Give the kid a break. He's had a tough day.'
G-Nome snarled. 'I demand respect!'
'Shoot him and you've got to deal with me, and even if one of you little bastards was smart enough to load silver bullets, then my great-granddaughter and a bunch of Hunters are parked outside. They hear gunfire, they come down here, and Julie will kill you all.'
One of the gnomes piped up. 'I saw her. She's really tall for a girl!' Several other gnomes nodded at this, as if that fact was somehow extra terrifying. It was a really tense moment.
'Your man has to pay for dissin' my boy in our own house,' Sven stated.
'Hell no,' Earl said.
'You know I can't lose no face in front of my crew, comin' in here and callin' my tomte a lawn gnome. So either we get some respect, or we're gonna have us a gunfight. He's at least gotta get a beatdown.'
Harbinger appeared to mull that over for a moment. 'Sounds fair.'
'Earl!' I shouted.
'I told you to let me do the talking,' he told me calmly. 'A beating's better than getting shot. Okay, Sven, but let's make this sporting. Make it a fair fight. My man wins, you still do the job, and it's half up front, half on completion. Your gnome wins, you get it all up front, plus I'll throw in another ten grand as a bonus.'
The gnome leader thought about this, stroking his beard slowly. 'But it has to be a fair fight…'
'Fair?' I asked in confusion. Fairy-tale creatures or not, I was a three-hundred pound former, illegal pit fighter. I bench-pressed over four-hundred pounds and had once beaten a gargoyle to death with a tire iron. I was having a hard time seeing how me fighting somebody the size of a Cabbage Patch Kid could be construed as fair.
Sven held up both hands, fingers splayed open, displaying them to Harbinger. Gnomes had six fingers on each hand. 'Twelve.'
My boss shook his head. 'Eight.'
Did these guys have to haggle about everything? He turned down two fingers. 'Ten. Or somebody's takin' a bullet.'
'Fine, but no weapons. And you're not allowed to kill him. I need him on my crew. Once he's out, you leave him alone, or I step in.'
'Deal.' The gnome clapped his hands together. Suddenly it seemed like there was at least another thirty gnomes in the room. Money immediately began to change hands as they started taking bets.
'Seriously?' I asked in total bewilderment. G-Nome pulled his pistol out of my neck. He was grinning savagely as he passed his. 22 off to another little guy, and then started signaling specific other gnomes. Those tossed their pieces also. The shirtless Thug Life one dropped the dumbbell with a clang, stood, and cracked his knuckles. Other gnomes began to efficiently remove the plastic furniture from the center of the room. I had a feeling they'd done this before.
'Don't hold back. They're tougher than they look. Sam Haven got drunk one time and picked a fight with half this many gnomes and got his ass handed to him. It was hilarious. Don't worry about murdering any of them. They're magical, so they don't die easily. And try not to lose, 'cause it's gonna cost the company another ten thousand dollars.' Earl clapped me on the shoulder as I stood. 'Though, personally, it's worth it for me to watch you fight ten gnomes at one time.'
'But, but…' Somehow this had all just spiraled totally out of control. 'I've already had a really crappy day!' There was a huge quantity of gnomes in the room now, as a veritable sea of red hats formed a large circle around us. Ten of the little buggers were waiting for me. G-Nome was stalking back and forth, high-fiveing the others. 'I can't hit them! They're tiny.' The audience began to boo.
'Owen, there ain't no rules. Don't forget to protect, well…' Earl waved toward his crotch. 'You know, they're gonna hit you low.'
This was ridiculous. I couldn't hit them. They'd like explode or something.
'Get It On!' Sven Bone-Hand shouted from his vantage point on top of the table.
'Welcome to my Thunderdome, bitch!' G-Nome bellowed.
'Oh, this just sucks,' I muttered as ten gangster gnomes charged me simultaneously.
I've been in a lot of fights, but I can honestly say that this was a new experience. It was like a wave of meat collided with my kneecaps and I was instantly swept to the ground in a sea of white beards. Tiny fists began to slam into me with the speed and intensity of a tropical rainstorm, only each one hit like a rock. I screamed something incoherent as I tried to protect my vital parts. They were remarkably strong for their size.
'I told you not to hold back!' Earl shouted from the sidelines as a child-sized leather boot smashed into my larynx. 'Get up and fight, damn it! I've got money on this.'
I was on my back. There were three of them sitting on my chest and stomach, doing the ground and pound, punching like tiny little jackhammers, while the rest were in a circle kicking me. I reached up and grabbed the only thing I could, which turned out to be a handful of beard. Then I pulled as hard as I could. The gnome flew off my chest and disappeared.
'No fair!' The audience cried. Apparently beards were sensitive. Well, screw 'em. This hurt like hell. I snagged a kicker on each side by their beards, and yanked them together over me. They only weighed about thirty pounds each, and collided with a great deal of force. I rolled over, tossing gnomes in every direction as the beating continued.
Roaring, I squished one underneath me, and the little bastard just kept hitting me in the kidneys. I sat up, a gnome on each shoulder. One of them tried to fishhook me while the other one bit my ear. 'Aaarrrgghh!'
I slugged that one in the face and he was — airborne. I struggled to my feet, gnomes hanging off of everything, all of them punching, kicking, kneeing, elbowing, biting, and just being a general obnoxious pain. Standing now, I started tossing gnomes into the audience. They landed, got pats on the back from their brethren, and got right back into the fray.
It was G-Nome himself that maneuvered right in front of me and threw an uppercut into my testicles. A wave of unbelievable pain followed by nausea surged through me. I went back to my knees. 'Oh.. it's on now…' I gasped through the continuous stream of impacts. All thoughts of fairness went right out the window as righteous fury bubbled up from my core. G-Nome's smiling face appeared in my view, beady eyes searching for another good strike. That smile disappeared as my massive hand clamped around his throat. His eyes got very wide.
I picked G-Nome up as I stood, grabbed one kicking leg with my other hand, and slammed him up into the brick ceiling. He disappeared in a cloud of brick dust. The audience made a noise that sounded like 'ooohhh.' I brought him back down, let go of his neck, and swung him around by his leg. Half a dozen gnomes were knocked spinning out of the circle. At the apogee of the arc, I let go of G-Nome's ankle and he flew down with the hallway. The gnomes surged back toward me, and it was a swirl of violence. I remember gnomes hanging onto each of my feet as I dragged them across the brick floor, gnomes crumpling under my fists with every swing, and gnomes twirling through the air in every direction. But then somebody shattered a beer bottle on the back of my head, and it got kind of blurry.
'I said no weapons!' Earl bellowed. 'That's it!' I stumbled back and fell on my butt, a literal pile of moaning gnomes scattered around me. The audience was booing and throwing trash at me, but luckily no more bottles.
Mad as hell, I stumbled to my feet, disoriented and ready to go beat the entire audience to death. I could feel hot blood spilling down the back of my neck. More miscellaneous objects flew at me. 'Hey! Watch it, you little assholes!' I grabbed a passing gnome by the neck and lifted him overhead.
'Enough!' Sven shouted and the missiles quit flying and only one, last, empty soda can bounced off my boot. My chest was heaving from exertion, my brain ached from the shattered bottle, every inch of my body pulsed with bruised tissue and firing nerves, and I felt an unbearable urge to vomit. But mostly, I was really angry. I was ready to go another round. I cocked my fist back. The gnome I was holding squealed in fear.
'Owen, drop the gnome,' Earl ordered.
I slowly lowered my fist and let go of the little man. He scrambled back into the audience. Sven shouted over the noise of the booing crowd. 'All right, Harbinger. You win. Deal's a deal.'
G-Nome reappeared, missing his hat, blood and dust staining his white beard. He walked back into the circle and spit on the floor. The audience got really quiet. He glared at me dangerously as he flexed his muscles and I got ready for him to charge. 'You done yet?' I gasped.
The dangerous little creature eyed me for a moment. 'You know what? You're all right for being so tall.' Finally he grinned, showing off his bloodstained teeth. 'Best damn rumble I've had in years.' He turned to Harbinger.
