by S. A. Hunt
No. I just get off on making you hurt.
The ulna bone in your forearm is one of the hardest and most impact-resistant in the human body, and what they didn’t know was that she’d spent the last year or so chicken-winging a kick bag and letting Heinrich whack her across the elbows with a leather belt and then a broomstick. The little phalangeal bones in the back of your fist can break with a punch—commonly known as a “boxer’s break”—but that bone running from your wrist to your elbow is like a baseball bat made of concrete.
Hoodie reached for her. She grabbed his wrist, whacking him across the face with the bony front of her elbow, and his nose crunched. He stumbled backward against the back of her van, coughing in pain. Then she turned and kicked Army-Jock’s knee out from under him, driving him to the pavement with an elbow to the ear.
Stunt-Double just watched in disbelief. She didn’t give him a chance to jump in, turning on him with a haymaker to the chin that twitched his head around. Pain resonated through her fist, those phalangeal bones thrumming like a tuning fork.
“Good one,” he said, punching her in the stomach.
All the oxygen immediately rushed out of her—“UUHHRRRR!”—and she went to her knees, doubling over with a ball of molten iron in her guts. Stunt-Double grabbed her Mohawk and lifted her head so that it was even with his crotch.
“Perfect height.”
“GrrrrrrrraaAAAAH,” she bellowed, punching him in the dick as hard as humanly possible.
Stunt-Double collapsed in a heap, both hands over his crotch, and lay in the fetal position, rolling back and forth. “Aaaaah!” he cried, his face turning red. Drool ran out of his mouth onto the asphalt. “Aaaaaahh! Christ almighty! One of my balls is gone!”
“You’re done,” said Army-Jock, getting up, one hand on his ear. He checked his fingers and saw blood. “That’s all you get.” He charged, meaning to spike her into the parking lot like a quarterback. Robin was waiting. In a flash of movement, she reached for his shirt—a plaid button-up—and turned on one heel, kneeling, and thrust her hip into his stomach, pulling him over and dropping him on the top of his head.
This was something Heinrich was more than familiar with. Robin had aikido-tossed him dozens of times.
“You brog by fuggin dose,” said Hoodie, still leaning against the back of the plumbing van. Blood streamed from his nostrils, plastering his mouth in red and running down the front of his uni hoodie. He stood up straight and reached into his pocket. Unfolding a little buck knife, he brandished it at her. Light trickled down the blade. “Dow id’s by turn.”
The back doors of the van flew open and Heinrich kicked him in the ass.
As Hoodie went sprawling at Robin’s feet, the blood-soaked witch-hunter stepped down out of the van. His white shirt had turned completely red.
He racked a shotgun. Ka-chak!
“Y’all motherfuckers got five seconds.”
Army-Jock scrambled up and resumed loading their “groceries” into their trunk, hunched over like a kicked puppy. Glass beer bottles clinked and tinkled as he worked. Stunt-Double started helping him.
“DID I SAY GET YOUR SHIT?!”
All three boys threw themselves into the car—“Go go go go!”—and peeled out, backing into their own shopping cart and knocking it over. Hundreds of dollars of alcohol and bags and boxes of junk food spilled out in a cornucopia pile. SKRRT! The car spun out again and the frat boys drove away, the rear driver tire popping a bag of Funyuns.
Opening one of the few bottles of beer that wasn’t broken, Robin took a swig and sat next to Heinrich on the back bumper of the van. She handed him another one.
“You look pretty good for a guy I thought was dead about five minutes ago,” Robin said, taking a pull of Sam Adams.
He opened the Coors with a wince and downed half of it in one go, his other hand holding his ribs. “Wasn’t as bad as it looked. He just dinged me. Told you all I needed was a good night’s sleep.”
“You bled a hell of a lot for just a ‘ding.’”
He shrugged and pulled himself to his feet, limping over to the splay of food, treading in a puddle of beer. Bending over, he picked up a box of Fiddle Faddle and threw it to Robin. “Here, let’s pick this shit up. Maybe it’ll last us ’til we get back to Texas.”
Track 29
Now
“We’re here,” said Gendreau, waking her.
The nap had done more than rejuvenate her; she felt whole again, twice as good—incredible, even. But what nibbled on the edge of her nerves was that the nap had done nothing to quell the hangriness. A ravenous hunger, a carnivorous fury. A walking appetite, armed with a nuclear temper. Felt like a black hole—massive, ominous, insatiable.
She carried Hell inside her, and it threatened to burn its way out.
The look on the curandero’s face did nothing to assuage her. Robin sat up, careful not to bang her antlers on the ceiling. “Still creepy, huh?”
“Yeah. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay, I feel a hell of a lot better. Think the armor healed me.”
“Been working on you, too.” He held up his ring.
“Thanks.”
The back door of the camper shell flipped up and the tailgate creaked open. Elisa peered in at them as Robin slid out, taking the makeshift spear with her. “Where did you get that?”
“Made it on the way here.” The spear had turned completely black and the broom handle now seemed to be coated in the same sort of opalescent black material as her body. “Sorry about your broom. I’ll buy you another one.”
At the end of a short gravel driveway stood the Los Cambiantes clubhouse. Looked like a place Patrick Swayze could have called home, a sprawling ranch house with beer-brand neons and a bachelor’s distinct lack of landscaping. The only vehicles in attendance were an antediluvian Buick and a bunch of Harleys.
What designated this place as belonging to the gang was the blue wolf head painted on the front door. Otherwise, it could have been any roadhouse in the south.
“This is where Kenway and Rook are?” Robin asked Elisa.
“Alvaro said they were here.”
She started for the front entrance, carrying the Osdathregar spear under her armpit like General Patton with his swagger stick. The door was made of dark glass and steel, but she could see the sign inside had been flipped and read CLOSED.
Tried the handle. Locked.
She crashed the door open with one powerful kick, tearing the deadbolt out of the frame and stuffing the entire door itself into the bar beyond. The glass exploded, spraying all over the hardwood floor inside.
“You guys stay out here,” she growled over her shoulder, and Robin marched into the Blue Wolf.
* * *
Inside was a spacious mead hall reminiscent of ye olde Viking taverns, with tall, airy ceilings, exposed wood beams and rafters, and a well-polished bar that ran the width of the room. Tin-sheet posters, neon signs, and nudie-mag centerfolds littered the walls, advertising seven different kinds of beer and motorcycle brands and depicting five or six busty women in tiny bikinis.
Bikers sat at tables to her left and right, while the rest of them leaned against the barstools, staring in half-amused astonishment. A radio on the bar was playing nineties hits.
Faint tongues of flame licked from the corners of her mouth. Standing on top of the ruined front door, Robin looked around at the men, her five green eyes blinking independently of each other. The antlers protruding from her forehead felt heavy and potent in a masculine, almost sexual way.
“What the hell is that?” said a man, getting up from what looked like an early lunch of a hamburger and fries. He smirked. “Is it Halloween already?”
The bartender, a big, bald, cornfed piece of shit in a 5.11 T-shirt, had leveled a shotgun over the bar. “I don’t know, but they’re paying for that fucking door.”
No one said or did anything, just stood in place, stupid confused smiles on their faces, brows slowly darkening.
S
o, she hefted the Osdathregar spear and whipped it like a javelin. The point passed through the bartender’s chest as easily as you please and lifted him off of his feet, shoving him backward and pinning him to the wall. The mirror behind him shattered and the shelves collapsed, spilling thousands of dollars of liquor bottles in a hellacious crash. KA-BOOM, the shotgun discharged into the ceiling, setting a deer-antler chandelier to jangling.
“Buhhhhh,” groaned the bartender. Crimson slowly soaked through his white shirt. He relaxed, and the shotgun slipped out of his hands, clattering to the floor at his feet.
“Fuck that guy in particular,” said the witch-hunter.
“Santi ain’t here, and neither is his magic motorcycle,” said Hamburger Guy, hands up, eyes searching their faces. “So, we ain’t gonna be able to pull our Dog Soldiers trick. Now, I don’t know about you guys, but I got shit to do today, and it don’t involve having my—” He looked at Robin.
“Asshole pulled over your face like a ski mask.”
“Yeah, that. Good luck, y’all.” Hamburger Guy edged around her, stepped over the demolished front door, and ran outside. Echoes of a gunshot filtered through the open door as he was gunned down in the parking lot.
“Sorry,” said Robin, “Should have mentioned the lady outside with the rifle.”
A short, chubby guy with a John Waters mustache snatched up the bartender’s shotgun and ran out the back through a door behind the bar.
Another biker picked up a pool cue and ran at her. Robin threw out an arm, blocked the stick with her elbow—CRACK!—then snatched it out of his hands and spun on her heel, launching it like a tomahawk across the room at someone that turned out to be “Wacky” Joaquin Oropeda. Joaquin ducked and the pool stick embedded itself in the drywall behind him.
He pulled it out and wielded it in both hands like a pike. “That puta from the vets’ bar that tried to choke me out in the parking lot,” he said. “It’s got to be. Same voice.”
“In case you forgot, she’s also the bitch with the grenade launcher,” said one of the men.
“She ain’t got one now, does she?”
“Why’s she look like that?” asked someone else.
“Maybe she’s got that juju like Santi got.”
“Nah, bruh, that’s something different,” said Joaquin. “That look like some devil shit.”
“Where is the Japanese woman and the big blond guy?” asked Robin, eyeing them. She flexed her fingers in anticipation. “I’m only going to ask once. Does this place have a downstairs?”
“Fuck you,” said Joaquin, gold tooth flashing. “I don’t care why you look like that; I’m gonna beat your spooky ass.” The radio segued into Rage Against The Machine’s seminal anticapitalist mosh-fuel hit “Maggie’s Farm,” and the room exploded into movement.
Track 30
Finally, the knot slipped loose and Kenway relaxed a bit, pulling the rope free. Grinding the heels of his hands into gritty eyes, he lay on his back. “Okay, now what?”
Gas still poured from the broken pipe in the basement ceiling, distorting the air. “Now we figure out a way to unlock that door from this side without blowing ourselves up. Starting to feel sick.” The Origo staggered to her feet and went to the door, turning the handle. “Just a deadbolt. Why is there a deadbolt on a cellar door, anyway?”
“Probably to keep people out of the stock room. And I’m guessing this probably ain’t the first time they’ve had somebody down here.” Kenway dragged himself toward the walk-in cooler door in the far wall. “Our best bet is to hide in there. We’ll be better off cold than dead. Come help me open this door.”
“Look, guy,” Rook made her way to the door and opened it, kicking a box of Yuengling beer in front of it to prop it open. “I have to tell you something, in case we can’t get out.”
“Don’t know what you could possibly need to tell me, considering you barely know me, but right now, our top priority is getting away from this gas before we die.”
“I need to tell you my real name.”
Gripping the shoulders of Kenway’s shirt, she started dragging him toward the cooler. Between the two of them, they managed to inchworm him across the cellar. “Your real name?” he asked, low-crawling the last several feet over the cooler threshold. The freezer floor was searingly cold, burning his arms. “Rumpelstiltskin?”
“Haruko.”
That was familiar. “Leon Parkin’s wife? Thought you were dead.”
“Only on the inside.”
The cellar door slammed open and a man charged in, eyes wide in panic. Meza, the short guy with the pencil mustache, and he carried a shotgun, a fancy country-club double-barrel with a wooden stock. Kind of thing a bartender in a biker dive might keep behind the bar. “Hey, the fuck you doing?” he asked, marching toward them, just in time for Rook to slam the freezer door in his face.
Meza grabbed the handle and tried to open it, but Kenway was holding the handle on the other side. Peering through a tiny window, they could see the top of the biker’s head bobbing below. “You know what, asshole?” Meza asked, raising the shotgun and racking the pump, “I got a key right here.” He backed up and leveled the shotgun at the door handle.
“NO!” Rook and Kenway shouted in unison.
Track 31
Someone grabbed her from behind and Robin reversed the man into the pool table, pinning him against the rail. Joaquin ran in and smashed the pool cue across her chest. Felt like he’d whacked her with a foam pool noodle. She kicked him in the belly, somersaulting him into a table, scattering Hamburger Guy’s lunch all over the floor.
Someone slammed a pool ball into the back of her head and she barely registered the thing as it bounced off the carbon shell-helmet.
Wheeling on him, she lowered her head and plunged the antlers into his belly, pitchforking him off his feet and on top of the pool table. He screamed as she pulled out, the prongs festooned with stinking streamers of intestine. Blood ran down her face.
Scrambling to his feet, Joaquin wrenched the Osdathregar spear out of the bartender, climbing on top of the bar.
Fists and chairs came at her from either side. She took hold of a man’s belt with both hands and bicep-curled him straight up into the ceiling, where his skull collided with an exposed timber, eliciting a singular coconut bonk. She flung him into his friends and then a man screamed—a strangled, high-pitched banshee shriek, Robin couldn’t tell if it was terror, or bloodlust, or agony. She turned to look.
Raising the Osdathregar spear, Joaquin leapt at her like a crazed Spartan warrior from a movie, preparing to pin her to the clubhouse floor.
Even as he came down, Robin saw the spear burning his hands, frost-smoke shooting from between his fingers. She reached up and grabbed the haft of the weapon, pole-vaulting him into the crowd headfirst.
Before she could react, men were all over her, slugging her in the face and ribs with what felt like a thousand punches, a cloud of fists. Robin pugil-sticked them with the Osdathregar, bone and teeth snapping under the butt of the spear, the dagger point tearing through skin and fabric.
Another hard object collided with her head and Robin stumbled to her hands and knees. Chair, it felt like. Pieces of wood clattered all over the floor.
One of the antlers protruding from her skull broke off.
Lying on the floor, it resembled some kind of chitinous alien creature, a big black stick insect. A leather boot banged into her face, snapping her head back. Two teeth clicked on the hardwood, knocked free. Spitting a gout of blood, she managed to get one foot under her, and an attacker clubbed her across the back with a barstool, knocking the wind out of her.
“UHHHRRR-hrrrr,” she bellowed at the forest of blue-jean legs around her. Pain flowered in her side. Broken rib. A man spat on her back, then another.
“My hands!” Joaquin’s palms were black with frostbite. “My fuckin’ hands!”
“You’re done now, maldita puta,” a man said, standing over her. “I’m gonna make sure you’r
e dead this time if I have to cut you into fuckin’ chorizo with a chain saw and mail each piece to everybody in the phone book.” He stomped on her wrist and pried the spear out of her grasp. “Let’s see if—aaaAAAAHHHH!” he started to scream, as the demon spear burned his hands with supernatural ice, and then he was interrupted by the Apocalypse.
With the loudest sound she had ever heard, the floor bulged up and outward, and a violent eruption of wood and fire blew Robin Martine upside down through the front window. Men were engulfed and pulverized by the detonation. Levitating sideways like a magic carpet doing a fighter-jet maneuver, the pool table smashed the dead man into the wall.
Even as armored as she was, Robin was almost knocked unconscious by the blast. Broken glass rattled against her face and chest as she landed on her back outside and slid seventeen feet. Pieces of flaming wood sailed out of a storm cloud of fire four stories tall.
Dazed, she stared up at the fireball and then, disbelieving, at the crater where the clubhouse used to be.
All four exterior walls had blown out, scattering debris in every direction, and everything was burning, even the trees at the edge of the parking lot. All the motorcycles had been knocked down and the explosion had blown the gravel back, exposing the dirt under the parking lot. A geyser of blue flame jetted up from the center of the ruins, producing the venomous, whistling roar of a jet turbine.
A shotgun fell out of the sky, twisted into a helix.
“Baby? Kenway?” Robin asked, dizzy. She got up and tried to march into the fire, but the debris was an impenetrable tangle of flames and fallen timbers. The heat was intense, the hard, angry radiation of a lava flow. “Fuuuuck!” she wailed, pacing around the corner of the building. “No, no, nooo, baby, goddammit!”
Blood trickling down their faces from shrapnel, a limping Gendreau and Navathe joined her, the former supported by the latter. Elisa Valenzuela came after, clutching her rifle.