Dagger For Hire
I wanted to laugh since clearly it was a joke. No one would offer that.
But Leo had followed my gaze, her face grim with concern as she studied my own expression carefully.
What the fuck?
Before I could figure out what was going on, we were kettled through a narrow doorway. Leo’s massive body shielded me from the shoving of the other bikers as we stepped into a massive concrete arena. Everything was flushed white under stadium lights.
“Holy shit.” I blinked, struggling to see anything through the glare.
Spencer grabbed my hand, guiding me to a row of rickety seats to our right. They were the old kind of movie theater seats, the ones we had as kids. Narrow and tight with worn, woven fabric made to look like velvet. Nothing like the new leather ones with the fancy levers and buttons.
Leo squeezed to my right, letting Spencer sit on my left.
Surrounded, there was no way I could get past either of them in such a narrow space.
Whatever was about to happen, I was stuck here.
A deep pit of sand sat at the bottom of the arena, surrounded by high concrete walls topped with barbed wire. I’d come here seeking answers, but for the life of me, I could not figure out what the fuck I was seeing.
Turning in my seat, I tried to get a sense for how large this place really was. Hundreds of bleachers rose above me, making a circle around the ring on the ground.
It looked like some kind of underground, dingy colosseum cobbled together from the scraps of Valemont’s refuse.
As I looked around the place, I knew it was more than that. Almost everyone here had a sword tattoo. But they weren’t all the same.
Some had nothing but a blade and scales. Others were dripping in some kind of liquid. Others still sported a rounded fist around the pommel.
Almost every seat was filled by the time the house lights faded to darkness, leaving only a perfectly light circle in the pit.
Leo was already leaning back in her chair, almost like she wished she’d bought some popcorn for the night.
The crowd roared as a woman with short hair and metal, spiked pauldrons over her suit jacket stepped into the light. She held a microphone close to her lips and let her roaring voice reverberate through the arena. “Ladies and gentlethems of the night, welcome to The Hollow!”
The words set off a wave of cheers from the rambunctious crowd.
I couldn’t stop myself from looking over my shoulders at the excited audience, wondering what the fuck they were cheering for.
“Who’s ready for a showdown?” The announcer threw out her arms, waving the crowd's enthusiasm on.
Another roar came from beside me, barreling down toward the pit before us.
With a laugh, the announcer brought the mic back to her mouth. “Since tonight’s a bit impromptu, let’s keep things casual and skip the formalities. Please welcome the first offering of the night: The Bull and The Spider!”
My forehead wrinkled as the announcer disappeared into the stadium. Then an old pull-down security gate began to lift from one of the concrete walls. The clanking metal resonated off of the hard walls and up the steep sides of the arena.
Only once the gate was lifted did a towering, hulking figure lurch from the darkness behind it. The overhead light cast a dark shadow on her face, only her mean grimace translating all theway up in these seats. But she wore a tightly wrapped bandage around her chest, her muscles gleaming with sweat.
Despite the distance to the arena, I could see veins popping out of her skin, smears of dark face paint dripping down her face and chest.
The crowd roared as the announcer came back over the loudspeaker. “With 17 career wins in just one year, weighing in at 230 lbs, this is The Bull!”
Leo and Spencer clapped from my sides, recognizing whoever this was. But the rest of the stadium roared for her.
And then, the sound of another gate lifting clattered through the crowd — one I couldn’t see. That’s when I realized what this was: some kind of demented fighting pit.
“Weighing in at 185 lbs, representing House Araneae, and debuting for her first fight: The Spider!” The announcer’s voice amped up the crowd, encouraging them to give this new contestant an earnest greeting.
