19) A Titan’s Tears (Tick)

Cooper dragged the unconscious building custodian to a loading dock in a nearby building not far from the now fully involved and crumbling ‘Gentleman’s Club’. He no sooner had the custodian under the overhang when the heavens opened up.

Cooper straightened his aching back and closed his eyes, taking in a deep breath, the air resplendent with the smell of burnt wood from the nearby conflagration.

His eyes shot open when he sensed the presence behind him. Turning, he saw Mr. Alexander was standing on the opposite side of the street behind him. He was standing in his usual stance, feet shoulder width apart, hands crossed resting atop his black crystal Death Head Cane. He looked at Cooper through his smoked colored glasses, his top hat sheltering his face from the rain. Not a thread or hair out of place. He was dapper as usual.

Cooper, on the other hand, was a perfect example of a homeless man which was drug through twenty miles of rubbish heaps.

Alexander was saying something which Cooper didn’t understand over the sound of the rain and the ringing in his ears from all the shooting in close quarters.

Cooper cupped his ear and replied, “I’m sorry what?!”

Alexander shrugged and started again, this time louder, “Why did you even bother? He’ll be dead by tomorrow.”

“Not if I kill you first.”

Alexander shrugged and said, “Everyone dies eventually. Even you, immortal.”

It was Cooper’s turn to shrug, “So I guess you know, huh?”

“You have done a poor job hiding it these last couple of days.”

“I had higher priorities it would seem.”

“Yes, and I expect you will fail that as well. I now know where she is and have sent a company of shadow sentinels to take care of her. Oh, and they are instructed to be none to gentle about it.”

Cooper got a cold look in his eyes and said, “You’ll not live to see it through.”

Alexander smirked, an infuriating expression on his face, “I know something you do not, Cooper. Do you know what happened to the great Wingdama Aling? No of course not. You were probably told, like all others he went back to his home.”

“Well didn’t he?” Cooper was edging closer to the end of the loading dock he was standing on.

“I guess It depends on your beliefs. In the broader, spiritual sense that is. His bones were enshrined in the vaults under the Gentleman’s Club until you burned it down.” He was edging closer to Cooper as well. “You see, about 100 years ago he was still living here in Grandeur City and he had a bit of a dust up with my great-great grandfather.”

Cooper was slowly drawing his long bowie knife and tomahawk as he stepped out into the rain which was still pouring hard. He asked, “So then how does one kill an immortal?”

“How does one kill an immortal you ask? Well with the right weapon.” Alexander shifted his grip on his death head crystal cane handle and drew forth a two-foot-long, half inch-wide black crystal blade from the polished Roakwood cane.

Cooper could feel the crystal blade slide out from the wooden cane. It sounded like metal being drawn against metal, but the sensation was in his soul more than in his ears. It was like fingernails on a chalkboard. He knew then, down deep this sword wasn’t like any normal blade. He also knew this sword could kill him if he let it. So, the question was, ‘How do I not let it?’

Alexander moved forward with a grace of a fencer long schooled with perfected technique. Every move was a work of art. So precise, so graceful. The fluid motion carried him across the street amazingly quick without seeming to be. Much like a rattle snake striking its foe. One moment he wasn’t there, the next moment he was.

As tired and hurt as Cooper looked, he was still able to respond to the attack with as much cold hard precision as Alexander. It was as if a switch had been thrown and his body was reacting without processing from his convoys mind. He went from the tired man to a deadly automaton.

The two engaged in a deadly but graceful two-handed dance, every move smooth and sure, every move deadly. Cooper with his knife and tomahawk and Alexander with his sword and the outer Roakwood cane. Any lesser skilled opponent would have been dead many times over in the blink of an eye. Not these two.

The two would close and their weapons would contact in a three-part chop, parry, thrust. Click, click, click each time. This went on several times as the two dancers got the feel for the other. Then the dancers would add a fourth sweep or thrust with a sidestep turn to see if the other were complacent. One of these extra swings reaped a dividend for Alexander, although not as much as he had hoped for. A tiny nick on Cooper’s cheek.

Cooper felt the nick and wondered to himself, ‘No reason on Zahn why this nick should hurt so bad.’ He now knew for sure there was something very powerful about this crystal sword.

He had to ask. “What manner of crystal is this?!”

“It is from the very meteoric crystal the Glass Darkly was forged from.” he said smugly, and he pressed another attack.

Three more fruitless exchanges later, Cooper’s bowie knife exacted a small but painful slice on Alexander’s left earlobe.

Alexander quirked an eyebrow and asked, “Are we to take each other apart one nick at a time?”

Cooper said, “If we must.” and he pressed another attack whichended with a low cut to Alexander’s right thigh with his tomahawk followed by an upper cut with the bowie which sent all the buttons on Alexander’s long coat flying off and nicked his lower lip.

Alexander stepped back and brushed his split lower lip with his left sleeve and looked at the blood. He then sucked on his lower lip and shrugged his long coat off. His bravado was slightly decreased when he glanced up and saw the upper cut had also split the brim on his top hat. Had he been a fraction of an inch closer he would have been split from chin to forehead.

Cooper looked over at the bleeding wound on his left elbow where the tip of Alexander’s sword made it through his own guard. He thought, ‘Well if this were a fraction of an inch to the left it would have hit my ulna nerve plexus.’ This reminded him he was dealing with a very highly trained assassin. Even an apparently insignificant injury could be disabling. As it was, the wound was hurting more than it had a right to, evidently because of the nature of the weapon which caused it.

The dance they danced brought them closer to the still burning Gentleman’s Club. Most of the building had collapsed in on itself. One would think the shear amount of rain falling would have gone a long way towards dousing the flames, but it had not. The only results of the torrential rain was a thick white steam flowing off the burning maw of the foundation. It was as if Hell itself had opened up here in Grandeur City.

​Alexander glanced over at the flaming artifice and thought, ‘I’m going to have to rebuild this soon. Perhaps even better this time.’

Cooper tried to take advantage of his momentary distraction with a flurry of windmill attacks followed by a leg sweep.

Alexander was able to parry the wicked attack sequence of blades but the leg sweep was unexpected and sent him flying backwards against the remains of a set of stone steps which led tothe loading dock. The very loading dock which hours before Coop was leading Batty and the other orphans out of the bowels of this building.

While Alexander was on his back, Cooper tried to press in another attack but pulled up short as the black cane sword came thrusting out. He felt the tip of the blade bite into his groin as he did a quick move away to the side allowing the blade to pass by him and hopefully limiting the damage done. Cooper then kicked up against the stone steps and rebounded himself away from the building and Alexander. He looked down at the wound and realized if he had not turned just then the sword would have bit into what medics and swordsmen alike called Scarpa’s Triangle. A hit at any point in this region of the groin would have been disabling. At the point the tip of the black blade would have entered it could have severed the femoral artery and would have been fatal within a couple of minutes. As it was, the pain in that key juncture of nerves, muscles and blood vessels was more than it had any business being for the size of the scratch. Cooper hobbled back and shifted his weight to his right hip leaving almost no weight on his left.

Alexander kicked up his legs then used the downward motion to lever himself upright and back onto his feet. Cooper remember seeing this move so many times on Kung Fu movies. He had always thought of what the best move was to attack when one was doingthis. Without hesitation he rolled in, somewhat awkwardly, to come up right in front of his enemy then he did a slightly off-balancestanding eagle sweeping his weapons so as to disarm his foe. In theory it would have left him with a prisoner, but due to the off-balance way which he was forced to execute the move and the fact Alexander was left-handed it resulted in something different. Cooper’s bowie knife neatly sliced off Alexander’s left thumb sending the black sword flying off into an alley. His tomahawk came in awkwardly high, as he tried to compensate for his injury. This resulting in the tomahawk clipping Alexander’s right jawline missing the ideal target of the jugular vein and carotid artery.

The combatants’ forward motion caused them to bump chest to chest, knocking them back away from each other. Cooper had no control at this point, so he allowed himself to fall to his back and using the Judo techniques he had mastered, and he absorbed his fall. He remembered looking with disappointment as he missed the fatal target of Alexander’s jugular. However, he realized that that was a moot point as the slightly dazed Alexander tumbled backwards into the maw of hell itself which was the burning foundation of the Shadow’s Lair.

Cooper laid on his back in the deluge for who knows how long in pain. Finally, he realized his mission wasn’t over yet. He still had his lady to see to.

He forced himself to his feet and took several stumbling steps toward the battle he heard raging in the distance. He then realized he had another important detail to attend to and he turned. Stumbled back to the alley bent down and picked up the black crystal sword with its death head hilt, “Can’t leave you just lying around.”

He took another couple of steps back toward the battle, stopped and said, “Oh hell.” He then fell flat on his face unconscious.

Out of the gray shadows stepped a lone cloaked figure clutching an umbrella which they were using to ward off the down pour. The lone figure shuffled over to Cooper and stood above him for a long moment. The cloaked individual brushed back her hood to see better. It was Elsie.

“Oh Coop.” Her voice carried a soul’s worth of sadness as she knelt to see to his profusely bleeding wounds as the rain washed the blood away from Cooper’s limp body.