Leo narrowed his eyes, but he didn’t speak either. That might have had something to do with the film crew or with Bruiser’s hand on his shoulder, holding the MOC in his seat. Or playacting. Leo had planned for this night for, maybe, centuries.
Shiloh said, “Nibolio Mancini challenges Jane Yellowrock. Simon Costa challenges Jane Yellowrock. Lanbros Alafouzos challenges Eli Younger.”
My heart took a dive. Lanbros was a three-hundred-year-old vamp. He was a killer through and through. Eli was dead. I started forward, but someone held me back. The irony of Leo and me both being held back wasn’t lost on me. I snarled and jerked my arm free, but waited.
Gee said, “The honor of facing Nibolio Mancini is mine.”
Sounding like a bored roué, Edmund said, “I shall die of the tedium, but the honor of facing Simon Costa shall be mine.” The way he said honor let me know that Edmund and Simon didn’t like each other much.
“My name is properly pronounced See-MOH-neh,” the man said to Edmund, “as you are well aware. And though it is a dishonor to fight a former slave, I accept the humiliation of this bout, out of great regard for my master and emperor.”
I was watching Edmund’s undead face. Yeah. He’d been a slave. And though his expression gave nothing away, that history was still a hard pill to swallow.
A voice from the stairs said, “The honor of facing Lanbros Alafouzos is mine.” I spotted Koun ascending to the third floor. He wore no armor and was mostly naked, wearing only a loincloth, his body tattooed with blue and black dye in what was said to be Celtic symbols. “I am the chief strategist of Clan Yellowrock,” he said, as a cameraman stepped around him, getting the full three-sixty, front and back. “No one may gainsay me.”
Koun stepped up to me and dropped to one knee. So quietly no vamp on the far side of the room could have heard it, Koun said, “I yield unto you all my honor.”
Faster than my eyes could follow, Koun leaped from his crouch, going high, over the heads of those still standing, to land in front of Sabina, one knee on the floor, both hands touching the floor for balance, his blond head bent. “Mother bless me, for I have sinned.”
Sabina touched Koun’s head. “You have done well, my son. You are the only warrior to remember the old ways. Not even our once-emperor has been so proper.”
Titus snarled.
Sabina finished, “My blessing upon you, Koun of the Celts and of Clan Yellowrock.”
And then I remembered a rare codicil of the Vampira Carta that dealt with Sangre Duello. All the fighters were supposed to do homage to the clan Blood Master for whom they fought, and then to any outclan present. No others. No one in their right mind insulted an outclan priestess, yet Titus’s warriors had forgotten. So had Leo’s and mine, thanks most likely to the fact that weapons had been drawn out of order. Points against both sides.
Quickly Gee and Edmund bowed to me and to Sabina, followed by Titus’s people to their leader and then to the priestess. Sabina pointed to the octagonals inlaid in the floor and directed the three groups to take their places. “Gee DiMercy. Weapons?”
“Single sword,” Gee said, sounding bored. “Left hand only.” I figured it was the Mithran equivalent of “I’ll beat you with one hand tied behind my back.” Except that cheating was allowed, so hidden weapons might be used too.
Sabina asked, “Nibolio Mancini. First blood or death?”
Nibolio was a swarthy, hairy man with a full beard like some Renaissance peddler or fruit seller. “To fight one-handed is cowardly. First blood. This weakling does not deserve to die at my hand.”
Sabina said, “Edmund Hartley. Weapons?”
“Two swords,” Ed said. “No shield.”
Sabina asked, “Simon Costa. First blood or death?”
Simon was a Renaissance angel with eyes as blue as the sea on a postcard. “Death.”
My heart stopped beating, but Sabina went on. “Koun. Weapons?”
“Double-headed axes. Blades of steel.”
“Lanbros Alafouzos?” Sabina asked. “To death or blood?”
“I withdraw. I do not fight with the garden tools of the pagan and the barbarian.”
“Yellowrock and Koun,” Sabina said, “challenge from Alafouzos is withdrawn and his name stricken from the Sangre Duello. Death match is to be held downstairs, on the sand rings. Go now and await me.” Simon and Ed took the stairs silently.
Koun stepped to me, people making way for his broad nakedness, a glint in his eyes that said he had chosen the weapons knowing that Lanbros would back out. None of the camera crew was nearby, so I murmured to him, “Chief strategist of Clan Yellowrock,” I said. “Nice title.”
Koun agreed with a tilt of his head and murmured, “Battlefield promotion, my master. Self-awarded.” He took his place behind me, next to Eli. The clean bell-tone sounded, and I caught a glimpse of a female I didn’t know, holding a polished triangle bell and a metal beater. She was strawberry blond and short with cool green eyes. And she was missing three fingers of her left hand in what looked like a permanent injury, perhaps one from before she was turned.
Behind the bell ringer and to the side were most of our nonfighting humans, lined up on benches. Eating popcorn and drinking beer. Titus looked that way and his lip curled. More Taming of the Shrew. Go, humans. Titus’s nonfighting humans were on the far side of the bell ringer, still dressed in formal wear and looking uncomfortable in the sticky winter ocean breeze.
Nibolio Mancini and Gee engaged, left-handed, swords clanking in the first clash. In the next second Gee cut off Nibolio’s beard and through his throat. Springy beard hair and blood flew everywhere. Nibolio dropped to his knees. Another vamp dashed in to drag him off the octagonal. For a vamp, it wasn’t a lethal wound, but he wouldn’t be fighting anytime soon. Gee strolled off. This one had been a two-second duel.
“Did you get the shot?” a tiny British voice asked.
“Got it. Golden,” Bear, the hairy camera wolf, answered.
“Downstairs,” Sabina said. She popped down, as did a larger number of vamps. Humans raced down the stairs. I leaped out the window, landed on the metal roof. Only to push off and land on the sand below, balanced on the fingers of one hand and my toes. I pulled on Beast’s speed, my heart in my throat. Rushed to the rock-bounded fighting circles.
The bell chimed again. I thought I might vomit.
Edmund and See-MOH-neh both attacked at once. The cage of death that was La Destreza was sketched in the air between them, glistening steel that caught the low lights, cut-cut-cut, too fast to see. Blood splattered. Edmund bleeding from a cut above the eye. Holy crap. To the death. “No,” I whispered, the word drawn out.
Something was wrong with Edmund. He was moving slow. I’d seen him fight and this wasn’t right. He looked almost clumsy. Koun leaned in and murmured to me, “Strategy, my master. Strategy. Do not fear.”
I didn’t look away from the fight. Edmund took another cut, this one to his forearm. Simon laughed, looking like blond boy playing a game, not vamp dueling to the death. Their swords whipped and whirled in a complex cage of death. Moving so quick they were blurs. Cut, cut, lunge, cut, too fast to see, even with Beast-sight.
I shoved my hands into my jacket pockets. My left fist hit something, opened, and encircled it. I had to wonder how the Glob got into my pocket. The Glob was one of my collection of magical trinkets and, its name notwithstanding, it was a powerful objet de magie. It was composed of the small sliver of the Blood Cross that I had ruined for use by anyone but me, part of the iron spike of Golgotha, and the blood diamond, all melded into one. The diamond had started out as an amulet crowded with the power of sacrificed witch children, only a few of whom I had been able to rescue. The Glob was magic that had claimed me. Magic that had been fashioned by and activated by my blood and the energy of a witch’s lightning curse. The Glob heated in my hand, a searing spurt of electric energy, quickly gone. And then I realized that the Glob might have found its way into my pocket without help. Magical objects as powerful as the Glob sometimes had a will of their own.
Ed took another cut. Stumbled. Dropped to one knee. Bent his head. Bowed his back. And sliced with a backhanded cut into the outer side of Simon’s right knee. He followed it up by blocking two strikes and then delivering a backhanded cut to Simon’s side. So hard, so smooth, so perfectly delivered that it appeared to slice through the flesh and stop only when it reached the vamp’s spine. Simon of the funky pronunciation toppled, dropping his swords. Edmund shifted his body to the side, an expression of shock on his face. As if he hadn’t expected to kill his opponent. Playing to the cameras? Or hiding what he could do from the EVs?