Chase the Dark (24 page)

After nodding for a third time, she started to turn toward the curtain again when Lyre grabbed her into a crushing hug. “You’ll be fine,” he muttered into her hair like he was trying to convince himself more than her. “Ash and I will be watching the whole time. If it looks like you’re in big trouble, Ash will get you out, rules be damned.”

He finally let go and together they peered through the curtains. The announcer was finishing a summary of Grudge’s fighting history to give the daemon a chance to catch his breath.

“But ladies and gentlemen, I imagine you’re curious about our champion’s next challenger? This individual must be brave indeed to take on the Grudge. But—my goodness—our next challenger is not what I expected.”

The crowd quieted as their attention focused on the announcer.

“This challenger—I don’t believe it, but this challenger is not a daemon. Ladies and gentlemen, we have a haemon challenger!”

The crowd let out a bloodthirsty roar. The Grudge smirked, foreseeing an easy victory.

“But—but wait. I am quite frankly stunned. Ladies and gentlemen, that is not all. This brave haemon challenger . . .” He paused dramatically. “This courageous soul is not even a man!” He spun on his heel and pointed toward Piper’s curtained doorway. “Ladies and gentlemen, I give you
Minx!
”

Minx? She could thank Lilith for that demeaning nickname.

Lyre gave her a shove and Piper stepped out from behind the curtain. There was an ominous silence as she stepped out into the full view of over two thousand stares. She scanned a hundred nameless faces, all watching her. The weight of their judgment pinned her in place.

Someone in the front row wolf-whistled. The silence broke as cheers, catcalls, and boos erupted through the whole space. Apparently the crowd was divided on whether they liked her or not. Sucking in a desperate breath, she put her shoulders back and strode toward the ring.

“The mysterious young Minx, ladies and gentlemen, is an amateur fighter from the east end of this great city. She wouldn’t tell us much about herself—but,” he lowered his voice conspiratorially, “some suspect she’s found her way to the wrong side of the law.”

That was true enough. At least Lilith hadn’t made up some story about Piper fleeing a brothel and learning to fight on the streets while defending herself against lascivious men. She stopped in front of the ring, dismayed to discover the raised floor was chest-high on her. She glanced at the silently watching bouncers. None of them offered her a leg up. Grimacing, she hauled herself up and awkwardly rolled under the lower rope. The floor of the ring was so stained with old blood splatters that its original color had been lost. She clambered gracelessly to her feet as the crowd laughed and booed.

The announcer started blabbing again, talking about Piper’s fictitious past wins in some other fight club. She had no attention left for listening because now that she was face to face with Grudge, her confidence was melting like ice in the desert. He was a lot bigger than he’d looked from a distance. His biceps were as thick as her thighs. He grinned evilly. Overall, he looked like a scruffy sailor, with tattooed arms, a buzz-cut, and a crooked nose from being repeatedly broken. Of course, being a daemon, he probably didn’t look like that at all. Like all the fighters, he wore a simple black cloth mask that covered the top half of his face.

“And now, ladies and gentlemen, we spin for the match!” The announcer cried. The crowd cheered, then went quickly silent. Dread iced her stomach as everyone in the massive room focused on the big game show wheel. The announcer grabbed the arrow and spun it hard.

It whirled around, spinning past a green section. Past black. The other green. The red. Green again. It spiraled around the wheel, gradually slowing. Piper couldn’t breathe. Please please please. Let luck be with her.

The arrow slowed and finally came to a stop on a green quarter with two crossed fists.

“A fist match,” the announcer yelled. “Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Minx will fight Grudge with nothing but her wits and skills. A fist match! No weapons, no magic allowed. Combatants, get ready!”

Piper jerked her attention back to Grudge and pressed her back against the corner post behind her. The daemon grinned from his corner.

The bell rang.

Grudge stepped forward. He flexed his arms, leering as he slowly approached. He intended to toy with her first. Piper jumped away from the post before she got cornered and started to scuttle along one side of the square. Grudge turned with her. The announcer was yelling things and the crowd was shouting taunts and encouragement, but Piper focused on her opponent. She had to win.

Grudge stopped. He let his gaze drop and stared pointedly at her breasts. Then he met her eyes and licked his lips. The message was clear. Piper stopped her sneer before it could form, keeping her face slack and fearful. She hadn’t had a change of clothes, so she still wore her tight jeans and midriff-baring halter top. The only difference was her hands and wrists were wrapped in white tape so she didn’t split her knuckles on anyone’s face. Oh, and there was no ring box stuffed in her shirt; Lyre had the Sahar while she was in the ring.

She nervously reached up to adjust her mask. Grudge immediately lunged forward. Ha. Piper’s hand, already positioned next to her jaw, was ready to fly. While he was still cocking his arm, Piper flung her fist out with the whole force of her body behind it. Her knuckles smashed into his throat with a satisfying crunch. He staggered backward, clutching his neck and hacking. Piper pivoted on one foot and slammed the other boot into his lower gut in a perfect roundhouse kick. Grudge doubled over. She brought her elbow down on the base of his skull, then kneed him in the face as he started to collapse forward. He went over backward instead.

In a normal fight, Piper would have stopped there, but she had to knock this beast out to win the fight and she couldn’t lose momentum now that she’d used up the element of surprise. As Grudge fell backward, she kicked him hard in the kidney. He wheezed. She kicked him again in the gut. He curled over onto his stomach to protect it and Piper jumped onto his back, jabbing her knee hard into his lower back. Then she grabbed his arm, twisted it in a wrestling hold—then twisted a little more. He let out a howl. Piper gritted her teeth and wrenched. His arm popped out. She hoped his last opponent would get to see the replay when he woke up.

Piper grabbed at his other arm for another pain-inducing hold when Grudge heaved over sideways. She fell off him and rolled, but not fast enough. With daemon speed, he rolled on top of her.

“Bitch,” he hissed in her face. He drew back his good arm for a punch that would break Piper’s jaw.

She gasped and jabbed her fist into his left side. Bone gave way. He reared back with an agonized shriek. She’d seen him get hit there two fights ago and suspected his rib had been cracked—it had—and now it was broken.

As he clutched his chest, on his knees and straddling her, she sat up and punched at the same time, hitting him full force right between the legs.

His face went white and he squeaked like a dog toy. Piper scooted out from under him and rolled to her feet. He bared his teeth, his expression promising pain. She smiled, lifted one foot, and slammed her kick-ass boot into his face. There went his nose again.

Grudge keeled over and was motionless.

The silence was absolute as one of the referee-bouncers started counting. Piper stood where she was, breathing hard and wondering if the crowd should have been cheering or something. The silence was creepy.

The bouncer reached ten and signaled a KO. The announcer cleared his throat.

“Ladies and gentlemen—your victor, Minx!”

Like a flipped switch, the crowd roared. It wasn’t exactly a cheerful sound—almost begrudging—as though she’d won but forgotten to do something in the process.

“Yes,” the announced called excitedly, “our new challenger Minx has become the new champion, defeating nine-times-winner Grudge
without taking a single hit.
Our first bloodless fight in months!”

Ah. That was the problem: she hadn’t met the proper quota of blood and violence before winning. Well, too damn bad for the crowd. She wanted to get through this in one piece.

The bouncers hauled the mountain of limp muscles that was Grudge out of the ring. Piper backed into her corner and glanced at the scoreboard. Her own photo, taken right before the match, stared across the room. Somehow she looked enigmatic and coy in the black mask, her natural auburn hair windswept and possibly sexy—or maybe just messy. She waited with mounting nerves while the announcer prattled on about drink deals and betting rules. Her odds had increased impressively from 99–1 to 33–1. Nice.

Contrary to her official odds, she knew her next match would be ten times as difficult as that one. Grudge had been in the ring for an hour and a half and she’d been able to analyze his style for weaknesses before having to face him. She’d known he’d attack if she pretended to be distracted and where to hit when he’d pinned her. Most of all, she’d had the element of surprise because no one had known what she could do.

Her next opponent would be fresh. If he were on top of things, he would have watched her last fight and would now know what to expect. And if he were smart, he would already be planning a strategy, whereas she couldn’t plan anything until they began their match.

“Our next challenger, ladies and gentlemen, is also a newcomer to the Styx Ring, but with credits from many of our sister clubs. I give you—Rattler!”

As the crowd cheered and the announcer started listing off the challenger’s stats, Piper focused on the daemon coming through the curtains. At first glance, she knew she was in trouble. The man was slight and rangy with a fluid walk and a bounce in his step that said he was light on his feet. She gritted her teeth. Maybe Lilith thought she was doing Piper a favor by giving her an opponent around the same size, but instead, she’d now lost the advantage of speed and agility she had over heavyweights. A smaller guy was also less likely to underestimate her.

Rattler swung into the ring with a haughty smirk stretching his mouth, and Piper amended her last thought. A small
human
guy wouldn’t underestimate her, but even an undersized daemon had an ego big enough to crush small towns.

She eyed him, hoping for some clues as to his fighting style. His shaved head, covered with a snake scale pattern that may or may not have been a tattoo, gleamed in the spotlights. He was shirtless like most male contestants and wore simple black sweats that wouldn’t impede his movements; he probably didn’t rely on a boxing style. On his chest was a mark like a caduceus with a winged staff and two snakes twined about it.

Piper blinked disbelievingly. Really? He was advertising his caste? How arrogant was he?

Then again, if he were in fact a nāga, he would be excessively arrogant. Snakes were like that.

Rattler studied her as she studied him. He constantly shifted his weight, ceaselessly moving, his gaze roving without slowing. He grinned savagely before turning toward the giant wheel of match types as the announcer spun the arrow. Piper watched apprehensively. Green, red, green, black, green, red, green. It started to slow, ticking past the black quarter and down into safe green. It slowed more. Piper held her breath. Stop, she begged silently. Stop now.

The arrow dropped to stop one peg into the red section. The weapons match.

The crowd screamed and roared its support. Piper swallowed hard and glanced toward the curtained doorway. No sign of Lyre or Ash. She hoped they were nearby, because there was every chance she was about to lose a limb.

A referee approached the ring with a box. In it were her three choices: a dagger, a spear, and a sword.

“And now,” the announcer shouted, “as you all know, the current champion chooses first. Although we at Styx Ring try to limit rules as much as possible, weapons matches are closely supervised. Deliberately maiming or killing strikes will equal a life ban from the Styx and our sister clubs. After all, we don’t want to run out of able fighters.”

Piper hesitated over the three weapons. She not only had to consider what weapon would suit her best, but what choices she was leaving her opponent. The dagger suited her style, but the spear had a long reach that could potentially keep unfriendly blades away. In the end, she selected the sword, the middle ground, so she wouldn’t be left with too extreme a disadvantage against either remaining weapon.

Rattler surveyed the remaining selections and chose the dagger. Piper wasn’t sure if that was good or not. She weighed the sword in her hand; it was a well-balanced katana. She had a good amount of experience with the weapon. They faced each other as the announcer called out for them to get ready. The bell rang.

Rattler swayed forward, shifting from foot to foot as he tossed the dagger from hand to hand in the opposite rhythm as his feet, so effortlessly Piper knew she was definitely in trouble. She angled her sword and breathed deeply. She had to take him down before he could get in close.

She lunged in and feinted a high strike. He called her bluff and almost gored her with the dagger before she swept the sword around. He was supernaturally fast and dodged out of the way, dancing back with a grin on his face. She went on the offensive, making short, quick strikes that kept him retreating. He evaded every one, too fast and agile. Damn Lilith. Why had she set Piper an opponent with all the same strengths as her—only stronger?