A roar of approval went up from a handful of spectators, while everyone else jeered and threw their useless betting tickets to the ground.
“Gribgeez was a crowd favorite,” said Niilo as we watched attendants drag the limp goblin’s body out of the ring. “It’s rare to see such an experienced fighter fall so quickly.”
“You’re not going to make Alex fight like that, are you?” asked Chase.
“Don’t be silly,” answered Niilo. “These are only the warm-up rounds. A little blood to whet the appetites of those in the audience. Mages fights are typically far more violent.”
Chase blanched, and I reached out to squeeze his hand. It was as much for my own reassurance as it was for his. I had no choice but to enter that ring if I wanted to get a meeting with Kalev Eskola, and my confidence was dwindling by the second.
Chapter Nineteen
Chase and I waited in a small room with white walls and a cement floor. Several chairs sat stacked against one wall, and a fold-out table was littered with an array of ointments, foci, and chargeable objects. Everything on offer had been deemed fair play in the duel, but I’d never been one for using wands or crystals to focus magical attacks. Even if I could have thought of a useful spell to put into one of the delicate chargeable items, it would only have drained my energy to load one so soon before the rapidly approaching start of the bout.
“How are you feeling about all of this?” asked Chase.
He picked up a clay jar filled with ochre paste, sniffed it, then wrinkled his nose before putting it back down on the table.
“Okay,” I lied. “I wish Niilo had told me more about who I’m supposed to fight.”
“You don’t know who she is?”
I shook my head. The name hadn’t been familiar, but that wasn’t unexpected. If I was here because I had no other choice, it meant she was most likely a pro. Nyota was probably the name she’d chosen as part of her fighter persona. The only other thing Niilo had told me was that we’d be fighting as a precursor to the big bout of the night, and that Nyota had been selected as my opponent since her skill level was estimated to be close to my own.
The problem was that I’d never been in a fight with another mage before, whereas she’d most likely already worked her way up the ranks in order to be fighting in a venue like this one. She might not be the Mohammed Ali of mage fighting, but odds were good she completely outclassed me. It would to take every bit of luck and skill I had to keep me from being dragged out of the ring like the defeated goblin we’d seen earlier.
“You don’t have to do this,” said Chase. “Say the word, and we’ll get the hell out of here.”
“Then what? We need the Conclave’s help. Whoever this Nyota chick is, she can’t possibly be as dangerous as the kryte or whoever is controlling it. If I can’t make it through this, what chance do I have of stopping the Dark mage before he can use the amulet?”
“I still don’t like it,” said Chase. “But I guess I see your point.”
I unzipped my hoodie and draped it over the back of a chair. Rolling my shoulders a few times to limber up, I hopped up and down on the balls of my feet, trying to psych myself up for what was to come. Mage fights were all about magical attack and defense, but that took as much of a physical toll on the body as it did physical and emotional. My shoulder and back still ached from the fight at Xiang Wei’s office, and I’d have liked to have my magic energy stores sitting much closer to a hundred percent than they were. Still, I felt in as good a form as I had any right to be after what I’d been through over the last few days.
Figuring it was smart to fuel up before the fight, I tore open my last bag of energy beans and poured the whole thing into my mouth. I chewed the sticky mass until it dissolved, heart beating faster as sugar mingled with the anxious adrenaline already coursing through my bloodstream.
“You need to stay calm and go on the offensive,” said Chase. “If you can land the first hit, you can press the advantage from there.”
“So you’re a fight coach now?”
“I’ve watched enough MMA to know that trying to win from a defensive position is a losing strategy,” he said. “Come out swinging, and don’t stop until your opponent is on the ground.”
I slumped into a chair and looked up at Chase. I wanted to take confidence in his belief in my abilities, but his opinion of me wasn’t grounded in any kind of fact. He’d only just learned I was a mage, and I could only imagine how impressive my mediocre abilities must have seemed to him. He knew nothing about what real mages could do, and he had no way of knowing I could never hope to win against someone who’d been properly trained in combative magic.
“How long until the fight starts?” I asked.
“About ten minutes.”
Ten minutes too long. If I had to sit waiting any longer, I was going to lose it before the fight even began. My flesh practically crawled with the anticipation of it, and I felt the electric tingle of energy responding to my heightened emotional state. This was the first time I’d ever had time to prepare for a fight rather than being surprised by an attacker. My body seemed to be rising to it, bringing with it a hard to resist eagerness to unleash magic at the slightest provocation.
Trying to calm myself, I ran through a series of breathing exercises I’d learned in yoga class. What I can only describe as blood-lust welled up inside of me, and the longer I sat waiting, the more my anger multiplied. Rage and pain from Brody’s death flared to the surface where it mingled with hatred for the mage who’d sent a kryte to attack Lorelai. I was tired of people fucking with me and those I cared about. Nyota hadn’t yet done anything to personally provoke me, but she was as much a part of this as anyone else. These fights were nothing other than one more way for the fae and mage elite to toy with those they deemed beneath them. No mage who’d willingly put themselves into the ring to fight for recognition deserved any pity of mine.
The door opened. Niilo stood waiting.
“I guess that means it’s time,” said Chase.
I nodded, stood up, and walked towards the door. Determined to leave behind the scared and helpless girl within me, I stepped over the threshold, psyching myself up to destroy whoever dared challenge me.
Nyota turned out to be a lanky girl with dark brown skin and black hair done up in a tight braid that hung halfway down her back. She was dressed in tight leather pants and a matching sports bra that left little to the imagination. It struck me as a completely ridiculous thing to wear to a fight, but I had to admit she certainly looked the part. In contrast, I felt like an idiot stepping into the sandy hexagon wearing a gray t-shirt, black skirt, and wool tights.
An announcer stood between us, addressing the audience through a microphone suspended from the ceiling. The crowd hooted and whistled when Nyota was announced as the undefeated winner of no fewer than fourteen duels, and they laughed and jeered when I was introduced as the unknown challenger.
Everything after that faded into the background. I tuned out the announcer and the sound of the crowd, blocking out even Chase’s encouraging shouts from the sidelines. My world narrowed to that small patch of sand and the girl standing smug-faced on the other side of it. We were only seconds away from the start of the fight, and my body vibrated with its desire to unleash the energy I’d been gathering since being called into the ring.
A deep and reverberating gong sounded, and I took it as my signal to attack. Working with what few aggressive spells I had in my inventory, I forwent the precaution of putting up a shield and let fly with a glowing hot wave of kinetic energy that slammed full force into Nyota a fraction of a second after she’d put her own shield up.
The force of the blast send her skidding backwards several paces, and rather than wait for her to recover, I cast a follow-up flare of brilliant white light that arched up over the ring before descending towards my opponent’s head. I’d gambled that she had no way of knowing the ball of light had been meant as nothing more than a distraction, and I was rewarded when I
saw her adjust her shield spell to strengthen it where the blinding ball of light was about to land.
Taking advantage of the now weakened lower half of her defenses, I stepped forward and thrust both of my hands out, sending streaks of electricity towards her feet. The glowing shield absorbed some of the force of the attack, but she’d already diverted too much of her attention away from the area to completely block the attack. She cried out as the conjured lightning surged into the skin and muscle of her legs.
Nyota fell to her knees, frantically throwing soccer ball sized gouts of flame that I casually knocked aside with little more than a thought. The diverted fireballs veered off towards the audience, exploding against an invisible barrier that prevented anyone outside the hexagon from being injured by stray spells.
Raw adrenaline drove me forward. The energy I’d already used on my attacks should have left me far weaker than I was, but I didn’t stop to question it. Instead, I reached out and used my power to grab hold of a swath of sand, lifting it into the air and forming it into a swirling mass of grit that closed in on Nyota and her weakening defenses. Most magical shields could deflect the energy from other spells far more efficiently than they could deter physical objects. Although I had no expectations that the miniature sandstorm I’d summoned would break through to her, it seemed to do a decent job of making her exert unnecessary energy maintaining the shield against such a persistent onslaught.
I stepped in closer, tweaking my output in an effort to conserve as much strength as possible while continuing to grind away at Nyota’s defenses. A careful balance of energy was required to keep the spell up, and I used every trick I knew to rapidly replenish my dwindling stores. There were ways of turning your own magic back on itself to stretch its use. A master mage could pull from an almost bottomless well of power, but I was far from comfortable with the technique. I knew I could only do so much to keep from draining myself completely before the fight was over.
If it came down that, there was no way I’d be able to stand against my opponent without wearing her down first.
The tower of sand swirling around Nyota pulsed inward for one short beat, then it exploded outward, flinging particles of grit into my unshielded face. I made the mistake of blinking to protect my eyes, and that was all the time Nyota needed to send a follow up surge of kinetic energy into my chest, knocking the wind out of me as it sent me flying backwards.
I landed hard on the sand, half blind and gasping for breath. I fumbled to pull the very air around me into a cohesive form, throwing up a shield in time to save myself from the fire that rained down on my body.
Nyota grinned at me through the flickering flames spewing from her fingertips. She’d only been toying with me for the sake of a good show. I’d thrown everything I had at her, and now she knew the full extent of my abilities. Even worse, she’d been playing the crowd while she let me believe I had a chance at winning this thing.
My shield stuttered under the weight of her attack. It was becoming painfully obvious how much more experienced Nyota was at holding spells for a prolonged period of time. She seemed to have plenty of energy left to batter me with, and even as I worried about my own ability to keep up the fight, I saw her reach out with her free hand to lift sand from the floor the same way I had. I could only watch, powerless to do any more than keep her flames from roasting me alive as she formed the sand into a ball and sent it hurtling towards my head.
The impact rocked me backwards. I instinctively kicked my legs up over my head, ignoring the surge of pain as I rolled over my injured shoulder and into a defensive crouch. I brought my shield up again just in time to deflect the next ball of sand, and I watched helplessly as Nyota produced two small glass orbs from somewhere within her skin tight leather pants.
My brain was briefly distracted by wonder at where exactly she’d kept those delicate orbs before it kicked it back into gear and ordered me to lunge forward in an evasive dive. Explosions erupted from where she’d thrown the glass bombs on either side of me, heat and pinpricks of molten sand scorching the backs of my legs.
My plan had been to dive into a tuck and roll that would bring me back to my feet, but before I could complete the maneuver, I felt something hard smash into my nose. Blood sprayed from my nostrils, and I was dimly aware of the crowd surging to their feet, howling for Nyota to finish this once and for all. I tried to move against her, but she held me firmly in place with a restraint spell that left me completely incapacitated. I could theoretically still cast spells, but without my hands to act as directional foci, I was as likely to burn myself alive as I was to direct anything of significant power towards my opponent.
Nyota strolled around me, her attention on the crowd as she coaxed their enthusiastic calls for my blood into a roaring frenzy. Spit flew from the mouths of men in thousand dollar suits as they screamed for her to finish me. Women in designer dresses looked on gleefully, faces contorted by primal excitement spurred on by the prospect of watching me die. Nyota only had to render me unconscious to claim her victory, but we both knew the vampires watching from the executive box above the crowd could still happily feed on me for quite some time after I drew my last breath.
I struggled uselessly against the bonds that held me immobile. Sounding to my ears very small and far away, I heard Chase shouting for me to get up and fight back. I had so little strength left that I couldn’t budge the spell holding me in place, let alone break it. Mage sight revealed that it wasn’t even a particularly powerful restraint; something I should have been able to shatter without much effort had I not been so thoroughly drained. It was a struggle for me to even draw breath against the magical pressure constricting my chest, and I was overcome with panic at the realization that I had no hope of winning the fight.
A hush fell over the crowd as a portly vampire stepped into the hexagon with us. He wore a crisp black suit with a pale blue tie and matching pocket square. Despite his young outward appearance, I could see the power from countless years of life as a vampire burning behind his eyes. In one hand he held a golden dagger that looked like a fancier version of what the goblins had fought with, and in the other he held a pristine white linen handkerchief. These he raised high, presenting them to the crowd.
A few cries for mercy could be heard, but the majority called for death. Although Niilo had assured me that I need only fight long enough to subdue my opponent, it seemed the rules were subject to change at the whim of the house and its bloodthirsty audience.
The ancient vampire flicked the wrist of his hand holding the white handkerchief, and it disintegrated in a flash of green flame. He held the dagger out to Nyota, who then took it and thrust it high in a gesture of victory.
My eyes locked onto the dagger. I could do nothing more than watch as she approached to kneel astride me. With a leg on either side of my hips, she set to work dragging the tip down the length of first my left arm, then my right. Blood welled up from the long and thin red lines she traced with the razor sharp tip, sending the crowd into a manic state of excitement. Nyota’s eyes were calm and empty, as though she’d played this game so many times she no longer felt anything for those who fell to her in the ring.
“Please,” I whimpered. “Please don’t do this.”
Nyota laughed and pressed the tip of the knife up under my chin hard enough to break skin.
“You had no business going against me,” she said quietly enough that only I would hear. “This is no one’s fault but your own. You deserve this shameful death.”
Despite the deadly pressure of the blade about to pierce my throat, I felt a surprising sense of calm wash over me. My heartbeat dropped into an almost meditative slow rhythm, and the noise of the crowd fell away completely. If I was going to die in this stupid fighting pit, I refused to leave this bitch alive to fight again. Eskola was infamous for forcing those indebted to him into battling his regulars, and the thought that some other unprepared mage would someday have to fight for their life against Nyota was more than enough mot
ivation for me to lash out in one final desperate act.
Trying my hardest to maintain an outward sense of calm inaction, I drew up every last ounce of power in my body. The line between mage’s magical power and the life sustaining energy that animates our meat sacks is so fine that overzealous mages had died from reaching too deep within themselves during the casting of a spell. With nothing left to lose, I ignored that boundary completely in my effort to tap the full potential of my power. The surge I was about to unleash would kill me as it took out Nyota, but I’d already decided I’d rather go out with a bang than let her shove a knife into my brain.
I smiled. Nyota must have sensed the wellspring of energy building within me, because the blood drained from her face and her grip faltered on the blade instead of ramming it home before I could unleash my death spell.
Retina-searing light flashed before me. I felt the pressure on my body lighten as Nyota’s body was lifted off of it. I couldn’t understand how I’d managed to live to experience what happened next, but I felt the ground shake with the force of a blast that strained against the ring’s warded force barriers. The meticulously crafted magic net exploded in a shower of sparks that rained down on the crowd. Those that had seconds ago been screaming for blood, now scrambled for the exits, clawing at one another in their haste to get away from the surge of energy rippling through the arena.
Ears ringing, head pounding, I lay my head back in the sand and closed my eyes. I smelled the acrid tang of burnt hair and skin, only vaguely aware that it came from my own body. I had no idea what had happened to Nyota, but if I was still alive I had to accept that there was a chance I’d somehow screwed up and that she’d survived as well.
I cowered when I sensed a shadow fall over me, blocking the glare of one of the few remaining floodlights. Fearing that Nyota had come to finish me off once and for all, I had no choice but to accept my fate, too exhausted to fight back any longer.
Black Magic (Black Records Book 1) Page 19