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CHAPTER FIVE
El Rey was right beside the Regulator when the Zero with the grenade launcher emerged. A glance at their line of retreat revealed that Satan's Reich had caught up with them. Realizing they were trapped between two fires he went into action. As the women scampered out of the way, El Ray drew the bikers' fire. He hurled his folding chair as easily as a frisbee. The cheap metal sprouted holes as the bikers shot it apart. The chair caromed into the floor and the ceiling exploded.
El Rey opened his eyes in darkness. He groped his way to his feet. He was dazed from the blast and gasping for air in the smoke. His ears heard nothing, save a hideous buzzing. El Rey hadn't felt this bad since El Gorila Canibal had slung him into that turnbuckle at the Oaxaca Fight-Fiesta.
There was a doorway in front of him. The smoke meant fire, a foe that was more easily escaped than fought. He turned to where his companions had been and shouted, "Follow me!"
He found himself on a stairway. Bulling his way forward he reached the top of the stairs. A half-formed thought nagged at his mind. Perhaps he should have checked to see that he others were following him.
El Rey did not have time to act on that thought. There was light on the second floor. An overturned sofa, its insides scattered as if it had been hit by a grenade, was blazing away. Burning cushion-filling cast a lurid light through the thickening smoke.
A dead man, mangled by the grenade, lay on the floor. Near his hand was an AK-47. Comandante Scorpion was across the room. He reached inside his balaclava to remove a pair of earplugs.
El Rey saw Comandante Scorpion's lips move and heard, "Yabubbah-nooghlad." Had the grenade not deafened the masked wrestler, he would have heard, "I should have known it was you. Satan's Reich are stupid gringos, they could never have created this level of chaos!" Comandante Scorpion took a step toward the AK-47.
El Rey surged forward. "Oh no, reach for that gun and I'll make you wear it like a necktie!"
Comandante Scorpion shrugged. "I don't need it. I was trained by the best at School of the Americas. This way I'll take you alive. Then I can use the other skills they taught us. Information extraction is a wonderful pastime, at least for the extractor if not for the extractee. You will last for days amigo!" He dropped into a fighting stance.
El Rey surged across the burning room. He wished he knew what the gang boss had said, but it probably did not matter anyway. His massive hands reached for Comandante Scorpion and the men joined battle.
Sophie triggered the M-16, sending a stream of bullets blindly down the hall. She yanked out the magazine and began to reload it.
"Yes! Gracias a Dios! The Federales are on the way!" Maria beamed at her companions. Just then Sanchez entered the door, H-K submachine gun at the ready. Sophie raised her M-16 and pulled the trigger, but the magazine was still in her hand.
Sanchez laughed, "I guess I'll need to kidnap some new women!" He raised his gun. At that very second both Juana and Maria acted. One sent a lit votary candle flying at him and the other sent a full bottle of 180 proof rum. The bottle shattered and a ball of flame engulfed Sanchez and the room began to blaze.
Mad Dog and the Regulator circled each other. A feint from the Regulator drew Mad Dog. The Regulator dodged and replied with a slash that cut open the biker's thick leather jacket.
Now they went at it in earnest. Both men slashed and stabbed viciously. Mad Dog's blade raked the Regulator's ribs and the vigilante's bowie knife scarred the biker's face.
The Regulator found himself weakening. The punishing blow from the explosion and constant battle had sapped his strength. Their whirling attacks led them around and around the verandah until the Regulator stumbled onto the steps.
He was off-balance, but caught himself. Seeing the critical opening Mad Dog lunged in. The Regulator whipped his bowie up to stab the biker, but Mad Dog was faster. He smashed the Bowie aside with his cast-covered right arm. It was a savage block that flung the blade up and out of the Regulator's hand.
The Regulator staggered back and watched his knife go sailing up towards the balcony of the floor above. He was unarmed, at Mad Dog's mercy. As if reading the Regulator's mind, Mad Dog spoke.
"Say hi to Jesus and ask for mercy, 'cuz I am fresh out."
El Rey pursued Comandante Scorpion across the room. The gangster gave ground, pausing to send viciously accurate kicks and hand strikes at El Rey. The bigger man absorbed the punishment even as he felt small bones snap and internal organs flame with agony.
The smoke was thickening. The burning room was lit like an antechamber to Hell, dim, murky, and doomed. A brutal kick from Comandante Scorpion sent El Rey reeling. He felt a wall behind him and bounced back, extending his arm to the side. Comandante Scorpion didn't see it coming in the smoke. El Rey's forearm caught him in the throat and he fell. Comandante Scorpion bounded to his feet only to be caught be El Rey in a Michoacan drop-throw that sent him flying across the room. He crashed through a glass door and landed on a broad balcony.
El Rey followed like a merciless engine of destruction. With two bear-paw strikes and a forward kick he beat Comandante Scorpion down. As the gang boss sat dazed, El Rey reached for Comandante Scorpion's balaclava.
"Now for the unmasking." El Rey pulled off the mask and glared at the man who sat grinning up at him.
"You are such a wrestling cliche." In his hand was a pistol he had pulled from an ankle holster. "The Scorpion still has a sting!" Comandante Scorpion rose to his feet and leaned against the balcony rail. "Adios, idiot!" He raised his gun.
As if freed from a trance, Maria looked around the room. The open doorway was blazing, and bullets were still flying from that direction. Maria crawled to the bathroom door, Sophie and Juana following. They pulled the door shut behind them. Smoke was filtering under the door. A bullet whistled through the cheap plywood and flew across the room. It struck something else that broke.
"That was glass," Maria exclaimed. She groped across the dark room and felt a curtain. A yank pulled it down and the moon came through a small window that bore a bullet hole.
The women struggled through the window. Outside they lay on the grass gasping, partly from the smoke and partly from the effort.
"Do you have a cigarette, Maria?" Juana asked.
"I am so back on my diet." Sophie sat up. "From now on no more..."
But her friends never learned how Sophie planned to reform her eating habits. They heard shouts of rage and single gunshot from the back of the house.
El Rey stood his ground, facing Comandante Scorpion's pistol. There would be a shot and then nothing.
Just then a razor sharp bowie knife sailed over the balcony rail and slashed across the gangster's arm. Comandante Scorpion turned to look over and saw Mad Dog below him. Hatred, intense and ferocious, flared in their eyes.
"You!"
"You!"
El Rey struck. With a mighty smash he sent Comandante Scorpion over the rail. Scorpion fired once as Mad Dog raised his blade. Then the gangster landed on the biker. Both lay unmoving in a widening pool of blood.
El Rey leaned over and saw the Regulator. Neither had a chance to say a word before a motorcycle roared up.
"Hey, I scored this sweet ride inside the house." A Satan's Reich biker sat astride the Regulator's motorcycle. He held up a shotgun, "We can blast our way out!" Then the shock of recognition flared in his eyes as the Regulator came off the verandah, boots first.
El Rey hopped down from the balcony. Flames were shooting up from the house. "OK, I guess we better get back inside and save them." There was a tone of defeat in his voice.
"Save who?" Maria asked. Juana and Sophie were behind her.
The Regulator gave Maria a hug she would never forget. Carefully they made their way back to the gate of the hacienda. Both outlaw factions seemed to have dispersed and the gate sagged open. Flames lit the night sky like the day of judgment. As they stood, sirens sounded and they could see Nuevo Durango fire trucks and Federale armored cars racing to the hacienda.
El Rey reached into a pocket in his spandex and held up a CD-R to Maria. "Take this. You'll have quite a story to tell about Los Zeros, Satan's Reich, and dirty rats like Sanchez. It may even shame some people into action."
"Well, our work here is done. We'd better get going." The Regulator gunned his motor and El Rey hopped on.
"Yes, you'd better go quickly." Maria spoke hesitatingly. "Hasta luego. You are the craziest, most dangerous man I have ever met, Senor Regulator. Come back soon." Maria leaned over and lifted his mask to give him a kiss.
"Bye for now, sweet!" The Regulator started off. "Look me up in Texas. I'll be the one in the middle of trouble!" The motorcycle roared away.
The women were still standing there when the Federales arrived. A captain leapt down from an armored car and approached.
"Who were those masked men?"
Maria smiled. "They are heroes. Very super ones."
THE END
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