Raoul had told me no one would notice when I walked through. The portal itself would shield my passage, actually project an image of me walking into the nearest store, though the proprietor inside would never even see his door open.
Chanting the words Raoul had taught me, I tried not to flinch as the flames framing the door flared, and its black center melted in every direction to reveal . . .
“A football field? Are you serious?” I asked as I stepped out of the street and into the stadium. Well, Raoul hadn’t lied. Things definitely weren’t what they seemed. Maybe the Magistrate would observe an entirely different setup when he arrived. A gladiator’s ring. A matador’s arena. Or, more likely, a reeking pit lined with burning skulls.
My mind had come up with the old RCA dome as neutral territory. A little tip of the hat to my brother-in-law, the rabid Colts fan? Or just a wish that I could revisit Indy, hang with people I loved. With whom, I suddenly realized, I’d come the closest to finding a home.
I shook my head. The time to ponder had passed. And what a relief it was, in a way, to let go of all those thoughts zooming around in my head like child stars hurtling toward their first DUIs.
I shucked my outer layer of clothing, which left me in a white T-shirt and a pair of loose black pants. Drawing the sword, I made the specific motions in the air Raoul had taught me. He’d called them
atra
-cuts, and explained they were symbolic of me slicing through the planes between us in order to bring the Magistrate to me. You could do them with any blade, and though by themselves they didn’t affect any change, coupled with the words I spoke they worked to bring the
nefralim
onto the field.
When I was still working solo I had a job in L.A. where I happened to see Keanu Reeves lunching with, well, who gives a crap, right? Say what you want about the guy, he’s easily the most hell-yeah gorgeous dude on the scene today. The Magistrate left him in the dust. And, shame on me, there was a very American part of me that wanted badly for him to be good because of it. Surely somebody whose eyes, cheekbones, chest, ass made me want to stand up and applaud couldn’t be pure evil.
Okay, can we all just take a minute to remember high school, please? Good. Now, back to business.
He wore, well, that whip. And that was all. Disconcerting. Because I have, believe it or not, never fought a naked man before. Which, while he was not a man, he was certainly built like one, and that could be a distraction. Or a hindrance. Because, despite my chosen profession and my tendency to leave a trail of bent and broken bones behind me, I try to avoid injuring the man parts. They’re just so damn vulnerable. Plus, Dave once explained to me in excruciating detail exactly how it feels to be kicked there. Which is why I totally understand now why guys cringe just seeing it happen on TV. Give it any name you want. My definition is torture, and I just haven’t gotten to the point where I’m willing to cross that line.
On the other hand, this battle had everything to do with saving my brother. Keeping that thought firmly at the front of my mind, I knew I’d do damn near anything to keep the Magistrate from grabbing his soul when the moment came for him to climb that rainbow-colored cord to Raoul.
As the Magistrate loosened the whip from his belt, sauntering toward me from the visiting team’s locker room, I had maybe thirty seconds to consider whether or not Raoul and I had calculated correctly. If we were right, this would be a quick, aggressive fight. Like most of my opponents before him, he’d assume I was weaker, slower, and more likely to give quarter than take it. The very fact that I was standing there showed it never hurt to be underestimated.
“You annoy me, little gnat,” the Magistrate snapped as he strode toward me, uncoiling his whip with a whoosh of air that sounded painfully lethal. “Summoning me away from my duties as if I were some sort of common rail.”
A rail, as I’d learned on one of my previous missions, was a hell-servant. I’d thought they were higher up the hierarchy. Like reavers, and with the same ultimate goals. But apparently the Magistrate saw them more as clean- the-toilet and mop-up-the-puke sorts of demons.
Raoul had advised me, “Do what you do best.” So I taunted him. “And yet you’re here. So who really has the power, huh? I’m thinking the skinny redhead with the kick-ass Spirit Eye.”
Oh, that brought the purple to his face. He charged me like a blitzing linebacker, belatedly remembering the whip. He swung it around as I brought my sword through and the weapons clashed. My blade bit into the leather- wrapped handle of his whip. And stopped. Whatever hid under that overlay was as strong as steel.
I jumped back as he reached out to grab me, slashing at him with the knife I held in my left hand. At the last minute, Raoul had found me a long, thin dagger. Not a one-blow killer, but a cutter, nonetheless. And, baby, did the Magistrate bleed when I strafed that blade across his chest.
“Bitch!” he screamed, spraying spit, jumping backward, giving me just the room I needed to swing the shamshir again. He turned just before the blade bit into his heart, catching most of it on his left shoulder. Though it disabled the entire arm, it didn’t put him down.
Quicker than my eye could follow, he lashed at me, his whip cracking across my upper back. The armor took it a helluva lot better than the T-shirt, which split in two and dropped to the ground. The impact staggered me, and as I struggled for balance he struck again. Twice. The first blow hit me across the upper chest and neck. Though only the tip of the whip touched skin, it felt like a cowboy had pressed a brand to my jugular. Blood began to stream from the wound.
I didn’t have time to figure out whether or not it was serious before the third blow landed, the hardest so far, striking me across the thighs so suddenly and painfully I looked down to make sure my legs were still attached. The whip had wrapped around them. The Magistrate yanked, taking me to my knees.
I countered by rolling away from him, out of his coil. As soon as he attacked again I lunged forward. If I’d been a hair quicker, I’d have buried the sword in his abdomen. As it was I left a three-inch slice that bled freely down his leg and brought another obscenity from his lips.
“Where did you get that sword?” he demanded.
“I have friends in high places,” I said as I jumped to my feet. Afraid to give him any more room to lash me, I rushed him, forcing him to use the handle of the whip to parry my attack. I could see in his eyes he didn’t want to
