Page 22 of Reaper
16
Istood on the sand, looking across at the closed door, waiting for my opponent.I wore a different collar this time, one that didn’t cut off my access to magic but limited how much I could draw or expend in one go.Living in NASCAR country, it was like someone had put a restrictor plate on my power.I didn’t like it, but I seldom needed to draw on all my juice to take out a demon.
The bigger problem was going to be beating him without killing him.Demons weren’t known for their willingness to surrender, and I wasn’t known for my restraint.I knew who I was facing because the first Tier Two bout had been streamed to my room and I got to see the jovial werewolf pummel the absolute shit out of the Faerie Ninja.He’d put on a hell of a show, shifting at the blink of an eye every time he took a serious wound.That kind of speed was beyond what I thought lycanthropes could manage and made him seriously scary.When your opponent heals whatever you throw at him, it makes for a difficult night.
So now I stood with my Docs in the sand as my unknown demon made his appearance.He hadn’t participated in any of our sparring sessions, so I had no idea how strong or fast he was.I, on the other hand, had tussled with Faerie Ninja and Wolf-Boy for three days, so he’d gotten a good look at my moves.At least, at the moves I wanted him to see.
The ring announcer’s voice boomed over the Colosseum.“Ladies and Gentlefreaks, get ready for your final second-round fight of the evening.Remember that these fights are weaponless, and the fight stops when one of the competitors submits or is unable to continue, as judged by our medical staff.”
Said medical staff was watching on a video monitor backstage because they were all human, at least as far as I could tell, and had zero interest in getting their faces scorched off by an errant fireball, proving that they were among the more intelligent and cautious entities in the entire building.
“Combatants may not use any weapons they did not bring into the arena with them, so please do not throw anything over the barricade.It will result in your ejection from the Colosseum and may cause your fighter to be disqualified.All betting on this fight closes in one minute.Now, the moment you’ve been waiting for.Please welcome the longest-tenured gladiator in Colosseum history—Abraxar The Murder Machine!”
The crowd went mild.There was some applause, but not much more than for my entrance.I guess they just weren’t as into the matches where there was little potential for them to watch someone die.Vultures.That all changed when Abraxar stepped onto the sand and grabbed at his face, ripping it in half and continuing to pull.He took great handfuls of flesh in each hand and just kept pulling, revealing his true shape underneath.
Well, shit.He was a goddamned Reaver Demon.They’re fairly low-level, but vicious motherfuckers, with long scythe-like forearms, legs hinged backward to give them incredible leaping ability, and an extended mouth full of razor-sharp teeth.I’d fought plenty of them before, but I usually had a pistol in hand.He extended a disgustingly long forked tongue and licked the last scraps of skin from his muzzle and swallowed.
“Yummy,” he said, his voice amplified over the PA system.I looked around for hanging mics before realizing there was probably a mage somewhere playing sound engineer.“I wonder what you taste like, little human?”
“Too bad you won’t find out,” I said, calling power and flinging a half dozen balls of purple energy at his face.He dodged, but one clipped his shoulder and drew a longer hiss, this time of pain.I intentionally had gone all hand-to-hand in my sparring sessions, since I figured I’d need some kind of ace in the hole when I faced this jackass.
Reavers are quick, mean, and nasty.They’re smart in the same way a velociraptor is smart—high-tier predators but not much for thinking outside the box.Their normal tactic is to overwhelm an opponent with superior strength and speed, but if you can keep one off-balance, you’ll probably be okay.So it was no surprise when he charged me, taking three quick steps and leaping twenty feet across the sand to land right on top of me.
It was surprising to him when I wasn’t standing there waiting on him, though.I poured on my own enhanced speed and managed to be ten feet away when he slammed into the ground, and I cut loose another round of energy spheres, these aimed right at his back.No, I have no moral qualms about shooting a bad guy in the back.I’m not fucking Wyatt Earp, and I firmly believe that if Earp had been fighting a demon, he’d have much rather shot one in the arse than look it in the eye.All six of my blasts smacked into Abraxar’s spine, and he went face-first into the sand.
He didn’t stay down long, though, flipping to his feet and whirling on me, his scythe arms flashing through the air in a lethal dance of pain and dismemberment.He charged me again, this time staying on the ground, his arms wide to cut off my escape.But I kept on flipping the script on him, this time driving forward myself instead of trying to dodge.I spun up a purple shield around my right arm and wove a spike of pure force out from the center of it.
Abraxar saw his imminent impalement coming and stepped aside, slashing across my back with one razor-sharp arm.Fire exploded across my ribs and spine, and I could feel the poisonous ichor searing my blood.Some Reavers have evolved or created poisonous claws for themselves, and I’d gotten lucky and found one of those in Abraxar.My legs went numb instantly, and I sprawled on the sand.
That was the only thing that saved me from being cut in half by his follow-up stroke, and I had to use my elbows to roll myself over to keep from getting stuck to the floor when he slammed a claw down right about where my liver had been.Now I was lying on my back, staring up at something that looked like a Predator had sex with an H.R.Giger nightmare, and he was grinning down at me.
“Time to die, human.I think it’s time for me to ascend to the Main Event.”He raised both arms over his head, ready to bring them down through my chest and rip me to pieces.So much for not fighting to the death.
Too bad for him I heal fast and had scrapped with enough Reavers over the decades to have a slight resistance to their venom.I swiveled my hips to bring both legs around his left knee and flipped onto my stomach, toppling the demon and leaping to my feet in one smooth motion.Okay, smooth-ish.Maybe smooth-adjacent.Okay, I probably looked like a drunk giraffe playing Twister, but I got to my feet before the demon managed, and I kicked him in the jaw, earning a satisfyingcrackfor my efforts.
My back still hurt like a motherfucker, and I was definitely moving a step slower than normal, so I knew I needed to bring this fight to a close, and fast.I didn’t want to kill him and break the rules because I didn’t know if that would keep me stuck in Tier Two, drop me back down further away from the Main Event, or get me killed by an overzealous security guard.I also didn’t know what the collar I wore could do other than dampen my magic.For all I knew, I was trapped in an old Rutger Hauer movie and some dickhead in a control room could blow my freaking head off with a twitch of their thumb.
So I didn’t kill him.I stomped on both knees, breaking them with magically shrouded Doc Martens, but I didn’t kill him.I snapped both his scythe arms off at the wrists and jammed them into the dirt like I was planting a flag on the moon, but I didn’t kill him.I hoisted him up by his broken jaw, wrapped my right hand in green energy, and punched him halfway across the arena where he lay broken and unconscious, but I didn’t kill him.
Then I stood on the center of the ring, looking up at the control booth where the announcer grinned down at me, and shouted, “I guess I have to ask this again.Is he fucking incapacitated enough yet?”
The crowd was totally into the show now, and as we waited for the announcement of my victory, I heard them start to chant “Mur-ray, Mur-ray, MUR-RAY!”
When the announcer finally picked up his mic and bellowed “Your winner, moving on to Tier Three…MURRAAAAAAY JAAAAAAAAMES!”They went fucking nuts.I felt a little twinge of worry because I was starting to see why people did this shit.It wasfun, having a bunch of people chant your name, and not because they want to see you executed.
17
My new room was a little closer to the arena and about twice the size of my last one.This time I actually had a bathroom, with a door that closed.Sort of.It was one of those sliding pocket doors, with anything resembling a locking mechanism removed, but it afforded the illusion of privacy, at any rate.And there was a bathtub.A big-ass bathtub with jets.And after getting pummeled by a fucking Reaver demon and getting sliced almost in half by poisonous claws, I needed some hot tub time.I wouldn’t have minded an ice bath, but since I wasn’t a first-round draft pick, I figured the trainer’s room would be off-limits to me.At least until I beat some other asshole’s face in.
“The crowd really liked you tonight,” Pete said, walking into the room ahead of me.He pulled a remote out of his pocket and pointed it at the ceiling.“Cameras and mics are off now.Nobody can see or hear us but me.Who the hellareyou, man?There’s no way you’re some random drifter, not taking out Abraxar like that.He’s shredded Alpha weres with those claws, but you didn’t even slow down when he tagged you.How did you do that?”
I wanted to trust Pete, I really did.He looked so goddamned earnest, like an Eagle Scout beaming with pride at his latest merit badge project.Or whatever Eagle Scouts get proud about.I wasn’t born in America, remember?And when I was growing up, it was a little more…Dickensian than running around in short pants collecting patches for our sashes.But I didn’t.I couldn’t.I don’t trust many people, and I don’t let many people get close.It’s probably a character defect, but it’s a character defect that has kept me, and Luke, alive for a long time, so I think I’ll keep it.
“I fought a Reaver once about five years ago.I think I was in Texas.Maybe Oklahoma.I wasn’t exactly following a GPS at the time.But the last one really messed me up, and I learned a spell to give me a bit of a shield against its poison then.Abraxar counted on one drop of his venom to completely incapacitate me, and when that didn’t work, it made him easy pickings.Relatively speaking.”
I could tell by the look on his face that Pete didn’t buy it, at least not completely.But that’s the thing about magic—it’s ninety-five percent art and maybe five percent science.So unless someone knows the exact spell you’re crafting, and knows how to watch what magic does in the invisible ends of the spectrum, they can’t tell for sure if you’re full of shit or not.So Pete couldn’t call me on my bullshit, he just knew he smelled it.
“That’s cool, man.Turning your defense into offense is slick.But how are you so strong and fast?You didn’t test for any fae genetics when we ran your blood, but you’re way faster than a human should be.”
