Kill Baxter (4 page)

Ed smiles like a used-car salesman. ‘You do it and she’s all yours. I’ll throw in your little buddy’s textbooks for free too.’

Ronin looks at Ed, looks at the gun and sighs. ‘OK, fine. I’ll go speak to the goddamn goblin.’

THE BOWELFONG MUAY
Thai and MMA Gym is situated in the nether regions of Sea Point’s main road. It occupies the entire top floor of a building that also houses a Greek diner, a tattoo parlour, an adult shop and a trendy dog-grooming ‘creative studio’ that offers an endless variety of mullets and mohawks with which to humiliate your canine friends.

We climb the stairs amid the smashing, screeching, buzzing and yelping noises (not necessarily in that order) and push through a pair of swinging doors.

The gym smells like cheap deodorant. There are a couple of muscular dwarves kicking pads with their tree-trunk legs. The
ooooooof
that explodes from a pad being struck by dwarven shin bone makes me mentally note ‘being kicked by a dwarf’ as something that I really, really don’t want to happen to me.

But I’ve seen dwarves before. It’s the huge grey-skinned creatures in board shorts rolling, grappling and choking each other out on the blue gym mats that catch my attention. They’re ugly on a scale I never thought possible: bipedal bull terriers with fat necks, no noses and mouths that split their bullet-shaped heads open like wounds.

One of these things sits cross-legged on a cushion, flanked by two of his kind dressed in red Adidas tracksuits and watching the fighters throw each other about the mat. He takes ugliness to the next level, as if his face is trying to prove some point about the futility of beauty and happiness in a cruel world. He has a misshapen head, bulging eyes, and thick, coarse hair, like a shower cap made of pubes tugged over his scalp. His eyebrows are ridiculously sculpted like a geisha’s and one of them is pierced by several thick iron rings. He gives us a lopsided smile as we approach, revealing large jagged canines.

‘A goblin who wants to be a samurai. Norrd, you’re cute, has anybody ever told you that?’ Ronin says.

‘My concubines,’ Norrd replies in a rumbling hiss. ‘But they might be biased. Who’s your little friend?’ He reaches down and delicately pours a cup of tea from a Japanese tea set.

‘An agent.’

Norrd raises a manicured eyebrow. ‘A little young for an MK fascist, wouldn’t you say?’

‘Magic doesn’t have an age limit,’ Ronin says. ‘He’s a child prodigy.’

Norrd fixes me with a stare. I force myself to return it and try to put on a suitable powerful magician face but probably only succeed in looking constipated.

‘So,’ Norrd says in between sips of tea. ‘Shall I try and guess why you’re here, or do you just want to tell me?’

‘Ed says you’re squeezing him for protection money.’

‘Insurance,’ Norrd says. ‘That’s not illegal, is it?’

Ronin laughs. ‘Well I grant you you’re only slightly worse than regular insurers, but let’s not get into semantics. You’re squeezing Ed. I want you to stop.’

‘Oh well, if YOU want me to stop …’ Norrd picks imaginary lint off his kimono.

‘You don’t need the small change Ed pays you,’ Ronin says. ‘So why don’t we come to some sort of agreement?’

‘What can I say? My regular business has been disrupted by the internal politics of the Obayifo. They’re not producing things for me like they used to. It’s forced me to fall back on my more basic streams of income.’

‘Come on, Norrd, the faeries are probably trying to up payments again. Give them a little more and they’ll be producing your Fae-kong counterfeits again in no time.’

Norrd shakes his head. ‘Not this time. Ed’s just going to have to suck it up.’

‘Well then, why not start offering Pilates?’ Ronin says. ‘That’s what a lot of the other gyms are doing.’

I imagine lines of grunting goblin moms toning their post-natal core muscles. Not a nice thought.

‘Funny,’ Norrd says. ‘Almost as funny as what happened at the Flesh Palace. Is that what you’re here for, Ronin? To destroy a legitimate business?’

‘That was Basson,’ Ronin says.

‘Basson was part of MK6, was he not? And if the MK can’t control its employees, then why should we respect its authority?’

‘Because it will come in here and raze the place to the ground if you push it.’

Norrd smiles, his pointed little teeth shining with saliva. ‘That’s exactly what he said you’d say. He’s right. Humans are all the same: bullying, cowardly worms.’

‘Who is right?’ Ronin asks.

‘The one who is going to pay me for your teeth.’

He waves his hand and his goblin guards surround us. Up close, they smell of fungus and AXE deodorant.

Ronin’s hand is under his coat and he pulls out two handguns. In a heartbeat a goblin has a meaty forearm around my neck with a knife a millimetre away from my eyeball. Two of the tracksuited goblins step in front of Norrd, forming a protective barrier of grey flesh.

‘Well now you have a choice,’ Norrd says. ‘You can try shooting through them to get to me, but your little friend will be on the receiving end of an unfortunate brain puncture. Or you can put those guns down and come with me.’

Personally I don’t see much of a choice, but Ronin hesitates for several long moments before dropping the guns. The goblins strip him of the rest of his weapons and give me an invasive pat-down that I can’t help but think is karma for some of the terrible porn scenarios I’ve sold.

Norrd stands and beckons. ‘Please. Follow me.’ He leads us through the gym to an elevator surrounded by scratch-like runes. We pile in, Ronin and me in the middle surrounded by a phalanx of goblins. The lift descends and we stand silently listening to the pan-pipe version of ‘Sympathy for the Devil’.

We reach the basement and carry on going.

‘An outing to a goblin lair,’ Ronin says. ‘My, my, what did we do to deserve such an honour?’

‘You’re MK6.’ Norrd’s tongue licks his bottom lip. ‘You deserve far more than this.’

Eventually the elevator stops and the doors open to a darkness that seems to stretch for ever. I can hear the rough breath of the guards and the sound of my own heartbeat in my ears. I’m pushed forward through a series of turns. Finally light appears and I’m pathetically glad to see it.

We step out on to a walkway that spirals down into the earth. The walls are lined with dwellings, like high-rise flats in reverse. There are large grassy balconies that act as communal spaces. Goblin kids play among washing lines. A fat goblin in tight shorts and a Hawaiian shirt lying on a recliner in his front yard gives me a thumbs-up as we pass.

We descend into the goblin lair, passing shops, markets and even what looks like a hotel. The spiral walkway ends at a large stone amphitheatre plastered with posters for old movies. There’s a giant screen, and a thick wooden pole wrapped in razor wire with sharp steel spikes driven into it at regular intervals. It looks like some kind of industrial cactus.

‘Welcome to the Crimson Courtyard,’ Norrd says with a grin. ‘We mostly use it to watch music videos and TV series.’ He gestures to the wire-wrapped pole. ‘Although it does have other uses.’

An old Celine Dion concert is playing on the giant screen as we enter, and Norrd makes a kill-it motion, slashing his hand across his throat. The concert is paused and Celine is stopped mid-song, her face contorted like she’s caught in a perpetual scream.

‘I think I’ll pass,’ Ronin says.

‘Unfortunately your attendance is compulsory,’ Norrd says. ‘Please come and take your seats of honour.’

We’re led to the centre of the amphitheatre, next to the pole, and forced to our knees. Goblins begin to filter into the seats and fear starts to tingle in my fingers like little silver sparks. The audience chatters away, nudging, pushing, and imitating Celine’s screaming mouth with much amusement.

‘Now what?’ Ronin asks. ‘This goblin stink is going to make me throw up soon.’

‘Now we’re going to take your teeth,’ says Norrd. ‘And then your heads, as punishment for your complicity in the systematic oppression of the Hidden.’

‘Lovely. I take it your sudden interest in extreme dentistry has to do with this Muti Man degenerate?’

Norrd gives us a nasty little grin. ‘The Muti Man. Yes. I admit I was sceptical at first. He fucked with my business and I wasn’t happy about that. But he is very … persuasive.’

‘Rich, you mean?’ Ronin says.

‘The two tend to go hand in hand,’ Norrd replies. ‘That and he makes a lot of sense. He and his Bone Kraal have been organising us against the oppression of humans and dwarves. Like he says, separately we’re weak but together we’re strong.’

‘Do you want a bunch of pencils so that you can visually demonstrate what you mean?’ Ronin says.

A tracksuited goblin backhands him across the face and he sprawls on the bloody amphitheatre floor with a grunt. He pushes himself back to his knees and spits a mixture of blood and saliva at Norrd, but unfortunately the body-fluid cocktail falls short and splatters at the goblin’s pedicured feet.

‘Take their teeth,’ Norrd orders, and the goblin crowd begins to hoot and stamp in appreciation.

The goblin heavies grab us and Norrd produces a pair of ugly pliers and holds them up. The crowd roars with approval.

‘Fuck it, Ronin,’ I hiss, struggling to keep a dirty goblin hand from prising open my jaws. ‘Please tell me you didn’t bring me here just so that I could get my teeth ripped out and then be decapitated. Please, please, please, with motherfucking cherries on top, tell me that you have a reason for manoeuvring yourself into the middle of a goblin stronghold.’

‘I invoke Mazrech Sutial,’ Ronin shouts.

The crowd goes deathly silent, as if a mute button has been hit.

‘Tsk, tsk, tsk,’ Norrd says, coming to stand in front of us. His kimono starts to slip open and I jerk my head away. Just decapitate me now. The very last thing I need in this situation is full-frontal goblin. ‘Humans cannot invoke trial by combat.’

‘I believe you’ll find we can if we are on goblin land,’ Ronin says. ‘I’m certain the Kebra Bik,
skral
four, is pretty clear about this.’

Norrd frowns, and thankfully wraps his kimono tighter around his waist.

‘Consult the Kebra Bik,’ Ronin says like a schoolteacher talking to a particularly slow student. ‘Bit embarrassing really, a human knowing the goblin gospel better than you do.’

‘Shut your fucking mouth.’

‘Take their teeth!’ shouts a goblin in the crowd.

Norrd grimaces but shakes his head. ‘The bounty hunter is correct. They are entitled to trial by combat.’

‘What’s going on?’ I whisper to Ronin.

‘They have to let me fight. The Kebra Bik is their highest law.’

‘So we’re gonna be OK?’ I ask.

‘Well …’ Ronin says.

‘Well then, it’s a chain battle!’ Norrd shouts, and the crowd explodes into a frenzy of shouting, stamping and cackling. Norrd doesn’t look particularly pissed off and I’m getting a really, really bad feeling about this. ‘Far be it from me to stand in the way of a little friendly competition,’ he adds, clapping his hands together.

‘What’s chain battling?’ I whisper to Ronin. ‘Ronin! What the hell is chain battling?’

As it turns out, chain battling is the worst fucking idea anybody has ever had. The rules are as simple as they are insane. Two fighters are chained to the pole in the centre of the amphitheatre by one arm and proceed to beat the shit out of one another while trying to impale each other on the spikes and razor wire. Just a little family fun if you’re a goblin.

One of the tracksuited goblin bruisers offers Norrd a piece of sushi and he holds it delicately between his knuckly, hairy fingers. ‘Ready to meet your opponent?’ he asks.

‘One of them?’ Ronin nods smugly to the goblins flanking Norrd. ‘Or perhaps both of them? I don’t want it to be unfair. I’ll do it blindfolded.’

Norrd drops the sushi into his mouth and chews. ‘I’m afraid not, bounty hunter,’ he says through a mouthful of salmon.

There’s a low moan as a monstrosity is dragged by a chain into the amphitheatre. It’s a massive goblin, bluish in colour, with a bear-like snout and a coarse beard caked with ice. Its muscles are twisted and corded like ancient tree roots, arms hanging down with knuckles literally dragging on the floor. A runic sigil surrounded by flames is tattooed on the huge muscular slab of its deformed chest. It looks around, blinking against the light, its eyes rolling wildly in its head and its snout sniffing the air.

‘Oh,’ Ronin says, the self-confidence sliding off his face.

‘A Halzig,’ Norrd says. ‘I take it that wasn’t what you were expecting?’

Ronin attempts a nonchalant shrug and fails dismally.

‘Ice goblin,’ Norrd says to me. ‘Not indigenous to South Africa. I imported him from Greenland to fight and I’ve never had one second of buyer’s remorse.’

‘I take it this isn’t a good thing?’ I whisper to Ronin.

‘Let’s just say the Halzig are particularly adept at chain battle,’ he replies.

‘Looks like you haven’t been cured of making stupid decisions.’

‘You can’t be cured of that,’ Ronin says. ‘You can only go into remission.’

‘Don’t do this …’ I say.

‘Listen, there’s no getting out of it now.’ He puts a hand on my shoulder. ‘Watching humans die is a favourite goblin pastime.’

‘Why’s it always like this with you?’ I ask.

‘Like I’ve said before, I’m just a fun, dance-like-nobody-is-watching kinda guy,’ he says with a grin.

‘Try not to fucking die,’ I tell him.

The Halzig’s huge left arm is chained to the pole and it suddenly gains a sense of clarity and purpose, looking around for its victim with a murderous snarl.

Ronin, in a black vest and camo fatigues, rolls his shoulders and stretches his neck, then ties his long red hair back into a ponytail. He takes a packet of cigarettes from his pocket as the goblins chain his left arm to the pole.

‘Smoke?’ he offers, holding the packet out to the Halzig.

It gives a short howl and lunges at him. Ronin spins out of the way and entangles it in the chain long enough to light his smoke.