Death King

by Danielle L. Parker

Chapter 5

The room was huge and low-ceilinged. Fluorescent lights illuminated the windowless, clockless expanse. Outside was night verging on the wee hours, but few of the inhabitants of this room counted time. For so many men gathered in one place, there was little conversation. Only the soft scraping of the croupiers’ rakes over the green baize; the muted slap of cards; the jingle of dice and the whirring of automated card sorters.

Eyes alone spoke in those intent faces, eyes bent feverishly over the latest roll of the dice, lifting bleakly from the number that destroyed all their hopes, and attending, unwavering as the pitiless stare of the Queen of Diamonds, the brief, shallow smile of fortune.

Blunt was playing poker, and fishing. The line had been cast for two precious days now, and his nerves were stretched like wires. Unfortunate he played both the bait and the fisherman, but some things could not be helped. When trolling for shark, the lure had to stay lively.

Instinct made him glance up as he picked up his latest hand of cards. Yes, there they were, the first nibbles on his line. True, these were merely attendant dog-sharks, and not the great white he intended to ultimately land. But still, there were four of them, and they were definitely sharks.

“Looks like you’re not playing a winning hand, Captain.”

Blunt laid down his cards. “I’ll fold,” he said to the hard-eyed dealer. The other three players, intent on their hands, never glanced up as the croupier nodded and raked in his chips. The captain shoved back his chair.

“Sometimes they’re good, sometimes they’re not,” he replied as he stood. “I play ’em as they fall.”

He let his gaze range over the quartet. Two were stocky, tattooed Asians channeling inscrutable kung fu master mystique; the third, a Denobian, a seven-foot hairy monster with fists as big as hams and a mouthful of businesslike two-inch incisors. He was mildly surprised to see the fourth, and the speaker, was a woman.

Her skin was raw honey. Her knife-edge cheekbones and full lips were Nefertiti out of Ethiopia. Her shaved head, tilted back to consider him out of long sherry-colored eyes, was only a hand’s breadth lower than his own. Her sinuous body was an acid etching in skintight black. Her head and hands emerged, disembodied, from its opacity. Long nails glittered with stiletto-sharp metal points.

“Don’t think we’ve met.”

“No.” She smiled, sleepy-eyed and secretive, as she examined her razor-edged nails. “I’m Layla. Do you want to come peacefully, or not? We don’t care.”

“Depends on who’s asking.”

She shrugged. “When the king issues an invitation, it’s not wise to refuse.”

“I’m an American,” the captain said. “We don’t kiss royal asses. So maybe my dance card’s full.”

The woman ran her tongue slowly around the edges of her pillowy lips. “Then we get to cut in.”

The simian alien grinned and showed his long yellow fangs and worked his huge fists. “Cut,” he grunted. “Cut!”

Blunt looked from face-to-face. The two empty-eyed Asians fanned out. The left cupped a shiny switchblade in his palm. One of the intent card players glanced up at that moment, and froze with his winning ace suspended in his motionless hand.

“Guess you talked me into it,” the captain said.

The woman smiled. “There’s the door,” she murmured, lifting her hand to point with one of those silver-edged fingers. “Walk for it, keep your hands by your sides, where we can see them. Go up the stairs to the street. One of us will be in front, the rest of us behind. Don’t push your luck. This is our place. We’d hate to stain the floor with your guts.”

“I like to keep my insides in the usual place,” the captain said.

The frozen card players watched from the edges of white-rimmed eyes.

“Play,” growled the dealer. “Do you think I got the rest of your damn lives?”

Blunt strolled for the door. The man with the switchblade in his palm passed, almond eyes slanting contempt. Behind him, Blunt heard rhythmic heavy thumps, the weighty tread of the mighty gorilla, still whispering “Cut”, in a sincere, prayerful way, somewhere in the vicinity of Blunt’s neck.

“Go up the stairs,” the woman said. “Get your hands up now!”

The captain obeyed. Ten steps, twelve, fifteen, with the eager pants of the alien feathering his nape all the way. The cold-eyed Asian in front opened the metal door at the top of the stairs, and backed through it. A gust of wet snow billowed inwards. The captain, his hands held loosely in the air, followed.

Then he shouldered the door. The heavy steel smashed backwards. The creature caught between the door and the jamb shrilled agony. The captain snapped the door forward just in time to deflect the blur of a slashing knife and kicked high. Bone made a sharp crack. The victim dropped, his jaw — the lower half of his face, as far as the captain could tell — a bloodied ruin.

“I had those chop-chop lessons, too, sonny,” the captain said, stepping on an outstretched wrist. Bone crunched and fresh red spread on the snow.

He opened the door. The keening alien clutched his crushed anatomy in both hands and crashed backwards. Under his massive weight, his groaning companion struggled ineffectually for freedom.

The crouching woman howled. The stiletto tips of her fingers lengthened into ten shining knives. Something liquid gleamed upon their tips.

The captain leveled his gun. “Don’t think I won’t shoot a woman,” he said. “It won’t be the first time. Come on up, sister! I’ll take that ride you promised, just you and me. I don’t often get an invite from a king.”

Slowly she straightened. She edged around her still-flailing companions. “I will eat you,” she whispered, fanning her glittering fingers before her as she ascended. “When he is done with you, I will ask him for what is left of you. It will be enough — perhaps.”

Blunt shrugged. “Might find you’ve bitten off more than you can chew,” he replied, stepping back from the door. “Draw in those claws, sister, or I might cut ’em down to size!”

The madness in her eyes dimmed slightly. She held up her hands, and flexed her fingers sharply. The shining razors retracted; hidden, for only a moment, like the flames of that smoldering hate. “These I will save,” she said, “for your eyes.”

She stood a moment, her body a lightless inversion in a whirl of bitter snowflakes, her face uplifted to the yellow glare of streetlight as if in prayer. Then she lifted her arm and pointed. “There. There’s the car. I’ll drive. It’s time. It is time you met the King of Death. He’s waiting for you. Laugh then, you fool!”

Proceed to Chapter 6...