Dungeons & Gangsters

by Marco Frazetta

  “Let’s see ‘em,” Brock said excitedly, rubbing his big ugly orc hands together.

  “You’re not catchin’ my fuckin’ drift. Did you not hear what I said to you? There’s somethin’ fuckin’ off about this,” I growled. “This ain’t what I signed up for.”

  “Oh yes you fuckin’ did.” J-Maxx emphasized his ridiculous height advantage over me by dramatically looking down at me. “You signed up for whatever when you took the job. That’s how it works. Let me know if you all of the sudden havin’ a issue with that.”

  “J-Maxx,” I started, gettin’ desperate.

  “Shut up, Teek, play your part and take the cash, we’re almost done here,” J-Maxx spat to me, then turned to Brock, “yo, bring them bitches out here, let’s see what the Dragon ordered.”

  “You got it.” Brock smirked, turning to hop up onto the back of the train car.

  I stepped, blocking his way. Looking up at the big orc, I growled, “Be fuckin’ decent, they’ve been through it enough already.”

  “Whatever, move.” Brock looked down at me with a eyebrow raised. I looked back into the darkness of the train car briefly, shrugged my shoulders, and moved outta the orc’s way. I had to think how to phrase my plan to J-Maxx, because now it all came down to my powers of persuasion.

  “What’s up with you? You fallin’ hard for some upscale whores, Teek?” J-Maxx asked in a low rumble, grinning strangely. “They ain’t for you, they’re for the Dragon. Look, my bad it wasn’t what we mighta really wanted but -”

  “J-Maxx I won’t—” I began angrily, then saw Brock shoving the girls out of the train car. J-Maxx had seen them comin’ too.

  “Oh, shit! Look what we got here! Hybrids too, huh?” J-Maxx gleefully chortled, walking rapidly over to the girls, which Brock had lined up on the train tracks. “Damn, honey, look at you.” J-Maxx roughly cupped the chin of the hybrid orc girl, looking down with lust in his eyes, then turning to the elf hybrid girl, he leaned down and whispered in her ear, “ever sucked an orc dick before, elf bitch?” She shivered and didn’t answer, her long lashes half closing over her sapphire eyes.

  Grabbing the back of her neck in his big hand and squeezing, Brock hissed to the elf girl, “did you hear what he asked you, elf bitch? You ever sucked an orc dick or what?” She let out a small cry and and quickly shook her head, the fair skin on the cheeks of her face becoming red at the shame of the questioning, and she looked down at the ground.

  “Guess I might be your first then...hmm...you pretty as a motherfucker…” J-Maxx muttered distractedly, his eyes glued to the elf girl. I could see her shrink even further under his gaze and I was gettin’ really fuckin’ pissed, but I tried to stay as calm as I could. These ain’t my girls, I thought, he’s probably right, they’re probably high-price whores, why wouldn’t the Dragon order up somethin’ special like this? He can do whatever the fuck he wants, and no one can do shit. He’s living the ‘whatever the fuck I want’ life.

  “You’re sort of an acquired taste, huh baby?” J-Maxx told the dragonborn hybrid girl after he finally pulled his eyes off the elf girl, the fingers of his ugly right hand lazily trailing across the scales around her face and right above her tits. The other orcs laughed.

  “I don’t know if I ever fucked a lizard girl before,” Brock said, lookin’ down at the dragonborn girl, one of his big ugly hands roughly feelin’ on her backside, which was shaped like a girl who hit the stairmaster like her life depended on it, squeezing her ass, groping her thighs. She was stoic as fuck through the whole thing, didn’t bat a scaled eyelid, didn’t make a sound.

  My teeth grinding together hard, I muttered, “you’re not gonna be fuckin’ her.”

  “What’d you say, hob?” Brock shot back at me, lookin’ over the dragonborn girl’s shoulder.

  “I said you’re not gonna be fuckin’ her. J-Maxx, we need to talk, now.” I looked over at the other orc, who just looked back at me amused.

  “‘Bout what, Teek?” he asked, still lookin’ at me with that shit-eating smile.

  “It’s lookin’ like workin’ for the Dragon ain’t all it’s fuckin’ cracked up to be, alright? I don’t want any parts of this fuckery.” I motioned over towards the girls. “And I won’t be turnin’ these girls over to that monster you call a boss to be fucked and beat and then tossed over to his pet orcs.”

  “Who you callin’ a pet, hob?” Brock spat at me. The other two orcs had come up and stood next to J-Maxx, the muscles in their arms and shoulder bulging, their nostrils flaring, ready to go in on me if he gave ‘em the fuckin’ word.

  “Look—” I started.

  “No, you look,” J-Maxx rumbled, “You ain’t feelin’ this job? Well I’m real sorry to hear that, Teek, but I don’t give a fuck about your feelings. Matter a fact, I think I might keep these bitches for myself, at least for a night or two, before sellin’ em on to the Dragon. What do you think about that?” He turned to his crew. “How ‘bout you, boys? What do ya say?”

  “Sounds real good to me, J-Maxx,” Brock answered quickly. The other orcs nodded their approval of the plan.

  “Look,” I began again, “it don’t have to be like this, we don’t even fuckin’ need the Dragon, we can start our own crew, do whatever we want, just not this foul shit…” I looked around, somewhat pleadingly, at the orcs. Skreech was standing in the middle, looking back and forth between me and the orcs. “Listen, don't you get tired of taking orders from some lizard fuck? I mean, there's so much of this wide country that we could stake a claim to. I got the brains, you got the muscle. We could raise our own fucking army in the streets, if we wanted to. Bring back the times when all us goblinoids and orcs didn't have to be living under the hewmie’s laws and bullshit governments. We don't need the the dragon. We need to think for ourselves.”

  “Would you listen to this fuckin’ hob? Don’t need the Dragon? Have you lost your shit?” J-Maxx looked at me like he didn’t even fuckin’ know me. “I’m gonna hang on to the girls, I’m gonna fuck ‘em, break ‘em in real nice, I’m gonna pass ‘em around to my boys, then I’m gonna sell ‘em to the Dragon. You got a problem with it, Teek? You already rich, you don’t need the fuckin’ bag?” His ugly dark orc eyes were lookin’ down at me hard, practically beaming lasers into me, when he tried to bring his temper down, switching his tone up some. “Look, you put in good work on this one, you were up there doin’ the heavy lifting really, blowin’ the train’s coupler, the doors... you don’t have to watch ‘em or do nothin’ with ‘em, I’ll take it from here.”

  “No,” I said quickly.

  “Okay, whatever, you come with me then,” J-Maxx said, sounding surprised and annoyed. “We’ll take ‘em to the Dragon together, collect our fuckin’ cash, our just fuckin’ rewards, and be on our way.”

  Yea, I’m sure that’s exactly how it’ll fuckin’ go, real smooth, I thought. “No, you’re misunderstanding me. You ain’t takin’ them with you, and you sure ain’t takin’ them to the Dragon. These girls are mine. I’ll pay the Dragon off. I know I can get the money.”

  “Excuse me?” J-Maxx asked, confused. Brock came from around the girls, having been standing behind them, sniffin’ and touchin’ on them, to stand by J-Maxx and the other two orcs.

  “What’s up with this fuckin’ hob, J-Maxx?” Brock asked, nodding towards me. “He’s soundin’ like a real fuckin’ stooge right now, a fuckin’ traitor, you ask me.” J-Maxx looked at me thoughtfully.

  “Yea, a fuckin’ traitor,” one of the other orcs said.

  “Big Dubbs gone, Maurice dead,” J-Maxx rumbled sadly, briefly looking back at the dead orc laying in the desert sand. “This work is hard work, but it’s why we get big money for pullin’ it off. This ain’t no hourly, nine to five shit, and some guys can’t handle it. You one of them guys, Teek? You can’t handle it? You gonna fuck it all up, Teek? Thought you was a real hard case and all that. We got a good thing goin’, our line of work ain’t always tasteful, per se, but you gonna betray me, over some whores?”<
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  I looked back at him hard for a moment and turned my eyes away—I couldn’t give him an answer right away. Fuck, I thought, this has all really gone to shit. How did this fuckin’ happen…? I noticed Skreech was still standing in between us, had a real strange look on his face, just staring into space like a nut.

  “Fuck this hob,” I heard an orc mutter.

  “If you wanna start your own thing, Teek, have at it, but I ain’t joining you, and none of my people are gonna join you. You must be really fuckin’ crazy to think you can fuck over the Dragon and live afterwards.” J-Maxx was almost soundin’ like he was fuckin’ concerned about my mental and emotional well-being for a moment. The orcs were distracted by the girls, I could see their ugly, dark eyeballs roving over the three hybrids before settling back on me for a few seconds. I looked over at the hybrid girls, saw they had moved backwards towards the open blown out door of the train car during the conversation, and for some reason I hoped I’d live to see this through, to see them through to somewhere safe.

  “What’s it gonna be, Skreech?” I muttered down to the goblin. His big yellow eyes rounded for a moment—he knew what I was asking.

  Skreech looked at the orcs for a moment, then back up at me, and nodded. “I’m with ya, boss!” He hoisted his machine gun up. I was faster to the draw than the other orcs, even Brock who was already goin’ for his heat, thinkin’ I didn’t fuckin’ notice. Yea, alright, I thought bitterly, like I ain’t seein’ that ugly ass monster hand reachin’ down to your fuckin’ waist. My left hand had snaked down and brought up my modified .40 caliber Smith & Wesson in a flash, less than a second, and I pulled the trigger, lettin’ my eyes do the aiming, lettin’ three shots off fast into Brock’s face before he had got his hand around the grip of his gun. The sound was so loud I could barely hear the third shot.

  The big orc spluttered and groaned, toppling over backwards, knockin’ over the orc standin’ right behind him. Skreech pulled the trigger of his MAC-10, which immediately produced a Brrraatt! Brrraatt! sound as it fired, half a clip of the little submachine gun rounds tearing into the neck and chest of the stumbling orc and other orc who was next to J-Maxx, makin’ the motherfucker shake and dance before he slumped over in front of his captain. He managed to fire a few shots, but they went wild as he was already bleeding by then.

  I looked down at Skreech, keepin’ my heat trained on J-Maxx. “Don’t be sprayin’ like that, Skreech.”

  “Hee hee! Hee hee hee!! It worked, didn’t it? Knocked his ugly green ass down in the fuckin’ dirt...er...sand.” The little goblin was feelin’ cocky with his MAC-10 in his grimy little mitts. He was even hopping from one leg to the other like he was doing some kind of Irish dance. “Hreee hree! Hree hree! I gots a big green one!!!” he was skreeching—muddafucker was wildin’ like only a goblin could.

  “Teek, you fuckin’ hob piece of shit!” J-Maxx roared, appalled at the death of his orc pals, especially Brock who J-Maxx seemed to have a kind of mutual admiration with, and who was bleeding out of his throat and nose where my bullets had caught him, but still struggling for life. J-Maxx went to reach for his piece again, although being in shock, his big ugly fuckin’ hand was trembling and moving in slow motion practically. Part of me wanted to let him fuckin’ take his pistol, let him die with it in his hand like the orcs all hoped to do, like some new Vikings, thinkin’ their only way into their heavenly afterlife was through heroic violence and with a weapon in hand. But then the ugly image of him blasting Raulis in the back, of him roughly handling the girls, grabbin’ their asses and whisperin’ the nasty shit he wanted to do with ‘em crossed my mind, and just for a moment I moved the barrel of my heat from J-Maxx’s face to his bully boy Brock, the fuckin’ dirty cop, slumped over on top of the orc he had fell on, pinning him down, and I pumped a round into his hand, the one that was reachin’ for the piece at his waist, and when he flung the hand up and cried out in pain I pulled the trigger again, sendin’ a round right through his left eye, killing him instantly. I’d just killed a fucking cop, a crooked cop, but still.

  “No!...You’re a dead man, Teek,” J-Maxx thundered.

  “Yea? So are we all, asshole. You think you’re leavin’ tonight?” I pointed the barrel of my Smith & Wesson right at that fat bottom lip he liked to pull on, watching his eyes go wide, and I couldn’t help but think this fuckin’ prick really thought he was gonna roll back to Los Angeles where he’d raise the whole fuckin’ city, have every orc for two hundred miles baying for my blood. Sorry, J-Maxx, I can’t let you live. The orc must have read the look in my eyes, ‘cause he started to move his hand towards his Uzi on his hip.

  “Teek, what are you sayin’? You ain’t thinkin’ straight, man, you can’t kill me.” His eyes moving from side to side wildly, lookin’ for an escape, somethin’ to help him, J-Maxx stammered on, thinkin’ I couldn’t see him reachin’ for his piece. “I’m in tight with the fuckin’ Dragon, you can’t kill me, if you kill me it’s a fuckin’ wrap for your stupid red ass.”

  “Yea? What’s the Dragon look like?” I asked.

  “Huh?” J-Maxx asked back, his eyebrows coming together in supreme confusion and surprise. “Wait—”

  I shot twice, double tappin’ the big ugly orc square in the forehead, his lights off forever before his big body even hit the sand in one loud crunch!

  “Oh, shit! Boss! You fuckin killed him!” Skreech yelped, hopping about, seein’ that giant orc laid the fuck out in the desert sand, his dark, stinking blood quickly seeping into the sand. Then, having noticed the orc under Brock’s dead corpse was awake and tryin’ to shift his way out, Skreech fired his MAC-10 again, the fuckin’ gun kickin’ so hard and so fast that the goblin struggled to keep some semblance of aim on the orc attempting to worm his way out from under the other. BRRRRATATAT! BRRRATATAT! The machine gun was firing, practically lifting Skreech off the ground. The little guy caught him though, airin’ the orc out. He had just partly made his way out from under Brock, too, when Skreech’s bullets riddled the back of his head and created a jagged line of bullet holes halfway down the orc’s back. Never give a machine gun to a goblin.

  “Ay… you fucks!” the orc yelled absurdly as he died. Me and Skreech looked at each other in surprise, then, scanned over the orcs, makin’ sure they weren’t gettin’ back up or tryin’ to be fuckin’ sneaky reachin’ for a piece. I looked over at the girls...or at least where they had been before the guns started goin’ off.

  “Fuck,” I hissed.

  Skreech popped a fresh clip into his MAC-10. “They ran into the train car, boss. I think one of ‘em got hit.”

  “What?! Fuck!” I dicked it passed the little goblin, jumpin’ over a couple dead orc assholes, then leapt up onto the stairs of the train car, seeing only darkness ahead of me, hearing nothing. I headed in.

  They had brought her into the little space in between the train car’s blown out door and the open container door, had even cleared a little space for her, moving aside the dead security team.

  “Fuck… for all I know it was one of mine that got her,” I muttered bitterly, looking down selfishly at the dragonborn hybrid girl, dark blood splattered on her chest, her neck, her face, her stomach. “Fuck! All that so she could die!” The way her blood smeared on her scales was making me nauseated and I turned to the other two hybrid girls, standing there lookin’ down at the dragonborn girl looking like they barely knew her, fear overwhelming them. I asked them what her name was, but they didn’t give me an answer, just stared blankly, so I took it that they didn’t know. “Skreech!” I yelled to the little runt, “we have to get the fuck outta here.” I didn’t trust nothin’ that J-Maxx had said about his boy Brock havin’ his cop buddies fall back if they heard reports of trains bein’ jacked and gunfights, maybe it was possible but only for so long. They’d definitely come runnin’ when they tried to reach Brock and couldn’t get a response from ‘em.

  “Follow me,” I said to both of hybrid girls, motioning for them to come with me outside the
train car, which had now become a body dump. They didn’t move to follow me for a moment, so I reached my hands out, the left hand to the hybrid orc girl and the right hand to the hybrid elf girl, and waited a moment for them to take the respective hand, which they did after a long minute of looking into my eyes, as if they thought I were tryin’ to trick them.

  “Come on, you’re safe with me,” I said calmly, “I’m not goin’ to hurt you, that ain’t my style.” I cooed, like I was talkin’ to a couple scared horses. It was then that they took my hands and followed me out of the destroyed train car and once more into the desert night.

  “Boss, what now? More of em’ could be coming,” Skreech squeaked nervously, eyes roving over the girls behind me and the dead bodies of the orcs to the side of us, strewn across the sand and the train tracks.

  “No shit,” I spat at the goblin, “just hold on a minute.” I turned to the girls. “We need to have a serious talk right now—it can’t wait.” They looked at me, waiting for me to go on. “I don’t know how you got down before, I don’t know if you’re just some cold whores or what.” I paused, noticed the confusion in their eyes, and suddenly realizing that maybe they weren’t whores after all, went on, “but you have a choice here. You can go your own fuckin’ way. I leave you here and you've never seen me. I have to tell you, it’s really not safe, but I ain’t gonna take you by force—I have enough to deal with than having two screaming psychos in my car. But if if you really wanna stay here, then, you know what, fine, Vaya con Dios, like the humans say, but you ain’t gonna be safe, just the two of you walkin’ around in the desert on your own. Who the fuck knows who’s going to be out looking for you.”

  “Or…?” the hybrid orc girl said, lookin’ at me intensely, blinking hard a few moments like she was epileptic.

  “Or the two of you can come with me, and you’ll be under my protection.”

  “What?!” Skreech yelled.

  “Shut up, Skreech.” I turned to the hybrid girls. “Well? I hate to rush ya but we need to hurry the fuck up. We’re not exactly in the Ritz lounge here. If anybody comes by and sees us here like this, it ain’t gonna go well for any of us.”