by Wol-vriey
Lucy Tang intended staking her own claim in Chinatown’s drug trade. No one, not you Sookie, not even the fucking triads, is standing in my way. This showdown has only firmed my resolve.
But first . . . first Lucy needed to heal and, after that . . . she needed to build her own army to take on Chinatown’s other armies.
Carefully nursing her broken arm, she got off the sofa and went into her bedroom.
***
Biting her lips from the pain, Lucy Tang dressed in a green silk cheongsam patterned with yellow flowers.
Then she fixed her broken arm up in a sling.
That done, she packed her essential possessions into a small suitcase. She filled a dino-leather handbag with her cosmetics, money and, most important, Sookie’s filched dragonreich.
The reich was the financial muscle to kick-start Lucy’s empire.
Finally, Lucy sat before her dressing mirror and did her makeup. It took a long time, but she persevered. Even when not performing onstage, Lucy Tang liked looking perfect, like a drag queen fuck machine. It didn’t matter if a roomful of dinos were after her, she wasn’t leaving here without looking absolutely flawless.
Watching the beautiful Lucy Tang girlishly apply her cosmetics, no one would believe that she’d just killed and eaten eight people.
Eight very dangerous people.
CHAPTER 69
Malone
Malone awoke. His head felt broken in two. He opened his eyes. He tried moving his hands but couldn’t.
He realized he was trapped.
He was seated, shackled firmly in a chair. From the numbness all over his body, he determined that he’d been anaesthetized while out cold.
His eyes slowly focused on the individual sitting three feet across from him.
A nerdy, handsome face with cold blue eyes frowned back at him.
Malone groaned. “Frank?”
“Bout time you woke up,” Frank spat, his expression manic with hatred. “It’s time for payback.”
“Look, Frank . . .”
Tears filled Frank’s eyes. “You killed Rachel, you asshole. You murdered the only woman I ever loved.”
Malone’s face reflected his disgust. “She didn’t love you. She was just using you for—”
Frank slapped him hard. “Don’t you dare say that, you murderer! She loved me! She was just bad at expressing her emotions.”
The blow cleared the remaining wooliness from Malone’s head. He glared angrily at Frank.
Tears were streaming down Frank’s cheeks. “But don’t worry, Malone. Don’t you worry at all. I’ll avenge my love.” He began laughing through his tears. “Oh, yes. I’ll avenge Rachel. She’ll be so proud.”
Malone abandoned his anger. What was important now was getting free and out of here live. Frank was acting more insane by the moment.
Frank started giggling. “Thankfully, you’re just in time to join me for dinner.”
Dinner? Oh no, Malone thought.
Following Frank’s pointing finger, Malone looked down.
He gaped in horror at his belly.
It was slit open. The remaining quarter of his liver was out of his body and encased in . . . fuck . . . in Rachel Fischer’s sectional microwave.
The chair Malone sat in had a fold-over table flap like a toddler’s. The machine rested on this.
Frank bent forward and clicked on the microwave.
He smiled nastily at Malone. “Any questions, shithead?”
Malone didn’t reply. Spite was useless now, counterproductive even. Instead he looked around the cabin, seeking a means of escape.
The door was behind him. He twisted his head and confirmed that it was locked. No point yelling to Captain Gumdrop for help then. The walrus might be dead anyway. He winced as a thought struck him. Damn, the walrus is likely in Frank’s employ.
He peered out through the cabin’s single port. The late afternoon sky offered no solution to his dilemma.
***
Frank watched the shifting play of expressions on Malone’s face. They pleased him immensely. Yes, let this prick suffer.
He wiped the tears from his eyes. Amused, he watched Malone’s gaze float around the room.
“Forget it, asshole,” he said. “There’s no escape. You’re dead meat.”
As though affirming this truth, the microwave timer sounded then. Frank opened it up. The smell of roast Malone filled the room.
Frank’s eyes glittered with psychotic pleasure. “Aah, medium rare; just how I like you.”
He pulled his chair up to Malone—who seemed still lost in thought—and tucked a napkin into his collar.
***
“Hold on a minute,” Malone said as Frank bent to start eating him.
Frank peered at him narrowly. “Can’t this wait till later? I don’t like cold food.”
“Put the damn fork down and listen,” Malone said. “Or I’ll friggin’ spew all over your damn dinner. It is my liver after all.”
“What is it?” Frank said testily. “Make it snappy, will you?”
“I want to know where the president’s liver is,” Malone replied.
Frank scowled, then calmed.
He pointed. “The fucking liver is over there.”
Malone followed Frank’s finger. On a table by the wall on his left rested a sickly yellow lump flanked by several empty beer bottles. He flinched when it twitched.
“That thing? It looks like moldy loaf of corn bread.”
Frank grinned.
“Don’t look so confused, Malone. That is the president’s liver. Did anyone tell you Jefferson Lincoln was an alcoholic? Oh, yes, he was. No doubt about it. His liver is so riddled through with sixteen sorts of cirrhosis that it’s worse than inedible—tastes like leather.”
Malone winced. “That fucking horror looks alive.”
Frank shrugged. “It is. Some magic crap the Forks did to it. Even worse—it’s still an alcoholic—it drank all that beer you see over there. I expect it to awaken shortly, when it’ll be hungover again and begging me for change so it can buy itself some Jack Daniels.”
“It can talk?”
Frank nodded. “More Fork bullshit magic.”
Malone regarded the unhealthy looking lump of flesh with new respect.
Frank giggled. “Stealing it is my biggest regret ever. I’d have thrown it away—but then I’d have the kitchen gods after me for sure.” He smiled. “So they can have it back—good riddance.”
Then like a veil had dropped over Frank’s face, his expression altered. His face once again became a mask of hatred.
“Payback, Malone,” he growled. “That’s what we’re here for. You killed Rachel remember? The smartest woman I ever met in my life, and you came along and beheaded her. You psychotic asshole!”
“Look in the mirror.”
Frank resumed crying instead. Tears streamed down his cheeks. “You . . . you . . . bastard, you murderer! How do you sleep at night?”
“How are the Forks going to get their treasure back if you kill me?” Malone asked.
Frank grinned through his tears. “Don’t worry your corpse about that. I’ll take it back and drop it off myself. Apologize nicely is all.”
“What?”
Frank laughed. “Why not?”
“Okay,” Malone said. “You can resume having dinner. Just cut the liver totally out of me first.”
Frank shook his head. “No.”
“Fuck you, Frank. Cut it out now or I’ll start puking on it. Just looking at you fills me with sufficient nausea.”
Frank glared at him. With a violent swipe of his knife, he severed Malone’s liver from his body. “I’ll really enjoy killing you, Malone. “I swore on Rachel’s grave when I buried her that I’d avenge her murder, and I will. I wanted her machines to do it, for irony’s sake. But you just kept getting away.”
“I’m so sad I caused you two a national nutrient shortage,” Malone said coldly. He nodded at the plate of liver. “Take that somew
here else. I’m not watching you.”
Frank carried both plate and microwave oven a distance away and sat down again.
***
Malone thought fast. I’ve found the president’s liver. I’ve also lost my own liver, and look about dying into the bargain. I can’t even press my ‘Lesbian Fist’ button—whatever good that will do.
Malone had read somewhere that lesbians hated men. He doubted the depths of their abhorrence for men could ever match the emotional black hole Frank’s existence registered inside him.
He wanted to kill this psycho son-of-a-bitch with every straining fiber of his violated being, but how?
“I can do it,” a tough female voice said inside his head.
Startled, he looked over at Frank. Oblivious to Malone, Frank was just removing Malone’s reheated liver from the microwave. He clearly hadn’t heard anything.
“Just think your replies to me. He can’t hear us,” the voice said.
“Who are you?”
“Lesbian Fist—who else were you expecting?”
Malone decided that made sense. Just then Frank looked his way, mouth full of meat.
“Why don’t you bleed anymore, Malone? And why’d you dye your arm red?”
“I donated my red blood cells to charity. Fuck off, Frank, haven’t you heard it’s bad manners to talk with your mouth full?”
Frank scowled. He swallowed, took another bite of Malone’s liver and chewed it savagely.
“I want to fucking kill this bastard,” Malone thought.
“Lesbian Fist is the person for you then. Don’t worry about starting me up—I’m now thought-activated. So do I fist this asshole?”
Malone liked the poetic irony of the question. “Yes, fist the asshole.”
***
Malone’s blood arm thinned and flailed across the room to where Frank, his back to Malone, was eating. At the arm’s far end, Malone’s hand was so small now that he doubted it could harm Frank. It looked about the size of his penis glans.
“Size isn’t important,” Lesbian Fist said. “Technique is what matters.”
Malone’s blood arm had now landed behind Frank. Like a snake, it slithered beneath his chair, and coiled itself like a spring.
It struck.
There was the sound of plastic shattering as Lesbian Fist punctured up through the chair, then Frank’s gasps of perplexed disbelief as the hand penetrated his pants and anus, and started fucking him.
“No!” he screamed. He tried to jump up only to find himself bound to the chair by three loops of Malone’s arm that dropped over him like a trio of hangmen’s nooses.
He turned to look at Malone, gaped when he saw it was Malone’s red arm violating him.
Then he screamed as Lesbian Fist burst through the upper wall of his rectum, and pumping like a pneumatic drill, fucked a meat-ripping path up through his guts.
***
Malone’s arm soaked up Frank’s blood faster than it poured from him. The blood invigorated Malone like he was a vampire.
In a sudden burst of strength, he burst the shackles holding him in place.
He remained seated, savoring the horrified look on Frank’s face as the man realized what was happening to him. Stupid cannibal asshole.
He enjoyed also the feeling of power transmitted to him through his arm.
***
Lesbian Fist burst its way up into Frank’s chest, up into his neck, mashing his organs into slush with the force of its passage. Absorbing Frank’s blood, it swelled inside him till it was the size of Malone’s thigh.
Frank’s torso bulged like he’d swallowed a barrel. He no longer screamed. Now he just twitched and jerked convulsively as if he were a human-shaped glove Lesbian Fist was wearing.
Then, in a final burst of force, Lesbian Fist exploded out through Frank’s neck, blowing his head off his shoulders.
Malone grinned as it gave him the ‘okay’ sign. “Real tight asshole this, but I got the job done,” it said.
He walked over and high-fived it.
They laughed. Malone waited while it shrunk its way out of Frank’s corpse and back to normal size.
With a sizzle, the ‘Lesbian Fist’ button also disappeared off the back of Malone’s hand.
CHAPTER 70
Malone
The president’s liver reeked of booze with a capital ‘R’.
Malone prodded it.
“My name’s P-Liver and I’m an alcoholic,” it said. “Every day and in every way, I’m getter better and better; the booze however keeps getting the better of me.” It punctuated its comment with a loud burp.
“This isn’t Alcoholic’s Anonymous,” Malone said. “My name’s Malone. I’m here to take you back home.”
“Damn, Malone, I’m so hungover. Can you spare some change? I need to buy a bottle.”
“We’re currently too far from any shops for you to bother.”
Looking at P-Liver made Malone super-queasy. The organ was utterly disgusting; like a monster tumor. Its gall bladder looked like a turd. And the way it twitched . . .
Fear of the Forks, respect for their powers, renewed in him.
I just hope they’re this good when it comes to fixing people, he thought, remembering Posh.
“I really need a drink.”
Malone searched the room for alcohol. He found a bottle of whiskey and carried it over to P-Liver.
“My name is P-Liver, buddy, and don’t you dare forget it. I need a damn drink, Malone. I’m hungover like a mule kicked me to death last night.”
It punctuated its words with a yellow burp-bubble. The bubble popped. It stank worse than the breath of any wino Malone had ever encountered.
He held his breath. P-Liver was speaking to him through its truncated portal vein, so he upended the bottle of whiskey into that opening, screwing it well in. The bottle stood upright on P-liver’s bulk like a glass tree it was growing.
Loud glugging sounds came from the liver.
Malone left it to its booze.
He examined his own liver. What remained of it was too cooked to be of any use to him ever again. The Forks need to fix me too, he thought, else I’m so, so dead.
In anger, he spat on Frank’s corpse, then kicked his head across the room like it was a football. He realized he was being childish, and grimacing, stopped.
A loud burp came from P-Liver. Malone turned around in time to see the whiskey bottle pop off its ‘mouth.’ The bottle rolled off it, off the table, and onto the floor.
P-Liver started snoring. Malone walked back over to it.
He looked around for a bag to carry it in. He found none, then decided to use Frank’s bloody shirt.
Before he could cross the cabin to undress the corpse, however, the boat gave a violent shudder.
Next—concurrent with a bloodcurdling scream from the deck—a semi-circular row of transparent columns pierced both the cabin ceiling and floor to Malone’s right, dividing the room in two. On the other side of the see-thru pillars, Frank’s corpse disappeared from view.
Malone stared at the almost interlocking see-through stalactites and stalagmites for a long instant before recognition struck him.
Teeth. Dragon Teeth.
At that moment, in another violent shaking of the boat, the dragon’s upper and lower jaws came together and wrenched away, leaving Malone gaping out at the monster through the hole they left in their wake.
The distant outskirts of Boston registered on his mind for the briefest of instants before he turned and dashed outside, up the stairs to the deck.
He reached the deck before realizing he’d forgotten P-Liver. He rushed back down again, grabbed it off its table, and rushed back up again.
Captain Gumdrop was dead. The walrus’s headless corpse lay on the airboat deck. It had clearly expired in the same closing of jaws that sliced away half the boat’s larboard side.
The airboat now bobbed unstably in the breeze. The dragon hovered round it, dwarfing it by ten orders of magnitud
e. Its wings, see-thru as ghosts, glittered like lightning.
Below lay the north-east Atlantic.
The portion of the airboat the dragon had eaten had gotten stuck in its throat.
Or maybe, Malone reasoned, seeing as the boat is made of solidified cum, this dragon is female and simply having a problem swallowing it.
He understood the behemoth’s plight. His last girlfriend before Posh had had a similar difficulty. She’d always brushed her teeth for ten minutes after he came in her mouth.
Realizing the dragon hadn’t noticed him, Malone dropped flat to the deck and crawled over to the boat’s edge. He peered down at the rippling water.
His dilemma was simple: how to get to Boston—its skyscrapers and beetles, the beckoning horizon—alive and in one piece.
***
The dragon finally got the chunks of spermwood down its throat. It returned its attention to the airboat.
It spread its jaws wide, ready to take another bite.
Malone realized his only chance of survival now was to dive into the Atlantic and swim. He did some quick calculation, figuring how to carry P-Liver into the operation.
Then there was no longer any time to think. The dragon’s teeth came close enough for him to reach out and touch. They momentarily hovered over him like a kaleidoscope of misshapen transparent birds.
Malone stuffed the president’s liver into his slit belly and jumped over the airboat’s side.
The dragon devoured the entire airboat in one bite.
Malone plummeted like a rock under gravity. Below him the Atlantic looked like a blue mirror.
No way am I surviving this in one piece.
He flailed his right hand upward, instinctively trying to grip something no longer there.
His red arm began unraveling as if he’d com-manded it to.
The crimson blood-cord jerked taut. Malone stopped falling.
He looked up. His blood arm had wrapped itself around one of the dragon’s talons.
