Page 30 of Reaper (Quincy Harker Demon Hunter #10)

T he rest of the week was light training, loading up on bacon and pancakes like I thought I was a dying man getting my last meal, and talking to Becks about how we were going to bring this whole place down.

The biggest problem we were having was that they still weren’t quite sure exactly where I was.

We’d narrowed the search down to a five-mile radius north of the city, so somewhere around Concord or the speedway was the best guess we had. Not exactly perfect GPS coordinates.

So I studied Eleanor in our training time, but I could tell watching her that she was holding back, not showing all her moves in the arena.

I didn’t blame her because I was doing the same thing.

Problem was, I had shown off my best moves when I fought Anthony and the others to get the chance to fight Eleanor, and now I was going to face off against an old, powerful vampire who’d spent the last several weeks destroying all comers in cage fights to the death.

And my magical tattoos were almost completely depleted, so the only mojo I had was what I could build up normally.

The power I usually stored in my ink was pretty well drained, which meant I was going to be heading back down to Atlanta soon for another eight-hour session of painful needlework. Assuming I survived the weekend.

Tony spent a few hours training with me, doing his best to mimic Eleanor’s speed and strength.

The problem was, very few creatures are anywhere near a vampire’s speed, and the older the vampire, the faster they get.

Fortunately for me, I’ve been practicing combat with what I assume is the oldest vampire in the world ever since I was old enough to get in any scraps more serious than a schoolyard brawl, so I knew how to anticipate and punch where the monster was going to be, not where they are.

But I couldn’t tell Tony that, and I didn’t mind the workouts, so I pretended to be a little worse than I am, and he pretended not to notice me sandbagging.

But eventually, Saturday night rolled around and it was time to fight.

I loaded up on breakfast, then had a very light lunch, not wanting to feel all bogged down when the bell rang.

Also not wanting to shit myself in the middle of the Colosseum if she caught me with a stout punch to the gut.

There are few things worse than fighting with your pants full of homemade chocolate syrup.

I waited until the early fights started, then reached out to Becks. You there, babe?

I’m here.

Any better idea on where I am?

I think so, actually. We might be able to get to you within the hour.

Luke’s been out ever since sunset chasing leads, and he just texted me an address and told me to meet him there as soon as I could.

So I’m rounding up whatever reinforcements I can find and heading up the highway to what I hope is your location.

Reinforcements? I thought Glory and Faustus were still…I dunno, doing whatever redeemed fallen angels do.

They are, Becks replied . But I’ve got a few people willing to lend a hand. I don’t want to get your hopes up, but if things go the way I’ve planned, we should have enough firepower on our side to shut this place down completely.

Good, because I’m ready to end this bullshit and come home.

You miss me, sweetheart? She somehow managed to make her mental voice sound both snarky and saccharine-sweet at the same time.

Hell yeah, I do, I replied. I’m definitely not cuddling up to Anthony the Faerie Knight or Eleanor the Vampire at night.

Well, don’t get dead, and you can cuddle up to me in a few hours.

That’s all the motivation I need. See you soon. Love you.

Love you too. Now go kick ass.

We cut our connection down to a trickle so I wouldn’t get distracted by her thoughts, and she wouldn’t get distracted by me bleeding, and I geared up for my fight.

I had a fresh pair of jeans, one of those skintight Under Armour kind of shirts that’s like yoga pants for your upper half, and my Doc Martens.

I wanted to stay as light as possible, and since the Boss continued to turn down my request for a flamethrower in my matches, I didn’t need any kind of holster.

Pete opened the door, and I followed him down the hall to the arena, noticing how everybody got out of my way and nobody met my eyes on the trip.

I was a dead man walking to them, and nobody wanted to acknowledge their own mortality by being the last one to speak to me.

Except Tony. He stood by the door, a bruise growing on his jaw from his own bout, which he’d obviously won, given the fact that he was standing.

“Good luck, Murray,” he said. His face was grim.

“You don’t look excited about winning,” I said.

“I am not. If you lose, then someone I might consider a friend dies.”

I got it then. “And if I win, you have to fight me next and only one of us gets out of that alive.”

“Exactly.”

I leaned in and gave him the one-armed bro hug, and as my head neared his, I whispered, “Stay on your toes. I don’t plan on losing, and I don’t plan on killing you in a week, either. So pay attention and when Plan C comes along, jump in.”

He pulled back, a confused look on his face, but he nodded. “Good luck, Murray.”

“Thanks, bud.” And I stepped up to the door, waiting on my cue to enter.

Pete pulled the door open, and I stepped out into a darkened arena. I took about five steps forward, then a spotlight hit me. I’ve got enough of a sense of the theatrical to stand still, with my head down as the ring announcer spoke into his microphone.

“Ladies and Gentlebeasts, please welcome to the ring the newest challenger to our four-time champion Eleanor the Red. Remember, if she wins tonight, she becomes a Grand Champion and her name will be etched forever onto the Wall of Heroes in the lobby. But before that happens, she has to get through one of the most electrifying combatants we’ve ever seen here in the Colosseum.

He is the nightmare walking, he is the random chromosome, he is the beast that walks out of the valley of the shadow of death.

Please welcome tonight’s challenger…MURRAY JAMES! !!”

I raised my head and threw my arms in the air, letting multicolored streamers of magic flow out of my fingertips to cascade all around me.

The crowd went nuts, even though I knew damned well not a one of them had bet more than the price of a lunch on my winning.

But I didn’t give a shit. Becks said she was on her way, and I’d been fighting vampires since before I fought Nazis, so all I had to do was hold on long enough for the cavalry to arrive, and we could shut this place down.

Then all I needed to do was some good old-fashioned detective work, follow the money, and find the asshole making paras and cryptids fight to the death for the amusement of a bunch of rich asshats.

As the applause for me died down, “We Will Rock You” came over the loudspeakers, and the whole crowd started stomping and clapping in unison.

Stomp-stomp-clap, stomp-stomp-clap. Freddy Mercury’s voice split the air, and colored beams of light played all across the sand as the house lights went out again.

Just as the chorus kicked in and all the attendees started screaming in unison, the lights spun faster and faster until they all flashed white and focused on the figure standing a hundred feet away from me on the other side of the arena.

“AND NOW, please welcome back to the arena your champion, the sanguine mistress of mayhem, the blood-drinking battering ram of brutality, the death dealer, the soul stealer, the one and only…ELEANORRRRR!!!”

If I thought the crowd was nuts after my intro, they went completely unhinged at this shit.

There was screaming, there were flowers thrown, and there were proclamations of undying love and proposals of marriage.

It was like Taylor Swift and the Beatles all showed up for the same party, with Elvis driving their limo.

I looked across the sand at Eleanor mugging for the crowd and kinda felt bad for her.

She didn’t seem all that awful for a centuries-old creature that legit has to murder people to live.

And she had no idea that she was standing across the ring from the guy mama vampires tell little baby vampires stories about to get them to behave.

She thought I was Murray James, kinda goofy wizard who got lucky a few times and she was about to rip into little pieces for the entertainment of the one percenters.

She had no fucking idea what she was in for.