One Foot in the Grave

THIRTY-SIX

FOR ONE, THE MAN STANDING HAD TO BE almost seven feet tall. His arms were thicker than my waist, and he had legs like tree trunks covered in skin. For someone his size, he moved down the aisle with a light, quick grace that gave me a sinking feeling in my stomach. Massive and fast; that wasn’t good. But what had me the most concerned was that the man now jumping into the arena wasn’t a vampire. He was a ghoul.

I could kick my silver heels through his heart until the cows came home, but it wouldn’t kill him. Neither would these heels suitably double as a sword to cleave his head off. Alrighty, then. This would be interesting.

Ian grinned at me with expectant victory. “Do you know who that is, Cat? That’s Grendel, the most famous mercenary of the ghouls. He’s almost six hundred years old and a former stradioti of the Venetian armies. Grendel used to be paid according to the number of heads he lopped off in battle, and that, my dear poppet, was just when he was human.”

I caught Bones’s eye. He raised a brow. Did I want him to intervene? he was asking silently. He could stop all this by pulling the property card, I knew, and Bones’s expression told me that Ian wasn’t exaggerating a bit in his description of what a badass Grendel was.

I gave the smooth-skulled ghoul another thorough evaluation. Yeah, he looked like a mean motherfucker, no doubt about it. And here I was armed with only a pair of high heels. I glanced up at Noah, who had a resigned expression on his face. Clearly he thought he was a dead man no matter what happened. I could take the easy way out. Call myself Bones’s Bite Bitch and walk away with nary a broken fingernail to show for it, but that wasn’t my style. No, I’d rather fight this giant and win my freedom than get it handed to me by default. But where was a cannon when I needed one?

“Don’t bash her about too badly, Grendel; I have plans for her later.” Ian smirked.

The ghoul gave an ominous laugh. “She’ll be alive. Anything else is up to you to heal.”

How comforting. I shook my head ever so slightly at Bones, indicating I didn’t want him to intercede. Then I cracked my knuckles with a hint of grimness, watching as Grendel approached. The ghoul looked me over with a professional, callous scrutiny, no doubt deciding which of my bones to break first.

“To show that I have no fear,” he said in his deep voice. “I’ll let you strike the first blow without defending myself.”

“I’m not giving you the same thing,” I responded instantly.

A cold smile wreathed his face. “I would hope not. Then this would end too soon and spoil my fun.”

Nice. Grendel the Giant was a sadist. Who said anything in life was easy?

I took a deep breath-and then leapt in the air toward him, kicking my feet out with all my strength. My heels landed in his throat and I scissored outward, hoping to sever the spinal column in his neck.

But it didn’t. What it did do was tear off two big chunks of his neck and leave me straddling him as we both fell back from the impact. I landed with my knees very indecently around his face, and then I jumped back.

Ian laughed so hard, his eyes turned pink from tears. “You didn’t use that battle tactic with me before, Cat. I daresay I feel cheated.”

Grendel wasn’t in as jolly a mood. He got to his feet, rubbed his throat where the skin was healing back into place, and gave me a very unpleasant look.

“You will pay with pain for that.”

What was I supposed to say? It wasn’t good for me, either?

Grendel’s fist shot out. It was almost comical, because I only saw a blur and then boom! I flew into the stands behind me. Landed on two well-dressed female vampires who helpfully threw me back into the arena without even a how-do-you-do. As soon as I hit the ground, I rolled, narrowly avoiding a kick that would have landed my intestines into my chest cavity. Then I jumped up to prevent him from crashing down onto me like a WWE wrestler. Fuck me, he was fast! And he wasn’t fooling around! Another leap made his balled fist land on my shoulder instead of my ribs. There was a crack as my collarbone broke. Another crack as he feinted left and followed through with an underhanded right, smashing three of my ribs at least. I darted away, gasping, to be hit in the back when I wasn’t fast enough. Face-first I sprawled onto the arena floor, scrambling, my heart sinking as I felt an iron fist close over my ankle.

Grendel yanked me closer and drove his fist into my side. I pulled back at the last second, so he didn’t take out my entire right rib cage, but he blasted my kidney. I doubled over, coughing up blood in a crimson ribbon, barely able to even breathe. Grendel let go of my ankle. He got to his feet and began to laugh.

“This was the feared Red Reaper? This?”

There was an outbreak of applause. I wasn’t the crowd favorite, obviously. Grendel took a bow, still laughing, while a cold rage erupted in me. This fucker was not going to hand me over to Ian while chuckling at how easy it had been. I would take him down, pain or no pain. Come on, Cat. You’re not done yet.

“Pussy.”

I said it while pushing myself into a half-crouched position. Grendel stopped laughing at once. He loomed over me, drawing back his hand to clock me.

Instead of flinching away, I surged forward. My lower position put me in perfect range to do the most damage I could with my mouth.

Grendel let out a high screech. I didn’t bite anymore, because the main purpose was distraction, and there was nothing like a chewed groin to get a guy’s full attention focused on that. When he instinctively shielded his crotch, I whipped around him to jump onto his back like a monkey, using my legs to hold on. Then I plunged my fingers into his eyes.

Grendel screamed in earnest at that. I shoved my fingers deeper, ignoring the disgusting squishy sensation. His arms flailed back as he tried to hit any part of me he could. I jumped off, missing those murderous blows, and swept his feet out from under him. Even though my fingers weren’t in his eyes anymore, he still couldn’t see. They hadn’t healed yet. I only had seconds.

I launched myself at him again, using the speed from that charge as leverage while I squeezed his head and yanked it around with everything I had. There was an audible break, but not enough. All my muscles bunched as I pulled with my last spurt of strength, using my legs to brace myself-and then I toppled backward with Grendel’s head in my lap, bloody eye sockets staring up at me.

“You forgot…to kick me…when I was down,” I managed to wheeze.

The instant of shocked silence was broken when several voices began to speak at once. I spat some blood out of my mouth, not caring how unladylike that looked, and cradled my aching side. Grendel would have had me if he hadn’t been so smug. One more blow like the last one to my side, and I wouldn’t have been able to twist the top off a soda bottle. Even now, I felt like I’d been in a car wreck. Make that a train wreck. A big one. Grendel’s face looked up at me, his skin beginning to wrinkle, and I shoved his skull away with distaste. Some people liked to keep trophies. I wasn’t one of them.

Slowly I pushed myself to my feet and glared at Ian, who was still gaping.

“Lower…the cage…down.”

I still couldn’t speak right from the pressure of my broken ribs. Ian nodded, tight-lipped, and with a rasp of metal, Noah was brought to the floor. When he was let out of the cage, he looked at me and the headless ghoul with horror. Then he started to scream.

“Somebody shut him up,” Ian ordered, annoyed.

Spade stepped forward immediately, his piercing gaze and order for silence quieting Noah in seconds. Then he led him back up the aisle to the double doors where he’d been watching. I relaxed a tiny bit. It was as safe a place as any for Noah to be.

Ian, surprisingly, began to clap, but his clapping had more of a mocking sound to it than the genuine applause Grendel had briefly garnered.

“Well done, Red Reaper! No one could scoff at that name for you now. I’m more than impressed, as is everyone here. You’ve proven to be resourceful, strong, and ruthless. You’ve won your challenge and one of your men back. However…I still have three more of them. How much are their lives worth to you, poppet? Join me, swear your loyalty to me, and I’ll let them go. Come now, it won’t be that unpleasant. Indeed, there are many perks, as you’ll