Pawn (11 page)

“Maybe you should leave.” The words came out of his mouth by themselves, and despite him never having said anything like it before, he didn’t regret it one bit. Not when the man was being disparaging of Di and her friends.

“Now look. The monkey wants me to go.” The stranger turned to him, and seeing his eyes staring at him Rufus felt distinctly uncomfortable. There was something wrong with him. On the one hand he was what he appeared to be. An overdressed, pompous piece of crap that probably sold shoddy goods to little old ladies who didn’t need them. But on the other, there was something more lurking behind those dark eyes. Something greedy and nasty and strangely powerful. Something dangerous. The man made his skin crawl.

“Not much to look at is he. All that confusion and chaos he causes, and he’s a simple working-class office boy. Could even be a mail clerk. Di how could you lower yourself so? Mother would be very upset if she knew.” The man knew her mother? Rufus didn’t know her mother, or in fact anything much about her family. Di had kept that stuff close for some reason, and he’d not asked too much, figuring that it was hers to share, and that she would when she was ready.

“Maybe she does know. And maybe she doesn’t mind.” Rufus looked at Di, surprised. Her mother knew of him? Already? That seemed fast. Or was she just bluffing? Trying to get under his skin? Plutos seemed to think so.

“If Hera knew of your dalliance she’d be here ripping his eyes out. This -”, he pointed at Rufus with a disdainful thumb, “ - is a disgrace. He’s not one of us and he has no value.”

“Don’t try to play me Di.” He turned back to her. “Your own light is fading. You’re less than a fraction of who you once were. And I’m going from strength to strength. This isn’t going to help and one day soon, you’ll be gone. Forgotten.”

“You should have accepted my offer. You should have walked arm in arm with a winner.” Rufus didn’t understand quite what he was talking about, but he understood enough to know the evil little bastard was more than insulting her. He was threatening her in some way, and that was too much.

“Now just hold on.” He stood up, meaning to throw the pompous little windbag out, but instead somehow found himself flying backwards through the air and into a wall long before he’d even laid a finger on him. He smashed into it with a worrying thump, and he felt the wall give way, half surprised it wasn’t his bones instead. It should have hurt, but it didn’t. He’d suffered too many injuries of late to be bothered by another merely bruising impact. What he didn’t understand however, was how the man had done it. He’d never even touched him. How could that be?

Still that was less important than the fact that Plutos was striding towards him, cutting across the tables and through the other diners, all of whom were either hastily getting out of the way or being somehow pushed aside. The man was like a boat cutting through the water, an invisible bow wave simply forcing the tables and chairs and diners apart, sending some of them flying. He also looked angry for some reason. As if it wasn’t he who had simply tossed him across the room like an old shoe. But mostly he looked dangerous. This fun evening wasn’t looking to be as much fun as he’d expected.

Rufus staggered to his feet as quickly as he could, preparing to face him and wondering if he actually could. The man had something, some indescribable force that made him far more dangerous than the clown he appeared to be. But that was no excuse for cowardice. Not when he’d insulted Di.

“What the hell are you?” That was as far as he got, before Plutos had him in a vice like grip around the throat and was lifting him off the ground, forcing him back into the wall, and squeezing the air out of him. How could he do that? A little beachball of a dandy. But as he reached out with both hands and tried to peel his fingers away from his throat and failed, Rufus realised it didn’t matter. Not as much as breathing.

“Hell? What the hell am I? What the hell are you worm? Thinking to sully Di with your filthy flesh. I should kill you here and now. Rip you limb from limb just for breathing.” His eyes were wide, his nostrils flaring and his mouth was turned up at the edges in some sort of sneer. He was angry alright. But more than that Rufus suddenly understood, hurt. And that gave him an edge.

“She turned you down didn’t she?” Rufus gasped it out and wasn’t in the least surprised when the man’s sneer turned into a snarl. The little fat man actually yelled incoherently at him like a wild animal. But Rufus desperately peeling his fingers away from his throat, still had enough air to speak and enough to wound him in the only way he could. He used it.

“All your money. The fancy clothes and the wealth, and she turned you down. No wonder. You’re nothing more than a clown dressed up. A nasty little clown.”

“Agghh!” Plutos screamed, a sound more akin to raging madness than anything a throat could make, and Rufus knew he was probably about to die. But fortune favoured the bold, and even as Plutos began squeezing his neck into a pulp, someone big and fast smashed into him from the side.

After that it was bedlam.

Rufus crashed to the floor and on his hands and knees began concentrating on breathing. He was getting tired of being choked. Meanwhile to his side Plutos and the other dark skinned man were engaged in an all out brawl, with tables and chairs flying, and people scattering in all directions. But no one seemed particularly worried about it. Instead people were shouting and cheering and just to add to the bizarre, the musicians had started up a new song, mandolins and bouzouki being plucked furiously while the guy with the hand drum was having some sort of fit in front of them. This he guessed, was entertainment.

None of that mattered however when Di was suddenly with him, her arm around his shoulder, helping him to his feet, and filled with concern as she worriedly checked if he was alright. He wasn’t really. He was shocked and out of breath, and still trying to understand what had happened. But he was also angry. Angry as he had never been before in his life. He’d suffered through too many shocks, too many people trying to kill him, and now this jackass was starting a brawl, insulting Di. Rufus simply couldn’t take any more.

While Plutos and the big man wrestled, knocking tables over and sending furniture flying, he staggered the rest of the way to his feet, and then completely unready for it and knowing it was crazy, charged his enemy, screaming like a madman. He hit him too, hit him hard, and sent him flying sideways into some more furniture. And after that he leapt on him, screaming like a banshee, and started pummelling him. It didn’t seem to help a lot. His punches didn’t even bother him and when he’d had enough Plutos just roared and threw him across the room again like an old slipper, but it gave the other man another chance at him, and his punches clearly hurt a lot more. Or at least Plutos tried to duck them. He hadn’t even bothered when Rufus had hit him.

Getting back up again, shaking off more dust and bits and pieces of furniture, Rufus made to charge him once more, but an arm came out of nowhere and scooped him up. A huge muscular arm.

“That’s enough!” The man attached to the arm wrapped around him, bellowed, and fairly swiftly the brawl ended. Over before it had truly begun. But at least Plutos had been hurt. Not badly, not enough, but a few drops of blood were leaking from his hooked nose, and Rufus guessed the big man had managed to land a good punch or two. At least someone had.

The two of them backed off, a little, but still stood there, staring each other down, all but circling and growling at each other like wild dogs. Rufus would have joined them if he was able. Something primal and savage was running through his blood and as terrible as it was, he liked it. The band had stopped playing he noticed, and the shouting and cheering had stopped too. It looked like the evening’s entertainment had been cancelled.

“Polemos, Plutos, I said that’s enough!” The big man bellowed again, and finally peace was restored. The two combatants sulked off to their respective corners of the room, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief. He even let him down, but his feet barely touched the ground before Di was with him, wrapping him up in her arms and carrying him away to the far side of the hall in a flurry of perfume and kisses, making sure he didn’t do something stupid. Again.

“My hero.” She kept calling him that and he didn’t know why. He’d done nothing more then to get beaten up, again. But he couldn’t explain that to her as she continued to smother him. He couldn’t even break free to try and explain. Not that he really wanted to.

“Precious child.” Di stopped kissing him for a moment, as the man who’d stopped the fight suddenly appeared behind her, and it was Rufus’s first chance to see him. To see more then his arm that was.

He was as he’d realised a big man. A very big man. In fact he was a giant. He had to stand close to seven feet tall, and of powerful build with it. Even his saviour, Polemos, was a child against him. Rufus had to crane his neck more than a little just to look up to him. And when he did he realised that despite his hulking physique he was no dumb brute. He might be huge, he might have the calluses and tanned skin of someone who worked in the fields all day under the hot sun, but his eyes spoke of wisdom and calm. Great calm.

More than just his sheer physical size, the man had a presence about him that impressed. He ruled. That much was clear. From the somewhat lined forehead and thick bushy eyebrows sheltering his steel blue eyes, to the muscles of his arms and the calloused fingers of his hands, all the way down to even his sandaled feet, he ruled this place. Patriarch of the house maybe. Di’s father even, from the way he spoke to her. Kindly, concerned, but firm.

“You should not have brought your friend here. He is not ready. He does not know our ways.” Naturally he had a point, and Rufus was beginning to understand that there was more to Di and her friends than he’d yet gathered. More than just their being Greek. For a start, one of them seemed to have some sort of mystic ability, and another was an all round brawler such as he’d never seen before. Several were close to being giants. And looking around, he realised that most of the rest were strangely powerful people in their own ways. Why hadn’t he noticed that before?

So what was this? Family? A clan? A religious order? Somehow he couldn’t quite decide. But he did understand that there was one thing that was required of him regardless.

“Sir.” He stepped forwards a little, still a trifle unsteady on his feet, something that wasn’t helped by having to look upwards at such a steep angle. “Thank you for stopping the fight, and my apologies for having got involved in one in the first place. I didn’t mean to ruin the evening.”

“And thank you too for stepping in.” He turned to the other combatant, Polemos and nodded politely. It was bad enough getting into a street brawl in a restaurant, and not something he’d ever done before, but to not apologise would have made it far worse. Especially when he was becoming more and more certain that this was some sort of family gathering. You just didn’t wander in to someone’s home and make a mess.

Polemos just grinned happily at him, his teeth very white against the darkness of his skin, a trickle of blood running unnoticed down the side of his mouth, and Rufus had the odd feeling that he hadn’t done it just to protect him. Nor even to pummel Plutos, though he clearly didn’t like the guy. He liked fighting, and this had actually been fun for him.

“A noble heart and respect for hearth and home. He is not ready child, but he shows character.” The giant laughed quietly, a rumbling sound that seemed to echo through the very floorboards.

“Take him home daughter.” It was an order of course, anything the man said carried that sort of weight, but at least not an outright rejection, and Rufus would have thanked him again had Di not suddenly grabbed his arm and started pulling him towards the door.

Dinner, he guessed, was over. But as they gathered their things and left the restaurant, arm in arm, he did have to ask one thing.

“Daughter?” Di just laughed at him and he gathered he wasn’t going to learn any more about it. Not that night. But he didn’t care. A good meal and a lovely woman on his arm under a warm starry sky. The brawl could be forgotten and everything else left for another time. Some things were important. They weren’t.

And if the giant really was her father, then maybe he hadn’t made a complete disgrace of himself in front of him. That was important.

But of course he discovered as they left the hall, and started wandering through the olive groves heading for the car, there was one more thing that he had to ask.

“Ah Di, do you think you might be able to show me the way home.”