I’m the Poisoner now, and the Vesuvios still want war.
I couldn’t care less.
Eventually, life inserts itself into our happy interlude.
One afternoon, Jaeger and Kaiser disappear for a few hours. Elodie doesn’t know where they are, and Kaiser’s on crutches, so I doubt they’re on a job. When they return, they both look grim.
“What’s happening?” Elodie asks. She’s a beautiful woman with thick, curly red hair and an explosion of freckles on her face. Right now she’s twisting the ring on her finger.
“St. James and Damien finally had a call with Dominus,” Kaiser says, maneuvering himself to my side on the crutches. “He’s agreed to a temporary truce while we negotiate peace. In one more week, we end this once and for all.”
“How?” Elodie asks.
“There will be a fight,” Jaeger says. “Two men will face off in the ring. Anything goes.” He looks at me. “There will be a champion representing your family and one representing the Vesuvios.”
“Who will be my champion?” I ask.
Kaiser folds himself onto the couch. “Me.”
I look from him to Jaeger and back again. “But you can’t fight, you’re hurt.”
“That’s what I said,” Jaeger mutters. He heads to where Elodie is sitting, picks her up, and settles them both in the armchair with her in his lap. She lets him, looking worried.
Kaiser has the remote. He’s cuing something up on the TV.
I put a hand on his arm. “You can’t,” I say. “You just got out of a wheelchair.”
Kaiser shrugs.
I turn to Jaeger. “You need to stop this.”
“I can’t,” Jaeger growls. He looks like he wants to commit murder. “It was his idea.”
“What?” My mouth falls open.
“This will end things once and for all,” Kaiser says and rolls his shoulders. “It’s the only way.” He clicks the remote, and the screen fills with a grainy, homemade-looking movie. Two shirtless men face each other in a boxing ring. One is bald and towers over the other. The bald man lumbers forward, fists swinging. Most of his shots go wild, his opponent ducking out of the way, but one hit lands, and the smaller man goes flying.
“Power, not precision,” Kaiser comments. He seems to be studying the screen.
“You like to take the first punch,” Jaeger muses, looking at the screen. “With him, that might not be such a good idea.”
Kaiser grunts.
“Excuse me, what is this?”
“An underground fight,” Elodie says, her voice tense. “They study them so they know how to beat their opponents.”
I get up and point to the bald man on the screen. “Is this him? Your opponent?”
“Yes,” Jaeger and Kaiser say in unison. “People call him the Giant.”
“He looks like he’s seven feet tall,” I say, almost not believing it.
“But slow. I can beat him,” Kaiser says.
Jaeger rubs his mouth, looking almost sad. Since he usually smiles too much, this is alarming. “They say he was bred from Dominus’s seed. But they… did things to make him grow to that size.”
“A bastard son,” Kaiser says. “If Dominus was truly the sperm donor.”
