Stomped down with the sole of his boot on the guy’s kneecap, shattering it, then simply muscled the knife out of his hands and used it to cut his throat properly, finishing the job.
The third guy put his hands up in surrender.
Slater stepped forward and opened up his hips and pivoted and swung his shin in a tight curve, landing it on the guy’s neck, and his eyes rolled back into his head and he went down awkwardly and hit the back of his skull on the edge of the nearest table on the way down.
He’d be out for a while.
Maybe even permanently affected.
Slater found it hard to care when the man had been ready to slit his throat seconds earlier.
Three bodies thunked to the floor. The thuds were hollow in the now-empty teahouse, and Slater realised with sudden clarity that there hadn’t been staff here in a long time. The driver and the guide had used this empty ghost town as a staging ground for an assassination attempt.
On that note…
Slater turned on his heel and went straight back the way he’d come.
To find Utsav.
16
King came in fast and hard, because that scared the shit out of combatants unaccustomed to violence.
Sure, they might be tough men with hard lives in the mountains. No doubt they’d been given some training in how to most effectively kill someone with a blade. But that was all theory and practice on target dummies. Not real, visceral, up-close madness.
King lived in that madness.
It was like his second home.
The closest guy recoiled — partly because he’d just seen six of his comrades die and figured his chances weren’t any better, but mostly because there was a two-hundred-and-twenty pound brute right there in his face. Instead of swinging with the knife he brought his hands up in an awkward defence, so King ducked low and plunged his own blade into the guy’s stomach. It happened so fast that he barely saw it himself.
Shlock.
In and out.
The guy went down.
But before he went all the way down King kicked him so hard in the chest that he plummeted back into the SUV, but not before catching one of the other thugs along the way. Both of them careened into the chassis and bounced off, and on the rebound King cut through the air with his right elbow, slicing it vertically upwards, catching the second guy in the nose with the elbow and in the forehead with his forearm. The impact rattled King’s shoulder, but rattled the guy’s brain harder. Both of them went down, one clutching his blood-stained gut, the other unconscious.
King stepped over them, and then it was like clockwork.
The last armed man was scared as hell. He dropped the knife and put his hands up. A natural human impulse when you think you have the advantage, then lose it all in a rapid frenzy of violence. He was probably friends with some of the men King had just killed. And although he had a weapon, he’d just seen eight of his colleagues meet the same fate, no matter how talented they were with a knife.
So he surrendered.
King wasn’t about to waste time tying him up.
He strode over, grabbed the guy by the head with two open palms, and drove his skull into the side of the SUV.
Lights out.
The village went quiet. It slipped straight back into its usual monotony, broken only by the occasional chilling howl of the wind. The cloud still lingered, draped over the half-demolished buildings like spiderwebs. King caught his breath, feeling every beat of his heart in his chest, and waited for the adrenaline to dissipate.
He didn’t need to rush.
The original driver wasn’t going anywhere in a hurry.
He was the only one left outside who was both alive and conscious.
King walked right up to him, kicked him in the side of the leg, and pressed a heavy hand down on his shoulder when he sank to his knees.
He lowered the knife into the guy’s field of view.
He said, ‘Still no English?’
The driver, pale and shaking, tried to keep his composure. He shrugged, as nonchalantly as he could manage. ‘Little bit of English.’
‘I think your English is more than acceptable. Shame you didn’t tell us sooner.’
‘You kill me?’
‘Maybe. I’m still considering it.’
‘You man of honour. You no kill unarmed man.’
‘I’ve done it before. Many times.’
‘That no good.’
‘And this is?’ King said, sweeping an arm around the village.
Nine men lay dead or unconscious.
‘You scary man,’ the driver said. ‘I don’t know what I get myself into. I no like this. We paid money.’
‘By who?’
‘Can’t say.’
‘Yes, you can.’
‘No. Can’t say. Don’t know. Utsav organise.’
‘Where is Utsav?’
‘Inside.’
‘With my friend?’
‘Yes. But maybe Utsav not alive anymore. If your friend like you.’
‘He’s a lot like me.’
‘Then no good for Utsav.’
‘You’re right about that.’
‘You still going to kill me?’
‘Maybe.’
‘I have family.’
‘So do I. Didn’t deter you.’
‘What that mean? Deter?’
King squatted down, so he could look the man in the eyes. He pointed an accusatory finger toward his nine incapacitated buddies.
‘They didn’t care about my family. Why should I care about yours?’
‘Because I don’t know what I’m doing. I just follow orders.’
‘I’ve heard that before.’
King got to his feet and said, ‘I still haven’t decided. So, until then…’
He kicked the driver in the side of the head, hard enough to put him out cold. Then he straightened up and adjusted his jacket and exhaled a cloud of breath into the chilly mountain air.
Silence.
Dead silence.
The village was like an anthropological exhibit.
And already King’s bones were heavy, wracked with tiredness, plagued by the intensity of that sort of exertion. He listened for the sounds of struggle inside the teahouse, but he didn’t hear a thing. Either Slater had already dealt with his own threats, or it was far too late to help. Either way, there was no need to rush.
But King wanted to know all the same.
Because the alternative would be … disastrous.
To both Slater’s wellbeing, and his own mental health.
As much as they might have fought, King realised with sudden
