by Lan Chan
“Up until now, your contestants have been participating without their abilities. For this final round, they are returned.”
Andrei showed no visible change, but Max shuddered. His eyes flashed gold for a second before it disappeared. He flexed his hand in front of him and smiled.
Something tugged low in my gut when green light burst forth around Kai. It eased some of the tension from his bunched shoulders.
Barbara gave an audible sigh. Her angel blade, a scimitar, appeared in her hand amidst a wash of magenta light. It brought home how utterly outclassed I was.
It was then that Angus turned to me. “You know why we can’t allow you to be unsealed,” he said. I nodded. “But we would not have you enter this challenge without a way to defend yourself. Choose a weapon.”
From the sound of it, Angus was giving me free rein to be as creative as I wanted. But I knew that against an angel blade, I had only one choice. “I’d like my demon blade, please.”
Angus inclined his head. His First Order counterpart shook his head. “We can’t seem to locate it,” Angus said.
I smiled. Basil slipped through a portal and reappeared a moment later with Morning Star. Chalk one up for Basil. His wards were good enough that even a First Order mage couldn’t get through. Charles ran the sword over to me. I took it, scabbard and all, and clipped it across my back.
“Give them hell,” he said. Then he made an obscene gesture at Max.
“That little shit bet against me,” Max growled.
I was too busy taking in the familiar feel of Morning Star in my grip to respond. “I hope like hell you know how to use that thing,” Andrei told me out of the corner of his mouth. I had spotted Giselle and Eugenia in the crowd just a few rows to the left of where all my friends were positioned. I held out Morning Star with the point towards them. Giselle gave e a hard stare. I smirked.
“I guess we’ll see,” I said.
Jacqueline cleared her throat. “Mr. Popescu,” she said. “This is your last chance for a drink.”
The crowd seemed to find this funny. There was a lot of chuckling. While some of it was good-natured, most of it was cautious.
“No, thank you,” Andrei said.
“You’re not fooling anybody,” some gutless jerk called out.
I couldn’t figure where exactly it had come from. Andrei’s top lip curled but he let it slide. I should have as well. Instead, I pointed Morning Star in the general direction of where the shout had come from. “Come over here and say that.”
Silence.
“That’s what I thought.”
Andrei placed his hand on Morning Star’s blade and lowered it. “Don’t bother,” he said. I shook him off.
“We might die soon,” I told him. “We’re not taking crap from anybody anymore.”
It was something Giselle said to me all the time. “You can die at any moment. Why go through life pandering to other people?” It hadn’t sunk in until just now as I watched the other Nephilim clutching their blades. I had improved markedly but that didn’t mean I had any chance at beating them.
“Contestants,” Angus said, “I wish you all the best.”
He walked off the mats and returned to where the collective elite guards were seated in the front tiers.
A gong sounded. From the direction of the adjudicator’s box, a procession of Nephilim attendants came out carrying with them a wooden treasure chest overflowing with manna, a scroll that denoted the favour from the council, and a small ring box made of red velvet. These were laid out on a display table next to where the Academy heads were seated.
“The process of the gladiatorial round is simple,” Jacqueline said. “Each team will face off against another. The team that wins will move through to the next round until only two contestants are left. The last two single contestants will battle each other for the title of winner. For a team to win, their opponents must suffer a critical hit or be knocked unconscious.”
“She left out the death part,” I noted.
“I think that goes without saying,” Andrei shot back.
“One member of each team please step forward,” Jacqueline asked.
Andrei looked at me. I waved him ahead. He stepped up to Jacqueline along with Kai and Drake. Max and Bradley had a mini scuffle over who was going to do this. The crowd loved it. They booed and jeered as the two wrestled.
I rolled my eyes at the dominance struggles of idiots. With all of his shifter instinct back, Max gave a sharp growl that quietened the crowd. Bradley glared menacingly.
Even now I couldn’t get the notion out of my head that if I hadn’t tried to stop him, Bradley really would have killed Max during the last trial.
With a brutal shove, Max pushed Bradley back and stepped up. Jacqueline didn’t waste any more time. She made them pass their stamped hands over a mirror. Then she rattled it like it was one of those magic 8 balls. The image on Jacqueline’s mirror projected on the display of the other mirrors around the stadium.
I held my breath as the names came up on the mirrors: Andrei vs. Drake.
Andrei whirled around and grinned at me. “Finally, some luck.”
I tried to be as enthusiastic about it as possible. It was the best we could hope for. I secretly dreaded getting into a fight with Max. He wouldn’t purposely hurt me, so that would leave me trying to evade Bradley while Max would most definitely wipe the floor with Andrei.
“Would you like to begin or reserve the fight for the second round?” Jacqueline asked.
“Begin now.” Andrei didn’t miss a beat. If we fought second, we would go straight into another fight while tired or possibly injured. We needed to avoid that happening at all costs.
“Very well.”
The other contestants left the mat. Andrei and I moved to one side of the octagonal space while Drake and Barbara positioned themselves as far away from us as possible.
I could hear the crowd murmuring, but my focus had drawn closed. Right now, nothing existed outside the fluid white barriers that raised to the sky.
“They’ll both go for you,” Andrei said. Tell me something I didn’t know. Once they picked me off, the two of them against Andrei would mean an easy victory. “The difficult part will be getting close to Drake.”
It was true. Wind elementals were elusive. You could lose a fight to one without even seeing your opponent. “Try and stay behind me,” Andrei said.
“No. If we fight like I’m made of glass, we’ll lose. Take out Drake. I’ll look after myself.”
“You sure?”
The siren sounded a warning. I wasn’t paying attention. A quiet calm settled over me. I could hear my heartbeat like a staccato rhythm in my ears. Deep inside my mind, I was screaming at myself to get the heck out of there. With well-practiced familiarity, I balled the feeling until it fit into a box and locked it away. There was no more time to overthink.
The siren sounded again. Andrei shot forward at the same time Barbara did. They crossed paths, moving at equally frightening speed towards opposing targets. There was a reason why Drake was a House Captain. Before Andrei could reach him, a chilling wind ripped through the arena. It cooled the air at least ten degrees. When it reached me, I gritted my teeth and stifled a scream. It yanked me off my feet and threw me twenty meters in the air in two seconds flat. Rather than resist it, I allowed my body to be lifted, going with the flow as much as humanly possible. My only goal was to hang on to Morning Star.
The displacement of air against my sword arm slowed the rate of acceleration. Going up wasn’t a problem. While Drake still had control of the wind, the biggest danger would be him smashing me against the barriers.
I didn’t bet on that happening before Barbara caught up to me. Almost as soon as Drake lifted me off my feet, Barbara shot up into the air after me. She was there to make sure I was out of action before I reached the ground. Or to be a witness on the off chance that Andrei disabled Drake. If that happened, all she would need to do was let me fall.
T
he stadium became a blur below me. I was beginning to lose confidence when my extremities no longer felt the chilling bite of wind. There was a moment of sheer weightlessness. A roar lifted up to me from the crowd. And then the freefall began. Barbara matched my descent. Her lips pulled back in a sickening grin. With the air rippling over her features, it made her face look like it was made of jelly.
Magenta light surrounded her. The tips of her wings were dusted in grey. I never knew Nephilim wings could be anything but pure white. You learned something new every day.
I was about to teach Barbara something new in return. Everybody remembered how I had gotten my demon blade. The part that always slipped their minds was that it hadn’t always been a smooth sabre. Trying not to think about the fall, I ran Morning Star’s edge against my palm. Blood coated the blade.
I pushed all of my intentions into the sword. By now it was attuned to my will. As long as I offered it blood, Morning Star would obey. The blade’s magic wasn’t tied to my own. It had been forged in the Hell dimension by dark elves and had magic of its own. My magic only contained it and bound it to me. I promised it more blood.
I reached terminal velocity just as Morning Star morphed into a Japanese kusarigama. A long-range weapon with a hooked blade attached to a metal chain. I whipped the head at Barbara.
She was too stunned to evade. The chain wound around her waist. The hooked head surged behind on its second loop to sink into her shoulder blade. Barbara let out a startled scream. I tugged and it pulled taut. It slowed my momentum. She thrashed like a bird caught in a wire. It had the opposite effect than what she wanted. The ground came speeding up towards me.
I tucked my legs and rolled as I touched down, trying to disperse the impact as much as possible. When I came to a stop, I grabbed the chain and swung it against the barrier. Barbara hit it like a kite against a power pole. Sparks of white and magenta light pummelled against each other.
I didn’t think it would be enough to keep her down. No. What got her was the vampire who shot out and landed on her back. Barbara tried to swipe at Andrei with her blade, but with her balance off kilter, she had no hope.
I winced as Andrei slammed his fist against the side of her head. Nephilim or not, a sucker punch like that would take anyone down. That was exactly where she went. She dropped like a stone onto the mat.
Andrei relieved her of her angel blade. “Look what I got.” He waved it at me.
I placed my bleeding palm over Morning Star, and it morphed back into a blade. A gong sounded. Only then did I allow myself to scan the arena for Drake.
He lay on his back, his face completely pulverized.
My mouth gaped open. “I thought you weren’t going to come down breathing,” Andrei said.
“Is he dead?”
Andrei shook his head, but he was grinning.
Oh brother.
The crowd was going insane. Charles’s cheering somehow raised above the collective sound of the crowed. The mirrors zoomed in on him and projected his image for all the supernatural community to see. He was jumping up and down making hand motions like he was throwing money in the air. For once, Luther joined in. Poor Cassie looked like she wanted to disappear into a hole.
For the first time, I allowed myself to think past the next challenge and considered the possibility of what might happen if Andrei and I were the last two standing.
53
The grin that split Max’s face when we arrived back at our seats in the front row wasn’t unexpected. When I turned and sat down, it was immediately eclipsed by the thumbs-up I got from Professor Eldridge. I turned my head to the sky to see if there were pigs flying by. Nope. She’d taught us about Japanese weapons in second semester of Weaponry and Combat. Just because I had been absolutely useless at fighting didn’t mean I wasn’t listening. It just took me a long time to understand how to use it to my advantage.
The gong sounded once more. “Contestants to the mat, please,” Jacqueline called out. Max stood. He rolled his shoulders and stripped off his T-shirt. Every female and some male brains in the arena exploded. The cheering was deafening. I stuck my finger in my ear and jiggled it around. There was definitely ringing.
Some Fae girl in the front row of the next aisle screamed at Kai to take his shirt off too. This was followed by resounding agreement from the crowd. The mirrors picked up his bored expression. I watched his back as the four of them approached the mat. The light barrier activated as soon as they were inside.
Before they veered off into their separate corners, Kai and Max put their heads together. They spoke in furious, soft tones so not even supernatural ears could eavesdrop. Kai held out his hand. Max gripped it. They hugged each other in a rare display of affection that didn’t involve somebody throwing a pretend punch. My ovaries just about burst. When they broke apart, the crowd had gone silent. Unity Games indeed. It was a reminder of what we were meant to be doing here. Not cheering on as we tore each other down.
A knot began to wind in my stomach. We would be up against the team that won this fight. Even though nobody asked, Bradley had taken his shirt off too. Contempt radiated off Andrei so thickly, I could almost feel it in the back of my throat.
“Is it the preening that’s pissing you off or the fact that it’s not all for show?” I asked.
Rather than deny it, Andrei shrugged. “Hard to say. Why are you shaking?”
I couldn’t really put it into words. Scratch that, I didn’t want to say it aloud. Because as much as I hadn’t wanted to face Max in the arena, I didn’t want Kai to have to either. No matter who came out of this victorious, I would lose. Deciding that I needed a distraction, I turned to Andrei.
“You said you would give me the ring if either of us wins,” I reminded him.
“The offer still stands. But you have to give me the Council favour.”
I found myself looking in Kai’s direction. Not directly at him, mind you. Just the blob of space in his vicinity. “I promised Kai I’d help annul his blood vow.”
Andrei’s eyes became hard. “That was before he went caveman on you. He’s a big boy. He can handle it himself. Besides, does he look like he needs help?”
He stabbed at the air in Kai’s direction. As much as I didn’t want to, I found my gaze magnetised to Kai. He and Chanelle stood facing each other less than a foot apart. He hardly had to bend his head as he spoke urgently in her ear. If the daft look on her face was any indication, she wasn’t even listening to him.
His hand was shackled around her bicep. I could feel the tension in his white-knuckled grip from here. No, he didn’t appear like he needed my help in the blood-vow department. But that didn’t mean I hadn’t made a promise. I couldn’t just let it go because things didn’t work out between us. It was my honour on the line this time. I would do this for me. Not for him.
Whatever it was that Andrei saw in my face, he didn’t like it. The light that I had seen ignite in his eyes at the Lodge receded. In its place was the walking dead vampire who had nailed Kai’s mother’s necklace to my dorm door.
“There are other ways,” I told him.
He clamped his jaw but didn’t say a word. Great. The silent treatment. I guess even Andrei wasn’t above brooding.
Over the top of Max’s head, I caught Sophie’s eye. Her complexion was completely sallow. She swallowed hard.
The warning bell sounded. Sophie nodded at me. I leaned forward and braced my elbows on my knees. My fingers weaved together.
In the arena, Kai stepped in front of Chanelle. My teeth clamped tight until I spotted the mirrors focused on me. With very deliberate effort, I unclenched my jaw. The urge to give them the finger was strong. I kept my hands where they were.
The siren sounded again. Bradley charged. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. He might be a good soldier, but he needed new material. Had brute force ever actually worked for him? Kai stood perfectly still, waiting until Bradley was almost on him. When it seemed like Bradley’s fist would make contact, Kai disappear
ed. He reappeared a second later, repositioned on Bradley’s side. Kai brought his knee up. I shuddered at the sound of bone crunching as he made contact with Bradley’s ribcage.
He drove his fist into the side of Bradley’s head, slamming the other Nephilim down onto the mat. Where another contestant would lay into their opponent, Kai stepped back and allowed Bradley a moment to compose himself. The expression playing with your prey came to mind.
Bradley spat blood onto the mat. Gross. I better not have to step in that later.
He uncurled to his feet, his face hardening into intense hatred. The animosity between them had only intensified in the time I’d been at Bloodline. I suspected there had been some bullying in their past. Bradley seemed the type.
He was more cautious in his approach this time. But he never stopped being the aggressor. Each time he struck, Kai allowed him to think he was about to succeed before counteracting with a hit that brought Bradley back down on the mat.
They danced around each other, teleporting away and reappearing in a cloud of green or gold. Kai’s determination never wavered. He fought with a detached intensity that chilled me to the bone. It had been the same that time the whole assembly had looked on as he fought the demons that had escaped the Dominion prison. Yet when he’d come for me in the house of horror, rage had poured off him in waves that had me shivering. I couldn’t reconcile it.
While Kai and Bradley were engaged in their little choreographed sparring session, Chanelle stepped around them and approached Max. He’d gotten the short end of the stick. His grey eyes were so golden bright it was like looking into the sun. I understood the problem. So did Chanelle by the way she smiled at him. The situation was a trap for him. He didn’t want to fight Kai, but at the same time, the alternative was to fight a less-dominant female. He might win the games if he struck her, but he would pay for it later in the Reserve. I could understand now why some of the shifters went a little nuts. So many rules. I didn’t know how their primal natures endured it. Do not look at Sophie. Do not look at Sophie. I looked at Sophie.