Page 31 of Reaper
Yannis dropped me, and I fell to all fours in the sand.I spun around and threw three quick punches, one to his left knee, one to his right knee, and one right up into the center of his gut.Yannis dropped to the sand, unable to decide what hurt worse, his face, his knees, or his solar plexus.More fortunate for me, he was too confused to shift into full wolf, which would have healed him and made me start all over again on the kick his ass plan.I hopped to my feet, stepped back, and punted him right in the jaw.Usually, when I’m at my full strength, a move like this will stand my opponent completely up before they fly a couple feet back and sprawl on their back.It looks really cool.Except I wasn’t at full strength, and Yannis in his half-shifted form weighed at least four hundred pounds, so he just kind of hopped up onto his knees, then fell to one side.I figured I’d take what I could get.
I raised my arms to the screaming crowd, expecting to hear the door open and the ring announcer call my name, but instead I got slammed in the back with a goddamn furry ball of rage and claws.Apparently Bobcat hadn’t been knocked quite as silly as I’d hoped and shifted to his feline form to keep going after me.
And go after me he did.He knocked me facedown in the sand, and my back erupted in pain as he shredded my shirt, then my flesh, with his claws.I felt his jaws close around the back of my neck and knew this was how bigger cats killed their prey, with one sharp shake to snap the mouse’s spine.If I didn’t get my shit together, I was dead.
Good thing for me I’m smarter than the average field mouse.I didn’t have my full complement of magic, thanks to the collar, but I had enough for this dickhead.I pressed both hands flat on the ground and, through gritted teeth, shouted,“Forzare!”We both flew up into the air, but I was the only one prepared for it.Bobcat let go with a sharp yowl and pushed off me with all fours to land several feet away, looking around in confusion.
I scrambled to my feet before he could attack again, feeling blood sheeting down my back from his claws.I cast my eyes to one side, where Yannis lay unconscious, shifted back to human as he passed out, and thus now completely healed.If he woke up before I dealt with Hello Kitty here, I was seriously fucked.I was bleeding too much to take them both on, and the furball in front of me didn’t seem to be playing to incapacitate.
He sprang at me again, and this time I called up a disk of energy along my left arm, then cast a shield of fire on top of it with a cry of“Fuego!”When Bobcat smacked into my shield, I was instantly assailed by the stench of burning fur, and my ears rang with the howl of a scorched werecat.He sprang off me as fast as he’d leapt at me, and I saw him begin to shift back to his half-cat form to heal.
That didn’t bode well for me, so I decided I should probably stop it.With prejudice.I flung a ball of pure force at his feet, forcing him to leap aside or be blasted into next week.Then another, then another, until I’d chased him across the entire arena with glowing purple spheres of power, pinning him to the far wall.He snarled at me and started his shift again, but with nowhere to run, there was no chance he could transform in time.He was no Yannis, who shifted faster than any lycanthrope I’d ever seen or heard of.It took him several seconds to begin his transformation, which gave me plenty of time to close the distance between us and wreath my right hand in crimson fire.
“Yield,” I said, putting a little magic in my voice to be heard over the crowd noise.I held my flaming fist over my head and glared down at the shifter.
He snarled back at me, continuing his shift.He swiped at me with his claws, but the change was upon him now, and his motor functions were hampered by the snapping and cracking as bones lengthened and tendons reattached.
“Yield!”I called again as the crowd started chanting “Kill, Kill, Kill!”These were some bloodthirsty pricks.If I could find out who they all were, I was going to go after them as well as the dickheads who ran this place.
Bobcat was almost shifted to his mid-form now, and he snarled at me again, making a feeble slash with his claws as I stepped closer.
“Okay, dipshit,” I said softly as I stepped within arms’ reach.“I tried.”I looked to the crowd again, and for a third time, much louder, called out one word.“YIELD!”
Bobcat was in his half-man form now and lashed out at me with his claws, but I was ready for him.Even bleeding from dozens of scratches along my back, I was more than a match for one were-bobcat, even fully healed by his shift.I let my fire wink out, stepped inside his slash to block it with my left arm, and laid a massive, magically enhanced punch on the side of his jaw, slamming the back of his head into the wall and crossing his eyes.I threw three or four more punches as he slid down the wall until he collapsed in a heap, unconscious.
Sometimes you can win a fight with pure youthful adrenaline and rage, but most of the time the older fighter will kick your ass because he knows how to kick ass and has been doing it longer.At over a hundred years old, I’d been kicking ass longer than almost anybody in the building, and as the shifter’s eyes rolled back in his head, I made sure the lesson was hammered home.Pun fully intended.
I turned to look back at Yannis, but he was still on dream street.Both my opponents vanquished, I strode to the center of the ring and looked up at the luxury boxes, knowing the Boss was either in one of those or watching on a monitor somewhere.I turned in a circle as I called out to him and the crowd, “Is that the best you’ve got.Come the fuck on, bring me a goddamnedchallenge!”
Then I stalked over to the door, which opened at my approach, and walked out leaving nothing behind me but two bloodied opponents and thunderous cheers from the psychopaths in the audience.
24
The next day, you would have thought I was Leonidas coming back from the wars, the reception I got when I walked into the dining hall for breakfast.It was like the parting of the Red Sea when I walked up to get my plate, with half a dozen badass cage fighting cryptids and paras stepping aside to let me have my pick of the best bacon.And if you don’t think a bunch of apex predators stepping aside to let a skinny dude get to the bacon first is a big deal, you really need to reevaluate your relationship with our lord and savior—pork.
I loaded up my plate and headed over to a perimeter table, where I usually sat with my back to a wall, but Tony waved me over to a round table in the center of the room.I sat down next to him, and he gestured to the other hardy few willing to sit without any architecture guarding their backs in a room full of killers.
“Guys, this is Murray James.He’s the one I told you about.He almost kicked my ass, and last night he took out Yannisandthe random new kid in the same bout,” Anthony said by way of introduction.
I looked at the three others sharing our table.One was an enormous man, nearly seven feet tall and well over three hundred pounds, with muscles peeking out from under his muscles and a glare on his face that could stop a clock.I couldn’t tell what kind of creature he was at first glance, and he was so damned ugly and mean-looking I didn’t want to stare.I figured if I had to fight him, I’d figure it out then.Next to Ugly was a whip-thin rat-faced guy who kept twirling his silverware like it was a pair of throwing knives.He was twitchy, like he couldn’t possibly sit still, but the dexterity he showed with his utensils made me think he’d be really dangerous with sharper implements.Last was one of the few women I’d seen in my time at the Colosseum, and she was as striking as she was terrifying.Her face was all sharp angles and hard planes, with eyes that bored into your soul.I pegged her as a vampire, and an old one at that.She was not someone I wanted to tangle with because I wasn’t at all sure I could beat her without killing her, and I was here to save lives, not spend them.
“Murray, these are the Tier Four and Five fighters.Well, and us, of course.With your win last night, you made Tier Four, and I…”
“You made your bones when you kicked my ass,” I replied with a smirk.
“Yeah, pretty much,” Tony replied.
“So you lot are the baddest asses on the playground?”I asked, trying to keep my sarcasm under control and failing.
“We’re good enough at what we do,” Lady Murderface said, giving me a smile that might have seemed sweet if it wasn’t also incredibly bloodthirsty.
“What about Maris?”I asked.“Tight-assed vampire?I thought he was a big deal here, too?”
The wall of muscles spoke, and it sounded like someone grinding two boulders together.“Maris fell last night.He will not be having breakfast.”
The way everyone at the table didn’t look at him, it was pretty obvious that Muscles was responsible for Maris missing a meal, and maybe all his future meals.If this meathead was able to take out a vamp of Maris’s age, then he definitely had something more than brute strength going for him.If my guess was right, Maris was several centuries old, and vampires don’t live that long without a blend of power and strategy.
“So what’s everybody’s name?”I asked, putting on my “first day of school” manners.I didn’t give a shit what they were called, but I did want to have some idea of which one of them I was facing if I needed to scrap with one of them in a Tier Four fight.
