Aloha From Hell (37 page)

All those dreams about tests and being lost and being back in the blood and the dust are just lines on a map. The elevation marks reveal that no matter how low you get, there’s always somewhere lower to fall.

Some of the Hellions from the flatbed go right up to the fence to get a good look at the current fight, trying to convince themselves they’re not seeing what they’re seeing. Others, the ones with a firmer grip on reality, are at the far end of the pen puking and shitting themselves. They’re not in denial about what’s coming.

The arena isn’t much to see. Just a flat soccer field with semis parked a hundred feet apart to mark the boundaries of the killing floor. Hellions and even a few pagan collaborators fill the stands between the trucks, drinking, cheering, and throwing bottles and rocks at the Hellion prisoners forced to fight each other. I shake my head. Lucifer woulHouLuciferdn’t have put up with the peanut gallery getting his arena floor messy. These small-time bullies have no class.

I look around the stadium, not really paying attention to the current fight. There’s the unmistakable sound of metal smashing into meat and bone. The crowd cheers. The bone crunch comes again. A cheer. Then a bigger cheer. I go to the fence and look through. It looks like the Hellion who was to be chopped into McNuggets got the other fighter in the throat with a knife when he got too close. They both fall over and disappear. Cue the crowd. People drink and pay off wagers. It’s a party and they take their time about it.

A few minutes later armored guards grab more prisoners from the pen. Berith is with them. He looks at me like he thinks I’m going to do something about it. All I do is stay by the fence to watch. The guards walk the group out to the middle of the killing floor and hand them weapons. Every Hellion was a soldier once. They were all part of the rebel legions in Heaven, but that was a long time ago. In the arena the prisoners look at the rusty swords and shields in their hands like they’ve never seen anything like them before. That’s the lousy thing about shock. It makes you look stupid.

I remember my first time in the arena. It wasn’t like this bumpkin retrofit. The arena in Pandemonium was built for blood sports and nothing else. It was like the Roman Colosseum, but clad in plates of bronze and ivory and hung with sculpted bone chandeliers over each entrance. It was full of false walls that could be moved to change the fighting floor. There were trapdoors and chutes where beasts and fighters could be lifted or shot into the arena in a few seconds. The crowds were connoisseurs of pain.

My first fight was against a human soul. The arena bookers thought it would be a hoot to put the one living guy in Hell up against one of his dead brethren. The thing is, the guy I was up against was from one of the lowest regions, one reserved for child killers, so I didn’t exactly think of him as one of my brethren.

I’d been in Hell long enough to have built up a thick skin of fury. I was still a circus attraction back then. The living freak to be passed around and used and gawked at like a pickled punk. And I was sure as shit a long way from being Sandman Slim.

I went into the fight all teeth and claws and righteous idiot fury. It was the first time I used a na’at and I had no idea what to do with it. I can’t say I was scared going up against a real killer. I was too crazy for that, and when I did think about it, more than anything I was amazed at where my life had taken me. The unreality of Hell became even more unreal. That’s probably what saved me.

The Kid Killer knew how to use blades and I didn’t. He gave me my first scars. Later they changed me, made me stronger, and I became a kind of living body armor. But that night in the arena, the slashes just hurt.

I tried using the na’at the way I’d seen Hellions use it, but I mostly bounced it off the ground and hit myself in the face when it sprang open into different configurations. That routine went for big laughs.

I wish I could say I finig fd say Ished the Kid Killer with a flashy na’at move, but the blood and pain nudged me from crazy into Norman Bates territory. And the crazier I got, the more the crowd cheered. When I managed to knock the Kid Killer down, I climbed on top of him, pinned his arms, and choked the fucker until his eyes bulged out like twin eight balls. You haven’t seen surprised until you’ve seen a dead man realize he’s about to die again. Later, one of my guards explained to me about Tartarus and the double dead.

I’d never killed anyone before and knew I was supposed to feel bad about it, but I didn’t. I felt just the opposite. These geniuses were training me to kill, building up my strength and turning me into the monster I was always meant to be. Later, when Azazel made me his assassin, I thanked every Hellion I killed for their contribution to my schooling. The looks on their faces when I cut their throats never got old.

I’m glad Alice never saw me in the arena. I hope Kasabian has the brains not to show Candy.

What none of the Hellions except maybe Lucifer understood was that when I stepped onto the killing floor, I wasn’t fighting an opponent. I was fighting all of Hell. When I killed a beast or a soul, I was killing every leering, putrid Hellion in existence. The nouveaux riches in the stands came for a fight. I was there for extermination, and every time I murdered them, it felt like Christmas morning. That’s what I don’t want Candy to see. Back in L.A. we talk about being monsters together, but it’s not the same thing. I don’t have any problems with my L.A. monster side, but I don’t want her to see the kind of monster that comes out when I’m the real Sandman Slim.

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.”

Audie gestures a couple of other guards over to open the gates. Everyone keeps their guns on me as we walk past the pens and RVs to the killing floor.

The place reeks of dust, sweat, and blood. When I step onto the floor, the crowd shrieks like banshees at spring break. The scene is twisted and familiar and, in a terrible way, comforting.

The guards lay out weapons on the ground. I start to reach for the na’at in my coat, but decide that no one around here needs to know anything about me other than that I don’t like getting spit on.

The gear on the ground looks like it was pulled out of a garbage dump. Rusting swords and battle-axes. Spears with broken shafts repaired with duct tape. I stroll around the weapons like a window shopper at Christmas, taking my time. I find a battered old na’at and pick it up. It’s stiff, and the first time I try to open it, it jams. I get down on one knee and whack it against the steel toes on one of my boots. It springs out to full length and holds. I notice guards haven’t hauled out any other prisoners for me to fight. That means they’re going to throw guards at me to fight. I wonder how many.

Turns out it’s just one.

When my opponent comes out, I’m not sure if it’s a Hellion or someone is backing a moving van into the arena. The guy is big the way a sonic boom is loud. Just a big knot of muscles with a head on top, like a cherry balanced on a fist. He’s holding a shield the size of a car hood in one hand and has a Vernalis over his other. A Vernalis is like a metal crab claw that extends up to the fighter’s elbow and is as long as an average person is tall. When it snaps shut, it can cut a tree in half. Maybe I should have stayed in the back of the pen with the other scaredy-cats. I’m giving serious consideration to cutting and running, but the guards are still holding guns on me. And I can’t do any hoodoo here, can’t even click my heels three times and say there’s no place like home.

No one gives a signal, blows a whistle, or drops a hanky. Crab Man just howls and charges me. I get out of his way, but not too far or too fast. I stay put and try to look confused long enough to spring the na’at’s blade and slice the Crab Man’s Vernalis arm. I leave a nice gash but don’t do any real damage.

He howls, some in pain and some because he didn’t get to draw first blood. He swings the Vernalis at me like a club, but it’s a feint. When I move in to stick him, he brings the shield around like a battering ram. I throw myself on the ground just before the shield splatters me like a dump truck. I roll to my feet and Crab Man and I circle each other. I try to extend the na’at again, but the mechanism jams when it’s just halfway out.

I can’t fight him like this. The Vernalis gives himscais give too much reach. I need to get in close.

I attack this time, feinting left and right. Getting the shield and claw swinging at me just a little too late. I duck forward, closing the distance between us. Crab Man is used to fighters not wanting to get near him, so he doesn’t have a lot of inside defense. I spear him in the side, but he’s fast for a guy his size. He catches me in the back with a big elbow and I fall against him. He snaps his knee up hard enough to toss me on my back ten feet away. The Vernalis crashes into the ground near my head. I roll out of the way just as Crab Man spits a ball of fire at me. I reflexively block it with a kind of shield hex that bounces the attack back at the opponent. Goddamn. They left a hole in the cloak for the fighters. We can throw hoodoo out here. If the Andes Mountains weren’t trying to beat me to death, I could probably get right out of here.

I throw a blinding hex at Crab Man’s eyes. Part of it hits his arm, so I only get one eye. He howls like I pissed on his Batman #1 and a bolt of lightning hits the ground a few feet behind me. He has some big bad hoodoo under that claw, but I have an angel in my head and it can see the flash of power when he throws the big stuff.

I move around him, trying to stay on his blind side and draw him in closer. The magic he tosses at me is like the rest of him. Big and powerful, but not all that fast or creative. Being in the arena with him is like playing tennis in a meteor shower, but one where I can see the meteors a second before they hit. I keep tossing sharp little barbs of hoodoo at him. Waves of white-hot razors at his legs. Blasts of arctic cold at his eyes and balls. Muscle disruptors that have him shaking and spasming like an epileptic. But I can’t pull out the big stuff. I could air-burst this place and turn the air into a blowtorch, but Crab Man is too close and the arena’s too small and burning myself up with him isn’t part of what little strategy I have.