Nik’s fight.
Chapter 8
Even if the program hadn’t told me what to expect ahead of time, I would have known this was the headliner fight from the crowd. They’d screamed and jeered at every act, especially the last one, but when the lights went down to let the army of stagehands clear away the beaten homeless, the arena went absolutely nuts. The German tourists next to me were screaming at the top of their lungs and pumping their arms in the air. They’d cheered for the other fights, too, but this was clearly why they’d come. This was the main event, the real fight, and the guys in the control booth were making sure everyone knew it. I could barely see through all the kerosene fog and lasers, and the music was pumping so hard, the cement floor was vibrating in time with the bass beat.
But while the intense sensory cues had everyone else in a froth, I was more terrified than I’d ever been in my life. This morning I would have bet on Nik to win anything. Now, though, after seeing the cruelty and unfairness this place was capable of, I was so afraid for him I was shaking in my seat.
Things only got worse when the giant ceiling fans kicked in, clearing the air to reveal the pictures that covered every jumbo screen and AR field in the arena. It was the same two face-shots from the posters that had been plastered all over Rentfree when we’d arrived. The first picture was of a huge, terrifyingly pale man with stringy white hair, a gruesome facial scar leading up to a fake eye, and a jaw so square he could have sharpened the points.
I studied his image because I felt I should, but I couldn’t focus enough to even read his name. My real attention was on the picture beside his, an extreme close-up of Nik’s scowling face above huge glowing letters that read “Mad Dog.”
That was it. His real name wasn’t even listed. Just his fighting moniker, the same one Kauffman had taunted him with in the Gnarls. Nik had hated it then, and from the scowl he was wearing in all his giant pictures, he still did. For my part, I didn’t understand how he’d gotten the nickname. Nik was the calmest, most patient, least “Mad Dog” person I’d ever met. It must have fit him on some level, though, because the moment his image appeared in the arena’s collective Augmented Reality, the crowd started chanting.
“Mad Dog! Mad Dog! Mad Dog!”
“Your criminal is quite the favorite,” my father observed from his perch in the air above me. “I knew from the dossier I ordered on him that he’d been a professional fighter, but I didn’t realize he’d been so infamous.”
Normally, this was where I’d get mad at my dad for ordering a dossier on Nik. Now, though, it just felt like a waste of time. The Great Yong was a wealthy and suspicious dragon. Of course he’d paid someone to check Nik out. I was far more interested in the rest of what he’d said, because I’d assumed the same thing.
The way he’d talked about it last night, Nik had made it sound like his previous turn in the arena was a part-time gig. Something quick and dirty he’d only done when he’d needed the money. But this was not a part-time reaction. Just seeing his photo was enough to make the crowd scream like he was a rock star back from the dead, which didn’t make sense to me. How the hell was he this famous?
“Because he’s a legend,” Sibyl said, jumping in with the explanation the moment her surface-thought reader picked up my question. “Nikola ‘Mad Dog’ Kos is the only undefeated champion in arena history. He won seventeen matches in a row five years ago before disappearing at the height of his career. Naturally, people went nuts. It got so bad, the Gameskeeper offered a million-dollar bounty to anyone who could get him to return, but he never did.”
My lips curved into an O. That certainly explained a lot about Nik. I’d assumed it was growing up in Rentfree and his previous life of crime that made him change addresses every few months and constantly look over his shoulder. If the Gameskeeper had been hunting him, though, his behavior made a lot more sense. It wasn’t paranoia if they really were out to get you.
Given the cruelty I’d seen tonight, I was shocked we hadn’t had more trouble in hindsight, and even more surprised that the Gameskeeper had only asked for five fights. If I’d been a crime lord and the escaped champion I’d been hunting for years had come crawling back for help, I would have put him on the hook forever. Five seemed a pathetically low number for someone who could command this sort of turnout. Sure, the other guy probably had fans here, too, but going by the screams, the majority of tonight’s packed house was for Nik. The odds on the betting boards were heavily in his favor as well. That should have made me feel better, but after all the weird magic, the tragedy of the manticores, and the bum fight, I didn’t trust this place as far as I could throw it. If this turned out to be a fair fight, I’d eat my goggles.
“Please don’t,” Sibyl begged.
I waved her concern away and scooted forward, pressing my goggles tight against my face as the extra camera feeds I’d paid for showed me a movie-style close-up of the combatants as they marched across the sandy—and gruesomely bloody—arena floor.
Given where we were,
