“Poor little thing . . . What are
you
doing down here?” I asked, talking in that high, slow voice reserved for small animals and the mentally handicapped. I crouched down on one knee, motioning for it to come closer. “It’s okay, little fella. ...” The squirrel monkey made a high-pitched chirping noise as it nervously washed its hands. After looking about fearfully, the squirrel monkey took a couple of cautious steps toward me. “That’s a good boy.” I smiled. “I’m not going to hurt you. ...”
“Tate! No!”
I looked up to see Hexe standing in the aisle opposite me, a bruised but otherwise unharmed Lukas alongside him and the Cyber-Panther. The horror on both their faces told me something bad was happening. I turned back toward the cute little monkey in the cute little fez, only to find it had been replaced by a hideous demon-ape.
It was six feet long from snout to tail, and stood five feet high at the shoulder, with greenish yellow fur. It looked like a mutant combination of mandrill baboon and hyena, with long forelegs and short, backward-sloping hindquarters. Huge, menacing spikes grew along its spine, like those of a dinosaur. Its head, which hung low between its hunched shoulders, was hairless, with a prominent brow and patches of bright blue ribbed skin marking its cheeks, as well as a long, bright scarlet snout. It still had on the fez and matching vest it had worn in its squirrel-monkey aspect, which somehow made it all the more terrifying.
Bonzo, the familiar of Boss Marz, opened his jaws in a terrifying yawn that split his head from brow to breastbone, revealing curved fangs the size of steak knives as he charged right for me.
And then everything went black.
Chapter 21
I was surrounded by shadows, shadows that shuttered my eyes and sealed my ears, rendering me blind and deaf. The shadows also lay heavily across my arms and legs, making it difficult for me to move. Although I could not see or hear anything, I somehow knew there was something dangerous hidden in the void.
As I struggled to look around, it felt as if my body were mired in fresh tar, and the faster I tried to move, the more enmeshed I became. I looked up and saw, far above my head, a pale, shimmering gray smear, like the moon hidden behind storm clouds. As I fought my way toward the distant glow, I became aware of the sound of muffled voices in the distance. Although I could not make out the words, the tone was angry. Yet there was something about one of the murky, dimly heard voices that made my heart leap and spurred me toward the rapidly expanding halo of light.
Suddenly I was awake, gasping like a swimmer tossed onto some nameless beach by an angry sea. I was on my side, my hands bound behind me. The nap of the Persian carpet I was lying on was pressed against my cheek. My body ached as if I’d just been in a collision, but I did not feel any sharp pain in my bones or flesh.
“Ah-ha! It looks like your lady friend is finally awake,” Boss Marz said. He was seated behind a very large, very imposing desk, and was smoking an equally oversized cigar. He seemed to be enjoying himself immensely.
As I focused my eyes, the first thing I saw was Boss Marz’s familiar, still in its demon-ape aspect, leaning over me. I gasped and tried to recoil when it poked me in the ribs with its leathery finger.
“I swear by the sunken cities, Marz, if that baboon of yours hurts her ...”
It was the voice that had summoned me from the shadows back to the land of the living. I turned my head and saw Hexe kneeling a few feet from where I lay, his hands encased in metal globes chained together at the wrist. Behind him stood Boss Marz’s lieutenant, Nach, and a tall, lean man dressed in matching leather pants and jacket, with dirty blond hair and the unibrow of a shape-shifter.
“You’ll do
what
?” the crime lord sneered as he leaned back in his chair and put his feet up on his desk. He rolled his cigar between his thumb and magic finger, savoring the moment. “You’re hardly in a position to threaten me, ‘Serenity.’ ”
“I’m okay, Hexe,” I said, trying to sound braver than I felt. “Just a little sore, that’s all.” I looked around, but there was no one else in the room. “What happened to Lukas?”
“Allow me to answer that question, my dear,” Boss Marz said as he moved to sit on the corner of his desk nearest Hexe and me. “I sent your feline friend back to his rightful place in the kennels. But you needn’t fear—you’ll be seeing him again quite soon enough. And as for your ragtag army of welded warriors—I took the opportunity to dismantle them while you were unconscious.” He gestured with his cigar to a pile of scrap metal heaped just inside the door. “Pity, really. Their construction was quite artful.”
I gasped aloud as if I’d been punched in the gut upon espying the Dying Gaul’s sword lying bent into a steel pretzel. A second later I spotted Lover Number Two’s torso, her aluminum funnel breasts pointed at the ceiling, and one of the Thinker’s arms amid the tangled wreckage. The sight of my creations lying there, mangled and tossed aside like so much junk, genuinely shocked me. It was like discovering several close friends slain in a drive-by shooting. Although they had not been truly alive, neither had they been simple automatons. I had put something of myself into each of them, and seeing them demolished was as if a part of me had been violated several times over. As I looked at Boss Marz’s smug, self-satisfied face, I was overcome by a loathing so profound it erased all vestiges of fear.
“You’ll pay for destroying them, you bastard,” I growled.
“I sincerely doubt that,” Marz said, blowing a lungful of smoke into my face. He then turned his attention to Hexe. “I must say, ‘Serenity,’ you disappoint me. I gave you credit for being smarter than this! Invading a Malandanti operation with nothing more than a human girl and a handful of overglorified marionettes?”
“We still managed to take out your guards and breech your defenses, didn’t we?” I said defiantly.
“And see how well that worked out for you,” Boss Marz replied condescendingly.
“How did you know I was harboring Lukas?” Hexe asked.
“It wasn’t that difficult to figure out, really,” Marz admitted. “I knew you were the only healer in all of Golgotham who would dare to defy me. Then a mutual acquaintance told me that he had seen you at a party in the company of a young man with an unusual five o’clock shadow.” He smiled as he tapped the space between his brows. “But I realized it would not be ...
prudent
. . . of me to kick open your front door and demand the return of my property. So I had to wait until the most opportune time to make my move. When you left the security of Golgotham, and the protection of your mother’s skirts, to travel uptown, that’s when I
knew
I had you. Still, my primary goal was simply to recover my chattel. It never occurred to me that you would deliver yourself to my care so soon. Now you and that were-cat bastard will learn at the same time what happens to those who disobey me.”
“Am I supposed to be
scared,
Marz?” Hexe asked, his words dripping with contempt. “You’re nothing more than a parasite, sucking the blood of the Kymeran people!”
“Mind your tongue, hedger!” Nach snarled, cuffing Hexe hard enough with his metal hand to knock him to the floor.
“Keep your hands off him, you candy-colored asshole!” I shouted as I struggled to get to my feet. The shape-shifter Phelan stepped away from Hexe to push me back down with his boot.
“Leave her alone!” Hexe snapped.
Nach and Phelan exchanged glances and snickered in amusement, but neither one touched me again.
“You and your kind have helped keep our people locked in the ghettos by perpetuating the stereotype of witches and warlocks as the willing accomplices of murderers and rapists.” Hexe spat in disgust. “It is bad enough that you help others justify their mistrust of our race, but you have preyed on your own people far worse than any witchfinder.”
“Those are
fine
words from the descendant of the greatest traitor to ever bear twelve fingers!” Boss Marz retorted, his cheeks turning bright red. “If it weren’t for the Malandanti, thousands more of our people would have died in the Sufferance. Ours is an ancient and noble organization, and we have much to be proud of. Who are you to stand in judgment? Your precious royal ancestor surrendered our rights as a sovereign people by agreeing to the disarmament and dispersal of the Dragon Cavalry. He turned a proud and feared race into nothing more than common charm peddlers and potion pushers.”
“It is because of the Malandanti that the humans felt justified in persecuting us to begin with!” Hexe replied hotly. “By following the Left Hand Path, you do nothing but invite enmity from the humans. ...”
“Enough!”
Marz abandoned his seat on the edge of the desk. His eyes had a fiercely burning look, as cold and distant as the farthest star. “I will not be preached to by a dexie! Your uncle is right—you
are
a dunderwhelp. What do you think you’re proving, using only Right Hand magic?”
“That I’m better than you, for one.”
Moving with amazing speed for a man his size, Marz backhanded Hexe, bloodying his lip.
Hexe did not flinch or cry out, but instead glared at the Malandanti. There was no fear in his eyes, only defiance. As I looked at him, I felt my heart swell as it had that night at the Two-Headed Calf when he held my hand and looked into my eyes. A voice in my head spoke as clearly as if someone had whispered in my ear,
I love this man.
“You know what I do with idiots stupid enough to offend me?” Marz hissed. “I toss them in the pits and tell them if they can kill whatever’s thrown at them, they get to walk away, free and clear. Simple as that. Do you know how many of those idiots have been able to do so?” He touched his index finger to his thumb. “And since you love your bastet pal so chuffing much, I’ve decided
you
can be his object lesson on what happens to bad kitties who run away from their owners.” He reached inside one of his desk drawers and retrieved a silver-bladed bowie knife and tossed it on the carpet in front of Hexe. “You and the were-cat will fight to the death in the pit. You’re going to fight him using that. You’ll be tonight’s main attraction. And to make sure you don’t use one of those wussie passive-aggressive dexie spells, like suspended animation, your right hand will be literally tied behind your back the whole time. If you want to live, you’ll have to either stab the bastet to death or use Left Hand magic to defeat him.”
“I will
not
fight my friend,” Hexe said determinedly, shaking his head. “I would rather die than hurt him.”
“Fine. I can assure you that your precious Lukas will have no such problem.” Boss Marz sneered. “You see, I’ve created a potion that summons forth the beast within shape-shifters, no matter what the circumstance. Once injected, they lose control and become ravaging animals, and the madness doesn’t recede until they have tasted blood.”
“Be that as it may, I refuse to kill or use Left Hand magic, even if it’s to save my own life.”
“Oh, but I think you will, my friend.” Marz grinned. “Because if you
don’t
fight, I’ll give the girl to my familiar to do with as he likes. You’d enjoy that, wouldn’t you, Bonzo?”
The demon-ape hooted in glee, flashing those terrible fangs as he bobbled his head in agreement with his master. The familiar moved to stand over me, lowering his head to sniff my hair. I bit my tongue and quickly looked away so I wouldn’t scream. Although I could not see the look in Bonzo’s eyes, there was no way I could avoid smelling the creature’s reek of brimstone and monkey house.
“You win, Marz,” Hexe said, dropping his gaze. “I’ll do as you wish. I’ll fight in the pit.”
“No!”
I wailed, throwing myself at Boss Marz’s feet. As much as the threat of becoming Bonzo’s plaything terrified me, the possibility of losing Hexe forever was a hundred times worse. “Please! Don’t let him do it!” I begged. “I have money—more than you can imagine. I’ll pay you to let us go. We won’t tell anyone about what you’re doing here, I swear. Just. Don’t. Hurt. Him.”
Boss Marz stared down at me as if I were some strange and vaguely interesting insect of which he had heard tell but had never seen before. “I appreciate the offer, my dear. And I shall admit to being somewhat tempted. But this goes beyond mere money. It’s now a matter of honor. He has conspired against the Malandanti by harboring the bastet Lukas, and now he must pay the price. To turn a blind eye to such an affront would make me look weak. And I cannot allow that. Phelan—take him downstairs and prepare him for his fate.”
“As you wish, Boss,” the werewolf growled. He bent down and retrieved the silver knife, carefully holstering it in a leather sheath affixed to his belt. He then grabbed the chains dangling between Hexe’s wrists and yanked him to his feet. “C’mon, ‘Serenity’—your public awaits.”
As Phelan dragged Hexe from the room, I wanted to run to him, wrap my arms about him, and tell him how much I loved him and how sorry I was for not being brave enough to admit to myself what my heart had known since the moment I first met him.
As he was being hustled out the door, Hexe met my gaze and gave me a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry, Tate—everything will be okay.”
“
Sure
it will, bub,” Phelan snarled.
As the door slammed shut behind them, the tears I had stifled finally spilled, unbidden, down my cheeks. This wasn’t how it was supposed to end, damn it.
“Come now, Ms. Tate,” Boss Marz said, clucking his tongue. He fished a silk handkerchief from his breast pocket and offered it to me.
Upon realizing my hands were still tied, he motioned for Nach to free them. I stared at the offered hanky as if it were a sleeping cobra while I massaged the circulation back into my wrists.
“Please take it,” he insisted, his voice oddly apologetic for someone who had just threatened to feed me to his baboon. “I may be a cold-blooded killer at times, but that doesn’t mean I cannot be a gentleman.”