and it would have cracked any Human skull open. Venom sagged and went limp. Even so, there was a certainty this Amrath would recover within seconds. Bane placed one knee in the small of Venom's back, seized him in a half-nelson and pulled upward as hard as he could. The sound of a spine breaking was clearly audible in the sudden silence. This time, when the Amrath sprawled face down in the dirt, it was certain he would not be rising by himself any time soon.
The entire fight had taken less than a full minute.
Straightening up, Bane was startled to find his chest heaving as he caught his breath. It was so rare that he fought an opponent who could fully match him that he seldom had to draw on his full abilities. Everything hurt. Even his enhanced healing would take a few minutes to start easing up all the bruising he had taken in the past few minutes. He watched Venom twitch one hand, but the creature was not conscious. Because the Snake men were an advanced reptile species modified to pass as Humans, they could recover from incredible trauma. That broken back would repair itself in time, if Venom were left alive.
Two shots from the porch took him entirely by surprise. He vaulted far to one side as he saw what had happened. The remaining Snake men had not tried to escape but instead had gotten out of their cars with guns ready to attack. It was not so much courage as an overriding compulsion in their kind that was almost programming. One fired at the Humans on the porch. Instantly, both of the creatures dropped to the ground with their faces blown in by .45 slugs hitting dead center. When he realized this, Bane's self-reproach surged up. Even after winning a fight against someone like Venom, he thought he should have been still aware of the situation around him.
One of the remaining Snake men had managed to loose a shot, but it only shattered an empty beer bottle by the front door. Before those glass fragments hit the porch, the creature was dying. Bane had seen fine marksmanship in his day, but this was phenomenal. He reflected again that Sue Cody might be a match for even Dandelion, whom he had always ranked as best of the best. The forbidden serum combining Tao-tsin and Tagra gave these Mongoose fighters strength and speed on a par with Tel Shai knights.. even the members of his own KDF team.
Holstering one Colt, Sue broke open the chamber of the other weapon and reloaded it with cartridges from loops on her belt. All the while, those bright blue eyes were fixed on Bane with open hostility, daring him to comment. From inside the house, Pierce emerged onto the porch at the same time that Kim and Njimi came into view around one corner. All four members of the Mongoose team assembled together and waited for the Dire Wolf's next move.
"I take it the Snake men who went behind the house are all dead?" Bane asked at last when his breathing was normal.
"As they deserve!" snorted Njimi. "But I don't look forward to disposing of all these bodies. There must be twenty of them. What a slaughterhouse...."
"We should leave them for the police to find," Kim suggested, rubbing a sore shoulder. "All these corpses with rattlesnake fangs, I'd like to see them explain that!"
Bane had folded his arms and lowered his head. Now that the fighting seemed over for the moment, his adrenalin levels dropped to normal. "I'd better call the FBI's Department 21 Black. They're good at making Midnight War aftermath disappear. The regular authorities are better off not learning about what happened tonight." He stepped closer to the Mongoose team. "And we do have one very promising captive there."
"We do NOT take prisoners," Sue spat. "I'm gonna blow his brains out." With the wide-brimmed hat and denim shirt, the legs of her jeans tucked into high boots, she looked at first like a little girl playing dress-up. But the fierce expression in those cornflower blue eyes belied that impression at once. There was no playfulness in that face.
Bane stopped her with a glance. Those pale grey eyes had an intensity that often alarmed even his friends. "No. Venom knows too much vital information. He's a member of Arem Kamende's Dark Cloud. He's high up in the Snake Councils. With Tel Shai telepathy and Sagehelm, we'll get him to tell us everything he knows."
"I already told you once, we don't take no prisoners," Sue said in a flat even tone. "Don't get in my way, mister."
"You're going to execute a helpless prisoner?" Bane asked.
"You bet your ass." The redhaired woman lowered her right hand to the butt of her gun but the Dire Wolf had indeed stepped directly into her line of fire. He began striding toward her.
"You're going to have to get past me," Bane warned. "I claim him on my authority as a knight of Tel Shai. And don't think about firing at me again. You just saw me in action. Good as you are, you know I can knock you out before you can draw."
Glaring over at her leader, Sue Cody saw Pierce sadly shake his head from side to side. Stamping one foot, she wheeled about and stormed off into the house out of sight. The thud of her footsteps could be heard going upstairs.
"Mr Pierce, I hope you understand," Bane said. "This is a brutal war, but executing prisoners crosses the line. We have to keep some sense of right and wrong. It's the Snake men who are supposed to be cold-blooded."
"Susan is a bitter young woman," the Mongoose leader said. "And not without good cause. Still, it's true we never allow Snake men to escape alive. We have vowed to exterminate their entire Race. We four have all suffered greatly because of those monsters."
Bane gave the old man a long thoughtful gaze before replying and he chose his words carefully. He did not want to sever any possible ties to Mongoose if he could help it. "This has to be an exception for good cause. Maybe we can still work together. We have some aims in common. The KDF has associates and field agents around the world. We could subsidize your team, perhaps loan you advanced tech or provide you with leads and inside information about our common enemy."
"I'm afraid not," said Pierce with a sad shake of his leonine head. "The Mongoose hunts alone. Ah me, I'm sorry to have to turn your offer down, Mr Bane, but I must. We are the last vestige of an honored tradition. We must answer to no one but ourselves."
"I thought you might feel that way," said the Dire Wolf. "It's too bad. Allies are hard to find in the Midnight War. Still, if you ever need our help or even counsel, we can be reached at our headquarters in Manhattan, 28 East 38th Street. There's always someone on duty there."
Kim Chi Sung interrupted, "I have to say, Mr Bane, that your duel with the Amrath was the most amazing fight I've ever seen. It looked like a movie being played on fast forward. I can see why you are called Dire Wolf."
"Really. Well, thank you." A smile showed through Bane's bruised and battered face. "Anytime you want to spar a few rounds, come to 38th Street." He picked up his jacket from the ground, brushed it off and shrugged into it. As he walked over to where Venom lay sprawled and half-dead, the Dire Wolf glanced back over his shoulder and said, "If I don't hear from you Mongoose folk again, let me wish you good luck... and good hunting!"
2/6/1981 - Rev. 5/9/2019
8/31/1988
I.
When he heard the gunshot from inside the house, Jeremy Bane broke into a full sprint across the huge front yard. He was not wearing the field suit with all its gadgets tonight but he still carried several concealed weapons and wore the full body armor under his black slacks, turtleneck and jacket. And of course, he seldom went anywhere without the matched silver daggers sheathed under his sleeves.
As he vaulted up the front steps onto the porch, a second shot sounded within. The Dire Wolf flung the screen door open, swiveled his body sideways and blasted out a straight side punch that snapped the lock and slammed the door inward with one hinge torn loose. In that same continuous motion, Bane leaped through the opening in a crouch, the dart gun swinging in his left door in an arc from side to side. In a tiny fraction of a second, he took in details of everyone in that room and was ready to deal with them. The room itself was almost bare, with only two chairs, a coffee table and single lamp standing in one corner.
There were three dead men on the floor. Bane knew from their postures and the arrangement of their limbs that two had been shot while trying to run and the third had been struck down with lethal impact.
Four living people were beginning to react to his sudden entrance. One was a woman in her mid-twenties... thin, red-haired with a white Stetson pushed back on her head and sporting a twin-holstered gunbelt holding Colt .45 revolvers. One was an Asian man about thirty, probably Korean, short but sturdily built, no visible weapons. The third was a black man, West African and not American judging by his facial bone structure and skin tone. He was immense, at least six feet six inches tall, lanky with long arms and legs.
The fourth man was elderly, at least in his seventies, with a thick mane of silver-white hair over a proud hawklike face. Bane's instant analysis warned him that this man was possibly even more dangerous than the other three. All these impressions raced through his mind almost instantaneously and he was moving into action before the four people began to respond to his appearance.
He had decided to take out the redhead first, because her guns were the most immediate threat and because of the implication that she had been the one who had killed two of the corpses on the floor. The Dire Wolf extended his arm full-length and triggered the air-powered gun with its soft coughing retort. To his complete surprise, the young woman was already hopping to one side and the dart missed her entirely. This caught him off-guard. All his life, Bane's enhanced reflexes had given him an advantage over normal Humans and he had not expected her to be moving at his rate. Far too fast for any normal quick-draw expert to match, the redhead whipped up her right-hand Colt and fired twice with bright white flashes from the barrel. The shots were deafening in the enclosed space. Bane took both bullets high on the chest, and although the impacts stung viciously, his Trom armor under his clothes dispersed the force enough that he remained on his feet.
She did not get a third attempt. The Dire Wolf bracketed her with two quick shots and one of the anesthetic darts pierced the thin flannel of her work shirt right below the sternum. The woman felt a sharp sting and a burning sensation, but the Trom-formula drug dazed her instantly and within another second she was sagging to the floor with the Colt falling from a limp grasp.
An enormous dark hand clamped tight around Bane's extended arm with agonizing tightness, cutting off the circulation. The dart gun dropped as Bane's grip was loosened. The Dire Wolf swung his body toward his attacker, slamming the heel of his free hand up under the man's chin so hard that the jaws clapped audibly shut. At the same time, Bane had hooked his foot behind the African's ankle and tugged sharply to throw the man off-balance. As his opponent lurched to one side, the Dire Wolf threw a backfist that cracked like a whip. The big man's head twitched but he did not fall as Bane had expected; instead, the African fighter rumbled deep in his chest and clutched at his much smaller foe.
Something unforseen was going on here, Bane thought. He knew his capabilities and he was at peak tonight. To match his speed and strength, as these characters were doing, was unexpected. But there was no time to think it over. As those huge open hands reached for him, the Dire Wolf chambered his left leg and drove his boot deep into the man's hard-muscled abdomen. The black man doubled up as air was forced from his lungs and this brought his head down to where Bane could belt a hard left hook to the cheek. As his opponent fell to one knee in dazed confusion, Bane swung around to check what the others were about to do.
He turned barely in time to roll with a high kick to the head that might have killed an unprepared man. As it was, that slippered foot grazed his jaw. It was the young Korean, spinning to throw a reverse roundhouse kick with the other leg. Bane swayed his upper body enough that the blow passed by him a hair's width away, and he immediately lunged in to catch the Korean with an uppercut that connected perfectly. The young Asian dropped back a step. Bane began a front shin kick that abruptly changed a high reverse crescent which smacked against his opponent's temple like a hammer. The Korean reeled back, raising his hands in automatic defense.
From the corner of his eye, Bane saw the big African coming at him again. This was getting annoying. The Dire Wolf met him with two left-right hooks that sounded like gunshots but still the giant did not fall. Bane lost his temper at the stubbornness of these two fighters. He exploded a wide roundhouse blow that spun the African entirely off his feet to crash onto a coffee table and wreck it. The Korean was attacking again. No ordinary Humans, no matter how tough, could shrug off blows the way these two were doing.
Normally, Bane restrained himself slightly in fights to keep from killing everyone he faced. With these two, however, he seemed to be facing his peers and he could cut loose. The young Asian threw a straight right. Bane stepped past it, seized that wrist with his own right hand and yanked the man's arm out straight, pulling him into a left backfist that smacked right above the eyebrows. The Korean's eyes rolled up to show only whites and he fell backwards without trying to catch himself. The other man was stirring feebly amidst the wreckage of the shattered coffee table and he was not going to be a threat for a few more minutes.
Who were these people, he wondered. They couldn't be Melgarin, not an African and an Asian. Not Gelydrim, either. But then what was their secret? How had they been meeting him on equal terms? Even as these thoughts crossed his mind, Bane wheeled to see the white-haired man pointing a small .25 Beretta Brigadier right at him. Against any common thug, the Dire Wolf would have been inclined to trust his body armor would protect him and a head shot was unlikely considering how quickly he moved. But with foes of this caliber, he didn't think the risk was justified. He stayed where he was and awaited the next move.
The old man was well-dressed in a lightweight white summer suit with a bolo tie. The dark blue eyes were sharp and alert under spiky white brows. His gunhand was perfectly steady. "Even for an Amrath, you're exceptional," he announced. "Still, no Snake man has ever been able to escape a shot from Jefferson Aubrey Pierce!"
II.
The Dire Wolf was already scowling, but now his eyes narrowed to slits. Amrath? He opened his mouth to protest but the old man motioned him to be silent. A board squeaked under pressure outside, so faint that only the fact everyone was motionless made it audible. There was the scrape of leather against wood, just as faint but closer. Pierce's eyes flickered for an instant toward the broken door and that was all the opening Bane needed. His hand flashed and, like a conjuring trick, a slim throwing dagger spun end over end to slice across the old man's wrist. Pierce gasped and involuntarily clasped his free hand to the shallow gash in his skin. Even as the silver blade slid over that wrist, Bane had closed the distance between them and wrested the Beretta free. He stepped back and retrieved his dagger from where it had fallen, keeping it in his other hand. Most combat experts dismissed the effectiveness of throwing knives except as distractions or in desperation, but Bane had developed extraordinary skill with those perfectly balanced knives.
Behind him, the Dire Wolf could sense the Asian and the African rising again. They had recovered from punishment that would hospitalize normal people. He had to get some answers fast. "Tell your friends to stand down," he ordered. "I took them both on without being armed. Who are you guys?"
The man who had introduced himself as Jefferson Aubrey Pierce drew himself up defiantly and placed fists on hips. "Kill me if you will, you cold-blooded reptile. You know perfectly well who Mongoose is. We have exterminated enough of your kind."
"Cold-blooded...? You think I'm a Snake man, is that it?"
"With those eyes? And the way you manhandled both Kim and Njimi, what else could you be but a Snake man? An Amrath, most likely." Pierce snorted. "Go ahead, shoot and be damned."
Lowering the Beretta slightly, Bane tilted his head. "This is unexpected. If you know about Snake men and Amraths, you must be in the Midnight War. I'm a little disappointed you don't recognize me."
For the first time, the old man's stern mask softed perceptibly. "Should I, suh?"
"Well, my name is Jeremy Bane. I'm a knight of Tel Shai and chairman of the Kenneth Dred Foundation. Some people call me the Dire Wolf."
"I knew Kenneth Dred," Pierce admitted. "But that was long ago. He had no son and no followers."
"I was Mr Dred's agent and protege for the final years of his life," Bane said. "He left me everything. I've been trying to carry on his work with a team of fellow Tel Shai knights." The hint of a wry smile touched the corners of his mouth. "My vanity is deflated, I guess, that you don't..."
In mid-sentence, Bane twisted around and again there was a flash of silver as he flung his dagger. In the doorway behind him, a man in dark clothing clawed at his neck but the blade had severed his windpipe and he was already dying as he toppled. His gaping mouth revealing sharp fangs where the upper canines should have been.
"I was expecting one of them," the Dire Wolf said, moving a few feet to one side where he could watch everyone. "All of you, stay put. Settle down. You can see your lady friend is breathing, she's just under an anesthetic. I think we might be on the same side."
"You... you killed him," Pierce muttered. "No Snake man would slay one of his own. It is their strongest taboo. You can't be a Serpent, then."
"I already told you who I am," Bane retorted. "I can show you my New York State PI license if you want. The question now is who you four might be."
"Very well," the old man agreed. "As I said, I am Jefferson Aubrey Pierce, late of Richmond, Virginia. The young lady you drugged is Susan Cody, formerly of El Paso, Texas. That young fellow there is Kim Chi Sung, a Korean student of Hapkido, and his tall friend is Njimi Shambasi, a wrestler from the nation of Danarak. We are sadly all that remains of the once proud Mongoose sect."
"Mongoose!" Bane said. "Of course I have heard of the Mongoose sect. Very secretive, dating back hundreds of years. The sect is supposed to be Humans dedicated to warring on the Snake men. There was a motto, let me think, 'Where the Mongoose stalks--"
"--The Serpent flees," Pierce finished for him. "Our numbers have dwindled over the years. I can tell you that we use a secret Velkandu serum to intensify our natural abilities. It's not surprising that our paths have never crossed, Mr Bane. The Mongoose hunts alone, it is a solitary animal."
Bane did not say so, but he remembered from Kenneth Dred's notes what the serum was. It combined the dangerous Tao-tsin crystals with Tagra extract. Also called Velocitin, Tao-tsin by itself sped up a person's reflexes but at a price of cardiac damage. Somehow, the Mongoose sect had gotten hold of some Tagra plants which were otherwise only available at Tel Shai. The Tagra allowed safe use of Tao-tsin for a while at least. But he saw no reason to reveal his knowledge. "Damn," he said. "I should have figured this out sooner. We must be working the same mission from different angles. I received a tip from one of my informers that Venom himself was going to be here tonight."
"That is why we came here also," Pierce said. "Kim, Njimi, help Sue up onto that couch. How long will she be slumbering, suh?"
"An hour at least," admitted Bane, "But I have an antidote that will revive her. She might be bilious and irritable for a while after waking."
"She is like that in any case. Hurry and restore her, if you will. Venom and his squad of Amraths may be here at any moment and we will need our full number."
Bane decided to trust these people. His reading of Pierce's body language and vocal patterns indicated the old man speaking the truth as he knew it, so he handed the Beretta back to Pierce. After retrieving and cleaning his dagger on the dead Snake man's clothing, he went to where the redhead was snoring gently on the worn-out couch. The Dire Wolf took a flat metal case from an inside jacket pocket and selected one of the five color-coded syringes to inject Sue Cody in the forearm. He pinched and rubbed the skin at the site, saw her face flush hot pink and stepped back. "She'll wake up in a minute or less," he told the others. Finally, he had an opportunity to fetch his dart gun from where it had fallen only a few minutes earlier.
"That will be not a minute too soon," Kim told him. "Look outside. Headlights."
"Damn," Bane said. "I had hoped to ambush those serpents at dawn, when they're at their most sluggish. But since I rather rashly knocked the door down and there isn't time to hide all these bodies, I guess a direct confrontation is the best way to go. What do you say, Mongoose, are you up to a fight?"
"Nothing I like better," laughed the big Danarakan.
"It's what we live for," Kim agreed.
Sitting up on the couch, Sue Cody was brushing out her hair with her fingers, shaking her head and getting her bearings. "What the HAYLL is goin' on here, chief?"
Pierce hastily helped her stand. "Venom is pulling up outside with his squad, Susan. Our new friend here is going to assist us in destroying them. Are you ready?"
"What? Really?" She straightened up and loosened her Colts in their holsters. "Sure, never more ready. Whar I come from, we step on snakes!"
"There's a second set of headlights now," Pierce announced, standing alongside the front window. "I expect some of them will be sent to guard the rear. Kim, Njimi, you lads go out the back door and intercept them, eh?"
"Right," said the towering Danarakan. From behind the couch, he picked up an axe handle that had been wrapped in black electrical tape. He and the Korean fighter rushed from the room toward the rear of the house. Left behind, Pierce examined his Beretta and gave Bane a nod before heading toward the opening where the front door still dangled from one hinge.
"I feel like death warmed over from whatever you knocked me out with," Sue snarled as she jabbed an accusing finger at the Dire Wolf. "When this is over, you and me are gonna have words, old son."
"Worry about the next few minutes. When you see me move, both of you turn your heads and close your eyes." Bane moved past where Pierce stood alongside the doorway and stepped boldly out onto the porch to be exposed by headlights shining directly on him.
III.
Two gleaming black sedans had pulled to a halt facing the bungalow, and eight figures in dark suits had emerged. Each car had a Snake man remaining at the wheel. Most of the creatures were holding pistols. Bane stepped down the front steps to stand boldly in plain view, hands down by his sides. He knew Snake men were proud creatures driven by status. They respected courage if nothing else and his defiance would stir them to react.
Sure enough, the dominent one among them strode ahead of the crowd. He was wearing a neatly tailored black business suit, and he unbuttoned the jacket as he moved. An inch over six feet tall, weighing a taut two hundred pounds, Venom was recognizable by his strongly arched nose and the thick black hair combed straight back off a high forehead. He obviously recognized the Human standing in his path. "You...!" he hissed. In his grinning mouth, the upper canines lengthened to reveal themselves as sharp fangs glistening with poison. Hardly noticed in the tense confrontation, two of the humanoid reptiles separated to circle the house and head toward its rear.
Bane did not speak. He had already taken two small metal globes from an inner pocket of his jacket and now he hurled them directly above the cluster of Snake men. The dazzlers were not as powerful as the flashbang grenades used by SWAT teams but their detonations still changed the night into a blinding white radiance and they cracked a sharp thunder that could be felt as a slap against exposed skin. The Snake men had instinctively looked up to see what had been thrown and now they were all effectively blind and deaf for the next minute. Despite their confusion, the creatures drew closer together as they opened fire without being able to clearly see any targets.
Before Bane could act further, Sue Cody shoved past him with a Colt in each hand. She began shooting quickly and accurately, alternating from one gun to the other. It was extremely rare to see any sharpshooter who could use both hands with equal dexterity. The Velkandu serum which Mongoose members took not only increased their speed and strength, it also honed their co-ordination to a fine point. One after another, the Snake men dropped with holes punched in their heads or chests. Only a few managed wild shots of their own which went into the air. Watching with admiration, Bane thought that if Dandelion had an equal in deadliness, it would be in this angry young Texan woman.
Only Venom himself was left standing. Sue smiled wickedly and raised her right, but the Dire Wolf forced it firmly down. The redhead jerked away and yelled, "Don't you EVER touch my gunhand, you damfool!" She hopped to one side and aimed at him instead.
"We need this one for questioning," Bane replied without being intimidated in the slightest.
"Come forward, Dire Wolf," Venom called in his cold tones. He yanked his necktie off and shrugged out of his suitjacket, then curled his hands into fists. "I have long awaited our meeting."
Answering the challenge, Bane likewise took off his jacket and dropped it on the porch. Against a serious opponent, the jacket offered too much loose material to be grabbed. He removed the needle-nosed dart gun from its holster behind his left hip and placed it on top of his jacket. If it came to grappling, he didn't want Venom to be able to seize the weapon and use it against him. Venom himself was well known to scorn carrying a firearm. He moved forward and his enemy stepped over to the most open space away from all the dead bodies. The two remaining Snake men remained in their cars and gave no sign of intending to intervene.
Venom's real name was Cir'Willa Shar and he was almost eighty years old. He was an Amrath, one of a subspecies of Snake men who had been bred for thousands of years to have more potent poison sacs beneath their fangs than the others of their Race, and he had been raised from infancy in fighting skill and assassination technique. Even for an Amrath, Venom was exceptional. He was the champion of his Race. As far as Bane knew, only Shiro Mitsuru had ever successfully fought with this creature and that had been a hard-fought struggle which could have gone either way. Venom had been at a disadvantage because he was posing as Human and could not use his fangs openly. He suffered no such restriction now.
Because of his years on the Tagra tea diet, Bane thought he could survive a bite from a Snake man long enough to recover and possibly make an incision to squeeze some of the poison out. But of course, during combat he would not have that opportunity. A bite would weaken him so much that Venom could quickly finish him off. Despite the risk, the thought of passing up this confrontation did not occur to him. Bane thought that if he could beat this monster hand to hand, it might break Venom's sense of worth enough to open him up for questioning. Snake men did not experience fear and had a high pain threshhold, so it was difficult to get any information from them.
For several tense minutes, the two fighters circled each other at ten feet apart. Each was studying the other's movements, judging balance and co-ordination, watching how their opponent placed his weight and how he responded to every move the other made. In their minds, Bane and Venom played out various attacks and tried to calculate what response would be made. It was as complicated and far-seeing as any chess match. Then, like tigers springing, the Dire Wolf and the Amrath leaped to clash for a furious few seconds before jumping back out of reach again.
A second later, they flashed at each other again. To the watching Jefferson Pierce and Sue Cody, it was all a confused blur of motion punctuated by sharp cracking noises and thuds. Venom managed to seize Bane's left wrist and yanked hard, intending to pull his foe into an elbow strike. Instead of resisting, the Dire Wolf went with it, spinning on one heel to whip a reverse hook kick that slammed against the Amrath's head. Venom rode the impact, but he was still stung and he broke away. The Dire Wolf swung his open hands up in a classic boxer's stance but that was misdirection; he shifted his weight and snapped a front kick that Venom blocked down with a palm. The two enemies found themselves facing each at close range and for a few seconds they were pounding at each other's torso so rapidly that it sounded like drumming.
Bane found that the Trom armor under his clothing gave him an advantage as far as taking hits to the body went. The armor dissipated impact over its entire surface. Venom realized this at the same time and rushed forward to wrap his arms around Bane. This was something Bane had not been expecting at all. The Amrath slashed with his fangs at his enemy's face and nearly succeeded in biting him. The Dire Wolf yanked his head back, felt sharp burning as some of that poison touched his skin, then slammed his head forward again to crash against Venom's face. The Snake man's nose broke and his lips split from that impact and he let go to backpedal out of reach.
That had been way too close, Bane thought as he wiped his face with one sleeve. That poison felt like acid. If he had been bitten, he would have been easy prey. A cold rage surged up inside him. Venom lunged again, thrusting two stiffened fingers directly at his opponent's eyes. The Dire Wolf slapped that attack aside and whipped a roundhouse with his other hand that only connected at an angle and did no serious harm. Getting enraged at not being able to do any damage to the Amrath, Bane caught himself in time and stepped back a few paces. His face lost all expression as he drew on his Kumundu training and threw anger away.
Venom saw that something had changed but he had no idea what. As he readied to attack, he was caught in the chest by a simple side kick that had every bit of power Bane could focus into it. The Amrath doubled up as if he were trying to touch his toes and he was completely vulnerable for an instant. The Dire Wolf raised a fist and brought it down like a hammer to the back of Venom's neck. Any Human would have been killed. Even the Snake man fell face down and struggled to rise.
IV.
Bane moved in closer, one fist drawn back for the finishing blow. From the ground, Venom kicked up and caught his opponent's outer thigh above the knee, making the Dire Wolf sway off-balance for an instant. The Amrath turned over and drove his other foot up into Bane's stomach but although those hard-toned muscles did not give way to the impact, the blow did force him back a step. Venom spranfg up and lunged forward with a furious barrage of punches from all directions.
Blocking and parrying, Bane stood his ground. He deliberately left an opening and Venom tried a high side kick to the throat. Seizing that ankle, Bane raised it high and his enemy fell hard onto his back. Before the Amrath could strike with his other leg, Bane flipped him over face down and knelt to smash a leopard's-paw strike to the back of the creature's head just above the neck. It was the same technique used to break tiles and bricks in practice and it would have cracked any Human skull open. Venom sagged and went limp. Even so, there was a certainty this Amrath would recover within seconds. Bane placed one knee in the small of Venom's back, seized him in a half-nelson and pulled upward as hard as he could. The sound of a spine breaking was clearly audible in the sudden silence. This time, when the Amrath sprawled face down in the dirt, it was certain he would not be rising by himself any time soon.
The entire fight had taken less than a full minute.
Straightening up, Bane was startled to find his chest heaving as he caught his breath. It was so rare that he fought an opponent who could fully match him that he seldom had to draw on his full abilities. Everything hurt. Even his enhanced healing would take a few minutes to start easing up all the bruising he had taken in the past few minutes. He watched Venom twitch one hand, but the creature was not conscious. Because the Snake men were an advanced reptile species modified to pass as Humans, they could recover from incredible trauma. That broken back would repair itself in time, if Venom were left alive.
Two shots from the porch took him entirely by surprise. He vaulted far to one side as he saw what had happened. The remaining Snake men had not tried to escape but instead had gotten out of their cars with guns ready to attack. It was not so much courage as an overriding compulsion in their kind that was almost programming. One fired at the Humans on the porch. Instantly, both of the creatures dropped to the ground with their faces blown in by .45 slugs hitting dead center. When he realized this, Bane's self-reproach surged up. Even after winning a fight against someone like Venom, he thought he should have been still aware of the situation around him.
One of the remaining Snake men had managed to loose a shot, but it only shattered an empty beer bottle by the front door. Before those glass fragments hit the porch, the creature was dying. Bane had seen fine marksmanship in his day, but this was phenomenal. He reflected again that Sue Cody might be a match for even Dandelion, whom he had always ranked as best of the best. The forbidden serum combining Tao-tsin and Tagra gave these Mongoose fighters strength and speed on a par with Tel Shai knights.. even the members of his own KDF team.
Holstering one Colt, Sue broke open the chamber of the other weapon and reloaded it with cartridges from loops on her belt. All the while, those bright blue eyes were fixed on Bane with open hostility, daring him to comment. From inside the house, Pierce emerged onto the porch at the same time that Kim and Njimi came into view around one corner. All four members of the Mongoose team assembled together and waited for the Dire Wolf's next move.
"I take it the Snake men who went behind the house are all dead?" Bane asked at last when his breathing was normal.
"As they deserve!" snorted Njimi. "But I don't look forward to disposing of all these bodies. There must be twenty of them. What a slaughterhouse...."
"We should leave them for the police to find," Kim suggested, rubbing a sore shoulder. "All these corpses with rattlesnake fangs, I'd like to see them explain that!"
Bane had folded his arms and lowered his head. Now that the fighting seemed over for the moment, his adrenalin levels dropped to normal. "I'd better call the FBI's Department 21 Black. They're good at making Midnight War aftermath disappear. The regular authorities are better off not learning about what happened tonight." He stepped closer to the Mongoose team. "And we do have one very promising captive there."
"We do NOT take prisoners," Sue spat. "I'm gonna blow his brains out." With the wide-brimmed hat and denim shirt, the legs of her jeans tucked into high boots, she looked at first like a little girl playing dress-up. But the fierce expression in those cornflower blue eyes belied that impression at once. There was no playfulness in that face.
Bane stopped her with a glance. Those pale grey eyes had an intensity that often alarmed even his friends. "No. Venom knows too much vital information. He's a member of Arem Kamende's Dark Cloud. He's high up in the Snake Councils. With Tel Shai telepathy and Sagehelm, we'll get him to tell us everything he knows."
"I already told you once, we don't take no prisoners," Sue said in a flat even tone. "Don't get in my way, mister."
"You're going to execute a helpless prisoner?" Bane asked.
"You bet your ass." The redhaired woman lowered her right hand to the butt of her gun but the Dire Wolf had indeed stepped directly into her line of fire. He began striding toward her.
"You're going to have to get past me," Bane warned. "I claim him on my authority as a knight of Tel Shai. And don't think about firing at me again. You just saw me in action. Good as you are, you know I can knock you out before you can draw."
Glaring over at her leader, Sue Cody saw Pierce sadly shake his head from side to side. Stamping one foot, she wheeled about and stormed off into the house out of sight. The thud of her footsteps could be heard going upstairs.
"Mr Pierce, I hope you understand," Bane said. "This is a brutal war, but executing prisoners crosses the line. We have to keep some sense of right and wrong. It's the Snake men who are supposed to be cold-blooded."
"Susan is a bitter young woman," the Mongoose leader said. "And not without good cause. Still, it's true we never allow Snake men to escape alive. We have vowed to exterminate their entire Race. We four have all suffered greatly because of those monsters."
Bane gave the old man a long thoughtful gaze before replying and he chose his words carefully. He did not want to sever any possible ties to Mongoose if he could help it. "This has to be an exception for good cause. Maybe we can still work together. We have some aims in common. The KDF has associates and field agents around the world. We could subsidize your team, perhaps loan you advanced tech or provide you with leads and inside information about our common enemy."
"I'm afraid not," said Pierce with a sad shake of his leonine head. "The Mongoose hunts alone. Ah me, I'm sorry to have to turn your offer down, Mr Bane, but I must. We are the last vestige of an honored tradition. We must answer to no one but ourselves."
"I thought you might feel that way," said the Dire Wolf. "It's too bad. Allies are hard to find in the Midnight War. Still, if you ever need our help or even counsel, we can be reached at our headquarters in Manhattan, 28 East 38th Street. There's always someone on duty there."
Kim Chi Sung interrupted, "I have to say, Mr Bane, that your duel with the Amrath was the most amazing fight I've ever seen. It looked like a movie being played on fast forward. I can see why you are called Dire Wolf."
"Really. Well, thank you." A smile showed through Bane's bruised and battered face. "Anytime you want to spar a few rounds, come to 38th Street." He picked up his jacket from the ground, brushed it off and shrugged into it. As he walked over to where Venom lay sprawled and half-dead, the Dire Wolf glanced back over his shoulder and said, "If I don't hear from you Mongoose folk again, let me wish you good luck... and good hunting!"
2/6/1981 - Rev. 5/9/2019