Black Scorpion (5 page)

He'd read that every inch of the hotel had been designed to provide the desired effect for guests of moving from the mundane present into a majestic and ancient past offering the spirit of adventure, right from the moment they passed through the entrance. A forest of golden ionic columns greeted them, stretching upward from the black marble lobby floor adorned with live exotic flowers from the radiant golden iris to rare red poppies. The effect left Devereaux feeling he was standing not so much in a place, as a state of mind. And the state of mind of the Seven Sins conjured visions of glamour and dreams, where opulence and decadence somehow co-existed.

Devereaux had shaken himself from the trance and continued his scrutiny of the setting, forcing himself to view his surroundings in much more of a detached manner, not a typical guest. Because he was here on business, vital business. Not pleasure, not even close. Indeed, it was the pain suffered by others that had drawn him here.

As luck would have it, he'd now be staying in one of the Daring Sea suites erected on ten floors beneath ground level with one entire wall offering view into a massive underwater environment prowled by the only great white sharks to ever survive in captivity. One section of the lobby floor was glass as well, allowing strollers a clear view of marine life captured in a perfectly recreated ocean habitat. Those wishing a longer and better view of the great whites themselves need only wait in line to view “Red Water,” an elegant and, for some, wicked spectacle of nature that encompassed the creatures' feeding time.

Devereaux found that to be an apt metaphor for what had drawn him here. Because he'd come to Las Vegas on the trail of a monster.

And he believed that trail led to the Seven Sins.

“One more thing, Mr. Devereaux,” the concierge, Melissa, was saying from behind the desk.

“Yes?” he responded, trying not to sound nervous.

She slid a piece of paper toward him. “Here at the Seven Sins, five percent of the proceeds from your stay will be donated to charity. You can check one of those on this form or write a charity of your own choice below.”

Devereaux took the page and grabbed a pen from a nearby resting place. “A wonderful gesture.”

“Just the way we do business here. Mr. Tiranno believes everything is possible, including helping those in need dream as well.”

“I couldn't agree more,” Devereaux told her

Only my dream,
he thought,
is to catch a monster.

 

EIGHT

L
AS
V
EGAS,
N
EVADA

Michael's thoughts became a blur, swirling about, past and present becoming one. He felt detached from his body, as if he were standing outside himself viewing his own motions.

Tess, the second Tyrant Girl, had shrunk back against the rear of the cage, cowering when Segura reached out and grabbed her by the hair. The Executioner was grinning, as if he intended to make the second Tyrant Girl an offering to a crowd just starting to realize that things had veered off-script.

Segura yanked Tess toward him, twisting his hand to aim her face upward for the lights. He paid Michael no heed whatsoever, so his attack caught the giant utterly by surprise.

Holding the Tyrant girl by the hair had left Segura's arm bent awkwardly at the elbow, a weakness Michael exploited by looping in and around him. He clamped his right hand on the giant's wrist while jamming his left hand directly under Segura's elbow.

Then pushed down with his right.

And up with his left.

Segura's arm snapping at the elbow was as loud as a gunshot. His fingers jerked open, and Michael seized the opportunity to shove Tess protectively behind him.

The crowd roared its appreciation, loving the show, the spectacle.

Segura's eyes had filled with uncertainty, trepidation even, sweat coiling across his upper lip. The sensation of potential defeat, of being hurt the way he had hurt so many others, unsettled him to the point where Michael thought for a moment he might yield, give up the effort, then and there.

But just a moment.

Because the giant's eyes found Michael in their grasp and bulged with rage. The pain in his shattered elbow joint must've struck him in that very moment because he uttered an inhuman wail as he lurched across the ring. Michael left himself positioned to shield the second Tyrant girl, placing him at an odd angle to mount a defense. Still, he was able to deftly duck under a blow from Segura's good arm, never anticipating the blow from the giant's injured arm that followed immediately. It smashed Michael in the right shoulder, stunning him as he whirled away.

The crowd uttered a collective gasp, more murmurs rising through the clutter of faces continuing to grasp this wasn't a show at all.

Michael felt a stinging burst of pain and then a stiff numbness that made his arm drop like a lead weight hanging from his shoulder. The sense of it being detached from his body was no more than an illusion he fought through, aware that Segura was stalking him across the ring. Bouncing up and down on bare feet with both good arm and bad, incredibly, held up in a punching position. Rage filled his eyes and in that instant Michael understood all too well how Segura had managed to remain undefeated through so many bouts. There was something feral in his gaze that unleashed itself in the ring. Segura couldn't bear not to emerge the clear and dominant victor, even in a charity exhibition, unable to separate that out in the part of his brain that rendered him invincible in a title contest.

Michael moved about the ring in rhythm with the giant, shadowing his motions, dimly aware of the frames of Segura's entourage crumpling in Alexander's wake. Alexander now fighting to open the cage door still pinned by Kim's unconscious form. Beyond that, the dim lighting in the arena beyond turned the sea of faces into an endless mishmash of indiscernible features lost in a swirl of emotions.

Michael twisted away from a high snap kick that managed to clip his ear, stinging him with pain anew. A kick for the knee from the giant's other leg followed which Michael deflected. Segura followed up with a wild series of roundhouse blows Michael first parried, then countered with a quick flurry of strikes among feigned kicks to lure the giant to defend his lower half, shrinking his size in the process. The next moment found Michael behind the giant, lashing a kick to the back of his right knee, buckling it and then missing with a follow-up blow when Segura leaped into the air, spinning round to face him anew when he landed. He carried his broken arm stiff by his side, flexing the fingers to keep the blood flowing, and ready somehow to use it again if necessary.

Michael was not a mixed martial artist, nor a cage fighter. The self-defense techniques he'd learned in secret, being revealed to the world beyond Alexander for the first time, were bred for outlasting an opponent in the streets. Fights to the death inevitably about survival, not title belts. He knew success was not about thought, but instinct. Think and you're dead.

Feel, react, respond …

And that's what Michael did. He
felt
Segura launch himself into a bull rush a split instant before the giant dropped down. So, as Segura's huge arms moved to wrap Michael up, Michael had already clamped his hands over the giant's bald skull, fingers lacing together to bring his face down as Michael's knee came up.

Impact was stunning. Michael felt Segura's nose compress, bone shattering and cartilage cracking, behind a burst of blood that sprayed downward. Then, as Segura's head whiplashed back upward, Michael rode the momentum by taking hold of his already damaged arm and angling himself to cut the giant's legs out from under him. Michael had never practiced the move before, had never even seen the precise movement to mimic. Instinct had taken over, Michael reacting to a weakness gleaned from some primordial sense of thought normally foreign to civilized man. The world around him had slowed, everything crawling except his own motions. Sight sharpened. Sound vanished. Life unfolded in snippets held in memory as still shots.

One final knee launched upward against the side of the Executioner's skull.

Segura hitting the mat with enough force to rattle the cage.

The crowd going crazy, erupting in cheers and applause so loud Michael's ears bubbled.

“Tyrant, Tyrant, Tyrant!”

The chant resumed as Seven Sins security finally got the cage door open enough for Alexander to push himself through over the Tyrant Girl Kim's unconscious frame. He reached Michael just as he sank to his knees and the cheers hit a new crescendo.

“Tyrant, Tyrant, Tyrant!”

The crowd had leaped to its collective feet, especially the women rooting him on, a hero who'd vanquished a villain intending to do harm to innocents. The simplest of all stories, but also the most complex in his case for the pain that it carried and scars it had left inside him. Scars on the outside, the kind with which Dorado Segura was riddled, were nothing compared to those on the soul. Don Luciano had needed a notebook to remind him of his sins, but Michael needed no such ledger to remind him of his pain.

“Tyrant, Tyrant, Tyrant!”

 

NINE

L
AS
V
EGAS,
N
EVADA

Melissa escorted Devereaux toward the private bank of glass elevators reserved only for the underwater suites and extending ten levels down into the resort's Daring Sea.

“No other luggage?” she asked him.

“I travel light,” he said, wheeling his two carry-ons with one attached to the top of the other.

They reached the three elevators serving the Daring Sea suites and Melissa pressed the single button, lighting it up.

“You're not claustrophobic, are you, sir?”

“Not at all. Is there something I should be concerned about?”

Melissa smiled. “Just a question we're required to ask. Here at the Seven Sins even an elevator ride is an experience.”

It was indeed, Devereaux thought after the glass elevator began its slow descent into the Daring Sea. He might not have been claustrophobic, but there was something initially disconcerting about descending through water on all sides with tropical fish curving agilely around the glass. Imagine all this, in the middle of a
desert
yet! What kind of man could not only dream up such a thing, but also have the persistence and resources to make it a reality?

The kind of man I came here to find
, Devereaux thought. And he found himself staring up through the compartment's glass ceiling, noticing a frothy red film descending beyond, that sent the fish fleeing.

“A unique view of Red Water, Mr. Devereaux,” Melissa said, following his gaze.

“Red Water?”

“What we call feeding time for the resort's great white sharks. The fish scattered because sometimes the refuse of the feeding means Assassino and his friends aren't far behind.”

Suddenly the giant great white that drew tens of thousands of visitors to the Seven Sins on his own sped toward the elevator. Devereaux's breath bottlenecked in his throat, as the huge man-eater carved a thick swath through the water, coming straight for him and the glass before veering off at the very moment he was about to crash into it.

“Some of us actually believe Assassino has a sense of humor,” Melissa told him, smiling, “that he likes playing with people, despite the three sailors who fell overboard during his capture and were killed. Mr. Tiranno spent a fortune on the expedition that took six weeks to catch him and destroyed two boats in the process.”

Devereaux didn't ask her to elaborate further. He noticed the pendant, featuring the trademark crest of King Midas World and the Seven Sins, dangling from a chain around Melissa's neck.

“Lovely piece of jewelry,” he raised, when she caught him staring at it.

“And part of the uniform,” she said, forcing a smile that told Devereaux his gaze had lingered a bit too long.

He felt a
thunk
as the elevator stopped on the fourth underwater level. The elevator's glass door slid open and Melissa stood aside to allow Devereaux to pass.

“Right this way, sir.”

*   *   *

Devereaux's Daring Sea suite was beyond anything he could imagine, and he counted himself fortunate that his original reservation had been lost.

Melissa held the door open for him as he entered the suite toting his carry-on bags. It was like stepping into a submarine, albeit an ultra-luxurious one, behind a heavy bulkhead-like door. The far wall was composed entirely of glass that, according to the Web site, comprised three separate layers joined by a special polymer.

The world beyond in the Daring Sea was rich in all manner of marine life, much of it swimming past for him to view. He'd read about guests lucky enough to win a free stay in one of these suites as part of the casino's “Spend a weekend with a great white” promotion. The lights in Devereaux's suite automatically snapped on when he entered. Melissa propped the door open and followed him inside.