Free Maxie’s Demon by Michael Scott Rohan

what passed for it here.
    ‘Hey, Maxie!’ said a harsh voice, and a hand thumped me kindly on the back.
    ‘Maxie
bambino!
’ Another woman’s voice, and hey, a long armaround my shoulders as I wheezed for breath.
    ‘Maxie! What’ve they done to you? You OK, lad?’
    ‘Mack-a-sie! Hey, he’s OK, huh? He’s brave, isn’t he not brave?’
    They were all around me, poking me in the ribs, thumping me on the back, ruffling my hair and – I hoped this was the women – squeezing my buttocks, and taking my name generally in vain. The last time I had this much attention from anyoneI was being beaten up by a Rasta gang, and the sensation wasn’t too different.
    I fought for breath, caught it and regretted it. It was like ten o’clock in the peep show on a hot night. It even had the marsh lying down gasping. Whatever this lot did for amusement, bathing wasn’t part of it. But even as I noticed it, it was gone, and that really did make me look up.
    I was surrounded. About eightof them, and at least two female, and that was as much as I could make out. Apart from the weaponry, and the blood. Then the moon came out, or maybe my eyes focused. I’ve seen more encouraging sights, even allowing for the mouldy light.
    They reallywere festooned. They were panting, surprise surprise, and at every breath they rattled. They were wearing more weapons than clothes. The guy in frontof me, a snaky-looking Oriental type with wiry hair fanning back from a low widow’s peak, was grinning, but the dagger in his teeth, threatening his droopy moustache, ruined the effect. He might have been wearing a few scraps of black shirt and trousers, paddy-field pyjama style, but the rest was belts and brassards, and an interesting pattern of dark stains.
    The woman next to him definitelywasn’t wearing a shirt, but instead of one brassard she had a long whip wound around, with three or four pistols thrust into the thongs – big, heavy pistols, flintlocks even. She had some kind of cloth about her waist, but all I really noticed was the twin machetes tucked in it. With one in each hand already, that gave her a lot of edge. OK, she had earrings, but even those were little daggers, prettybusinesslike ones that clanked against her steel collar. Her face was OK if you like them high-boned and hard, with streaks of straight black hair slathered to it, and flecks of blood to taste. She grinned, too.
    The black guy beside her – he was wearing armour, a breastplate with a belly, and one of those fore-and-aft helmets like melon rinds, and long baggy trousers, white in the few bits notclaimed by nasty-looking stains. He was grinning, as well. The night was alive with teeth.
    ‘Hey, Maxie!’ he said, in an absurdly high-pitched voice. ‘You sure are one lucky guy!’
    ‘Uh?’
    ‘
Evero!
’ said the other woman, rounder and curlier, shaking me genially by the shoulder. Rounder, curlier and strong as a horse. ‘Look,
signor
, see what we have got for you!’ They shuffled hastily back, as ifthey were showing baby the Christmas tree.
    ‘Erp,’ I said. The moon was still pretty grudging, but somehow I could see every little detail. The inflatable, half deflated in the shallows, its floats of reinforced fabric bubbling from half a dozen enthusiastic slashes. One limp arm sprawled over its edge, and a glimpse of a white, still face above, jaw sagging against the shattered stock of a rifle.A boot sticking up on the other side, at an angle that suggested a leg in it; what the leg was attached to, if anything, there was no telling. Another shape floating face down next to it, bobbing gently in the river wash. And on the ground, altogether too near for my liking, there was Fallon – the business end. He was grinning, too. In fact, he was in the pink. The split sack of white packetscrackled gently in the faint wind.
    ‘Very nice,’ I said weakly. ‘Just what I’ve always wanted.’
    Another of my new friends, a blond thug with a ponytail and a great