Malcolm drilled Dizzy’s throat with his fist and a mighty hiss turned to a groan as Dizzy bent over and into a left cross, then an upper cut, and wild haymakers until Malcolm was breathless.
“I’m going to kill you son of a bitch!”
Black juice spilled into the air as Dizzy went ass over tit. And laughed. “Oh…now I got the musk. Vilkacis…God, the last one I ate was a lady.”
“Shut up!” Malcolm kicked the grinning face. “I’ll kill you!” But a thin hand, made of iron, hefted him by the back of the neck like a puppy.
“I knew it,” Lash said against his ear. “You tasted too damn sweet to be a civilian.”
“Let go of me!”
The grip pinched so hard his eyes watered. “So deep and hidden I almost missed it. Too tired from making boy toys, I guess. But it was so tasty.”
Dizzy’s serpentine movements pulled him from a blurry shape on the floor to his awful standing form, fistful of darts between his fingers. “Poppa Ashmolean was clear, sweet meat. I must bring back the beating heart of kin touched with wonder.” He inhaled, licking wet, black lips. “So, does our contract still stand?”
She held Malcolm out like an offering to a volcano god. “Hard and tall,” she said, then dropped him on his back, wind rushing out of him. She tore off her wig so the strawberry blond locks covered half her face. “The fat fuck will come for the boy soon. Then, you can have the heart of my first-born, and return it to Daddy. And you can eat this little one for shit and giggles. We both get our freedom and can be on our merry way.”
Dizzy chewed his wad, sucking in black juice. “You realize, sweet meat, that the man who bound Dizzy with old sorcery will be fresh turd stains in the halls of hell when I am free of the noose he has on my neck?”
A cold smile cracked on her lips. “Be sure he screams for God. A lot.”
“No!” Malcolm said, eyes starring daggers at Lash. “You backstabbing witch!”
Dizzy clamped a boot on his throat, darts thrust out between his fingers. “I’m done waiting. The hearts of your brood were dank and bitter, but the one beneath my foot could be so very, very sweet.” He looked down, wet lips curled like a Joker. “Just like his Momma.”
She sighed, crossing her arms. “Then dive in.”
Malcolm squirmed but the boot seemed like steel holding a tone of concrete. Stupid, stupid, stupid!
“Sweet meat, it ain’t so easy,” Dizzy said, licking his four top brown teeth. “What little cub is in him is buried deep in marrow. Sleeping in the bone.” His giant head drooped. “Ah. Does the scrub even know what he is?”
“I doubt he can count to eleven without using his baby carrot,” Lash said.
Dizzy turned back, hissing in the black juice. “It needs bleeding out if that heart is going to be strong enough to taste of wonder. He needs to be broken and born.”
Dizzy’s ragged boot weighed a fat ton, like Rob pinning him down for a cuffing. Above them all, there was a sound of cheering and a word Malcolm had a hard time believing was being chanted—
Milkwood! Milkwood!
The son of a bitch had turned the crowd and left him here—
No, he was winning for you, you idiot. So you could be free…but he’s locked in contender’s alley with two red death marks on his head until the show is over. There would be no great rescue. Not like in the alley, or in his motel. He was alone, like he’d been on the roof. The crowd kept roaring.
Lash’s heels tapped as she took a few steps back. “Then get on with it. Crack the little nut so you get what you need. Can’t wait to see the look on lard throat’s face when he sees his little manager with a hole in his chest the size of a fist.” She bent down, bony knees jutting out, thinning the colour of her stockings. “So long, Pretty. Sorry I couldn’t give you what you wanted.”
Dizzy carelessly tossed a dart that landed right before her foot and she froze. “Not I, sweet meat.” With a single swift movement, Dizzy took off his boot, twisted, and sat cross-legged on Malcolm’s chest, darts between his fingers like dirty syringes from the Kingston library bathroom. He weighed more than a hundred anvils and Malcolm’s face began to feel like a balloon about to burst. “Not part of the bargain. You promised me a true slice of wonder. I’ve been living on scraps too long to miss the chance at a righteous good meal. Welch on our deal, and I’ll tear out your heart for father and keep the rest for my lonesome pleasure.”
“Fine then,” Lash said as she stood. “Get off him.”
Dizzy’s jack-o’-lantern grin stretched wide, teeth like rotting chiclets, as he rolled backwards, off Malcolm, into the dark. Malcolm shot off toward the exit, behind it was the dumpster where he found Milkwood, the alley, the fence, then the parking lot, then—
Below the red exit sign were two green flares that burned frosted blue. “You’re slower than me in heels, you fucking stain. Now hold still and be good.”
Malcolm fired wild, desperate punches into the dark, but nothing connected, and sweat pulsed out of him like ants escaping a burning anthill. Searing pain ran across his right wrist. Like a puppet, she pulled his arm across his throat, spun him around, before a cold, hard palm shoved his head face-first against a concrete wall, his right arm now twisted high in a hammer lock. Ripples of agony snapped through his stretched muscles and joints. Oh God. I’m getting torn like Rip did. He tried every reversal he could think of but there was no leverage against the steel grip and pressure.
Just like Rip.
“Still so feisty,” she said. “No sense letting you die before having more of your taste. Besides, I’ve been dining on Thunderbird so long I think I deserve some champagne. Don’t you?” She licked his ear. He threw his head back and hit something hard and sharp. Her nose.
“Fuck!”
For split second, the grip eased. He pushed out against the wall and they stumbled back.
A sickening laugh filled the room. “He’s a Baltic cub, all right! Fights like a shithouse rat backed into the corner of the bog!”
He rolled, swallowing the pain, but as he stood he could see she was already up.
In the piss yellow light, he could make out that perfect nose, bent and bleeding bright. He exhaled once, feeling it go through the jagged bones Milkwood had rearranged, and then she was on him like an angry swarm, too fast to dodge or parry. Shocks bit through every nerve for a seamless moment of rich, sharp agony. His right arm snapped in two places, then his thigh, then his foot. Each one like Popsicle sticks in Rob’s hands. Lash squealed as she tore his left arm apart. As he fell, the sight of Dizzy Colt’s smiling grey face spun before his head smacked concrete. A deep, shadowy “crack” snapped from head to foot, like a tear running down his entire body. A deeper pain pierced a hole buried in his brain and gut.
“Your bones are hard, Pretty” Lash said, breathing heavy. “But not hard enough.”
His lips quivered.
“Oh god, don’t cry. I hate it when boys cry.”
“Wait,” Dizzy said. “Watch. If he dies, sweet meat, we start a new dance.”
Deeper, much deeper, a searing pain rose with white-hot teeth. And as it ravaged upward and outward, as everything in him broke into a thousand jagged pieces, the pieces into shards, the shards into dust, a voice in the dark wilds around him sang to him in familiar tones. Suck it up, Slow Mo.
Past Dizzy, past the Iron Horse, past everything was her voice trapped inside him, and a strong but loving face flashed through the pain. Her callused hand, smelling of Comet, gripped harder. “You feel it in your bones. Always have. Taking all the hard shots. From Rob. From everyone. The time for endurance is past. It is time to throw back. For me. For you.” She squeezed his hand. “Suck it up, Slow Mo, and let it out.”
I can’t, he thought, I can’t! I’m hurt, Mom, come back!
The warmth in his hand slipped away with a jingle from her ring. “Malcolm Modris Tanner, I am leaving. Let it out. Become who you are. Let me go. And let it out.”
The warmth left his hand. The voice
died in his head.
A deeper fear ate through the pain. But he focused on the teeth swimming inside his blood, going into every wound. The cuffs at school before they threw him out. The elbow shots from every circuit asshole who saw him as a midget meant for beating between rounds. Every dirty old fag who gripped his hair and tried to drag him away. Every bloody night Rob’s fists ran down on him until they were both red, raw and sore and he promised it would never, ever, ever happen again until the next time and the bruises got bigger and the pain in his bones thrashed louder and the beatings got worse as the drugs got worse and cocaine boxing became meth scar fights and all the blows, he remembered every one like a tattoo on his skin, scars that would not heal—
Teeth became liquid and flowed within him like heavy rain, a wet mist over his eyes, heart slowing until he could not tell the echo from the beats. He exhaled and tasted virgin air. Damp but sweet, violence and blood braided into each molecule that bubbled. Bubbles became chains. Chains became ties. Ties twined in painful knots throughout his body until they all linked. His eyes screamed and the world turned grey as his back arched against the hard floor.
Malcolm screamed and both Lash and Dizzy moved back. A thunderous crack was followed by a wet crunch, and Malcolm rolled on his belly. His ears popped and the cold voices around him came back, but he could not open his sore eyes.
“That’s it? No fur? No fangs?”
“Not a werewolf, dumpling,” Dizzy said with liquid breathing. “Vilkacis. The Latvian man with wolf eyes.”
“More like tossed away baby. But it’s done. Enjoy every bite.” Those sharp heels echoed past his ears. Then stopped. “What? Did I forget something?”
Dizzy’s hiss turned into a laugh. “You really think my word is worth anything?”
The heels retreated, closer to Malcolm. “But you are bound by my family code of—”
He cackled, voice like a tarred air conditioner about to blow. “You are not as good with binding and deals as your father, sweet meat. And a gallows birds is not to be trusted.”
The taps got louder. “Just eat him and—”
“Not leaving anywhere until you’re broke in two and your heart is slick in my hand. Then I’ll deal with your first-born. It’s been an age since I’ve had a three course meal!” Sounds of a struggle made Malcolm wince. “God, you’re weak. Must have been siring like a rabbit. Could taste the weakening of their dead heartbeats with every bite. But I know, tasty, I know what you were doing.”
“Let go of me!” Lash’s voice seemed smaller.
“Trying to make an army to beat me. Looking for the first born to satiate your father’s desire to see your heart in his collection.”
Two sick sounds pierced the din, like wasps shooting from a gun. Then a scream. Above them, the crowd roared.
A body hit the ground beside him. Malcolm opened his sore eyes. Lash’s was on her belly, a filthy hand gripping her hair up, covering her face in strawberry blond strands like a veil, green eyes flooded with fear. Dizzy was on top of her like a jockey. Darts pierced her outstretched hands into the ground.
“C’mon,” Dizzy said, fingers like worms in her hair. “Resist me. You might enjoy it.”
But she just lay there, staring at Malcolm, as Dizzy yanked up her skirt.
Malcolm moved and winced. Everything burned and ached. But Dizzy’s voice shot a million triggers of adrenaline at once. “Father Bear never said I couldn’t soil the package before I deliver it.” He smiled wide with gauzy teeth and Malcolm sprang through walls of pain and tackled him, and from out of him came a scream that shook the tears from his misty eyes and forced Dizzy’s smile to drop.
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
THERE WAS NO TIME for Dad’s tricks. No time for anything but intermission. If I stick around too long, Milkwood thought, I will eat this son of a bitch.
When Milkwood entered the cage to face Cyrus, the smug fuck was still smiling over his last victory. The Klaxon rang, Cyrus rushed, and Milkwood, left arm healing slow in his sling, dropped to his knees and banged Cyrus’ liver with his good fist—
It was as if an electric shock tore through Cyrus’s whole body. He seized, crashed, and Milkwood drilled him hard between the eyes and knocked the ghost from his shell.
They’re going to hate me now, he figured.
But the bells rang and the crowd cheered again.
“Fucking liver punch? Bad ass!”
“Milkwood’s got my dollar!”
Cyrus was dragged out, and all the arm candy that had been gazing into his million-dollar smile were spitting on his back, calling him a loser. If only he could hear it, Milkwood thought.
When he got out of the ring, Kudor stood before him, upside down cross clean of yesterday’s blood. “You’ve been holding out on me, Freakshow.”
Milkwood shrugged, and tried to get past.
Kudor blocked him, ignoring the red dot on his head. “When I’m done with Sutherland, I’m going to leave you worse than last night. Have to bury you in separate caskets because of all the pieces.”
“Yeah, great, whatever. Just make it quick, okay? I’m double parked.”
Kudor shoved Milkwood into the crowd and everyone hushed.
“Save it for the ring,” shouted the judge. “Or we start the fireworks early.”
Kudor laughed, and got in the ring.
The crowd pulled Milkwood back to his feet.
“Kick his ass!” said a big-haired debutant with thick lips and bad make up.
“Working on it,” he said.
Sutherland walked in the ring, face as calm as a Zen garden, with a body built for tearing apart Scud missiles. Milkwood sat in contender’s alley, the last man standing, and couldn’t care less who won, so long as they won fast.
He didn’t pay attention to their fighting styles. The advice Malcolm had given him had disintegrated in his head, but his head wondered if he’d be in time to stop…
To stop what? Malcolm getting what he wants? But he’s a kid, his balls haven’t dropped…
Then why would he want this so bad? To be strong. To give that shit heel brother of his a taste of suffering like he’d never forget. To stop being a punching bag…to kick my ass for being as bad a thug as he’s encountered.
But what else would she do with him? Toss him at the lion hunting her down? No doubt. The kid couldn’t see it. Beauty covered her malice like makeup styled by a pro. And when he did get what he wanted, when he was frozen at the tender age of fourteen or whatever, it would be too—
The bell rang.
Milkwood stood. Sutherland’s hide was still on the sawdust. Neck broken. Death in his vacant eye. Kudor shook his arm away from the ref and pointed at Milkwood. “You’re next, bitch.”
Milkwood had liked Sutherland. They chatted once in a while. Quiet guy. Knew more ancient civ than a school full of Ph.D.s. Friendly, even, despite looking like an angry panther.
Milkwood gave Kudor the finger. The Klaxon voice screamed “Tonight’s finale, a grudge match of epic proportions, Kudor vs. Milkwood in twenty! INTERMISSION! Contenders, you are free to roam!”
He ran through the crowd before the red dot vanished, taking pats on the back and some spit in the face from those who couldn’t believe this was the man to face Kudor.
He shoved and swerved but they were nowhere to be seen in the main hall.
Kid, where the fuck did she drag you?
Downstairs?
Oh shit.
He ran, people spreading before his battered frame, until he came to the stairs.
Before him was a dog.
“Samson.”
The dog whimpered, running down a few steps, then back up.
Below was the rusty red door he’d walked through the night before. Behind it, no one could hear you scream.
He charged down the steps like a cannon ball.
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
TACKLING DIZZY COLT WAS like tackling a pile of wire coat hangers shoved in a burlap sack. Jangling bones and sha
rp hooks abounded as Malcolm charged into his enemy and they rolled into the darkness, the familiar stench of tobacco sickening to Malcolm’s nose.
They rolled until he could land his knees on jagged shoulders. Words failed to form in his frothing mouth, and fists drilled down on that long, grey face. But Malcolm’s thoughts were as sharp as a new blade: You killed her! You stole her! Forced us to live like this! I’m going to shove the shards of your skull into your brain and beat everything into pulp and dust!
Bones crunched under the tarp-like skin. But Malcolm kept pounding the mass under his jagged knuckles, each one heavy as a sledgehammer, until Dizzy’s body was still.
He stood, walked away with flashes of pain, flesh feeling on fire. “Lash?” he said.
She grunted, chin up from the floor, hair over her eyes and hands still stuck to the cement with rusty darts. Her busted nose was back to perfect. “Pull them out!”
He hesitated.
She screamed from the floor, stretching against the darts and hissing. “I was only trying to save my life. You’d do the same thing! Help me!”
He never hated her more than at that moment. Because he wanted to leave and he knew he couldn’t. He ran over and pulled a dart with both hands. “Gah!” Rusty burns coated his palms as he jerked back.
“Try again you little shit!” She hissed. “Sorry, sorry, you can do it, you can do it, just hurry!”
“We got time,” Malcolm said. “I turned his head into powdered shit.” Sweat popped through his skin, hideous pain seared through his shoulders. But there was no strength, only pain. Blood-slicked palms slid past the caustic dart and he fell back.
“How fucking weak are you?” Lash said, back writhing. “Wolf boys are supposed to be strong.”
The gashes in his hands flowed red in the centre of his fists, and waves of pain and nausea hit his head. “Then I guess you don’t need me,” Malcolm said, standing.
“You need me! I die, you get no cash, and the Judge will feed your ass to Samson. And Dizzy may be down but he is not out. We can finish him off, but you have to help me now!”
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