“Ready?” I asked, grabbing the door handle.
They nodded.
“Let’s go.”
Beauties vs. Beasts
“STOP RIGHT THERE!” A space moth with a brace of alien-pirate-looking pistols across his chest stepped up to stop us as we walked in. He drew one in each hand, galaxy-patterned wings stretching wide to block our path. “What’re you doing here? You’re not Contrails.”
I glanced at Rali and Warcry. “We heard this is where you guys make...” My words ran out as I realized I couldn’t remember the name of the show.
“Beauties versus Beasts,” Warcry interjected, putting an elbow up on Rali’s shoulder and leaning on him. “It’s me favorite program, so me and the lads came to see how you coves put it together, yeah?”
The space moth looked from him to me to Rali.
“How’d you guys—”
“Mantid on the train,” Warcry said, maybe a little too fast. “He told us where this place was. Big guy with a hat and bitemark on his head.”
The space moth stared at us like he was trying to decide whether to shoot. If I hadn’t been sunk so deep in Last Light, Last Breath, I might’ve broken down right then and attacked the dude, screw our plans of getting in without a fight.
But he slipped his pistols back into their holsters and folded his stardust wings behind his back.
“All right,” he said. “I’ve got to call down to the broadcasting floor to let them know you’re coming.”
Warcry let out a laugh, but covered it up quick.
“See, lads?” he said. “Told you they let fans in, didn’t I?”
The space moth went to the corner next to a freight elevator and hit a button on an intercom.
“We got three guys wanting to come down and see the Beauties versus Beasts operation.” He eyed us. “They look like Eight-Legged Dragons.”
The intercom crackled. “What affinities?”
“Warm Heart,” the moth said, glancing over Rali and Warcry, “Burning Hatred, and...”
When the moth turned to me, I felt something dusty and fluttery brush across my skin. A barely audible grunt came from my cargo pocket. Sushi. I put my hand on the bulge to hold her still.
“...Lost Mirror,” the space moth finished. He let out a low whistle. “All three Ten-specialists. Dragons got a pretty good crop this Territorial.”
More static from the intercom. “Send them down.”
The space moth pulled back the wire door on the freight elevator and gestured for us to hop in.
“He’ll meet you down there. Enjoy your tour.”
Death cultivator should kill moth silently now so moth will not be a hindrance on the way out, Hungry Ghost said. Fish would consume the body.
I ignored the grinning skull stone and followed Rali into the elevator, keeping my hand on my pocket to make sure Sushi didn’t try to take a bite out of the space moth.
On his way in, Warcry slapped the moth on the shoulder. “You’re makin’ me birthday, mate.”
“Anything to keep our allies happy, I guess.” The space moth shrugged and hit the button marked LL.
With a creaking groan, the freight elevator started going down. The three of us exchanged glances, but didn’t say anything. All the surveillance Biggerstaff had scattered around the Heartchamber had made us paranoid.
Through the wire door of the lift, I watched two floors roll past, both with unnecessarily high ceilings. Dudes with active Spirit abilities on standby patrolled the levels, and from somewhere, I could hear crying. As we passed the third, I craned my neck and saw that they were patrolling cages. I just barely caught a glimpse of a webbed feminine hand reaching through one of the bars.
“Let me out!” she screamed, grabbing for one of the patrolling dudes’ legs. “Please, this is some kind of mistake, I don’t belong here!”
The elevator dropped us below that floor, and her cries got lost in the clanking of the mechanism.
I shoved clenched fists into my pockets as righteous anger poured in through the edges of Last Light, Last Breath. Weirdly, the emotion didn’t kill the cloaking for once. I could feel the rage inside the barrier, kind of like it was hidden in there with my Death Spirit, so I did what I could to put on a normal-looking expression. As normal as anybody would have if they were headed to watch how their favorite fight show was made, anyway.
The freight elevator came to a stop on LL, and a harried-looking red demon with massive leathery wings folded behind his back opened the wire gate for us.
“Welcome to the broadcasting home of Beauties versus Beasts, gentlemen,” he said in a low rumble. “It’s always a pleasure to have friends from the Dragons visit. Please follow me.”
We followed the demon-looking dude around a bank of screens where another guy was busy moving dials and switches on a huge mixer, then into a kind of miniature arena. It wasn’t a huge room, but the ceilings were strangely high. Maybe something to do with the huge lights aimed down at the fighting cage?
Inside the cage, a blonde bird lady with only one wing backed up until she bumped into the wire, eyes wide and scared. A door on the far side of the pit slid up, and a pair of hulking wolf-like creatures with fiery manes prowled into the cage, growling and dripping slobber. Bits of skin and strands of long hair were stuck here and there in the fence from previous fights.
In the stands, aliens of all types watched and yelled, clutching betting tickets and swigging from plastic cups. It stank like beer, sweat, and too much body spray. There was an inordinate amount of bling out there, too, gold chains hanging around necks and face-buster rings glinting on fingers. It looked like all the bad taste on Van Diemann had concentrated in this one room.
“So this is where the magic happens,” Warcry said, eyes locked on the cage.
The demon guy nodded. “Have a seat, watch the matches, make some bets. See if anything in the cage catches your eye. We
