Path of the Tiger

in this,’ Sigurd growled softly, pointing at his blood and saliva. ‘But that,’ he continued, indicating the bright crimson liquid streaming out of Daekwon’s nostrils from his freshly broken nose, ‘that is weakness. It is fragility. It is … ephemeral. For all the strength that now exists in those fists of yours, boy, one day, sooner than you could ever imagine, it will fade to nothing. Your skin will wrinkle up and your muscles will wither and sag. Your hair and teeth will fall out, your eyes will become milky with the cataracts and blindness of old age. And your mind – yes, the greatest asset that you possess – it too will rot. It will rot into nothing, and all the memories and experiences and knowledge that make up the essence of who you are will vanish, curling up and crumbling to ashes, like dry leaves in a forest fire. That head of yours will be filled with nothing but dust and crumbling rot. Your internal organs will start to malfunction and fail. You’ll piss yourself every night in bed, like a fucking infant. You’ll fill your pants with shit, unable to control your bodily functions, and you’ll lose your breath trying to walk up a flight of stairs. The skeleton, the foundation that your whole body rests upon, will become as brittle and weak as sun-baked plastic. Yes, those bones that are now so heavy and strong, they will crack and snap like fallen twigs in winter. Age will take you and it will break you, as surely as the sun rises in the east and burns out its fire over the western horizon. That, mortal, is weakness. Your weakness. Your doom.’

Daekwon, with blood dripping off his chin and landing in fat, splattering drops on the floor, glared at Sigurd in silence, his features contorted into an expression that was at once awe, surprise, hatred and perplexity.

‘And you, m-, motherfucker?’ he finally spat. ‘You think you d-, d- different? I know you b-, beastwalkers can die too, just like us. An’ Zakaria, an’ William, an’ L- Lightnin’ Bird, an Njinga, they gon’ k-, kick yo’ sorry ass an’ put you in the fuckin’ ground. Now shut the fuck up, an’ let’s f-, finish this.’

Sigurd rumbled out a deep, menacing laugh, his gaze never once breaking contact with Daekwon’s.

‘I don’t want to spar in my suit,’ he growled. ‘Allow me to slip into something more comfortable.’

He slipped the tailored, Italian-made suit jacket off his massive shoulders, and then loosened and pulled the silk tie off his neck. With careful fingers he removed the watch from his wrist and set it down on his jacket, which was lying in a heap on the blood-spattered floor. He then undid the shoulder holster that held his still-unused Desert Eagle pistol, and he dropped this too. He unbuttoned his shirt and let it fall as well, revealing a snowy torso, ripped with marble-hewn muscle and riddled with innumerable battle scars. He then kicked off his meticulously polished black wingtips, unbuckled his crocodile-skin belt and stepped out of his pants, standing eventually before Daekwon clad only in briefs.

‘All right,’ the young man snarled, ‘now that you c-, comfy in yo’ damn drawers, let’s d-, do this!’

Sigurd’s eyes shone like a cat’s in the dark. With sudden speed he surged forward, launching a rapid flurry of body blows that crashed with brutal force into Daekwon’s leanly muscled torso. Daekwon grunted, tucking in his arms and gasping as the heavy punches crashed and crunched into his ribs and stomach, even as he did his best to dodge and block them. He was used to taking punches, but Sigurd hit with more power than any opponent he had ever faced, and each blow rocketed a shock wave through his body, driving him back with force. The memory of Paola flickered in his mind’s eye like a reluctant spirit summoned at a séance, giving him the impetus he needed to fight back, and in a rapid conflagration of rage and a lust for vengeance, he ducked under one of Sigurd’s hooks and launched a counter-attack, firing off combo after furious combo with his granite fists.

Despite his speed, despite his focus, despite his power, however, he simply could not hit the beastwalker. Sigurd ducked, blocked and bobbed, moving with astounding agility and speed, evading every single one of Daekwon’s punches. And then, when Daekwon tried to slip a savage uppercut under Sigurd’s guard, the massive warrior launched an altogether different attack. His open right hand thundered abruptly through Daekwon’s hurricane of flying fists, and at once his iron fingers slammed onto Daekwon’s throat, clamping tight with the brutal crush of a bear trap. Daekwon, startled by the sudden closeness and irresistible power of heavy fingers around his windpipe, fumbled and grasped at the locked-straight arm that was now squeezing the life out of him. He gripped the arm with steel-strong fingers and pulled with all his might, growling through gritted teeth with the effort, but the strength of the digits wrapped around his throat was phenomenal.

‘What happens,’ Sigurd rasped, ‘when the irresistible force meets the immovable object? Well, mortal, it turns out that the object is not so immovable after all!’ With chemical fire sizzling in his eyes in the gloom of the stairwell, Sigurd began to lift Daekwon off of his feet, inch by inch, raising him higher and higher off the ground as he throttled him. ‘Now, you insignificant insect, now you’re going to see what I really am…’

Daekwon, despite the agony of the asphyxiation, somehow managed to focus his steadily blurring vision on the arm that was lifting him off of the ground, the arm that was crushing his windpipe … and he saw that the pale, scar-tattooed skin was changing.

The muscles of Sigurd’s arm and torso began to ripple and distend, writhing like massively engorged maggots, and a coat of dense white fur burst through his skin as his limbs exploded in size and length.