by Melissa Marr
“I know, Z.” Kaleb took the mouth guard, looked at it warily, and then handed it back. “I can’t use this for more than a minute today. I need my teeth.”
Zevi’s eyes widened as he realized what Kaleb was planning. “You don’t need to do that. You’re good enough to—”
“Bet security,” Kaleb interrupted. “No claws before third blood.”
The mingled anger and fear in Zevi’s eyes made Kaleb regret telling him. They stood silent, neither giving voice to the inevitable truth that Kaleb’s teeth would mean the fight would be bloodier faster.
“We need the money,” Kaleb said mildly.
“I could earn it.” Zevi held his bag open so that a tattered red mask was visible.
“No.” Kaleb smacked Zevi’s hand away from the bag. “I will take care of us, Z.”
Kaleb would do a lot of things that he found abhorrent before he’d ask Zevi to whore himself. Life as a cur in The City meant that the choice between whoring or killing was inevitable, but when he’d brought Zevi out of the Untamed Lands and into his home, he’d tried to make sure Zevi didn’t have to do either of those things. Zevi was his pack, his family, and Kaleb would do anything to protect him.
The crowd parted to allow Nic and Kaleb to reach the ring. As they were equals, they took the ring simultaneously. Neither one bowed.
Kaleb had removed his shirt only. Nic, however, had stripped completely; he had no compunction about baring himself to the crowd. However, he also made no secret of his willingness to wear the red mask as well as the black one.
The crowd on the ground around the ring was packed so tightly that several hawkers had to prod them backward in order to raise the ring. One enterprising hawker had brought a white-masked witch with him for crowd control. The status and wealth implied by having his own witch made the citizens all notice the hawker. The witch’s clothes were stained with dirt, and as he lifted his arms, his sleeves fell back, exposing the ownership brands on his wrists.
The hawker preened under the crowd’s nervous attention as his witch muttered whatever words he needed and gestured with his outstretched hands. As the spellwork became manifest, the blue-and-gold eyes of the witch gleamed, their eeriness highlighted by the starkness of his mask. It was part showmanship, but it was still effective: in moments, the perimeter of the circle was free of obstructions.
The witch and the hawker both bowed to Kaleb and Nic. Then the hawker held out his card to Zevi. “At your service, sirs, if you should need us.”
With a low chuff of warning at the witch, Zevi took the card. No one liked having any witches in The City, but laws and contracts were enforced by magic, so witches were a necessary evil. Kaleb nodded once at Zevi, who shoved the card into the morass of things in his ever-present bag.
“Are we going to do this or are you going to stand around making eyes at your bi—” Nic’s words were cut off when Kaleb slammed his fist into Nic’s mouth.
Kaleb said, “Show respect.”
“No bloodpoints!” The hawkers scurried and waved their hands. “Circle first.”
“Right,” Kaleb said mildly. He bent to the bucket and withdrew a handful of the salt-and-chalk mixture. The salt stung the scrapes on his knuckles where Nic’s teeth had torn the skin.
Nic moved to stand back-to-back with Kaleb. “You’d better hope your bitch has a protector lined up for after today.”
After a lifetime in the streets, Kaleb wasn’t going to be truly angry about Nic’s barbs. They necessitated a statement — which Kaleb had made with his fist — but they didn’t upset him in any way that would benefit Nic. As they finished drawing the circle, the barrier snapped into place.
“To a better future,” Kaleb said as he extended his hand to Nic.
For a moment, Nic’s facade of callousness wavered. He nodded once. “To not being the bottom of the order.”
They exchanged a smile.
Kaleb hadn’t released Nic’s hand more than a moment before they both struck. Nic hit Kaleb with a combination; both punches drew blood.
Instead of wasting time with fists, Kaleb had slashed Nic’s arm with a pair of knives he’d withdrawn from his pockets the instant Nic punched. Only one of the knives actually cut Nic, but between that cut and the two punches Nic had landed — and Kaleb intentionally hadn’t dodged — they were already at third blood.
The judges only counted it as second blood though.
“Foul,” Zevi snarled at the hawkers.
To win his cut of the bet pools, Kaleb had to deliver third blood before either of them drew claws. Nic flexed his hands, starting the transformation that would result in Kaleb losing his share of the betting pool. In that brief moment while Nic was distracted by transforming, Kaleb surged forward and bit off the bottom of his earlobe.
“Third blood!” the hawkers yelled over the shrieking crowd.
That was all the time Kaleb had though. Nic’s hands no longer had fingers, but extended digits with claws. Unlike Kaleb, Nic preferred to fight in full animal form. As Nic’s transformation continued, Kaleb grimaced and accepted the inevitable. He shed his own bipedal form. His teeth lengthened, and his jaw reshaped itself. Hands and arms were replaced by grotesque limbs with thick claws.
Nic transformed completely in every fight, so he was animal before Kaleb. He lunged for Kaleb’s throat, but the brutality of such a move was easy to predict. They’d both fought in the street since not long after their infancies. Every cur who’d fought to survive knew that a quick kill was better if the other fighter was of equal tenacity.
Kaleb angled his body so that Nic couldn’t bite his throat. Immediately, though, Nic took hold of Kaleb’s right foreleg. Teeth tore flesh and muscle.
Vaguely, Kaleb understood that the hawkers were saying, “Fifth blood,” but he wasn’t sure what the fourth had been. Since he didn’t feel it, he assumed that he had drawn blood without noticing.
The warm taste on his tongue seemed to support that theory as well.
He felt Nic’s muzzle too close to his stomach and kicked him. The force of the kick sent Nic into the circle, and the jolt of that contact sent a surge through Kaleb too. The protective setting kept opponents from using the circle as a weapon, so both Nic and Kaleb yelped as the current singed their hides.
But it didn’t stop them or slow them for long.
Neither cur would forfeit. No one outside the circle would expect it of them, and both fighters knew well that a forfeit in the competition was the same as marking oneself as meat. With stakes this high, curs ended fights in death. The alternative was worse than death. Going from being deadly to being meat wasn’t an option. It would mean fighting every day.
No forfeits.
Nic was sailing through the air, midjump.
Kaleb kept all four feet spread on the ground and waited. Just as Nic was about to land on him, Kaleb moved. At the same time he snapped at Nic’s throat.
Nic dropped to his belly, and all Kaleb got was a mouthful of fur.
As Kaleb turned and lunged to get another bite, Nic’s claws ripped into Kaleb’s hind leg. Blood poured so freely that Kaleb looked back. Something important had been pierced.
Rather than let the blood leak out, Kaleb stretched his neck, angled, and bit on the foreleg that was gouging into him. He clamped down over and over and ground his teeth, ripping through the flesh and muscle of Nic’s leg until the long, clawed digits were severed.
Nic’s growls were thunderous, but he was losing blood fast.
With every bit of strength Kaleb had left, he rolled, pinned Nic, and clamped his jaws on Nic’s throat. For a moment, Kaleb hesitated, but it wouldn’t do any good for them both to die, and Kaleb was feeling so dizzy that he suspected he’d be out soon if he didn’t get aid. He bit down and yanked his teeth away, tearing a hole in Nic’s throat and ending the fight.
Then he rolled off of the shuddering, dying body and began to transform again. He was too exhausted and savaged to move very far from the blood-wet ground. His ga
ze was locked with Nic’s as the light went out of the dying cur’s still-animal eyes.
When Nic died, Kaleb felt the circle drop. He heard the roar of the audience, but closer, he heard Zevi’s voice. “You survived, Kaleb.”
I’m not sure, he tried, but failed, to say.
Then Zevi hoisted him into the air and carried him away from the carnival.
CHAPTER 7
THAT EVENING, MALLORY SCANNED through the television channels, realizing as she did so that she’d spent more than half an hour watching a minute of this and a few seconds of that. Her ankle and wrist still ached, and the cuts on her biceps made it look like she’d been attacked by the shrub that had broken her fall when she was out running that morning. She knew from experience that taking a tumble in front of her father always meant that he’d get more overprotective; she couldn’t imagine how crazed he’d be if she ever had to face a daimon — not that she felt very confident in her ability to do so when she couldn’t avoid a silly little dog.
Her life was lame, truly and completely lame. Because of the way they moved, too many nights were like this. Unlike at the last four schools in the last four towns, she hadn’t even made casual friends here.
Maybe it’s just harder in high school.
She was used to moving, used to picking up midway through classes, and by now, she even relished those first few weeks. Then, people talked to her. They answered questions about homework, maybe even decided she was worth getting to know. That was the routine.
This year, though, she’d gone from new to sick to catching up to getting ready to move again. The bouts of sickness were unpredictable, and her father made her feel better every time it happened. Still, being sick meant big gaps from school sometimes, which added to her inability to make friends. Aside from a few parties she was halfheartedly invited to and her unpredictable encounters with Kaleb, she’d had exactly zero social life.
The time with Kaleb the past month was her greatest joy. Even though going against her father’s wishes was high on her list of “things to avoid if at all possible,” it was hard to follow good sense where Kaleb was concerned. He made her feel all of those things that she’d thought were missing in her. He was different, and he made her feel different — not that she was about to try to have that conversation with her father.
For several years now, Adam had been her only parent, and all things considered, he did a great job at even the things that were supposedly “mothers’ tasks”: he’d taken her to salons, spent hours shoe shopping, brought her chocolate when she needed it. Admittedly, she’d seen his stash of “being a single dad” books, and she’d had to literally bite her cheek a few times to keep from laughing when his books led to ludicrous parenting moments. His “birds and bees” talk, in particular, made her giggle just thinking about it, and his “chick flick” movie nights when she was due for her period were endearing but absurd. He’d actually gone so far as to try to discuss the comparative hotness of actors he’d apparently researched in entertainment magazines. He was committed to giving her the most normal upbringing he could. Aside from the hours of firearms training and the nonstop lectures on the threats all around them, she could almost believe things were just fine. Almost. The disparity between the illusion she wanted and the reality she lived was vast. Daimons want to kill my father. That detail was never far from her mind. Unfortunately, lately, neither were thoughts of Kaleb.
She flicked the television off and hobbled to her bedroom to work on packing. Every time she started to get settled, they seemed to be leaving again. She’d been the new girl in class every year. The school where she started the year and the school where she finished the year were rarely ever the same.
While she packed, she whispered a quiet prayer that she’d make friends in Franklin — or maybe even that Kaleb’s school was near her new town. That was all sorts of unlikely; she knew it, but she clung to the tendril of hope. She’d wanted some normalcy for years, but Kaleb was the first person she’d liked enough to want to try to find a way to really have in her life.
Sometimes she thought her father saw threats where there weren’t any. She’d never even seen a daimon, but the house was warded, and she was covered in protection spells. Life was a series of flights and thwarted attempts at a real life.
She walked to her father’s bedroom and considered searching for the item he’d taken from the daimons. If they gave it back, maybe they could stop running — and she could stay here and go on actual dates with Kaleb. Life would be so much easier… except finding it was only part of the problem. If she could find the missing item, she wasn’t sure what she’d do with it anyhow.
Where does one find daimons?
The daimons that kept them ever in flight hadn’t appeared in her daily life. No creature with shifting forms had approached her. No doorways to another world had opened in her path. Sometimes, she found it hard to believe that daimons were real, but she’d seen irrefutable proof of witches, and they all believed in daimons. More so, they talked about how, for over a century, daimons had massacred witches and their families at any opportunity. No, Adam wasn’t delusional. If anything, all evidence indicated that he was in very real danger — and her with him.
She opened the door and glanced inside his room. His bed, dresser, and footlocker were all utilitarian, battered and familiar. A heavy quilt covered his bed, and the footlocker had a bulky padlock on it. She assumed that whatever he had stolen would be in there. Unless keeping it in a locked box is too obvious. Her father was practical, and he’d been running from the daimons all her life. He wouldn’t hide it in an obvious place. Would he?
Despite the temptation to explore, Mallory didn’t go into his room, knowing it was as likely to be spelled as not. He wouldn’t put a restriction on the room, but he very well might have an alarm on the threshold — or the trunk or the dresser. She shook her head: it was impossible to keep secrets from Adam. If she went rifling through his things, he’d know and be upset.
She closed his door, returned to her room, and resumed packing.
An hour or so later, she heard the front door close.
“Mals?”
She tossed the jeans she’d been folding onto her bed and walked out to greet her father. As always, his attention swept her from head to toe. As a little girl, she’d thought he had special superhero radar vision. Now, she realized he was simply very, very attentive to details. She knew that he didn’t miss anything as he examined her: freshly painted bright-red toenails; blue-and-green gecko pajamas that were too loose lately; faded tee stolen from his wash-the-car clothes; earbuds dangling around her neck; and mousy brown hair caught up in a ponytail on top of her head.
“Are you feeling any better?” He studied her. “The ankle? The scratches?”
“All fine.” She offered him a reassuring smile. “Mostly just embarrassed.”
“Everyone has accidents.” He gave her a one-armed hug.
“Sure,” she said.
She wanted to reassure him, to promise she could handle any real threats they encountered, but she knew that if he had his way, she’d never encounter any dangers.
“Maybe at the next school you can meet someone to watch shows with or do whatever girl things with.” Adam stepped past her and dropped his briefcase on the kitchen table. “There are more witches there, and you’ll be safer.”
“It’s fine.” She walked over to the stove, checked that the teakettle still had water, and then turned on the burner.
“It’s not fine. I should be home more. We should do more together.”
“I’m almost seventeen, not seven.” She measured tea into the teapot and resolutely didn’t look at him. “Plus, we train. It’s not like I don’t see you.”
Behind her, she heard him rummaging in the fridge. “Once we get settled, maybe we ought to take another father-daughter class.”
She turned to face him. Once he had pulled a container of leftover Chinese out of the fridge, she told him, “Maybe what we ought t
o do is both of us find some people our own age to socialize with. I was thinking that this move might be a good time to start a few new things… like dating.”
“Like dating?” he repeated. Her usually unflappable father stared at her with a look of horror on his face.
“I’ll be seventeen tomorrow,” she reminded him as she pulled out dishes.
He opened the top of the container and spooned some sesame chicken onto a plate she handed him. “How about this: you can date if you meet someone we both think is worthy of you. You don’t want me to be stuck at home all by myself, do you?”
Mallory turned as the teakettle whistled. She’d been his whole life since her mother had left, and she did feel guilty at the thought of abandoning him. “Mom’s not coming back, is she?”
Her father sighed, but instead of ignoring the question like he typically had when she’d tried to ask about her mother, he said, “She loves you, Mallory, and we both want what’s best for you.” He paused. “But she doesn’t love me, and we agreed that it was best for her to leave.”
“Best for whom?” Mallory asked.
“You.”
Mallory felt tears trickle down her cheeks. It wasn’t that her father was saying anything she hadn’t suspected, but it hurt to hear him finally admit aloud that her mother was truly gone and that he didn’t think she’d come home.
“She could visit me,” Mallory suggested softly. “I could visit her. If you knew where she was—”
“No.” Adam turned his back. “No more talk of Selah. She’s gone, and she has no business in your life.”
“She’s my mother,” Mallory said.
“Which is why she was in your life as long as she was.” Adam kept his back to her, so she couldn’t see his face. It didn’t sound like hurt in his voice. There was a lack of emotion that sounded far too like his sister, Evelyn, like the callousness of most of the witches Mallory had met. Hearing it in her father’s voice, especially about her mother, unsettled Mallory.