Breakfall (8 page)

A
DRIAN
STOOD
in the middle of the circle with a bottle of beer in his left hand. His right thumb was hooked into the waistband of a pair of black cargo pants, black muscle shirt hugging his torso and revealing the enviable musculature of a former gymnast. There was laughter in his coffee eyes as he scanned the crowd.

“All right.” His voice carried through the cavernous space. “Since we have a newcomer, I’ll direct this invitation to him.” He met Sean’s eyes, raising his drink in a salute. “Sean. Will you share drink and blood with me?”

Sean felt conspicuous as eyes turned toward him, assessing him from his unruly hair all the way down to his scuffed sneakers.

It’s just like a demo.

His breath deepened as he forced the jitters down. With a clenched jaw, he gave a curt nod, picked up a beer, opened it, and joined his honorable opponent in the ring. “I will drink your beer while your blood curdles?” Sean responded, mangling the customary retort.

He saw Adrian cock his eyebrow. “Nobody takes my beer.”

They touched bottles and took their time to drain them while the crowd laughed and snickered. The levity made Sean pause, and a sudden sense of serious calm descended upon him as he set the bottle to the side. He bowed to Rios, and to his surprise, Rios bowed back.

They circled one another. Sean would not attack first. They played, moving back and forward, side to side, trying to stay within one another’s
maiai
—the right distance for a one-step attack. They made a cat-and-mouse game out of maintaining their center on their target while making it impossible to do so for their opponent.

“Quit dancing around and fight, you pussies!”

“Hey, nothing wrong with pussies,” Nell sounded off, keeping her eyes on the fight.

Adrian moved in with a jab. Sean avoided it, raising his hands as though to capture the quickly retreating fist. A grin of recognition spread over Adrian’s face, and he lunged in, grabbing Sean’s shirt by the shoulders. Sean twisted to the side and dropped to one knee, bowing his head. His opponent’s momentum carried him over Sean’s back, into a graceful
ukemi
roll, and back to his feet.

“You can fall. That’s good.” Sean’s eyes brightened with relief.

“You can duck my jab. That’s good too,” Adrian retorted. “Aikido, right?”

Sean scowled. Now that his opponent recognized his style, there was no way he was going to engage him in a regular sparring match. There was no way, likewise, that he was going to allow Sean to get a hold of his wrists and perform those devastating, exquisitely painful joint locks on him. He saw Adrian move in for another grab, this time with a bit less momentum.

Sean
felt
the intent behind Adrian’s grab for his wrists and frowned. He expected kicks and punches, not an effort to engage up close. No need to accept the invitation, however. Allowing his opponent’s touch, he stepped into and past him, shooting his right hand up over Adrian’s face and the other down behind his hip.

Tenchi nage
—
Earth and Heaven throw. There was no way he could lose with his favorite technique.

Adrian’s body bent backward before he righted himself, catlike, in midair and took a breakfall on the hard concrete floor. Sean felt a pang of guilt for throwing the amicable man so hard, when suddenly Adrian’s feet wrapped around his knee, one pushing and one pulling against the joint. Adrian rolled on the ground until Sean’s own momentum hurled him onto the concrete floor, face-first, with devastating force.

A
SBJORN
STOOD
surrounded by a bunch of local street kids in various gang colors. Their differences were set aside for now, because they shared neutral ground; the only fights that mattered in here were the ones won and lost within the circle. Their eyes were on Adrian, watching with what passed for cool detachment, but the kids were unable to suppress the excitement in their eyes. They almost cheered aloud when Adrian grappled Sean with his feet from the ground. Asbjorn groaned when Sean’s blond head met the floor with a thud, the fall barely slowed by his arms. With snakelike speed, Adrian twisted the stunned man’s arm behind him, pressed his right knee into the small of Sean’s back, and rested the left gently on Sean’s exposed cheekbone.

Asbjorn watched Sean tap out. Adrian removed himself from the newcomer, giving him space to stand up on his own. Sean clambered up with a bewildered scowl on his face. The two bowed again, and the gesture filled Asbjorn with heartache. Bowing in a traditional manner was something Thorpe-sensei kept doing even here, whether it was expected or not. Asbjorn noted the way the gang kids bumped fists with their neighbors, regardless of colors or affiliation, because when the man who mediated their serious disputes won, it reflected well upon them. Not every social worker helped you fill out paperwork or got you food during the day, only to kick some serious ass at night. Adrian was to these kids what Tiger had been to him.

Tiger.
Tiger would’ve said Sean didn’t know all the falls there are to know. Tiger would’ve said Sean didn’t know much about groundwork, either—having stayed in range of a thrown opponent like that.

He sighed, fished a chemical ice pack out of Nell’s first-aid bag, and waited for Sean to exit the circle. “Hey.” He put his hand on Sean’s shoulder, stopping the younger man, and inspected the angry red mark on his forehead. “You okay?”

“Yeah.” Sean’s response was automatic.

“Look at me.” Asbjorn examined Sean’s pupils, seeing nothing but a pissed-off look. “Here, put this on. You took quite a hit there.” He pressed the ice pack against Sean’s forehead, grinning when Sean shook him off with irritation.

“I said I’m fine. Leave me the hell alone.”

If Sean was mad over having his ass handed to him, he wasn’t badly hurt and would recover in no time.

A
S
HE
watched Dud exchange a series of kicks and punches with a tall black man, Sean kept the ice pack on his forehead, where the goose egg was already forming. He stewed inside. Such humiliation. He had thought he was pretty good. He’d thought as long as he kept his one point and remained centered and didn’t attack first, no harm could ever befall him. Burrows-sensei….

Guilt suddenly flooded him. Burrows-sensei would definitely disapprove of his presence here. Hybridizing his aikido with other techniques was bad enough. So far he had justified it by telling himself he needed to get ready in case that wild guy with a gun decided to go after him. But what were the odds on that?

His grand jury testimony was scheduled for the second Tuesday after Thanksgiving. He’d do it. The law was important, stopping the man even more so, and Burrows-sensei would want him to testify. But this—what Burrows-sensei would no doubt call an “unseemly display” and “gratuitous violence”—he had no excuse for even being here.

Yet quitting was out of the question. If he quit now and never came back, he’d feel like a sore loser. Asbjorn would think him a sissy—not that it mattered—but Asbjorn….

A
HORN
honked outside. Lisa glanced at the monitor and smiled, then pushed the garage door opener. “We have company.”

Three bikes rumbled in, their loud pipes reverberating off the wall across the street as they eased their way behind Dud’s Jeep. Three leather-clad men popped their helmets and removed their gloves and jackets.

A murmur rose through the crowd. “Ken Swift is here!” A white-haired man with pale eyes sauntered over to bump fists with the largest of the riders, who wore his black hair tied back in a ponytail, his face leathered by sun and laugh lines.

“Don. So didya ever get that new bike?”

“Nah….”

“What, you don’t wanna ride with us no more?”

“Nope. Sorry.”

“You’re a pussy, Don. Just because you had Tiger fight you for your bike and he won, you won’t ride anymore?”

Don turned away from Ken, only to meet hard, blue eyes in a face frozen with shock.

Asbjorn hadn’t known. Nobody had mentioned that particular detail of the circumstances of Tiger’s death, but knowing Don, there was no way he’d have lost a fight over his prized Ducati unless he
wanted
Tiger to have it. And had Don not thrown that fight, Tiger wouldn’t have wiped out on his bike in a fatal crash. He would have been standing next to him right now, their shoulders almost touching as they watched the fights in progress. They would have been commenting on the merits of various techniques, arguing about the waning influence of Grazie ju-jitsu on the MMA circuit, and debating whether internal corruption had killed boxing as a sport.

Tiger’s absence ripped through him, manifesting as a physical agony that spread from his heart to his very extremities. Howling inside, he felt himself tense.

Eye for an eye.

Asbjorn grabbed a bottle of beer, not flinching from Don’s pale eyes. A feeling of calm as unyielding and cold as arctic ice flooded his body. He felt himself expand, grounded in space, poised for action. No words were necessary. Don took a bottle of tequila from Ken’s outstretched hand and joined Asbjorn in the middle of the ring.

“A
S
YOU
spin, point your attention at the target. Your knife will know where to go.” Lisa’s voice sounded hollow with the cotton balls stuffed up her broken nose. She had returned to her task as soon as she opened the door. Now she demonstrated again, letting Nell watch her spin, stop, and throw the carefully balanced blade into the thick Styrofoam board.

“Point, like in ballet? In a pirouette?”

“Yes!” Lisa’s voice was excited. She threw knives well and often and shared her expertise with boundless enthusiasm.

Nell assumed her position at the piece of tape, which marked a ten-foot distance to the target. One easy knife rotation spanned the distance, and the business end of the blade embedded itself in the white surface with a thud. Now the challenge was to realign herself at the end of her spin and execute the throw with controlled precision.

Spin.

Center.

Throw.

The knife stuck into the very edge, its askew angle indicating Nell released it a fraction of a second too early.

“Better!” Lisa smiled.

“Yeah, ’cept you better get your butt over to the ring. Asbjorn’s fighting Don.”

Both women turned to Dud.

“Pray tell.” Nell’s expression was full of concern.

“Asbjorn figured out the bike connection and issued Don a challenge.”

“Shit.” Nell set the rest of the knives on the nearby table and led the way with urgency in her step.

S
EAN
WAS
finishing the beer he earned by fighting one of the local kids and winning, making sure not to throw him too hard. The Hispanic boy with a little tear tattooed in the corner of his eye was impressed, and Sean’s ego was on the mend. Now, however, he felt the congenial atmosphere of the warehouse grow chilly. Conversations ceased once the three newcomers arrived on motorcycles and exchanged a few friendly words with those already present.

Then there was Asbjorn. Sean had never seen his friend quite like this before. His body lacked its usual laid-back air. His angular jaw tightened, and those eyes, the beautiful sapphire eyes Sean thought he knew so well, they were empty and flat and… scary.

They didn’t touch bottles. Asbjorn drained his beer and returned the bottle to the side. Don took a swig of tequila and handed the bottle to the tall biker with the weathered face.

They did not bow. They did not bump fists, either. Weight on the balls of their feet, they circled one another, fists raised. Their breathing was even and their gazes intense in a defocused kind of a way, not really seeing the details of the other person but taking in the whole space around, peripheral vision fully deployed.

Kicks were exchanged and blocked; punches followed—and they were blocked
hard
, caught on the forearms. Sean heard Adrian’s sharply drawn breath.

“What?”

“What they’re doing—you can’t block with your hands without gloves. It’s crazy. They’ll break something.”

A
SBJORN
FELT
Don’s devastating
muay thai
kick catch his ribs before he could withdraw the punch that marked Don’s jaw. An exchange of fast blows followed, none hard enough to cause much damage.

They circled some more, pacing themselves, their breathing now heavier.

Don launched a kick and Asbjorn moved out of it, blocking.

Calm brown eyes looked down at Asbjorn. Tiger’s grin was lazy as always. “You’ve put on some inches, kid.”

No longer centered on Don, he launched a rear kick with his heel and spun, connecting with Don’s knee.

“Slow is smooth, smooth is fast. Don’t hurry so much, Asbjorn.”

Don moved with a hook to Asbjorn’s jaw, hoping for a knockout, but Asbjorn caught it on the forehead in an attempt to duck.

“If you must block with your head, take it on the hard part.”

His broken skin began to bleed into his eye, the red rivulets running down his cheek.

“If you touch that blindfold again, that’s fifty more push-ups.”

“Don’t panic.”

“Breathe.”

His tongue snaked out to taste his own blood and he heard his own cold, hollow laugh.

“Never fight angry.”

One-eyed, he moved in, catching a hook on his ear and not caring, leaning in to hit the older man with short, stiff uppercuts.

“I’ll be here when you come back, Asbjorn.”

T
HIS
WAS
unlike the other fights. Sean looked around. The silent crowd focused on the violent altercation—no, the
duel
—
with rapt attention, but nobody moved in to stop it. The gangbanger kids, now clustered around Adrian, looked at their older mentor with questioning eyes, but he shook his head disconsolately.