Prisoner, page 54
part #2 of The Contractors Series
Eventually, they reached a square that had to be the marketplace. Daniel immediately noticed a building that stood out from the rest, because it was painted bright blue, with a dark tan trim. He didn’t care for the colors much, but the well-kept exterior lent it a sense of legitimacy, like the opulent architecture outside an old bank. Surrounding the square were wooden stalls, packed shoulder-to-shoulder in front of the buildings, many with colorful draperies. People were shouting, talking, and trading, and for the first time, he saw a few individuals not dressed in the brown robes. It was by far the nicest part of the crypt that Daniel had seen.
“What is this place?” Daniel asked.
“First time in the crypt, I knew it when I saw you.” Sulashoun smiled again and opened his palms, like a real estate agent proudly displaying the granite countertops of a kitchen. “This is the marketplace. It is run by our team, in the main building, there. Pinnacle is Hell’s premier merchant organization. Most stalls are our businesses; the blue awnings. The different colors are merchants from other teams that pay us a small fee to trade in this space in safety.”
“It has to be expensive to keep people down here,” Daniel said. “10 points is a lot when you start to add it up over time.”
“So it is, but so also the crypt forms a crossroads, of sorts,” Sulashoun said. “Death leads here, from every floor. Rare items can be found and trades made between factions far distant. Some arrange suicides to intentionally come trade, then return home.”
“Are you telling me,” Daniel said, “that people kill themselves to come here and trade with you guys?”
“So it is,” Sulashoun said. “Humans are rare—I know you must be from Purgatory. And with you, rare items, perhaps?”
Daniel smirked. Unlike him, Sulashoun wasn’t new at this. Clearly there was a reason his team was paying the bill for him to stay down here—he had a good eye. Or a good ear, in this case. It might be exactly his strategy to hang out by the teleport booths, looking for this kind of opportunity. “Maybe I do,” Daniel said.
“I thought as much,” Sulashoun said, chuckling lightly. “If you please?”
Sulashoun led Daniel from the bustle of the trading post and into the main building. The place was packed; most waited in lines in front of a long counter, trading their valuables for points. It again reminded Daniel of a bank—on Friday afternoon, with people lined up to cash their checks. Others were gathered in circles in the lobby, discussing the day’s trades or negotiating prices of specific items. Lounge seating offered places to linger in comfort, and two grazul were running a bar on the far side of the room, their many arms helping them quickly serve customers.
Daniel glanced at a series of displays on the wall, opposite the counter. Most of the screens showed pictures of what looked like gemstones, though they varied in color, shape, and size. They updated themselves regularly, flickering through numbers and types on a cycle. Dozens of demons were gathered in front of them, discussing amongst themselves and watching intently, as if it were all a miniature stock exchange. Messengers flittered between groups, sometimes retreating through doors in the back of the hall, sometimes entering again, often with paper notes clutched in their hands, which they would exchange with the groups outside. Daniel realized that, without armbands to make calls, inmates in the crypt must rely on physically exchanging information.
Seeing the technology made Daniel realize he hadn’t spotted any of the usual flying cameras. He knew that enforcers had their own cameras that were public viewing—that might be enough for the generally boring circumstances of the crypt. Maybe there were cameras, and he just couldn’t see them. Still, he doubted the audience was interested much in internal tradesmanship between prisoners.
“Impressive, isn’t it?” Sulashoun said. Daniel nodded, not wanting to reveal even more ignorance. He was lucky enough already that Sulashoun hadn’t figured out who he was. “We do a great amount of business in mana crystals. They’re the only thing Hell really produces—aside from entertainment, of course.”
Daniel nodded in pretend understanding. Whatever mana crystals were, they were valuable. They must have something to do with magic. He imagined a place called the Crystal Mines might have one or two of those lying around.
Sulashoun led him to a door at the end of the counters and opened it for him. There were fewer demons in the back hallways, mostly undines. Sulashoun guided him to a private room and sat down with him, offering him some green sludge from a cooler set against the wall. Daniel waved it off.
He expected Sulashoun to finally ask what he wanted to trade, but when the demon remained quiet, Daniel decided to prompt him. “What are we waiting for?”
“For a guest such as yourself, my superior shall negotiate,” Sulashoun said. “I request your patience.”
“Sure, sure,” Daniel said.
Almost as soon as he spoke the words, the door opened again. A dwarf—fat, even by their standards—waddled into the room. He plunged himself into the seat opposite Daniel, causing his beard to sit awkwardly over the table. He tucked it into his lap. “Sulashoun, why don’t you...” the dwarf paused. “Human? Ah. That explains it.”
“Might I ask your leave, so that I can continue...” Sulashoun trailed off.
“Yes, yes,” the dwarf said, batting a hand at him. Sulashoun gave Daniel a half-bow, then left the room. The dwarf eyed Daniel up and down. “Can’t say I’ve heard of you, and I try to keep track of humans. Where you from? Purgatory?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Daniel said. “I’m here to trade.”
The dwarf slammed a fist on the table, making Daniel jump in his seat—but the demon bawled out a laugh. “See, this is why I like humans! Undines are great salesmen but sometimes you want to get to the point. Still, that’s why Pinnacle stands at the top, we balance each other out!” The dwarf opened his hands. “What are you selling?”
“A weapon,” Daniel said. “It can give you access to 25% of your magic for 5 minutes.”
“Mmm. Mmhmm. 5 minutes?”
“Yes.”
“And how many of these do you have?”
“Several,” Daniel lied, “but I’m only selling one.”
“I see. 5 minutes, huh? 5 minutes...” The dwarf ran his hand down his beard. His pudgy nose wiggled a bit as he considered. “Alright. I can do 5,000 points for one of them.”
Daniel had no idea the actual cost of the thing, but even still, 5,000 points was far more than he was expecting. If he was being undercut—which he probably was—the actual value might be two or three times that price.
Daniel decided to gamble, doing his best to keep his voice steady. “5,000? I was hoping for at least 10,000.”
“Ten? You must be out of your mind,” the dwarf said. “Six. I can’t imagine paying any higher.”
“Better start dreaming, buddy. I’m not settling for less than 9,000 points.”
“That’s ridiculous,” the dwarf said. “You’re coming to us to trade, here. Tell you what. I like you, I like your style. 7,000.”
“I can’t go lower than eight,” Daniel said. “I could get more if I auctioned the thing in public.”
The dwarf scratched his chin. “Want to skip the rest of this part and split the difference at 7,500?”
“Done,” Daniel said.
“Thank goodness,” the dwarf said. “If it was an undine, you wouldn’t get out of here until you were down to 5 point increments, I’ll have you know.”
Daniel cocked an eyebrow. “Glad I got a dwarf, then.”
“Yeah, that makes two of us,” the dwarf said. “Alright, you wait here. I have to visit our vault to withdraw the points directly, security reasons. Be back shortly.” The dwarf stopped near the door. “By the way, are you here on behalf of a team from Purgatory, or—”
“It’s an independent trade,” Daniel said quickly.
“Ah. Understood. Back in a moment.”
The door clumped shut as the dwarf went off to get the money. Daniel sighed and slackened back into his chair. He wouldn’t be able to jump straight back to Purgatory, but his money worries were gone for the moment. He’d gotten away a lot better than he’d hoped, and he could avoid the mines altogether. There had to be a team out there willing to ignore the Order if it meant they had Daniel on their side. Maybe he could do some mercenary work, earn some cash working for different teams. Then it was back to Purgatory to fight Bathory again. Somehow.
He could go after other teams in Purgatory, first. Thanks to Beelzebub, his contractor magic would still absorb those he killed up there, so he could become more powerful, then challenge Bathory again. It was unlikely he’d get as lucky with the choice of arena, but hopefully by that time could overpower her. Their fight had been close, at times—close enough that he was willing to try again.
The biggest barrier was going to be arranging another duel. He wouldn’t have the backing of another large team to justify the move, so he’d have to somehow force Bathory into another confrontation. If he could leverage his popularity as a human fighter and maintain his momentum, he could propel himself back up to Purgatory. PrisonWatch was always hungry for ratings—he could use that to pressure her into a grudge match.
As a path forward opened up in his mind, Daniel felt the weight come off his shoulders. His flickering flame of hope, about to be blown out, was now a light at the end of the tunnel. He took a breath and sat straighter. He could do this.
Daniel’s face darkened. He would do this. And he would find out what happened to Jack. There was no way their whole time together was an act. Jack was a pretty terrible liar. If the Order was somehow involved, he’d take them to task—by force, if he had to.
If it really came down to it, Daniel had something even Bathory and Dracula couldn’t reproduce. Unlike every other inmate, if Daniel killed someone in Purgatory, they stayed dead. His actions could end the farce permanently, rip away the security blanket that let them all keep at each other’s throats without rest.
All he had to do was get back.
The door slammed open. Daniel turned, startled. Three trolls and a dwarf—the one he’d been speaking to—barreled into the room. The first troll punched Daniel in the back of the head hard enough to knock him out of his chair and onto the table. He rebounded and hit the floor hard.
“Put him on the wall! Don’t let him use his armlet!”
Daniel was grabbed under the shoulders and pinned up high, high enough that his feet were dangling off the ground. Two trolls had him on either side; the third stood in front, club raised and ready to swing. The dwarf walked up to him and looked him up and down like a butcher eyeing a slab of meat.
“What the hell?!” Daniel shouted. He blinked blood out of his eyes from a weeping cut on his forehead. “I thought we had a deal!”
“You were banished from the Order of the Dragon and you want to trade with us? Not in this lifetime, you damn cave rat.”
“The Order hates demons!” Daniel said.
“Yeah, Dracula doesn’t make a secret about that,” the dwarf said. “And they’d have no problem squashing us like a bug for associating ourselves with you. No human they send down comes back up, not one, not ever, and that’s the way it is. There’s no messing in human business unless you want to be split open like a rotten egg!”
“What? What are you talking about?!”
“And you shoulda known better,” the dwarf said, rolling over Daniel’s question. “Coming in here and acting like you’re a little lost pixie that wants to make a trade? You insulting us? Trying to get us destroyed?”
“That’s not what it was, I swear,” Daniel said. “I’m not working with anyone else. I want to trade my item and leave. I won’t tell anyone!”
“It’s already on camera that you walked in here,” the dwarf said. He raised his own armlet and pressed a few buttons. “Now you’ve got a choice to make. Either you hand over that item and we let you go, or we beat the hell out of you and send the recording to Rasputin for that bounty of his.”
Daniel stared at him. “You people are full of crap. That mermaid gave me a bunch of lines about reputation, and now you’re robbing me!?”
The dwarf gestured. The troll swung the club, slamming Daniel in the stomach. Daniel lurched and spat out air as something in him crunched. He coughed and spluttered as he tried to get his breath, but it wouldn’t come. His lungs started burning.
Eventually, the healing magic went to work on him. The space around his midsection rippled, and suddenly, he could draw a breath. He sucked it in, then coughed as the rest of him healed itself back up. The other occupants of the room sat there, watching the process patiently while Daniel’s abdomen returned to its proper shape.
“Let’s try this again,” the dwarf said. “The bounty for killing you, beating the hell out of you, or otherwise making your life difficult, is very high. Higher than what we’d be able to get even if we resold your weapon. So you hand that sucker over to us, and we let you go out the back door and that’ll be the end of it. Then we get to tell Rasputin we robbed you, we get something out of it to make it worth our while, and you get to walk away in one piece, so we’re all happy. Or, we beat you to death, right here and now.” The dwarf moved closer, until he was staring right up at Daniel. “With all this magic healing you up, that’ll take a while, don’t you think?”
Daniel spat on him.
The dwarf wiped his face with his sleeve, then hacked a short laugh. “Straightforward as usual. I hope that was satisfying, cause you’re gonna be in a lot of pain very shortly.”
The club came in again, and as soon as the air left him, a punch from the dwarf caught him across the chin. Daniel’s head snapped back the other way, and another blow caught him right in the throat. He could hear something delicate snap. He couldn’t breathe.
The blows rained down on him. He couldn’t move. They hit his stomach, beat on his chest. When they got bored with that, they took the club to his legs, bashing his knees in the wrong way.
Daniel screamed at that—tried to. It came out like garbled phlegm.
He convulsed, spat blood. It ran down his chin.
Another punch slammed into his jaw, and the world spun. A tooth fell out of his mouth. His head rang and buzzed. More fists caught him in the face, treating his head like a punching bag between their fists and the wall behind him.
He faded in and out; his attention would come back long enough to feel the hurt, and the ache, and then another strike would get him in the head, and it would all wash out again.
But eventually, the blows stopped.
His lungs strained to breathe. He throbbed all over. His eyes were swollen so much he could hardly see.
His legs cracked and reformed; it felt like someone rearranging nails inside his thighs and ankles. His jaw—which was disturbingly lopsided—shunted back in place. Teeth replaced themselves one by one, little daggers shooting through his gums. His ribs straightened one at a time, as if a hand reached into him and yanked them back where they belonged.
Air found its way to him again, but it was all spent on coughing. He coughed for what felt like minutes, until he could finally breathe properly. And with that, he could think straight again.
He wasn’t sure what was worse—the beating, or the healing afterward, while he was still conscious to feel it all happen.
Daniel was finally able to open his eyes. Blood covered the floor, dotted the clothes of his assailants. His robes were stained with it. Bits and pieces—of him—were scattered on the floor. He recognized one of his teeth sitting on the table.
The dwarf was seated past that. He picked up the tooth, examined it, then flicked it at Daniel. It hit his clothes and tacked onto the floor.
“So, Daniel Fitzgerald,” the dwarf said. It pulled a knife out of its robes, a long, nasty-looking thing with a hook on the opposite end of the hilt. “Are you gonna give us that item, or do we really have to go to work on you? Because what we just did to you probably wouldn’t be enough for the terms of the bounty.” The dwarf’s gaze sat on him like a lead weight, and it had none of the mirth or good humor from before. The friendly merchant was gone, replaced by hard, stony ruthlessness. “I’d want to get some extra footage. Just to be sure.”
Daniel shivered on the wall, still pinned up by the trolls. Their breath came heavy on him, snorted through tusk-lined mouths and smelling like compost.
He couldn’t give up his weapon. It was his only lifeline. But how long were they going to keep him here? How long was this going to last? He would heal up again, sure—but the idea of getting beat up like that over and over turned into a dark lump in the pit of his stomach.
If he’d known how bad it would be, maybe he would’ve given it to them right off the bat.
The dwarf got up and came closer. Daniel flinched as he raised the knife. The dwarf stayed there, knife positioned to stab into his stomach. Daniel’s mind flashed back to Bathory’s wide-eyed grin.
“We both know you’re gonna capitulate,” the dwarf said. “I don’t enjoy this any more than you do. So. Decision time.” The dwarf extended his other hand. “Give over the orb, kid. Let’s get this over with.”
“No,” Daniel said. His voice shook like a rusty wind chime as he forced the words out. “I won’t. We made a deal!”
The dwarf heaved a defeated sigh. “Gotta be a tough guy. Gotta prove it to yourself, huh? But I have to say, I like your attitude. Most would’ve backed out right at the start. Most would be pissing their pants right now.”
The dwarf jammed the knife into Daniel’s thigh, all the way to the hilt. Daniel shouted as it went in; his leg spasmed, but they kept him forced up against the wall without budging. He grit his teeth; his breath rushed in and out as he tried to hold in the rising pain.
