Suddenly, behind him and off to his left, he heard a low moan: a deep and sorrowful sound. It was a voice that mourned for a precious thing long lost; a keening for something it had once cherished, but had now misplaced.

Four.

Cleese pulled on the spike and had already mentally moved on to how he was going to take out his next UD. However, to his surprise and panicked dismay, he found that the weapon was firmly lodged in one of the fissures between the bones of One's skull. He pulled again but the metal still wouldn't budge.

He looked up toward the direction of where he'd heard her moaning and saw Four (another gramma of all things, about sixty, flowered running suit, the skin on the lower half of her face missing) shuffling across the sand toward him. Her neck was c.o.c.ked at an odd angle and she squinted malevolently as she tried to focus her eyes on him.

Cleese hastily glanced down and inspected the mechanism of the gauntlet. It was coated in a sticky veneer of blood, but it all seemed to be okay. Nothing looked like it had been damaged. It was just that the metal had somehow gotten itself caught in a crack of bone or something deep within her skull. With the spike stuck where it was and the gauntlet strapped to his hand, his right arm was essentially useless to him. The woman's dead weight not only deprived him of the use of the limb, but it gave him an additional hundred pounds or so to lug around. The trapped arm would continue to be a hindrance to him until he could figure out a way to dislodge it.

Four lurched into him from the side, screaming and clawing, and almost pushed him off his feet. The old woman's arms wind-milled crazily as her hands tried to claw Cleese's face off. It was as if she was trying to make it match her own. He backhanded her firmly with his free hand and sent her reeling.

He quickly bent his knees and dragged One's body over to the side of the pit by the spike. A streak of deep crimson painted the sand in her wake. He hoped that he could somehow pin her body against the wall and, by see-sawing the metal spike back and forth, force the d.a.m.n thing loose. All he had to do was keep this old b.i.t.c.h away from him long enough and he just might be all right.

Well, it sounded easy...

By now, Four had managed to get up onto her hands and knees. She crawled arthritically over to where he stood. She clawed hungrily at his boots and tried to drag herself up his legs with her arms. Cleese irreverently kneed her twice in the face. Her nose made a small "cricking" sound and her jaw shut with a snap. When she opened her mouth again, the tip of her severed tongue fell unnoticed to the sand.

For the life of him, Cleese wasn't exactly sure how what happened next occurred, but somehow, in the midst of the commotion, his legs became entangled amidst Four's frantic arms and One's inert form. Between the wriggling motion of Four and the dead weight of One, he felt his center of balance pitch sickeningly forward and the three of them fell to the ground in a heap.

"He's down! Ladies and gentlemen, Cleese is down!"

The crowd, of course, went hysterical. Their excited cries rose into the air like signal flares. It almost sounded as if they were happy to see him fall.

Ungrateful b.a.s.t.a.r.ds.

From the ground, he threw a couple of quick Savate kicks at Four's geriatric bridgework, sending pieces of it out of her mouth. Her head whipped around and her body collapsed back onto the sand. The move appeared to have bought him some time in which to deal with One and the still-wedged spike. With no small amount of effort, he pulled himself across the sand on his back, dragging One's inert body along with him.

Abruptly, he felt his shoulder press up against one of the pit's cold, Plexiglas sides. He looked around to get his bearings and found himself right where he wanted to be-next to one of the walls, near a turnstile. The gla.s.s felt cool, almost refreshing, against the back of his neck. As he pulled One the rest of the way to the wall, he kept a vigilant eye on Four, who was still drunkenly trying to regain her footing.

Once he'd managed to prop the dead girl's body against the wall, he pressed the arch of his foot unceremoniously against the side of her face. Her features contorted into a Pica.s.so painting against the gla.s.s. With a grunt, he used his leg muscles to help push her off of the metal. He felt the spike come loose and slide from her skull with the sound of a creaking door. Her head finally came free and it fell back to the sand with a wet sh-lup.

Casting a quick glance backward, he looked through the gla.s.s and saw a cameraman on the other side giving him a thumbs-up motion, as if the images he was capturing in his lens were good ones. If the situation had not been so dire, he might have laughed, but all things considered, there was still too much for him to do for any of that.

With his arm now free, he retracted the spike and spun himself up into a fighting crouch. Almost immediately, Four, having now pulled herself more or less upright, pounced on him. She pushed her snarling face toward him. Somehow, he managed to get his hands around the soft tissue of her throat without getting his fingers bitten.

The old woman let loose a strangled scream and pressed her gnashing mouth down in an attempt to get at the pliant skin at Cleese's wrist. Pushing her away with the strength of his upper body, he twisted at the waist, dragging her with him. She pitched over his hip and landed on her a.s.s in the sand. Her momentum carried her backward and, in a vain attempt to save herself, she twisted as if she were trying to roll up onto all fours. Instead, her face slammed against the clear wall leaving an oily Shroud of Turin-like smear across the gla.s.s.

Cleese immediately saw this situation for what it was: a major league f.u.c.k-up. He was on the ground, his pistol was empty, a snarling UD was all over him, and the beginning of the next round was surely not that far away.

He wasn't exactly sure how he would get out of this, but he knew however he managed it, it was going to require some good, old-fashioned dumb luck.

Using some Greco-Roman wrestling moves he remembered from a lifetime ago in high school, Cleese gradually managed to gain control over the old b.i.t.c.h. He straddled her doggy-style and, chicken-winged both of her arms behind her back. Using his hips, he drove her-hard-face first into the seam where the wall and the turnstile met. He shoved her again and again, slamming her face against the wall, repeatedly ramming her mug into the gla.s.s. For a moment, he imagined the television audience being treated to a sight not unlike him bangin' this old broad from behind. This time, he couldn't help himself but to chuckle at the image it must've presented. He even went so far as to make a couple of quick "f.u.c.k me" faces before he rammed her face even harder against the gla.s.s.

Take this, Gramma!

Cleese's run of bad luck abruptly changed for the better with the unlikeliest of sounds.

The buzzer went off, signaling the next round.

The turnstile spun and as the two metal surfaces came together he pushed one more time. The spindle caught the top of Four's head between its metal edge and the wall's framework and pinched it off. A wash of blood and brains splashed Cleese across the chest as her head collapsed like an over-ripe watermelon.

Not a pretty kill, but Four was now officially out of the running.

Now though, with the spinning of the turnstiles, a whole new set of problems. .h.i.t the table-a new round was beginning. His problems were mounting and they were painting a rather dismal picture. His gun was empty. He was physically tired and mentally exhausted and hadn't had any time to rest.

He was pretty f.u.c.ked from the looks of things.

Cleese frantically crawled away from the woman's decapitated corpse and scrambled to his feet. He quickly a.s.sessed his newly released opposition: Positions Two, Five, Seven and Eight held UDs.

Not exactly what I needed to see...

As his momma used to say though, "every dark cloud has its silver lining" and this one was no exception. For sitting there, in the turnstile of Position Three, not more than a half dozen feet away and purring like a contented kitten, sat an idling McCullough chainsaw.

Groovy!!!

Cleese ran over and scooped up the weapon. He grinned broadly as he hefted the chainsaw's weight and turned back toward the center of the pit. He looked at the oncoming UDs, revved the McCullough's motor, and then revved it again. As he strode toward the group of oncoming UDs, he continued his list of all the things he was going to do the next time he found himself in the same room as Monroe. And as the mental images mounted, he grinned malevolently and raised the McCullough over his head for the first strike.

The Blood of Eden The light of the moon shone down silvery and bright as it poured like mercury through the blinds covering the window of Cleese's crib. The air outside the window was cool, but not cold, the heat of the day having not yet fully dissipated over the open fields which surrounded the compound. Striated clouds hung like lace across the perpetually surprised lunar face. Only the mournful call of a Red Throated Loon broke the silence of the night.

Cleese sat on the edge of his bed, quietly contemplating the day and its painful lessons. It had been a long, hard day of training and he felt exhausted to his core. He knew he'd pushed it a little too hard today. His muscles still felt raw and sore, but his mood remained light. After all, he'd pa.s.sed a milestone today-well, tonight, really-and he was still trying to figure out what that all meant and, more importantly, what it would mean for his future.

He sighed and looked over his shoulder as the milestone stirred slightly in his bed.

Chikara lay face across the sheets; her a.s.s the only thing covered by the sweat and l.u.s.t stained sheet. Her hair swirled about her head like an onyx halo. Even though she wore it short, it still managed to hide the majority of her face. From this angle, he could only make out her cheek and a portion of her full lower lip.

Cleese took a long, slow look over her. His eyes wandered over the contours of her form like a canoe lazily drifting upriver, bound for nowhere and going there in no particular hurry. As he gazed at her, he felt his heart pulse deep within his chest. The longer he stared at her, the more he was aware of it. In the moonlight, she looked beautiful; much more so than he'd ever seen her look. Her skin blushed with the slowly disappearing flush of afterglow.

Tonight, he'd finally gotten a good look at her in all her glory and she was something. Powerfully built and beautiful, every contour of her body was a treasure trove of wonders. And each of those wonders came finely doc.u.mented by their own map-her tattoo. It was just as much a thing of beauty as was its owner, truly a marvel to behold. The artwork itself was that of a dragon, but it was so much more. The tail began just above her left ankle and it swirled around her calf, continuing on up around her thigh. The main body of the beast wrapped itself like a lover around her waist and up around her lower rib cage, circling up her back and over her left shoulder where the neck and head came over her trapezius muscle and down the front of her chest. The head was a horrible thing to see; its face set in a malicious frown with deeply set, cruel eyes. Its mouth was thrown wide; drawn as if the beast were just about to bite down on the nipple of her breast. Just under the swell of her lower breast, the monster's hand came up from under her arm, gently cupping her. The artistry was amazing.

She'd felt compelled to explain the tattoo early on in the evening, just before she disrobed and climbed into his bed. The image was commonly referred to as a "focus image" and it was mostly for distraction purposes. In the early days of martial conflict, it was noted that an opponent's attention could be drawn away by the sight of an unexpected image in an unexpected place. It was the main reason a lot of fighters got tattoos in the first place. In the first few days of the dead coming back, Chikara had noticed that the reanimated corpses-despite their limited intellect, and sometimes because of it-would respond in the same way, particularly when there were flashes of color. It was a discovery that, up until now, she'd kept to herself, but she'd gotten the tattoo immediately after joining the League. Her thought was that if a little color could distract a UD, then a whole lot just might give her the edge she'd need to stay alive. She'd asked the tattoo artist to simply draw the most fearsome thing he could think of. From its effect on both UD and Man alike, she guessed that it worked.

And then, there were her piercings.

These took a little more explanation. She'd told him how she wore seven closed rings of varying size on her body. She said they were done in atonement for the fabled seven deadly sins. The three large rings in her left ear, she said, symbolized Gluttony, Sloth, and Greed. They were three rings of slightly decreasing size as they arched up her earlobe. The largest if them was about the size of a nickel. Her right ear held two hoops that represented Wrath and Envy. None of the hoops closed all the way and thus the circle was incomplete. Her reasoning was that all of the emotions were empty ones and therefore pointless. The ring in her left nipple was just over the heart for it was in the heart that Pride dwelt. It twinkled softly deep within the dragon's jaws. The last of them signified l.u.s.t and that she wore through the hood of her c.l.i.toris.

It was, she said, a ring that few men had seen.

Cleese looked her over again, for what must have been the thousandth time tonight. He used all of the self control he could muster to sip at her image as if it were a fine brandy. Small pools of perspiration beaded up across her back and were set like small oases dribbled sporadically across a desert of bone and muscle. The subtle changes in light and shadow caused by the moonlight played across her musculature and created a landscape of what could only be described as paradise.

She's so beautiful.

"You're staring again."

He nearly jumped out of his skin when she spoke, he'd been so lost in the sight of her.

"Sorry. Just thinking," he said.

She stirred and turned languorously onto her back. She smiled and reached out for him to join her on the bed. He laid back and fell into her arms.

It felt like drowning-only more sublime.

"You do that, don't you? What were you thinking about?"

"This place. The League. You. Me. Us. Pick one."

He gently kissed her, tasting himself on her lips.

"Want to talk about it?" she asked as she brushed some of his hair away from his eyes.

He sighed heavily. He wasn't sure what he was feeling could be put into words, the fear, the despair, the unavoidable feeling that he was about to be f.u.c.ked.

And not in the pleasurable way he'd just been.

Abruptly, and for reasons he wasn't too sure of, he decided to try.

"I don't know much, Chikara," he whispered, "but, I do know that this place... This place isn't good for me... for us... for anyone. It's poison. It's like the decay and infection of The Dead has touched everything here and soured it."

He felt her rea.s.suring hand on his arm.

"It's a dead thing-cancerous-and its sole purpose is to leech the Life off of anything and everything it comes in contact with. And once it's taken all it can while its host still lives, it doesn't stop. It changes its agenda and begins to take all it can from its dead."

He smiled at her and almost stopped talking, but what he had to say refused to stay bottled up inside of him.

"The only thing it wants is to sour each and every one of us and it will succeed if we aren't careful. The place is filled with a sickness that we can't survive if we're ever infected and I'm not talking here about being bit by a UD. If we play by League's rules, they'll use us up and spit us out. I understand that now. Do you?"

"Yes," she whispered and looked away into the darkness.

He turned in her arms and looked toward the ceiling for a second, trying to decide whether to tell her the rest of it. Slowly, he looked back and stared deeply into her eyes. Then, he decided that she, of all people, deserved to know the truth.

"I didn't tell you before-s.h.i.t, I haven't told anyone-but... during my last match, when the spindles turned... The clip they gave me was loaded with blanks."

Chikara leaned up on one elbow and look at him.

"What?" Her expression deflated like a souffle.

He nodded and pulled her back down to him. Right now, as he told her this, he needed to feel her body close to his. For some reason, being near her made it all not seem as bad.

"I can only figure that it was someone with enough juice to pull it off-my guess is either Masterson or Monroe. With the exception of the armorers, who let's face it, don't have the brains let alone the malevolent nature to pull something like that off, they were the only ones who could make the subst.i.tution-swap blanks for the live rounds."

"Why? How would they stand to benefit?"

"Who knows what motivates these p.r.i.c.ks. Ratings. Animosity. s.h.i.ts-n-giggles. h.e.l.l, I could have p.i.s.sed the wrong someone off up at Corporate. I have the tendency to do that if you haven't noticed. Who the f.u.c.k knows and, quite honestly, who the f.u.c.k cares?"

He watched her as she took a minute more to digest everything he'd told her. A cavalcade of emotions fluttered across her face. It had taken him a while to put it all together. He was patient enough of a man to give her the time to do the same. He wasn't surprised when she arrived at the same conclusion a lot quicker than he had.

She was a smart woman.

"So, what are you going to do about it?"

"Honestly?" he said as he pulled her body even closer. "I plan to bounce."

"What, really?" Her eyes again went wide.

He nodded and continued, "I figure I'll gather up as much as I can on the financial end and hit the bricks as soon as possible, some time when no one will notice me gone... until it's too late. I mean, it's not like we're prisoners here, right? They may think they own my soul, but they don't. And as for my body... h.e.l.l, that's always been up for grabs."

He gently pinched her bare b.u.t.t cheek and laughed.

"Not anymore, Baby," she said punching at him, but missing. "You have my scent on you. No other woman is gonna dare come near you," she said as she laughed along with him.

She lay there for a long time then as if in great thought. Finally, she pulled back from him slightly and her face took on a look of bound determination.

"I'm going with you."

"What?" Now it was his turn to go wide-eyed. "Are you sure? You don't want to take a minute and think it over? You know, once the post-coital euphoria wears off?"

"I am," she replied as if it were an admission of guilt. "Before this..." she motioned her head toward the bed, "I didn't much care whether I lived or I died here. It was the thing that gave me freedom; gave me my edge. But this... this is somehow different. Now... Now, I want to have a life. Now, I want to find some kind of solace... some kind of happiness and live the rest of my life someplace safe. Someplace..." and she burrowed deeper into his arms, "like here. After everything that's happened, we of all people, deserve at least that, don't we?"

She drifted off and seemed to become lost in her thoughts. He stared at her and, even before he had a chance to think it over, he knew he'd agree to take her along. How could he not? She was beautiful and his equal both intellectually and on the sand.

If anyone deserved to get away from this h.e.l.lhole, it was she.

In the silence of the room, he heard her whisper softly into his chest, "G.o.d... I'm just so tired. Tired of the death, of the loss, of the... fighting." The sound of slight sniffling came next. "Where's my refuge? Where's my happy ending?"

"Chikara..."

"Cleese, I once had people... people I cared about; people who relied on me. I had a life." She stared up at him. "Then, the whole world went... crazy... and I lost them. I lost them all. After they were gone, I swore I'd never love anything ever again. Yes, I'd taken lovers before... Creed, for one, but that was just scratching an itch, y'know?"

He looked her in the eye and nodded.

Yeah, he knew all about itch scratchin'.

"I knew I'd never have that kind of life again," she continued. "So, I gave myself to the League and killed hundreds-h.e.l.l, thousands-of UDs. It all stopped... mattering to me."

She lowered her gaze and stared back into his chest, slowly running a finger through the hair there.

"Then, you came along," she continued, sounding almost embarra.s.sed, "and now, everything seems to have changed. I don't want to die, Cleese. I want to try to live again. I want to spend whatever life I have left away from this place... with you. Now, I only want to get away from all of this..." and her voice abruptly cut off.

He hugged her and felt the wetness of her tears on his neck.

"Besides, I've gotten kind of used to having you around," she whispered as if betraying a confidence and pulled him still closer. She wrapped her arms around him and ran the inside of her lower leg up his thigh. As she drew lazy circles across his back with a fingernail, she kissed him again, deep and soul-stirring.

Grinning shyly up at him, almost as if she'd just given away some part of her that she thought long concealed. She wriggled up deeper into his arms and buried her head into the well of his neck, this time making his skin wet with her kisses. She giggled nervously and slowly looked back up into his eyes.

It was in that moment that he caught a glimpse of the bright-eyed girl she'd been once. He saw her as she was, back when her days were long and full of hope and her life seemed to stretch out forever like an unchallenged vista. He saw her as she'd been when she was a child; once upon a time. Back when she could drink up a summer's day like sweet cream, relishing its exhilarating taste of exploration.

For a second, he regretted not ever having had the chance to know her when she was younger. He silently wondered how, if he'd only met her years earlier, how things might have been different.

For him.