by Pen
The moon shone large and heavy in the autumn sky. There was a light breeze that fluttered the drying leaves and released a pleasantly musky scent into the air. One of the advantages of spending time with Patricia O’Neill was the ability to walk through the city park at night and know that there’s nothing in it scarier than your girlfriend. Suzie didn’t even turn around when she heard footsteps approaching from behind. Instead, she stood on her tiptoes and pulled Patricia’s face down to hers for a kiss.
“Well, isn’t that a sight? I know things are pretty liberal in Springfield these days. But I didn’t know that bestiality was off the books.”
Patricia was already half transformed before she’d fully broken off the kiss and turned around to face their heckler. Suzie reached out and touched the tree behind her for balance. She pushed her hair out of her eyes and looked to see who was about to get pounded.
She froze.
It was the man from the coffee shop.
He wasn’t wearing a polo shirt anymore, having traded it for something slick and a little bit shiny, what Leonel called a gigolo shirt, but it was definitely the same man.
She reached for Patricia’s arm, but it was too late. The Lizard Woman was already in action, reaching out to grab the man by the stiff collar of his shirt, twisting it so he was forced into a backbend. Suzie just had time to register the inappropriate grin on the man’s face, when someone grabbed her from behind. She tried to twist out of the second man’s grasp, but he had already restrained her hands with something—she thought it might be a zip tie—and was now pressing a gun into her throat. “Let him go,” he said.
Patricia snapped her now completely scale-covered head in the gunman’s direction, her yellow eyes narrowing with anger. The spikes that protruded from her upper back rose more fully. She was a terrifying sight, even for Suzie.
Seeing what was happening, Patricia dropped the man she’d been holding. He fell to the sidewalk in an ungraceful heap then got up and dusted off his knees, laughing as he did so. “Wow. I mean—that was amazing. It’s one thing to see you on video, but in person. They’re going to come out of the woodwork to see this.”
Patricia flexed, and the scales along her right arm rippled. She didn’t say anything. It was scarier when she didn’t.
Suzie kept still, waiting to see what would happen. She could feel anger crackling off of Patricia like lightning and prayed it wouldn’t make her do anything stupid. Suzie wasn’t the bulletproof one. She expected her captor to turn his gun on the Lizard Woman—most criminals would—but he didn’t. Instead, he kept it pushed against Suzie’s neck, increasing the pressure when Patricia took a step towards him, as if he planned to stab Suzie with it instead of shooting her.
He started to tug Suzie backwards and she went limp, trying to turn herself into dead weight. It didn’t do much good. He was a big man. He pulled her up onto his hip and simply carried her, shoving the gun into her ribcage. He made sure Patricia could see what he was doing before he walked away.
“Come on then,” said the Indian man in the shiny shirt, starting to follow them. “You’ve got another date tonight.” Suzie saw him stop and pick up her purse, wrapping the strap around his wrist. She tried to memorize his face. She planned to make sure this man got what was coming to him.
They must have made an odd sight, the large man mostly carrying the small blonde woman, while the Lizard Woman of Springfield and an Indian man with his shiny shirt open nearly to the waist followed them a few steps behind. Suzie didn’t struggle, conserving her energy for a single hit when she had an opportunity to make good use of it.
The men probably thought that meant that she had already given up, and that was fine with her. It wasn’t always a bad thing to have people underestimate you, especially your enemies. She swiveled her head around, looking for someone to make eye contact with, someone who might be able to call for help. But the men had chosen their moment well. This part of the park was completely deserted.
These guys had recognized Patricia in her human form, which showed they’d done some research. Not that Patricia had been especially careful. She wasn’t big on the protect-your-secret-identity thing, trusting instead in her ability to defend herself should the need arise.
The plastic was digging into Suzie’s wrists where they pressed against the man’s hard chest. She was pretty sure he was wearing Kevlar or something like it under his shirt. If not, then he was something more than human himself. She wanted to shift her position, to take some pressure off, but didn’t want to squirm in her captor’s arm like some kind of fish. She also didn’t know how sensitive his weapon might be. She’d been learning a bit about firearms—even the office staff had basic weapons training at the UCU—but she hadn’t been able to get a look at the gun yet.
Then she was being shoved into the passenger seat of a van. A bag was placed over her head. It smelled of perfume and the sweet scent nearly gagged her. She could hear Patricia objecting, but the Indian man told her she needed to get in the back “like a good girl” if she ever wanted to see her girlfriend alive again. The big man who was apparently still standing next to Suzie laughed harshly. There were sounds of metal doors sliding closed and then the vehicle was moving.
Suzie tried to track their turns and distances, but quickly realized that, without a visual reference, it was futile exercise. She wondered where her purse was, and if her cell phone was still in it. The men didn’t talk as the van moved through traffic. Patricia was silent in the back and Suzie worried about what they’d done to restrain her. In her lizard form, Patricia’s flesh was tough enough to deflect bullets, but that didn’t make her completely invulnerable. Not that it would stop her from taking terrible risks. Suzie found herself hoping that these thugs had restrained her properly, so at least Patricia wouldn’t be able to hurl herself from a moving vehicle or something equally crazy.
After twenty or maybe thirty minutes, Suzie could hear the van’s tires moving over gravel instead of pavement. That meant they’d either gone to the industrial parks that bordered Springfield on the north, or to some private estate on the east. Suzie couldn’t think of a single place that would have a long stretch of gravel road within thirty minutes of downtown in the other directions.
When the van had come to a stop, one of the men tugged her out of the vehicle and tried to pull her along. Suzie stumbled exaggeratedly on the gravel. It wasn’t a hard sell, especially given her high heeled shoes, and, as she had hoped, her frustrated captor yanked the bag off her head. “Better?” he asked.
Suzie nodded, taking a moment to memorize the man’s face. He was a meaty sort of man, broad in shoulder and brow alike. White, around forty or forty-five years old, with a nice jagged scar across his left cheek that should make him easy for the UCU to track down. All she had to do was get word to them. The thug had her purse in the crook of his arm, and Suzie fought to keep a straight face when she saw it. If she could get a moment unobserved within a few yards of her purse, she could activate the Bluetooth headset that had gone unnoticed beneath her cloud of blond curls. She had programmed a few emergency voice commands that could get a rescue team dispatched.
The Indian man and Patricia didn’t come in with them. Suzie walked out ahead of her captor, who kept his gun pressed into her lower back and shadowed her steps in a way that kept his body close to hers. Not wanting to invite any more physical contact than necessary, Suzie kept up as quick a pace as she could manage while still trying to make note of their surroundings. They must have gone north, because they were in a wide parking lot ringed with large, warehouse-style buildings. She couldn’t see any company logos and guessed the buildings were either unoccupied or unlabeled on the back side.
On the other hand, the big beige monstrosity she was being directed toward had a giant vinyl banner stretched across the outside wall, advertising a cage match between The Lizard Woman of Springfield and The Crocodile. The image of Patricia was pixilated, obviously pulled from one of the cell phone videos circulating
on YouTube. “The Crocodile” wasn’t pictured.
Now the comment about people “coming out of the woodwork” made sense. They were planning to put Patricia on display and to use Suzie to make her fight someone. Suzie didn’t know what made her angrier: the plan itself, or the way they were using her to make it work. These guys were going to pay. She’d see to that. One way or another.
When they got to the door, the gunman pulled Suzie against his side and knocked on the door with the gun. He stepped back, tugging Suzie along with him. After a moment or two the door swung open and a young man peeked around the corner. He had long muscled arms, a lean, wiry frame, and long, dark hair that covered most of his face. “Where’s Rohit?” The man spoke as if he had his mouth full.
“Supervising,” the armed thug holding Suzie said, gesturing back towards the van.
The young newcomer flipped his hair back, and Suzie suppressed a gasp at the sight of him. The man’s face was disfigured. His cheeks were bumpy and scaly, but a pale brown flesh color, rather than green like Patricia’s scales. Something was distorted about his mouth. It was elongated and snout-like, and teeth protruded from the top and bottom like stalactites and stalagmites. He had large, soulful brown eyes with a bit of gold in them—bedroom eyes, that might have made him quite a lothario, had they been featured in a less terrifying face. This had to be The Crocodile—Patricia’s opponent.
To all appearances, he was just a human with a skin condition and minor malformation of the jaw. Were they really going to put this boy up against Patricia? He was no match for her. He and Suzie sized each other up for a moment, then the young man turned and stalked off. Suzie watched him, considering what use she might make of the fear and hesitation she’d read in those lovely liquid-brown eyes. “Come on,” he called back, “Let’s get her in the box. We need to make sure the Lizard can see her.”
The room they took her to was a mostly bare box with a large glass window that face out to the floor below. The big guy shoved her and she stumbled against the glass awkwardly, trying to use the momentum of the fall to activate the button on her Bluetooth headset, but the angle was wrong. She just ended up bruising her cheek. She didn’t get much of a look before the brute pulled her back away from the window, but she did see a cage under some lights at the center of a large and empty room.
The man tossed her purse into a corner, then shoved her into a chair and slipped some kind of strap across her chest and another across her ankles. Like she’d been taught in her orientation trainings, Suzie pushed her body out as wide as she could and held it flexed while the man affixed her straps. Even an inch or two of wiggle room could make a difference when she got an opportunity to make use of it. She wasn’t sure it had done any good. The straps felt pretty darn tight.
“You got this? I should go help Ro.”
The Crocodile nodded and began fiddling with some video equipment in the corner of the room. A bright light came on and Suzie could see her own image on a television screen at the top of the window, a feed she was sure would be visible to Patricia as well.
“So you’re the Crocodile?” she said.
The boy grimaced, but didn’t answer. He continued to fiddle with the camera.
“Are you really going to fight the Lizard Woman?”
He stepped over to the window, turning his back to her.
“Aren’t you worried about her claws? You’ve seen the videos, right?”
“Let me worry about that. You should be more worried about what’s going to happen to you.” There was something hollow in the threat. It felt like a line he’d been fed from somewhere. He puffed out his chest, which only made him seem younger. “She’s just a woman. And Ro’s a genius. The armor he designed will protect me,” the boy went on, a note of little brother pride unmistakable in the brag. Next he was going to tell her that his dad could beat up her dad.
Suzie wasn’t impressed. “But you’re the one who will be in there with her.”
The boy moved quickly for the first time, his hands balling into fists. Suzie braced, fully expecting that she had pushed him too far and that he was going to strike her. But the door opened, and he let his hand fall. Suzie turned her head as far as she could and caught a sideways glimpse of shiny-shirt man, whom she now knew had to be Rohit. “She’s in the cage. We all set here?”
The boy nodded. “The camera will feed live to the screen in the cage.”
Rohit smiled. He pulled the younger man into an embrace, then pushed him back. Resting one hand on each of the other man’s shoulders, he looked into his face. “We’ve got this. The armor will keep you safe. One night, one fight, and we’ll have all the money we need. You’ve got this.”
The boy ducked his head, seeming to agree. His hair covered his face again, so Suzie had no idea what expression it bore. She could see the tension in his body as he moved to the door to take his leave.
When they were alone, Rohit rolled his neck, popping it noisily. He walked up to the glass. With his hands in his pockets, he rocked back and forth on his heels. Suzie put a whine into her voice. “What are you going to do to me?” It wasn’t a bad performance, even if she hadn’t been able to muster tears to go with it.
“Don’t worry Blondie. So long as your girlfriend does her part, nothing too bad will happen to you.”
Suzie looked into the camera, wondering if Patricia was watching this conversation. “What have you done with her?”
“She’s in her place, waiting.”
“Can I see her?” Suzie didn’t have to fake the catch in her voice, though she was worried for different reasons than this scumbag had assumed.
“Sure, Sweetheart. Let’s have a little motivational pep talk. After all, the crowd should get what it’s paying for.” Rohit clicked something on the remote he was holding and then the screen was split. The left half showed Patricia, standing in the center of a cage, her body only partially armored—Patricia must be conserving her energy, too. The right half showed Suzie’s own pale face, washed out under the extra bright light, one cheek purpled.
Suzie could have sworn that Patricia’s eyes flashed red, but it was probably just the glare from the camera lens. “I’m all right,” she said.
Patricia growled and moved a step forward.
“Now, now, love, I wouldn’t do that,” said Rohit, bending down behind Suzie to put his face next to hers, his cheek stubble scraping at her ear. “Those bars are electrified, remember? You already found that out the hard way once.”
Patricia stopped, cradling a visibly charred forearm and glaring at the cage. She looked straight into the camera, raising her spikes menacingly. “If you lay a hand on her . . .”
Rohit ran a hand down Suzie’s cheek. “There’s no reason to mess up such a pretty face. Not so long as you do as you’re told.”
Suzie resisted the urge to bash her head against Rohit’s face. It would have made her feel better, but it wouldn’t help the overall situation. This wasn’t her moment. Not yet. She pulled away from Rohit’s grasp and he stood and clicked off the television.
Suzie tugged at the plastic bands binding her wrists. There was a rough edge sticking out and Suzie pressed so it would slide across the bony part of the wrist. She wriggled it until she felt a warm, moist trickle of blood. She moaned softly. “Please, my wrists. They hurt so much.” Suzie looked up at him through her hair, opening her eyes wide as to appear frightened and vulnerable.
It worked. His face softened. He knelt behind her chair and tsked when he saw the blood. Suzie could hear the slow spring noise of a pocket knife opening and then her wrists were free. She twisted to bring them into her lap, leaving a smear of blood across her skirt, and rubbed them. She hoped the man would leave her hands unbound, but apparently he was more wily or cautious than that. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and folded it into a triangle, then used it to bind her wrists together. It wasn’t as good as she’d hoped for, but the change still afforded her quite a bit of freedom of movement, at least for her lower
arms, and that opened up possibilities. “Thank you,” she said breathily.
A radio crackled. “Ro?”
He picked it up. “Yes?”
“You set? Should I open the doors? The crowd is getting antsy out here.”
Rohit shot an assessing look at Suzie. She slumped in her seat. He clicked the radio again. “I’d better make sure Sai is ready. Five minutes.” He walked to the door, pulled it open, then called back over his shoulder. “You just stay put, Sweetheart. It’ll all be over soon.” And he was gone.
Suzie didn’t waste any time. She stretched her arm up as high as her restraints allowed and bowed her head painfully until she could push the button on the Bluetooth headset still clipped around her ear with a knuckle. “S.O.S,” she said, and was gratified with a whooshing sound from her purse in the corner of the room. It was a preset command that sent a text message to the team on call and enabled the GPS signal in her phone. Now, no matter what happened, help was on the way.
Not that she was going to stay put and wait. There was no way they would put Patricia on display like some kind of animal. No matter what Rohit claimed, the so-called crocodile was just a man. Still a boy really. Suzie wouldn’t be surprised if his age still had a “teen” at the end of it. Even before she’d grown scales and armor, Patricia would have made mincemeat of him, high tech armor or not. Now, with Suzie being threatened to motivate Patricia, he didn’t stand a chance.
Just in case Patricia could still see her, she turned to the camera, winked and blew a kiss. It was the best she could do to signal that she was okay.
Then, she started rocking the chair back and forth. She’d done this once in a training session, but was pretty sure they had taken it easy on her. People tended to do that, and Suzie was guilty of letting them when it meant she could avoid pain or hard physical labor. She didn’t remember it being so difficult to get the chair to fall. When she finally succeeded, she wished she hadn’t. Her head bounced against the wooden back of the chair, and she saw stars. She had to just lay there for what felt like ten minutes, but was probably more like two.
