I followed him down the hallway and around the corner, treading quietly on the burgundy hotel carpet. He waved me up to a room service cart that a hotel guest had left parked in the hall. Lifting the lid on one of the entrees, he pulled out a half-eaten piece of beef and threw it toward me.
“Eat this, kid,” Master Gudha said. “It might be the last thing you eat for a few days.” I stuffed it in my mouth, my hunger and apprehension causing me to forget to chew. He hunched down on the other side of the cart and checked a piece of paper that was tucked in his shirt pocket.
“Let’s go,” he whipered as he darted out from behind his cover. I shoved the last of the dry meat in my mouth and took out after him. We held up at the next corner, looking either way, then rounded it and sped down the hall toward the elevator.
I heard two pops from the end of the hall behind us. The bullets whizzed by and punched holes in the far wall. I kept running, only turning my head to see the woman shooting at us. She wore a tan colored suit-skirt, a smooth ivory complexion and a small black handgun. Upon missing her targets, she began to give us chase.
At the end of the hall we turned and ducked into the elevator alcove. Leaning against the elevator doors we waited. The sound of the womans’ feet kept getting closer.
The doors rumbled, then opened. We fell back into the elevator just as the woman appeared outside the doors. She turned, pistol in hand, aimed straight for my head and pulled the trigger.
“Click.”
The elevator doors slammed shut as Master Gudha pressed the close button and the woman stood looking incredulously at her faulty weapon.
I got to my feet and brushed myself off as the floor indicator ticked up toward the eleventh floor.
The doors in the rear of the elevator opened into the foyer of the private hotel suite. The red carpet here had creme borders near the walls, which were also creme colored and decorated with engraved gold flowers. On the far side of the foyer was a set of double doors, similarly decorated.
Master Gudha pressed the small ivory button next to the double doors and waited. Shortly, the right door opened slightly, revealing the face of an asian woman. When she identified Master Gudha, she opened the door fully to allow us passage. She was just over five feet tall, wearing a short-collared suit made of a silky material. She raised her hand, directing us into the suite.
Inside the suite was decorated much like the foyer, but with a few ornate lamps and plush furniture. The items in this sitting room looked mostly unused, except for one sofa, on which layed a scruffy looking, muscular man in ragged green fatigue pants and a black t-shirt. His boots, which he was still wearing, propped themselves up on the sofa arm. He remained asleep on the sofa as we were led deeper into the room.
The windows in the room beyond the sitting room was draped in red velvet curtains with gold tassels, preventing much light from the outside from entering. A chandelier hanging in the middle of the room provided most of the light, which lit a small bed, a night table and a set of drawers. The asian woman who led us in here took her place next to another woman that not only dressed identically, but looked identical. In front of them, a woman in a blue silk robe was seated on the floor with her legs crossed in meditation.
The woman rose. “Master Gudha,” she seemed to sigh the words, as if the effort of it drained her. The voice seemed very old in comparison to the body of the 30-year-old from which it eminated.
“Regent,” Master Gudha assdressed her in reply. “These symbols are new to you,” he said as he gestured to the symbols that were embroidered into her silk gown.
“One of the unfortunate aspects of hiding out, I’m afraid, is that you must remain ‘in disguise’”, she didn’t make a move, but something about her speech gestured to one of the women behind her.
“And this must be your pupil?” the regent asked him of me.
“I serve,” I responded, nodding.
Behind the regent on the bed sat a blue case with brass hinges and latch. She turned and walked between the two asian woman, reaching for the box. One hand turned a key on the box to spring the latch, while the other pried the box open. It split down the front face vertically, hinging in the back. The regent stepped in my line of view to retrieve something from inside the box, then closed it.
“Have you had supper?” she asked Master Gudha. She held out a white bowl with a large lip. The bowl was filled with a creamy pinkish liquid. Several solid items were either floating in it or resting on the bottom, covered in the concoction. The two asian woman bowed their heads in front of this obviously sacred meal.
Master Gudha looked at me. “When was the last time you ate red meat?” he asked. Then he must have remembered the meat in the hallway outside. He grimaced. “Why don’t you wait out in the sitting room while the regent and I discuss some things?”
“Yes, sir,” I replied, backing out of the room. I grabbed the door handles, and pulled them gently closed in front of me, leaving Master Gudha and the three odd women alone in the room.
I don’t know how long passed with Master Gudha inside the room with the woman before the outside door was blown open.
I had been laying comfortably on a sofa in the sitting room, careful not to wake the curious creature sleeping on the other one. I removed my sandals and placed them underneath. I don’t remember closing my eyes, just staring at the decorated ceiling or walls and waiting.
That’s when the door exploded into the room. A million pieces of broken wood flew through the air and spread across the carpet.
“What the…” commented the man on the other sofa as he rolled over to see what happened.
In the doorway stood a man of medium build with a red bandanna around his head. Strapped to the outside of his left leg was a large green tank of compressed gas. A flexible silver tube ran up out of this tank into a smaller, upside-down tank which was strapped to the side of his torso.
In a split second, the man on the other sofa was up and in the doorway. A brief moment later, the man with the tanks fell squarely in front of me, apparently thrown through the air by the previously sleeping hulk. His body was contorted by his landing in such a way that he could not have survived.
I examined the tank apparatus more closely as the large man returned to the room, brushed some door fragments off of his sofa, and layed back down. He was alseep again before anyone came out to see the cause of the noise.
