I heard voices in the box below. I imagined Zane and Zak huddled together in the corner like two coeds in a horror flick. I had already taken a beating, and Zane probably had a bevy of security guards waiting downstairs, but the sound of their voices just fanned the flames of my anger. I crawled up on one knee and started hammering my fist into the sheet metal roof. The frame continued wailing, periodic sparks exploding in the darkness around me like bursting fireworks, the scent of grease and burning metal sharp in my nostrils.
The roof bent under the force of my blows, and the rivets at the edge of the panel began to pop loose. Just as the sheet metal was about to give way, the elevator jerked to a halt. I heard the familiar chime of the doors, and the sound of Zane bellowing for his guards. I jumped to my feet and leapt, using my weight to drive down through the already compromised ceiling. It gave way with almost no resistance, and I landed in a shower of metal and fiberglass paneling on the elevator floor.
I rose to my feet, shaking off the dust. I straightened my hat and raised my gaze to find a hundred pairs of eyes staring back at me. Dwarves, elves, nymphs, fairies... Zane however, was nowhere to be seen.
“Which way did he go?” I demanded of the crowd. A satyr standing nearby pointed, and I took off in that direction. They parted before me.
I rounded the corner and came face to face with a dozen of Zane’s black-uniformed goons. The moment I appeared, they closed in around me. I found myself in a sea of batons and flailing fists.
I fought back, catching someone’s fist in my hand. I squeezed, and heard bones crack. He screamed, and I let go. I felt the crack of a steel baton across the back of my head. I kicked backwards like a horse, driving the heel of my shoe into... someone. I had no idea who it was or where I’d hit him; just that I felt the give of soft flesh and heard a painful exclamation. The force of my blow sent him flying backwards into the crowd.
A hobgoblin hammered me in the jaw with a pair of brass knuckles, and my teeth slammed together with a loud clack! I lashed out, driving my fist into the assailant. I hit him hard enough that when he went down, he took down the two guys behind him, too. I turned, and a baton whooshed by my head.
It went on like that for a while. Eventually, I began to tire. The civilians had moved back to the edges of the room, and I was standing alone in a sea of black uniforms. I fought for all I was worth, with a strength and vigor I hadn’t known since -well, I’d never known, considering how unhealthy I had been in my previous life. I was stronger now and more resilient than ever before, and it felt good.
I punched. I kicked. I body-slammed. I took a baton from someone and used it on a few other someones. When it started to break, I dropped the weapon and returned to my favorite method of skull cracking: my fists. By then, my knuckles were bloody and my body was bruised. I was beginning to hurt, and I was sucking in gasps of air. They were wearing me down. Even with my newfound vigor, I knew I couldn’t go on much longer.
Almost more painful than the ache in my bones was the humiliation of my failure. I should have known better. I should have known I’d never get out of there. Zane himself may have been an easy target, but he had dozens -no, hundreds- of guards and Peacekeepers at his disposal. I should have taken the fire escape, I thought. Why can’t I ever take the easy way out?
Someone hit the back of my knee with a club, and it almost buckled. I caught myself, turned, and raised my gaze to see a ham-sized avocado-green fist coming at me. It was another hobgoblin. The sucker caught me right between the eyes. I saw stars and staggered backwards. As I fell, he tackled me.
We went down in a heap. I ended up on the bottom, with the hobgoblin straddling my chest, raining blows down on me. The others rushed in, driving their boots into my ribs, hammering at my arms and legs with their batons. I covered my head with my arms. Another hobgoblin came forward and lifted me to my feet. The other one stood behind me, supporting me in a headlock, while he started using me as a punching bag.
This was too much fun for the others to resist. They all wanted a turn. Before I knew it, they were coming at me from every direction. I couldn’t even feel the blows anymore; just heard them like the distant sound of a meat tenderizer smashing into a steak. Spots swam before my eyes. My breath rattled in my chest. My legs buckled, and I couldn’t support my own weight.
They were about to drop me when I heard a familiar voice. I blinked, trying to clear my blurry vision. I saw Zak standing there. He had stripped off his shirt to display his unusually large goblin muscles, and he reminded me of a tiny green Arnold Schwarzenegger.
“You missed the fight,” I mumbled. The words were slurred, but he got the message.
“I warned you,” he said between clenched teeth. “Now you’re gonna learn the hard way!”
He took a few swings at me, driving his fists into my ribs, swinging at my face but only barely making contact because I was a little out of reach. I mumbled something about getting a stepladder, but it was so incoherent that it didn’t even make sense to me.
Then the knife came out. I’m not even sure where it came from. Suddenly, Zak was holding the blade of a ten-inch hunting knife to my throat. “Should have listened,” he mumbled. “Now you’re gonna learn some respect.”
I moaned.
“What was that, tough guy?” he said with a chuckle.
“Please, Zak... just shut up and kill me.” His smile vanished. Judging from that, and from the way he drove the pommel of that knife into the side of my face, I guess he didn’t think it was funny.
I heard a shout near the front of the building, followed by the sound of breaking glass. Two large canisters came flying into the room, followed by two loud explosions. I didn’t quite understand it until I saw the clouds of smoke rolling up along the ceiling. Smoke grenades. Now what?
I heard a chorus of screams as the crowd scattered. What followed was a lot of confusion. Zak told the hobgoblin to keep an eye on me, and then he disappeared. The hobgoblin was tired of holding me, so he dropped me on the floor. He straddled me again with his legs on top of my arms so that I couldn’t move. My eyelashes fluttered, my blurry vision zeroing in on a ball peen hammer that had appeared in his hands. My eyes went wide.
“Where’d you get that?” I tried to say. It sounded like, “Mumphoo dadat!”
“All right, tough guy,” he said with a snarl. “Now the real fun starts. Let’s see just how tough you really are.”
I winced as he raised the hammer and took a swing at my face. I thought he was going straight for the kill, but he stopped short. The face of the hammer rested just an inch away from my forehead. The hobgoblin grinned down at me and then gave me a little pop right between the eyes. Just trying to scare me. Just building up to the torture...
I stared up into his face with a look of pure hatred. I wasn’t afraid; I just wanted to kill him. If I could just get a hand free long enough to touch him, I’d show him how to use that hammer. I struggled, but he had all his weight on me. My trench coat protected him from my touch, and I didn’t have the strength to move an inch.
He raised the hammer again and brought it down with a crack! on my rib cage. The flesh, muscle, and bone all gave, and I felt as much as heard the sound of a rib crack. The hammer bounced back with a trampoline-like effect and my breath rushed out in a moaning exhalation.
“Just getting’ warmed up,” the hobgoblin said. He raised the hammer again. This time, be brought it down on my upper arm. The flesh between metal and bone smashed together with an agonizing pinch. The bone however, gave nothing. It was like a hammer hitting an anvil. Unfortunately, I was the anvil in that scenario, and it did not feel good.
He hit me a few more times in the arms, the chest, and the side of my face. Words can’t explain the kind of pain I felt. He seemed to know just how hard to hit me with that thing -just enough to bruise and crack, but never hard enough to be a mortal blow. Not yet. The torture was just beginning.
The world spun, fireworks going off in my vision. Vertigo washed over me.
I struggled to maintain consciousness. I took a deep breath, forcing air into my lungs, and I became vaguely aware of the movement of the crowd around me. Screams, smoke wafting through the air... Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a flash of movement between us.
I blinked in confusion. The feathery shaft of an arrow appeared in the hobgoblin’s right eye. He slumped over on top of me. I twisted, trying to move him, and found it nearly impossible. My body simply wasn’t working anymore.
A shadow appeared, blocking out the flashing silver and gold lights overhead. I felt the hobgoblin’s weight lift off of me, and a pair of strong hands caught me by the lapels. They lifted, forcing me upright.
“There ya go, Boss,” said a familiar voice. “Back on yer feet... You’re gonna be all right...”
I glanced down at Butch and barely recognized my old deputy through the smoke and the blurry haze of my vision. His focus was straight ahead. He supported my weight, with my left arm thrown across his shoulders, and we were moving through the crowd, working our way towards the front entrance.
Through the commotion and the drifting smoke, Gen materialized before me. I almost didn’t recognize her. Instead of street clothes or a police uniform, she wore the leathers and hooded cloak of a wild elf. She carried a short recurve bow in her hands. She looked like one of those pictures you see on a video game cover.
Gen shouted an order, and a handful of similarly dressed elves closed in around us to guard our escape. I recognized one of them as Butch’s wife Talia. Another was Tyron, the young high-elf who had helped me clear the tree before the explosion, right before my death. It was so strange. They all seemed so different. For me, it was like I had just seen them yesterday. How had they changed so much?
A horde of Peacekeepers pushed through the crowd around us, trying to cut off our escape. The elves let loose a few arrows, and half a dozen goblins dropped out of sight.
“Gas!” Gen shouted. She produced a tear-gas grenade from the folds of her cloak. The others did the same. Together, they all simultaneously pulled the pins and tossed the grenades into the crowd. The civilians scattered, stampeding their way to the back of the casino, forcing the Peacekeepers back with them. The next thing I knew, we were through the doors and standing on the sidewalk out front.
I glanced off to the right and saw a pile of clothes lying in the doorway where the beggars had been clustered. Not beggars, I realized. Insurgents. Gen and her friends had been waiting there, disguised, ready to attack.
But that didn’t quite make sense. They couldn’t possibly have known I was coming. They hadn’t even known I was alive. Could it have been a coincidence, them being there when I just happened to show up? If so, then what had been their true purpose? What had I interrupted?
I heard the screech of tires and turned to see a van swerving around the far corner. It roared down the street in our direction. The driver slammed on the brakes as he pulled up to the curb, and the acrid black smoke of burning rubber filled the air. The side door slid open and we hurried over, Butch still all but carrying me.
A handful of Peacekeepers came storming around the corner of the casino. Gen cried out a warning, and somebody jumped out of the front of the van. I glanced down and my eyebrows shot up as I saw a short, dark green goblin in a fedora. He wore a pair of shoulder holsters, from which he yanked two gleaming pearl-handled revolvers.
“Sam?” I said.
Sam shot me a grin as he lined up the barrels and started to squeeze the triggers. The Peacekeepers broke ranks and scrambled over each other in their haste to get back inside. I watched them vanish and then drew my gaze back to Sam. His grin widened.
“What are you waitin’ for, an invitation? Get in, ya mook!”
Butch helped me into the back of the van. The others piled in after me, arranging themselves on the bench seats along the walls. We were already moving by the time the door slid shut. I was on the floor with somebody’s cloak under my head as a pillow. Butch sat on the bench seat next to me, one hand on my shoulder to stabilize me. Gen was on the other side. As I glanced up into her face, I saw her gazing out through the back window.
Again, I had the uneasy feeling that they had been expecting me. But that couldn’t be, I told myself. They couldn’t possibly have known I was coming...
“Step on it,” Gen said to the driver. “They won’t be far behind us.”
“Relax,” said a familiar voice from the driver’s seat. “I’ve got this.”
The driver glanced over his shoulder at us, and in the dim glow of the flashing streetlights, I caught a glimpse of his smooth, round face. “Tas?” I said in disbelief.
He winked at me. “Hang in there, Hank. Just a few more minutes.” His smile faded a little as he glanced down at my blood-soaked shirt. He turned back to the wheel. I winced as a wave of pain rolled over me. I took one shallow breath and blacked out.
Chapter 7
Iwoke on a gurney , partially covered by a thin sheet but otherwise naked. I was in some sort of cave. A wall of curtains hung suspended around me. The air was cold and damp, thick with the scents of earth and mold. Up above, a fluorescent light hung suspended by chains from the stone ceiling. It cast a dim, flickering light about the place. I heard distant voices, and saw the glimmer of a fairy’s wings among the shadows overhead.
I shifted, and moaned quietly. Every bone in my body ached. The pain in my gut was something special. I glanced down at my naked torso and saw stitches and scar tissue over my wounds. The curtain slid open, and an attractive dryad appeared. She was tall and lithe, with golden skin and hair the color of autumn leaves.
“You’re awake,” she said with a smile. “Lucky to be alive, too, after what you pulled this morning.”
“This morning?”
“Yes, you’ve been sleeping all day. It’s just after five.”
I glanced down and realized there was an I.V. stuck in my arm. I yanked it out. The doctor clicked her teeth at me.
“Impatient, are we?”
“I’ve got work to do.”
I pushed upright a few inches, and grunted as jolts of pain shot through my torso. Stars flashed in my vision.
“Careful,” she said. “I healed you the best I could, but you should take it easy for a few days. Trying to work healing magic on an ogre is... a unique challenge.”
I moved again, twisting, reclining back on one arm so I could breathe. She looked me up and down. “All right, if you insist on getting up, your clothes are under the table next to you. Take your time.” She glanced down at my thighs and shot me a sly grin. “Oh, and if you ever need anything else, give me a call.” She winked, and disappeared behind the curtain.
I followed her gaze and realized that when I moved, the sheet had fallen off my lower body. It had exposed... well, pretty much everything. I flushed with embarrassment. I’m not the kind of ogre who goes around flashing himself to every pretty fae girl that comes along. I’m a little old-fashioned when it comes to that sort of thing.
I spent the next few minutes getting to my feet. Every movement was torture. Doubling over to retrieve my clothes nearly brought tears to my eyes. When I was finally dressed, I had to lean back against the gurney for a minute to catch my breath. I found myself thinking about the doctor, wondering if she was still out there.
Why is it, I thought, that the ones interested in me are always the ones I can’t touch?
After everything I had gone through, after dying and somehow coming back, I was right back where I had started. No chance for romance, no hope for a real relationship, no certainty of anything except that I was the last of my kind. When I was gone, that would be the end of it all. My entire race would be wiped out.
Maybe it was for the best. After all, what was left for me in this life? I had friends, sure, but did they really need me? Butch and Talia had each other. They had their family. Tas had his computers and thousands of hacker friends spread out all over the world, not to mention his relatives and the harem of beautiful women always hang
ing around his mansion. Heck, even Sam had more going for him than I did, and goblins are notoriously antisocial.
The pang of loneliness evoked memories of Siva, and of all that had happened between us. I didn’t know what to think about her anymore. I was angry with her for her betrayal, and yet I couldn’t help feeling that I had somehow wronged her. Exactly how, I couldn’t be sure. Maybe it had something to do with the note she’d left for me. Her regret certainly seemed genuine. Perhaps I had judged her too harshly...
I stepped through the curtains and came face to face with a tall, thin, reptile-eyed man covered in green scales. His sudden appearance startled me, and I took an involuntary step back.
“Boo,” he said with a chuckle.
“Bushy?”
“Am I that disarming?”
“A little, yeah. I didn’t expect to see you here.”
“I didn’t expect to be here. Sam called this morning. Said he needed some help patching you up. Lyv was doing a pretty good job, but I take full credit for the stitches.”
“Thanks,” I said, shaking his hand.
“I’ll add it to your tab. Just remember to take it easy for a few days. You have a cracked rib. Maybe two.”
“There you are, Boss!” Butch said. He appeared out of the shadows at the back of the cave and hurried over to greet me. Talia was at his side, grinning. She reached out to pat my arm as we met.
“Hank,” she said, “we’re so glad you’re all right.”
“Thanks to you.” I threw a glance around the room. “What is this place? What’s all this stuff for?”
Butch’s face darkened. “It’s a war out there, Hank. What you saw today was just the tip of the iceberg.”
“A war? What are you talking about?”
A Dame to Die For Page 5