“Yes.” The answer was immediate, the voice chock full of confidence.
“You got it,” Simmons said and put his hands down. He tried to think his way through this. He couldn’t exactly do a ton on the bridge with his powers, after all. If he tried, it’d collapse beneath him. “Nice play,” he said to the man on fire.
The fire-man strode toward him calmly and stopped about ten feet away. “And now … we fight.”
He was so matter-of-fact about it that it took Simmons a moment to decode what he’d said. “… Whut?” His head bowed slightly, he looked at the fire-man, and his mouth fell slightly open. “You wanna do what?”
The fire-man lifted a hand, palm-up, and beckoned Simmons forward with all four of his fingers, waggling them toward him. “We fight.”
“Uhmm …” Simmons’s mind was racing. This did not compute. “Dude. You’ve got me dead to rights. I can’t throw flame. I don’t even know if I have the speed to dodge it. You’ve got me, man. I’ll come with you, no questions asked. I’ll do my time.”
“No.” The fire-man shook his head. “We fight.”
“How am I supposed to figh—” Simmons started to say—
—And was interrupted by the fire-man crossing the distance between them and searing him with a punch to the face.
It cracked Simmons’s jaw, made him see stars. The searing of raw nerves across his cheek came screaming into Simmons’s mind as he realized that bastard had hit him. With a flaming punch.
Simmons fell to his knees and watched the fiery figure take a couple steps back. “Get up. We fight.”
“Owww.” Simmons held his jaw. Now his knees were complaining, too, because he’d dropped after that first hit. “I don’t know who you think you are, man, but I’ve got rights—”
“Get up or I will kill you on the ground like a beggar,” the fire-man said, and Simmons looked up at him.
Cold, dead eyes stared back from behind a veil of fire. Black in the midst of an orange, crackling head. It was like looking at a demon.
“Okay, okay,” Simmons said, still cradling his jaw. Man, it hurt. This dude had done a number on him, and not a good number, like four. This was a two hundred or something. He struggled to his feet on wobbly legs. He could feel the blisters already rising on his jaw.
“Now … we fight,” the fire-guy said again, and he came at Simmons, a little slower this time. Simmons put up his hands, but took a punch to the forearm and screamed, falling back as it made contact. He screamed, stumbling away, trying to flee the pain, but it followed him.
And so did the man on fire.
Fire-man hit Simmons in the gut with a flashing punch, doubling him over and giving him fresh burns on his abdomen. All the air rushed out of Simmons’s lungs and was replaced by searing air as he sucked in a half-breath, unable to choke a full one down. He was gasping from the pain and from getting the wind knocked out of him, and Fire-man was just standing there, inches away, the heat so intense Simmons thought he might burst into flames from proximity.
His gut was burning, and Simmons looked down. Angry welts and charred skin showed through a hole in his shirt. “Ohh, man …” Simmons muttered, trying to keep the pain bottled up.
He looked up in time to see another punch coming, and this one laid him out on his back. Simmons’s eyes sprang open and found fire-guy standing over him, merciless, those black eyes just staring down at him. “Get up,” came the command.
“I don’t … think I can …” Simmons moaned. So much pain. He had second and third degree burns on his wrist, his face, his belly … what did this guy expect from him?
“Fight, or you will die,” Fire-man proclaimed. “You have to the count of ten.” That thick Euro accent was like a cloud that hung over his words, and it took Simmons to a two count to realize what he was doing. “… Three … four …”
“Okay,” Simmons croaked, rolling over and grabbing the bridge rail. He used it to lever himself to his feet, back to Fire-guy. What the hell was this? Simmons hadn’t been beaten like this since the time Sienna Nealon had decided to use his jaw for a punching bag.
He was on his feet a few seconds later, and right at the nine count he shoved off the bridge, trying to mimic a boxing stance. That seemed to be what this guy was going for, after all, some kind of battle to the finish. Simmons wasn’t that excited about obliging him, but he didn’t want to die, so he just went along for another round. He would have tapped out if he could, just laid down on the mat if it were up to him, but no, Fire-guy apparently wasn’t cool with surrender.
What was this guy’s problem? A little quiver of fear made its way through Simmons’s legs, and he wobbled even more. There was no way to beat this guy, but … surely he couldn’t actually be serious? He wasn’t actually going to kill him, a defenseless person …
… Was he?
The punches came a little slower this time, but Simmons still couldn’t ward them off. “Come on, man!” Simmons cried as one of the hits glazed his shoulder, sending up a stink of burnt shirt and scorched flesh. He kept from crying only barely, and fire-guy kicked him in the leg, burning his pants at the shin and making him double over. Simmons couldn’t even stop himself; this was MMA-type stuff, which he liked to watch but God, it wasn’t any fun when someone was coming after you with it.
A hard crunch to the back of the neck dropped Simmons face-first to the pavement. Blood coursed out of his lips and nose, and his head rang through the pain of fresh burns on the back of his head. How hot did this guy have to be to burn him so bad with hits that were lasting less than a second?
Hot. Really hot.
Simmons’s chin was against the asphalt, and he could smell it burning where fire-guy was standing over him. “Get to your feet by ten count, or you die,” that cold, inflectionless voice said again.
“O … okay,” Simmons said, drooling and dribbling blood. He tried to cradle up, to pull to all fours, but his body was just overwhelmed. Nothing wanted to move—not his legs, not his arms, and not his head, for damned sure.
Simmons was done.
He wanted to just curl up in a ball and have it be over, but he couldn’t even motivate himself to do that. It was like every part of him had quit at once, and when he heard the countdown, “… six … seven …”
Simmons just couldn’t bring himself to care enough to try anymore.
So instead he settled right there, drooling on the pavement. This was good. He didn’t want to fight anymore. He hadn’t wanted to fight in the first place, but—damn Revelen—gah, he hated them. It sucked that they’d done this to him. He was all ready to just live his life, free as the wind, and they’d gone and clipped his frigging wings.
Now he was here, a dead duck on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, listening to some Euro dude count him down to death, and without even enough fight left to object. “Nine … Ten.”