Page 32 of Reaper
“I’m Eleanor,” the vampire said, holding out a hand for me to shake.I did, and she pulled me in close, licking my ear as she whispered, “Don’t trust anyone.Especially me.”I pulled back and wiped my ear dry as I felt Becks laughing inside my head.Apparently the Boss had dialed down the blocking tech in my collar after I won last night.
“My name is Steven,” said the squirrelly little were.“And she’s right.”He jerked a thumb at Eleanor.“Don’t trust her.She’s shifty as fuck.”
“And you’re not?”Eleanor asked, one eyebrow climbing to the sky.
“Oh, I’m totally shifty,” Steven replied.“But Ilooklike the untrustworthy fuck that I am.You look like a centerfold, and guys think too much with the little head, so I figured I’d better warn Flounder here about you.”
“Flounder?”I asked.“What is this,Animal House?”
“I don’t know what that is, pal,” Steven said, reminding me that I’m a walking antique.“But you’re the new fish, so you get to be Flounder.Win a fight up here in the nosebleeds and we promise to pretend to give a shit what your real name is.”
“What about you?”I asked Muscles.“Or should I just call you Muscles?”
“I don’t care what you call me,” the wall of nigh-humanity replied.“But my name is Janik.”
“Okay, Janik.Good to meet all of you.I guess sitting in the middle of the room is a flex, showing everybody else that you’re too badass to worry about getting jumped?”
“Kinda,” Steven said.His voice was as twitchy as the rest of him, with a Joe Pesci tone to him that made me expect him to say some kind of cliche mobster shit at any moment.“Plus it’s closer to the froyo bar for refills, and we get all the sprinkles.”
Changing the subject, I looked around the mess hall.“Where’s Yannis?”I asked.“I figured he’d be up by now barking about a rematch.”
Everyone got very quiet, and for a long moment, nobody met my gaze.“Yannis died of his wounds sometime in the night,” Tony said, moving some eggs around on his plate.
“What?”I asked.“That’s bullshit!I didn’t hit him hard enough to kill him, and besides, he’d shifted before the fight was over.He was healed.There was…” I let my words trail off as everyone continued to avoid my gaze.“Oh.He lost too many times, didn’t he?”
“Yannis was a moron,” Eleanor said, venom dripping from her words.“He talked too much, fought too poorly, and bled too easily to be a champion.He should have quit when he was given an out, but now…”
“Fuck,” I said softly, pushing my own eggs around the plate.“I didn’t know.If I had…”
“What?”Anthony scoffed.“Like you would have thrown the fight.That whole thing was a setup.They put a pain in the ass like Yannis in there with a pain in the ass like you, and an expendable new guy who didn’t have any fans yet.If the new guy won, he’d be sitting here loving life.If Yannis won, he’d still be over there with his back to the wall, except you’d be dead.But you won, and Yannis is dead.So either way it’s one less pain in the ass for the Boss to deal with.That was always going to be the deal—one asshole dead, and two left to bleed for the crowd.”
“You sound awfully bitter for somebody who’s still sitting here fighting twice a week,” I said, keeping my voice down.I wasn’t sure how much surveillance there was in the dining hall, but I was certain there was some, and I was just as certain I didn’t want us being overheard.
“My lord Oberon commanded me here, so I am here until I fulfill my mission or am slain,” Tony said.
“I thought you were here because you banged the wrong one of Oberon’s maids?”I asked.
“That’s how I was selected for the mission,” he replied.“But it is a mission nonetheless.So I must carry it out, or never return to Faerie.”
“And what is your mission, exactly?”I asked, munching on a strip of perfectly crisp bacon.There were privileges to being a badass.But I was very curious about Oberon sending one of his knights to the mundane world, even a knight he wanted to banish.I’d run into the king of the Summer Court a while back when he tried to unleash a biological weapon to destroy pretty much all of humanity, and I wanted to know if genocide was still on the table for him.
“I am to determine if there are warriors worthy of joining his army,” Anthony said.
Alarm bells started ringing in my head.“Is he planning an invasion or something?”If Oberon was moving against this world, I was going to have to abandon ship and call in some heavy reinforcements.I don’t know much about Faerie, but I know there are a buttload of different magical creatures there, and most of them could turn humans into sausage without batting an eye.
“Not of this plane,” Tony replied.“We cannot exist apart from the magics of Faerie indefinitely.Attacking this world would be pointless for him.I believe he has designs on expanding the boundaries of Summer, either by attacking the Shadow Realm, or moving on Winter.”
I felt some of the tension flow out of my shoulders.I didnotrelish the thought of a battalion of badass Anthonys staring at me in full arms and armor.“Well?”I asked.“You find anybody yet?”
The whole table chuckled, and I realized they thought I was applying for the job.I held up both hands in mock surrender.“Not me, bro!One, you kicked my ass while barely breaking a sweat, and two, I don’t like mushrooms on my burger, much less going through rings of them to travel to a magical realm.I’m just curious, is all.”
Tony smiled at me and said, “I have my eye on a few people, but I will only be allowed to return home as a champion, so I must first defeat one or more of our tablemates.Then I can decide if anyone is worthy to fight alongside King Oberon’s banner with me.”
The others at the table didn’t seem offended at the idea of squaring off against Anthony.In fact, they all kinda looked excited at the prospect.I was definitely sitting with a bunch of people who liked to kick ass for ass kicking’s sake.That’s never been my thing.I fight when I have to, but if I throw down, it’s usually to defend someone who needs my help.Or if someone impugns the dubious honor of my family.But there was a lot more of that when I still thought I was human.I got in alotof fights over Stoker’s book when I was a kid.Something about a kid in a newsboy cap calling my mom a fang-sucker was guaranteed to get me seeing red.
I was lost in thought, dwelling on my misspent youth, when an unfamiliar bell rang.Everyone got up and carried their trays over to a conveyor along one wall, and I followed.“What’s going on?”I asked.
“Communal exercise time,” Anthony said.“Happens once every couple of weeks.I think the boss likes to throw a bunch of idiots into a pot of boiling water just to see what floats to the top.Lower tier fighters get to challenge higher tiers for their spot, so keep your eyes open.”
