Rafael

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  The young bruja that Neva had called mija came forward and said, “Carlos texts that Hector smells like a stranger, and Abuela Flora says he smells like a tlahuelpuchi.”

  “Isn’t that just another word for vampire?” I said.

  “Young people think so,” Neva said.

  “They are born, not made, and their desire for blood only arises at puberty,” the young bruja said.

  “It is good to know you can listen as well as talk, mija,” Neva said.

  “Gracias, abuela,” she said, and looked pleased with herself. I wondered if abuela, which I knew meant grandmother, was an honorary term or a familial one. I’d ask later; the last time I’d seen my own abuela I’d been fourteen.

  Rafael said, “If all supernatural blood suckers are defined as vampires, then yes, a tlahuelpuchi is a type of vampire.”

  “Can’t we use that to just take him into custody?” I asked.

  “You cannot be here as a marshal, Anita,” Rafael said.

  “I don’t mean me taking him into custody, I mean you guys jumping his ass and capturing him so that we can use him to find Padma.”

  “Challenge has been given and accepted, Anita,” Rafael repeated.

  Benito said, “I’d like nothing better than to jump his ass, but once inside the fighting pit there are no excuses for canceling a fight.”

  “Even the fact that we know he’s a Trojan horse for an evil vampire?” I asked.

  “A Trojan horse is only dangerous if you don’t know that it is full of enemies,” Neva said.

  I looked into her black eyes and realized that the other bruja with her had normal eyes; only Neva’s stayed in power mode. “What are you planning to do?” I asked.

  “Win,” she said.

  “Rafael,” Hector yelled, “are we going to fight, or will you talk the night away, old man?”

  Rafael raised his arm so that the brand on his arm showed clearly. “If you want my crown, little boy, come and take it.”

  “You first, my king.”

  Rafael gave a slight nod. Hector did a deep bow that swung his braid forward over his head, which meant he was doing it wrong. For a real bow you bent at the waist, not the neck; I’d been learning protocol for bows and curtsies for the wedding.

  Rafael handed the microphone to Benito, then ran down the steps toward the railing, put one hand on the top of it, and vaulted over. The crowd cheered.

  “That’s a twenty-foot drop,” I said, my heart beating a little too hard just watching him go over.

  “Yes,” Benito said, as if it was no big deal.

  I glanced around, but everyone was chill with Rafael jumping, so I tried to be cool about it, too, when what I wanted to do was run to the edge and see if he’d broken his leg. Instead I stayed where I was and watched him walk toward the middle of the sand. He hadn’t broken anything; in fact, he’d taken the time to dust off any sand that might have clung to his black shorts.

  Fredo stepped out into the sand below us, walking toward Rafael. Fredo was slender with his salt-and-pepper hair cut short and neat; the equally short and neat mustache and beard that he’d added recently made him look like a stranger almost. I wasn’t sure I’d ever get used to them. He looked even shorter than the five foot six I knew he was as he met Rafael in the middle of the sand. It gave me some idea of how tiny I’d look out there. Rafael was still unarmed, as Hector had been, but the overhead lights gleamed silver in the banderillas and small knives across Fredo’s black T-shirt. Some of them were throwing knives and some were just small blades. He was one of the few people I’d ever met who was truly dangerous with a throwing blade. If there was any way to use a blade for lethal purposes, Fredo could do it.

  Hector backed up the steps between the benches and did a running start, on stairs, before launching himself into the air, where he rose higher as if he had invisible wings. I’d have fallen on my ass just running on the stairs, but Hector lengthened out his body, his arms tucked in tight, his legs long and graceful together as he flipped himself in the air as if he were on a high dive over a pool instead of solid, unforgiving ground. I honestly thought he was going to crash-land and the fight would be over before it began, but at the last second he bent his body over and did a shoulder roll across the sand like Rafael had done, except Hector rolled farther and faster from the extra momentum he’d gotten from his fancy airtime.

  He came to his feet with an almost balletlike leap, arms up and out, when he landed. He smiled at the crowd, waving an arm again; there was that echo of dance or gymnastics or something that you didn’t learn in martial arts.

  The crowd went wild, fickle motherfuckers. Flashy bastard, but my stomach was tight as I watched him glide toward the center, where the other men were waiting.

  27

  FREDO PATTED HECTOR down, tracing the edges of the fight shorts and even making him open his mouth to check that he wasn’t hiding anything there. He did the same for Rafael. He even checked their bare feet and hands and ran fingers over their hair. It was more like a prison search then even a cop pat-down.

  When Fredo was satisfied that neither fighter was carrying anything but what God gave them to fight with, he literally drew a line in the sand between the two men. Then he reached back and hit the switch on something at his waist that I hadn’t even seen until he touched it. I realized it was a cordless microphone setup when Fredo spoke into the tiny mic by his mouth. I could see it as a thin black line almost lost in his beard now that I knew what I was looking for.

  “Our king and his challenger have agreed to single blade and claws until one of them is dead.”

  Rafael spoke low to him, but Hector wasn’t having any calming talk. He did a little bounce on the sand and it was just a little too high; again I thought dance training with his fight training maybe?

  Hector held his hand out for the microphone, and Fredo passed him the tiny wired piece. “After I kill you, I will carve the crown from your skin, old man!”

  Rafael just reached his hand toward Fredo, who pulled a blade from one of the many on him and handed it hilt first to his king. Hector threw the tiny microphone toward Fredo, who didn’t bother trying to catch it, he just let it dangle from the other half of the wire. Fredo pulled a blade that looked to be a match to the one he’d handed Rafael and offered it to Hector.

  They took a stance on either side of the line in the sand. Fredo moved back from them toward the edge of the pit, and then Fredo must have shut the microphone off, because he shouted something that I couldn’t understand from here. Rafael saluted Hector with his knife. Hector returned the gesture, but with the blade pointed at the ground; in practice it points up or a little to the side, never at the ground, because that means it’s a fight to the death, as in I’m going to put you in the ground. I hadn’t been able to see Rafael, but I guess he gave the same salute. This wasn’t training, or practice, it was for real. The men moved in a blur too fast for me to follow and the fight was on.

  28

  IN THE MOVIES knife fights last a long time, because it’s supposed to be good cinematography, it’s supposed to be pretty and exciting. In real life they’re fast, because you’re fighting for your life and you don’t give a damn about pretty, you want to survive. Rafael and Hector moved forward at the same time, but the exchange of blades and arms blocking and moving them each past each other was so fast I couldn’t follow it with my eyes. It was like special-effects fast and then Rafael was bleeding from his lower arm, but Hector was bleeding from his side. Blur of movement and blood. The side wound bled more, dripping down in a bright red wash I hoped meant it was deeper, but wasn’t sure. They both ignored the wounds as if they were nothing; neither of them even hesitated. Most people will when they get cut, and a lot of them die in that moment, because the person who isn’t cut takes advantage of it, but neither of the men on the sand was going to make that amateur mistake. The first exchange had turned
them around so that Rafael was facing us and all I could see was Hector’s back.

  Rafael’s concentration was all on the man in front of him. I’d had all his attention on me in the bedroom, but not like this; this truly was the world narrowing down to the person in front of you. People think sex is the only intimate physical act, but they’re wrong. Intimacy implies pleasure to most people; those people have never experienced real violence firsthand. It’s incredibly intimate when someone is trying to kill you up close with a blade or their hands, the kind of intimacy that will give you nightmares.

  They blurred past each other on the sand, and again I cursed myself for not being able to tell what they’d done. I was supposed to be good with a blade, but their speed made me blind to the intricacies of what they were doing. They glided and spun and used the empty hand to block and pass each other past their bodies. Suddenly blood flowed down Hector’s upper arm. The blood on his side had flowed down until it was darkening the edge of his orange shorts. That wound seemed to be bleeding worse than any of the others on either of them. Was it deeper? In a worse spot? I might have asked Claudia, but Hector launched himself at Rafael, who had to back up suddenly. I didn’t see the wound at first, because his longer black shorts hid it, but the material of the shorts themselves was cut open over the thigh. The color of the cloth covering so much skin made it hard to judge how bad it was, but it was a new wound and that was bad enough.

  I thought, Rafael needs to finish this soon. The longer a knife fight went on, the greater your chance of being hurt or worse. Only the two of them being incredibly good and well matched had made it last this long, but they were whittling each other down; if something spectacular didn’t happen soon, the small wounds would accumulate and force a mistake.

  I heard Claudia whisper, “Finish him.” I didn’t have to ask to know she was thinking the same thing I was.

  Hector committed to a blow that tried for a liver shot, Rafael used his knife and free hand to move Hector past him, and I knew the blade was used because blood spilled out to shine in the lights. Rafael did something with his leg, and Hector was on his knees and Rafael still had control of his arm trapped across his chest with the knife. It was his empty hand that was going for Hector’s throat. What the hell was he planning to do?

  Rafael’s hand touched the side of the other man’s neck, and blood welled dark and rich. Hector’s arm blurred out toward Rafael’s groin but hit his outer thigh instead, and blood welled there, too. “What the fuck?” I said.

  “Claws,” Claudia said, before Rafael ripped them out of the front of Hector’s throat, and Hector did the same to the side of Rafael’s thigh. It ripped open his leg, so that the long shorts hung ragged and blood poured, but it fountained out of Hector’s throat, staining the sand in a wet, splattering arc.

  Rafael was having trouble putting weight on the leg, as he kept control of Hector’s arm against his chest where he’d flayed the man’s arm open with the blade and was still using it to control and cut him more. If they’d been human, the fight would have been over, but they weren’t, and I’d seen powerful shapeshifters heal throat wounds that bad.

  “His hand,” Pierette said, “Rafael’s only called claws on one hand. That’s very rare.”

  “I’ve never seen anyone do that,” I said.

  Rafael still held his knife, but when Hector called claws, he’d had to give up his blade even if his arm could have held on, because once the long claws came out, they wouldn’t wrap around a hilt.

  “Rafael es muy macho,” Benito said, and I knew he meant it in the best sense, as in strong and powerful.

  Rafael used the arm as a lever to put Hector on his stomach. The blood gushed into the sand so fast it turned black. Rafael used the braced arm and body to steady himself, or that was what it looked like as he moved the extra step to Hector’s side. He broke the arm at the elbow, a wet meaty sound that carried in the sudden silence, before he let himself collapse to one knee, pinning Hector’s lower back, the injured leg held awkwardly off to the side. It was bleeding bad enough that he’d need to heal it soon before he lost too much blood. He used his claws to grab Hector’s hair and pull the head back. I expected more blood to fountain out, but it didn’t; maybe there wasn’t enough left? With his knee pinning the body, he lifted most of the chest upward with the hair, as he moved the knife into place to tear out the other wells of the throat.

  Hector’s eyes were still open. I wasn’t close enough to see the dead stare, and then I saw him blink. I had time to say, “He blinked.”

  Claudia said, “His eyes.”

  Hector used his working hand to fling sand up and into Rafael’s face at the same time he twisted and bucked underneath him, using his undamaged legs to send Rafael sliding off his back, but Rafael still had Hector’s hair in one hand and a blade. He used the hair to flip Hector with him, so that Rafael’s own body weight brought Hector’s back down to Rafael’s chest, and he plunged the knife into the side of the neck he hadn’t cut before. His good leg was around Hector’s waist so that he was holding him against him as he plunged the knife into the neck and tore it outward, the blade version of what he’d done with claws to the other side, but this time blood didn’t fountain out.

  Power breathed like the faintest of winds, trying to hide what it was, but I knew. I said, “Vampire.”

  “What?” Claudia asked.

  “Vampire; Padma is pumping more power into little Hector.”

  “What kind of power?” Benito asked.

  “Healing,” Pierette said.

  Hector drove his good arm up to block Rafael’s knife hand, and the broken arm had claws again. They dissected Rafael’s lower leg, so the muscle and tendons fell away from it. The leg couldn’t pin Hector anymore, so he rolled out and away from the other man. Hector got to his two good legs and showed his claws like brandishing ten switchblades.

  Rafael lay in the sand with a blade in one hand, but the claws were gone in the other, which meant he was even more injured than it looked from here, and it looked fucking horrible from here.

  “We have to help him,” I said.

  “The vampire has used too much power. He has left us a trail,” Neva said.

  I looked at her and found all three brujas looking at me with black eyes that were full of the cold light of stars.

  “Time to die, old man.” Hector’s voice carried, and it shouldn’t have. Wereanimals don’t do voice tricks like that, but vampires do.

  Rafael just propped himself up as best he could and made a come-ahead motion with one hand, like bring it. Then he half collapsed back to the sand, propped up on one elbow, the hand with the knife in it free to use, but use for what?

  Hector charged him in a blur of speed.

  I screamed, “Rafael!” but the sound was lost in the roar of the crowd.

  29

  IF RAFAEL’S LEGS had been working, he could have kicked out and maybe dislocated Hector’s kneecaps, but if his legs had been working, he wouldn’t have had to lie there on the sand as the other wererat came at him, slashing with what amounted to ten switchblades. But because Rafael couldn’t get off the ground, Hector had to go to the ground to finish him.

  As hurt as he was, Rafael still raised the blade in his hand and tried, but Hector used his arm to brush Rafael’s arm and the blade aside and leaned over Rafael with a mouth full of razor-sharp fangs. He was going to tear his throat out with them.

  Someone near us screamed and it wasn’t me. I wouldn’t let myself scream, or look away, I just prayed for a miracle, for something, anything to save him. Rafael tried to bring the knife in around Hector’s arm to stab him, but it was never going to work, it was just one last defiant gesture. Fuck.

  Hector’s mouthful of teeth was going for his face, not his throat. The bastard was going to kill him slow. Rafael managed to slide the knife that was still pinned outside Hector’s body inside the arm, wh
ich made Hector have to turn toward it and use enough attention to slice Rafael’s hand and force him to drop the knife. Then Hector’s body shuddered, then froze for a moment; his face, which had begun to shapeshift, began to sink back into human as blood gushed out of his mouth. Heart blow, but how?

  Hector went up on his knees, still straddling Rafael’s body, and Rafael used the weight of the other man to give him the leverage that his ruined legs couldn’t give him, so that he sat up and started digging with the blade that he’d plunged in under Hector’s ribs, going under the sternum for the heart. It was the knife that Hector had had to drop to call claws. Rafael must have found it in the sand. The hilt of the blade was kissed as hard against Hector’s skin as it could go, but Rafael was digging for the heart—no, he already had the heart on the tip of the blade. Now he was trying to rip it to pieces while it was still in the other man’s chest, and it would be game over.

  I cheered without meaning to, and then Hector levitated straight up and off the knife point as if by an invisible hand. Hector ended up on his knees, coughing dark blood and thicker things out on the sand, but it started to slow almost immediately. He was healing again, damn it.

  “Go to him, Anita, keep our king alive until our magic finds his master.”

  I turned and looked into Neva’s darkling shining eyes. She motioned me toward the arena.

  “Anita can’t help him fight, none of us can,” Claudia said; her voice was anguished.

  “Hector’s vampire master levitated him off a knife blade, that means that Rafael’s master can help him, as well,” Neva said.

  “I don’t know what Padma is doing to keep Rafael from healing, or how to rapid-heal him myself.”

  “Then do what you know best, Anita Blake.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Fight for him.”

  “Only if I go with her,” Pierette said.