CHAPTER 8
That thought was still running through Chaim’s mind the next evening when Gil came by the office he was using.
“Time to go.”
Chaim shut down the computer and finished his bottle of Perrier. “So, what’s on the agenda tonight?”
“Something special.” Gil led the way down the hallway and around a corner. “Something off campus, so to speak.”
Before Chaim could respond, they entered the main foyer to the building, and Gil halted so suddenly that Chaim had to dodge to his right to avoid running into him.
“Zalman!” Gil exclaimed. Chaim could hear the surprise in his voice.
Mordechai straightened from where he was leaning back against the wall by the outside door with his arms folded across his chest. “Haleva. Chaim.” He nodded to both of them.
“What are you doing here?”
That sardonic grin appeared on the older man’s face. “Oh, I was coming in today anyway, and when Dr. Hurwitz mentioned something about you throwing a graduation exercise for Chaim, I just moved a little faster. Knowing the kinds of parties you throw, Gil, I can’t miss this.”
“Okay, but I don’t think my little rental car will fit all three of us,” Gil said. “The back seat isn’t much more than a package shelf.”
“My car will,” Mordechai said.
“Fine. You drive. Lead the way,” Gil waved at the door.
Mordechai’s grin broadened, and he turned toward the door. Chaim followed, and once outside took a deep breath of the outside air. It was the first time he’d been outside in close to two weeks. Gil had been keeping him busy.
Once they were all in the car, Chaim in the back seat, Mordechai looked over at Gil. “Where to?”
“Lyon Academy. You know it?”
For answer, Mordechai started the car and put it in gear.
The research center was some distance outside of Chattanooga. Chaim watched the trees go by in the darkness from the back seat. It didn’t take too long to get to I-40, where they headed for town. He didn’t pay attention to street names, but in maybe a quarter of an hour they took an exit and went down a side street to a freestanding building next to a retail strip building that featured a used book store and a comic book shop sandwiched in between a Korean BBQ restaurant at one end, a sushi place at the other, and a mom-and-pop taco shop in the middle. He smiled at the thought that the shops were closed but the food places were busy.
The sushi place in particular pulled at him. Good sushi was one of his favorite foods—or it had been. It was popular enough in California that there were places that were certified kosher. Since he’d been changed, it wasn’t possible for him any longer, and it was one of the things he missed most about eating.
There were a few other cars in the parking lot in front of the building, but Mordechai was able to park in front of the main entrance. The sign mounted above the door announced lyon academy in big white letters on a blue background with heraldic lions in white on each end. Chaim got out of the car, still not sure what was going on. He followed the others inside, and it immediately became clear that he was in a dojo or training facility. Mats were scattered around the floor and in some cases hung from the wall. Several things clicked in his mind.
His thought was confirmed when Gil handed him a set of fighting gloves. “Here. You’re going to need these.” Chaim pulled them on, flexing his fingers where they protruded from the leather.
There were several other men grouped near a counter at one side of the room, a couple dressed in sweats but most in shorts and tees. Gil walked up to one of them, a blocky middle-aged but fit black guy in a red polo shirt and black shorts, and stuck out his hand. “Hey, Rob, thanks for hosting this.”
“No problem, Gil.” They shook hands. “So, introduce us to your boy, here.”
Gil waved a hand at Chaim. “This is Chaim Caan. I’ve been working with him for three months now. Chaim, this is Rob Foreman, owner, manager, and teacher here at Lyon Academy.”
Rob offered his hand. “Good to meet you, Chaim,” he said as they shook hands. “Let me introduce you to the rest of the guys.
“First, this is Bob Martin.” Bob was a burly white guy who wasn’t a whole lot taller than Chaim. He had a rather crooked nose. “He’s the local light heavyweight MMA champ for the area.” Bob flashed a grin and they shook hands.
“This is Eric Chert”—another muscular white guy, this time a couple of inches over six feet with a shaved head—“and his partner Aaron Valdez.” Aaron was built much like Eric, and likewise had a shaved head, but his skin was light-coffee colored. Both men looked to be hard as nails, but were pleasant as they shook hands. “They’re both cops, and both do tae kwon do.
“And last but definitely not least,” Rob said with a smile, “this is Gabriel Luis Silva Almeida.”
The final guy was not much larger than Chaim, with pale skin, coal black hair, and an infectious grin. He didn’t wince as Rob recited his name, so he must have gotten it close to right. “Just call me Gabe,” he said with a slight accent as they shook hands.
“Finally, someone close to my own size,” Chaim responded with a grin of his own.
“As you might guess from the name, Gabe teaches Brazilian jiujitsu here in town,” Rob concluded. He looked over at Gil. “Gil, you called this meeting. You want to get it started?”
“Right.” Gil moved forward a step or so. “I said a minute ago that I’ve been working with Chaim for about three months now. What I’ve been teaching him is my own version of Krav Maga.” A couple of the others’ faces stiffened a bit at that. “This isn’t the US street version of Krav Maga. I’m an instructor for the Israeli Defense Force, and I teach mostly their special ops people. So what he’s been learning is a bit different from what the average Krav Maga school here teaches.”
Chaim looked around. The men by the counter now looked more interested than they had when Gil had started.
“Chaim’s done pretty well…”
Chaim almost snorted at Gil’s statement, given what he’d overheard the previous day.
“…but he’s short on experience, especially against other combat systems, so I asked Rob if he could find a few guys to work out with him tonight to give him a feel for what it’s like to come up against other styles. He’s good, but like I said, he’s short on experience. Did Rob tell you the deal?”
Heads nodded. “Five hundred dollars each for a two-hour gig,” Aaron said. He shrugged. “I’m up for it.” Heads nodded again.
“Five hundred each, plus medical expenses if anybody needs it,” Gil confirmed. “This won’t be contest rules. This is street rules, except no throat punches or eye gouging, and preferably no broken bones.”
“Yeah,” Eric said. “We’ve got to remain fit for duty.”
“Speak for yourself,” Aaron said with a grin. “I start my vacation tomorrow. That five hundred will come in right handy. You just make sure your cup’s on right.” He placed his hand on his groin and pulled up.
Eric punched him in the shoulder. “Hijo de puta.”
“Tu madre.”
Even Chaim was smiling. Spanish invective was common in California, after all.
“Right.” Gil reclaimed their attention. “Five-minute rounds. Two cycles of them. Then we’ll see what’s what after that. Bob, would you take the lead?”
Bob’s grin returned. “Sure.” He stripped off his tee and stepped onto the mat, knocking his fists together.
Chaim was wearing a close-fitting black tee and black slacks, so he didn’t have anything to remove. He kept his athletic shoes on. He looked over at where Mordechai was standing with a bag next to his feet, to see him hold one hand flat at waist level for just a moment. Right. Restraint is called for. He sighed before slipping in his mouth guard and stepping up on the mat himself, opposite the big man, settling his weight above his feet, waiting.
Gil stepped between them. “Remember: no throat punches, no eye-gouging, no broken bones.” He put his hand out, held it for a moment, then dropped it with, “Begin!” and stepped back.
Bob tried a bull rush while looping a roundhouse right. Chaim slipped to one side, ducking, and hammered a punch under the short ribs as Bob went by. He was almost tagged by a high kick that Bob launched into out of the spin he made after Chaim hit him, but backpedaled to avoid that as well.
Chaim’s adrenaline had been rising from the moment he had entered the room. By now it was sizzling in his system. He felt it as an almost electric charge. He could have stood and traded punches with the bigger man, but Mordechai’s instruction was restraint, so he ducked and slipped around the mat, blocking punches when they got close enough and throwing enough punches of his own to sting the other man.
Twice Bob tried to take him down. Chaim managed to block both of them, the second time receiving a punch to the side of his head as he broke away that made even his head ring a bit. He heard some of the other guys talking about it, but his focus remained on Bob. He began to get a feel for Bob’s patterns, especially after he tried another one of those spinning kicks. The second one was so fast it almost nailed Chaim. But the five minutes ran out before he could move on it.
There was no break. Bob stepped off the mat and Eric Chert stepped on, moving forward methodically. Chaim blocked three punches and a kick before he could throw his own first punch.
Eric was all strikes with fewer kicks, with the occasional elbow thrown in for good measure. No grappling. More of his hits landed than Bob’s, but that was at least partly because he was more precise and had a longer reach. Chaim was reduced for this first round to hammering his arms and legs while he tried to figure out how Eric moved. His frustration began to mount. He took more hits than he landed, but nothing as hard as that hit to the head Bob had made. He wasn’t sure if Bob was just that much stronger, or if Eric wasn’t punching to his max.
Five minutes passed. Eric stepped off, Aaron stepped on. He just stood there, hands up before him, and waited. Chaim circled him. Aaron just turned in place, waiting.
Finally Chaim threw a punch, stepping forward as he did so, only to run into a front kick to the chest that stopped him cold. Aaron’s height differential and longer legs were obviously going to be a problem.
Aaron proceeded to give a tutorial on the art of kicking. High, low, left, right, front, side—they came from every direction, with enough punches added to the mix to complicate matters. Chaim was spending most of his focus and energy blocking, and his frustration continued to grow because way more kicks were getting through than he wanted, even with his toughness. Toward the end of the time period he abandoned the dodging gambit and started absorbing the kicks so he could get close enough to begin throwing punches at Aaron’s thighs, not so much to block the kicks as to punish him. It gratified him to see signs of a limp by the end.
He took that gratification into the final first round. Gabe bounced onto the mat as soon as Aaron’s period ended and rushed Chaim before his attention had fully shifted. His next conscious thought was that fighting Gabe was like fighting a hybrid of an insane monkey and an angry octopus. It didn’t seem to matter what he did, there was a hand holding on to him or a foot wrapped around a knee or an ankle. Gabe managed three takedowns in the first two minutes, which was three more than the other guys combined. Chaim managed to keep moving and break free of them, but it wasn’t easy. None of his techniques worked. None of his strikes were landing. He almost felt useless, he seemed to be having so little effect on the other fighter. His mouth guard was being punished by the clenching of his teeth in anger. By the end of that five-minute round, he was breathing hard, which was something even Gil hadn’t managed to do to him.
“Five-minute break,” Gil announced. Chaim froze for a moment, then lowered his hands and stepped off the mat. He stood to one side and rolled his head around in circles and shrugged his shoulders back and forth, taking stock of his bruises. Even as a vampire, he had more than a few, the worst of which was the headshot Bob had given him. He spat out his mouth guard and ran his tongue around behind his teeth, checking for looseness and soreness. Nothing, so the mouth guard had done its job. He looked at the others, standing there talking to each other and swinging their arms and bouncing on their toes to keep loose. He felt his eyebrows draw down and his lips press into a thin line. The tension—the compression—the overload of emotion and adrenaline—whatever it was—had him feeling like two pounds of dynamite being forced into a one-pound mold.
Mordechai stepped over beside him and turned to face the wall they were in front of. “Not bad,” he murmured. Chaim shot a sidelong glance at him, but said nothing. “But having to choke everything down is killing you, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Chaim responded, shifting his feet.
“I thought so.” Mordechai sounded almost smug to Chaim’s ear. “Release the aggression.”
“What?” Chaim turned to look at the older vampire. “I thought I…”
“No, don’t release the speed or the strength. Release the aggression. Go on the attack. Take the hits and wade through the kicks, but take the fight to them. You can be a touch faster, maybe, but that’s all. But that will be enough.”
Chaim had turned to face forward again, but a quick glance at Mordechai showed that thin-lipped, cutting smile. Okay. Mordechai wanted aggression? He’d get aggression.
Bob stepped onto the mat again, this time without the rush. Chaim had an idea what was coming, so he traded a few punches with Bob, then backed up a step or so. Sure enough, Bob launched a roundhouse kick with his right leg, but this time instead of ducking it Chaim turned into it and drove a knuckle-punch into the arch of the foot.
Chaim felt a flash of satisfaction when he saw the wince cross Bob’s face. At that same moment he swept Bob’s left leg out from under him before he could regain his balance. He pushed Bob so that he headed face-first for the ground, instantly following with a knee between the shoulder blades that forced Bob to the mat. A split second later Chaim hammered a fist into the back of Bob’s head. The solid thump resounded in the room and forced a grunt from Bob with echoes of sympathy from the others.
Bob slapped the mat twice and Chaim rolled off of him, only to see him rise with blood flowing from both nostrils. Rob tossed a rolled up towel to Bob, who grabbed it and applied it to his face, holding a thumb up to Chaim while Rob took another towel to clean the mat. One down, three to go.
Chaim’s head felt like it was fizzing as he pivoted to face Eric. Eric was moving a little bit slower, perhaps trying to adjust to what he had just seen. Chaim didn’t even think about it, just moved forward like a machine, ignoring Eric’s punches to step forward fast enough to get inside Eric’s guard and hammer his abs relentlessly. His lips peeled back in a snarl when he felt Eric flinch back, and he hooked Eric’s ankle and sent him down. Two and a half seconds later he had the arm bar set on Eric’s right arm. He felt Eric try to power out of it, but just pulled a little harder on the wrist he was holding. Eric slapped the mat on the other side, and Chaim released it, rolling to his feet to face Aaron.
Aaron must be a good poker player, Chaim decided, because his face didn’t show anything of what he must be thinking. Chaim, on the other hand, felt like he was grinning like an idiot even with the mouth guard filling his mouth. He was almost trembling; he wanted to charge straight ahead and just overpower Aaron, but he couldn’t show his hand yet. Not yet.
Chaim forced himself to do a changeup. He didn’t charge right away, instead dancing in and out to throw punches, and catching a few in return, including a hard right hand to the face that left him blinking tears for a moment.
After several exchanges like that, Aaron reacted with a front kick as Chaim dropped a shoulder like he was going to step in again. Chaim ducked under the kick and pushed off hard to come up underneath the leg while at the same time throwing a punch into Aaron’s groin followed by a fist to the head. He pushed away and Aaron collapsed to the mat. He kind of felt bad about what he had done, but he was already spinning to face Gabe.
Gabe was rushing toward Chaim, right hand leading the way. Chaim moved forward, turned a bit and did an arm-wrap takedown, following around behind as Gabe started turning. He was just that bit faster to snake his left hand under Gabe’s left armpit and up to clamp on the back of his neck as he wrapped his legs around the other man’s waist. Gabe rolled hard to his right to try and break free, but Chaim went with the roll and in the process ran his right arm up under Gabe’s right armpit and brought his hand up to lock in the full nelson, ending up on his back as he did so. A split second later his heels pushed down and separated Gabe’s thighs, splitting his legs and reducing his leverage.
“Your neck breaks,” Chaim said in a loud tone as Gabe strained against the hold, “in five…four…three…”