Simon landed. He was nearly in two pieces. Blood pulsed everywhere in a wide spray, puddled beneath his body, soaked into the sand, the air redolent with his vamp smell—wild roses and moss. Edmund struggled to his feet. He took the vamp’s head. It took three cuts, wielding the sword like an ax, ungainly, awkward. Not my primo’s usual grace and beauty with a sword, not in any way at all. But the head of the beautiful blond angel rolled to the side. The sand soaked up more blood. The night breeze swept through beneath the house, salty, clean, fresh. The fighting arena was utterly silent for a space of time that lasted for a dozen of my speeding heartbeats.
This was the first death. Sent out on camera to the entire world, those who loved blood sports would be whooping it up at home. Watching instant replays. Our people stood, staring. Titus’s undead and their blood-dinners stood. The smell of uncertainty coiled in the air, a descant of scent beneath the melody of fanghead blood. And the stillness ended. Moving like fish in a school, Titus’s people rushed in, gathering the head and body.
Brandon stepped from the group of Onorios who were acting as judges along with Sabina. Brandon seemed to be the spokesperson. He said, “Results of this duel are acceptable to the Onorios.”
Sabina said, “Next duel in fifteen minutes.”
I tried to catch Bruiser’s eye, but he didn’t turn my way, bending his head to the B-twins as the three talked. Some vamps left the fighting area, to walk under the stars on the beaches. Ed came to me, limping. “You scared me,” I said.
“My heart is both saddened and full of joy,” he said. “Saddened that I frightened my mistress. Full of joy that my mistress cares.”
“Uh-huh. Keep it up, Eddie Boy.”
I started to turn and caught Titus’s eyes on me. In them, I could read multiple emotions: avarice, curiosity, hatred, a cold fury that let me know how much he had liked the blond angel Simon. And how much he blamed me for the vamp’s death. And the fact that he had seen me leap what amounted to four stories in two bounds. Good. I put my thoughts into my eyes. Chew on that, Your Magisterial Ass. Stuff you saw on the stolen video? It’s all true. And I’m coming for you.
I gave him a toothy grin and put all that into my body language as I strolled into the darkness. The shadow of a camera wolf was beside mine, and I knew my leaps were now part of the permanent record of the Sangre Duello. So was the death of Simon. And the vision of Titus watching me. The camera wolf fell away, finding something better to shoot than me in the dark.
Once I was beyond the house and prying ears, I had myself a silent bout of anger, pounding the sand. My hand—the one that had healed around the magical thingy when it was created—was furiously squeezing the Glob as I hammered it on the earth. For long seconds, I couldn’t force myself to stop or to let go. It hurt my hand. I got sand in my eyes. But I felt better after my temper tantrum.
* * *
• • •
On both floors, the next rounds began.
Leo’s side was winning.
Ro Moore chose wrestling as her weapon and defeated her opponent according to standard wrestling rules. Gee took on two vamps at one time and killed them both on the sand. There was enough blood and gore to make the wolves dance in glee. The pay-per-view numbers had started smaller than anticipated, but they had now outpaced expectations and were growing rapidly.
Brenda Rezk took on a Vespasianus security guy, and the finish was two simultaneous cuts. The cut to her arm was a surface wound, while the other guy was carted away needing major vamp blood to heal. She lost on time, but won on wounds delivered.
After that things went sour.
Maryanne, Edmund’s lover and blood-servant, died at the hand of a woman named Cupid, her head rolling across the sandy rings. Edmund went still as death, except for the human tears that spilled down his face as she fell. His tears tore into me like claws into raw meat.
The bout bell rang upstairs. I hugged him and left him to his grief.
“Results of this duel are acceptable to the Onorios,” Brandon said behind me. And for the first time since I met the Onorio twins, I wanted to slap them, slap all three of them.
In the next match, which was supposed to end with first blood, Titus’s swordswoman cheated at en garde and Gee took a hidden steel blade into his belly and out his back, followed by a Z-shaped move that carved his innards into Zorro-inspired spaghetti. Anzus were lethally allergic to steel and couldn’t heal themselves on Earth. Gee didn’t die, but only because his organs were not human-sited, but Anzu-sited. And because Leo fed him from his own wrist. My Enforcer was out for the night. Likely for the rest of the Sangre Duello. The cheater won. Cheating was smiled upon in the Sangre Duello.
Edmund took the ring, facing off with two blades to first blood, against a vamp who called himself Jeedalayn, which was supposed to be Somali for the verb “to whip.” Jeedalayn had little to no dossier beyond his presumed age. My primo stood there in blue armor facing a six-hundred-year-old vamp. Something in Jeedalayn’s stance caused my heart to flutter. It may have stopped. I had a very, very bad feeling. The bell sounded, the tone a clear pure note of death.
Jeedalayn slithered. Swords so fast they sang on the air.
In half a second, Ed took two cuts. Blood flew. His opponent stepped back, honoring first blood. But my primo’s left hand was nearly severed at the wrist, bloody, splintered, and cut bone exposed, his hand hanging by tendons. His right thumb was equally nearly amputated.
Bile boiled into my throat at the sight. Someone again held me back as Leo’s clan members rushed to provide assistance and clean up the blood spatter. Two blood-servants bundled my primo into sheets and carried him down the stairs. I followed, the scent/taste of his blood and pain heavy on the air. My feet felt strange on the stairs, as if they didn’t quite touch down. As if I might slide off and into another dimension. And I still held the Glob. It was so cold, it was like clutching an ice cube.
Behind me I heard Brandon say, “Results of this duel are acceptable to the Onorios.”
I managed to not whirl back and coldcock him.
In Edmund’s shared cubicle in the center rooms, the vamps and humans placed my primo on a bed. My primo. Someone I should have protected. A woman said, “I have him. Del, get the bottle.”
“Right here, Mama. I’m ready.”
A half-familiar smell hit the air: blood and chemicals. I blinked, to focus on Dacy Mooney, kneeling on the mattress beside Edmund, his right hand in her left. The heir of Clan Shaddock said, “Ed, honey, we’re gonna coat your thumb with the blood remedy. This will hurt.”
“They say it feels as if one is being immolated.”
“I wouldn’t know. You can tell me.”
Dacy upended a small glass vial over Ed’s severed thumb and a thick, syrupy drop formed on the end of its rubber spout.
I recognized the scent of the blood remedy. Leo’s Texas biomedical lab indeed had reverse engineered the revenant potion left by the vamp funeral director when the Caruso blood-family skipped town, to back the EVs. But instead of creating it to make revenants, Leo had made his version for healing. The MOC was a dangerous creature, but sometimes he was also a pretty cool dude.
I still wondered at the oddity of the Carusos leaving their bottle, and at the letter Leo had received claiming they had betrayed him only to save Laurie Caruso’s daughter. It could be insurance, a bid for protection should Titus lose. Carusos playing the long game, maybe.
Dacy dribbled the drop on Ed’s severed thumb and pressed the thumb back in place. Ed screamed. He continued screaming as Dacy and six other vamps held him down so Del could apply the blood mixture to the ends of his amputated hand. Del’s blond head bent over my primo, her fighting leathers the color of her eyes. Ed screamed, his ululation so high-pitched that I went deaf and had to step from the room. Yeah. That was the reason. Not my own cowardice at seeing a man I cared for injured and in agony for trying to protect me.
Shiloh walked down the stairs toward me, followed by a line of men and women. “Leo wants you to follow this one,” she said, her long straight red hair swinging. Except for hers, I had never seen straight red hair. Red hair was always curly. Stupid thoughts. Stupid duel. I hated this. These mind games and blood and death.