Délon City: Book Two of the Oz Chronicles (22 page)

“What’s so big about today?” Gordy asked.

Miles almost smiled. “One of our champions will die today.”

“And that’s a good thing?” Lou asked.

Miles looked at her perplexed. “It is a great thing.”

The elevator doors opened, and we all stepped inside. I was never more frightened for Ajax. I had confidence he would prevail, but at what price.

***

We arrived at what used to be the Georgia Dome. It was covered in a layer of Délons twenty feet thick. Literally, all the Délons in the city were here. This was bigger than the Super Bowl.

An opening in the massive Délon bubble formed to let Miles, Gordy, Lou, and me enter. I wasn’t sure I really wanted to go inside. The deeper I got into the thick blanket of Délons, the more claustrophobic I felt. It was like we were voluntarily walking into the belly of the beast.

The hairs on the back my neck stood up. I got the sudden feeling that I was being watched, not just by the throngs of Délons all around me. Somebody else was watching me. I shook it off and returned my attention to the ghoulish scene around me.

Once inside the dome, we were escorted to the artificial turf. The seats, walls, and ceilings were crawling with Délons almost as thick as what was crawling outside. The dome looked like it was breathing with all the movement.

Only about twenty square yards of the field was left bare. I assumed this is where the one-on-one match would take place. The general stood in the middle of the clearing. I recognized the Falcons logo beneath his feet. He smiled his gut wrenching Délon smile when he saw us approach.

“Ah, our honored guests!” He met us and pulled me to the center of the logo. “Our king!” He shouted. Every Délon in the building erupted in cheers. The sound was deafening and painful.

“Today,” he continued, “one champion will die for our king!” The Délons exploded again, louder than before. “And another champion will kill for our king!” The noise level shook the ground beneath us. It felt as though the very structure of the Georgia Dome would crumble, but it held up. I looked at Lou and Gordy. They were as scared as I was. There was a bloodlust in the air that nearly smothered us. I tried to fake a smile to reassure them, but they knew a fake when they saw one.

The crowd to the right of us parted. Four Délons pulling chains entered the dome through a tunnel. At the end of the chains, Ajax struggled to break free. My heart dropped when I saw him. His face was scarred and he looked twice his normal size. One of his eyes was swollen shut. He had been marked. Recently. I knew it. I could smell it. Not just once. Many times. This is how they prepared their champions to fight.

I almost cried because I knew the hatred and pain that was running through Ajax’s veins. He wanted to kill. More than that, he needed to kill.

The crowd to the left of us parted. The other champion was about to emerge. First out of the tunnel was a man I recognized. Hollis. Pepper Sands’s right-hand man. He was the one who told us about HMI, Hyper Mental Imaging. He was Pepper’s team psychologist when Pepper was smashing heads as the Falcon’s leading tackler. What was he doing here?

The answer to my question came almost as the thought left my head. Following close behind him was Pepper. The other champion.

Lou turned to me when she recognized him. Her eyes said everything. Don’t let this happen.

I nodded. I don’t know why because I was pretty sure there was nothing I could do. The Délons came to see a murder today, and one way or another they were going to see it.

By the look of Pepper’s swollen eye, it was clear he had been marked for this fight as well. The Délons dressed him in pair of cutoff sweat pants. His muscles were inflated by the marking, but it appeared he was still about 300 pounds lighter than Ajax. He didn’t stand a chance.

The champions reached the fringe of the clearing. The general raised his hand to silence the crowd. Remarkably, almost instantaneously, the Délons fell silent. If it wasn’t for the gargled grunts of Ajax, you could have heard a pin drop.

“Today, we have yet another treat!” General Roy shouted. The crowd of Délons in front of us parted. Standing on what was once the visitor’s sidelines were two Délons propping up Newell by his arms. “Today, we have captured our Keeper!”

Once again, the Délons erupted.

I swallowed. Wes and the others?

The general, as if he read my mind, pointed to the still parting crowd. I watched in horror as the Délons peeled back and revealed Wes holding Valerie. Tyrone stood beside him holding onto the scruff of Kimball’s neck. Reya stood by them like a hunter standing by a fresh kill.

“Friends of yours?” The general asked.

I didn’t answer him. He knew. He’d known all along.

“This isn’t a game, Oz,” he said in a low steady tone. “You can’t escape the collective.”

“What are you going to do to them?”

“The same thing I did to him,” The general said motioning to the crowd behind me. I turned to see Miles dragging a body out of the crowd. Devlin. Dead. Beaten horribly. Tortured to death.

I surveyed the scene. Ajax and Pepper were mad with hate. Lou and Gordy were panic-stricken. Wes, Valerie, and Tyrone were scared but stoic. And Kimball was ready to do battle. I smiled.

“What are you smiling at?” The general asked.

“You made a mistake,” I said.

His spider legs began to dance. He didn’t like my demeanor. “Mistake?”

I focused on his dead eyes to convey to him that I meant every word of what I was about to say. “You brought me my warriors.”

He smashed me in the face with the back of his fist and sent me crashing to the artificial turf. Kimball tore free from Tyrone’s grip and bolted to my defense. He was too quick for the Délons to catch. My faithful dog leapt through the air and clamped his teeth around the general’s neck.

I was too stunned by the general’s blow to react immediately. I lay on my back and watched the dome spin. I heard the general cry out, followed by Kimball yelping in pain.

“No!” I screamed, my jaw throbbing. Kimball’s lifeless body fell next to me. The general had broken his neck. The anger and coldness I had experienced after my marking came back. Tears stung my eyes. The hate that haunted and tortured me that night re-emerged. I slammed my fist into the artificial turf and was only mildly surprised when I created a hole in the seemingly impenetrable surface.

I jumped to my feet and rushed the general. I had the strength of ten men and I was going to use it to tear him apart. I threw my shoulder into his abdomen and we both tumbled to the stadium floor. I pounded my fists into General Roy’s purple face before he could gain any sense of understanding what was happening to him.

Chaos broke out around us, but none of the Délons ran to the general’s aid. Ajax broke free from his chains and was crushing Délons like they were brittle twigs. They had juiced him beyond their control. They created a champion that could easily dispose of them by the dozens.

Pepper was never one to stand on the sidelines. He dove into the crowd of Délons next to him and used the hate that they built up inside of him against them. He wasn’t as proficient as Ajax at killing Délons, but he was taking them down two at a time.

Newell took the opportunity created by the distraction to break free from the two Délons who had a hold of him. He shed his robe. A light emanated from him that at once held everyone’s attention in the stadium. As quickly as the melee had begun, it stopped. My fist halted mid-punch. I couldn’t move. The noise was vacuumed out of the air. Silence.

Newell walked toward me. Every Délon, animal, and human was frozen in time. I was the only who could move besides Newell. I stood, searching for the hate I was filled with just seconds before.

“What,” I began.

“Do you know where you are?” Newell asked bending down to stroke Kimball’s head.

What an odd question. I looked around the dome. One-byone I saw Délon after Délon pop like a balloon. They were disappearing. “What’s happening?”

“I asked you a question,” he said still attending to Kimball. “Do you know where you are?”

“I’m... in Délon City...”

Newell patted Kimball and the dog’s tail began to wag.

“Kimball!” I ran to his side. “He’s alive.”

“More like his death has been erased,” Newell said.

Kimball stood and shook like he’d just had a bath. I hugged him hard enough for him to whine and pull away.

“You’re in a story, Oz,” Newell said. “A story in which you don’t belong.”

“Don’t belong?” The crowd of Délons rapidly grew smaller and smaller. “That’s the second time you’ve told me I don’t belong. If I don’t belong, how did I get here?”

He leaned in and whispered, “You’re on a couch in Dr. Graham’s office.”

I swallowed hard. “Dr. Graham...”

“He has you under hypnosis.”

“Don’t trust ‘G.’”

“He’s not who you think he is.”

My head started spinning. This was all too insane for me to comprehend. “What do I do?”

“Don’t lead him to the Source.”

“That’s easy. I don’t know what it is. I don’t want to know.”

“You will before this day is over.”

“I’m confused.”

“It’s about to get a whole lot more confusing.” He gestured for me to look to my right. I was looking at the Georgia Dome from outside.

“How...” I looked down. I was still standing on the artificial turf.

“You will begin again.”

“Begin what?”

“You are entering the dome again.”

I watched as Lou, Gordy, Miles and I began making our way through the Délon opening into the stadium.

“Let them fight. No matter what happens, let them fight.”

“Ajax and Pepper?”

“It has a place in this story. It must happen.”

“Ajax will kill Pepper.”

“And in doing so, he will ensure that the future of the Storytellers is secure.”

“I can’t let Pepper die.”

“If you don’t, then you leave the fate of the Storytellers in the hands of the Destroyers.”

I couldn’t believe my ears. “Pepper would never betray the Storytellers.”

“Not intentionally, no.” Newell started to back away. “I’ve given you a second chance to do nothing. I’m pleading with you to let them fight. Let Pepper die.” He took one more step and disappeared, and I was no longer standing on the artificial turf. I was entering the dome as I had done moments before. The events of the past few minutes began to scramble in my brain. I watched them like a movie in my mind’s eye, only segments were thrown together out of sequence.

“Are you all right?” Lou asked.

I gave her an unenthusiastic nod and smile. She didn’t know. This was all happening for the first time for her. I was the only one who remembered.

We entered the clearing where General Roy was waiting for us. The Délons were back in full force, crawling, waiting for the fight to begin.

“Ah, our honored quests!” The general began. He attempted to pull me to the center of the Falcons logo as he had done before, but I broke from his slimy grip and continued on through the horde of Délons.

“Where are you going?” The general asked.

“To talk to my champion,” I said.

He stood, embarrassed that I had usurped his authority. He could have insisted that I return, signaled to the Délons to prevent me from passing through, but he didn’t. He went on with his speech about one champion who would die for his king and one who would kill for his king.

I made it to the tunnel entrance where Ajax had emerged before. The four Délons stood at the mouth of the tunnel holding onto the chains with all their might. They were being tugged to and fro.

I walked past them and stood face-to-face with Ajax. He had dwarfed me before, but now, he was twice as big. He huffed and grunted and dug at the thick metal collar around his neck. He was too agitated to take notice of me yet. His face was deeply scarred. The wisdom that used to dwell in his penetrating stare was gone. The swollen eye was as big as a grapefruit, but the other eye was fierce and beyond angry. He rose up and pounded his chest, pock-pock-pock. That’s when he noticed me. He stopped as if on command.

“Ajax,” I said. “It’s me.”

He blew air through his massive nostrils, and let out a vocalization that emanated from his throat.

“It’s Oz.” I said.

He lurched forward. The Délons pulled back on the chains. Ajax stumbled.

It pained me to see him in such a state. He was being tortured by the thoughts that were soaring through his marked brain. He wasn’t the Ajax I knew and loved. Then again, I wasn’t sure if I was the same Oz. I stepped forward, and he seemed to be startled by my lack of fear. The truth is I was scared to death. I wasn’t even sure what I was doing. I felt compelled to ease his anguish. He was my friend, and he was going to kill Pepper. I knew that it was against his nature to kill humans. The marking would wear off, and when it did, he would be stuck with the memory of what he’d done. I’m not sure he would be able to live with himself. He had been raised by a human, taught to speak American Sign Language. He was a gentle being at heart.

I hooked my bent right index finger, palm facing down, over the bent left index finger, palm facing up, and then reversed the position of the hands and repeated the gesture.

Ajax snorted and shook his head.

I signed the word for “friend” again.

Ajax snarled his lip and planted his knuckles on the concrete floor of the tunnel. The four Délons holding his chains watched with mild interest as their champion calmed.

I made the sign again.

Ajax sat on his haunches and raised his massive arms. He made an ‘L’ shape with his right hand and touched the right side of his forehead. Palm facing left, he moved the right hand downward, landing across the thumb side of the left ‘L’ hand, palm facing right.

I didn’t understand the sign. He repeated it. I shrugged my shoulders. He shook his head and grunted, clearly frustrated. If I had to guess, he was calling me a loser.

My sign language vocabulary was limited. I pulled out the ones I could remember. I turned up my left palm and made two quick brushing movements with the fingertips of my right hand. “Forgive.” I pointed to him.