A sudden hush fell over the clamoring crowd. Like a tide they receded before the advance of a man whom Fernando would have readily believed was half Neanderthal. His crude features sloped downward into a blunt, trollish scowl. The chair opposite Fernando groaned like it was dying as the man sat himself down on it. He plunked his elbow onto the table, hinging up his arm. It was like watching a thick, gnarled tree-trunk being winched into shape.

The seething crowd closed back around them, no longer hurling curses but only darkly smiling. Chico’s gloating expression dimmed, just for a moment.

“Bets!” he yelled, and the bets were placed.

Fernando could tell that the odds were stacked against him. But when had they ever not been? He nodded to his troll of an opponent who only continued woodenly to scowl. Chico locked their hands together. In the troll’s huge horned grip, Fernando felt a bit like a child. Chico released them, gave the cue—and Fernando snapped that tree-trunk arm flat to the table with a slam that reverberated through the whole tavern.

Chico whooped with wolfish glee. “Holy shit, what a strike!” Yanking up Fernando’s arm by the wrist, Chico smirked as he showed it around to the furious, glaring crowd. “Like a tiger’s paw, swatting down an ape’s! Now, who’s got the balls to—”

But at the troll’s defeat, the simmering rancor in the room finally boiled over. A beer bottle sailed toward them out of nowhere. The bottle skimmed Fernando’s ear before it exploded against the wall behind them, splattering the spectators stewing about.

Whoever had thrown the bottle was anyone’s guess. But after that, the bar devolved into chaos. Fernando lurched to his feet as the sea of brawlers surged around him. He saw the troll winding up to knock Chico into the next century. Fernando shouldered toward them. Chico’s face fell as he turned and saw it, too.

In the split-second that Chico’s life flashed before his eyes, Fernando wrenched the troll around by the collar and smashed his fist into that hard, brutish face. The troll hit the floor with a mighty thud. Chico shook himself off and scrambled away, shooting Fernando a sharp parting glance of thanks.

Fernando fell back cursing. He clutched his screaming fist to his chest, dreading that he’d broken something. It had been like punching a brick wall, knocking out that troll. But he didn’t have time to dwell upon it. He flinched back to avoid a fist swinging for his own head. Wild with sudden fear for his life in this raging stampede, he kicked and punched a path through the throng.

Out of immediate danger, Fernando felt his spike of adrenaline fade. On his feet now after a night of hard drinking, the vertigo set in. Nauseous and disoriented, he staggered toward the sound of Chico’s voice calling to him, as if from afar.

Everything was blurred and dim, slowed-down and nightmarish. He saw El Demonio swept up in the tumult, flapping and spurring and screeching. He saw Lalo whipping his long beefy arms around in the fray like a frenzied gorilla. He saw Pepe being thrown toward the door by the barman, his white-haired, cockeyed old uncle. Waving an antique pistol around in his fist, the crazy old man charged forward, swearing and misfiring at the ceiling.

Women shrieked. Glasses shattered. Furniture smashed. In his blind panic, Fernando finally started to sober up a little. He heard Chico louder and closer now. But above all this din he heard yet another—it was Tito yowling in agony as he crashed to the floor beneath a big-armed man who was pummeling him brutally.

Fernando veered toward them. He drove his foot into the big man’s ribs, winding him. He ripped him off Tito, who rolled aside bloody and cringing. As Fernando was dragging Tito to his feet, the big man must have recovered. All Fernando glimpsed was a flesh-colored blur—then all he saw were stars when a meaty fist struck him in the side of his face. The blow had been somewhat glancing, but Fernando reeled all the same. His ears rung. His eyes bleared with pain.

How he got outside after this he wasn’t sure. More than likely he’d been herded along by the stream of others fleeing the scene. The crisp night air hit his face, and it was like being born again. The next thing he knew, Chico had a hold on him. He steered Fernando off down the street with Lalo, Pepe and Tito miraculously in tow.

As Fernando spit blood, Chico cuffed him around the ears and laughed. “Primo, I feel like I’ve known you all my life.”

Fernando became thick as thieves with them after this. Even Tito got on with him better, perhaps because Fernando had saved his life—or perhaps because Fernando’s face had gotten busted-up in the fray.

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La Gorgona © CS Dark Fantasy