Demon Games [4] (30 page)

The crowd was on its feet. Most of them booed the lycanthrope as he crossed the arena, trailing the vast purple train in his wake, but the sound hardly registered; all Trey could hear was the blood in his ears and the thumping of his heart. Some of the spectators had begun to chant Abaddon’s name over and over again, the noise level getting higher and higher as the challenger’s chariot got nearer to the champion. There was a dangerous atmosphere in the stadium, as though at any moment the entire place could erupt in violence and disorder. Abaddon stood upright and stone-like in the centre of the fighting square.

A spectator leaped the enclosure wall. A demon ran towards the chariot, and Trey guessed that the creature was a fanatic intent on doing him some harm. He was about to jump from the chariot and prepare to defend himself when a black arrow thudded into the demon’s back, sending it sprawling to the floor.

The crowd roared with laughter at the murder. They shouted obscenities at the dead demon as its body was dragged away by the heels.

The MC introduced the fighters, and as he withdrew in the direction of the tunnel the third and final fanfare blared out to signal that the contest was about to begin.

Trey eyed the red-skinned demon with a growing sense of doom. As a werewolf he was big: over seven feet tall with a broad, muscular frame that he knew to be intimidating. But he felt positively dwarfed by the nether-creature before him.

Trey’s wolf senses were in overdrive. He could see-smell everything around him, the synaesthesia he experienced as a werewolf transmuting the olfactory signals into colours and shapes that seemed to blend and merge with the images that his eyes were transmitting to his brain. He could smell his own fear; the black-and-brown shadow of it hung like a dark curtain at the top of his vision, and he wondered if Abaddon could sense this too, because the red demon was grinning back at him. Trey’s hearing was too acute for the noise of the stadium and he was grateful that the helmet on his head muffled some of the noise.

The crowd was all cheering now, up on its feet. And the din went up another notch as the horn sounded to signal the start of the fight.

There was no gesturing to the crowd by Abaddon this time, no turning his back on this unknown opponent. Instead there was a steely look in the demon’s eye as he began to move to his right across the sand. Trey copied the motion, the two fighters circling each other warily. Abaddon bluffed a few feints, making as if to rush the werewolf, but Trey saw them for what they were and did not react.

Inevitably, however, it was the teenager who made the first mistake. He broke eye contact with Abaddon for a split second, glancing towards the huge decorative front of the champion’s belt, and that instant was enough to spur his opponent into launching the first attack.

For a creature of such bulk, Abaddon was quick. He closed the short distance that separated them in the blink of an eye, and the punch that connected with Trey’s face, just above the eye, felt like a hammer blow – a great thudding, bludgeoning blow that made the werewolf yelp in pain. A mortar shell of agony exploded inside Trey’s head, and he staggered backwards as the second blow, a wild, swinging punch, caught him in the chest and knocked the wind from him.

Abaddon stepped forward and kicked out, aiming the blow carefully so that his foot connected with Trey’s knee joint. The lycanthrope felt something crack, and a white-hot tidal wave of pain swept through him, obliterating everything else.

Trey howled in agony, and the champion was upon him.

An elbow connected with the werewolf’s face, and Trey staggered backwards again, wincing with each step he took on his damaged knee. Blood was flowing into his right eye now, and he blinked it away, struggling to keep his opponent in sight. Abaddon aimed another punch at the werewolf’s face, but Trey managed to twist out of the way of this one, opening his huge jaws as the fist whistled past his face, and biting down into the champion’s forearm. One side of his jaw closed around the leather armguard that Abaddon wore, the other side found flesh. The armguard prevented Trey from biting down hard enough to inflict the type of wound he would have hoped to, but even so he was encouraged to taste the demon’s foul black blood. The champion tore his arm loose, stepping back just in time to avoid the werewolf’s claws as Trey sought to take full advantage of his counterattack.

Abaddon looked down at the torn flesh of his forearm. The wound was superficial, and Trey marvelled at the toughness of the demon’s skin; it must be like thick leather. Abaddon was smiling back at his challenger, as if reading his thoughts. The demon dipped his forefinger into the blood and looked down at the stuff on the tip of the digit before slowly rubbing it away with his thumb. When he looked across at Trey again, the hideous smile slowly slipped away from his face.

‘Bad doggy,’ the demon said, shaking his head, and he began to circle his opponent again.

Trey was in trouble with his damaged leg. He couldn’t move freely, and he knew that he’d be off balance and susceptible to any attack that Abaddon launched. If he went down, he knew he’d suffer the same fate he’d witnessed the Destroyer inflict on his semi-final opponent and, with his leg the way it was, there was every chance of that happening. In addition, the swelling above his eye, coupled with the blood, was making it difficult to see. He didn’t think he could survive another attack from the hulking demon, so he did the only thing left to him: he launched his own offensive.

He sprang forward, staying low to try to avoid any more of those vicious blows and ignoring the screaming pain in his leg as he pushed off against it. If his plan didn’t work, he wouldn’t have to worry about the pain any more, he’d be dead.

Not for nothing was the champion considered the greatest fighter ever to have competed in these terrible Games. He reacted to Trey’s offensive in an unexpected way that took the werewolf totally by surprise: as the lycanthrope launched himself towards his opponent, Abaddon flicked his foot forward, spraying sand up into the werewolf’s face and eyes.

Trey’s momentum carried him forward. He couldn’t see a thing, and he knew the blow that would send him to his death was already crashing down towards him. He blindly threw an arm forward, fingers taut, claws extended, hoping to inflict as much damage as he could before his opponent finished him off. His fingers connected with the top of the metal face on the front of Abaddon’s belt, and he hooked his claws over the top, getting a good grip on the thing. Sure enough, the champion’s fist connected with the top of Trey’s head, and the brilliant explosion of white light lit up the darkness behind the lycanthrope’s eyelids. It should have been the precursor to the teenager passing out. The power of the blow, coupled with his own momentum, pitched Trey forward, but somehow he kept his grip on the belt.

The crowd roared its approval at the blow it assumed signalled the challenger’s defeat. Every spectator was on its feet now, shouting and cheering and pointing down at the arena. They knew it was a matter of moments before Abaddon sprang on to the werewolf’s back and finished the fight with his trademark bludgeoning. It was what they had all come to see.

But Trey wasn’t quite finished. He somehow found some purchase in the sand, and with this new footing he threw his weight forward, driving his head into the gap between Abaddon’s wide stance and pulling down on the belt with all his might at the same time. The champion was caught off balance and had to try to reach back between his legs to grab the lycanthrope. Trey scrambled through the gap and came up on the other side, fingers still hooked into the belt, so that his arm was now hooked up under the demon’s groin, his shoulder wedged into the champion’s rear. Abaddon roared and reached around behind his back in an attempt to get a grip on the werewolf.

Trey blinked hard, desperate to clear the grit and sand from his eyes. He opened them again, and although his vision was blurred with blood and tears, he could see. And he could see the thing he sought. He raked the claws of his free hand down the demon’s back and through the thick leather of the belt, feeling the thing come away from the champion’s midriff as he did so. He stood up, the ruined belt held out to one side.

There was a screaming sound, a high-pitched wail of anger and frustration. Abaddon wheeled about to face the lycanthrope, and Trey saw two faces glaring back at him. And it was the one where the demon’s stomach should have been that was screaming – screaming with rage now.

‘Kill it! Kill the lyco. It has exposed us!’

The screaming face was hideous: a twisted, malformed grotesque copy of the champion, as if some ancient version of Abaddon had been grafted into his midriff. And its eyes were terrible: radiating nothing but pure hatred.

Abaddon charged. Whereas before he had always seemed in control – confident and assured of his ability to beat any opponent – Trey saw that behind the mask of rage there was now something else: doubt and fear. From the way that the demon bellowed and ran at him, it was clear to Trey that the champion had lost control. Abaddon swung a huge fist at the werewolf, and unlike his earlier blows, which were terrible in their accuracy, this one was wild – a great roundhouse of a hook, swung with the intention of inflicting the maximum amount of damage without caring what it connected with. Trey easily ducked inside the arm and, wincing as his knee ignited with pain once again, twisted round while driving his right hand forward – low and hard, fingers squeezed together, claws extended.

The flesh of the torso-face was not like the leathery, tough hide that covered the rest of the champion’s body. It was soft and yielding – like a blancmange – so that Trey’s talon-tipped, spear-like blow resulted in his whole hand entering the demon. Abaddon gasped and threw his head back, his body rigid and straight as though a galvanizing current had been passed through it.

Trey tore his hand loose.

Abaddon stared down with wide, disbelieving eyes before dropping to his knees and pitching face forward to the arena floor.

There was a perfect silence for a moment. Nothing moved in the stadium as every spectator gawped down at the scene with a look not dissimilar to the one that had just adorned the dead champion’s face. Then suddenly, as if at some silent cue, a great wall of noise filled the place. Nether-creatures leaped up and down, many trying to scale the boundary wall to congratulate the new champion; the lucky ones were beaten back by the stewards wielding great batons, the unlucky ones made it past the security cordon only to be shot down by the archers. Marshals bellowed at the crowd to return to their seats. The master of ceremonies rode out of the tunnel on the back of the purple chariot, skidding to a halt in front of the werewolf. The demon leaped out and raised Trey’s arm over his head, turning the lycanthrope about to face each stand in turn while shouting into a megaphone something that caused the spectators to erupt anew into a frenzy of excitement.

It was all a blur to Trey. He had retreated into himself, trapped in his own bubble of pain and misery so that he was only vaguely aware of the sights and sounds all around. The MC was circling the lycanthrope now, still bellowing at the crowd and gesticulating in Trey’s direction, but the werewolf stood looking ahead blankly. He would have stayed that way if he had not become aware of an insistent tugging at his arm. Eventually he looked down and saw Shentob staring up at him, the old demon’s face expressing pity and concern.

‘Come,’ Shentob said, gently tugging at Trey’s hand while nodding in the direction of the tunnel.

Trey looked down at their joined hands, one gnarled and wrinkled, the other still covered in unspeakable gore.

‘Come,’ Shentob repeated.

And Trey allowed himself to be led up on to the back of the chariot and driven out of the arena.

Trey opened his eyes and gasped at the sight of the decrepit old woman leaning over him. He tried to roll away, only to cry out as the pain in his knee and head insisted that he stay exactly where he was.

He was about to ask the stranger who she was when Moriel appeared over her shoulder. Trey’s heart nearly burst from his chest at the sight of the battle-angel. She nodded at him, the edges of her eyes creasing in the suggestion of a smile. She was as beautiful as he’d remembered her to be: beautiful and terrifying at the same time.

‘So you are finally awake,’ the old woman said, turning her back on him and shuffling away. ‘About time too.’

Trey raised an eyebrow in Moriel’s direction. ‘Who’s she?’

‘That is Hag. She has been tending to you. You have been unconscious for two days now. We thought you might die, but Hag is a great sorceress, and she has had a very good helper.’ Moriel smiled at him now, revealing her sharpened teeth.

‘Alexa?’

‘Yes, Alexa. She will be cross that she was not here when you woke. She has been at your side throughout, and only left to gather some ingredients that Hag required for a new poultice.’

‘And is she . . . ?’

‘She is fine. Thanks to you.’ Moriel looked at him, an unreadable expression on her face. ‘You have a habit of saving people, Trey Laporte. First Lucien, then me, and now Alexa. But the price you have had to pay for your heroism is great. Each time you save one of us, you lose a part of yourself, a part of your innocence.’ She carried on staring at him, as if she was able to see through his skin to peer at things buried deep inside him. ‘You are already a very different young man from the one I first met in Leroth.’

‘Did Lucien find you?’ Trey asked. ‘That’s why he came to the Netherworld, isn’t it? To find you.’

‘He actually came to see Hag, but yes, in the process of seeking her out he found me. He is well, and he would have liked to be here by your side, but he has some business with a certain demon lord to attend to first. He insisted that I stay here to make sure that you were safe.’

‘He’s alone?’

Moriel smiled, but there was no humour in the gesture. ‘Hardly. He has ten of my finest battle-angels with him.’

‘That doesn’t sound like many.’