'Oh, shut up,' Swain said.
'Yes. And fuck you, too,' Selexin added.
Bellos cocked his head, amazed at this display of impertinence. His face tightened, angry.
He began to walk across the elevator.
It was then that Swain realised just how big Bellos was -- he had to bend so that his horns wouldn't hit the ceiling. And he was built like a house, too. Swain eyed the golden breastplate on his chest. It was dazzling.
He also saw that Bellos had added several more trophies to his belt. He still had the Konda's breathing mask and the NYPD badge clipped to it, but now he had two more-recent additions: first -- and most gruesomely -- the severed head of a thin, stick-insect-like creature; and second -- a more earthly object -- a small canister of police- issue chemical Mace, still in its belt-pouch.
Swain froze at the sight of the Mace.
It was Hawkins' Mace.
It was Bellos' trophy from killing the young policeman.
Bellos caught Swain looking at his newly acquired trophy. He touched the small canister on his belt.
'A curious weapon,' he mused. 'As his dying act, your companion sprayed it into my eyes, but to no effect. You humans must truly be fragile beings if something so pathetic as this injures you.'
'You are a coward, Bellos,' Selexin spat.
Bellos rounded on him, took a step toward him, extended his arm toward the little man's head.
Selexin leaned back against the wall, trying to pull away.
Then, roughly, Swain swatted Bellos' arm away. 'Get away from him,' he said flatly.
Bellos pulled his arm back -- away from Selexin -- dutifully obeying Swain's command. And then suddenly he thrust his arm viciously forward, hitting Swain hard in the face.
Swain fell to the floor, clutching his jaw.
'And fuck you, too,' Bellos said with a sneer. 'Whatever that means.'
Then the big man moved quickly, grabbing Swain by the collar and hurling him into the far wall of the elevator.
Swain banged hard against the wall, fell to the floor again, wheezing.
Bellos strutted across the elevator, following him.
'Pathetic little man,' he said. 'How
Bellos picked Swain up by the hair and threw him against the doors of the lift.
'Is that what you will do, little earth man? Cry for clemency? Beg me to be merciful?'
Swain was lying face down on the floor. He picked himself up slowly and sat with his back up against the doors. The cut on his lip had been reopened and now it was bleeding profusely.
'Well, little human?' Bellos jeered. 'Will you beg for your life?' He paused, and then turned to face Holly in the corner. 'Or perhaps, you would rather beg for hers?'
'Come over here,' Swain said evenly.
'What?' Bellos said.
'I said,
'No,' Bellos smiled. 'I think I'd like to acquaint myself with this young lady first.' He stepped across the elevator, toward Holly.
Selexin took a step sideways, blocking him. 'No,' he said firmly.
It was a strange sight. Selexin -- four feet tall, dressed completely in white -- protecting Holly from Bellos -- seven feet tall and clad entirely in black.
'Goodbye, tiny man,' Bellos said, delivering a heavy blow across Selexin's head, sending the little man crashing to the floor.
Bellos towered over Holly. 'Now...'
'I said,' a voice said in Bellos' ear, '
Bellos turned to see Stephen Swain and a long white fluorescent light tube come rushing at his face.
Swain held the fluorescent tube like a baseball bat and he swung it hard.
The swing connected. The tube smashed against Bellos' face, sending glass shards flying everywhere, and showering the big man's face with a strange white powder that had been inside the fluorescent tube.
Bellos jolted slightly with the impact. But despite the spectacular explosion of the tube across his face, he remained unmoved -- uninjured by the blow, save for the layer of powder on his jet-black face -- and simply stared coldly down at Swain.
'Uh-oh,' Swain said.
Bellos hit him.
Hard.
Swain bounced into the elevator doors, just as the elevator stopped and the doors themselves opened. He stumbled backwards, out onto the floor of the Stack. Bellos stepped out of the lift after him, walked over to him, and picked him up by his shirt.
'Yes, yes,' Bellos said. 'Begged for mercy, that's what he did. And do you know what my great-grandfather did when this human begged?'
Swain didn't answer.
'He decapitated him,' Bellos moved his powder-covered face close to Swain's. 'Tore his arms from his body, too.' Bellos stroked his golden breastplate. 'And then he took this. A glorious trophy from such an inglorious creature.'
Swain looked at the breastplate more closely. Indeed, upon closer examination, it looked like... like the gilded armour of a Roman centurion.
Bellos raised Swain higher so that his sneakers were a full foot above the floor. He carried him over to the crumpled outer doors of the other elevator. When the Karanadon had climbed out of the broken elevator at the bottom of the shaft, it must simply have crashed through the outer doors to get out.
Bellos threw Swain through the open outer doors and he landed heavily on what was left of the roof of the destroyed elevator, resting at the base of the shaft. The roof was a good five feet below the floor level of the Stack.
Bellos leapt down onto the roof after him. 'Well, human?' he said. 'Do you beg?'
Swain coughed. 'Not in this life.'
'Then perhaps in the next,' Bellos said, picking him up again and hurling him into the concrete wall of the shaft. Swain hit the wall and fell to his knees, aching, coughing.
'Are you thinking of yourself now, little man?' Bellos said, circling Swain. 'Or are you thinking of what I will do when you are dead? Which is worse? Your death, or the prospect of what I will do to your little one
Swain clenched his teeth, felt the warmth of his own blood in his mouth.
He had to do something.
He looked up and saw the other lift, hanging above them like a big square shadow in the blackness of the shaft. There was a dark gap beneath it.
Bellos moved in close again -- and suddenly Swain came to life, launching himself quickly forward, tackling the big man around the ankles, throwing Bellos off balance, sending them both falling toward the edge of the roof.
They fell.
Both of them.
Off the roof of the destroyed lift, out into the shaft
The drop was about ten feet and Bellos landed heavily on the concrete base of the elevator shaft. Swain landed on top of him, the big man's body cushioning his fall.