“Leave that on,” LeMarck ordered.
“Fuck you,” the giant roared. The straps gave with long tearing noises, and the body armor dropped to the floor. His naked chest, shoulders and abdomen rippled with sweat-slick muscles. “If I’m gonna die, I’m gonna die my way. Shirt makes too much color in the night. Like this, no one see me.”
LeMarck said nothing, stepping aside as five men moved into view at the railing. One of them Ryan recognized as Hardcoe. He guessed the others were barons, as well. All of them had bands tied around their left biceps. Hardcoe’s was red. The other colors were purple, orange, green and blue.
“I count nine in your color, Hardcoe,” a baron with green on his arm stated. Blue-jay feathers hung from his earrings, and his face looked carved from angry stone.
“The tenth man refuses to wear his armor, Baron Connrad,” LeMarck said.
“Rules say the champions are supposed to wear their color,” Connrad said. “Keep down confusion on who’s who.”
“No,” Hardcoe said coolly, “the rules don’t say that. As to confusion, take a look at this man. I don’t think there’ll be any confusion with him.”
Connrad scowled but said nothing more. The group passed on.
LeMarck looked relieved. At his command two men stepped into the room and grabbed the man Black Michael had hit, pulling him out.
Grinning, the giant crossed the room to Mildred. “Black, like me,” he said, looking down at her.
“Black,” Mildred agreed, not backing away, “but not like you at all.”
Black Michael raised a hand as if he were about to slap her.
“No,” J.B. said, stepping forward into a combat stance, his hands loose and ready before him.
Laughing, Black Michael turned to face the Armorer. He dwarfed J.B. in height and in build. “You think you mean enough to take me, little man?”
“Up to you whether we find out,” J.B. replied.
“Break you in half like a stick.”
The Armorer didn’t make a reply, slowly reaching out and moving Mildred behind him out of the big man’s zone.
“This man something special to you?” Black Michael asked Mildred.
She didn’t answer.
“You don’t have to tell me,” the giant said. “I can see in your eyes. Mebbe I’ll catch up to you and him out there in the dark and those pretty lights. I twist his head, and you can hear how his neck cracks and see him jump when he dies.” He laughed again, an evil sound that filled the small room.
J.B. continued guiding Mildred away from the man, never turning his back to Black Michael.
“Wait for me out in the dark, little man,” the giant promised, “and I’ll be there soon.”
“Ryan,” the Armorer called, wrapping an arm around Mildred. The woman shuddered against him.
“Extra baggage,” Ryan said in a flat voice. “See no sense in taking it along.”
J.B. nodded.
Black Michael ignored them.
Up above, LeMarck’s sec team raised two sheets of see-through plas and braced it with four-by-four beams, booting them together in an L-shape.
“Lower the weapons,” the sec commander ordered.
The cable creaked as it was fed through the pulley, and the net descended into the room. Ryan, J.B. and Mildred were the first to reach the net as it came within grasp. The other men came swiftly, shoving at one another to claim their weapons.
J.B. reached into the net and pulled his Samp;W scattergun from the collection. Black Michael surged forward, swatting men out of his way without a care. Moving quickly but without mistake, the Armorer opened the shotgun’s receiver. Ryan spotted the red casing of the round sliding home as J.B. released it.
Ryan took up his own P-226 and worked the slide, stripping the first round into the chamber. As he watched, Black Michael picked up a huge revolver. From the size of it, Ryan guessed it was a remake of a .454 Casull, large by any standard, but looking small in the ebony giant’s fist.
Without warning, J.B. shoved the shotgun’s muzzle into Black Michael’s face, and pulled the trigger.
The ebony giant’s pistol hand had been moving toward the Armorer, but when the explosion of flechettes slammed into his face and ripped away the flesh, diving in through the eye holes, the nasal cavity, and the mouth, emptying out his brain pan in a crimson-and-gray rush, the hand flopped lifelessly away. The Casull clanked as it hit the floor.