Just as Marissa was about to respond to my statement, the sound of clapping hands filled the room. It was an ominous clap. The kind of clap you heard when someone was being incredibly sarcastic. And it was loud, sounding like it was coming via the hands of a giant.
“I like you, Dex,” said the same voice that had sounded earlier. The one that belonged to that original growl. “You’re a real asshole.”
I fought to adjust my vision so I could see through the darkness and toward the source of the voice, but it was more than just an absence of light, it was a shroud of some sort.
“Thanks,” I answered back. “I guess.”
“Marissa, the man is correct in his assessment.”
“As you say, my lord,” she demurred, dropping to a knee.
“And I would not wish to fight him in any way that would not give me his best, either.”
Him?
Marissa’s muzzle came up at that announcement, too. “What are you saying, my lord?”
“That I shall be the only one who fights him on this day,” Captain Loudmouth concluded.
The wolves were a mix of terror and disappointment, but it was clear that nobody was going to say anything about it.
“But—”
“Are you challenging my command, Marissa?” queried the apparent alpha dog, as if he were expecting her to fold.
She lowered to a second knee. “Never, my lord.”
“Good. Now, clear the arena and move everyone to the stands.”
He pulled away the shroud that had been blocking my vision and stood up. Then he jumped from the balcony and landed in the opposite side of the arena from me.
This was no Chihuahua.
He was easily eight feet tall, muscular as hell, and had teeth that I felt certain could penetrate my skin without much fuss.
I know that I was all about looking out for the little wolves earlier, but this guy had my full attention now.
“Chief?” implored Harvey in desperation as a number of wolves held him back.
“No,” I commanded through the connector as I bore deeper into the shadows on the upper level, hoping to spot Rachel. She wasn’t there. “Control yourself, Harvey. Don’t go into werebear mode unless you have to. If I don’t make it out of this alive, it’ll be on you to get Rachel and Leland out of here.”
“That guy’s huge, though, Chief.”
“The bigger they are, the harder they fall, right?”
“If you say so,” he replied, “but if that guy falls on you, you’re dead.”
I wanted to thank him for the vote of confidence, but the fact was that he was right.
This dude was massive.
I’d need to employ some tricks if I was going to have a chance of winning against the likes of him.
“Now, Mr. Dex…” he began.
“Do you have a name?” I interrupted, trying to get the upper hand. “Or should I just call you Rex?”
He groaned and looked around at everyone.
“Okay, who told him my name?” he ranted. “I was very clear that I was going to introduce myself, wasn’t I?” Rex turned back to me, shaking his head. “It’s so hard to find good help these days, you know?”
“Uh, yeah, actually,” I answered, fighting not to look in Harvey’s direction, “but nobody told me your name. I just guessed.”
“Oh.” He stood back up. “Sorry, everyone. My bad.”
“Anyway,” I spoke up quickly, “the same goes for you that goes for the others who wanted to challenge me, you know?”
He tilted his head like a dog who had just heard a funny sound.
“What do you mean?”
“You’re huge.” I laughed while motioning at him. “It’s not a fair fight. All you’re really going to be proving by ripping me to shreds is that you can tear apart someone who isn’t anywhere near your strength and size.”
He chuckled like the other dogs had earlier. Then he began walking around the arena slowly.
“I’m no fool, Mr. Dex,” he said. “I know that you have many skills at your disposal.”
“Then you should also know that I can’t just turn them on in an instant. They take time for me to prepare, they don’t last forever, and they exhaust me in the process.”
“Fair enough,” Rex stated as he continued his pacing. “Here is what I suggest: You should carefully choose which of your skills to use in this battle. I will give you time to activate said skill. If you and I are still standing when the round is over, I will provide you with an elixir to rebuild your strength to full and will allow you to choose another skill.”
Was this guy being legit? And rounds? What was this, some kind of boxing match?
“Seriously?” I said finally.
“Of course,” he answered with his hands out. “I’ve no wish to destroy you unless you are at your best, for you are correct in that it would prove nothing.”
“Well, okay then.”
Then he stopped and gave me a hard stare.
“I expect your best, Mr. Dex,” he pointed out. “Anything less will make the death of your friends very unpleasant indeed.”
“Fine,” I said, recognizing that I probably wasn’t going to survive. The least I could do was give a quick death to the others with me.
“Good,” he answered with a nod. “Now, if you look straight up, you will find your lovely Rachel Cress as well.”
There she was, in a cage that was hanging over the arena.
She was staring down at me with angry eyes.
“Rachel,” I stammered.
“Idiot,” she replied.
Chapter 19
Well, that was gratitude for you. Here I was coming all the way to London, leaving my Vegas crew behind so I could help my former partner get free from the binds of a bunch of werewolves, and she was calling me an idiot.
“What the hell?” I said.
“You’re a moron,” she declared. “This entire thing has been a trap to get you here.”
“Obviously.”
“And yet you did it anyway?”
“You’re my partner, Rachel.”
“Ex-partner,” Leland started loudly, but he significantly quieted as all the wolves turned to look at him. “Sorry.”
“And what good is that going to do me when this guy comes at you?” She spat as she pointed at Rex. “I’ve seen his speed, Ian. You can’t match his speed.”
She was clearly homing in on that word.
“He’s fast, eh?” I sought to clarify.
“Very,” she answered. “You’ll have to move with Haste to even have a chance at him.”
“I got it, I got it,” I said through the connector, thinking that it would make more sense to speak with her in private. It was dead, though.
“Rachel, you there?”
Nothing.
Great, they’d somehow made it impossible for me to talk with her. I knew my connector was fine because I’d been speaking with Harvey, but I couldn’t get through to Rachel.
Maybe I could use Harvey as a relay.
“Hey,” I connected to him, “can you reach Rachel from where you are?”
“Sure.” He then called out, “Hey, Rachel, it’s me, Harvey!”
“Uh…hi,” she said in response.
“I’m talking about through your connector, Harvey,” I groaned.
“Oh, sorry.” A moment later he added, “Nah, it’s dead. I got an idea, though. One second.”
I began stretching as Rex did the same.
“Just checked with Leland and Lydia, Chief. Nobody can get to her.”
“Damn it,” I replied. “All right. Well, while I’m fighting this guy, do your best to come up with something to get you guys out of here.”
“Like what?”
I glared at him. “How the hell do I know? Just think, will you?”
“Right, right. Sorry, Chief.”
Here I was about to have my body torn in two by the biggest werewolf known to man, and Harvey was asking me to brainstorm wi
th him regarding ideas on how to get out of this mess.
“You have one minute to prepare, Mr. Dex,” Rex stated as he walked back to his side of the ring. “Do choose your skill carefully. I would truly hate for this to be too simple of a fight.”
I didn’t reply.
There was no point.
Rachel had given me a hint. I would go with what she’d suggested. She’d been around him a lot more than I had, after all.
I calmed my mind as best as I could and slowed my breathing.
Rachel had suggested I employ Haste, so that’s what I was going to do.
If I made it out of this round, I’d have to choose something else next. I couldn’t use any skill in succession, not without quite a delay between them anyway, so I’d have to pick wisely.
Time, my mind said.
That was probably going to be one I’d have to use. Flashes, too, no doubt.
But I had to be careful because I only had one Time left. Of course, using it was better than dying.
The one good thing about those particular spells, or skills—or whatever the hell they were, was that they didn’t take anything but a stated thought to launch them. They made me a little wobbly, of course, except for Sniff, but I really saw no need to employ that one at the moment.
I focused again until Haste took over.
It was time to fight.
Chapter 20
Haste was engaged and I was ready to fight, but I learned real quick that Rachel was correct in her assessment regarding Rex the uberwolf.
This dude made Haste nothing but an even playing field.
He smiled in his wolfish way.
“I know about your various skills, Mr. Dex,” he gloated, “and I fully expected that your first selection would be Haste.”
Fighting to get the upper hand, I replied, “Well, Rachel did just suggest it pretty heavily.”
“Ah,” he said, inclining his head, “I was wondering why she was speaking certain words with so much emphasis.”
I glanced up at Rachel to see a slow smirk forming on her face. I thought the word “idiot” for her.
“Okay, so we’re the same speed now and I have no weapons.”
“Very astute observation, Mr. Dex.”
“Still not much of a fair fight then, is it?” I said, seeking to make him question the validity of this battle.
He moved in closer and we began to circle around each other. I was seeking out weak points on his person, but I couldn’t spot anything obvious. The dude was just a brick wall of muscle and fangs.
“I’ll let you in on a little secret,” he whispered menacingly. “You have no chance of beating me even if all things were even. I’m merely leveling the playing field as best as I can so that my flock will be pleased.”
“Kind of cowardly for a wolf, no?”
His eye twitched. “What would you have me do, Mr. Dex, tie one arm behind my back?”
“It’s a start.”
“And you’d still be no match for me.” He gripped and released his hands a few times. “The fact is that nobody can match my ability.”
“Sure are confident in yourself.”
“Supremely,” he affirmed. “Now, what say we get on with this charade?”
My adrenaline was on the rise, Haste was engaged, and my pants were preparing to be filled with shit. This made the nine levels feel like a trip to Disney World.
“Okidoki,” I said casually, “but one last thing?”
He rolled his eyes. “Go on.”
“Your second in command,” I said, pointing behind him, “is she supposed to be pointing a gun at you?”
“What?”
The moment he spun, I leaped onto his back and got him in a rear naked choke, wrapping my legs around his chest and locking my ankles.
He grabbed at my arms to try and free himself, but it was abundantly obvious that he wasn’t prepared for the level of strength I had as an amalgamite.
I squeezed as hard as I could.
Using a line from a poem I’d recently heard, I hollered, “Die, fucker, die!”
Unfortunately, Rex had other plans.
He must have recognized that there was no easy way out of this and so he grabbed my ankles instead of my arms, dislodging their connection to each other. I tried to swing them back together, but by now he had yanked one of my free legs so hard that I thought certain it was going to pull right out of my hip joint.
I grunted and released my kung-fu grip.
“Fuck,” I said as I landed on the ground and rolled away, jumping back to my feet with a wobble.
My right leg was tingling, but it’d heal soon enough.
Rex, on the other hand, was grabbing at his throat and choking.
There was no time to waste.
I took a page out of a Jean-Claude Van Damme movie and jumped up with a spinning kick. My leg was still tingling, but I didn’t need it to be one hundred percent to do its job.
My foot tagged Rex right on the cheek and he stumbled backward.
It felt like I had just kicked granite.
He stopped, shook his head for a moment, and then spit out a fang.
Even if I died right here, at least I’d go knowing that he’d be dealing with some major dental work due to fighting me.
I backed away.
Far away.
He glared at me angrily for a few moments as rage welled up in his red eyes.
Then, with a massive roar, Rex flexed every muscle in his body and charged.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” was all I could say before he launched himself at me.
If I hadn’t had Haste engaged, I would have ended up being torn in half by the speed at which he was flying. His mass alone would have ended me. As it was, I was able to fall straight down and let him sail directly overhead.
Mostly.
His massive paw, hand, or whatever the hell it was, reached out just in time to knock the living shit out of me.
I’ve never been hit so hard in my life.
Seriously, I was even hearing the chirping of little birds.
But this was no time for pain or concussions—assuming I wanted to live, anyway. The way I was feeling, that would have taken a little contemplation, so I just went with wanting to live and moved on with things.
I got back to my feet and spun back to see two Rexes standing there.
It took me a second to realize that this was just because my vision was seriously messed up from that hit.
“Wait, wait, wait,” I said, holding up my hands. All four of them. “You have something in your fur.”
“I’m not falling for that again, Mr. Dex,” he replied as he pulled back his hand and swiped at me.
I ducked.
He swung again.
I ducked again.
He faked a swing.
I ducked.
He finished his swing, clipping my shoulder this time.
I flew.
He laughed heartily and then stalked over to where I’d landed.
My head was ringing, my leg was tingling, my vision was fighting to right itself, and now my shoulder throbbed like hell. And this was only the first round!
As he hovered over me and drooled his vileness on my suit, I had the feeling there wasn’t going to be a second round.
“And now I will literally bite your head off,” he said with a sinisterness that should have been reserved for demons, and maybe dragons. “Any last words?”
“Could you brush your teeth first?” I requested flatly. “Or at least use some mouthwash?”
His eyes narrowed and in a flash he pulled back, cracked opened his wide jaw, and lunged.
I closed my eyes and waited to feel the embrace of darkness.
Ding ding ding!
He stopped.
“Shit,” he groaned, his teeth touching the sides of my skull.
I opened one eye as he pulled away.
“What?” I asked, barely able to talk.
He pushed himself back to full height.
“Round’s over, Mr. Dex. But in the next round, you die.”
“Oh, that’s good.”
Chapter 21
True to his word, Rex waited for me to fully recover, which included some kind of elixir that brought me back to full health and power.
My body was no longer aching and my vision was clear. I still had a bit of a headache, but something told me that was going to be there for a while. Rex had quite a wallop, after all.
“Any ideas?” I called up to Rachel in as quiet a voice as I could manage.
“Why are you trying to keep quiet?”
“Because I don’t want him to hear us,” I answered. “Duh.”
“Seeing as how you told him that I was coaching you before,” she chided, “it’s not like he’ll be surprised by anything I say.”
“True.” I then played back the words Rex had said to me while we were facing each other before the last round got underway. “He apparently knows everything about me anyway.”
“Why don’t you just get the hell out of here?” she suggested. “You know I hate playing the part of damsel in distress. It’s such a misogynistic view of women.” She crossed her arms in standard Rachel fashion. “I don’t need some damn man to fight my battles.”
I knew how she felt about such things, and she was right to feel the way she did. But this situation was different than she was playing it out to be. The wolves didn’t kidnap her because they were trying to do the old “prince saving the princess” bit. They wanted to get to me no matter what. If Rachel’s name had been Irving, and she’d been a six-foot-four vampire who was covered in tattoos and body piercings, they still would have stuck his ass in that cage to use as bait.
But Rachel wouldn’t see it that way, no matter how I tried to position it.
“Would you rather be down here fighting him while I was up there in the cage?” I asked pointedly.
“Yes.”
I should have expected that.
“Well, me too,” I concurred, though that wasn’t really true, “but that’s not how it is, so deal with it.”
“Then just let me die.”
Knowing Rachel, she meant it. Her pride was worth quite a bit more to her than her life. I didn’t know if that stubbornness was a Cress family trait or not, but I found it less than beneficial at times.
London Growl Page 8
