Vae Victus [Volume 1] [WOE TO THE VANQUISHED]

Chapter 11

I had not been idling around in the past 7 months, playing desperate housewife and cleaning dishes. 

New York had surpassed all my expectations in what I could do without leaving the city. I found Krav Maga, Muay Thai, and Brazillian Jiu-Jitsu experts who were willing to teach me in private lessons. The fact that the platinum credit card John gave me had no limit was very useful.

Physically, I had not lost a step in the past half a year. I was as sharp as I had ever been. Mentally though, I had grown soft. I had let my little girl out too often. My instincts were screaming that trouble was coming, and I would need my monster to keep me alive.

I had to thank Robert the Pervert Peeping Pig to thank. Mr. Triple P, as I called him now, was a wake-up call. I could slowly feel my monster returning, and it was not welcomed by one of my sparring partners.

"Half strength, Kefira," Eli said, holding his broken nose. He was my Krav Maga teacher.

"Slih'a," I said. Sorry in Hebrew.

"It's okay," Eli said. "Is something wrong? You are becoming..." He was lost for words to explain the changes in my attitude in the past few weeks.

"Feral?" I said.

Eli nodded. "Look, aggression is good. You will need that in a real fight. But please hold back a bit when we spar, ok? My wife would not like me to go home looking like this."

"I am so sorry, Eli," I said again.

"Look, I know from the first day we trained that you are no beginner at this," Eli said. He put a towel on his nose and it drenched red with blood. "I had trained a lot of Sayeret guys back in Israel and you can easily beat them all in term of pure skills."

Sayerets were the special force units of Israel Defence Force (IDF). It literally meant "patrol".

"Skills do not mean anything on a battlefield," I said. My expression was blank and my eyes were focused.  I could see Eli shuddered. He had just seen the true extent of the monster in me.

Eli nodded. "That's true," he said. "But skills are what I am teaching you, and I don't think I have anything left to teach."

"Are you firing me?" I asked. I frowned. Eli was one of the best Krav Maga experts I had ever trained with. 

Eli laughed. "I don't want to take your money and teach you nothing, Kefira." 

"Is this because of your nose? I promise I will hold back," I pleaded.

Eli shook his head. "No, a broken nose is part of sparring. I just have nothing left to teach you. If you want to teach in my school, I would be happy to hire you," he said. "But please hold back when you spar with the students, you can easily kill them."

I stared at my feet. It was disappointing, but he was right. As far as techniques and skills were involved, I had learned everything I could from him. He would always be stronger and I would always be faster, but those were not what martial arts classes about.

"I would refund your tuition —" Eli said.

"That's okay," I interrupted. "It's not my money anyway."

Eli looked at me. He had seen the name on the platinum credit card he charged every month for our private sessions. John Ben-Gurion was not an easy name to miss. Eli nodded. 

I had caught Eli's eyes watching me from time to time. A part of my ego was glad that my body still could command such desire from most men. But he was a happily married man and a professional martial artist with strong discipline. We had no problem in our relationship as student and teacher for seven months.

I bowed to him and he bowed back. It was not strictly Krav Maga tradition to do so, but our martial art was a hybrid of Judo, Sambo, Karate and many other ancient arts. Respect was respect, no matter how you showed it.

I rode John's Audi R8 Spyder back to our apartment. I had five speeding tickets already, which was impressive given that it was impossible to speed in NYC traffic. I tried my best not to break the speed limit as I did not want to lose my driving license.

I parked the car in John's underground garage. He had a whole floor just for his cars. Level B10. The security door was activated with a remote and I drove in. The elevator took me to the penthouse level after I swiped the card.

I opened the front door and walked toward the kitchen. I flicked the light switch, but it did not turn on. That was strange. I would need to replace the bulbs or more likely one of the circuit breakers tripped.

I opened the fridge and grabbed an unopened orange juice bottle. John, Jane, and Roberts were all gone now. The couple should be in their new apartment, trashing it as usual. John was having another late night work in his foundation. My mind started to wander to Anastasia Karpov. That pretty Russian snake would slither and devoured John whole. I sighed as I opened the bottle cap.

I could feel the wind of the movement. A wire was thrown above my head. A garotte. I inserted my left hand in front of my face. It was an automatic reaction before my conscious mind even realized what happened. The wire of the garotte was tightened back and it cut through the skin my left wrist. 

Piano wire,  quarter an inch in diameter. If I had not inserted my wrist, the snap would have crushed my windpipe and a few minutes later it would restrict all the blood into my brain and killed me.

If he kicked the back of my knees or used a judo throw on my back, the thin steel wire would cut through my arm. 

I bought myself some time, but not much. I did not want to lose my left hand, the piano wire was biting through the skin and meat around my wrist.

Instead of waiting for the incoming judo throw, I leaped backward, letting the gravity smashed my entire body weight onto the assailant behind me. 

He tumbled down, but his grip on the wire remained tight. He is strong, really strong.  I did not think I would get out of this one alive. We were both laying down on the kitchen floor now, facing the ceiling. I was laying on top of him, my back on his chest. I spread my legs for the base, pressing and bridging backward to keep him slightly pinned in his position. It relieved some of the pressure on the wire.

He had my back and he wrapped his feet near my thighs. Awesome, he knows Brazillian Jiujitsu. The person had the element of surprise, height, strength, and weapon. The last one was the biggest thing. With a steel wire garotte, he could easily use the leverage of his elbows on my head or body to break my hand and neck.  I could not let him obtain any leverage on his wires.

I had one free hand, two partially free legs. I bridged real hard backward on the toes of my feet and found no result. He was too heavy. Even if I could push him, his wrapped feet kept him on my back. 

The garrotte pressed my wrist onto my face and I could feel blood pouring from my nose. He had pulled my hand into my face so hard that my nose broke. I could feel the steel piano wire biting into my bones.

So this is how it will end. And then I remembered about John. He would be back later tonight. He would be left alone with this man. He would die. No. I will not let it end this way.