"Nearly." He yawned. "Have Abby send up a margarita, would you? Frozen with salt."
"Yeah, sure," I snorted. "No problem." As Niko bent, hooked his fingers in the grate, and tossed it aside, I rubbed at weary eyes. Through my own dark glasses the sun seared my retinas with the pain and brilliance of a laser. I'd slept another night, despite my dismal expectations, but it had left me feeling hungover and a headache throbbed steadily at the base of my skull.
"Ready?" Niko prodded.
I pulled off my glasses, tossed them in Goodfellow's lap, and grunted, "So where's that bazooka?"
"You've one good arm left, little brother." Niko crouched on the lip of the opening and scanned the darkness below. "I'm quite sure you can arm-wrestle Abbagor to his death if it comes to that." With that, he slipped over the edge and disappeared from sight.
I sighed and trudged to the reeking black square. "Have a good nap, Loman."
He waved me off. "Scream if you need anything." Unfortunately, if it came to that, there wasn't a single, solitary thing Robin could do to help us. He knew that as well as we did, and if he wanted to pretend this was going to be a walk in the park, who was I to screw up his sun-worshipping, margarita-chugging psychological defense mechanism? Facing Abbagor was going to suck, no two ways about it, but the helpless waiting, that was no picnic either. We all knew, from past and current experience, that waiting was a special hell all its own.
"Screaming I can do," I said with grim cheer as I sat on the opening's edge. "See you later, Goodfellow. Don't forget the sunblock." I jumped down, the midcalf-deep muck softening the landing just as it had done the last time. No matter how dry it was above, here it was always wet, always a swamp. And it always stunk to the unseen heavens. The stench of rotting flesh and old blood, the smell of a slave master wallowing in his own filth—it didn't exactly qualify as aromatherapy. But this time I came prepared. Pulling a small tube from my pocket, I deposited a minute amount of astringent muscle-ache ointment on my upper lip. That opened the sinuses like a fire hose, but it was a much more acceptable smell, one I could deal with.
Niko was waiting on me with folded arms and a curious, tilted head. "Clever."
"Hey, I watch TV, same as anyone else." And if ever there was a crime scene, this made the cut. Finishing up, I reached back and retrieved the gun hung on my back. No bazooka, but a Browning semiautomatic shotgun. It probably wouldn't kill the troll. Could be nothing would. I'd emptied a clip in his skull the last time without much effect. Regardless, investing in a little more stopping power was never a bad thing, and this had more field of fire than the Magnum. I would've priced grenade launchers if we hadn't been headed underground.
I wrapped the leather strap around my arm and set the stock against my hip bone. "Well, fearless leader? Are we ready?"
"And what makes me the leader?" Forgoing the flashlight we'd brought, Niko began to walk, smoothly and unhindered by the mud. The faint glow of luminescent lichen on the walls shed enough light to just see his outline. It was more than we'd had last time. Someone was being awfully welcoming.
"You kicking my ass every time I say different ring any bells?" I slogged. Niko skated across the sticky surface like a water bug on a glassy pond, and I slogged. Preternatural genes didn't help worth a damn when it came to swimming through slop. Didn't it figure?
"I'm forced to do it so often I can't be expected to remember every occasion." Holding up a hand, he added softly, "Now, quiet."
"Why? He already knows we're here." Before us was a doorway I recognized. Carved through the concrete wall with diamond-sharp talons, it was a gaping eye socket to the troll's labyrinth. Beyond, maintenance tunnels had been expanded far into the earth and God help the potbellied city worker that stuck his nose through that door. A union card didn't carry much weight with Abbagor.
"I'm sure he does, but since we want his assistance, try for a minimum of manners." His sword already in hand, Miss Manners stepped through the doorway.
"You want us to show respect for the evil bastard? Jesus, Nik," I complained, but my heart wasn't in it. We'd do what we had to do, for George. If that meant playing nice with this malicious shithead, then that's what we would do. And if that didn't work, we could try chopping off pieces of him until he felt a shade more cooperative. Hey, I was flexible.
Subsiding into silence, I followed behind my brother as we retraced our path from last year… mentally and physically. I had better memories and not many worse. Niko had very nearly died in this place. No, that wasn't true. What had almost happened to him was worse than death, far worse. Abbagor killed, true, but he also liked his "pets." How he made them I couldn't begin to guess. I wasn't even sure of the end result; I hadn't caught more than a glimpse of them, but Niko said they were—God help them—aware. Reduced to bits and pieces, but conscious. And Niko would know. He'd been halfway to becoming one, swallowed whole by the roiling mass of tendrils that formed Abbagor's massive body. Every time that memory hit me, so did another. An anonymous hand… male, with a rose tattoo. It appeared between tentacles to stroke the gray pallid flesh with a reverential motion. Living… existing in the prison that was Abbagor, was a horror that was hard to grasp. I didn't want to and Niko didn't have to. And here we were, walking right back into his reach. Desperation… it could make you do some crazy shit.
Crazy.
Picking up the pace, I shouldered past Niko right as we entered the cavern hollowed out in a masonry tower. Maybe he could all but walk on mud like some sort of bargain-basement messiah, but it hadn't helped him last time. Abbagor had his own issues with me. If I could keep his attention focused on me, it would give my more mobile brother a better chance. A better chance to fight; if worse came to worst, a better chance to run. I'd take whatever I could get. I would die for George, but give up my brother? It wasn't a choice I could live with. Wasn't a choice I would make.
Of course, Niko would tell me it wasn't mine to make.
"Cal," he hissed under his breath with annoyance as I passed him, but before he could attempt to snare my arm Abbagor's voice came through the gloom.
"Auphelingggg." It was a wet burble, a last breath forced through a mouthful of blood.
I looked up automatically. Last year Abbagor had descended from the three-story-tall ceiling like a bloated spider. Although at our level there was a dim light emanating from the glowing-slime-covered walls, above there was only infinite darkness. I strained my eyes but saw nothing. "I'm flattered as hell, Abby," I said laconically. "You remember me."
"I remember all," came the clotted gurgle. "And always shall I remember you." He appeared in the mud at our feet, the slow rise of a methane bubble rising through a fetid swamp. There had to be a dropoff, a pit dug to accommodate his mass. That was new. The muck covering him wouldn't have hidden us from him. He had no eyes, Abbagor, only shallow indentations in the knotted flesh, but he didn't need eyes to see better than we could. His back, a twisted terrain of tangled tendrils, surfaced last, preceded by floating arms and a misshapen head. The back of his skull was a mass of shattered bone forming jagged peaks covered by thick skin. I might not have killed him, but I'd messed up his pretty looks. Yippee.
"Where is the little goat?" Freed of the mud, the python mouth formed words mellow and clear as the ringing of the purest crystal. His voice was completely at odds with his hideous appearance and peculiar enough to send an atavistic shiver down my spine.