The crowd is going completely apeshit. For a second, the mad screaming and stomping sounds like I’m back in the real arena. I relax. I don’t want to croak in a backwater Hooverville soccer-mom park, but being back in the real arena, I can die happy.
Crab Man is bowing all the way around the stadium. Me, I just lie there and bleed. I’m done and he knows it. I want to go to sleep and stay that way. The angel in my head starts shouting. He reminds me that if I go out, I’ll die and so will Alice.
I let my mind float away and the pain takes me over completely. The agony of crushed muscles and bones revs my engines nicely. I bark a Hellion combat spell to slow the bleeding and another to suck the blood into the dirt so no one will notice it’s human.
Crab Man is soaking up the love. A few more bows and he’ll come back and finish me.
John Wayne wouldn’t shoot a man in the back, but that’s my favorite target.
I manifest the Gladius and drag myself up. I’m not what you’d call steady on my feet, but I’m close enough that I don’t have to be. I raise the Gladius as high as I can and slice off Crab Man’s Vernalis arm. The crowd goes silent. Crab Man stares at his stump. I take off one of his legs next. He falls on his face, balancing on one arm and one leg. He’s trying to move around to face me so he can attack. He swings his shield blindly, hoping I get too close and he can crush me. I let him close the distance before taking that arm, too. I keep waiting for the armed guards to open up with the shotguns, but they’re watching, as stunned as the drunks in the stands. I stagger around in front of Crab Man. I want him to see this.
He’s got one leg left and I slice that off at the knee. I want him to look in my eyes. I want the crowd to soak up every minute of this. I’m killing all of them. Every portion of pain I bring on Crab Man I’m bringing down on them. Genocide is evil and evil tastes good right now.
I slash Crab Man from right to left, through his chest. Before he comes apart, I swing the Gladius up and over, slicing him neatly from skull to ass. He falls apart in four big cauterized chunks of honey-baked ham.
That, ladies and gentlemen, is what we call showmanship, with love from Sandman Slim.
The stadium is still quiet, like all the air has been sucked out of the place. But all it takes is for someone to drop a bottle and the sound sets everyone off at once. You didn’t see that coming, did you? Some ugly half-dead Hellion foot soldier that could pull out a Gladius. Sleep tight wondering what other secret things us infantry grunts can do.
My left arm has stopped bleeding, but it’s still a big open wound. I bark a pain spell, hold the Gladius to my arm, and burn the wound closed. Then I fall over and drift into a comforting blackness.
I feel a couple of guards drag me back to the holding pens. I don’t go back into the pen with the other prisoners. They toss me incoly toss to one of the blacked-out RVs alone. Even through the half-dead haze I can see they’re scared shitless. Maybe I’m a spy or an officer from Pandemonium come to check up on them and they just tossed me into a death pit with a roid-rage moron. The smell of my burned skin is making me nauseous. Damn I could go for a cigarette right now.
I feel around for the Maledictions. This really is Hell. One cigarette left and it was crushed beyond all recognition in the fight. I toss the pack into the dark. The angel is trying to remind me of something. I reach back into the pocket and find Muninn’s hoodoo healing egg. I bite into it and something soothing and sweet flows down my throat. In a few seconds my head is clear. I’m still weak, but the pain is gone and the world feels firm under my ass.
I let the angel loose. I need to think through this, because unless my new stump has a 007 plan to get us out of here, I’m going to have to call leaving my arm back in the arena a major setback.>I don’t want to watch Berith and the other lead-footed fighters. I know how this is going to go. I don’t want to see it again. The angel wants me to shout some strategy or encouragement to Berith. But it’s already too late for him. He’s down in the dust and disappears less than a minute later. The crowd cheers the winners, but cheers even harder when the guards knife each of them in the back. Hellion humor isn’t what you’d call sophisticated.
I want out of here, but I don’t want to get stomped by a hundred armed Hellions. I look around for a good shadow. There’s one on the ground at the far end of the pen. I walk over, trying to look like I’m going over to puke. When I stick my foot into the dark, the ground is solid. The posse has thrown up an antihoodoo cloak around the place. I can’t use any decent magic in here. What’s Plan B? Hiding is my favorite choice, but everyone in the holding cell is trying to hide behind everyone else. It’s like the saddest square dance you ever saw in here.
I still have on my coat and hoodie, so my human arms are covered up. I feel inside the coat. The na’at is still there. So’s the knife, Lucifer’s stone, the plastic rabbit, and Muninn’s crystal. I check my leg. The pistol is still taped to my ankle. The posse must have just tossed me into the flatbed. Good. That means they’re drunk or just plain stupid. I like stupid. There are lots of possibilities in stupid.
Instead of hiding in the back, when the guards come back looking for someone else to toss to the wolves, I move up by the gates. The two
The talker walks over to me. He has a sickly green complexion and a smashed cheekbone. In one hand he’s holding a long truncheon. A piece of flexible metal covered in leather. When we’re close together he reaches between the gates and pops me in the face with the truncheon’s butt. The guards just about bust a gut at me holding my bruised nose. He takes a step forward, presses his face into the space between the gates, and spits at me. I pivot and swing, catching him under the chin with my fist. His body goes limp. I reach between the gates, get a hand behind his head and the other around his throat, and pull. The gates bow in and he starts slipping through. The other guards pounce on him, pulling him out. The gates bulge in as I get his head and the tops of his shoulders through, like he’s being born out of twisted wire and steel. It’s a fun tug-o’-war we’ve got going. I wonder if this is how giraffes were invented.
The guards get together and do a nicely coordinated group pull. I’ve got my death grip and dig in my heels, but they’re dragging both of us toward the gate. I can’t hold the guard, but I don’t want to let him go. When I’m sure they’re going to get him away from me, I lean down, get a good grip with my teeth, and let go. The guard shoots out of the gates like they’re a solid metal slingshot and lands with his hands over his face, screaming and coughing up blood. I wait for the rest of the guards to look at me before I spit his nose on the ground in front of them. I expect them to rush me, but they go into a huddle. Their buddy is on the ground screaming, but they’ve already forgotten about him.
The huddle doesn’t last long. One of the guards takes charge and beckons over a couple of other guards to take away the idiot who lost his nose. The head guard comes close to the gate, but out of biting range. He’s wearing a faux military/law enforcement uniform, the kind you see bounty hunters wear. It gives them an air of authority, but isn’t close enough to any specific uniform to get them busted for impersonating an officer. It’s sad the assholes they’ll sell uniforms to these days.
“Come here,” he says.
I stand pat.
“Come here.”
“I can’t hear you clear over here, Audie Murphy. Get a little closer.”
He signals to the other guards. They pull their pistols and shotguns and point them at me.
“I’m going to open the gate and you’re going to come with me.”
“What if you forget to say ‘Simon says’ and I don’t?”
“My men will shoot everyone else in the pen.”
So much for honor among thieves. I try to look like it’s a hard choice, but all>
“Yeah. Okay. I’ll come.”