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Out of nowhere, the bell rang. My heart skipped a beat, and I grabbed Giguhl by the biceps.
“Giguhl, it’s not too late to back out.”
He looked down at me. “You heard the rules, Sabina. Now watch and learn.”
With that, he jogged to the center of the ring to meet his foe. He bobbed and weaved as he went, like a demonic Rocky Balboa. I just prayed the Defiler demon’s dirty appearance wasn’t an indication of his fighting style.
The Defiler demon came out of the corner like an angry bull, heading straight for Giguhl’s midsection. Surprisingly agile given his size, Giguhl jumped out of the way. The Defiler’s momentum carried him right past and straight into the crowd, toppling a few mancies in the process. Giguhl threw his arms in the air and jogged in place, much to the crowd’s delight. He ate up their attention, which, unfortunately, distracted him from his opponent.
“Giguhl, watch out!” I yelled. He didn’t turn around in time to get out of the Defiler’s way and ended up being knocked back twenty feet. The crowd finally caught on to the danger of being so close to the action. Everyone backed up a few steps, widening the circle.
The impact didn’t faze Giguhl. He jumped up with a cocky smile. The Defiler responded with a lightning-fast volley of punches and kicks. The force of the attack knocked Giguhl to the ground. This time he rose more slowly. A stream of black blood dripped from his mouth.
“Fuck.” I started to move in, regretting my decision to allow Giguhl to go through with this. Then I realized he’d never forgive me if I interfered. Demons and their fragile egos. So, I clenched my fists and settled for yelling advice to my demon.
“Go for the ’nads!”
“The eyes! The eyes!”
“No! You’ve got to keep your hands up!”
I felt someone’s eyes on me. Looking around, I found Slade standing on the other side of the ring staring at me. He held my gaze for a moment, but the sickening sound of fist meeting flesh brought my attention back to the action.
Giguhl’s lip swelled to the size of a roll of quarters and blood oozed down his chin. The Defiler came at him with another furious round of punches to Giguhl’s midsection. The noise from the crowd was deafening, but I could have sworn I heard a couple of ribs crack.
I stepped forward, ready to put an end to the slaughter, but stopped when a terrified shriek ripped through the arena. The hair on my neck bristled at the bone-chilling sound. Somehow, Giguhl suddenly had the Defiler facedown on the ground. One black claw held the beast’s face to the floor, and the other pulled one of its arms back so far the joint popped out of its socket.
“Yes!” I yelled.
Giguhl dropped the arm, which plopped to the ground like a piece of meat. Changing tactics, he pulled the Defiler’s face off the ground by its oily black hair. With his other claw, Giguhl swiped at the demon’s face, leaving streaks of blood pouring onto the concrete.
Despite my relief over Giguhl gaining the upper hand, I felt unsettled. I’m certainly no stranger to violence, but his savagery surprised even me. Over the bloody scene on the floor, Slade caught my eye again. His amused smile made me feel nauseous. I wanted Giguhl to win, but I couldn’t reconcile this bloodthirsty fighter with the demon who would curl up next to me in cat form.
“Mercy!” The single word caused everyone in the room to gasp. It had come from the Defiler, who was now missing a nose. One of his eyes had rolled across the floor and landed near Slade’s feet. He kicked it aside as he came into the ring.
He lifted Giguhl’s arm in the air. “The winner is Giguhl!”
The crowd went wild again, chanting his name. “Gi-guhl, Gi-guhl!”
Slade waved his hands for silence. The room went silent except for the pitiful whimpers of the Defiler.
“Rule number seven?”
“No mercy!”
“So shall it be!” Slade slapped Giguhl on the back and gestured to a mage standing off to the right. The mage was a short, balding male with greasy black hair. He scowled and trudged into the ring to stand over the demon.
The Defiler begged for mercy, but the mage refused to look down at his demon. Instead, he performed a complex series of glyphs in the air before chanting the words to send the demon back to Irkalla. The Defiler disappeared, leaving a pool of black blood on the concrete.
Giguhl glanced at me with a huge smile. I tried to smile back, but the whole thing didn’t sit well with me.
Looked like my little demon was all grown up.
15
While Giguhl cleaned up after the fight, I sipped on a Bloody Magdalene in the bar. Earl had gone light on the vodka, which was fine with me because I needed the blood more.
I wasn’t sure where Slade got his blood, but it wasn’t the blood-bank crap Maisie insisted I drink. Knowing Slade, he probably had some black-market source that supplied him with fresher blood than Maisie’s supply. But even Slade’s stuff had the chemical tang of anticoagulant. I still craved blood straight from the vein, but after the fight with Romulus, I figured Maisie’s rules about not feeding from humans might end up saving me some trouble.
In one corner of the bar, a nymph sat on a male vampire’s lap. Her makeup had been applied with a trowel, and her hair had been teased into a big blond rat’s nest. Her legs were encased in ripped fishnet stockings, and I could see the garter peeking out from under her fuchsia pleather skirt. She giggled at something the vamp said, but the emotion didn’t reach her eyes.
As I watched like a voyeur, the male ran a pale hand up her thigh and squeezed. He wore a large gold ring on his middle finger with a red stone in the center. The faery grimaced at his groping hands, but the smile was back in place by the time he looked at her again.
Memories of another nymph weighed heavily. We’d buried Vinca less than two weeks ago. But before I’d come into her life and gotten her killed at the vineyard, she’d served time in the faery p**n industry. Watching the nymph on the vampire’s lap now, I wondered if Vinca had ever worn that hopeless expression. The idea made my fists clench. I wanted to go over and rip the nymph from the male’s lap. I wanted to shake her and tell her there had to be a better way to make a living. I wanted to warn her to get the f**k out of the city before it ate her alive.
Yet even as I willed myself to rise, I saw the male lift the top of the ring. From it, he withdrew a small green pill. The faery’s glossy pink lips spread in a genuine smile—the first spark of genuine happiness I’d seen on her face. The male lifted the pill to her lips, and her tongue darted out to take it. She swallowed it greedily.
