Magic Strikes

Curran’s silence to reinforce it. Just as well. Gladiators died. That was the reality. We had to be there. The rest had volunteered. And given a chance, every member of the opposing team would murder any one of us without a second thought.

THE SAND CRUNCHED UNDER MY FOOT. I COULD already taste it on my tongue. The memories conjured heat and sunshine. I shook them off and looked across the Pit.

In the far end, three people waited for us. The swordsman, tall and carrying a hand-and-a-half sword. The werebison, shaggy with dark brown fur, towering, angry. His breadth was enormous, the shoulders packed with hard, heavy muscle, the chest like a barrel. He wore a chain mail hauberk but no pants. His legs terminated in black hooves. A dense mane of coarse hair crowned the back of his neck. His features were a meld of bull and human, but where the minotaur’s face had been a cohesive whole, the shapeshifter’s skull was a jumble of mismatched parts.

Behind them reared a nightmarish creature. Its lower body was python, dark brown with creamy swirls of scales. Near the abdomen, the scales became so fine, they glittered, stretching tight over a human upper body, complete with a pair of tiny breasts and a female face that looked like it belonged to a fifteen-year-old. She looked at us with emerald-green eyes. Her skull was bald and a hood of flesh spread from her head, resembling that of a king cobra.

A lamia. Great.

The lamia swayed gently, as if listening to music only she could hear. Old magic emanated from her, ancient and ice-cold. It picked up the sand and rolled it in feathery curves to caress her scales before sliding back to the Pit.

Behind me, Dali shivered. She stood in the sand with a clipboard, an ink pen, and a piece of thin rice paper cut into inch-wide strips.

I eyed the swordsman. Weak and sloppy. Okay, I could do that.

The crowd waited above us. The hum of conversation, the clearing of throats, and the sound of a thousand simultaneous breaths blended into a low hum. I scanned the seats and saw Saiman on his balcony. Aunt B, Raphael’s mother, sat on his left, and Mahon, the Bear of Atlanta and the Pack’s executioner, occupied the chair to his right. Sitting between the alphas of Clan Bouda and Clan Heavy. No wonder Saiman had been persuaded to give up his spot to Curran.

Behind Aunt B, I saw a familiar pale head. Couldn’t be. The blond head moved and I saw Julie’s face. Oh yes, it could.

“You bribed my kid!”

“We reached a business arrangement,” he said. “She wanted to see you fight and I wanted to know when, where, and how you were getting into the Games.”

Julie gave me a big, nervous smile and a little wave.

Just wait until I get out of here, I mouthed. We were going to have a little talk about following orders.

“I know what the problem is.” Curran pulled his shoulders back and flexed, warming up a little. I stole a glance. He had decided to fight in jeans and an old black T-shirt, from which he’d torn the sleeves. Probably his workout shirt.

His biceps were carved, the muscle defined and built by countless exertions, neither too bulky nor too lean. Perfect. Kissing him might make me guilty of catastrophically bad judgment, but at least nobody could fault my taste. The trick was not to kiss him again. Once could be an accident; twice was trouble.

“You said something?” I arched an eyebrow at him. Nonchalance—best camouflage for drooling. Both the werebison and the swordsman looked ready to charge: the muscles of their legs tense, leaning forward slightly on their toes. They seemed to be terribly sure that we would stay in one place and wait for them.

Curran was looking at their legs, too. They must be expecting a distraction from the lamia. She sat cocooned in magic, holding on with both hands as it strained on its leash.

“I said, I know why you’re afraid to fight with me.”

“And why is that?” If he flexed again, I’d have to implement emergency measures. Maybe I could kick some sand at him or something. Hard to look hot brushing sand out of your eyes.

“You want me.”

Oh boy.

“You can’t resist my subtle charm, so you’re afraid you’re going to make a spectacle out of yourself.”

“You know what? Don’t talk to me.”

The gong boomed.

Memories smashed into me: heat, sand, fear.

The lamia’s magic snapped like a striking cobra. I jumped up and to the left, just in time to avoid the pit in the sand that yawned open beneath my feet.

The Swordmaster was on me like white on rice. He charged in and struck in a textbook thrust of wrath, a powerful diagonal thrust delivered from the right and angled down. I jerked back. His blade whistled past me, and I grabbed his leather and smashed my forehead into his face. There you go. Sloppy.

Red drenched my face. The swordsman’s eyes rolled back in his head and he fell.

Not good.

I turned in time to see the werebison arrive. It took him a moment to build up his speed, but as he ran now, massive, huge, blowing air from his misshapen nose, he seemed unstoppable.

Curran watched him come with a slightly bored expression. At the last moment, he stepped aside and stuck his foot out. The shapeshifter tripped and Curran helped him down by pushing none too gently on the back of his neck. The werebison flipped onto the sand, hitting the ground like a fallen skyscraper. He shuddered once and lay still, his neck bent in an unnatural angle.

He must’ve broken his neck in the fall. His chest was still moving. At least he didn’t die.

Curran stared at him, perplexed.

Dali barked a sharp command in a language I didn’t understand and tossed a piece of rice paper into the air. There was a quiet plop and the paper vanished.

We looked at the lamia expectantly. Nothing. She waved her arms, gathering magic for something nasty.

I guess the spell was a bust.

A spark of bright magenta shone above the lamia’s head. It flared into glowing red jaws with demonic needle-teeth. The jaws chomped the lamia—neck, elbows, waist—and vanished. There was a loud crunch and the lamia twisted: her head turned backward, snapping her neck, her elbows protruded from the front of her arms, and she bent to the side like a flower with a broken stem.

I turned slowly and stared at Dali. She shrugged. “I guess it worked. What?”

The crowd went wild.

Jim waited for us at the Gold Gate. His teeth were bared. “What happened to barely winning?”

“You said sloppy! Look, I didn’t even use my sword; I hit him with my head, like a moron.”

“A man with a sword attacked you and you disarmed him and knocked him out cold in under two seconds.” He turned to Curran.

The Beast Lord shrugged. “It’s not my fault that he didn’t know how to fall.”

Jim’s gaze slid from Curran to Dali. “What the hell was that?”

“Crimson Jaws of Death.”

“And were you planning on letting me know that you can turn people’s elbows backward?”

“I told you I did curses.”

“You said they don’t work!”

“I said they don’t always work. This one worked apparently.” Dali wrinkled her forehead. “It’s not like I ever get to use them against live opponents anyway. It was an accident.”

Jim looked at us. The clipboard snapped in his hands. He turned around and very deliberately walked away.

“I think we hurt his feelings.” Dali looked at his retreating back, sighed, and went after him.

Curran looked at me. “What the hell was I supposed to do, catch the werebison as he was falling?”