Looking Glass

by Christina Henry

  He didn’t know whom he was pleading to—maybe only himself—so his head jerked in surprise when he heard a response.

  You only have to use what’s within you.

  “Chesh—” he started to say, but the door opened then and they were beckoned inside by a man that Nicholas thought of as New City tough. He had the look of a fighter—the broken nose, the scarred hands, but his clothes were clean and cared for and his face had the look of someone who ate meals on the regular.

  “This Grinder’s opponent?” the man asked, looking Nicholas up and down. He was shorter than Nicholas—there was nothing to that, most people were—and he did not appear impressed by the results of his survey.

  “Yes,” Dan said.

  “Well, this way,” the man said.

  He led them down a long white hallway—Nicholas had never seen walls so white, they practically glowed—and deposited them in a small room with a lounge bed, a table and one wooden chair. On the table was a pitcher of beer and two glasses and a bowl filled with shiny fruit.

  “I’ll let you know when it’s time,” the man said, and left.

  Dan collapsed into the chair and poured himself a very tall glass of beer. This was the first indication Nicholas had that Dan was as nervous as he was.

  Nicholas took off his waistcoat and shirt and folded them into a neat pile, placing them on the arm of the lounge bed. He adjusted his leather belt, made sure it wasn’t too tight or too loose, then bent down to double-check the laces of his boots. He tucked the ends of each lace inside the top of the boot.

  Then he stood there, his hands held loosely at his sides, at a loss for what else to do. He didn’t want to wait. He was ready to fight.

  “Eat something,” Dan said, taking an apple out of the bowl and crunching into it.

  Nicholas shook his head. “I don’t want it to come back up later.”

  Dan grunted, which Nicholas took for agreement. Nicholas paced around the room once, twice, three times. He breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth and tried very hard not to think about anything in particular.

  It seemed like an eternity to Nicholas but it couldn’t have been more than ten minutes before the man came back and said, “It’s time.”

  How can it be time? I’m not ready, Nicholas thought, his brain suddenly running in every direction like a panicked crowd. What was I thinking? What am I doing?

  Then another voice, the voice that had intruded outside the building, said, Only do what you know how to do. Don’t think of anything else.

  Yes, Nicholas thought, letting the blank panic recede. I know how to do this. It doesn’t matter if he is the Grinder. He’s just another fighter.

  They followed the doorman down the long white hall again. A door opened on the opposite side of the hall and out came the Grinder.

  Nicholas had seen him before. He knew the other fighter’s size. But seeing him squeezed into that tiny hallway made him appear even larger, almost impossible in his height and breadth, an actual giant among men.

  His shoulders actually brushed the sides of the hall, and the muscles in his back and shoulders rippled as he walked. His thighs really were twice the size of Nicholas’, maybe three times the size.

  And those hands. There was no real way to describe those hands. Nicholas knew that if Grinder held his palm up to Nicholas’ face, the hand would cover him completely.

  The Grinder didn’t see them or didn’t care and went straight for the last door at the end of the hall. Rabbit followed Grinder out. Hattie was still attached to his wrist. Her shoulders curled forward like she was carrying something heavy on her back. Nicholas saw fresh blood at the place where the string pulled tight around her skin.

  Rabbit glanced back and gave an exaggerated double take, so clearly false that Nicholas felt moved to punch him in the face. He checked this impulse, though. He didn’t think Dan would like it.

  “If it isn’t sweet Nicholas and Dagger Dan,” Rabbit said.

  Grinder halted, glancing back over his shoulder. He saw Nicholas and the corner of his mouth quirked up. Then he proceeded down the hall as if there wasn’t anything to notice.

  I’ll make you notice me, Nicholas thought savagely. By all that is cursed or holy I will make you notice me, you son of a bitch.

  Rabbit gave them a little shrug, perhaps meant to convey that he couldn’t be responsible for Grinder’s lack of manners. Then he, too, proceeded down the hall without another word.

  “Don’t mind about them,” Dan said in a low voice.

  “I’m not,” Nicholas said.

  And he wasn’t. The sight of Hattie and then the Grinder had washed away everything except his purpose. He was a fighter, and he was there to win.

  Grinder opened the door, and the sound of the crowd washed in. Nicholas let it roll over him once, and then he blocked it out. There was only one person he cared about now.

  The door opened into an arena with seats built up like stairs all around a center stage so everyone in the room had a good look at the action. On the stage was a ring, a proper ring with ropes on it.

  This was much different from the pits where Nicholas usually fought, which were often just open areas with a waist-high wall around them. Spectators would push and shove and climb over one another to see what was happening.

  Here all the spectators sat on long wooden benches. Vendors walked up and down the stairs hawking grilled meat on sticks and large glasses of beer. Gambling tables were set up at intervals throughout the stands, making it easy for any member of the crowd to reach them and place a bet.

  As Grinder entered the crowd cheered, but the cheer seemed half-hearted to Nicholas. This was followed by rumbles of excited chatter as they caught sight of Nicholas. The words he could catch as he passed by ranged from speculative to doubtful.

  They don’t matter. The only person that matters is the Grinder. Keep your mind where it ought to be.

  Ahead of him Rabbit tugged Hattie into the front row of seats while Grinder climbed up into the ring. Dan tapped his shoulder and said, “Good luck, boy,” before following Rabbit. Nicholas noticed an especially well-dressed man lean over to speak close to Rabbit’s ear.

  That must be the real boss, Nicholas thought. He didn’t have time to get a good look at the man or to think any more about it, though. He climbed into the ring after Grinder.

  In the pits there were no real rules—anything was allowed except biting, which most men seemed to think was unfair and unbecoming of a fighter. There were no rounds or breaks—fighters simply hit each other until one of them couldn’t stand up again. Dan had explained to Nicholas that the New City fights did follow a set of rules, although there was a fair amount of latitude in those rules.

  The first thing was that there were actual rounds, of a sort. They didn’t have set times, but when a fighter went down the round ended. He could be helped to his corner and the next round would start thirty seconds later. If a fighter couldn’t reach the mark in the center of the ring under his own power within eight seconds then he would be declared the loser.

  Kicking, gouging, butting with the head, biting and low blows were all potential offenses. Nicholas would never do any of the first four things, but a “low blow” was the sort of thing that seemed open to interpretation. In his own mind it meant any punch below the waist, but that may not be what the monitor thought.

  “It’s all down to the monitor, really,” Dan had told him. “He decides what’s unfair and what isn’t. So watch yourself, and try not to have a foul called on you.”

  Too many fouls and a fighter could get disqualified out of the match. The last thing he wanted was to leave the ring in shame.

  The monitor waved Nicholas and Grinder to the middle of the ring, where they both placed the toes of their boots against the mark scratched there.

  Nicholas could almost look Grinder in the eye
. They were both tall, but Grinder wasn’t as tall as he seemed from a distance. It was just his bulk that made him appear larger.

  The Grinder stared at Nicholas with dead eyes. There was no emotion there at all—no anticipation or excitement, not even boredom at being presented with another victim. There was nothing—nothing at all.

  He’s going to try to kill me, or the closest thing to it, Nicholas realized.

  The monitor said, “All right, boys. You listen to me and we’re all going to be just fine. If I say stop, you stop. If I say foul, it’s a foul. This isn’t the pits, this is a high-class establishment and we’ll have no kicking or biting or wrestling down.”

  Nicholas nodded, but Grinder just stared at him. The bigger man had blue eyes and Nicholas thought they were colder than a frozen sea.

  “Hands up,” the monitor said. “Touch knuckles.”

  Nicholas tapped his fists against Grinder’s. His own hands appeared pitifully small.

  Then there was no more time to think, for the monitor said, “Begin.”

  The Grinder swung out one of those massive paws immediately, not bothering with the traditional opening of feint and retreat. Nicholas dodged out of the way just in time, though he heard the whistling of the other man’s fist as it went past his ear.

  He heard a rumble of surprise ripple through the crowd.

  There would be no testing of the waters here, Nicholas realized as he danced away. The Grinder’s method was to hit the other fighter hard and then keep hitting until his opponent was down on the ground wondering where all the circling birds had come from.

  Grinder swung again with his right fist. Nicholas kept an eye on the left, expecting the follow-up jab that came a moment later. He dodged the first blow and snuck in around the second, landing three hard punches against the Grinder’s jaw.

  Those punches hardly seemed to do a thing except irritate the Grinder. Still, there was a moment of stunned silence, and then suddenly the crowd around the ring seemed to explode with activity. Nicholas couldn’t look, couldn’t do anything except dodge the next punch, but he sensed that by simply landing those hits he’d changed the expected trajectory of the fight.

  His jaw is like iron, Nicholas thought. Let’s see how he takes a body blow.

  The Grinder seemed to prefer wide swinging roundhouses. It made sense, because smaller fighters would have to get inside that huge reach to try to land a hit. But Nicholas’ reach was almost as long as Grinder’s, and he was so much faster on his feet that Grinder couldn’t catch him.

  At least not yet, Nicholas thought. There’s a lot of fight left in him. I’ve got to make him tired. He’s probably never fought for more than ten minutes at a stretch.

  The Grinder swung out again, aiming for Nicholas’ head. Nicholas could see the punch coming long before it approached him. He backed up a few inches, let the hit whoosh by in front of his nose, then aimed several hard and fast hits under the Grinder’s ribs.

  The other man coughed and staggered back a few paces. Nicholas heard Dagger Dan shout, “That’s it, boy! Don’t be a gentleman. Get him while he’s out of it!”

  Nicholas went into the Grinder fast, hitting his body, pushing the bigger man up against the ropes. All around him the crowd was screaming.

  I wonder if Hattie is watching, he thought, but that thought was his first mistake.

  Grinder managed to get his left arm loose and knock Nicholas’ head hard enough to make his neck snap sideways.

  Nicholas’ body moved before he even had a chance to think, Get out of here!

  He skipped backward, shaking his head. His vision tilted crazily for a moment and then it righted itself, just in time to see the Grinder charging at him like an angry bull, his head down. The Grinder’s head slammed into Nicholas’ chest so hard that he thought one of his ribs cracked. All the breath went out of him as his back slammed against the ropes.

  “Foul! Foul!”

  Nicholas heard Dan’s voice shouting, but he wasn’t the only one. A loud chorus of “Foul! Foul!” went all around the stands.

  “Foul!” the monitor shouted.

  The Grinder backed away, grinning at Nicholas.

  Nicholas slowly straightened. The Grinder had a foul on him, and that was a good thing, because if he committed four more then the Grinder would be out of the match and Nicholas declared the winner.

  The trouble was that even though the foul had been called Nicholas still had taken the damage. That head-butt had the full force of Grinder’s bulk behind it, and Nicholas could feel a worrisome ache in his lower right ribs. It made him feel like he had trouble catching his breath.

  You don’t have time to try to force him to foul out of the match. A couple more hits like that and Dan will be taking you to the hospital in a stretcher.

  Nicholas put his fists up again and moved toward the center of the ring. Let him come to me and see how he likes it.

  Grinder seemed to think that Nicholas was standing still because he was hurt or scared. His grin grew wider, a sick yellow-toothed smile filled with lots of teeth that seemed tiny in his enormous head.

  The Grinder shuffled in Nicholas’ direction. Nicholas stood his ground and let the other man swing away.

  At the last moment Nicholas squatted to avoid the hit, then shot up again inside the Grinder’s arm. He pummeled the larger man’s body, hitting him over and over again in the triangle just below where the ribs met. It was like hitting a frozen slab of meat and Nicholas felt his knuckles tearing, but every hit made Grinder puff out a pained breath.

  Nicholas knew if he punched the Grinder long enough in this exact place that the other man wouldn’t be able to get enough air. Every blow kept the Grinder from drawing a full, deep breath.

  The crowd was on its feet now, every man standing and screaming. Nicholas tried not to think about them, tried not to think about Hattie’s sad blue eyes and how she might be looking up at him now, her face glowing. He just kept punching, punching, punching until the Grinder’s eyes rolled in his head and he fell heavily to the ground on his bottom.

  “Round!” the monitor shouted, coming forward to chivvy Nicholas away from his opponent.

  He shouted into a deathly silence. Everyone in the crowd was staring, stunned, at the Grinder sitting on the floor of the ring. Grinder’s face was grey and covered in sweat. Nicholas wondered whether the other man might be sick in front of everyone.

  “Into your corners!” the monitor said.

  Nicholas didn’t know which corner belonged to him so he just backed up to the one farthest from the Grinder. His face and body were coated in sweat and his knuckles were crusted in blood.

  Nicholas noticed the toff who pulled Rabbit’s strings gesturing to two men a couple of rows away. They jumped up and ran down to the ring to help Grinder into his corner.

  The monitor was counting off the seconds. Grinder had thirty seconds to get to his corner, but he had eight seconds to reach the mark in the center of the ring after that and he had to get there under his own steam.

  As soon as the monitor started the eight-second count Nicholas moved back to the center and put his fists up and his boots on the mark.

  The Grinder shook off the two men who’d been sent to help him. He stalked toward the center mark.

  Nicholas realized two things then. First, the Grinder had no intention of finishing this as a fair fight. He’d been humiliated, knocked down by a boy half his size. There was nothing he wouldn’t do to make sure that Nicholas lost.

  Second, if Nicholas wanted to survive the next ten minutes he needed to give up any idea of fighting fair himself.

  But Grinder has to make the first move, so that the crowd and the monitor can see you’re just defending yourself.

  Nicholas knew then what he had to do, and it was terrifying to consider. He’d have to take the blow that was coming and hope like hell that it
didn’t kill him.

  He’s going to kick out your legs and then try to get on top of you and pummel you into meat.

  Nicholas didn’t even have to contemplate whether or not this was true Sight. It was, he knew it was, and knowing what was coming next made him calmer, made it easier to think how he could get away before Grinder broke all the bones in his face.

  The monitor had his hand up, ready to start the next round, but Grinder didn’t stop at the mark with his fists ready the way he was supposed to. He knocked the monitor aside with a careless swipe of his arm. The monitor flew across the ring and slammed into the ropes.

  “Foul! Foul!” was heard all over the arena again but Grinder didn’t care, he wanted Nicholas’ blood and Nicholas didn’t need the Sight to tell that.

  Grinder kicked Nicholas’ left shin with a huge and heavy boot and Nicholas felt something break as his leg collapsed beneath him. His scream of pain was drowned out by the absolute pandemonium going on around them now—people yelling, stamping, running toward the ring.

  Don’t think about the pain, don’t think about it, they all know what he is now and all you have to do is get away long enough to keep from becoming a very public murder victim.

  Grinder shoved at Nicholas’ shoulder, ready to knock him over and pound Nicholas’ face into putty. Nicholas used the momentum to roll over onto his stomach. Then he pushed back up to his feet even though his broken leg was screaming, and jabbed the Grinder hard in the throat.

  The Grinder made a choking sound and Nicholas didn’t hesitate. He slammed his fist into the other man’s nose. Blood spurted into Nicholas’ face and he swiped it away with his wrist. The Grinder howled and swung blindly at Nicholas, who dodged out of the way, swaying a little as he landed on the injured leg.

  The dodge had put Nicholas behind Grinder. He leapt onto the Grinder’s back and wrapped his right arm around the Grinder’s throat. He had to stop this now, put the Grinder down. He pulled his arm tight.

  The Grinder grunted, tried to pry Nicholas’ arm off but Nicholas had a good hold. The other fighter staggered backward, tried to buck Nicholas off, but Nicholas held on.