Path of the Tiger, стр. 14

PART ONE

1

WILLIAM

16^th September 2020. New York City, USA.

Of the countless predators who prowled the geometric jungle of light and shadow that was New York City, one was more deadly than any other. His savage roar tore through the concrete-entombed land, but those who had last heard such thunder had slept beneath the soil for ten thousand years. But on this night, a sliver after midnight on a Friday evening in the year 2020, the monstrous snarl resounded in these parts once more, bouncing from wall to crumbling wall in a Brownsville alley and scuttling past a dozing vagrant. Coughing and shaking, he raised his head, unsure whether the roar had come from this world or the parallel universe of waking dreams and ever-melting illusions. When he was satisfied that the sound had been conjured by an imp of the latter realm, he began hobbling through the alley, dragging the stench of his unwashed skin and greasy rags behind him.

It was then that he heard the voice of the predator once more, but this time it reverberated with a clarity that placed it firmly in the realm of reality. This was a sound he had not heard for many decades, since the long-gone days of his childhood in a jungle village in rural Nicaragua; the baritone V-twin rumble of a jaguar.

With protruding, fear-darting eyes he peered through the veil of gloom.

Roar!

Yes, there the sound was again, as unmistakable as it had been when it had sent dread coursing through his veins as a boy, many decades past. It seemed as if the beast was only a few paces upwind of him; he could almost smell the earthy muskiness of the great cat on the chilly night breeze and sense its wild heart pulsing in the shadows. However, all he could discern through the shredded wisps of fog was the unthreatening stillness of trash cans, garbage bags and a pile of recycling waste.

It was as he turned to limp away that something large and fast-moving flashed across the farthest periphery of his vision. He spun around and stared with terror-dilated pupils at the roof of a nearby building just as a shape, silhouetted against the night sky for a fleeting millisecond, disappeared from sight. The image lingered behind his eyes, for it had been unmistakably recognisable; it had to be, against all odds, a jaguar. With a flush of fear throbbing hot anxiety in his temples and spurring urgent momentum into his limbs, he hurried away to seek refuge, finding it in a burnt-out wreck of a nineteenth-century building, tattooed with graffiti and gang tags; a haven for drug dealers, gang bangers, junkies and hookers.

A few minutes after he disappeared into the oil-slick darkness of the derelict building, two rather different figures emerged from the rear entrance of the ruin. Attired in grimy jeans, jackboots and sleeveless tee shirts, the pair of skinheads were passing a bottle of cheap spirits back and forth, swigging on the fiery liquid as they cursed and joked.

When they passed by the alley they paused, both noticing a figure materializing from the drizzle of fog and neon light, which stained the ghostly swirls with hues of red, pink, purple and blue.

One, a strapping young man with stone-chiselled muscles straining taut against colourful tattoo sleeves, pointed at the figure.

‘Piece ‘a shit spic,’ he grunted.

His friend, an obese youth clad in a black leather vest covered with Neo-Nazi pins, grinned evilly, revealing a rack of half-rotten teeth as he rasped out a reply.

‘I think we need to teach this border-hoppin’ prick a lesson in American hospitality.’

They slipped behind a dumpster to wait for their target, a Hispanic man in his mid-thirties, dressed impeccably in a charcoal business suit, tailor-cut for his powerful, broad-shouldered physique. His dark hair was slicked back from his forehead, and a meticulously trimmed goatee, together with his lupine eyes, proud nose and strong, almost geometric jawline, gave him the cast of a Spanish warrior of old.

When the man got to within a few feet of them, the thugs stepped out to block his passage. He stopped, entirely unintimidated, and flashed them a disarming smile.

‘Gentlemen,’ he said, his voice lightly coloured with the hint of a Latin-American accent, ‘I would appreciate it if you would allow me to pass.’

The tattooed goon whipped out a butterfly knife.

‘“Gentlemen”?’ he scoffed. ‘Okay asshole, okay. But, see, this here’s our city, and our country. And if you wanna walk these streets, you pay us a toll. Your bean-eatin’ ass don’t belong here, so if you wanna be here, you pay for that privilege. You fuckin’ pay.’

The man stared coolly at the pair, locking his unwavering gaze into each of theirs in turn, and then a sudden gas-flame ignited behind his eyes.

‘Gentlemen,’ he repeated, every calm syllable oozing with unmistakable menace, ‘I will not ask again. Stand aside … now.’

The larger skinhead burst into a bout of obnoxious laughter.

‘You speak English pretty good … for a dirty-ass wetback!’ Abruptly his laughter stopped, and his sneer twisted into a savage snarl as he whipped out a chrome-plated nine-millimetre pistol. ‘This ain’t no joke, you foreign faggot,’ he growled. ‘Pay or die.’

The well-dressed stranger’s composure remained unflappable, his cold smile frozen in place. When the muzzle of the pistol was shoved into the man’s cheek, however, an eerie grin spread beneath his waxed moustache.

‘That was the last mistake you’ll ever make, boy,’ he whispered.

Deep within the chilly depths of the ruined mansion, huddled beneath a pile of rags that stank of rancid sweat, crusted faeces and stale piss, the vagrant cowered as a series of bloodcurdling screams, through which jaguar snarls hacked and sawed, split the droning hum of the city night. With this satanic symphony ringing in his ears, he sobbed his madman’s tears into the rags and pulled them