Noble Warrior (37 page)

McCutcheon replied in a crisp, clear, cold voice.

“Not a chance, sir.”

“E
w-weee!
I love me a high-stakes matchup!”

As McCutcheon and Stanzer entered the abandoned liquor store, Larson smiled from ear to ear. The Priests—there were seven of them in addition to Puppet—stared at their two enemies
with somber, menacing eyes. Some held handguns, others smoked menthol cigarettes, some just kept their hands in their pockets looking mean and trying to keep warm. There were no assault rifles in
the room.

For the Priests, this was a war they never hoped to wage. Like with quicksand, they'd mistakenly stuck their toes into the dark puddle of colluding with dirty cops, and then found
themselves neck deep in danger. Maybe they'd live to see tomorrow's dawn, maybe not. As street soldiers, all of them knew that every day could be their last—but this day felt
particularly more doomed than most.

Yes, they were prepared to shoot it out with Stanzer's team. If they had to. But none of them felt they'd win.

Larson appeared almost giddy. He was a gladiator, and gladiators lived for the moment of battle. Roughly a century before Jesus Christ was born, real men—big, bold, fearless, and mighty
men—warred to the death on the sands of the Colosseum floor. Larson always wished he could travel back in time and be one of the lucky ones who got to fight in the majestic stadium. Winning
or losing, living or dying, these things didn't drive him; his thrill came from the fantasized glory of participating in a life or death competition, a match of honor. Though Larson could not
go back in time to Ancient Rome, he felt exhilarated by the idea that he'd brought Ancient Rome to Detroit.

“Honored guests,” Larson said with a gallant bow. “Welcome.”

McCutcheon scanned the room. White bulbs dangled from exposed wires in the ceiling, offering lighting that was checkered and irregular. Some areas were bright, others were not, and no real rhyme
or reason existed behind the pattern. The fact that the lights worked at all meant electricity still ran through the walls, but the smell of stale beer, mold, and piss indicated that any
ventilation system had long ago stopped functioning. There were broken silver racks of old shelves piled in one corner, two overturned freezers lying like corpses in another, and planks of rotted
wood heaped throughout. A rat scampered past a discarded beer can and disappeared through a hole. Surely not a lone soldier.

But where was Kaitlyn? Larson, reading M.D.'s mind, stepped behind an archway and rolled her out from behind the blackness. She sat in a wheelchair, arms and legs bound, a hood covering
her head.

A wheelchair? M.D. thought. Surely, they hadn't crippled her. No way they'd gone that far.

Larson rolled Kaitlyn to the far end of the cavernous room and set her under one of the working white lights. M.D. suddenly understood the reason for the wheelchair. Larson hadn't severed
her spine; the wheelchair was for ease of transport. A chair with wheels on it enabled Larson to roll her wherever he wanted.

Any cop who thought like that, McCutcheon realized, was a cop who had kidnapped before.

“She should see this, don't ya think?” Larson lifted the cloak off Kaitlyn's head as if he were unveiling a statue and she blinked, the sudden light too bright for her
green eyes. As she struggled to regain her vision McCutcheon noticed the wounds. A black eye. Traces of a cut lip beneath a white gag. Seeing Kaitlyn's injuries caused his blood to boil.

“She got a li'l lippy,” Larson said. “Get it? Lippy?” He laughed. “I tell ya…” Larson opened his mouth wide and licked the side of
Kaitlyn's face with his soft, fat, wet, pink tongue. “This one's got some pep.”

McCutcheon flexed, readied to cross the room and attack, but with an expert flick of the wrist Larson switched open a butterfly knife and put the blade to Kaitlyn's neck.

“
Whoa, whoa, whoa.
Slow down, cowboy,” he said to McCutcheon.

M.D. and Kaitlyn made eye contact. Even if they had time to speak, McCutcheon had no words. What could he say? How could he apologize? There was no way to make amends for getting her tangled up
in something as horrific as this, and all his excuses of
“I had no idea”
or
“I never meant to”
wouldn't amount to anything, because there she sat,
bound, gagged, and beaten. From this point forward he knew he could save her, but he also knew he would never be able to spare her from what she'd already been through.

The realization of the pain he'd inadvertently caused Kaitlyn sliced McCutcheon's heart like a rusty dagger. He knew he'd carry this emotional wound for the rest of his days.
So would Kaitlyn. They'd share a pair of scars that would never ever heal. His hurt turned to anger and then his anger turned to rage.

Someone needed to pay.

“Blades or pipes?” Larson asked. Laid out neatly across an old deli counter sat two sets of weapons. On the left, a pair of knives. Stainless steel, black handles, seven-inch blades,
identical in every manner. On the right, two pipes. Rusted, not matching, but roughly the same size, weight, and thickness. M.D. noted that neither piece of steel held any sort of obvious advantage
over the other, but that, he knew, was because of the gladiator code. Larson didn't just want to battle to the death; he wanted each of the combatants to be evenly armed. A war of honor was
the only ethical path.

“I said blades or pipes?” Larson repeated.

“Makes no difference,” McCutcheon said.

“To me, either.”

Larson picked up one of the two black-handled knives and felt the weight of the gleaming silver blade in his right hand. It was a fine weapon: balanced, heavy, sturdy, serrated on one side for
tearing at meat, and razor sharp on its whetted edge for ruthless slicing. Suddenly and violently he spun and hurled the knife through the air. It screamed across the room and exploded into the
wall.

All eyes turned. Twenty-five feet away the blade, its tip driven three inches deep into a wooden beam, jutted from the wall. Without words the throw of the knife spoke volumes about
Larson's abilities.

“Let's go with these,” Larson said in regards to the pipes. “Just more fun to bash shit than poke it, don't you think?”

McCutcheon crossed to the table, picked up the second knife, and gazed at the blade Larson had just used to impale into the wood. Everyone stared. How could M.D. top such a throw? The only way
possible would be to hurl his knife and slice Larson's blade right through the butt of its handle, and split the weapon in two like Robin Hood.

Which, of course, would be impossible.

M.D. never spent any time learning to throw knives. He knew how to defend himself against an enemy who might wield one, but beyond that he'd only used them like most civilians did, for
cutting food or opening boxes.

Blade in hand, McCutcheon walked to the knife that Larson had just sizzled into the beam like some sort of weapons expert and inspected his enemy's throw. It was a fine fling indeed. M.D.
nodded, took off his jacket, and then neatly hung it up on the wall using Larson's blade as a coat hanger.

Stanzer smiled wryly. M.D. peeled off his shirt, folded it, and then set it down. He turned and his abs rippled. McCutcheon dropped his knife. It fell straight downward. Its tip pierced the
wood. Stuck straight up like an erect pencil.

“Let's do this,” McCutcheon said.

Larson picked up both pipes, extended his arms, and offered M.D. his choice of weapons. McCutcheon shrugged. Didn't matter to him. Larson tossed the one in his right hand to his opponent;
it sailed through the air and M.D. caught it. As McCutcheon's fist wrapped around the pole, he felt the pipe's potential. It was a powerful piece of steel. Strong, thick, certain to
cause lots of damage on impact.

Larson, too, pulled off his shirt and his huge, swollen muscles bulged. All eyes in the room stared at his bacne. An unnatural galaxy of red pimples speckled his hulking, mammoth back. Back acne
was a common side effect of steroids, much like fits of uncontrollable rage and shrunken nuts. But McCutcheon wasn't there to measure Larson's testicles; he'd come to chop them
off.

The two met in the center.

“Like Vale Tudo. Only one of us walks away.”

“Just so you know,” McCutcheon answered. “I don't want to fight you.”

Larson stared into M.D.'s eyes. “Yes, you do.”

He was right. M.D. did want to fight him. More than just fight him, McCutcheon wanted to end his life. Adrenaline surged through M.D.'s veins. His inner beast screamed. It needed food,
revenge, the spilling of blood.

They raised their pipes.

A look of deviant pleasure glowed in Larson's eyes. He loved the idea of battling in a winner-take-all match. He'd been training for just such a moment ever since he turned ten years
old. Larson knew that if he took down McCutcheon, he'd not only save his own life, but also his name would ring out across the far corners of the underground fight world. Larson would be the
gladiator who ended Bam Bam, the legendary Prince of Detroit.

No, it wasn't the floor of the Roman Colosseum, but for Larson it was good enough.

“Just so we're clear,” Puppet said, acting as de facto master of ceremonies. “No matter what happens,” he glared at Stanzer, “you don't pull any
bullshit.” The colonel, after a moment of eye contact with McCutcheon, rubbed his chin. He didn't like to be told jack shit about what he could or could not do. Especially, by a scumbag
gangster. But he nodded. He'd honor M.D.'s wishes. If Larson won, he could walk. As would the Priests, as would Kaitlyn. But if Larson lost, well…that would be a different
story.

“All right, gentleman,” Puppet said, stepping back. All eyes zeroed in on the two opponents. The electricity of impending brutality supercharged the air. “Do your
thing.”

McCutcheon, pipe in hand, narrowed his eyes. Blood scorched through his veins. Then he had an insight. A sudden realization. One that brought fear and doubt.

He had no strategy.

In all his years of fighting, McCutcheon had never entered into a battle without a well-considered plan. Forethought, tactics, calculated courses of action, and perspicacious blueprints had
always been his ace in the hole. He'd defeated scores of opponents over the course of his career who'd been bigger, stronger, and nastier, but he'd only been able to do so by
tapping into his own greatest strength: his mind.

For all his skills, McCutcheon was a thinking warrior. He owned a powerful body but an even more powerful spirit—and yet, seconds away from the biggest battle of his life, he had no plan
of attack. He hesitated, and concern descended on him like a cloud. His confidence was destabilized.

He had no vision for a path to victory. Worse, he'd run out of time.

Larson, pipe in the air, attacked.

Rage had blinded him. Hate had consumed him. McCutcheon's inner beast, crying for carnage, thirsting for bloodshed, driven only by the primal urge of extracting revenge,
stole the clarity from M.D.'s mind.

Murder would be nectar. He needed to bash in this man's head and brain him. Nothing less would quench his thirst.

Is this really who I want to be?

Larson roared forward with an overhead right. M.D. deflected the strike with a rising rooftop block and the pipes
PINKED!
as they collided. The explosive sound of metal bashing metal
filled the room with a bone-chilling sense of danger.

Pipe fighting was for lunatics. Larson's eyes widened. He'd never had more fun.

Larson swung again. Expertly. Making a figure eight in the air, he advanced on M.D. with three crisp, crashing, consecutive strikes. McCutcheon backpedaled and parried—
PINK! PINK!
PINK!
—then hopped to an open part of the room outside of his assailant's strike zone. Lacking clarity on how to proceed, he readied his defenses.

Larson displayed excellent mechanics. His weight was balanced, he did little to telegraph his moves, and he struck with ferocity, power, and technique. Clearly, he'd been well trained. He
knew what he wanted to accomplish and why he wanted to achieve it. As a warrior, he was locked in.