Doda has tainted the city - filling its veins with
his filth for years, he has made it an addict.
It is time the poison
was flushed out, and the city went into rehab. It must be cleansed, of the
drugs and of Doda. He has thrown down the gauntlet.
I am Salar, and I have taken up the challenge!
The parking lot was deserted, just
like it had been the night Salar had busted up Adeel Doda’s drug deal, earning the
drug lord’s eternal hatred in the process. Salar’s memory of that night was
still hazy, but he could well remember the gunshots, particularly the one that
had caught him in the shoulder. He remembered the flash of moonlight on his daggers
and the flow of blood that followed. Tonight, there would be no drugs, yet blood
would surely flow and come dawn, Doda would either be behind bars or he would be
dead!
x---------------x
The cars pulled up outside the
parking lot, five of them, and fourteen men clambered out. Each of them was
clad in black, and each had a weapon of choice - steel knuckles, sticks, crowbars,
daggers, and baseball bats, yet no guns. Doda had expressly forbidden them - he
wanted Salar alive, broken and beaten to a pulp, yet alive. He watched from one
of the cars as his men spread around the lot in pairs, searching for the masked
vigilante. Tonight, Salar would lie at his feet in a pool of blood and come
dawn, he would be dead!
x---------------x
The night had grown colder, and Salar’s
shoulder wound tickled. He shrugged it off, weighing the Kali sticks in his hands,
adjusting his grip. He had counted the men as they entered the parking lot, taking
mental notes of their weapons, their height, and their mass. Perched atop the
closed restaurant, he couldn’t help but feel a touch disappointed - fourteen
men. They were too few. This was too
easy! Salar grinned, and jumped off the rooftop.
The first pair never saw him coming.
Salar took them down with simultaneous blows to the back of their heads, silently
and efficiently, and then dispossessed them of their weapons. He moved onto the
next, and then the third, knocking them out quickly, balancing the odds stacked
against him. It wasn’t until he spotted the fourth pair of Doda’s men that Salar
encountered his first real problem of the night.
Salar assessed his options, watching
the two men as he crouched in the shadow of a large SUV. These men were sharper,
smarter - it would be difficult to catch them unawares, impossible to prevent them
from calling out. Boring, thought
Salar, and then made his decision. He placed the Kali sticks on the ground, then
launched himself off the fender, and vaulted over the vehicle, drawing his swords
mid-air and descending upon the wide-eyed thugs, even as they shrieked for help.
x---------------x
Adeel Doda stopped dead in his tracks
when he heard the terrified shriek, He is
HERE! He had been pacing next to his car, restless with anticipation, his mind
raging with a single, all consuming desire when - ‘Found the bastard!’ He moved towards the sounds of weapon striking weapon,
flanked by two of his henchmen, smug with thoughts of his inevitable victory until he came upon Salar, engaged with six of his men at once.
Doda’s smile faltered then, as he observed
the atrocious skill that the vigilante displayed in battle. Gone were all traces
of the smugness he had displayed but a moment ago, as he watched Salar dispose of
his men with astonishing speed and ridiculous ease. Doda signalled his two bodyguards
to join the fray as well, and watched with increasing horror as they too fell, succumbing
to the flurry of Salar’s swords.
Sketch n' Design: Tehreem Naeem
x---------------x
The night grew quiet again, and then
broke into morning as the first rays of dawn appeared over Ittehad City. Salar
sheathed his swords, surveying the eight bodies that lay strewn around him. He
looked up to find Doda rooted where he stood, too scared to attack and too shocked
to run away. “Go now. Leave this city, and never return. You are banished, under
pain of death!”
Doda twitched, hands clenched into
fists, eyes full of hate, trying to burn holes into Salar merely with their
gaze. “Banished?” he screamed at last. “This is my fucking city!” He ran
towards Salar with a bellow, and swung his arms mightily, only to catch empty air
with the steel that encased his knuckles. “Fight me!” he raged, as Salar evaded
his blows. “Fight me, you arrogant little pissant. No one banishes me from my own
fucking city!”
Salar stopped him with a single punch,
hard into the sternum, robbing him of his breath and his voice. He then grabbed
Doda by the collar, slammed him into the side of the SUV, and punched him twice
more, this time in the right kidney. “I gave you the chance to run. Now, you
will rot in prison, and you will watch as this city cleanses itself of your filth.
What is so fucking funny?” asked Salar, as Doda began laughing.
“Look at you,” replied Doda with a
smirk. “You don’t even know the city you are trying to save. Send me to jail.
Go ahead. I will be out in a few hours, and I’ll rule over Ittehad again after
I have killed you!”
“Perhaps you are right,” said Salar
grimly, “Maybe I don’t know this city anymore. But you, you will never corrupt it
again.”
Salar stepped back, then rammed the
heel of his boot into Doda’s right kneecap, and Doda screamed, a bloodcurdling shriek
that drowned the sound of bone shattering into a hundred fragments. Salar held him
up against the SUV, then broke his left arm at the elbow and Doda howled again,
writhing in agony. Salar then punched his right side, breaking the two lower
ribs, and walked away, as Doda crumpled into a heap on the ground, whimpering hoarsely.
x---------------x
The tension in the front room of
Zaray’s farmhouse was almost palpable. Zaray paced its length, as she had done through
the night, and let out another frustrated huff. She shot an ugly look towards Süleyman,
who had neither moved from
his vigil in the armchair, nor said a word since Salar had left to confront Doda.
He could have saved her, and himself, all this stress had he but allowed her to
go with Salar.
Zaray hadn’t slept since before
Maryam and Salar had shown up almost twenty-four hours ago, followed by the dead body and the gruesome
message on her surveillance screen. They had spent the morning with their eyes glued
to the screen, until it had become clear that the police had no intention of moving
the body. Süleyman had arrived in the afternoon, and had then arranged for
the corpse to be brought to the farmhouse.
They
had examined every inch of it, but the only thing of interest was the note they
found in the shirt’s front pocket: ‘Tonight - where the drug deal went wrong
for both of us.’ The rest of the evening, they had debated how to deal with the
situation, and Zaray had pleaded to go with, but in the end, Salar had gone out
into the night alone.
Maryam had smoked her way through half
a dozen cigarettes after he left, before Zaray had to snatch the pack away from
her. She had since worried herself to sleep, and lay curled up on the couch, dozing
fitfully and murmuring in her sleep. She awoke now, to
the sound of a car coming up the driveway, as Süleyman finally stirred, sitting
up straighter and more alert.
“How
did it go?” she asked, as soon as Salar had stepped in through the front door. “Are
you hurt? What about Doda?”
“Not
a scratch,” said Salar with an easy smile, collapsing into the armchair next to Süleyman. “As for Doda, he has been permanently
withdrawn. There
might be a problem though. I had to take extreme measures.”
Süleyman
leant forward as Salar unsheathed his swords and placed them on the coffee
table. He ran a finger across one blade, and held it up, blood glistening in
the light. “How many were there?” he asked quietly. “Tell me what happened.”
Salar
explained the events of the night - how he had been forced to use his swords,
and how he had dealt with Doda. Zaray glared at Salar throughout the story,
huffing with exasperation, and swore loudly when Salar described taking on eight
men alone.
“Well,
we will deal with it - me and Zaray. You, Salar, you have quite another problem
to take care of now,” said Süleyman. “An old friend of ours has
followed you to Ittehad, and that does not bode well for the city.”
“Who is he?” asked Zaray and Maryam
together, just as Salar said, “Which friend are you talking about?”
“She,”
corrected Süleyman, his eyes fixed on Salar. “She is someone who will lay
to waste everything that we have been trying to build here.”
“Are
you absolutely certain that it is her, and she is definitely here?” asked Salar.
“Without
a doubt, son. It is her. Marijana has come to Ittehad.”
