investment required to offer this kind of entertainment is substantial, and the stakes reflect that commitment.”
“I’d like to think it won’t be any less exclusive when you let us in on the action,” I said, and smiled.
La Calavera nodded. “No, indeed. You and your friend are rarities here, as I said, and I’m sure the others will welcome the novelty. They will relish the opportunity to wager against such a…delicacy.”
“Great,” I said, even though I didn’t really think of myself as a delicacy. “When is the next fight?”
“Tonight,” said La Calavera. “Enjoy yourselves until the party winds down. For the convenience of our players, we hold the fights on the premises. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I really must attend to my other guests.” She stood, glanced once at Adan and walked away.
“I feel so used,” Adan said. “Hold me, Domino.”
I laughed. “You’re a good dancer.”
“Oberon taught me. He said you had to be able to fight, dance and lie to survive at court, not necessarily in that order.”
“You’re a good fighter, too.”
“Yeah, honesty is my downfall.”
“Spoken like an expert liar,” I said. “So what was your relationship to Oberon, exactly? He abducted you.”
Adan nodded. “I was his ward-somewhere between his son and his hostage. We weren’t blood, obviously, and that means a lot in the Seelie Court. But he was responsible for me. He took it seriously.”
“What was it like? Growing up with fairies, I mean.”
“It’s like a dream now, even after a few months. Like Oberon’s party. It’s hard to remember details. I think it seemed normal at the time-I didn’t know anything else.”
“You don’t remember anything?”
“Impressions,” Adan said. “It was…cold. Not the climate-it was always summer in our part of Avalon. But love, genuine warmth, is a rare thing among the sidhe. That’s one thing that makes Oberon and Titania unusual- they’ve got it. But for the rest of them, there’s blood, honor, duty, loyalty… There are a lot of good things in Avalon, but kindness and compassion aren’t among them.”
“It sounds like the barrio, only worse.”
“A lot worse, I think. Even in the barrio, I’ll bet there was at least some sense of community. Some basic human decency despite the poverty and hopelessness.”
I nodded, thinking of my mother and thousands of others like her. “There are good people in the barrio. The poverty and hopelessness just makes them stronger.”
Adan got a faraway look in his eyes. “I do remember something. I remember the first time Oberon took me with him on a hunt. We were hunting wild boar in the woods, maybe a day’s ride from the city. I must have been about ten years old. We were mounted and we had these short, heavy spears with broad, silver points. The dogs- your barghests-would flush the boars out of the bush and we’d spear them. I could barely even lift the spear.”
He laughed and looked at me. I just nodded.
“These boars-they weren’t like normal animals, obviously. They could get as big as the barghests, and a lot heavier, a lot more powerful. They had thick, coarse fur and tusks as long as my forearm. Their hides were so tough and they were so fierce, it always took a few good throws to bring them down. Anyway, you probably know how this story goes. I was a decent horseman for my age and size, but you’ve seen the sidhe horses. I got thrown and a boar charged me. I lost my spear when I fell. All I had was my sword and a short, wide-bladed knife. The rest of the sidhe-including Oberon-just sat their steeds and watched.”
“Jesus Christ. What happened?”
“I killed it,” Adan said, and shrugged. “I don’t remember how. When it was over, my sword was broken off in the boar’s chest and my knife was buried to the hilt in its eye. And I was covered in blood, like someone had dumped buckets of it on me. Not all of it was the boar’s.”
“And they didn’t do anything to help?”
“They just watched. They didn’t even say anything-no cheering, no encouragement, no advice. They just waited to see what would happen. But that’s not really what the story’s about. I’ll never forget what Oberon said to me when it was over. He said, “The horse sensed your fear. Master your fear and you’ll master the beast. You’ve proven yourself a man, now, so don’t expect any more coddling.”
“Coddling? Son of a bitch!”
“Yeah,” Adan said, laughing. “That’s what I thought-someone must have neglected the coddling part. He was true to his word, though. After that I was always on my own. I could have just about anything I wanted, as long as I was strong enough and clever enough to take it for myself.”
Oberon as Adan described him reminded me a lot of Shanar Rashan-maybe that’s why they hated each other. My boss had taught me a lot and I’d always be grateful to him for it. But he’d also been more than willing to let me learn the hard lessons on my own. And if I didn’t survive one of those lessons? Well, I guess in six thousand years you see a lot of people die. Adan and I were a lot alike, too, with one big difference: I’d always had my mom. Adan never had anyone. Even now, after he’d returned from Avalon, the first thing his father did was go on vacation.
“What do you think of the mortal world so far?” I asked.
Adan nodded and gave me a little smile. “Honestly? So far it seems a lot like Avalon. Our little corner of it, anyway.”
“The more things change…”
Adan just looked at me, waiting for me to finish the thought.
“Uh, the more they stay the same. It’s just a saying. Adan, how is it you know Jude Law movies but you don’t know shit like that?”
“It was a good movie,” he said, laughing. “No, I hear you-it’s weird. The Seelie Court has been watching this world a long time. That isn’t news to you-Oberon had to know what was happening here in order to set his plans in motion. But watching a place isn’t the same as living in it. Think of a place you know a little about but have never visited, a place you’ve never lived.”
I nodded. “Like Japan. I know a little about the popular culture, and I maybe have an image of what it looks like- Tokyo, anyway-but I’d be fucking clueless if I actually went there.”
“Yeah, that’s what it’s like for me. Parts of this world are familiar to me. Most of it is alien.”
I held up my glass. “Well, here’s to two well-adjusted individuals who survived lost innocence and childhood trauma to lead healthy, happy and productive lives.”
Adan raised his own glass and touched mine. “They sound like amazing people,” he said. “I’d like to meet them someday.”
We laughed and drank. We finished the first bottle of champagne and ordered another. It was definitely juice-I got the same buzz off it I got from spinning spells. We couldn’t be sure who was listening so we avoided talking about zombies, Xolos or demons. We talked about the outfit, instead, and I realized it was because neither one of us really had anything else going on in our lives. There just wasn’t much else to talk about. I didn’t mind. It was nice just to talk to someone.
There was never a last call in the shadow world, but eventually the crowd thinned and the staff turned from serving to cleaning up. There were only about a dozen spirits left in the club, and they huddled together in small groups, no doubt discussing the forthcoming entertainment. Before long, La Calavera reappeared and ushered us all through a door by the stage to the back room where the fights would be held.
In the real world, underground dogfights were usually held in vacant lots or buildings, and rarely in the same place twice. The “pits” were really nothing more than small, portable enclosures built from plywood that could be pulled out of the back of a van or truck and set up in a few minutes. La Calavera had done some redecorating and her pit was the real deal. The room behind the stage was like a small amphitheater, with rows of low stone benches encircling the pit. The pit itself was only about four feet deep and fashioned of cut, pale stone mottled with dark-brown stains. There was an open space between the stands on the far side of the room, and half a dozen cages were placed there, side by side. Inside the cages were the Xolos.
They didn’t look anything at all like Caesar. In the Between they were made of light, like a master artist had sculpted a sunrise in the shape of a dog. They were beautiful, magnificent, and to look at them was to know peace. And they’d been driven mad.
One of the Xolos threw itself at the bars of its cage, over and over, until white-gold light spattered the insides of the cage and the stone floor like blood. Another sat on its haunches and howled, a mournful lament that worked
