TWENTY-ONE

Sierra Rico’s face had turned completely blank, his mind a mess of alcohol and emotion-fuelled confusion. He walked through the flickering lights across the Marino club’s dance floor, his olive face glistening in sweat, his steps weak and getting weaker. With his adrenaline rush fading, it was suddenly as though his body had been sapped of all its energy and he just felt like spewing his guts out.

“Hey, who are you?” Ryu Honda called out to him as he walked down from the DJ stage with Meyoko trailing behind him.

Sierra stopped walking. His hand was still trembling as he reached under his coat and gripped hold of Lana’s crucifix tightly, holding it up right against his heart.

“Hey, I said, who the hell are you?!” Ryu repeated, louder this time, more forceful.

“Sierra,” Sierra responded without turning back. “Sierra Rico. What’s it to you?”

“You just risked your life for us,” Ryu said. “Why did you help us?”

After taking several long, deep breaths, Sierra holstered his sidearm and turned back to face Ryu and Meyoko. As he did, he remembered Lana, thinking back to a time she had saved his life as a total stranger when he was in trouble. And when he had asked her why back then, she had replied just as Sierra did now to Ryu’s question. “I couldn’t just let you die, could I?”

Sierra was about to take another step towards them when a loud, deep-throated laughter suddenly echoed out across the now eerily silent club. His entire body froze on the spot as soon as he heard it. He knew that laugh. It was not something one forgot; not when the man behind that laughter had taken everything in his world from him.

“Sierra Rico,” the voice from his past called out to him. “I see you haven’t lost your touch. For a Guerrero who lost his balls, you still kill just fine.”

Sierra’s eyes circled rapidly around the club, searching for the source of that voice. There! The man was sitting down at a table, right on the edge of the dance floor, his body obscured by darkness. And although Sierra didn’t know it, the man had been lurking around the club the entire time, watching on with enjoyment as the carnage unfolded around him.

And there, sitting on the man’s lap, was a woman Sierra recognised immediately by her red dress. It was Tara. The man was holding a knife up against her throat to keep her still.

Sierra’s eyes narrowed, desperately trying to make out the face of the man holding Tara. It couldn’t be who he thought he knew it was. It just wasn’t possible; that man was supposed to be dead! But soon any doubts he may have had were put to rest as the man leaned forward in his chair, bringing his face into a shaft of light. It was a face Sierra knew all too well, one that still haunted him to this day; those sharp eyes, that seemingly permanent smirk, and that hair cut razor short and still coloured like a tiger’s fur.

“Mickey.” Sierra felt his blood freeze, his facial muscles turning numb with shock. He tried to will himself to move, but his legs would simply not listen.

“Well, well, isn’t this a sight for sore eyes,” Mickey Toma chuckled. “The legendary Calavera all frozen up and helpless, like a deer caught in the headlights!” He grabbed Tara roughly by the hair. The woman’s eyes were wide and her mouth was gaping as she struggled to breathe. The fiend pressed his knife against her throat just hard enough to draw a slither of blood.

“Sierra…” Tara whimpered.

“This is how you like your women, right?” Toma glanced across to his captive appraisingly. “Dark-haired, deer-eyed and completely at my mercy. Remind you of anyone?”

“I don’t understand…” Sierra could barely get his words out. He felt paralysed, his head still spinning from the alcohol, nausea brewing in his stomach. He could not even muster the energy to reach for his Colt Peacemaker. “How… how are you still alive?”

Toma grinned. “Come on, Sierra. Have a little faith. I am your shadow. The product of your sins. That one endless nightmare that just won’t leave you alone. The only way you can find peace from me is to take your Colt Peacemaker, put it up to your temple and blow your brains out. But we both know that you won’t do that, don’t we? Oh no, so long as there are people to die in your place, you will always be a survivor; that is your nature. No matter how hard you fight to deny it, it will always be who you are!”

Sierra could not even think of an adequate response to that. He remained silent, barely believing anything that was going on.

“I have something here I’d like to show you, but I’m not sure if now is quite the right time,” Toma reached into his pocket with one hand and pulled out what appeared to be a polaroid photograph. Sierra could only see the blank back of it. For a moment the fiend appeared to be considering whether or not to show the picture to Sierra, but then with a smile he shook his head and returned it to his pocket.

“No," Toma said. "I think I might just hold onto this a little while longer. By all means, let your imagination run wild as to what it may be. I bet you’ll never guess. But let’s just say… I have a feeling you’re not going to like it very much.”

Toma turned his head to Tara then, whispering something into her ear. Her eyes seemed to flicker in response and she nodded to him once he was done.

“Well, Sierra, I hate to have to rush this little reunion of ours, especially given how long it’s been since our last meeting,” Toma turned back to his old enemy and withdrew his knife from his captive’s throat. “But unfortunately duty calls and I have places to be. So, let’s get this show on the road.”

Tara stood up and began to walk towards Sierra. “Sierra,” she whispered, “help me. Please.”

Suddenly then the memories of that horrific night back in San Lorenzo came streaming through Sierra’s mind; the moment when he’d last seen Lana, dazed and shocked and confused, stumbling towards him, right before Mickey Toma had...

No! Sierra finally willed his drunken body into action, but it was all just a second too late as Mickey Toma’s gunshot rang out.

He dived forward just as the bullet found its mark and Tara started to fall, catching her body just before she hit the floor. But all his efforts were to no avail; the bullet-hole in the back of Tara’s head stared back up at Sierra blankly like a third eye, tears of scarlet still weeping out from it.

She was already dead.

“Bastardo!” Sierra’s shock quickly gave way to anger. He went to draw his Colt Peacemaker, crying out at the top of his lungs, by then the fiendish Guerrero was already on the move, charging through the flickering darkness of the club straight towards. He reached Sierra just as he got his gun up, kicking it free from his hand.

Cursing in frustration, Sierra lay Tara’s body down on the floor and stood up to face his nemesis, drawing his knife.

“You sure you want to play with that?” Toma laughed, circling around Sierra. Neither his knife nor sidearm were drawn as he stuck his tongue out tauntingly, signaling with his hands to bring it. “Come on then, Guerrero! Show me what you’ve got left in you!”

Sierra cried out and attacked the fiend with a wild swing, hampered by his emotional, drunken state to the point of looking pathetic. Toma easily ducked under his first blow, laying a light punch into Sierra’s ribs which sent him doubling over and choking up vomit.

“Come on, Sierra,” Toma taunted, signaling for him to get back up to his feet. “Is that it? It seems you’ve fallen even further than I thought.”

With a roar of fury, Sierra calmed his stomach and got back to a vertical base. He attacked again with his knife in a series of heavy slashes. Toma ducked and weaved around his strokes without the least bit of concern, then suddenly he caught Sierra by the arm and wiped him off his feet with a shoulder to the face, the knife flying from Sierra’s grasp.

“Why don’t I just kill you now, Sierra, and put you out of your fucking misery!” Toma drew his knife from his sheath, holding it to Sierra’s throat. “That would be the easiest move. But then again, where would be the fun in that?”

Sierra growled back up at him with hatred, but no words would formulate in his drunken, groggy brain to speak.

“Well,” Toma said with a hateful grin, “I hate to have to eat and run just when things are getting interesting, but like I said, I have places to be. Rest assured though, I’ll be seeing you again soon. Real soon, in fact. In the meantime, the blood of that new slut of yours can keep you thinking about me.”

He reached down and picked up Tara’s corpse by the hair, laying her face-down right on top of Sierra, her lips brushing against his, covering his face with her blood. Sierra screamed out, frantically pushing Tara aside, wiping away the red from his eyes.

Then Toma sheathed his blade and charged away across the club, heading straight towards the scenic windows out the front. He launched himself out through the glass like some kind of fearless movie stuntman.

At last Sierra got back to his feet and gave chase as quickly as his body would carry him. He reached the shattered windows just in time to see Toma land on his feet on the street below and then run off into a nearby alleyway to make good his escape.

“Mickey… what were you…” A realization hit Sierra then. The fiend was not looking for a straight-up fight. At least not yet anyway. For now it seemed Toma simply wanted to deliver a message. He wanted Sierra to know that was alive, he was back in his life and he could find him and hurt him any time he wanted.