Chapter 11

CHAPTER ELEVEN

"One minute until everyone DIES! Heff Brobst bellowed gleefully through a bullhorn while seated in the bleachers. Phyllis sat next to him. She had three cigarettes going and looked strangely relaxed. The talking ashtray was batshit and then some.

"What a dick," Brolrath grumbled as he beat his chest, pretending to intimidate his competitors.

"Word," I muttered as I taunted him with my purple fire sword.

The tribal music blasted through invisible speakers. I could feel the drumbeat vibrate throughout my body. The vulture-like birds in the trees seemed very interested in the outcome of the game. My guess was that they were prepared to ingest the remains of the dead. That wasn't anywhere on my agenda. With a wiggle of my fingers, I muzzled the scavengers. They were pissed. I'd be more pissed if they ate the green goo that belonged to my new friends. Small victories would lead to a big win. I was counting on that.

"What did you just do? I felt the magic." Pandora commented as I menacingly circled the guys. It was hard not to smile, but I was in character. I would play it like the pro I was.

"I muzzled the flying freaks in the trees," I told her as I watched Ezzanod trip Drogruzun and kicked him in the head. These dudes were going method. "I'm taking no chances that the birds will eat my buddies when they're dead. Not sure the guys would come back from that."

"Did you ever think you'd utter a sentence like that?" Pandora inquired.

I laughed and covered it with a cough. "No. And I hope I'm never in the situation to have to repeat it."

"Never is a very long time, Cecily," she replied. "Never say never. It's bad luck."

Again, with the sage advice.

"Thirty seconds," Heff Brobst announced, doing a moonwalk that looked more like a doomwalk before transitioning into a cabbage patch that was more like a garbage pail flail. He might look like Abaddon, but Heff made it easy to separate the two of them in my mind. It was startling to realize that I didn't need backup. So far, I was fine on my own. However, if I was being totally honest, which I liked to be, Pandora as my ride-or-die was imperative to our success.

"Get ready to rumble!" Pandora sang.

"Oh my god. Don't tell me you watch pro wrestling," I said, groaning. She hadn't been joking when she said she couldn't sing.

"I love it," she said with a laugh. "It's violent and hilarious—a win in my book."

She was right. No one really got hurt, usually, and it was entertainment… just like the kind we were about to perform. The audience of two might not know it was a fictional show they were about to watch, but the actors did. That was all that mattered.

Glancing over at the guys, I pushed back against my sense of right and wrong. While it was wrong to kill, this case was an exception. I had their blessing, and it had been their idea. The fact that they'd regenerate in five minutes was the motivating factor in my being able to whack them. If it had been permanent, it would have been a hard no.

As I stomped past Drogruzun, I whispered to him. "Should I kill all of you at the same time or one at a time? Which would you prefer?"

His face was a scary mask of rage, but his words were that of a normal conversation—not that our conversation was even remotely normal—but it made sense in the strange situation.

"I'd suggest letting the Shitty Whore choose," he told me as he growled in my face. "It's a wonderful gesture to involve all of our friends."

His breath was rank, but I didn't comment. It would be rude. If there was time before I left, I'd look into getting the guys some scented soap, toothpaste and mouthwash.

"You know," Pandora said. "I didn't like that fucker in the beginning, but I quite like him now. I say you kill them all at once. That way, they won't have to watch each other die. That can be traumatizing."

My mouth formed a perfect O. Pandora was being humane and kind. Granted, we were discussing murder, but it was the thought that counted.

"The Shitty Whore says to kill everyone in one fell swoop. It's less traumatizing," I told him as I shoved him with my shoulder.

"Ahhh, yes! Please extend my sincerest thanks to the Shitty Whore. She is indeed a lovely woman."

"She can hear you," I said.

"Well, in that case, thank you, Shitty Whore. Your morality and care for others are superb! If you weren't a figment of Bitch Goddess Cecily's mental break, I'd like to take you out for a nice chicken dinner. People with your warm and kind humanity are rare in this world, and I commend you for it," Drogruzun said, ending his thanks with a terrifying roar.

I could feel Pandora's confusion and unease with the compliments. Everything Drogruzun had said went against who she believed herself to be.

"I'm not sure I like him anymore," she huffed. "That was absolutely appalling."

"Truth hurts," I said with a laugh.

"Fuck you," she spat.

"Nope. You're not my type," I said. It was time to do it. The guys had lined up at the starting point. My heart pounded in my chest, and my mouth went dry. "You ready for this?"

"I was born ready," Pandora supplied. "Do not fuck it up."

"Umm… thanks for the pep talk."

"Anytime," she replied. "Anytime."

The walk to the starting line felt like a walk to the guillotine. It wasn't for my death, but the temporary death of my new friends. I shook off the unsettling feeling and got back into character. I'd perform my role with absolute attention to detail. Offing my buddies was going to be the easiest thing I did. Even with a head start and knowing they wanted no part of the game, I was still in trouble. I scanned the obstacle course. It was more like a colorful torture chamber. The steam coming up from the hot rocks was not fun to look at.

"Are you ready?" Heff Brobst shouted. He didn't wait for an answer. Instead, he pulled out a bazooka, aka a recoilless anti-tank rocket launcher and fired it into the air. Ten of the muzzled birds fell to their death.

Heff was a fucking menace to society.

"What the hell was that?" Pandora shouted.

"The starting gun," I said.

"Then GO!" she said in a rallying cry. "Kill your friends!"

The command was absurd. I followed her orders, but I added my own flourishes. I was an actress by trade, and I was going to use my gift.

"No one will get the prize but me!" I bellowed, drawing both purple fire swords. The guys stood together. I was off to their right. It was strategically perfect to end them with one mighty blow. "It's time to say nighty-night, Demons."

"Think again, plebian," Drogruzun growled, gnashing his sharp teeth and drawing his own sword.

They stayed shoulder to shoulder and ran at me. Heff Brobst was losing his debatably sane mind. His whooping and cheering for a bloodbath made me want to turn my swords on him. I didn't. At the very moment before the guys got close enough to attack, I swung. I swung with both skill and might. The slick, wet sound of my sword slicing their heads off at the neck was horrific. The visual was worse. The grins on their faces right before their heads lolled sideways onto their shoulders then tumbling to the ground at my feet with a thud would live in my nightmares. Watching the light go out in their eyes made my stomach roil. I wasn't cut out for this kind of acting. Reality TV was so not my bag. If I'd had a stunt double, I would have happily bowed out of the scene.

I didn't have a stunt double.

This wasn't a show.

It might be a dream state, but it was my life and Pandora's in jeopardy, and the outcome of the competition would determine whether we moved on to find the Higher Power or remained in this tropical hell with Heff and Phyllis. Getting stuck here was not an option.

"Go, go, GO!" Pandora urged frantically. "It has to look real. Move your ass."

"On it," I said as I sprinted to the netted mud box while scanning the ground for hidden landmines. "Have to belly crawl through the mud with a net over me." I quickly retracted my swords and dropped down to all fours."

"That's disgusting," Pandora hissed.

"Tell me about it."

I didn't waste a second. The landmines weren't so hidden. I was able to avoid them. As I dragged my body through the rank sludge, I didn't my best not to get any in my mouth. The net over me made it slow going. The mud was tarry black, warm and gooey. It smelled like the culinary disaster that Tim had prepared for lunch. Lunch felt like it had been a lifetime ago. I'd give anything to be in my living room eating food with my friends. I'd even ask for seconds of Tim's icky casserole.

"Shit," I choked out as a dollop of mud made its way into my mouth. "Ewwwww." I spat, trying to expel the foul crap from my tongue.

"That tasted GROSS," Pandora shrieked while coughing. "Whatever. Keep going."

I didn't know why she was complaining. I had to taste it first. Still, I apologized. "Sorry. Only a few more feet," I huffed out as the mud weighed me down like wet cement.

The suction noise as I lifted my hands to drag myself forward was sickening. I felt panic, fear and then more panic. If I got stuck in the mud, I'd lose my shit. The mud seemed to get thicker and more cement-like with every inch I moved forward.

"Faster," Pandora hissed. "You're a Demon Goddess. PROVE IT. Move your wimpy ass."

She was a nasty motivator, but it helped. Screwing up both my courage and strength, I hauled myself to the end of the box. Pulling the net off my filthy, caked body was tantamount to putting on tights over wet legs. It took some doing, but after a short struggle, I finally got it done. I gave myself a brief moment to bask in the small victory before I heard the commotion behind me. The guys were screaming and attacking each other. I could time myself by their deaths and regenerations. It had taken me only five minutes to get through the box, even if it had felt like a year. I wanted to turn around and watch the next part of the performance, but I didn't dare. There were far too many dangers in front of me to look back.

"Hot rocks. About ten feet ahead," I narrated. "Ground full of landmines. Have to go slow."

While the next part of the obstacle course wasn't that far, it seemed like a million miles away. Slowly and with painstaking attention to the dirt ahead, I made my way.

"Oh, I forgot to tell you, Butch Goddess Messily," Heff yelled from his comfortable and landmine-free seat in the bleachers. "There's a time limit on getting through the obstacle course. Fifteen minutes."

"You're a dick, Huff Boobs," I shouted. Two could play the name game.

"Been called worse," he let me know.

That was a given.

"What happens if I don't make it in fifteen minutes?" I yelled, keeping my focus on the ground below me. I wasn't about to let an asshole like Heff Bropst be the reason I got blown to smithereens by a landmine.

He laughed through the bullhorn like I'd just made an outstanding joke. "You don't want to know. Trust me on that."

"He really must be decapitated, Cecily," Pandora recommended. "Or, at the very least, electrocuted until he can taste his entrails."

"Shockingly, I agree with you on that," I told her, still focused on each careful step I took. "That aside, we've already used five minutes in the mud box. I think I have to go faster in order to get to the end."

Pandora was quiet for a long beat. "Fine. Do as you think best. If we have to start over, you will know where the danger lies. You can avoid it on the second try."

She made sense. I didn't want to die, but if it meant succeeding, I'd give death a shot.

"Okay." I gritted my teeth and scanned the ground around me. "Here we go. I'm throwing caution to the wind and probably some of my body parts along with it."

More prophetic words had never been spoken.

The sound of the explosion was an unwelcome surprise. The shock and the pain as I stepped on the mine were like nothing I'd experienced thus far. I'd been in battle and had fireballs thrown at me, compliments of the woman inside me. That had been harrowing, but this… this was next level.

As my body went flying toward the rocks, I realized one of my legs was missing. The grenade had no mind, no pity and zero care that it had just torn part of me away. My scream of agony felt like it was coming from someplace far, far away. Landing with a loud thump on the ground in front of the hot rocks, I sucked in air like I'd been deprived of it for years.

"My leg," I gasped out. "It's fucking gone."

"Are you dead?" Pandora asked calmly.

If it wasn't for the excruciating pain I was in, I would have slapped my face hard. She was asking for it. "NO, I'm not dead, you piece of shit."

"Then get up and keep going."

As much as I didn't want to admit it, she was right. I wasn't dead. I was just missing my freaking leg. I could still hop. "Okay," I grunted out as I got myself up. "I'm gonna hop across the stones."

"Keep your arms out to the sides for balance," Pandora instructed. "Hopping would have been the way to do it even if you had two legs. Get off each stone as quickly as possible."

"Will do," I said, gauging the best way to go about it.

The path of fiery hot stones was about twenty feet long. The steam coming off of them wasn't welcoming. Hell, none of this was welcoming. The guys were still dead. That meant I hadn't wasted too much time when I was getting my leg blown off. Quickly reaching down to make sure I wasn't bleeding out, I was shocked to realize that the skin had already closed over the wound. Demons could regenerate body parts, but I knew there wasn't enough time for my leg to grow back. I had less than ten minutes to get to the end.

There was no time to start like the present.

"Here we go," I told my uninvited roomie.

"Be the badass."

The heat was intense. Pandora had been correct about hopping being the best way to get through this particular obstacle, but having one leg was screwing with my balance. Falling and touching the rocks would surely burn the skin right off my hands. I needed my hands. Falling wasn't an option. I decided to go in a straight line. Hopping from side to side would waste time I didn't have.

"Shit," I gasped out. The minute my combat-clad foot hit the stones, they hissed and smoked. The blueish tendrils twisted upward toward the golden clouds and red sun. If I wasn't terrified that my boot was going to melt in the heat, I would have taken a second to follow the swirling slender curls as they rose. That would be stupid. I wasn't stupid. However, I was on fire.

"Umm… feeling some pain," Pandora rasped.

"Yep, that would be my foot," I snapped, trying to hop faster. If my boot melted into the stones, I'd have to remove it. The thought of hopping barefoot was not working for me. "Think I'm melting. Five more hops to go."

"You're not the Wicked Witch of the West. You can't fucking melt," Pandora reminded me. "You're Bitch Goddess Cecily, and you had better remember that, idiot."

Her pep talks sucked ass, but at least it was taking my mind off the fact that I was close to going up in flames.

"Done," I screamed as I slapped at the embers off my foot. "Spike maze. Three feet ahead."

"Create some water for your foot," she insisted.

"Why didn't I think of that?" I asked as I waved my hand and doused my foot in ice-cold water.

"Because I'm brilliant and you're not," she informed me.

I didn't agree, but I wasn't going to fight her on it. I had more ahead of me. Plus, getting my leg ripped off and burning my foot to a crisp had kind of worn me out.

"Entering," I said.

The maze wasn't long. It was simply a fence on two sides that zigzagged for about ten feet. There was about two feet of space between the walls. At first, I didn't see any spikes… until I did. They were protracting and retracting from the walls of the fence. There was no rhythm, no rhyme or reason, or pattern to memorize. They came out high and low.

"Crap," I muttered as I narrowly missed getting stabbed in the head.

"Narrate," Pandora insisted.

"The spikes are about ten inches long and sharp," I explained as I made my way through. "Moving in and out of the walls of the maze."

"High or low?"

"Both," I said, ducking to escape my decapitation.

"Do you hear that?" she asked, sounding frantic.

I listened. The guys were fighting again. There wasn't much time left. "Shit, shit, shit," I snapped as I saw the light at the end of the tunnel—or maze to be more specific. "I'm gonna make a run for it."

"Is that wise?"

"Absolutely not," I said with a laugh that sounded tinny and false. "But thems the breaks."

"Do it! You've got this."

"From your mouth…" I muttered as I prepared to hop like my life depended on it, which it did.

I was so close. So close.

"I'm stuck," I snarled as I tried to pull my left arm away from the spike that had embedded itself deep.

"Define stuck," Pandora commanded.

"Left arm," I said while panting like a thirsty dog. "Ten-inch spike. All the way through. Hurts. Bad."

"To be expected," she replied, sounding as calm as she had when my leg got blown off.

I was not calm. "What should I do?"

"Either pull the spike out or leave your arm behind," she said. "As long as you have one arm and one leg, you can finish the challenge."

"Are you fucking kidding me?" I growled.

"Do I sound like I'm fucking kidding you?" she shot back.

She did not.

Shaking my head and hating my life, I tried to pull away from the spike. It wasn't as easy as pulling it out. It was still connected to the wall of the fence. It wasn't happening. There wasn't enough room on the other side of me to get any kind of traction to be successful. Plus, there was a high chance another spike was going to pop out at any second. "Gonna have to rip my arm off."

"Well, there's another sentence I don't think you thought you would ever say."

I couldn't believe it, but I laughed. The situation was so preposterous that laughing was the only response I had. I was going to need some intense therapy when this shit was over.

"Do it. Do it fast and get it done," she said forcefully. "Don't think about it. Just do it. NOW!"

If she hadn't been riding my ass, I didn't know if I would have been able to do what I was about to do. However, I was lucky enough to have a psychotic nut job along for the ride.

My brain became primitive. My desire to live outweighed the horror of leaving a literal piece of me behind. When I got to the Higher Power, I was going to tell It exactly what I thought of It… and I wasn't going to hold back. Imagining myself ripping Shaun Cassidy a gaping new asshole, I lurched forward. The sound of my arm being ripped from my body was something I never wanted to hear again. I was sure the Shitty Whore gasped. As the tendons and arteries tore, it felt like a searing hot knife took a swim through every vein in my body. The skin was the least painful. It tore like paper.

Feeling light-headed and partially insane, I took a moment to look at my arm. It hung limply on the wall held up by the spike. "Fuck you, Phyllis. Fuck you, Heff Brobst. But mostly, fuck you, Shaun Cassidy," I shouted as I began to hop away. Dodging the rest of the spikes, I made it out. I was one arm and one leg short of a full body, but I was alive, and I would still win.

"I'm going to tell you something," Pandora said, sounding very serious.

"If you're going to insult me, don't. I don't want to hear it."

She was silent for a moment. Then she spoke in the same serious tone she'd used a few seconds ago. "I could not have done what you just did. That imbecile Candy Vargo is correct about you, Bitch Goddess Cecily. You're a badass."

I smiled. It was shocking my lips could quirk up considering what had just gone down, but the admission and the compliment from my enemy who was fast becoming my frenemy was just the thing I needed.

"Thank you, Pandora."

"Yes, well, enough of the mushy stuff. Go find the button and activate the bridge."

"As you wish," I said, glancing down at where my arm used to be. Whatever. I still had an arm, a leg and the desire to win.

The button was easy. The bridge dropped. It was a good three feet or so above the murky water below. This could be a piece of cake or not.

It was a definite or not.

"What do you see?" Pandora asked.

"Bridge is down. It's about forty feet long. So far, I don't see any hungry sea monsters."

"Then go for it."

I did. Hopping across the bridge was noisy. There were no railings to hold on to, so balance was difficult. Thankfully, I'd lost my left arm and my right leg, so I was somewhat stable. The idea that I'd be grateful for having two intact limbs so I could still hop away from danger without falling down hadn't been on my bingo card of life, but there it was.

As soon as I got to the middle, I realized I'd spoken too soon about the sea monsters. The screaming was so piercing I almost fell into the water. They shook the bridge, which sucked since I was appendage impaired. Dropping to my stomach, I tried slithering across, but the rocking of the bridge was making it nearly impossible.

"What's happening?" Pandora yelled. "It feels like we're in the middle of a tornado."

"We'd probably have a better chance of surviving that," I yelled back as one of the monsters slapped a slimy black tentacle onto the bridge, blocking my advancement. "Problem."

"Narrate," Pandora demanded.

"Obstruction ahead." I squinted to make sure what I thought I was seeing was correct. Unfortunately, it was. "Large, gelatinous, greasy-looking monster with a big octopus-like arm blocking the bridge. Oh, and did I mention the arm has about a thousand fangs in it."

"Is that a joke?"

"I wish," I muttered as I tried to figure out how in the hell to get around it.

"Use your sword. Chop that bastard up! Fillet that fucker!"

"Brilliant," I said, raising my one good hand and producing my fire sword.

"I know." I could hear the smugness in her tone. Afterward, she roared her battle cry, "Tonight, we dine on calamari!"

I tried not to choke on the maniacal laugh threatening to explode from my mouth. This whole situation was twisted.

In theory, the idea of slicing and dicing a Kraken's cousin was excellent. In practice, though, it had some major logistical problems. For one, holding a sword in my only hand while lying on my stomach on a bridge that was being rocked by a famished sea monster was more complicated than expected. A lot more complicated than if I had all my fucking arms and legs. Each time I took a swipe, I came perilously close to being dumped to my death by the deranged creature. Drowning wasn't how I wanted to die. There were tons of better ways to bite the big one that didn't include actual biting.

"What's happening? Did you slay it?" Pandora asked.

"No," I said, trying my hardest to slice even part of the tentacle off. "I have to get closer to it."

"Try electrocuting it," she suggested. "It may not kill it, but it might make it slide back into the water, giving you enough time to get past it."

Again, Pandora to the rescue with an outstanding idea.

"On it," I said, retracting my sword and raising my hand as high as possible without falling off the bridge. I sent the bolt. To my horror, it bounced off the monster and headed back my way. NO!"

It hit. It was an excellent bolt. It hurt like a mofo. It also severed off my good arm and leg. I was now a stump on a bridge waiting to be eaten by a sea monster.

"What the FUCK?" Pandora yelped.

"I'm sorry," I told my ride or die. "We're about to get eaten."

"WHAT?" she screeched.

"My fault. I'm not the badass," I said, closing my eyes and waiting for the inevitable. "So sorry."

Just when I thought it couldn't get much worse than getting eaten by a sea monster while in stump form, it did. I was dragged off the bridge by my hair by Heff Brobst. He whistled a happy tune as he deposited me on the other side. Thankfully, I was on my back, giving me a decent field of vision. What I saw, however, wasn't so great.

"Youse can't win like dat," Phyllis announced, smoking two cigarettes at once. "I told youse, if youse die youse have to start over."

"I'm not dead," I pointed out.

She laughed. "Do youse think youse can finish the challenge like dat? No arms? No legs?"

I shrugged what was left of my shoulders. "I could give it a shot."

She laughed harder. The talking ashtray snapped her little fingers with a lit cig in each. Of all the things to focus on when I was literally a stump, I couldn't fathom how she didn't drop the cigs. I quickly got over my absurd fascination when she produced a glowing, icy-white sword that was as big as she was. Blood-red veins pulsed through the blade, making it even more menacing.

I seriously could not believe this was happening. I blinked at the slicing, dicing ashtray of a woman. This was bad. Worse than bad. This had to be one of the worst fucking days of my life thus far.

Without any pomp or circumstance, the insane woman raised the sword over her head while still holding two lit cigarettes. "In order for youse to start at the beginning, youse have got to suffer the end."

And on that note, the crazy bitch decapitated me.