Saviours

by Beth Abbott

  “Well, if you want to go into the back room where they’re being held, you’ll be able to smell for yourself how bad it is.” Micky wrinkled up her nose. “They all had to be scrubbed down, and I did try and separate the ones who were sick from the ones who were still Ok, but as the afternoon has gone on, there are barely a handful who aren’t throwing up. Even then, I think it’s just a matter of time.”

  Micky watched Sergei’s hands clench into fists as his temper flared.

  “The only thing I can suggest is that you spare some of the hostesses for the winning fighters.” Micky shrugged. “Maybe a few of the ones that were going to be seeing to your guys? Or, if you’ve already had Mara work on your back, perhaps you can spare her later? We already planned for a couple of the other girls to keep you company tonight.”

  “I suppose we could do that if there was no other way.” Lebedev scowled. “Are you sure there aren’t any of them fit enough to be useful.”

  “The last time I checked on them, there were probably two that weren’t showing any symptoms.” Micky shrugged. “By now they could be puking their guts up. It’s probably not worth the risk of infecting the fighters anyway. If this isn’t food-poisoning, but some sort of bug that they’ve passed around, the last thing you need is for it to infect the men. Of course, we could go and ask the Captain if there is a doctor on board. He might be able to prescribe something.”

  Sergei’s withering stare told Micky exactly what he thought of that plan.

  He glanced around at the fighters getting back into the ring.

  “Use Mara and a few of the other hostesses.” He grudgingly conceded. “Make sure the winners know that they’re not to be harmed. No rough stuff. I need them fit enough to work again tomorrow.”

  “Ok, will do.” Micky nodded. “As soon as the fight has begun, I’ll get a couple of the girls ready to take the victors back to their cabins when the second fight is over.”

  Sergei turned around and by the time he was facing his guests, the big smile had returned, replacing the scowl, and he was back in the role as the grand master of ceremonies.

  Micky hurried around the ring until she reached Abram, Zach and Kris.

  “I’ve arranged it so none of the trafficked women will be offered to the fighters tonight.” She said quietly to Abram. “You’ll be offered one of the hostesses instead.”

  Abram nodded his understanding, and Micky carried on walking.

  She glanced up at the ring and saw Kellen watching her.

  Micky’s breath caught in her throat. Kellen was going to be fighting a guy who was jacked up on coke and goodness knows what else, and anything could happen to him.

  “Good luck.” She whispered under her breath, so nobody around her would hear.

  Kellen’s smile told her that his lip-reading skills were good enough.

  “Gentlemen? Are we ready for our second bout of the night?” Sergei’s voice made her jump.

  She carried on walking until she was behind the chairs, out of sight of Sergei’s guests, but with a clear view of the ring.

  “Fighters, do we need to repeat the rules?” Sergei looked towards Kellen and his opponent who both shook their heads. “Then let the entertainment begin.”

  Within seconds of Sergei stepping back, the referee called the fighters together, and once he’d made a half-assed show of checking that their gloves hadn’t been tampered with, the bell rang, and the fight was on.

  Blanking out everything around her, Micky kept her eyes on Kellen.

  The man he was facing was unnaturally quick, obviously in the full grip of whatever he’d snorted, but Kellen was more than a match for him, his slick moves keeping him out of trouble for the most part.

  But it wasn’t the ‘most part’ that was causing her to wince.

  It was the ‘least part’ that worried her. The times when the Pole seemed to have superhuman speed, capable of throwing out four, five, even six consecutive punches from all different angles.

  As good as he was, Kellen would have needed to be Neo from the Matrix with his freaky ‘bend-over-backwards-without-falling-on-his-ass’ moves to avoid getting hit.

  The first few blows that landed on Kellen’s head almost made her gasp. The first punches to his body certainly made her wince. But as the seconds turned into minutes, Micky gradually relaxed and started breathing properly again, as she realised that Kellen was working his way into the fight.

  The Pole was too busy showing off to see half the jabs and kicks Kellen was throwing out, and although he was shrugging them off like they were simply an annoyance, Micky could see the reddening of the skin around his eyes and nose, and there was a darkening bruise on the guy’s ribs.

  If Kellen could keep this up for a few more rounds, she had a feeling that he would wear the man down pretty fast.

  As the bell sounded for the end of the first round, she watched Kellen walk back to his corner, and a quick visual examination told her there was barely a mark on him. Maybe there was just a little bit of swelling on his left cheekbone, but after five minutes of fighting, if that was all the damage he had to show for it, Micky figured he ought to consider himself well satisfied.

  She glanced at the Polish contingent just as the bell sounded for the second round, and noticed the fighter was being given plenty of advice by his teammates.

  She didn’t speak a word of Polish, but she didn’t really need any linguistic skills to know that they were urging him to knock Kellen out any way he could.

  Unfortunately for Kellen, the Pole was still high and flying wild, and was obviously still of the opinion that he was going to take Kellen out easily, but for this round it seemed he had been instructed to use his feet more.

  Within a minute of the second round starting, Kellen had almost been knocked to the mat twice, and the second time had been with a heel to the shin that Micky thought was sure to have snapped the bone.

  Kellen obviously wasn’t as keen as the Pole to start grappling on the mat, and apart from putting a hand to the canvas to steady himself once, he managed to spin himself back upright after each attack.

  The five-minute round felt like it was lasting an hour, and on balance, it seemed to have gone in favour of the Pole.

  He hadn’t incurred any more damage to his face, whereas Kellen was definitely showing more bruises, especially on his shins.

  The bell to end the second round couldn’t come quickly enough, and Micky almost sagged with relief when she heard it.

  Kellen walked back to his corner and took a swig of water.

  Micky looked for any signs of distress or tiredness, but Kellen seemed to be fine. Abram and Zach were immediately talking to him, and she guessed they were bombarding him with advice on tactics, but Kellen didn’t appear to be overly worrying.

  Micky watched him turn and look around the crowd until his eyes stopped on her.

  He grinned wickedly in her direction, and she didn’t know whether to be relieved that he was happy with how things were going, or scared to death, worrying that he’d already suffered a blow to the head that had left him punch-drunk or worse.

  The third round began with a barrage of kicks and swipes from the Polish fighter, and as Kellen hopped and skipped to avoid being landed on his ass, Micky marvelled at the agility of such a big man to stay on his feet.

  The Pole was getting frustrated though, and Micky could see him start to lash out without thought and without any sort of plan of attack.

  Kellen seemed to be getting into his rhythm now, and with every punch the Pole threw, he got three back for his trouble, and for every kick that landed, four more missed their intended target.

  They were almost halfway through the fight, and Micky could hear the Polish team yelling at their man to work harder, punch harder, kick harder.

  Drago’s team on the other hand were almost silent, keeping faith with their man, showing the utmost confidence in Kellen’s ability.

  Whether it was the drugs in his system frying his brain, or just t
he panic that even with the drugs, he was still not managing to take Kellen down, Micky wasn’t really sure, but the Pole was getting reckless and even more unpredictable. While that made Kellen’s job of subduing him easier for long periods, he was still throwing out random kicks and punches that were taking Kellen by surprise.

  When the bell finally rang, Micky jumped, so engrossed that she hadn’t even registered the five minutes was nearly up.

  As she uncurled her fingers, she glanced down to see that her nails had gouged deeply into her palms, and in one or two places she’d come perilously close to breaking the skin.

  How hadn’t she felt that?

  Micky stretched her fingers out, trying to get the blood circulating again, and turned to check out the guests. Half of them were paying little attention to what was going on, engaging Sergei in friendly (she hoped) banter, which she guessed he was encouraging as it was pushing the bets higher.

  Drago sat in his seat paying close attention to Kellen, but also to what the Polish contingent were doing.

  Micky followed Drago’s line of sight and noticed he was staring at the Polish fighter and several of his team-mates, huddled together in the corner.

  Micky immediately noticed that they weren’t shouting any more.

  At the last break they’d made more noise than the rest of the crowd put together, and their fighter had been dancing on his toes, ready to get into the fight again.

  This quiet huddle was almost more frightening than the shouting and yelling they’d been doing earlier. It was like they were scheming and plotting together, and knowing that whatever they were concocting was, by design, intended to bring serious harm or injury to Kellen, had Micky’s stomach churning like she was going to throw up.

  As the referee called them back to the centre of the ring, one of the Pole’s team-mates grabbed one of his hands in his and pulled him back close, whispering something in the fighter’s ear.

  Micky didn’t know why, but she just knew something was going on, and she desperately wanted to stop the fight to find out what it was.

  Of course, she couldn’t do that without Sergei’s permission, and what would she say to him?

  “Umm, Sergei? Would you mind stopping the fight, please? I don’t like the way the Poles were whispering to each other.”

  Oh sure! Sergei would love to hear that in the middle of one of his precious fights.

  Micky tried to stop herself from freaking out by taking a few deep breaths.

  When she refocussed on the fight, Kellen seemed to be holding his own quite comfortably, and the Pole seemed to have calmed down a little, suggesting that the drugs might be wearing off.

  If anything, the fight was more like a boxing match now, with jabs and hooks being thrown, backed up by some heavy-duty body shots that even from where Micky was sitting, looked and sounded painful.

  The first sign that something wasn’t right came when the Pole threw what looked like a fairly innocuous jab that landed on Kellen’s left arm.

  Micky noticed Kellen wince and jump back, leaving her to wonder whether an earlier punch had left him injured.

  A few more jabs were exchanged, and nothing else happened, so Micky wondered whether she had imagined it.

  Another thirty seconds went by, and she saw the Pole throw out another jab, this one landing square on Kellen’s shoulder.

  Again, Kellen’s gasp could be heard throughout the room, and Micky looked for any signs of discomfort.

  Two more jabs landed, and with them came a roar from Kellen that was more animal than human.

  He spit the mouth guard out of his mouth as he stepped away from the Pole, grabbing his arm, trying to see what was going on.

  As he did, Micky watched with horror as blood started to trickle down Kellen’s arm from four or five different places.

  Before she could make sense of what she was seeing, the Pole lunged at Kellen, knocking him to the mat, and the two fighters started brawling on the floor.

  Realising the presence of so much blood could mean only one thing, Micky raced across the room.

  “Sergei!” She grabbed her employer by the arm. “You’ve got to stop the fight! The Pole has some sort of blade in his glove. Look, there’s blood all over Drago’s man!”

  Sergei stepped closer to the ring, and Micky saw his eyes narrow at the sight of blood smeared all over the two fighters.

  “Sergei, he’s broken the cardinal rule. No weapons!” She reminded him. “If you don’t do something to enforce it, what will the rest of your guests think of you?”

  As if realising that his reputation was on the line, Sergei signalled for some of his security team to step in to break up the fight.

  No sooner did they jump into the ring than Kellen’s team-mates joined them, and the Pole was dragged off him and pinned to the floor.

  Micky climbed into the ring to check on Kellen and noticed that he was now covered in blood oozing from dozens of small puncture wounds.

  “Grab his hands!” She heard Kris yell, as Abram sat on the Pole’s chest.

  “The right one!” She added for good measure, seeing as all the damage was on Kellen’s left side.

  While the security guards successfully prevented any of the Poles team-mates from entering the ring, Abram ripped off the man’s glove, and started examining it from the wrist band to the tips of the fingers.

  It didn’t take long for him to find a thin sliver of a blade about the length and thickness of a razorblade, but about a third of the width. Blood covered the first two centimetres of the blade.

  He held it up for everyone to see, and Micky noticed that Drago and the other team ‘sponsors’ had climbed into the ring.

  “Is this what you meant by ‘no weapons’, huh? Is it, Sergei?” Drago demanded, and Micky could see that he was genuinely enraged. “We put our teams in the ring for your entertainment, and this is what you allow to happen?”

  Sergei turned to Drago, equally angry, but thankfully, his temper wasn’t aimed at Drago.

  “When I said, ‘no weapons’, that is exactly what I meant.” He roared. “Anyone… any team ignoring my orders, is disqualified from the competition.”

  Micky watched the Polish sponsor step forward with his hands up.

  “I had no idea they would do anything so foolish.” He protested.

  Sergei stepped towards him, as angry as Micky had ever seen him.

  “Take your men upstairs, where you will wait in your cabins.” He snarled. “When I have decided upon a suitable punishment, I will come and tell you what it is.”

  Abram lifted his weight off the now subdued fighter, and he scurried over to his corner.

  As if afraid to hang around long enough for Lebedev to change his mind, they headed for the door quickly, none of them daring to look back.

  Micky grabbed a towel from Kris and wiped away some of the blood from Kellen’s shoulder.

  “He’s going to need stitches in quite a few of those cuts.” She murmured to Abram. “Take him upstairs and I’ll bring a first aid kit.”

  She glanced up to find Sergei staring at her.

  “You’re going to stitch him up?” He asked, as though she’d just announced she was going to sleep in a bed of vipers.

  “Who else is there that can do it?” She shrugged. “Unless, of course, you’ve changed your mind about bringing in the ship’s doctor?”

  Sergei scowled at her.

  “If you’re so anxious to play nursemaid, then I suggest you get the team out of here, so I can try and get the evening back on track.” He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose as though the stress was getting to him.

  “Can you send the two hostesses up to cabin twelve with some extra towels and refreshments?” Micky instructed Stan who was standing at ringside.

  As always, the big Russian looked to his boss for approval before following Micky’s orders.

  Sergei nodded impatiently, and Micky and the fighters made their way out of the ring.

  “I suggest that
you make an announcement to your remaining guests to make sure this kind of thing doesn’t happen again.” Micky murmured to Sergei as she passed by him, still holding one of the towels pressed to Kellen’s shoulder.

  The look Sergei gave her might have left her fearful for her own safety on another night, but at least she knew that tonight his anger wasn’t aimed at her.

  Vengeance was a dish best served cold, and Sergei was not only good at making people wait, but he was extremely imaginative at finding ways to punish people.

  She really wouldn’t have wanted to be Polish on this ship tonight.

  Chapter 41 – Kellen

  As Kellen clambered from the ring, he acknowledged, to himself at least, that his body hurt like a sonuvabitch.

  He was probably in shock, he guessed, partly due to the fact that the guy had actually stabbed him, repeatedly, and partly because he hadn’t seen it coming.

  What sort of idiot did that make him to admit that he hadn’t really imagined anyone would break Lebedev’s rules? Or maybe ‘non-rules’ would be more accurate.

  The only justification he could give for his sloppiness, was that he’d anticipated all of the teams would be as desperate as the Guardians to win this weekend to secure the arms deal that was on offer. He’d expected that like the Guardians, every team would believe that winning without cheating was the only way to do that.

  Obviously, that naivety had cost him dearly.

  Zach threw a white towel around his shoulder and pressed it firmly against his skin, and Kellen watched in fascination as the material slowly turned red from top to bottom.

  “Get him upstairs to your cabin.” He heard Micky give the order. “I’ll fetch the medical kit and meet you there.”

  Kellen looked around the room and spotted Lebedev talking to the other guests. He was being overly jovial, obviously trying to convince the men that there was nothing to be concerned about, and Kellen wondered why he was trying so hard.

  Lebedev was the one with the weapons, and boat loads of cash to burn.

  The guests were the ones who should be sucking up to him, not the other way around.