In the Werewolf's Den

by Rob Preece

  "I don't know, sir."

  "Well, it stinks. So fix it."

  "But you agreed to let the games go on, sir. I warned you to stop them."

  "I'm giving you an order, Goodman. The impaired are to lose this contest, and they're to lose it in a rout."

  Danielle nodded miserably. “Yes, sir."

  She headed over toward Carl and Mike the Vampire. She wasn't going to like doing this, but she was a soldier in a war and she was going to follow orders.

  All right, Willie's performance had been lowbrow and disgusting. Still, Carl was laughing like it was the funniest thing he'd ever seen.

  "If that jerk hadn't decided to show off his height by leaning on Willie's head, Willie would have just thrown the damned hammer,” Carl whispered when he got his breath together.

  Danielle shook her head. “Headquarters is not happy."

  A junior network exec interrupted her, speaking to Carl with complete respect. “We've moved up another four points, sir. Right now we're second behind Another Hospital."

  Nobody competed with the soaps on the normal side of the zone—the only side that was measured by ratings since impaired didn't have money to spend on advertiser products.

  "That means we've up to ten million,” Carl said. “From now on, everything is pure gravy."

  Gravy for somebody, anyway. Joe was still squawking in her ear.

  "What's the next event?” she demanded.

  Carl consulted his program. “Broad jump."

  "Who do you have entered?"

  Mike answered for him. “An elf, a troll, and two fairies."

  She repeated the list into the phone.

  "Are you kidding?” Joe screamed. “Fairies have wings."

  "The fairies are disqualified,” she told Carl.

  "Mike hasn't disqualified any of the normal athletes."

  "Flying would be a different event entirely."

  This was too painful. Rather than argue about each event, she grabbed the list of contestants from Mike's hand and went through it with Joe, striking half the entrants from the magical side of the list.

  "If I didn't know better, I'd say that you normals don't want real competition,” Carl said.

  "If I didn't know better, I would think you were trying to create a massacre here, Carl,” she fired back. “Don't you see that you're playing with fire? I mean, flying creatures in jumping events? How fair is that? Normals won't stand for it and you know it. Hell, you wouldn't have stood for it a year ago."

  She didn't bother with the martial arts list. She'd vetted the rules and that was enough. She figured she might face trolls or vampires. They could be tough, but normals could fight, maim, and kill as well as any impaired. As long as the impaired followed the rules.

  Once she'd finished, she took the revised participant list to the television announcer and had him list the disqualifications over the cable and to the stadium.

  The result was stunned silence from both sides. Even the normals seemed a little disturbed that so many of the magical were being eliminated. They had come to watch a triumph, not to be handed a victory through cheating.

  Danielle tried not to notice the reaction. She kept her phone to her ear, reporting what she'd done back to Joe, and plowed through the resistance coming from the network and from Mike the Vampire.

  Mike tried to convince Carl to withdraw in protest. Carl's money had funded this event. Carl and Mike had lined up the network despite the problems in getting anyone interested in anything having to do with the magical. The normal entrants had known they would be competing with the impaired before entering. Even the contestant lists had been given to the normals. They could have objected or stayed home if they weren't happy with the rules. So what business did the warders have in changing everything at the last minute?

  Danielle hoped that Carl would listen to Mike on this one. If he would just go back to his lab, Danielle had a chance to persuade Joe to give him another chance. But he insisted on pushing ahead. As if Arenesol's distraction was more important than his responsibilities to the normals and more important than anything he owed Danielle.

  "We're going to send a message that would be heard in every zone across America,” Carl said. “We aren't losers, condemned to incompetence and second-class status. I can't stop this, Danielle. I owe it to my fellow magics."

  "Impaired,” she insisted.

  "I'm not sure magic is an impairment after all."

  Joe's voice crackled over the phone. “Proceed as planned, Danielle. Just make sure no more of those stinking impaired win."

  Even after Danielle's decimation of the magical contestants, the magical put up a pretty good, if losing, show in the broad jump. An athletic elf pole-vaulted into an early lead and only a superlative effort by the world champion inched her ahead. A troll won the caber toss, but nobody cared since even the supposedly normal contestants all looked pretty much like trolls in that Scottish tree-throwing event.

  With the Marathon and the martial arts competition left to go, the normals were up five to three in golds and seven to two in silvers.

  Danielle decided it was time to limber up. She'd win her event and it would be a normal rout. The few impaired successes could be written off as unfair advantages and no normal egos would be threatened.

  Chapter 8

  Danielle met briefly with the other normal contestants in her event. There were two men and another woman. All were senior black belts, and all moved with the type of assurance that comes from years of training. None, she saw, were likely to be intimidated because they had to face a troll or even a vampire.

  "You've been working with them,” the female contestant said. “Anything special we should be looking for?” She was a tall African-American woman with brown eyes so dark that there seemed to be no line between iris and pupil. Her musculature was as highly developed as a professional body-builder's, but even if Lina Kildock hadn't been something of a legend in the Full Contact Karate world, the seven stripes on the black belt around her waist would have assured Danielle that this woman was the real thing. Although she hadn't fought impaired before, she would adapt quickly.

  "Elves and vampires are fast,” Danielle said. “You'd expect that. They can take some abuse, but neither group likes getting hit. Vampires are especially sensitive about their teeth.

  "The elves are also flexible. Don't bother trying grappling techniques with them, they'll roll out or let you bend their joints in any direction you like while they continue to strike.

  "As for the trolls, they don't even notice pain. And they'll shake off most strikes. Go for joints."

  "What about the Were?” one of the men asked. “My trainer made me get a rabies shot, but I don't know how to fight a wolf."

  "Any Were who transforms is automatically eliminated from the competition,” Danielle reminded them. “They must fight in human form, or as close as they can get to it."

  "Any dwarves fighting?” The other man must have been watching Willie. His voice showed nothing but respect for a class of impaired that most of the world held in contempt. Of course a martial artist doesn't progress if she doesn't respect any possible opponent.

  "I didn't double-check the program, but it's supposed to be one Were, one vampire, one elf, and a troll. No dwarves."

  Lina laughed. “Good. Wouldn't want anything like that dwarf's rear-end near me. Wooo. I could practically smell it halfway across the stadium."

  Dwarves aren't known for their hygiene, but Danielle suspected that anything Lina had smelled would have come from the normals around her. The turnout here at the stadium didn't include the best elements of normal society.

  "Willie thinks he's funnier than he is,” she admitted.

  "He must think he's hysterical, then” the male who'd asked about dwarves stated. “Because he sure cracked me up out there. That big red butt.” He was laughing so hard he could barely get the words out. “I've never seen anything so ugly. But can you imagine being a prima donna like that hammer thrower
who couldn't even deal with a little distraction? Served him right."

  One of the first things any martial artist learns is to cultivate stillness within oneself. Being distracted in a sparring match means losing points. Being distracted in a real fight means injury or death.

  Danielle knew the impaired would count on their differences to give them the advantage of surprise and distraction. Against this group, they would be disappointed.

  "First round, each of us lines up with one of the impaired. After that, I suspect we'll be fighting mainly with each other,” Lina told the normals. “So let's keep it clean. I've only lost two teeth so far and I don't want to lose any more today. Anyone have problems with that?"

  Danielle didn't think anyone would have problems with anything Lina said and she was right. Lina got nothing but quick nods in response.

  "Then lets go kick some impaired butt,” Lina ordered.

  They marched from the dressing room into the stadium, Lina waving a big American flag.

  While they'd been dressing and stretching, Carl's staff had covered the field with thin mats. Large circles drawn on the mats gave boundaries for the fights. Any contestant who stepped beyond the boundary would be disqualified.

  Danielle didn't plan on being disqualified.

  A huge cheer went up from the impaired side of the stadium, surprising Danielle and the others. Then she saw it wasn't for them. It wasn't for the impaired martial artists, either. The marathon runners, or at least some of them, chose that moment to make their entrance into the stadium.

  Three elves ran in, chatting lightly among themselves. Neither the Were nor the normals were anywhere in sight. None of the elves were even breathing heavily.

  Danielle glanced at the official clock, then looked again in a huge double-take. It was impossible. Everything had happened in an hour and thirty-three minutes. Three elves that no one had ever heard of had smashed the world Marathon record by half an hour. In a sport where tenths of a second made the difference between champions and the middle of the pack, a thirty-minute victory was close to a miracle.

  "Guess it's up to us,” Lina whispered to Danielle, her voice grim. “We don't win this one, the impaired tie us. Now that would be a pretty scene."

  * * * *

  She should have suspected it.

  Carl, wearing his three-striped black belt, stood with an elf she didn't know, a vampire woman she vaguely recognized, and Snori.

  Snori, she noted, had looped a worn black belt around his huge girth. Five stripes indicated he'd achieved some serious rank. He'd only made green belt in her school so she guessed he'd been sandbagging. Had Carl put him up to this?

  She didn't teach her green belts anything that they couldn't have learned at a thousand martial arts schools around the country, but she still felt that Carl had betrayed her by sending the troll to spy.

  It doesn't matter, she reminded herself. She was going to terminate Carl. She didn't have to trust him. Her assurance didn't make her feel better at all.

  The eight martial artists bowed to the judges, then bowed to one another.

  Danielle drew the vampire.

  Female against female fights do well in the ratings: something having to do with most male's prurient interests. But Danielle didn't have time to think about that now.

  The vampire wore a black belt with only one stripe. Danielle didn't let that fool her. The female's smooth movement made it clear that she was a deadly opponent. Besides, she was a vampire, which meant more strength than human physics could explain packed into a compact figure.

  She took the advice she'd given the others, mixing hard straight punches with brutal thrust kicks the torso and head to keep the vampire off balance and to neutralize the magic-enhanced strength the female could employ if Danielle let her close the distance and grapple. She'd save her blur for when she really needed it.

  The vampire blocked most of what Danielle sent her way, and shrugged off what licks she took, dishing back effective counters.

  And Danielle realized she was in a real fight. This vampire could finish her off now and eliminate her from the contest. Joe would kill her.

  Danielle blurred. She needed to win the contest, not just the match. If her body took too much abuse now, she wouldn't be as effective in the next two matches.

  At high speed, Danielle could see the vampire's muscles twitch a fractional second before she began her movement. The female hadn't fully integrated her martial art into her essence. Like many first degree black belts, her techniques were flawless, but she still thought rather than letting her mind and body work as one. Against most opponents, it wouldn't have made any difference.

  Against Danielle and the blur, it made the contest a walkover.

  Danielle blocked a kick with an elbow placed next to her own ribs, but oofed as if it had gotten through and reeled back. She suspected that the vampire would believe the evidence of her eyes rather than of her body. Eyes lie.

  The vampire's pupils dilated and she charged after Danielle, obviously intending to finish her off.

  Danielle parried the vampire's punch, then grasped her and rolled to the ground, bringing both of her feet into the vampire's abdomen and thrusting straight up and over.

  The vampire didn't fall outside the line as Danielle had intended. But only because she transformed into a bat, flapping desperately to avoid Danielle's strikes.

  The judge pulled the red disqualification flag and it was over. Danielle had won her first match.

  Lina had already dispatched her opponent, so Danielle didn't have a chance to see her work. To her surprise, though, the other two matches were still under way.

  Snori left his body open, taking blow after blow on a stomach that Danielle knew was as hard as a rock, but protecting his only slightly less rock-like head.

  His opponent was in great shape, but kicking a rock will eventually wear anyone out and Snori waited for his moment, then caught a leg that the normal hadn't retracted quickly enough, brought him in, and squeezed a submission hold.

  The normal tried a couple of escapes, then tapped out as Snori clamped down, threatening to snap his leg off.

  By this time, Carl had won as well.

  It was up to Danielle and Lina to win for the normals.

  "Never send a man to do a woman's work,” Lina whispered to Danielle.

  Danielle smiled politely. If anything positive had come from the return of magic, it was the elimination of old beliefs that women were inferior. With so many people called into guard service or impaired, women had stepped up to do anything men could do, often better. Which was why Carl's contest didn't bother with old-fashioned male and female categories.

  Admittedly, women were at a disadvantage in the caber throw, but then, men were at a disadvantage at anything that required endurance or intelligence. Like martial arts.

  * * * *

  Danielle didn't bother with body shots. Instead, she worked Snori's joints. The troll probably weighed over four hundred pounds, which meant a lot of weight supported on the sinew and cartilage in the knee, ankle, and hip.

  In old-style martial arts, these targets would have been fouls. Modern Free-style anything-goes competition, together with improvements in medical technology that let joint injuries be easily repaired, had shifted the emphasis from the stylized sparring of an earlier era toward the far more practical—and deadly. Four years in the Academy on top of a lifetime in a dojo, made Danielle the master of practical.

  Of course, practical didn't mean perfect. Snori landed one punch, to her ribs that knocked her wind out and made her wheel away from him, struggling to find oxygen and to avoid the type of hold that Snori had used to end his last fight.

  She finally slowed him down with a solid kick to one knee.

  Snori tried to face her balanced on only one good leg; he wasn't able to avoid her follow-up. He reeled out of the ring to protect himself from serious harm.

  Unfortunately, her victory had taken a while—her head felt woozy from overu
se of the blur.

  Two down. One to go.

  That one, though, was Carl.

  She couldn't believe that Carl had gotten past Lina. The woman was a legend. Danielle hadn't looked forward to facing Lina herself. She would have given any odds that Lina would have no problems with Carl, third-degree black belt or not.

  Carl wiped blood from his lip and sported an already impressive black eye, but he didn't look like he'd taken serious damage. Lina had underestimated Carl and Danielle knew she'd underestimated him as well. Well, she wouldn't do that again.

  He bowed to her.

  Watching him carefully, she returned the favor.

  She considered terminating him during their match, as an apparent accident. People did die in the ring, just as they did in football games or hockey games.

  But children would be watching. The benefits of any moral lesson would be offset by the violence. She wasn't making up excuses to delay the inevitable. She almost persuaded herself of it. A judge rang the bell that began the match and Carl moved toward her.

  She feinted at him, trying to assess his reactions.

  Carl shifted his body slightly, letting her strike miss without even a need for him to block.

  She nodded grimly. Two could play at this game. She put herself in guard, upped her blur to the maximum, and waited for him to make a mistake.

  He smiled, then did nothing for a full ten seconds. It felt like twenty minutes to Danielle in blur mode, every second took its toll on her body's reserves; still, she made herself wait it out. She wouldn't let impatience force a mistake. If Carl could beat Lina, one mistake by Danielle could give him the match and give the impaired the tie that the SAIC had ordered her to prevent.

  When Carl finally moved, he seemed to be operating in slow motion. That was partly a result of the blur, but partly also of his technique. She recognized old moves that blended kung fu with t'ai chi. Recognized them from ancient textbooks. She didn't think anyone had actually practiced some of those moves for nearly two centuries, going back to the Chinese Empire.