Overdose (The Gunn Files Book 2)

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Overdose (The Gunn Files Book 2) Page 5

by M. G. Herron


  The Lodian was a huge dude, a head and a half taller than Vinny, with a gut that bulged out of his leather vest. He was also belligerently drunk. With an irritated swipe, he knocked Vinny’s bets to the floor. Then, the gap in the rushing crowd closed, cutting them off from my view.

  Now I was annoyed I had left my gun in my truck. In my experience, flashing a weapon was often enough to intimidate the fight out of a drunkard.

  “Guess I’m doing this the old fashioned way,” I muttered as I shoved into the crowd.

  I used my body to forge a path through the stinking press of alien flesh. Though beer sloshed across my arms and shirt, I kept driving forward, crushing the plastic cups against my body. After I slipped under the legs of one of those spindly elephant aliens, I finally found Vinny. He lay on the ground, leering up at the Lodian in the leather vest, his elongated snout covered in blood. He had recovered the three triangular chips and clutched them protectively to his chest.

  Unfortunately, he seemed to care more about the bets than the beating he was taking. The Lodian drew a foot back and kicked Vinny in the ribs. Vinny curled up into a fetal position as a rush of anger flooded me. Without pausing to think, I pitched one of the beers at the Lodian oaf. It hit him right in the chin, spilling what was left of the beverage down his swollen gut.

  Snarling, he turned toward me.

  “Come on, you overgrown Teletubbie!” I shouted, pressing the other beer into the upper hand of a random Torlik standing nearby.

  He was strong, and he’d got the jump on Vinny, but the Lodian was too big to be fast, and drunk to boot. One step was all I needed. Pivoting with my whole body, I drove an elbow into the dude’s solar plexus, knowing from my time with the Lodian Peacekeepers that their anatomy was roughly similar to our own.

  The alien exhaled with a woof, and folded forward as I slipped behind him, wrapped my boot around his ankle, and yanked his legs out from under him. He hit the ground with a meaty crash and I fell on him, snapping my fist into his face three more times for good measure. He finally squirmed out of my reach, using his size to lever himself backward, and swiped out at me with his long arms. Sharp nails raked across my cheek and I felt a sudden bloom of heat. As his hand passed, I lunged forward, driving my forehead into his nose with a satisfying crunch.

  “Asshole,” I said. It was the Lodian’s turn to clutch his broken nose and spit blood on the boardwalk.

  Vinny pulled me off of him. “Enough! Enough. Stop before Rashiki kicks us all out. It’s cool, Gunn. Relax.”

  I growled at the drunk Lodian, but let him crawl away and sway uncertainly to a standing position once again. We were close enough that I could smell his rancid breath. I stood my ground, glaring at him. Vinny apologized to the big dude in another language, trying to placate him. Whatever he said, this time it worked. The Lodian spat another wad of blood on the ground and made an obscene gesture in the area of his crotch. I’d never seen that variation before, but I could grok what he meant. The big drunk turned and stalked angrily toward the bleachers.

  Wiping the blood off my stinging cheek where his nails left marks, I turned to Vinny. The crowd parted around us now, still flowing unceasingly toward the bleachers. “You okay?”

  “Fine,” Vinny sighed. He avoided my eyes. “It’s my fault. I should have been watching where I was going. But thanks for the assist.”

  “I got your back, man. Hey, I smell like beer, but I haven’t tasted any yet. Let’s go get refills before we find seats.”

  With a hesitant glance back at the track, Vinny nodded. Slowly, we worked our way upstream about fifty yards until we reached a bar, and bought two beers. A waitress provided us with some napkins to clean ourselves off. Once the blood had been wiped away, we rejoined the streaming crowd.

  The bottom middle bleachers on both sides of the track were crawling by the time we got there. There were maybe fifty rows that ran all the way around the track. Vinny spied an empty spot about halfway up, left of center. I was surprised and somewhat pleased to see that the bleachers were the traditional aluminum kind with low backs, the same kind you’d find in many sports arenas in the United States. I guess the offworlders on Earth made do with what materials they had available.

  We reached the row we were aiming for and shuffled sideways in front of the knees, feet and claws of offworlders until we reached the empty spot Vinny had picked out. I stared upward in awe.

  “Not bad,” Vinny said.

  “Who are you kidding? Look at the view.”

  I gestured upward at the flashing neon boardwalk that spiraled overhead, as dizzying and enormous and bright as Times Square on New Year’s Eve. The exposed wooden beams supporting the roof of the pole barn, now hundreds of feet overhead, were not even visible. We were engulfed in another universe entirely.

  As if to punctuate this thought, spotlights positioned on the underside of the balconies immediately above us rotated to illuminate the track. Four towering speaker arrays rose from the ground, one at at each corner, and clicked on.

  “Just wait,” Vinny said. “The main event hasn’t even started yet. Ah, here we go.”

  Curved contrails of smoke spread across the track, making a shield of complex swirling patterns in the air. A projectile shot through the center, pulling the cloud of smoke along behind it. The projectile turned out to be Rashiki’s aerial pod. Spotlights lit the corpulent orange Torlik, casting ghoulish shadows across his face and bare chest. The hookah hose remained wrapped around one arm.

  “Ladies and germs, Lodians and Torliks, galactics of all stripes and sizes, welcome to the Ring, the Road, the one and only Rashiki’s Racetrack. If you’re looking for entertainment, you’ve come to the right place! Tonight’s lineup of warriors features not one, but two prize gladiators freshly arrived from the unpaved paths of Jel itself—raised on frozen steppes, trained in lightning storms, these born competitors are speed demons on the track.”

  Rashiki named the same two Jel’ka he’d listed to Vinny when we spoke with him before, and expounded on their positive qualities at great length and with plenty of hyperbole.

  All around us, offworlders chattered under the booming projection of Rashiki’s voice, which cut through everything. I had to lean my head in close to Vinny’s tiny ears to be heard.

  “Why does it matter where the Jel’ka are from?” I asked.

  “They’re tougher and faster when they’re raised on their homeworld. They have to be, to survive that place—they say that if you get caught in a storm on the planet of Jel, the thundersnow can flay the flesh from your bones. Assuming your bones are on the inside, of course.”

  “They import all of them? That’s got to be ridiculously expensive.”

  “Why do you think the bets are worth so much?”

  “How much did you spend?”

  “Dropped about a grand.”

  I gaped at him. “Seriously?”

  “What? I’m good for it. I’m better with money than you are.”

  I’d bet on plenty in my life—on myself, on my business. I’d lost plenty, too. Just never by gambling at the races.

  “They breed and raise Jel’ka here, too,” Vinny went on. “But bringing in stronger riders pushes them all to improve, since the breeders train them together. And it makes the races way more exciting.”

  I tossed back the last of my beer, then looked around for wait staff in the stands. There were a few, Torliks carrying double trays of drinks up and down the bleachers, but none were near us. As I was searching, I caught a glimpse of a Daacro—a sandstone-edged wing that pulled out of sight at the top of the bleachers, near the gate.

  “Damned Daacros,” I growled. Vinny didn’t hear me over the noise or notice my annoyance. I gazed around us, my eyes passing over the hundreds of closely packed offworlders, looking for anything else suspicious. I didn’t see any more sign of the Gatekeeper or his minions, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there. I thought I caught sight of the drunk Lodian in the leather vest a few rows up, but didn
’t see anyone else I recognized. Not that I knew many offworlders…

  The realization that I was literally the only human in this entire place finally sank in. I’d known it logically, but now I felt it deep in my gut, an incongruous sense of isolation for being packed into a crowd. Worse, I had no barometer by which to tell what was normal or weird. Most of the things these offworlders did seemed weird to me. If true danger reared its ugly head, would I be alerted in time? That glimpse of the Daacro had unsettled me and I couldn’t relax again. Only Vinny’s unworried presence next to me, enjoying the opening ceremonies without a hint of fear, reminded me that we were safe here.

  Well, relatively speaking.

  I was really missing my sidearm right about now.

  I didn’t hear the rest of Rashiki’s speech, but when he gestured expansively a trap door fell open on a hidden ramp in the middle of the track. A procession of brightly feathered creatures loped out, swishing their tails and tearing the air with their cocky battle cries. The Jel’ka were stunning. Their feathered coats shared the bright colors of exotic parrots like lorikeets and macaws. Their heavily muscled frames were built like velociraptors, except with longer forelegs that each sported a single wickedly curved claw. One Jel’ka had a chameleon coat that shifted between shades of green, purple, and blue. Several sported wicked scars, and one particularly large raptor was missing an eye.

  The packed stands surged with the deafening roar of offworlders welcoming their prized steeds. Vinny joined the shouting, and dangit, I’ll admit it, even I smiled and let out a small cheer. It was impossible not to get caught up in the excitement of it all. I’d never seen a Texas rodeo so colorful and raucous. I could definitely understand why Vinny loved coming here so much.

  Vinny pointed toward the large Jel’ka with the missing eye. “That’s one of the new ones. See how much bigger he is than the others? He could eviscerate you with a single swipe.”

  I shuddered. “You sound so pleased when you say that. Getting eviscerated is not on my agenda this evening. Remind me not to go anywhere near those things.”

  He laughed and waved a hand. “They wouldn’t let you near them if you tried. Too valuable. Only the trainers can touch them, and then only if the Jel’ka let them.”

  While the Jel’ka were preening, Torlik and Lodian trainers strode up the ramp. They each gripped short, blunt sticks in their hands, ends crackling with electricity. Sophisticated as these offworlders might be, I was starting to realize that in some senses, no matter how evolved they might think they were, they weren’t all that different from us barbaric humans. Strangely, that comforted me.

  In short order, the preening Jel’ka were corralled toward a series of interlocking pens. There, they picked up and played with what looked like thick bicycle wheels. At first, I thought they were just goofing off, and quickly realized my mistake. The large raptor with the missing eye was the first to mount up—he put his two curved front claws through the spokes of one wheel, then set his back legs on another dual-wheeled device with holsters for his heavily muscled legs. The Lodian supervisor came over and strapped his back legs in.

  Four individual raptors mounted up this way, and were invited to their starting slots. They went eagerly, no prodding necessary.

  At last, Rashiki raised a snub-nosed starter’s pistol into the air, and began the first race with sharp crack.

  The doors snapped open and the Jel’ka rolled out of the gate. Their wheels blazed with spinning neon lights as they banked around the first curve. At the straightaway, one Jel’ka leaned over, took a foreclaw out of the wheel mid-race, and swiped at another racer as he attempted to pass, then soared over a gap and landed, still in the lead. The crowd roared at this maneuver, and for the next three circuits, my eyes were fixed on the race. The Jel’ka attempted in every way to sabotage each other. It reminded me of a rough roller derby, if the skaters wielded built-in knives.

  The first race lasted about ten circuits. For the next race, they brought out the imports, and I finally understood why it was such a big deal to have them. They were bigger, faster, and more dangerous in every way.

  I finally waved down a concession worker during the third race. In a fit of exuberance, having won some kind of bet that I didn’t understand, Vinny paid for extra large beers for the both of us.

  I was just beginning to relax when they introduced fire, and the spike pits lifted six feet on hidden elevators. Rashiki gave some hidden command from his pod that reformed the track, making it more perilous than ever. On the next race, one Jel’ka sliced open his arm on a sharpened spike; another took a claw to the shoulder that sent him careening into a pit where he was impaled on the spikes.

  The next race ended in a surprise finish. Her’lik of the Tattered Skies was rolling in first, but when he got knocked off his path by a surprise gout of flame that hit him in the flank, the crowd exploded, aliens leaping to their feet in excitement as the second and third place riders zoomed forward, neck and neck, across the finish line ahead of the imported Jel’ka.

  As we approached the second hour, Rashiki shifted the track again and introduced oil slicks in addition to the fire. Slim’dar Killperch—the one, I had learned through Rashiki’s announcements, who was missing an eye—rolled back into a starting slot, bumping against the metal sides.

  Next to me, Vinny frowned.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  Vinny shook his head. “Not sure. It’s probably nothing.”

  The starter’s pistol in Rashiki’s hand cracked and the Jel’ka were off again. Slim’dar quickly pulled into the lead. He made two laps in first place. On the third, he soared over a jump and came down hard on his back wheel, awkwardly and off-balance. A group of Lodians sitting in the bleachers in front of us drew in sharp, anxious breaths. Slim’dar’s front wheel slammed down a second later. He wobbled, but kept on.

  Vinny’s frown deepened. “Something’s definitely not right.”

  “Maybe he’s just tired.”

  “This soon? A natively-trained Jel’ka? He can’t be, he’s still got half a dozen races to run tonight.”

  The fiery orange Jel’ka who had been in second place landed smoothly on the jump that Slim’dar botched. Its greater momentum drew the orange rider up until it was drafting behind Slim’dar’s larger frame. At the next turn, it pulled out wide and as it passed on the outside, snapped with sharp teeth at Slim’dar’s hindquarters. The larger animal bucked in surprise, causing the one-eyed raptor to swerve, streaking sideways through a slick spot and then tumbling off his wheels.

  Vinny shot to his feet, whiskers twitching furiously as he glanced down at his betting chips. His true face was much more expressive than his human disguise, but his mannerisms were the same. I could feel the shock and stress radiating out from him.

  Slim’dar Killperch pitched forward, tumbling tail over snout. The wheel strapped to his back legs remained attached, making it difficult for him to maneuver. Dragging himself with his front arms, he narrowly avoided being run over by third, fourth, and fifth place riders as they overtook him.

  Slim’dar managed to crawl over to the wheel he dropped and remount. But he only made it another thirty or forty yards before collapsing on his face in the middle of the track, in dead last.

  The beautiful, feathered raptor remained eerily still.

  Rashiki’s pod sliced down out of the air as he barked for medics. He hovered over the body as a handful of Torliks in white scrubs swarmed out of the woodwork. The fat alien was many things, but good at concealing his emotions, he was not. Rashiki’s face crumbled into a devastated shell-shock, jowls hanging slack.

  Vinny put one hand to his mouth and sat down, very slowly and very carefully. The murmur of the worried crowd grew to a fevered pitch as more and more offworlders took notice of what was happening down on the track. Rashiki, unfortunately, forgot to turn off his announcer’s microphone. One of the medics whispered to him.

  “Dead?” Rashiki responded. “What do you mean, dead?
Check again! He’s only been here a week!”

  Someone must have noticed the mic was still on. It clicked off, and suddenly, the stands were in chaos. Some offworlders stared, shocked like Vinny seemed to be. Others shouted at Rashiki, accusing him of fixing the race, and demanding their money back from the bets they’d lost.

  In an unstoppable wave, the sentiment spread and hundreds rushed toward the betting booths for refunds.

  I nudged Vinny with my arm. “Let’s get out of here,” I suggested. “This place is turning into a powder keg.”

  Vinny’s eyes had gone wide. His hands, clutching the triangle chips showing his bets, shook with terrible tremors.

  “Vinny, what’s wrong? ”

  He turned his head slowly back and forth. “What are the odds?”

  “Odds of what?”

  “I won my bets. All three.”

  “Isn’t that a good thing?”

  “Why didn’t he see it coming?” Vinny said. “Wait… what if…”

  He looked around, smoothing the fur against his face with the back of his shaking hands—a nervous gesture.

  As if on cue, Rashiki floated up into the air and glared a hateful look into the chaotic crowd from above, searching for signs of something, or perhaps someone. That he and Vinny came to a conclusion at almost the exact same instant gave me the willies. I didn’t know nearly enough about Jel’ka races to follow the implications to their logical conclusion, but those two obviously did.

  “Let’s go,” I said. “Come on, I don’t like the look of this place anymore.”

  With one hand under his arm, I hauled Vinny to his feet and directed him up the bleachers. He stumbled at first, then came to his senses and began to walk faster. Bodies pressed in around us as others hurried in the same direction, squeezing through the gate four or five abreast, and then moving quickly up the now crowded boardwalk.

  On the second level, between a food cart with a flat griddle, a massage parlor, and a tobacconist’s shop showing all manner of hookah hoses and vaporizers, a knot of people tied up the path. It quickly descended into a shoving match. We tried to turn back, but Vinny got yanked into the crowd.

 

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