Free The Death Match by Christa Faust

have seem much more important.
    “Thanks for everything,” Matt said.
    “My pleasure, honey. You take care out there.”
    “I’ll do my best.”
    Matt was about to leave when he nearly ran right into Lenny, the crotchety old guy who’d had only twenty-four more days left at Long’s shipping company. The older man was already plastered, and the sun was just starting to go down.
    “Whoa there,” Matt said, gripping Lenny’s arm as he staggered and nearly fell flat on his face.
    “The lousy rats,” he was muttering. “The bastards. I only had twenty-two days left and they went and shitcanned every last one of us. Every last one.”
    Matt wasn’t surprised. With Long dead and his twisted underground death matches put to a stop, there wasn’t any point in keeping his dummy corporation running anymore.
    “Sorry, Gramps,” Matt said, helping the older man to a barstool.
    “I just went over there,” he said. “Wanted to take a piss on the gate that locked us out of our jobs. Show them what I think of their… Anyway, I go over there, and what do you know? They got cops all over. Found a guy dead. ‘A guy?’ I say. ‘What guy?’ Well, it’s my buddy Glen. Some kinda dog attack, they said.”
    “Dog attack?” Matt repeated, frowning.
    “Worked for DS&T longer than I did. I guess he just wanted to get a few things out of his locker after they shut the place down. He was kind of an asshole sometimes, but we used to eat lunch together. We ate lunch together for sixteen fucking years. He liked a tuna melt.”
    “I’m sorry,” Matt said.
    “Sorry?” Lenny gripped his arm like a crab. “Sorry? Don’t you get it?”
    “Look,” Matt said, trying to extract himself from the old man’s clawlike grip. “I better—”
    Lenny pulled Matt closer, his breath a noxious cloud of booze and bad teeth.
    “There ain’t no dogs,” he whispered. “There ain’t no dogs. No dogs.”
    Lenny’s head sank slowly toward the bar as he repeated himself over and over.
    “I’ll call his wife to come get him,” Flame said with a knowing shake of her spiky orange head. “He’s been like this ever since they laid everybody off.”
    Matt nodded, sympathetic but also knowing that there was nothing he could do to help the old man. He had other things on his mind.
    He thanked Flame for all her help, shouldered his rucksack, and headed over to the pier to see what was going on.
    Across the street was a small group of curious onlookers, mostly drunks from the bars and a few curious dockworkers. Cops had the entrance to the pier cordoned off and were keeping the crowd at bay.
    “Was it a pit bull?”
    “Partially eaten, is what I heard.”
    Partially eaten.
Just like those students on the mesa. Just like Oscar Amezuita. There were clearly no dogs to blame here. No hungry sea creatures like the ones that had supposedly snacked on the dead dockworker. In all the frenetic activity surrounding their failed attempt to rescue Tanya, Matt had almost forgotten about the corpse that had brought him to Long Beach in the first place.
    Matt had a sinking feeling that both bodies had in fact been eaten by a human. Or something that used to be human. Something not unlike the corrupted archaeologists on the mesa.
    Could some of Long’s scarred fighters or tattooed henchmen have escaped the fire at Long’s compound and returned to the only familiar place they knew, the DS&T pier?
    A pair of crime-scene techs were stretchering the corpse from the pier to a waiting meat wagon. They’d done a pretty half-assed job of covering the man’s half-eaten face and torso with a stained plastic tarp. Both arms were visible, covered in bruises and scratches, but no Ouroboros tattoo.
    He had to warn Stacy. Whatever was going on, it obviously wasn’t over yet.
    * * *
    Matt knocked several times on Stacy’s door. He could hear music playing inside the apartment, but there was no answer. He reached out to test the doorknob but swiftly recoiled.
    There