Page 23 of Reaper (Quincy Harker Demon Hunter #10)

I t was a boring few days between fights.

I ate, I worked out, albeit not much until my ribs healed, and I slept.

I also read, finding out the day after my little tete-a-tete with the Boss that there was an expansive digital library and a dozen e-readers available for fighters.

A more tech-savvy hero than I would have figured out how to hack the building’s wi-fi with it and send a message out to Becks with my location encoded in it, but I’m more the “blow shit up” guy than the “sit in a chair and figure it out” guy.

I might have stolen that last line from Bubba, but it holds true regardless.

So I read, and I recuperated, and I ate most of my meals with Anthony, who felt a little bad about nearly decapitating me with a kick.

But just a little bad. The morning after our fight, we met for breakfast, where he claimed that he knew his own strength well enough to have just knocked me out, but confessed that he was glad I wasn’t a normal human because that probably would have resulted in my skull flying ten feet away from my shoulders.

I told him I was also glad he didn’t literally kick my head off, and we had a pleasant breakfast.

So I was bored by the time Pete came to fetch me for my next fight, this one a Saturday night bout, so the crowds were larger and the money wagered far more significant.

So far, I didn’t have a good sense of who I’d be facing, but I was hoping for at least one of the new paras that had just been promoted from Tier Two.

One guy was a shifter that looked scared out of his noggin anytime anyone looked at him cross-eyed.

I couldn’t fathom how he’d made it past Tier One, much less anything else.

If I had to fight two on one, I really wanted him to be part of the two.

Then it would be more like a fair fight.

I followed Pete into the arena, and the roar when the door opened to let me in was deafening.

I’d been in the audience for some massive concerts, and the decibels that slammed into my chest when I stepped onto the sound was like Live Aid, Farm Aid, and pretty much every Kiss concert ever, all rolled into one.

I literally staggered back with my ears ringing before I could get myself under control.

Pete put a hand between my shoulder blades and shoved, mistaking my sensory overload for reluctance.

I staggered a step or two into the arena and barely heard the clang of the door behind me.

I looked around for my opponents, and just as the ring announcer bellowed “Murrrrraaaaaay James,” my heart sank.

I got the dance partner I wanted in the skittish were fresh from Tier Two, but I also got one of the opponents I least wanted to face—Yannis, the wolf I’d pummeled and embarrassed in the dining hall.

He stood grinning at me, then gestured to the smaller were and began to shift.

Seconds later, I was looking at a massive half-man, half-wolf creature that stood nearly eight feet tall on his back legs, and had enormous hands tipped with claws like razor blades.

Beside him stood his far less imposing partner, who would be dangerous nonetheless.

New guy wasn’t a wolf at all, explaining his smaller stature, but a were-bobcat.

Tufts of fur sprang all around his neck, and elongated canines extended down over his short muzzle.

If I was being honest, he looked about as intimidating as the Rum-Tum-Tugger from Cats , but I knew from past experience that were-bobcats were fast and their claws were needle-sharp.

He wasn’t going to be a pushover, but Yannis was definitely the biggest threat.

But like all good generals, Yannis sent his subordinate in first to test the enemy. His method of delivering orders was to kick the bobcat in the ass with one massive furry foot, sending the little were down to all fours, where he dashed across the sand and sprang straight for my face.

Not being a complete moron, I moved my face, and the rest of me, to one side, slamming a shielded fist into the cat’s ribs.

If I could incapacitate him quickly, I could turn my attention to Yannis, and maybe not get my ass completely kicked.

Bobcat spun off his flight path at my punch but did that annoying cat thing where he twisted in midair and landed on all fours, then launched himself at me again, this time in a blind fury.

Now I was beginning to see how he’d won a couple fights—sometimes you can get by on rage when you don’t have training or skill, and this kid definitely had some berserker shit going on.

I threw up a quick shield and caught the were on it, dropping to one knee as his body weight slammed into me.

He clawed my shield and hissed at me in his fury, but I just shifted my arms, twisted at the waist, and slammed him to the ground.

The air rushed out of him in a whoosh , and his eyes crossed momentarily.

I dropped my shield, slammed a fist right between his eyes, and watched as he went unconscious.

Mission accomplished. Now I could focus on Yannis.

Except Yannis had already focused on me, and reminded me half a second later what I’d learned the hard way in the mess hall—motherfucker was fast .

He was on me before KitKat’s eyes had even fluttered closed, wrapping both massive arms around me in a crushing bear hug.

My ribs screamed in protest, and Yannis leaned down to my ear.

“You embarrassed me in front of the other fighters. Now I embarrass you in front of everyone.”

I would have been way more concerned if it hadn’t been such a stupid thing to do.

Bear hugs can be crippling if you have a significant power advantage over your opponent, but there’s one thing you have to be really careful about.

So I did exactly the thing you’re never supposed to let your opponent do when you’ve got them in a crushing grip—I slammed my skull backward into Yannis’s face. At least I didn’t bite his nose off.

It wasn’t quite as good as if he’d been fully human because his elongated snout was more over my shoulder than directly behind my head, but a broken orbital socket still hurts like a son of a bitch, and that’s what I gave my fine furry friend, courtesy of my thick noggin.

Luke always tells me my head is my best weapon in any battle.

I don’t think that’s exactly what he means, but I’ll give him credit anyway.

Yannis dropped me, and I fell to all fours in the sand.

I spun around and threw three quick punches, one to his left knee, one to his right knee, and one right up into the center of his gut.

Yannis dropped to the sand, unable to decide what hurt worse, his face, his knees, or his solar plexus.

More fortunate for me, he was too confused to shift into full wolf, which would have healed him and made me start all over again on the kick his ass plan.

I hopped to my feet, stepped back, and punted him right in the jaw.

Usually, when I’m at my full strength, a move like this will stand my opponent completely up before they fly a couple feet back and sprawl on their back.

It looks really cool. Except I wasn’t at full strength, and Yannis in his half-shifted form weighed at least four hundred pounds, so he just kind of hopped up onto his knees, then fell to one side. I figured I’d take what I could get.

I raised my arms to the screaming crowd, expecting to hear the door open and the ring announcer call my name, but instead I got slammed in the back with a goddamn furry ball of rage and claws.

Apparently Bobcat hadn’t been knocked quite as silly as I’d hoped and shifted to his feline form to keep going after me.

And go after me he did. He knocked me facedown in the sand, and my back erupted in pain as he shredded my shirt, then my flesh, with his claws.

I felt his jaws close around the back of my neck and knew this was how bigger cats killed their prey, with one sharp shake to snap the mouse’s spine.

If I didn’t get my shit together, I was dead.

Good thing for me I’m smarter than the average field mouse.

I didn’t have my full complement of magic, thanks to the collar, but I had enough for this dickhead.

I pressed both hands flat on the ground and, through gritted teeth, shouted, “Forzare!” We both flew up into the air, but I was the only one prepared for it.

Bobcat let go with a sharp yowl and pushed off me with all fours to land several feet away, looking around in confusion.

I scrambled to my feet before he could attack again, feeling blood sheeting down my back from his claws.

I cast my eyes to one side, where Yannis lay unconscious, shifted back to human as he passed out, and thus now completely healed.

If he woke up before I dealt with Hello Kitty here, I was seriously fucked.

I was bleeding too much to take them both on, and the furball in front of me didn’t seem to be playing to incapacitate.

He sprang at me again, and this time I called up a disk of energy along my left arm, then cast a shield of fire on top of it with a cry of “Fuego!” When Bobcat smacked into my shield, I was instantly assailed by the stench of burning fur, and my ears rang with the howl of a scorched werecat.

He sprang off me as fast as he’d leapt at me, and I saw him begin to shift back to his half-cat form to heal.

That didn’t bode well for me, so I decided I should probably stop it.

With prejudice. I flung a ball of pure force at his feet, forcing him to leap aside or be blasted into next week.

Then another, then another, until I’d chased him across the entire arena with glowing purple spheres of power, pinning him to the far wall.

He snarled at me and started his shift again, but with nowhere to run, there was no chance he could transform in time.

He was no Yannis, who shifted faster than any lycanthrope I’d ever seen or heard of.

It took him several seconds to begin his transformation, which gave me plenty of time to close the distance between us and wreath my right hand in crimson fire.

“Yield,” I said, putting a little magic in my voice to be heard over the crowd noise. I held my flaming fist over my head and glared down at the shifter.

He snarled back at me, continuing his shift. He swiped at me with his claws, but the change was upon him now, and his motor functions were hampered by the snapping and cracking as bones lengthened and tendons reattached.

“Yield!” I called again as the crowd started chanting “Kill, Kill, Kill!” These were some bloodthirsty pricks. If I could find out who they all were, I was going to go after them as well as the dickheads who ran this place.

Bobcat was almost shifted to his mid-form now, and he snarled at me again, making a feeble slash with his claws as I stepped closer.

“Okay, dipshit,” I said softly as I stepped within arms’ reach. “I tried.” I looked to the crowd again, and for a third time, much louder, called out one word. “YIELD!”

Bobcat was in his half-man form now and lashed out at me with his claws, but I was ready for him.

Even bleeding from dozens of scratches along my back, I was more than a match for one were-bobcat, even fully healed by his shift.

I let my fire wink out, stepped inside his slash to block it with my left arm, and laid a massive, magically enhanced punch on the side of his jaw, slamming the back of his head into the wall and crossing his eyes.

I threw three or four more punches as he slid down the wall until he collapsed in a heap, unconscious.

Sometimes you can win a fight with pure youthful adrenaline and rage, but most of the time the older fighter will kick your ass because he knows how to kick ass and has been doing it longer.

At over a hundred years old, I’d been kicking ass longer than almost anybody in the building, and as the shifter’s eyes rolled back in his head, I made sure the lesson was hammered home. Pun fully intended.

I turned to look back at Yannis, but he was still on dream street.

Both my opponents vanquished, I strode to the center of the ring and looked up at the luxury boxes, knowing the Boss was either in one of those or watching on a monitor somewhere.

I turned in a circle as I called out to him and the crowd, “Is that the best you’ve got.

Come the fuck on, bring me a goddamned challenge ! ”

Then I stalked over to the door, which opened at my approach, and walked out leaving nothing behind me but two bloodied opponents and thunderous cheers from the psychopaths in the audience.