H.T. Night's 8-Book Vampire Box Set (71 page)

Romero, shocked, looked at me and said,
“This is a first, even for me, and I have seen everything.”

I grinned at Romero. “Why are you so certain
I’m a vampire?” I asked.

“Because I saw you fly across the sky
holding the girl. I’m pretty sure you’re not Superman. I had only
seen one other Mani ever do that, so I knew you were something
special.”

I looked around the room and I wasn’t sure
how we were going to watch the fights. The room was covered by
walls on all four sides of the room. Romero snapped his fingers,
and that question was quickly answered for me. The wall directly in
front of us lifted up and there was a large piece of what I assumed
was bulletproof glass separating us. I could see right into the
ring. This was an amazing spot to watch the fight. I was almost eye
level with the ring. Why was I surprised? This guy owned the damn
place.

“So, are the fights pretty gruesome?” I
asked.

“Oh, you’re in for a show, Josiah. Trust me
on that one.”

The women in the suite were so hot they
could have all been swimsuit models, and their hostess outfits
might as well have been bathing suits. That might have been less
revealing. They did plenty of bending over and were very
flirtatious when offering me napkins and condiments. Don’t get me
wrong, I’m a man’s man through and through, but there is something
about a woman who is on the clock that’s a big turn off to me.

Romero said something in Spanish to the
ladies and all three smiled at me and then left the room. I’m not
sure what he said, but the girls left in a hurry.

“You sure know how to clear a room,” I
said.

“They know the drill.”

“Do you entertain potential clients here a
lot?”

“Only the best ones,” Romero winked at me.
Romero walked over and sat in the seat right next to me. He had a
giant bottle of tequila with him and two double shot glasses that
he had grabbed from the counter.

“Are you planning on getting me drunk, so I
sign on?” I asked, with a mixture of sarcasm and truth in my
voice.

“We don’t do contracts here. If I tell you
that you get paid a certain amount, that’s what you get paid. My
word is better than ink.”

“Doing business that way must save you a
fortune in lawyer fees.”

Romero poured his top shelf tequila into the
two giant shot glasses and handed me one. “To good health,” Romero
said.

“To health,” I agreed, clicking his glass. I
downed the shot like it was water.

Damn!

It might have gone down like water, but the
after taste was lethal.

“Put a little hair on that chest did it?”
Romero chuckled.

“I’m kind of a lightweight,” I said.

“Seriously? That surprises me.”

“I’m just not a big drinker,” I said. “Don’t
get me wrong, I like to party with the best of them, I just don’t
prefer to have my judgment altered by outside forces.”

“One thing I learned a long time ago,
Josiah. I’m at my best with a little alcohol in me.” Romero then
poured himself a second shot.

“It doesn’t make for impaired judgment?” I
asked.

“All a person’s best decisions are made with
his judgment impaired. It’s called liquid courage. Some people need
it to be able to fight, hit on girls, or to just get the balls to
do something you never thought you could do sober. I use it to make
business decisions. So far, it’s been a pretty good method.”

I looked around at Romero’s gigantic arena.
One thing Romero had was material things, so if that’s what makes a
guy like this feel and be successful, he was definitely doing okay.
As I looked out into the arena I could see a giant spotlight that
shined right smack into the middle of the ring. The fight I had
seen earlier was obviously over and I could only imagine that the
vampire won.

“A cage over the ring,” I said. “Is that for
effect?”

“Have you been around a werewolf, Josiah?
They are savages. Werewolves have no idea they’re even fighting in
a ring or in front of a crowd, for that matter. The Carni that
fight for me make the decision to go in there and fight. No one
twists their arms to be here. As a matter of fact, I have a waiting
list a mile long for Carni to get in here.”

“You don’t need to explain it to me,” I
said.

“I have heard that you are one of the rare
Mani who has a soft spot for the werewolf.”

“I have a good friend who’s a Carni.”

“I have heard that,” Romero said.

“I guess there’s not much you don’t already
know.”

“It’s how you get to be as rich as me, you
need to do your research. To be honest, Carni are a lot easier to
deal with than Mani, no offense.”

“No offense taken.”

“When these werewolves are in their human
forms, they are the ones who ask for the cages. They understand
that once they switch into their werewolf form, they have zero
cognitive thought of deciding between right and wrong. They just
know to kill.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. Some can.”

Romero laughed. “I’d like to see that. A
werewolf with cognitive thought would be the most lethal entity on
this planet.”

What Romero didn’t know was I knew of such a
werewolf. I decided not to say anything to him about my knowledge
of Tommy’s abilities.

“Have another shot with me, Josiah?” Romero
said, as he poured me another.

“Okay, but like I said, I’m a light
weight.”

“I promise I won’t take advantage of you,”
Romero winked at me. “Unless you’re into that kind of thing?”

“Sorry, I’m all about the ladies,” I said,
with certainty.

“So am I. But to close a deal, I might be up
for anything,” Romero laughed.

“You really want me to fight for you, don’t
you?”

“Josiah, you’re a blonde, blue-eyed vampire
that is as tough as nails and when you transition you become a
freaking white eagle. What’s there not to love about you? You’re a
promoter’s dream. Trust me, together you and I would become very
rich.”

Very rich had a nice ring to it. I was no
different than anybody else. Money is attractive. In another world,
and under other circumstances, I might have jumped at this
opportunity. But, I knew I had a bigger calling. I had just had
everything explained to me by the Deity. The last thing I needed to
be doing was getting caught up in some underground, insane fighting
league that exploits Carni and Mani to billionaires. I had to
admit, I was very fascinated by it all. Perhaps it was the alpha
male in me that liked to always know who the toughest person or
thing on the planet was, but this scene wasn’t going to be for me
as a fighter.

“When’s the next fight?” I asked, opening a
bottle of beer that Romero brought over from the refrigerator.

“Right now. They will be bringing the ‘Wolf’
in any second.”

This should be very interesting. I enjoyed
my beer and looked out into the crowd. It was the classiest-looking
fight club I had ever seen. All the men were sitting at tables
instead of stands. It looked like the Golden Globes does on
television. All the men were dressed in top of the line Armani
suits, smoking cigars and with gorgeous women on their arms.

“How many people are here tonight?” I
asked.

“Maybe five hundred,” Romero answered. “At
fifty grand a head, it’s a nice bit of change.”

I did the math in my drunken state of mind.
“That’s $25 million,” I said, nearly spitting out my beer. I had
already downed my second double shot and was now enjoying a Coors
Light chaser.

“That’s just tonight. On the third night of
the full moon is when we have our super-bouts. We charge $200,000 a
head on those nights. We usually pack this place at about a
thousand people.”

My head was spinning doing the math. This
guy was making $250 million every month. Now I knew where this guy
got off. He was freaking loaded. Money is so intoxicating when you
think about those kinds of numbers.

“What do you pay your fighters?” I
asked.

“It doesn’t matter what I pay the fighters,”
Romero answered. “All that would matter is what I would be paying
you.”

“And that would be?”

“Anywhere between five hundred thousand to a
million a fight,” Romero answered, plainly.

“What if I wanted five million?” I said,
pushing the envelope.

“There’s always room for negotiation.”
Again, Romero winked at me. This guy sure liked to wink. There’s
something a tad untrustworthy about a winker.

I nodded my head and looked out into the
arena. I tried to play it off like I wasn’t just offered a million
dollars to do something I usually do for free on any given night.
Fighting was in my blood and with the buzz I was sporting, a
million dollars sounded pretty damn good.

Suddenly, music started to play over the
loudspeakers and the lights inside the arena began spinning like it
was the beginning to an NBA basketball game.

“The fighters have theme music and a light
show?” I asked, laughing.

“I’m all about entertainment, baby,” Romero
said, proud of his product.

Then a ring announcer came into the ring. He
had one of those great ring voices for this kind of an event.
“Welcome, ladies and gentlemen,” he said in a very deep, roaring
voice. “The third fight on tonight’s card is a fight between two
fan favorites. First in this corner, we have Vengeance.” The crowd
went nuts with both cheers and boos. Then the two black double
doors opened and a dark-haired fellow came running out like he was
on speed. I assumed he was a Mani, because he sure wasn’t a wolf.
This guy was as hyperactive as a four-year-old on a trip to
Disneyland. He sprinted and dove into the ring.

“Who’s Vengeance?” I asked Romero.

“He’s a Brazilian vampire that is rumored to
have killed a hundred Carni in one night in some Brazilian night
club, just for the hell of it.”

“Just for the hell of it, that sounds like a
nice little marketing tool.”

“You’re catching on, Josiah.”

“He does have a lot of energy, I will give
you that,” I said.

“That’s an understatement,” Romero laughed,
in agreement.

The ring announcer continued. “And, for all
you werewolf lovers out there, do we have a treat for you!” The
crowd erupted in a flurry of applause.

What the hell was going on?

Everyone stood on their feet and began
chanting, ‘Wolf! Wolf! Wolf!”

“Holy shit!” I said. “This is a
Carni-friendly crowd!”

“You bet it is,” Romero answered.

“Why?”

“Vampires are considered demonic and
inherently evil to most of these people. A wolf represents
everything that is pure about man and beast.”

“That’s bullshit!” I said.

“Is it?” Romero looked at me in a way I
didn’t like. He was trying to egg me on. I had a feeling this was
part of his ploy; to get me upset to the point I might want to
fight for him. But that tactic was definitely not going to work on
me.

“Do you believe that?” I asked. I poured
myself another double shot and downed it. Now I was really feeling
it. Oh boy, was I feeling it. I was drunk.

Romero smiled from the corner of his mouth.
“Just continue watching.”

The black double doors opened once again and
four men entered the arena holding long ropes. They were pulling a
giant cage on wheels with the ropes. Inside the cage, was one of
the most beautiful white werewolves I had ever seen.

“What’s the white wolf’s name?” I asked.

“Wolf,” Romero answered.

“That’s it?” I said. “The other guy has a
cool American Gladiator name like Vengeance, and the werewolf’s
name is just Wolf?”

“When we asked her what her name was that
was all she told us.”

“The wolf is a girl?” I asked,
surprised.

“Not just any girl. She’s gorgeous. She is
one tough motherfucker, though. She makes ‘Xena’ look like a
ballerina.”

I sat up. Now this was getting very
interesting. The four men wheeled the cage up to the main cage in
the middle of the arena. They connected the two cages together with
locks and bolts. The cages were specially designed to exchange
animals from one side to another, but, in this case, it was a
vicious female werewolf. The cages were now linked together with
the two still separated by a cage door. Then the lights in the
arena went out. All you could hear was the howling of the white
wolf. I had to admit, this was pretty badass!

The lights turned on and the front cage door
to the wolf’s cage lifted up. And the white wolf charged the
vampire Vengeance and leaped on top of him. Vengeance didn’t know
what had hit him. The wolf was tearing him apart. Vengeance
transitioned into a raven and began flying above the wolf inside
the cage. In mid-flight, he transitioned back into his human form
and power-kicked the wolf in the face.

“That isn’t fair,” I said.

“What’s fair, Josiah? Anything goes except
for weapons. The only weapon that can be used is the cage itself.”
Romero watched on like a weird Little League father who was pleased
with his son’s bullish behavior.

The wolf somersaulted backward and Vengeance
continued to kick and punch the wolf as it rolled.

“Get up!” I yelled, rooting on the wolf.

“Are you cheering on the werewolf?” Romero
laughed.

“I’m definitely not rooting for Vengeance!”
I said.

“Wow, you really are a Carni apologist.”

“Is that what you heard?” I asked, as I
poured myself another double shot and downed it. I was royally
drunk.

“I know all about you and your friend
Tommy.”

“Oh, you must not know all about Tommy, or
he’d be here.” I was drunk and not even aware of what I was
saying.

“Why is that?” Romero asked.

“He can change into a werewolf whenever he
wants.”

“What?” Romero asked, completely
surprised.

“I trained him to do so.”