Broken Angel

by S W Vaughn

The count, which had stopped at seventeen, began over at one.

  On a surge of hate-induced adrenalin, he hauled himself from the floor. His fist flew at his opponent’s astonished face. A satisfying crunch accompanied warm liquid splashing his knuckles.

  “Damn it!” Wolff put three fingers to his nose and drew them back stained crimson. “How in the fuck am I gonna explain this at work?”

  He hesitated at the captain’s odd statement, long enough to catch the quick grin just before knuckles drove into his forehead. His head snapped back with the force. Wolff’s arm lowered, revealing the thick gold, diamond-encrusted ring the captain wore—now stained with his blood.

  Warm wetness dribbled into his right eye from the gash. The flow branched off and seeped into the left one too. He blinked and tried to clear his vision. The stream continued unchecked, blinding him. Dropping to his knees, he swiped the back of his hand across his eyes, but only succeeded in smearing the thick liquid further.

  Wolff struck.

  A boot caught him in the temple and spun him in a half-circle. Tears of pain began to wash the blood from his eyes. Another blow to his spine spiked him to the mat.

  Half-blind, he rose and lashed out with a fist. Luck directed his blow and he caught his opponent in the gut, knocking the wind from him.

  “You dirty son of a bitch.” He punctuated his words with another jab. “What the hell—do you think—you’re doing?” At every pause he drove his fist into the nearest vulnerable patch of flesh, and when he halted his tirade, Wolff stood panting in front of him, bent nearly double with pain.

  “Isn’t this fun, now?” He spat his words back at him. Wolff raised his head to glare, and he hooked a fist beneath his chin. The force of the blow lifted him off the floor and laid him out on his back.

  Wolff sat up slowly, groaned, but didn’t stand. He fixed him with an incredulous stare. “You were fucking with me,” he said slowly. “The whole time. You could have ended the match whenever you wanted.”

  He didn’t respond. At last, he nodded once.

  “Well.” Wolff struggled to his feet and raised gore-streaked fists before a hideous grin. “Come on. Let’s finish this.”

  “With pleasure.”

  Wolff ran at him.

  He bowed his head and leapt aside at the last moment. One leg licked out and hooked the front of his opponent’s ankles. Wolff began to fall, and he bent his arm and plunged an elbow between the descending shoulder blades.

  Wolff thudded to the floor. The impact forced a fresh mist of blood from his lips. He coughed once and stilled.

  Chest heaving, he stood over him. He echoed the count in silence. Sweat-soaked tendrils of hair clung to his scraped temples. Clumps of it hung across his brow, matted with blood. A lifetime passed before him, suspended in a red glow, and drowned while he watched.

  The mob stopped breathing.

  Twenty.

  * * * *

  The MacPherson Memorial Hospital was private in the strictest sense. Few people outside of the organization knew of its existence. Slade’s limo pulled up to the curb outside the modest four-story brick structure on the north end of SoHo, and Jenner emerged from the back door with Gabriel at his heels.

  They entered through double glass doors and stepped into a nondescript lobby that could have been at home in any of a hundred office buildings. Jenner nodded to a nurse seated behind the main desk, turning the leaves of a newspaper. The woman barely glanced at them. They proceeded to the right and down a short hall. Stopping before a gleaming steel elevator door, Jenner thumbed the up arrow and stepped back to wait.

  He stood beside Jenner in silence. It had been two days since the tournament, and though his own injuries were just beginning to heal, Shiro had fared much worse. The fighter had been upgraded from critical to stable only that morning, and when Jenner had offered to bring him along for a visit, he’d shoved aside his suspicions at the lieutenant’s apparent generosity and agreed.

  The elevator arrived and whisked them to the third floor. He followed Jenner to Shiro’s room, steeling himself for the grim sight he knew awaited them. The door to room 320 stood slightly ajar. Jenner gave a perfunctory knock and pushed it open without waiting for an answer.

  Inside, a young woman in mint green scrubs bent over the bed adjusting the controls of a machine, obscuring the figure within from view. She didn’t acknowledge their presence until she finished her ministrations, then straightened, regarded them with a bland smile. He focused on Shiro.

  Save for the shallow rise and fall of his chest, the fighter might have been dead. He lay on his back, eyes closed, covered to the waist with a crisp white sheet nearly the same color as what little exposed skin remained undamaged. Bruises and shallow cuts covered his chest, stomach and face, and a purple-black band encircled his ribs, marking the area Wolff’s embrace had crushed.

  Bile coated his throat. He almost regretted not killing the brutal cop who’d nearly cost Shiro his life.

  The nurse wrapped a blood pressure cuff around the fighter’s limp arm and stared at her watch as she pumped the black plastic bulb. She glanced at the red line rising up the gauge on the wall. Appearing satisfied, she removed the cuff and stowed it in a pocket.

  “Not too long,” she admonished before strolling past them and out into the hallway. The door swung closed on silent hinges behind her.

  He glanced at the chair beside the bed, and then at Jenner, who nodded. He took a seat. Silence filled the room, punctuated by the soft, intermittent beep of the IV monitor.

  “So, angel. How much have you told him?”

  Startled from his thoughts, he turned. Jenner leaned casually against the wall, arms folded across his chest. Intensity lit his piercing granite eyes.

  “Nothing. I’m not that stupid.”

  Jenner snorted. “And how much has he guessed?”

  “He has guessed enough.”

  The rasping words came from the bed. Shiro’s eyes opened and his mouth twisted in a grimace. He stared at Jenner, but could go no further.

  The look on the lieutenant’s face suggested mild amusement. He strode across the room and stood at Shiro’s bedside. “I must tell you,” he said to the supine fighter, throwing a sidelong glance at him, “that for as much as you have guessed, there is far more you do not know.” His features hardened. “Okinaosewada, Shiro.”

  “Sumimasen, sempai.” Shiro dropped his gaze, then looked up at him. “So. You won.”

  It was a statement, not a question. He gave Shiro a quizzical glance. “How did you know?”

  “You are still standing.” Shiro laughed softly. The sound ended in a pained groan, and he closed his eyes again. His expression grew somber when he opened them a moment later. “You must trust in Jenner. In what he teaches you.”

  He gawked at him. Jenner’s expression hadn’t changed. In fact, he barely seemed to be paying attention to their conversation.

  “Are you serious?” he finally said, and Shiro nodded.

  “Please. I know how this must sound to you, but you must. Jenner—”

  Whatever else he had to say became lost in a spasm of apparent agony. The machine the nurse had been adjusting emitted a shrill, keening alarm, and less than a minute later the nurse bustled through the door with a syringe in one upraised hand.

  “All right, Mr. Kuroda,” she said, not unkindly, and injected the contents of the syringe into the IV bag with practiced motion. “I think you’ve had enough fun for today. Say goodbye to your visitors.” She looked sternly at him and Jenner.

  “Goodbye, visitors,” Shiro mimicked weakly. He cracked a small smile beneath eyes that fluttered closed, the effects of whatever the nurse had added to his drip, and Gabriel tried to smile back.

  Jenner bowed his head slightly, raised it. “O daijini, kousoku.”

  Shiro’s lips curved upward briefly in acknowledgment before he drifted into sleep.

  When they stepped out the front doors of the building, the limo idled at the curb. Jenner mo
tioned for him to enter, slid in and settled on the seat facing him. He closed the door, and the vehicle glided away. Night had fallen. The windows glittered with the myriad reflection of a hundred lights.

  “You may come back in a few days,” Jenner said, breaking the awkward silence between them. “I will have Apollo bring you.”

  He stared at him. “Alone?”

  “Yes, angel. Alone. Just remember what will happen should you decide to take your leave of us prematurely.”

  “How could I forget?” Bitterness crept into his voice, and he turned his face deliberately to the window.

  Another minute passed. “Do you understand what Shiro was attempting to tell you?” Jenner said.

  He faced him. “Do you?”

  Jenner made a sound resembling a sigh, as though his patience were sorely tested. “I did not make you what you have become,” he said. “I merely uncovered what was already there.”

  “Bullshit!” Fuming, he leaned forward—but the tirade of injustice against him, ready on the tip of his tongue, guttered and died. He’d begun to suspect with mounting disgust that Jenner might be right.

  Chapter 28

  Slade took the call in his office, three weeks after the tournament—much earlier than he’d expected. He didn’t bother with a greeting. “Damn it, I told you to wait until after the next fight.”

  “Hey, Chief. If you’re gonna get all riled up, you can do this your damned self.” Mendez spoke smoothly, though he detected annoyance in the tone. “This ain’t exactly risk-free for me, either.”

  “Cry me a river. You’re doing it. Unless you’d rather pay what you owe me.”

  “Nah. I like this idea better.” Mendez paused, and a hollow click sounded on the other end of the line. “You just keep up your end of the deal. Once the kid’s out of your hair, you forget you ever knew him. If this comes around on me, I will bring you down.”

  “Don’t bother threatening me, Mendez. And don’t worry. I have no intention of seeking him out. As far as I’m concerned, he’s already dead.”

  “Good.” Another click. A metallic ringing rose and fell in the background. “Here’s the plan. I’m havin’ a little throwdown here tomorrow night—a couple of Dell’s guys, a couple of mine. You send the kid and another one of yours. I don’t care who.”

  He drummed his fingers once on the desk. “And what exactly is this going to accomplish?”

  “We’re holding out in the lot, on account of remodeling. It’ll be a shame when someone calls the cops and the kid gets busted for assault with a deadly weapon.”

  “He doesn’t have weapons.”

  “No worries, Chief. I’m supplying those.” Mendez laughed. “Little bastard won’t know what hit him. Tomorrow night. Send the kid over, and forget him. Then we’re square.”

  “Done.”

  He disconnected. A slow smile spread on his face. He’d keep Lillith, and the money. For that, Angel’s blood was a small price to pay.

  * * * *

  “What the hell are we doing out here?” Lonzo leaned against the fence surrounding the dimly lit parking lot with disgust stamped on his face. “Man, this ain’t even worth my time. Why’d you come, mijo?”

  Gabriel looked at him and shrugged. Slade told him to come, but he couldn’t reveal that to Lonzo. He had visited Shiro in the hospital three times, alone, and didn’t want to give up his newly awarded freedom. Such as it was.

  Still, something about this fight felt strange—other than that only three matches were scheduled, and no one from either Pandora or Orion had shown.

  “Oh well.” Lonzo straightened, stretched, and jogged in place. “We still get our grand, right? Slade doesn’t make any money, who cares.”

  “Yeah. Right.” He scanned the thin crowd rimming the edges of the lot without seeing them. He’d come close to ten million in winnings. This match might put him over the edge if he won. Unfortunately, he still had no idea what he planned to do when Slade inevitably refused to release him, or Lillith.

  Movement from the clearing at the center of the rough human ring caught his eye. Diego Mendez stood there, one arm raised in the air. The Prometheus leader held up one finger, and then two. The crowd parted to allow Eddie from Dionysus and Kaiser from Prometheus into the makeshift arena.

  The two men went at each other the instant Mendez rejoined the mob. The cheering rang out immediate and loud, reverberating through the derelict buildings around them, rising to the black sky above. He watched the action for a few minutes, and turned away, paced relentlessly before the fence. He would be next. The prospect of tumbling with another man in the open air, on crumbling asphalt, seemed less than appealing. His muscles still ached from the injuries he’d sustained at the tournament.

  The volume of the crowd’s raucous calls increased. He returned his attention to the match. Game over—Kaiser lay motionless and bleeding on the ground, and Eddie leaned over him, panting. A Prometheus fighter entered the clearing and assisted Kaiser to his feet. Mendez came back into view and signaled again. Three, then four.

  Apparently there would be no breaks tonight. Thankful Slade had at least allowed him to remain clothed, he strode through the mob to take his place in the clearing.

  Nails pushed between two front-row spectators just after him, grinning like a vulture in a funeral home. Something was definitely wrong here.

  From the corner of his eye he saw Mendez disappear. Nails headed for him at an easy stroll. He tensed and waited, and when his opponent entered striking range, he rammed a fist into the other man’s jaw.

  Nails didn’t even blink.

  Strong fingers formed a band around his upper arm. He wrenched from the grip, but not before Nails’s clenched hand caught him sharply in the gut. A grunt exploded from him. He stumbled back, out of reach, and threw another jab at his opponent’s face. This time he drew blood—and still, Nails grinned.

  He crouched and went for the legs in an attempt to bring him to the ground. Nails made a grab for him, snagged his wrist, and impaled his ribcage on an upraised knee.

  He jerked back, lost his balance and hit the pavement. Breathing hard, he scrambled to his feet, expecting to be tackled before he made it up. His opponent, however, didn’t make a move toward him until he gained his feet.

  Nails drew closer. The distant wail of sirens washed over the jeering crowd. Nails heard it too, and as if in reaction to the ghostly call, flashed a cruel smile and lurched forward suddenly, bearing them both to the ground.

  The sirens grew louder.

  The crowd noise spiraled down to a low, puzzled mutter. Panicked whispers swept through the spectators as he lay pinned beneath a few hundred pounds of Nails. The wailing reached a deafening pitch. A few souls at the edges of the mob split. A nearby alley lit with whirling blue and red, and the exodus began in earnest.

  “What the fuck!” he shouted. He jerked and twisted beneath Nails’s weight in vain. Nails shifted, knelt on his chest and raised a hand, revealing a gleaming switchblade.

  Laughing, the Prometheus lieutenant plunged the knife down in a sweeping arc—deep into his own thigh. He pulled it out with a grunt. Blood spurted from the wound and sprayed his face and shirt.

  The police had almost reached them. The crunch of tires on gravel reached his ears, the vibrations of the cars hummed through the ground beneath him. The sirens ceased in mid-warble. Nails reached down and gripped his wrist, thrust the bloody knife into his open palm and forced his fingers to close around the handle.

  Just as the first click of a car door announced the arrival of the cops on the scene, Nails rolled off him. The Prometheus fighter lay moaning on the ground while two officers hauled him to his feet, cuffed him and dragged him away.

  Chapter 29

  Numb with shock, Gabriel sat in the back of the squad car and tried to figure out what to do now.

  The cops in the front seat, after tossing him roughly in and slamming the door, had so far ignored his existence. He assumed they were headed for the neares
t precinct house, though he didn’t know where it was.

  He’d been set up. And he couldn’t prove any of it.

  If this had happened months ago, he would have welcomed the opportunity to tell the cops everything: his real name, where he was from, the name of the man holding his sister hostage. Now, though, he knew too much. The organization was so vast, so well-funded and connected, there wasn’t a chance in hell he would get anywhere by confessing.

  In fact, if he told them anything, he might get Lillith killed.

  “Shit,” he growled in frustration. At the sound of his voice, the cop on the passenger’s side half-turned and rapped the metal mesh between them with a nightstick.

  “Hey! Shut the fuck up back there, scumbag.” The look on the cop’s face—part annoyance, part spite—said he hoped for an excuse to get a few licks in before they hauled him inside. He pressed his lips together and turned to the window.

  Would anyone bother to come for him? Maybe Slade would bail him out. The thought forced a grim laugh. If Slade did pay his bail, he’d be expected to earn that money back, too.

  “Hey!” Another rap, this one harder, rattled the cage in front of him. “I said, shut the fuck up.” The cop turned around completely, his eyes glowing in the gloom like a hawk watching a cornered rabbit. “You deaf or something?”

  He met his eyes in silence.

  “Jesus. Fuckin’ street freaks,” the cop mumbled, shifting in his seat to face the road again. “Wonder what he’s strung out on.”

  The car slowed and came to a stop in front of a tall concrete building with steel-threaded glass windows. Both cops exited simultaneously, but his door didn’t open until they stood on the same side, ready to react if he tried to struggle or run. The driver opened the door. His partner stood at the ready and motioned for him to come out.

  Cuffed hands and ribs that ached from the pummeling he’d just endured made climbing onto the curb difficult. He stumbled and almost fell. The nightstick-happy cop clubbed him between the shoulder blades. “Move it. We ain’t got all night.”

  The driver laughed and started up the steps.