Maxwell Cain 2: With a Side of Vengeance Page 7

  Hank looked back at him with fierce affection. “Likewise, my friend.”

  The metal door at the end of the room clanged open and ten guards in red fatigues with submachineguns marched in. One man with a bushy mustache and a red beret strode forward and pointed out Max and Hank to his men. “Get these two into the arena.”

  As the guards rushed to unlock their cages and drag them out, Max protested. “We just finished fighting. What happened to rest?”

  “No rest,” the leader in the red beret barked. He gestured for his men to haul Max and Hank toward the arena. “You two are ordered to duel to the death.”

  Johnny Legion’s harsh laughter followed Max down the tunnel.

  Chapter 14

  So Orders Caesar

  The thundering crowd roared in approval as Max and Hank were shoved from the tunnel mouth and the portcullis slammed down behind them. The center of the pit was littered with a dozen different bladed weapons thrust into the sand, and on his platform high above the arena, Andy Wong lounged on his huge throne and allowed four practically naked models to fan him with palm leaves. As hundreds of decadent viewers shrieked their bloodlust, the two gladiators looked at each other with trepidation.

  “We ain’t really gonna do this,” Max asked, “are we?”

  Hank sighed. “I don’t intend to kill you, Max. Do you intend to kill me?”

  “No,” Max said. “I plan to refuse this stupid fight and press Andy to give us a better match. Maybe I can get the fans to go along with it.”

  “Solid plan. Let’s see how it goes.”

  The two men strode forward into the sandy arena. Someone had raked it clean so most of the blood was invisible beneath the golden surface, and Keel’s body had been removed along with the rest of the ravaged corpses. Only a short time before, Max and Hank had been fighting for their lives against Andy’s goons, and now the field looked fresh and undisturbed, a testament to how swiftly Andy’s death machine ground on over the corpses of those he used for entertainment.

  Max clenched his fists as he reached the circle of bladed weapons and glared up at the gaudy crime lord reclining upon his throne. Andy grinned back as he plucked grapes from the hand of a blonde slave girl with his pearly white teeth.

  “Was the boy something special to you, Max?” Andy crooned. “I saw you holding him as he bled out. You can’t have known each other long.”

  Max raised his head and glared at Andy. “He was an innocent kid caught in your web, you festering sack of shit.” He pointed at the lounging ruler with one rock-steady finger. “Hear me, villain. I will shatter your teeth and hurl you into darkness.”

  “So dramatic!” Andy chortled. The slave girls around him tittered nervously. The crime lord leaned forward, grinning down at Max with death’s own leer. “Will you be so bold when you kill your companion there? Or will he kill you first? I can’t wait to find out which man has the greater will to survive.”

  “If you think we’re about to fight for your amusement,” Max declared, “you’re as dumb as a bag of hammers.”

  “Oh?” Andy eyed Hank. “Dark man, if you kill this upstart, I guarantee your freedom. In fact, you can become my personal bodyguard. And you’ll get your pick of my women.” He gestured at the barely-dressed girls around him. “What do you say?”

  Hank’s expression darkened. He glanced sidelong at Max, and the Reaper leader couldn’t help but feel he was being weighed and measured. After a long look, Hank turned back to Andy and answered in his bass voice. “No thanks. There already ain’t enough good men in this world. You can kill me here, but you can’t do me any real harm. I still got to answer when this life is done, and killing a man like Max just to save my sorry hide won’t earn me riches where it really matters.”

  Max shot him a sidelong look. “Saint Justin Martyr?”

  Hank looked surprised, but quickly smiled. “You know him? Looks like I made the right choice.”

  Andy glowered. He waved one hand and pointed at the two men in the pit. A dozen soldiers in red fatigues stepped to the edge of the twenty-foot wall and aimed their automatic rifles down at Max and Hank.

  “Fight, or I kill you both.”

  Max straightened his spine. “No.”

  Andy looked back and forth between them, then sighed disgustedly.

  “I’ve got a counteroffer for you,” Max shouted. He turned and gestured widely to the whole audience ringing the pit. “Do all of you really want to see two men fight to the death? Wouldn’t another mass skirmish be better? Why watch a miserable duel when you can see a huge death match?”

  Max’s suggestion twisted a few expressions into contemplation. The crowd muttered amongst themselves.

  Andy, looking annoyed, shot a glance into the crowd and cut his hand across his throat. Max followed the gangster’s gaze and saw one of the fops with a bright white wig stand up and begin chanting. “Duel him! Duel him!”

  The rest of the crowd looked confused, but a few more men stood up and picked up the chant. After a few seconds, the rest of the decadent crowd, Andy’s personal court, joined in so the arena was filled with a hundred chanting voices calling for Max and Hank to murder each other.

  Hank looked sad. He spoke loudly to be heard above the crowd. “Nice try, Max. It was good knowing you, man. I won’t kill you just to save my skin. Kill me if you feel you need to, but it would be an honor to die beside you.”

  “Likewise, Hank.” Max raised his hand, and Hank clasped it firmly. “I won’t raise a blade against you to save myself, bro. I’ve had a good run, but I won’t spit on my principles for something as worthless as physical survival. We’ll die together like men.”

  “Like men,” Hank echoed. He crushed Max’s hand in a hard grip, then released him to face Andy again. Max turned back to the crime lord and shot him a satisfied smirk.

  The crime lord’s face reddened. He snatched the blonde slave girl’s hair and stood up, yanking her to her feet. Her practically naked body quivered with terror as he pulled a gun from his pocket and stuck it under her jaw. The other three slave girls backed away to huddle nervously in the corner. The whole arena fell silent, and Max clenched his fists in rage.

  “You duel each other,” Andy bellowed, “or I’ll blow this little slut’s brains out. You won’t kill for your own life, Max, but do you want a slave girl’s death on your conscience?” He pulled her hair back, arched her spine, and ground the pistol into her throat. Her pitiful whimpering carried across the silent arena.

  Max gritted his teeth as he stared the crime lord straight in the eye. “I’m going to kill you, Andy. I’ll fucking slaughter you.”

  Andy bared his teeth in a savage grin. “You better kill that dark man next to you first, or this girl’s dead. Pick up a damn weapon and get to work.”

  Max dragged his eyes away from Andy’s gaze to meet Hank’s soulful brown eyes. The bigger man drooped with sorrow. “I can’t kill you for my own life, Max, but…”

  “Yeah,” Max agreed. “I know. Same here.”

  The two men exchanged a nod, then walked to the nearest weapon. Max seized hold of a longsword hilt and drew it from the sand. Hank picked up a massive two-handed scimitar. As the two men turned to face each other, Andy laughed and plunked down on his throne, dragging the terrified slave girl into his lap. He kept the pistol against her throat as Max and Hank struck battle stances.

  “Now this is entertainment,” Andy howled.

  The audience cheered, a hundred fops and floozies braying for two honorable men to gut each other for their own selfish pleasure.

  Hank surged forward. The mountain of a man moved deceptively fast, rushing at Max with his gleaming scimitar slashing down from high overhead. Max ducked the first blow, leaning away as the huge blade whistled by. Hank flowed effortlessly into a second slash, his sword a blur.

  Max parried the second strike. Their blades flashed
like liquid silver as the two men traded savage blows, each strike building on the one before it until they moved as one, a synchronized dance of death.

  Hank sliced at Max’s face, and the Reaper leader leaned back to avoid it. He raised his blade to thrust at Hank’s belly but the titan rushed forward and shoved the hilt of his scimitar in the way, catching Max’s longsword with the crossguard. Hank yanked his own blade upward and tore the hilt from Max’s hand, sending the gleaming longsword spiraling into the air. It crashed down into the sand twenty feet away behind Hank, far beyond Max’s reach.

  Max dodged Hank’s next swing, then rolled aside from an overhead chop that would have bisected him and instead split the sand into two crashing waves like Moses splitting the Red Sea.

  Max rolled toward the weapon circle and snatched up a spear with a long, bronze tip. Hank rushed at him but Max kept the huge man at bay, circling and thrusting with sharp jabs. Hank swatted the tip away but each time Max recovered more quickly, succeeding in slicing shallow grooves in Hank’s unguarded limbs before the mammoth warrior could recover his guard.

  Furious, Hank leaped back and hurled his scimitar overhead at Max. The whirling blade spiraled through the air and Max hurled himself aside barely in time to dodge the spinning wheel of death. The scimitar clattered off the concrete wall far behind Max.

  Hank tore a massive double-bladed battle axe and a spiked mace from the sand and advanced on Max. The Reaper leader hurled his spear, but Hank deflected the missile with his weapons and charged, bellowing a war cry.

  Max snatched a rapier and a katana from the sand and rushed to meet the attack. The two warriors clashed with a mutual wordless cry torn from both their throats. Their blades rang like funeral bells as they beat at each other in escalating ferocity, like two mighty bears locked in mortal combat.

  Andy’s outrageous laughter bubbled above their duel, filling Max’s veins with seething hate and a need to dominate, to maim, to kill. The whimpering slave girl in Andy’s lap cast frantic eyes about for help, but no one moved to rescue her, to stop her terrible lord from toying with all three of their lives. The depraved audience moaned with ecstasy to see such sport, these two begrudging warriors on the cusp of slaughter driven relentlessly by threatened harm to a young girl, and in that moment Max could have incinerated the entire lot of them without a moment’s hesitation or regret.

  With sweat pouring down his face, Max swatted aside another attack and raised his eyes to see Hank staring at him intently. “Max, have you been honest in everything you’ve told me?”

  The question surprised Max, but he deflected Hank’s next attack and answered truthfully. “Yes, Hank. I’ve only told you the truth. On my honor.”

  Hank’s brown eyes bored into Max. He felt himself weighed and measured again.

  “Make it count, Max.” Hank’s attacks slowed, coming slightly weaker. His left-side guard with the spiked mace suddenly gaped wide, not obvious enough for the audience to notice but discernible to Max who’d previously been facing a nigh-impenetrable defense.

  “Hank, what are you—”

  “You make it count!” Hank hissed. He lashed out at Max angrily, clashing their weapons, and when Max slid the mace past himself, Hank’s flank was opened wide for a strike. He gazed at the dark-skinned man whose face was set in rigid lines, his determination absolute.

  Max thrust with the rapier, piercing Hank’s side. It was a glancing blow, but the big man curled around it, gasping in pain. Max guessed some of the show was mock injury, but enough blood poured down Hank’s hip and thigh that the wound was clearly painful.

  Max pressed his advantage, batting aside Hank’s distracted defense and closing in for a strike. He kneed Hank in the stomach, doubling the bigger man over, then kneed him again in the chest. He avoided smashing the titan’s face, but the hit still hurled Hank backward into the sand. He dropped the axe when he hit the sand but maintained his grip on the mace. From his prone position he raised it for another strike, but Max smashed it aside with his katana, catching the spikes and wrenching it from the big man’s grip to hurl it across the arena.

  Unarmed, Hank lay gasping and bleeding in the sand at Max’s feet, staring up at him with hard eyes.

  Max stood panting, gazing down at the man who he knew had just purposely sacrificed himself to give Max a chance at life.

  “Do it!” Andy bellowed. He ground the pistol barrel into the slave girl’s windpipe, drawing another whimper from her already bruised throat. “You kill that sorry bastard, Cain!”

  “Don’t hesitate,” Hank told him calmly. “Live, Max. Get out of here. Free the other slaves and dish out justice. I absolve you of my death completely. Do me now and don’t look back.”

  Max clenched the hilts of his swords in his hands as he agonized over what to do. He looked up at the audience ringing the pit, their faces alight with frothing lust.

  Max reversed his grips on the blades and thrust them into the sand at his feet. The arena fell utterly silent.

  “Hear me,” Max bellowed to the crowd. “This man fought well. We both did! We could end this now, you can watch one man die. Or, you can see us both return tomorrow night and put on an even greater show than we did tonight. A battle that surpasses this one! More blood, more carnage, more action. More of everything you desire.”

  He raised his hands like a showman, sweeping his gaze across the sweaty faces of the depraved mob. “Do you want one moment of pleasure, or hours of ecstasy? One more battle!” He stamped his foot in the sand, chanting that phrase, “One more battle,” until the eyes of the audience shifted from bloodlust to a deeper craving.

  The first to join his chant was a Latina in a black dress that was really just lingerie with a matching black hat. She pumped her fist overhead as she shouted, “One more battle!” Next was her male partner, a fop in a lavender pimp suit. The chant spread through the audience until the entire dome thundered with their chorus demanding temporary mercy in favor of greater satiation to come.

  As the rhythmic demand echoed in his ears, Max turned his gaze triumphantly on Andy. The crime lord seethed upon his throne, his lips peeled back over pristine teeth in a beastly snarl. He shoved the slave girl roughly from his lap as he stood, spilling her across the floor where she scampered on hands and knees back to the cluster of girls in the corner. They backed away from her as if fearing contamination.

  Andy glared at Max, then swept his gaze across the audience. His expression slowly turned to a crisp, businesslike smile. He raised his hands, and the dome fell silent. “I hear you, my beloved assembly. Your pleasure is ever my command.” He pressed his remote, and all the metal weapons scattered across the arena shot toward the ceiling. Max watched them rise and felt the beginnings of an idea stirring in the darker regions of his calculating mind.

  The crowd cheered. The Latina in the black lingerie licked her lips and panted openly at Max, bouncing her plentiful bosom at him in a wanton offer. He turned away in disgust, offering his hand to Hank. The big man took it in his vicelike grip and let Max pull him to his feet. They shook hands then, with the depraved audience’s cheers spilling over them like cresting waves.

  The crowd went wild again at the display of comradeship. The booming chant turned to, “Cain! Cain! Cain!”

  Andy snarled and thrust his finger down at Max. “You’ll get your final battle, Cain. Tomorrow night you die.”

  Chapter 15

  It Ain’t My Fault I’m Loveable

  The guards shoved Max and Hank roughly back into their cages and left through the steel door. In the sudden silence, Johnny Legion whistled appreciatively.

  “Didn’t expect to see you both come back. What happened?”

  “I told Andy to cram it up his ass and crawl around like the snake he is,” Max snapped.

  Hank chuckled. “Max refused to take the killing shot on me. He risked his life to turn the crowd against Andy and force h
im to agree to another match tomorrow.”

  Johnny hiked up his massive brows in surprise and scrutinized Max with new curiosity. “So you don’t just talk the talk, Cain. You really are stupid enough to lay your own neck on the line.”

  “It’s not stupid to care for the folks around you,” Max growled.

  “Yes, it is, but I’m actually paying you a compliment.” Johnny’s predatory eyes bored into him. “I’ve heard a lot of warlords make pretty speeches about unity and sacrifice, but when it comes time to suffer together, they’d just as soon yank out your kidneys and sell them for cash. You put it on the line for a guy who’s basically a stranger to you. I ain’t seen that before.”

  Max shrugged. “Nothing new, Johnny. It’s what I’ve been doing all along. It’s what any decent man would do, in fact. You just haven’t known any decent men.”

  Johnny narrowed his eyes, then shrugged. “Whatever. Look, if you’re really intent on playing hero and if you honestly imagine you can get us out, I can hold off killing you until we get free of this prison. Final offer, take it or leave it.”

  “Gee,” Max said sarcastically, “let me think about it.”

  The steel door at the back of the room burst open with a clang, rebounding off the cement wall with a loud crack. Andy Wong stomped into the room in his full-skirted red coat, his heavy footfalls pounding the cement floor as he strode down the center aisle between the cages. He walked past Hank without a second glance and stopped in front of Max, just outside of the surly ex-cop’s reach.

  An angry snarl twisted Andy’s red face. “You insolent mongrel. How dare you defy me in my own palace?”

  Max leaned casually against his bars. “Hey, it ain’t my fault all your flunkies love me. Looked like a few of them planned to leap down into the pit with me and get a taste of my charm for themselves.”

  “These animals lust after any kind of pleasure.” Andy snorted nonchalantly, but his face and ears belied his false composure by still burning red. “I provide them with endless ecstasy. And for that, I am their king. King!”