Ebb Tide Ch. 04b

"That was a whole lot of something out of 'nothing'," he mocked me. He twitched again. My guess his Mistress was insisting he come back upstairs via Bluetooth– keenly aware how close to the edge her toy was and unwilling to see me dead quite yet.

Off he went, taking the two best killers with him ~ Amateur Hour, I swear. They had me move to a corner of the cell while slave-workers came in and removed the corpses. The girl gave off a burbling sound I attributed to lungs still struggling to breathe ... she wasn't quite dead yet. Son of a bitch.

Though the guards had the presence of mind to pillage the bodies, I could tell they were disturbed. Members of psychotic organizations like to believe the horrible shit they do won't happen to them ~ by being the inflictors of pain, they will be immune to it.

It rarely works that way. Only the leadership has an exit plan which doesn't involve a mass grave, firing squad, or the 'best years of your life' in some hell-hole prison. At most, the foot soldiers live, if they survive at all, a life of poverty in exile, where you constantly are looking over your shoulder for the retribution they so richly deserve.

These guys and gals had that look now. Even violent sadists and sociopaths want to live. They wanted to believe one day they would simply empty their piggy bank, pack up their belongings and leave Las Vegas and their bondage to Sycorax behind.

Sadly, if you were the type of person clever enough to live the high life in the US, Mexico, or Canada without a Social Security number, or other valid form of ID, you could do better than being employed as a gun-toting guard down here.

No, if you ran, you would screw up, show up on Sycorax's radar and then most likely someone in the employ of Thulsa Doom would darken your door soon after and end your miserable existence. No loose ends.

"What are you smiling about?" one of the guards snapped. I hadn't been smiling.

"I'm not. I'm grimacing. I have some service injuries and I'm in a shitload of pain. I'm also about to be fighting for my life for the second time tonight, so I'm trying to meditate," I reasoned, and lied.

"They are going to kill you," the guard continued several seconds later.

"Then I am likely to know the time of my demise. For you ~ it will be more of a surprise," I remarked coolly.

"What does that mean?"

"I'm about to be fighting for my life while you work with people who will kill you over a gambling debt ... or a hangnail," I enlightened them. "This place is an insane asylum."

"Shut up!" another growled. I complied. 'Me' remaining perfectly still allowed the guards to concentrate their paranoid fantasies on one another. Fifteen minutes later, two more guardians with another (female) manager-type showed up.

"It is your time," the woman commanded, as if I was a show pony. I uncoiled from the floor and came her way. The guards who were more familiar with me tensed up and pointed their firearms my way. The two new ones did not. Though armed, they put more faith in their martial arts abilities.

[ROUND TWO: DAVID NAKAMURA]

"No handcuffs?" I questioned as I came to the opened door. Even though it was a barred cell they were being exceedingly ... I had to be missing something.

"You should behave," she gave a fatigued attempt at a smile ~ more of a facial tick. I needed to step out, slip pass one obliging guard, snatch up my stored device and store it away without anyone being the wiser. Though I was skilled, my best ally was the poor lighting down here.

"The rules are simple: there are sixteen contestants in this event. Your head is worth $100,000. The fight ends when there are four men left standing. The last four men split an additional $100,000. The Lady has agreed ~ if you are among the Final Four, you get the $100,000 ~ for keeping your head (ha! ha!)."

"There is a catch. After the first two minutes, one of the snipers will kill one contestant every thirty seconds, until there are only four left."

"How many snipers and what are their weapons of choice?" I asked.

"If you move slowly enough you will find you," she sneered.

That was okay. They would have to be .22 to foil my plans. My bet was good ole 5.56 mm, which would be up for the job I had in mind. Since people were keeping an eye on me, I had to be careful how I played my next move. I didn't cry out, or stumble.

I hissed, bumped into the guy closest to me who wisely shoved me away – right into my designated hidey-hole (really just a space between a pipe and the wall). Everyone tensed. Far too often, people look at a person's face, not at their shoulders, or hands, which are the better indicator of what they are doing.

I shoved the crappy 5 shot .32 revolver so far down into the back of my pants it went halfway down my ass crack. Not really a problem. Off we went down the hallway, around the previous arena to a space beneath the public seating. There were eight other combatants already there, all in various states of dis-repair.

My guess was they were tonight's 1st Round losers. The manager related the same good news to the crowd. Two could barely stand. One was virtually blind from the pounding his face had taken.

"We kill this guy," a big, Black guy shoved a thumb in my direction, "and we get to go home?"

"Sure," the cunt smiled.

"With ... aaahhh ..."

"$25,000," a different guy did the math for him. He was Japanese.

"That's not going to cover what I owe," the Black guy muttered.

"That's not going to be a problem," I assured him. "How much do you owe?"

"Fifty-five large," he looked me over. He was probably trying to place my face to events. He owed some very bad person $55K to end up here.

"Kill everyone you get $200K. You kill me and stay alive, you can pay what you owe ... or you and one teammate, even me, live and you still pay what you owe. Simple enough?" I clarified things for him and the rest of the room.

"Oh ... yeah. Thanks," he nodded. No one was rushing to be his ally. I sent the Japanese combatant a steady look. He had potential.

"Six minutes," the manager gleefully informed us with a friendly lilt to her voice. "Good luck everyone. Especially you, Vance. I'm betting on you."

"You aren't likely to live to spend it," I sent my own killer look her way. She laughed as she left. The Japanese fighter moved toward me as the guards withdrew to the door.

"David Nakamura," he offered to shake my hand. I shook, but said nothing else. "Who else do you suggest we team up with?"

"Someone who won tonight?" I suggested. His snort caused him to cover his left ribs. "Don't worry about it. They are going to kill us all."

"What?" he whispered. "Really?"

"Yes. They don't pay losers anything. The second they made this a match to the death with some number of you beating the rest into an early grave, all of you became expendable ~ loose ends. I'm sure back-alley fighters in a five state radius are already getting the invitations for next week's bout," I explained.

"Shit," he groaned. He wasn't alone.

"Why are you here?" I asked.

"You first?"

"I was invited here by an old friend who essentially blackmailed me without telling me what this shindig was. Then the hostess hijacked my three dates and is holding them hostage for my good behavior. She'll kill them once I'm gone."

"Oh ... that is screwed up," he nodded. "I'm looking for someone."

"Who?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

"Three minutes," we were informed via intercom.

"Try me."

'Thulsa Doom,' he mouthed.

"Why?"

"You've heard of him?" he wondered.

"Who in Las Vegas hasn't?" I frowned.

"He murdered my Father and older brother," 'David' grimaced. His English was good, simply not good enough to be Japanese-American. He was Japanese and 'David' wasn't a name in common usage on any of the four Home Islands.

"Why did he kill them?"

"Why does it matter ... to you?"

"I wouldn't have asked if it didn't matter."

"My ... ummmm ... Brother was a lawyer working with Minebea. My Father worked with investors wishing to expand into the American Southwest."

"Your brother came to town to sell mini-Uzis?" I de-obfuscated his words. Minebea made plenty of things, but most notably to me, a Japanese version of a mini-Uzi called the PM-9 and a licensed variant of the SIG Sauer P220 called the P9. "So, he was Yakuza."

David paused and stared.

"How ..."

"I have a disreputable past," I helped him along.

"Ryuichi, my brother, was a shingiin for a ninkyō dantai. My Father was a wakagashira. They were businessmen. Thulsa Doom killed them and I have to avenge their deaths. I figured getting into the Las Vegas underground fighting circuit would lead me to him."

"Wrong avenue of approach," I enlightened him. "Wrong vice."

"Huh?"

Another guy edged our way.

"Don't," I eye-balled him. His plethora of US prison tattoos said enough about him to tell me he was bad news.

"Three are better than two," he grinned. Someone had removed two of his front teeth recently. My look conveyed all he needed to know. Off he slunk.

"He could have ..." 'David' began.

"Your absence of tattoos tell me you are not Yakuza. His body is a litany of his criminal past and it isn't things which inspire trust," I told him. "'David', how did you find out about this place?"

"A family friend," he grew defensive.

"That family friend send you here to die – just saying."

"One minute."

"What makes you say that?" David muttered. What he meant was, he didn't believe me in the slightest.

"They sent you here knowing it was the wrong place. You lost in the 1st round. You came equipped with a name, had you told anyone except me, which would have guaranteed you a bullet in the back of the head. That name doesn't open doors – it fills graves."

"What makes you special?"

"Life hates me."

"Huh?"

"You will see soon enough," I prophesized.

The guards rounded us up and moved us toward the large door which opened to the main arena. We inmates jockeyed so no one was directly behind us. A yellow light flashed, the door opened, the crowd's enthusiasm spiked and out we went. Luck had David and me moving to my right out of the opening gate.

It was bad luck because close to us came three guys ~ Round Three's and Four's losers aka Round Two's and Three's winners. There was nothing to it, but to hope David was reliable.

"Guard my back," I ordered as I collided with those three.

They were the best of the fighters (almost), but also the most battered. Worse for them, the one farthest from me decided to let me fight the closest two without ... her. Had they been in better shape, it might have been more of a contest. I powered through the first guy's block, putting a fist to his chin, stunning him.

The second guy tried to get behind me. I put an elbow to his diaphragm, twisted so my second blow pounded the air out of his lungs and let my left uppercut crush his Adam's apple. I was back on the first guy one-two-three and down he went. The remaining lass seemed to be playing the waiting game.

I spared a glance to my rear. David had settled his disagreement with the sole combatant immediately trying to get behind me by twisting that guy's arm then slamming his head into the arena's wall repeatedly.

"VANCE!!" screamed down at me from above.

Well shit, Sycorax had settled my companions minus Jo directly above my entry point so they could both witness my struggles and be a direct reminder of her ability to cause me suffering if I misbehaved. She was messing with the wrong crowd. It got rapidly worse/better. Kristoff vaulted the railing to land between myself and David.

Well ... okay. New plan. I snatched his aviator glasses off his face. I needed them at the moment.

"You are welcome," he chided me.

Then he saw me draw my revolver, kneel and aim ... up ... at the first of the four snipers who I could now make out above the suspended lighting.

We weren't anywhere near the two minute mark so they weren't aiming at any of us combatants yet. Two were clustered on the catwalks above so I put bullets into both of them before slamming the glasses and revolver back into Kristoff's chest. I had a 50/50 chance of some more good fortune.

The catwalks weren't wide and had only a thin railing. One rifle fell onto the catwalks while the other one tumbled down from Heaven toward us Damned and I was racing for it.

Two more races were going on though they weren't immediately obvious to the majority of participants. They were a matter of intelligence & perception for two concerned parties. The first party was the two remaining snipers. They had seen me shoot the first two, do 'something' then race after what might have been a falling rifle. That was REALLY bad news for them.

How I got a firearm in the first place was something they would worry about later ... which was a mistake. See, the second contestant was Lt. Colonel Kristoff Declan ... who shot competitively for the United States Air Force ~ pistols only (the Weenie).

Lucky for me, he had a pistol (though a crappy one) and that was their final mistake – losing track of who had the pistol. They didn't know who Kristoff was, much less he was probably a better pistol shot than I was. Meanwhile, Kristoff didn't assume I gave him back his glasses plus the pistol because I was worried about his safety.

He rightly figured there were other people up above the lighting who needed to be dead. While those two morons were drawing a bead on me, he exiled both of them into the next life via a .32 caliber boarding pass placed in their chest cavities. His good fortune in all things remained. Two more rifles plummeted to the floor.

Actually they were Barret REC7's chambered in 6.8 mm Remington SPC (30 round magazines). Now I finally had a firearm which COULD shoot through the fucking doors, BITCHES. Some combatants looked inclined to fight me for my newest aquisition, so Kristoff expended his last pistol round killing the closest one.

I took aim at the lighting and knocked out a whole series of them in rapid succession while Kristoff gathered up the other two rifles. Together we retraced our steps and found David making his way to me ... with my four ladies. Sara and G were limping slightly. It was a 12' fall after all.

[THE ESCAPE]

As this was going on, the whole crowd of participants were losing their shit. This made the job of security getting to us nearly impossible. The two who came close, Kristoff killed for me. I was blowing off the hinges of a door, allowing us to exit the arena. At the first camera in the holding room, I looked up and snarled,

"Sycorax, I'm coming for you!", then shot the camera.

Off we ran, having picked up four other fighters who decided we were the best bet of escaping this pit. We did return to the steps I knew went back up to the room where the Lady of Gluttony held court ... and kept going right past them. I was following the trail of blood from the dead bodies they'd dragged away from my holding cell.

They would have to take them outside was my reasoning and I was right. Kristoff fired off a few shots to scatters the workers we came across. I rolled two bodies off of her. I put my ear to her chest. I didn't trust myself to find a pulse. She was still barely hanging on.

"Pick her up. Drop her and I'll kill you," I told David.

"Why?"

I pointed the REC7 at him. He wisely complied. Two 6.8 rounds negated the magnetic locks and out the roll-up doors our little troop went. I told the rest to beat it, then hotwired the first van we came to. It advertised 'Horse Meat' ... fucking great.

"What's the plan?" Reagan finally had the nerve to ask. I had to look pretty hellish.

"We are going to the Fremont. You are getting out with the girl. You will stay with the girl all the way to the hospital and you, Reagan, will make sure she gets the damn best medical care available."

"Vance, I've been poisoned. We need to ..." Reagan got out.

"I know. This is your fault. This is your side fucking up and you are going to pay for it."

"Vance – no," Kristoff grew brittle.

"You can get out with her if you want. I know you've been poisoned too. So has Jo, Dabney, G and Sarah. This is on Reagan and the people she chooses to associate with," I verbally pushed back.

"I will stay with Reagan," Kristoff nodded, "and I agree. Reagan ... you and I need to have a serious damn talk."

Reagan had nothing to say. Nothing else was discussed until we came to a rapid stop in front of the Fremont (casinos had top notch crisis care). As they were exiting, I gave Reagan some parting words of advice.

"Reagan, if my girls die, I'll kill your Mother. Then I'll kill the rest ... just so there is no misunderstanding."

"Okay," she nodded feebly.

After they got out, I sped away. Five blocks later, I abandoned the truck and stole another car. We kept the firearms. They had our fingerprints on them. I repeated the process twice more before ending our temporary retreat at a small rat trap stand-alone I rented under an assumed name.

I had barely had a chance to determine David needed more medical care than I could provide when my phone let me know someone was looking for me. I took it outside.

"Yes."

"My, my, my ... it seems you are even more resourceful than I was lead to believe," London's voice bubbled with amusement. I had the feeling the level of excitement I'd inflicted on her was something relatively new and revitalizing.

"We have unfinished business," I bled all emotion out of my response.

"Coming to kill me?"

"No. That was misdirection. Your underling failed to kill the teen girl. I wanted to retrieve her, so I had to make you believe I was coming your way and not out the back. She should now be at a hospital. Her fate is yours, Ms. Villiers. I am not big on giving anyone who hurts me and mine a second lease on life, but consider this yours."

"Give us the antidote, leave the girl alone and I'll forget about tonight," I offered.

"If I say 'no'?" she snickered.

"I will go work for Lloyd Pharris."

"Oh ... really? You hate Lloyd."

"I won't openly work for Lloyd. I already know the faces of most of the Vice Lords. He can point me at the ones he wants dead. I already know you are on the list, so any of the rest of your sick menagerie he lets me kill will be like a Christmas bonus. We both know he'll jump at the chance."

"You could come work for me," she re-offered.

"Give me one good reason."

"Pleasure. You appear to have lived a life devoid of pleasure before now, whereas I have spent a lifetime devoted to it."

"You are wasting my time," I retorted. "I value friendship and loyalty. You offer neither."

"You don't know me."

"You squandered your opportunity to know me tonight. That is on you. You are wasting other people's valuable time," I reminded her.

"Fine. How do I get the antidote to you?"

"Give it to Jo. She can get it to me."

"I've already let Jo go," she snorted. Sycorax had to be making future plans as well.

"Sucks to be you. I suggest you call her and get her to come back, because that is the only deal in town," I explained.

"You would let your ladies die ... just like that?"

"I didn't poison them – you did. This isn't on me. Your lousy hospitality and Deity Complex is the problem. I will await Jo's call," then I hung up and rejoined the troupe.

I ignored the next two calls from an unlisted number, taking a chance on the third which came ten minutes later. Back outside I went.

"Sycorax says you want me to deliver your antidotes?" Jo sounded exceptionally grumpy.

"Yes."

"I am no longer in her custody."

"I know."

"And you want me to go back?" she sounded super-pissed/arctic-frigid.