by Steve Feasey
Now there was a girl, a young girl – as she had once been, a very long time ago – in danger.
‘What do I care?’ she said again, this time in a voice so loud that the mandragore came shuffling out of the shadows, thinking that there might be some threat to his mistress.
‘Oh, get back in your corner!’ she ordered the creature, and it disappeared again.
She sighed. ‘You’re going soft, old woman,’ she told herself. ‘Soft and stupid.’
Hag got up out of her chair, her mind made up. She could no longer keep secret Alexa’s capture by the demon lord, despite having done so for so long now. She would have to summon Lucien and let him know. And she would have to suffer the consequences of having kept it from the vampire until now.
46
Initially the demon lord denied Trey’s request to speak with Alexa before the final.
Shortly after the message, and the refusal, had been delivered there was a knock at the door. Trey looked up to see Molok through the gap between the busted door and the frame, no doubt come down to gloat at the boy now that he’d denied his wish.
Trey pulled the door aside and stood in the doorway.
‘May I come in?’ Molok said.
‘What for?’
The demon lord did not reply, but stood waiting, an eyebrow raised in expectation.
Trey blew out his cheeks and moved to his left, clearing the way for the demon to enter.
Once inside, the Hell-Kraken turned to face him. ‘I may have been a little rash in my refusal to allow you and your … female friend to speak with each other. I think I am willing to reconsider.’
It was Trey’s turn to wait in silence.
‘Your attempts to embarrass me at my own Games have clouded my judgement a little. You really are a very irksome individual, Mr Laporte. Very irksome indeed.’
‘I do my best.’
‘Indeed.’ The Hell-Kraken steepled his fingers before his face, peering at Trey over the claws that tipped the hands. ‘As I say, I might be willing to grant your request, if you are willing to make a few concessions of your own.’
‘And what might they be?’ Trey said, folding his arms and narrowing his eyes in the creature’s direction.
‘Distrustful too. Irksome and distrustful. Throw bloody-minded into the mix, and you have a powerful cocktail of character faults that is enough to try even the likes of me.’
‘What concessions?’
‘I have already expressed to you my annoyance at your refusal to wear the armour that I provided. You owe me a show of fealty. I ask for a small gesture. A small concession from you, for which I am willing to give you something you want in return.
‘I want you to ride into the stadium draped in a flag bearing the colours and symbol of my fighting school. The chariot will be likewise decorated.’
Trey frowned. ‘That’s it?’
‘Almost. I want you to bow. Before the fight begins, I want you to turn to me and bow. If you do these small and simple things, I will let you speak with the Charron girl.’
Trey could think of no reason not to comply if it meant he could see Alexa. He nodded. ‘OK.’
‘And you must both speak throughout. No thought-transfer from you, Mr Laporte.’
‘The handcuffs,’ Trey said. ‘Would it be possible to—’
‘The manacles stay on at all times and the chain will be in the safe keeping of the guard.’ The demon lord smiled.
Trey bit his lip, resisting the urge to speak his mind.
‘Why is it so important to you? Why do you need the crowd to know that I am under your command?’
Molok looked at him as if he could hardly understand the question. Then he turned his back on the boy to leave the room, addressing Trey over his shoulder as he went. ‘I will send the guard down with the girl. Another guard will be stationed outside the door with an archer, just in case you should get any silly ideas into your head. I look forward to seeing you in the final, Trey Laporte. Fight well.’ And with that, the demon lord left.
The teenager sat down on his bench. Shentob came back in, having waited just outside the door while the Hell-Kraken and Trey were talking.
‘Molok agreed?’
‘Yes, but under conditions.’ Trey shrugged. ‘Nothing big, just muscle-flexing by a megalomaniac monster.’
‘That is good.’ Shentob nodded. ‘We should start to get your armour on.’
‘I don’t want to put it on yet,’ the teenager said without raising his head.
‘Not all of it. Just the bits that we can get on before you need to transform.’
‘I said not yet!’
There was a moment of silence. Shentob nodded and came to sit beside his charge.
‘It will be good for you to talk to her.’
‘At least I’ll get a chance to say some of the things I want to before … ’ Trey puffed out his cheeks and turned his head away. ‘I doubt I’ll get another chance.’
Shentob stared at the teenager. ‘Trey Laporte is losing the fight before he has stepped out on to the sand. In his mind he has already lost to Abaddon. In his mind he is imagining his own death.’ The little demon nodded to himself. ‘Old Shentob has seen it many times – yes, he has.’
‘How can I fight that thing? How? You saw him out there! You saw what he did!’
Shentob jumped down from the bench, a loud hiss coming from his lips, making the teenager look up. ‘Stop it!’ the old demon said menacingly. Shentob pointed at the youngster, and when he spoke he addressed Trey directly for the first time. ‘You must stop it! You must remember who and what you are. You must remember that you are a son of Theiss – a mighty lycanthrope warrior. You must remember the armour you wear and who wore it before you! You must stop mooning about like some sulking little child and start to think like the son of Daniel Laporte. Start to think like a Demon Games champion!’ The little demon’s eyes blazed. ‘Do not think of death. If you do, it will surely come. Think of victory. Think of freeing yourself and that pretty human girl you like so much.’
Shentob was standing up at his full height, his jaw jutting, eyes staring defiantly at the teenager. ‘You can win, Trey Laporte. You can.’
Trey nodded at his friend. ‘Thank you, Shentob.’
Shentob returned the gesture.
There was a small cough at the door and Trey looked up to see Alexa standing there.
‘Old Shentob must go and check on some things before the fight.’ He turned and bowed to Alexa before shuffling out of the room.
‘Where did you find him?’ Alexa said, coming into the room.
Trey shrugged. ‘He found me.’
He pointed at the bench, and they sat down together, the guard standing before them with the length of chain in its hand. There was an awkward silence.
I’ don’t want you to fight,’ Alexa said eventually, looking at the wall across from her.
Trey forced a smile on to his face. ‘Trust me – it’s not on my list of top-ten things to do before I’m sixteen.’
‘Molok doesn’t care if you win or lose.’
I’ know.’
‘Oh.’
‘I’m not supposed to win. If I lose, Molok buys himself Caliban’s gratitude by getting rid of the creature that the vampire considers to be his nemesis, namely me. I’m betting Molok thinks that Caliban will let him keep his fiefdom as reward.’
‘If only my father—’
‘Lucien would have been here if he could. You know that. I think he must have some pretty serious problems of his own right now to have disappeared like that. As much as I’d like to believe that he might turn up and get us out of this hole, I think we’re on our own.’
Alexa nodded, and the silence surrounded them again. ‘That creature – Abaddon – he’s … I’ve never seen anything like it before.’
What Trey attempted to do next was so difficult he doubted he’d be able to pull it off: he spoke to Alexa about one thing, while thinking a completely different thought and trans
ferring it to her directly.
‘He’s scary all right. He brushed aside that demon in the semi-final bout. It was some performance. Awesome. I don’t know that there is any creature capable of stopping …’he rambled on. He was talking rubbish, but keeping up the monologue was more important than the words he was using. He hoped the guard wouldn’t notice how flat and expressionless his voice was.
‘Abaddon isn’t invincible. Shentob thinks there’s a way to defeat him. Just don’t do anything stupid, Lex. And whatever you do, don’t use magic if things go bad for me.’
‘… so I’ll just have to give it my best shot, and hope he makes a mistake.’ Trey looked at her intently.’Does that make sense?’ he said. ‘Did you get that?’
Alexa was staring at him in amazement. ‘Yes. I got that.’ She nodded. ‘That’s difficult,’ she said pointedly.
Trey couldn’t help but smile. She was right: talking, performing the spell, and formulating different words in his mind to those that he’d been speaking was very difficult.
Alexa’s expression turned from one of admiration to one of concern. ‘I’m scared.’
‘Me too.’ He took her hand in his, ignoring the sharp look that the guard gave him when the chain rattled. ‘That thing you said, or mouthed rather, in the doorway earlier … ’ He stared at her and she raised her eyes to meet his. ‘I feel the same way – about you, I mean.’
‘I know.’
‘I have since the first time I met you, when your dad brought me back to the apartment.’
She smiled. ‘I know.’
‘You know an awful lot,’ he said with a grin.
‘I know.’
They laughed, the sound strange in the environment they found themselves in.
‘Time’s up,’ the guard said, pulling on the chain so that Alexa’s hand was yanked out of Trey’s.
Trey was about to say something, but Alexa stopped him. ‘It’s OK,’ she said, getting to her feet. ‘Don’t let yourself get upset again, Trey.’ She shot the demon guard a withering look. ‘They’re not worth it. You just concentrate on doing what you have to do to survive this fight.’
The guard started for the door, but Alexa stayed put, resisting the pull of the chain for a moment. ‘Shentob’s right. Those things he was saying to you just as I arrived. You must believe in yourself. Believe in yourself the way that I believe in you.’
Trey was about to reply, when she was dragged out of the room.
47
The ‘flag’ that he had to wrap around himself was in fact a great length of the purple silk material that would trail behind him as he entered the arena on a chariot painted the same colour. Trey stood in the back of the vehicle, staring ahead of him at the tunnel exit, his heart seemingly intent on pounding a hole through his chest in a bid to escape to the outside world. He was minutes away from the fight, and it was as much as he could do to stop himself leaping down from the chariot and running as fast as his legs could carry him in the opposite direction. A shiver snaked its way down the werewolf’s spine. It was cold and damp in the tunnel; small water droplets dripped from the arched ceiling, falling on Trey, gathering as tiny glass pearls on the tips of his thick fur. Various nether-creatures – officials and organizers – hurried to and fro, making certain that everything was in place for the main event. Shentob stuck by his charge’s side, a hand on Trey’s arm. The little demon didn’t speak; there was nothing left to say.
The pre-fight entertainment had involved an aerial battle fought between troupes of winged demons from two of the fighting schools. Trey had briefly seen some of the contestants as they swooped past the opening ahead of him: great leathery-winged creatures wearing deadly-looking spurs on their legs. He could hear the crowd ooh and ah as one or other of the combatants came to grief, and at one point he’d looked up at the sound of an enormous thud and seen that one of the blood-covered creatures had crashed to earth just outside the tunnel entrance.
As soon as the aerial display was over, and the arena floor had been cleared and swept, a fanfare announced the imminent start of the final fight.
Trey was to enter second; Abaddon would be there waiting for him. Shentob had earlier told Trey that this would be the case. The teenager had asked him why, pointing out that whenever he’d watched boxing or wrestling on TV in the human realm, the champion was always the last to enter.
‘Intimidation,’ Shentob said. ‘He knows that his size and presence are enough to scare most of his opponents witless, and the nearer you get to him, the bigger he looks. He likes to watch his opponents’ faces as they approach. He also likes to bask in the adoration of the crowd for as long as possible.’
Another fanfare was sounded in the stand somewhere above Trey’s head, and the creatures pulling his chariot began the short journey out to the fighting square. Shentob ran alongside for a few steps, pointing up at Trey and giving him last-minute tips and advice. ‘Remember everything that old Shentob has told you,’ the little demon shouted, just as the chariot slipped out of the shadows into the bright light of the stadium. ‘Remember. It’s the only way to defeat him.’
The crowd was on its feet. Most of them booed the lycanthrope as he crossed the arena, trailing the vast purple train in his wake, but the sound hardly registered; all Trey could hear was the blood in his ears and the thumping of his heart. Some of the spectators had begun to chant Abaddon’s name over and over again, the noise level getting higher and higher as the challenger’s chariot got nearer to the champion. There was a dangerous atmosphere in the stadium, as though at any moment the entire place could erupt in violence and disorder. Abaddon stood upright and stone-like in the centre of the fighting square.
A spectator leaped the enclosure wall. A demon ran towards the chariot, and Trey guessed that the creature was a fanatic intent on doing him some harm. He was about to jump from the chariot and prepare to defend himself when a black arrow thudded into the demon’s back, sending it sprawling to the floor.
The crowd roared with laughter at the murder. They shouted obscenities at the dead demon as its body was dragged away by the heels.
The MC introduced the fighters, and as he withdrew in the direction of the tunnel the third and final fanfare blared out to signal that the contest was about to begin.
Trey eyed the red-skinned demon with a growing sense of doom. As a werewolf he was big: over seven feet tall with a broad, muscular frame that he knew to be intimidating. But he felt positively dwarfed by the nether-creature before him.
Trey’s wolf senses were in overdrive. He could see-smell everything around him, the synaesthesia he experienced as a werewolf transmuting the olfactory signals into colours and shapes that seemed to blend and merge with the images that his eyes were transmitting to his brain. He could smell his own fear; the black-and-brown shadow of it hung like a dark curtain at the top of his vision, and he wondered if Abaddon could sense this too, because the red demon was grinning back at him. Trey’s hearing was too acute for the noise of the stadium and he was grateful that the helmet on his head muffled some of the noise.
The crowd was all cheering now, up on its feet. And the din went up another notch as the horn sounded to signal the start of the fight.
There was no gesturing to the crowd by Abaddon this time, no turning his back on this unknown opponent. Instead there was a steely look in the demon’s eye as he began to move to his right across the sand. Trey copied the motion, the two fighters circling each other warily. Abaddon bluffed a few feints, making as if to rush the werewolf, but Trey saw them for what they were and did not react.
Inevitably, however, it was the teenager who made the first mistake. He broke eye contact with Abaddon for a split second, glancing towards the huge decorative front of the champion’s belt, and that instant was enough to spur his opponent into launching the first attack.
For a creature of such bulk, Abaddon was quick. He closed the short distance that separated them in the blink of an eye, and the punch that connected with Trey’s
face, just above the eye, felt like a hammer blow – a great thudding, bludgeoning blow that made the werewolf yelp in pain. A mortar shell of agony exploded inside Trey’s head, and he staggered backwards as the second blow, a wild, swinging punch, caught him in the chest and knocked the wind from him.
Abaddon stepped forward and kicked out, aiming the blow carefully so that his foot connected with Trey’s knee joint. The lycanthrope felt something crack, and a white-hot tidal wave of pain swept through him, obliterating everything else.
Trey howled in agony, and the champion was upon him.
An elbow connected with the werewolf’s face, and Trey staggered backwards again, wincing with each step he took on his damaged knee. Blood was flowing into his right eye now, and he blinked it away, struggling to keep his opponent in sight. Abaddon aimed another punch at the werewolf’s face, but Trey managed to twist out of the way of this one, opening his huge jaws as the fist whistled past his face, and biting down into the champion’s forearm. One side of his jaw closed around the leather armguard that Abaddon wore, the other side found flesh. The armguard prevented Trey from biting down hard enough to inflict the type of wound he would have hoped to, but even so he was encouraged to taste the demon’s foul black blood. The champion tore his arm loose, stepping back just in time to avoid the werewolf’s claws as Trey sought to take full advantage of his counterattack.
Abaddon looked down at the torn flesh of his forearm. The wound was superficial, and Trey marvelled at the toughness of the demon’s skin; it must be like thick leather. Abaddon was smiling back at his challenger, as if reading his thoughts. The demon dipped his forefinger into the blood and looked down at the stuff on the tip of the digit before slowly rubbing it away with his thumb. When he looked across at Trey again, the hideous smile slowly slipped away from his face.
