The troll grabbed my other leg and turned me around so I could face Mr. Sampson again. Sampson's kick landed over the fractured ribs and I screamed. A fit of coughing shook me and I tried to hug my chest, but I couldn't find the strength to lift my arms. Blood, fresh and coppery-tasting, coated in the inside of my mouth and ran in slender ribbons up to my hairline from the corners of my mouth.
Mr. Sampson snapped his fingers and the lightweight quack mage he'd had working on me all night dropped to his knees beside me. I felt the warm tickle of a spell ripple over me and the pain slackened.
The mage looked up at Sampson. "He's bleeding internally. His lung is collapsed and three ribs are heavily bruised or broken. His arm is broken, his nose is broken, and he'll lose some teeth. What do I fix?"
Sampson dabbed at his split lip with a white handkerchief. "Stop the bleeding temporarily. Open up at least one of his eyes. I want him to see what we're going to do next. Charles, bring the woman here."
The mage hit me with the same bargain basement spell he'd used all night to keep me from dying. It plugged holes and patched leaks, but repaired none of the structural damage they'd done to me. It strictly ignored anything that was causing me pain and I knew, with the next kick or punch to my chest, the busted spurs of rib would open my lung up again.
As the swelling around my eyes went down, I practiced my nastystare on him. "I'll remember you."
The spellworm didn't look impressed. "I've heard that before. I still sleep nights."
Sampson snapped his fingers again and the man withdrew. On their feet again and almost back to their normal, off-green color, each of the ogres took one of my ankles from the troll. They started pulling in opposite directions as if they were planning to make a wish, but a sharp command from Sampson stopped them when they got my legs out at a 150-degree angle.
He nodded and I heard a muffled rumble of thunder as the troll sank to one knee behind me. "Golnartac, despite his size, has an exquisite sense of delicacy. You won't know when, but at any one of a dozen prearranged signals he will hit a portion of your anatomy with a swift, precise blow. He'll only use one finger, but you will find the blows most painful. He may stab a talon through a nerve center, or he may shatter a vertebrae."
Pain sharper than a scorpion's sting lanced through my left thigh. It shot in both directions along my leg and up into my groin. I writhed in agony, prompting the ogres to pull on my legs to prevent me from slipping free. I felt a grinding in my hips, then they let me slip down again.
Sampson smiled in the same way the school disciplinarians had years ago. "You need not endure this agony, Wolfgang. All we want is Dr. Raven. Here we've gone and chased you all over Seattle and put a great number of people to incredible inconvenience, not the least of whom is you. Give us Dr. Raven."
"No'or else'?"
"You won't likemy 'or else.' " Sampson looked back to where Charles came bearing Lynn's limp body in his arms. "If you decide to resist me yet, I will awaken her and she will take your place. You will watch as she suffers more trauma than if she fell from the tallest building in downtown Seattle. Give us what we want. She will not be harmed and your pain will end."
I sighed heavily and tried to ignore the agony in my lower limbs. "This 'your pain will end stuff-you've said that plenty since I've been here. You can come up with something more interesting, can't you?"
An eyeblink later it felt like the troll had shoved a molten sheet of glass through my right knee. I cried out in pain and despair. The troll's hoarse chuckle sounded akin to a car being crushed in a wrecking yard and, suddenly, the whole hideous ordeal collapsed in on me. In the past dozen hours I'd been hounded through Seattle, had escaped traps and ambushes meant to maim, capture, or kill me. The troll had defeated me three times and I'd been worked over by individuals who wanted to see torture made into an Olympic sport.
As the edges of the pain crumbled away, I held my right hand up. "Wait, no more." I took a deep breath. "I give you Raven. You let her free, really free, right?"
Sampson settled a mask of superiority over his features. "You can trust me, Kies. You are but a means to an end, and she is a means to get to you."
I shook my head to clear it. Up beyond Sampson's head I saw something flit through the darkness. I tried to focus and identify it, but I couldn't. I was too far gone to make sense of anything but ending the pain. "You make sure she's okay?"
Sampson nodded solemnly. "She shall not want."
I knew in that instant that Lynn would be auctioned off to the highest bidder.Fine. That makes this much easier. "Doc's secret headquarters is in the Anasazi Shipping Company warehouse on pier 27."
Sampson looked up at the troll. "Overhand blow, shatter his pelvis, then break his spine, one bone at a time. Charles, use the woman as you will, then have Golnartac dispose of her."
Behind me the troll chuckled with evil delight.
"You're much too trusting, Wolf." Sampson dabbed at his split lip again, then spat on me. "I'll be sure to let Raven know who his Judas was…"
The troll loomed up over me, but as his fist began to descend, the ogre holding my right leg began to jerk and spurt blood from a string of holes linking his navel with his forehead. Crimson liquid sprayed the wall behind him, then the whole of his head above his glassy eyes disintegrated. As he toppled backward, his lifeless fingers let my ankle slip free.
The other ogre, who had increased tension in preparation for the troll's punch, whipped me out from beneath the troll's falling fist. I felt the warehouse floor shudder with the blow, and Golnartac's enraged scream shook the corrugated tin walls like a summer storm. Another screech, this one of ogre-pain, sang out in counterpoint to the troll's cry, and the pressure on my left ankle evaporated.
Suddenly I found myself tumbling and rolling across the concrete floor. I landed on my left shoulder and felt a grinding crackle in my ribs, but I used the pain to force my body to react. Adrenaline flooded through me yet again and dulled the pain. I scrambled to one knee, fists balled, then coughed a wet laugh of triumph and joy.
Kid Stealth stood on one ogre's back with his smoking Kalashnikov still pointed at the ogre he'd blown away. The sickle-shaped claws on his artificial, birdlike titanium legs dripped ogre blood-the other talons just clung on to the dead body beneath him. He'd been what I saw moving through the girders above the warehouse floor, and he'd nailed the one ogre while dropping down to rake his claws through the second.
The troll remained down on one knee, cradling his broken fist to his chest. Above the hand, right over where the troll's heart should have been, rode a red dot. Back by the warehouse's side door I saw the stocky outline of Tom Electric. The laser-scope on his armor-piercing rocket launcher twinkled reassuringly at me.
Behind and above Tom four more people appeared. Two were the local gillettes I'd taken to calling Zig and Zag. Also armed with Kalashnikovs they flanked the most beautiful member of Raven's crew, Valerie Valkyrie. She looked over at me with horror on her face, while the two street samurai covered the Halloweeners. Plutarch Graogrim, an ork, moved away from Zig and Zag, keeping his pistol trained on Charles the Red.
I saw Sampson go pale and I knew Raven had arrived. I looked over at Doc as he stepped from the shadows. The blackness rippled off his coppery skin and clung to him long enough to deeply score lines around his muscles. Tall, even for an elf, he looked human because of his extraordinary build and the high cheekbones his Amerind blood granted him. His long, black hair fell down over his leather vest to mid-chest and all but hid his pointed elven ears.