Tender Mercies

Garrick scowled and Kelnozz sighed in exasperation. "Look human, we've been in this world long enough for an entire moon to pass! Alesha will not wait for us to come to her, she will return to Viconia and start where she left off before!"

The man drew back a bit in surprise at being called a human. Pamela smiled faintly and tapped her ears meaningfully. Eric stared at her blankly a moment before he turned to Kelnozz and studied him closely. "Pull your hair back. You said you're an elf, and not just a black man, I take it that means you have pointy ears and all that?"

Kelnozz shook his head angrily but reached up to his nearly white hair and pulled it aside to reveal his sharply pointed ear. Eric studied it thoroughly, clearly fascinated by it. "You look like a Vulcan," he muttered to himself.

"Is that what you call elves on this world?" Garrick asked, his magical earring not providing a translation for the word.

"No, it's... um, ah... nevermind, forget it," Eric said, realizing it would take to long to explain. "Come on, I don't know that I believe you, but I have nothing better to do and if you really wanted my truck that badly, I have a feeling that you could just take it from me. I'm sure I'd put up a good fight, but I don't think I'd win. Besides, Pammy says you're on the up and up, so I'll trust her."

Garrick slapped the table hard happily. Eric's and Pamela's eyes widened when they heard the plastic crack. They all stood up and headed out of the restaurant, Eric and Pamela leading the way. "Trust me, Eric, I've seen them fight, if they wanted your truck, they'd take it!"

Eric snorted and said, "Well, they look big and tough enough, but you've never seen me in action, I can hold my own."

Pamela rolled her eyes but kept her derisive laughter to herself. They reached the blazer and piled into it, with Garrick and Kelnozz sitting in the back somewhat uncomfortably. Their large backpacks they carried with them went into the back of the truck, joining a smaller duffel bag Eric had brought with him. In moments, they were on the road and heading south on the expressway bound for Florida.

*****

"You were right, Mistress, they have come for you on this world," Talifernon said to Alesha later that night in her office in the nightclub she had acquired.

Alesha remained silent for a long moment, putting her thoughts and plans in order. Brian was out in the club, overseeing things while she was alone in the room with the demon. Finally she reached a decision and looked up at the demon.

"You say they have come, who has come with Kelnozz? Martin and Nordan?" She asked.

"Nay, Mistress, Nordan's father, the one you knew as Helmut," He said, a wolfish grin on his snout.

"Helmut!" She hissed, her breath momentarily stolen from her. "He escaped me! Now he returns with the elf to claim vengeance..." She lapsed off thoughtfully for another moment then.

"Let them come. Things progress smoothly here, we can return to Viconia sooner then I thought, if they show up before we leave, then we will deal with them."

"Mistress, is returning to Viconia wise?" The demon asked, speaking boldly for the first time since his indentured servitude to her. He loathed and despised Alesha still, and would nurse that hate for as long as they both still existed, but he had also realized that her powers demanded respect, and that his best chance of regaining his freedom was not in trying to deny her control over him.

"Of course it is, this world is all but ruined, and certainly not a place where I can carve out an empire for myself," she responded, staring at him suspiciously. "What makes you question me so?"

Talifernon chose his words carefully before proceeding. "On Viconia, Bavorish will again be able to reach you, and he may not be happy with the decisions you have made. And more so that you have discovered your powers do not depend upon him."

Alesha pondered this before discarding it, "Nonsense, he was the one to send me back here. Why would the Gods seek to destroy me?"

Talifernon bowed his head submissively, "As you say, Mistress. But I overheard the one Kelnozz travels with be addressed to as Garrick."

*****

"Welcome to Florida, land of the giant fucking swamp," Eric said as they crossed into central Florida and were surrounded by lakes and weeds as far as the eye could see.

"You don't like it here?" Pamela asked, enjoying the changing scenery as they had driven south over that day and the day before.

"It's hot, humid, and filled with lots of things that bite," Eric explained. To accentuate his point, he pointed out the side window to a swimming alligator. "Bugs mostly, but I'd take a mosquito over a gator any day."

Kelnozz and Garrick chuckled. Over the time they had spent together, they had grown to like Eric, he had a constant sense of humor that, while often dark and sarcastic, nevertheless kept them entertained.

"That's a small one," Kelnozz said, judging it carefully. "And they taste good," Garrick added.

"You've seen alligator's before?" Pammy asked them, turning around in her seat. Both men grinned at her, a sure sign that they had many stories they could tell. Something both Eric and Pamela had learned was that both of the strange men had a host of stories that bordered on the fanciful and outrageous. So outrageous were they that both of them found themselves believing the stories.

"There was this road that went through a swamp near Yolarch," Kelnozz began.

Eric and Pammy were swept up in a story of how Kelnozz, Nordan, and an old friend named Pompey had been caravan guards for a while. Ambushed by lizard men, they had seen the pets the lizard men had in the distance. Pets that made the alligator that they had passed already look like a hatchling.

By the time the story was done, they had reached the outskirts of St. Petersburg. They drove around until they found a motel to stay in, and took their things inside the two bedroom motel room to set up a base of operations while they searched St. Petersburg for Alesha. It was late in the day, after 7 p.m. already, and it seemed to them that it would be best to search on the following day.

For something to do that night, Eric took them to a topless bar that he had visited several years past. The fake ID's that Robin had provided for Kelnozz and Garrick were more then sufficient to let them in. Pammy felt a bit uncomfortable entering the club, but she had lived a relatively sheltered life and had never been to one herself, thus her curiosity easily won out over her inhibitions.

Garrick and Kelnozz were won over by the nature of the bar, Garrick more then the elf, but not by much. That was until Garrick decided to get a little friendly with one of the dancers. Eric cursed as he realized he had not explained the rules of the club very well to them, for Garrick's attempts to fondle the stripper were not appreciated by the management.

"Hey, you can't do that!" She protested, a wisp of a girl named Chastity. Garrick grinned lecherously and reached for her again. Clearly the smile on her short blond haired face indicated that she didn't mind, but club rules were rules, and she had seen more then one dancer get fired for getting to personal with the customers while at the bar.

"Hey buddy, no touching the girls!" A bouncer, a large black man, said, clamping his hand on Garrick's shoulder.

Garrick flew out of his chair instantly, the bouncer's hand unable to hold him. Glancing around quickly, they saw that three other bouncers had positioned themselves nearby and were now moving closer. "Time for you boys you to leave," The first bouncer said menacingly.

One of the other men noticed how much bigger Garrick was then the rest of them and showed signs of nervousness. They had dealt with drunks and even a few crazy men from time to time, but this guy looked like he could seriously hurt them.

"Look, my friend isn't from around here, he didn't realize it was against the rules to touch the dancers," Eric said, jumping to his feet and trying to defuse the situation. Kelnozz was also up and ready for action. Pamela stumbled to her feet last, her senses fully overloaded by what was going on.

"Fine, then leave and there won't be any trouble," The bouncer said again, coming closer.

"If you're going to have wenches dancing and teasing me, you can be damned sure I'm going to touch them!" Garrick growled. "And nothing you do will stop me!"

Eric groaned as the head bouncer accepted the challenge and came at him, intending to grapple with him. The other bouncers came at them too. Pamela shrieked and just tried to stay out of the way of all the adrenaline crazed men surrounding her.

Garrick and the man grappled, and from the beginning it was obvious that the bouncer was overmatched. Garrick toyed with him for a moment before he drove the man to his knees and then lifted his own knee into the man's chin, sending him sprawling backwards unconscious. Another bouncer came up behind him and caught him up when Eric swept his feet out from under him.

Kelnozz slipped off to the side unnoticed and watched the growing brawl as tables were bumped and patrons got upset. He sat down next to another dancer, this one a well proportioned black girl named Jasmine who was wearing only a tiny g-string and some red high heels. "This happen often?" Kelnozz asked, nodding towards where Garrick was hit in the face by the fourth bouncer.

The girl opened her mouth to reply when Garrick retaliated, his fist catching the man in the stomach and making the breath explode from his lungs loud enough for nearly everyone to take notice even over the loud music. What really made her jaw drop speechlessly was how the force of the blow not only lifted the bouncer off the floor, but it literally threw him backwards and onto the stage that was several feet away.

The downed bouncer climbed back to his feet and turned to face Eric, who was waiting for him. Two punches to the bouncers face sent him staggering back, trying to gain some room to recover. Eric advanced on him, but was caught off guard when the bouncer charged into him, grappling with him and wrestling him to the ground.

"Excuse me, I need to borrow this," Kelnozz said to a couple of guys sitting at a nearby table. He grabbed one of their beer bottles and, with a lightning fast move of his arm, threw the bottle. It cracked against the bouncers head and shattered, raining beer and broken glass down on the bouncer and Eric both. The bouncer slumped down, stunned by the hit, and Eric scrambled out from under him.

Garrick turned to the last bouncer, who grabbed onto his arm in the hopes of calming him down. Garrick grinned and pulled the bouncer closer to him. With his other hand he grabbed the bouncers thigh, then used the first arm to easily overpower the bouncer's grip and grab him by the shirt. Lifting him up easily, he aimed at two men moving towards him from a nearby table that had gotten overturned by the first bouncer on his way to dreamland. Heaving him forward, both men tried to dodge but were caught up by the body of the thrown bouncer, knocking all three to the ground.

"We need to go!" Eric said, climbing to his feet and kicking the stunned bartender that had been accosting him in the side. "The cops will be here soon!"

Kelnozz frowned but hopped to his feet. He threw a wink to Jasmine, who still sat there looking stunned, and hurried over to his companions. "Come Garrick, the watch comes!"

Garrick grinned and nodded. They followed Eric out of the bar, who stopped only long enough to grab Pamela's hand and pull her out with them. Once outside, they hurried to his blazer and hopped into it, tearing out of the parking lot as quickly as they could before the police showed up.

Pulling back into their motel spot, Eric checked his rear view mirror and saw a car pull up beside them. They hopped out of the truck to confront whoever had followed them and saw that it was the first dancer, Chastity.

"What are you doing here?" Eric asked harshly.

"I followed you guys," She said, eyeing Garrick appreciatively. "I've never seen anybody fight like that, you could have killed those guys! And Franky, he'll be pissing blood for a month!"

"Why did you follow us?" Eric asked, not wanting the extra attention she would bring. She had a long T-shirt on and that looked like it was the extent of her outfit, other then her purse and the mini skirt, g-string, and high heels that she had on at the club.

"Because I wanted to tell you," She was talking directly to Garrick, "that you were welcome to touch me like that somewhere other then the club, but you had to wait until I got off work!"

Kelnozz laughed and said, "I see where Nordan gets it!" Kelnozz headed towards the door to their hotel room.

"Ah, a good night you have shown us, Eric!" Garrick said, clapping the man on the back. "A tavern brawl and a whore to boot, well done!"

"Hey, I'm not a whore! I just liked you and thought maybe we had a connection, ya know," She said, not looking terribly upset at being called a whore, but protesting for the principle of it. She had a piece of gum in her mouth now, and was chewing on it vigorously.

"Somebody has been here," Kelnozz said with a deadly seriousness to his voice. All other conversation was cut short, and together they moved towards the door.

"How do you know that?" Pamela asked, her head still swimming from the events of the night.

"And old trick I learned a while ago. I placed some hair near the top of the door, and any body opening it would disturb it, somebody was in our room."

Garrick opened and closed his fist in mid air, and Chastity gasped as his warhammer appeared in his hand. Kelnozz took the key from Eric and put it in the lock quietly. Turning it suddenly, he opened the door quickly and leaned away from it. Just in time, for a hail of gunfire poured through the opening, tattooing a pattern where Kelnozz had just been.

The sound of several wet pops and thuds could faintly be heard over the gunfire, and glancing back they saw that Chastity had not moved away from the door when the rest of them had. Her body fell to the ground and she gasped in pain and confusion as her life rapidly poured out onto the sandy parking lot.

Garrick growled and leapt in through the doorway as the gunfire ceased. His hammer was already on its way, crashing into one man and crushing his head. The resultant thundering boom stunned the two men next to him. He found another man closer to the door and his fist closed around his throat, crushing his windpipe and spine holding him off the ground while he flailed.

Another bout of gunfire followed, though this time Garrick held up the dying man as a meat shield between himself and them. A few bullets still found him, but they only grazed one arm and one thigh. Clips ran empty and Garrick threw the bloody corpse, catching a man while he struggled to place another clip in his pistol.

Kelnozz was in the room by now as well, a knife he had hidden in his boot slicing through the air and sticking in the throat of a gunman wielding a Mac-10. The sub-machinegun fired erratic bullets into the ceiling as the mans arms went up. He dropped the gun and grasped at the knife in his throat, pulling it out and increasing the flow of blood both into his lungs and onto his hands and shirt. He collapsed to his knees and drowned in his own blood moments later.

The two men that had been stunned where coming to their senses by then, but Garrick had reclaimed his hammer and with a swing smashed the Mac-10 out of the hands of one of them. Eric leapt over the bed and crashed into the other man, forcing his Desert Eagle pistol to fire over his head as he drove him to the ground. Shaking away the deafening noise, he drove his fist into the mans jaw until he slumped unconscious.

Turning back, Eric saw Kelnozz duck in time to see Garrick throw the man who had just had his gun smashed out of his hand into the wall next to the door. A sickening crunch sounded, indicating that the mans neck, at the very least, was broken. No others remained in the room.

Pammy looked in and saw the carnage of the room. Her hand flew to her mouth and she turned away, retching into the parking lot. Eric was quite shocked himself at the display of gore and violence, and just as much at his own reactions taken. His special forces training was apparently not forgotten in spite of how many years it had been since he had left military life. Garrick had the look on his face that would have easily convinced him that he was the angel of death right then.

"This one's still alive," Eric said, clearing his throat first to make sure his adrenaline laden nerves did not make him tremble.

Garrick proceeded towards him then, deadly intent evident. Kelnozz grabbed his arm and stopped him, shaking his head and saying, "Perhaps he can tell us something."

Garrick nodded and took a deep breath. Letting it out, he searched through the bodies of the dead men. They had nothing on them by means of identification. Eric and Kelnozz gathered up their bags and quickly loaded them into the truck, knowing that they could not stay there. Already people had started approaching, asking questions. Kelnozz grabbed his dagger off the floor and slipped it back into his boot, then followed the rest of them into the blazer, which then screeched off into the night in search of a new place to stay.

"We need to talk," Kelnozz said when the remaining attacker began to come to his senses.

The man groaned as he tried to put everything back together in his bruised mind. Realizing where he was, he struggled to put distance between himself and Kelnozz, only to realize that he was in the back of the SUV and could not get out. Eric pulled it over to the side of the road in an empty Circuit City parking lot and let Kelnozz do his thing.

Torture had never been his specialty, but between him and Garrick, they soon had the man trying to scream. Had his mouth not been gagged and bound, he would have surely gotten the attention of several nearby people, including the law. And they had not even gotten to the point where they started asking questions yet.

Both his hands had been smashed with Garrick's hammer, breaking most, if not all, of the bones there. They had promised to do the same with his feet next, if he didn't tell them what they needed to know, and left him gagged tied to a lightpost in the parking lot with some time to think before they returned and began again. A rope ran from one wrist to the other, holding the lightpost inside of his arms and near his face. Blood ran from his mouth and nose, where Eric's earlier punches had split his lips, broken his nose, and even bloodied his eye.

Garrick and Kelnozz returned to the truck to talk to Pamela and Eric. Eric handed Kelnozz a small radio and said, "Do you think this will work?"

Kelnozz nodded and smiled. Garrick grinned as well, for his part in the plan they were executing. "What are you talking about?" Pamela asked, clearly upset at all the violence that had gone on around her so far that night. She knew what Garrick and Kelnozz were capable of, but she did not realize that Eric could be as violent and ruthless as he had been so far.

"Hey!" Pamela said, glancing out the rear window of the blazer. "He's getting away! He'll tell the police if you don't stop him!"

Silence greeted her as the other men watched out the windows. In a moment, Kelnozz reached into his pack and pulled out his equipment. Stripping quickly out of his shirt, he slipped his magical bracers on each forearm, then some gloves. He put a loose black shirt back on and then slipped his feet into his magical boots. Slipping daggers into his boots and also hanging one from his belt, he finished making his preparations. In a moment, he was off, heading after their escaped prisoner with the radio clipped to his belt as well.