She was tiny, a bare handful of inches above five feet. A pink tank top molded to her body, showing it was both damn cold, and that she didn't have much up top to show off. Low riding jeans hugged her legs, showing off hips bones and the start of pale, sweet skin. She was small without a hint of muscle and couldn't be over seventeen while looking thirteen. A child hooker driving a pickup full of rough, homeless men.
"Nope." The cold answer was all he had to say.
Whatever this was, he didn't want any part of it. His cup runneth over with problems, he wasn't buying whatever crazy she was selling.
Her lips fought a grin, but those dead eyes never brightened. "Come on cowboy, you might have fun." It was a subtle movement of the hips, but it pulled his eyes to her slight frame and tiny breasts.
"Do I look like I'm wearing boots? You see a fucking cowboy hat on my head? Sorry little filly, no thanks," Cesare said, taking a second step away from the truck and the open speculation in the men's eyes. He'd seen that look in a thousand other men, each a scavenger slinking through concrete birthed shadows. They were deciding if he had anything worth taking.
Eyeing him from his duck taped shoes to his mop of messy hair, she straightened. "I got a job. It's an underground fight, winning gets you a hundred."
"And if I get my ass stomped?" Cesare asked, weight settling. She wasn't a threat anymore. He'd been here before with other street walkers. She'd tried the hustle, now she'd try the last resort of all desperate people, the truth.
"I'll tell you what. My names Candy, win or lose, I'll give you a bed to sleep in for the next few days." Her lips tightened. It could be a lying tell, or distaste for the bargain.
Underground fights had been around for as long as Cesare had been on the street. He'd steered clear of them, no matter the pay off. Rabbit's didn't go looking for foxes, they knew the fox would find them. But that was then, and this was now. A lot had changed in the few months he'd been away. His body and heart had endured the hammer blows of monsters, shaping him into something more than he'd been.
His eyes skipped over the guys in the truck, sizing them up as fighters. From kids as young as Cesare, to grizzled oldsters sporting gap toothed grins. Ravaged by hunger and poverty, starving rat like faces glittered with hungry desperation.
These weren't men making it on the streets. These were the lowest of the low. The gutter trash who'd lost the fight against whatever demons rode them. The meat of their souls hollowed out by addiction, bad choices, horror, and hunger. They weren't even people anymore, reduced to a collection of victims waiting to be bleed out. They were rabbits like him, ones who hadn't run fast or far enough. Caught one too many times, they'd had the last bits of humanity flawed from their bloody souls. Gone to feed the gluttonous hungers of predators walking as men.
There were all kinds of reasons he should say no. From not wanting to get into something illegal, all the way to not knowing if Candy was lying. For all he knew, she was leading them to an organ harvest. Still, he hesitated as he met the scared eyes of the meat. There was one reason to do it. To see if he was still one of them.
Glossy black sutures marched across his chest, each one a reason to say no and walk away. He was in great shape. Other than the pesky gutting, he'd never been better. Poised and ready, his body thrummed with power, stronger than it had ever been. If he was going to take a chance, why not now?
A small, tight smile creased his lips. "Let's do it." At his words, an eager, blood tinged feeling swept through the bond with the wolf. A low growl rumbled through the air as the beast gave voice to its approval.
Eyes wide, Candy stared at the wolf in startled surprise. "Damn ... what the fuck is that?" Her awestruck voice echoed in the other's faces. It was as if they'd noticed the bear sized wolf for the first time. Shuffling, the men scooted back from the gorgeous avatar of slaughter.
How they'd missed the horse sized wolf standing next to him was a question for later. Stepping back, Candy gripped the door handle behind her, looking for a quick escape.
"You mean that thing's real? Oh, hell no, I'm out." It was an older man, stained and rank from years on the streets. Just went to show even a pickled brain could get a connection now and then. Dropping off the side of the truck, he wasn't the only one to decide the streets were a better bet.
"With me." Candy's eyes jumped back to Cesare. "You asked what it was, it's with me, that's what." A thread of joy ran through the wolf at his words.
Nodding, her dead eyes ran percentages. "Okay, I get it … the monster wolf is your shadow." Her face had soured on losing some of her fish, but she'd play the hand dealt. "You better be worth it, ugly."
Cesare pulled the tailgate down. The wolf leapt up with soundless grace, a thrill of fear cut down the others spine at the eerie sight. Pushing up against each other, the dirt encrusted men moved as far away from the beast as they could. Cesare took a seat along the edge of the truck, the wolf a barrier of midnight fur and savage power between him and the others.
Starting up with a death rattle of broken parts, the truck lurched to life. Taking a hard left, they sped out of City Center, quickly outrunning the trendy shops and downtown glitter of money. Going for hell, she made for Swan Island. The name was a holdover from an earlier age. If it had been an island at one time, it sure wasn't one now.
Now, it was only another piece of land stripped bare of grace, garbed in cheap concrete and well used steel. One more drunken whore selling her wares to anyone with green. Cold and dead, the warehouses lined the sides of the street, glaring with hollow eyes at the world. Barbed wire shrouded the coffin like buildings. Only empty ghosts prowled these streets.
The truck lurched to a stop in front of a gate of dusty gray chain link, barbed spiral wire shining down with razors smile. A shadow of a man peeked his head out of a shiny new guard shack. After a quick exchange of words with Candy, the guard triggered the gate. Silent as only the new can be, the gate opened on well-oiled tracks.
Shifting into gear with the rattle of stripped gears, the truck trundled into the yard. Freight containers stacked up in lines of green, red, and yellow, formed a maze to keep out the uninvited. Each steel box bore the sticker of a place these guys would never see. The closest any of them would get to China was take out. It was only a small world for the rich, poor people knew just how big it is.
Passing down the towering lanes of rusting steel, they wound their way into the heart of the yard, before pulling up in front of a warehouse. Only the cars parked out front gave away that this was something more than a crypt for cheap goods. Tucked into the shadows, the cars eyed the world with dead,, glass eyes, their sleek lines hidden in darkness. Only one patch of light shined on this graveyard of steel, a window of corpse cold florescent.
The engine cut off with a thud as the truck went silent. The men exchanged looks, eyeing the path they'd come from with plaintive need. "It's time killers!" Bright and shiny, Candy didn't hide the sharpened steel underneath her words. They were getting off that truck and going inside, even if she had to kneecap them and drag them herself. The fly learns quick the time to back out was when you weren't in the web.
Jumping out of the truck, Cesare was joined by the wolf as it landed quiet as deaths whisper next to him. They stared at the window bleeding sterile light into the velvet night. The bums slunk off the truck behind them, coming off its sides like rotting fruit past its prime. It hadn't sunk in until this moment. They were here to fight, to get into a ring and beat the shit out of each other.
The men shuffled around, leaving a no-man's-land around Cesare. Even as they took in the butcher's yard, the men kept a wary eye on the wolf. It was too big and lethal for anyone to take it as anything but an apocalypse waiting to happen.
Candy kept to the side, eyes trained on the wolf as she made for the door and its portal of light. Taking the steps two at a time, she reeled back and laid into the door with four swift kicks.
The night flooded with necrotic fluorescent light as the door burst open. A big man stood in the doorway, silhouetted against the light. A tight black shirt hugged his barrel chest, broad shoulders and muscled chest stretching out the cheap thread. The man made a decent door all by himself. Which was the whole point.
"You almost didn't make it." Rumbling words, they were more growl than anything uttered by man. The man swept the hobos with a calculating look, freezing as his eyes stopped dead on the wolf. In a burst of terror, the man jerked back behind the door, pushing it shut until only a sliver of light spilled out. "What the fuck is that?" the man demanded as he looked out of the small window in the door.
"Come on, it's just a ...." Her words trailed off as she looked at the wolf. There were no words that could describe the creature. Its darkness was too complete, the shadows that clung to its skin too deep and pure for words. That was without taking in its terrorizing size.
"It's a pussycat, here I'll .…" She took a single step as if to pet the wolf. A feral light flooded the wolfs eyes, stopping her in mid-step.
"Yeah … um, let's just stay here. Open up Vince, I got a good feeling about the ugly one and the … well, it hasn't given me any trouble, so we good," Candy said. It might have held more weight if she wasn't pressing her back into the door.
"Fuck that, and fuck you. No animals. You know the boss is death on even the idea of furry fights. There's no way in Gods green fuck I'm letting that .…" His words stopped as the door pulled open. Candy stumbled back into the open door, sprawling between two men.
Walking down the stairs, silhouetted by Vince's bulk, was someone new. Small and trim, the man was a whipcord of power dressed in a stylish black suit. His black hair fell to his shoulders, framing dark, sharply slanted eyes. Washed out and sickly in the unforgiving light, his Asian skin was more plague victim than porcelain.
Stepping onto the concrete, the man looked the two of them over. "Let them in." The quiet words rang with the tone of command. Vince opened his mouth on the cusp of protesting before snapping it shut. Turning, the thin man made his way up the stairs, disappearing into the light of the hallway.
Shaking his head, Vince pushed the door open with a glare at the grinning Candy. "Don't know what you're so happy about, fluffer. Your group is the last one in the door, you better hustle your tight ass if you're going to make your money."
Candy's grin never wavered. "Yeah, but I get paid as soon as they come through the door." Vince glared at her over the heads of the men as they filed past with Cesare bringing up the rear.
"Follow the hallway, Rocky will lead you from there," Vince said as he counted out a wad of twenties to a gleeful Candy.
The hall was bare concrete, florescent lights marching across the ceiling. The narrow corridor filled with the stink of desperation, need, and unwashed bodies. Cancerous light illumined the men in all their grandeur, threadbare clothes stained with blood, urine, and shit, dirt caked into pants and hair, flesh buried under layers of filth. Hollowed eyes of rotting needs darted over the bare concrete, desperate for escape. But that was the one thing they'd never had.
A man leaned against the wall at the end of the hall. He could have been Vince's double, big with the swaggering walk from growing up strong. His close-cut hair gave him a military edge.
Pushing off the wall, the man gave a low whistle as his eyes tracked the wolf. "What the fuck is the Governor thinking." Shaking the thought aside, he faced the shit smelling bums. "If you don't know why you're here, then your fluffer fucked up. Anyone not know what they're here to do?" The men shuffled under his hard eyes, looking at each other uneasily.
"Here's the deal. You guys are the last group to come through, so you'll be fighting each other and the winners of better fights. If you win, you can keep fighting until you lose. Once you lose, you're out. You're here to warm the crowd up for the real fighters, so don't get any ideas. Once you're in the ring, you fight until you're told to stop. Any stopping before you're told gets you a tune up by the guys with bats." He let it sink in as the men paled at his words.
"The second rule is simple. No running. You stand and bang. You run, and we'll come and put you down worse than anything you'll get in the ring. The people who come here want to see a fight, not a marathon." Rocky turned, his words coming back to the group. "Time for meat to hit the plate."
Kicking open a pair of double doors, Rocky led them down an avenue through the rabid crowd. The sound hammered with vicious glee, assaulting them on all sides. There were words in that mass of sound, but he couldn't make them out. The walls distorted the hundreds of voices, turning them into the roar of some monstrous thing.
The crowd stayed back from the avenue the meat walked. Demonic faces crazed with blood madness, yelling encouragement and obscenities in equal measure. Wet heat enfolded the group in a sweaty, stench laden embrace. Thick black blankets nailed over windows kept any light from escaping the fleshy hell hole.
Adrenaline flooded Cesare's body as he took in the leering faces of the crowd. Most of the people this far away from the cage were almost as poor as the tramps walking with Cesare. It was a treat, a time when they could see the filth staining their fingernails fight like rats. For them, it was like buying a piece of ass. The same fleshy need wove its primal hunger through it. The bums selling themselves like two-dollar whores for Johns wanting sweet meat.
At the front were those with money. Cups of champagne in one hand, they pawed the girls that hung on their arms with the other. Painted up like women, stony eyes shone from masks of makeup. Working girls leased for the night and others working on a longer contract. Rich or poor, working or pleasure, they shared the manic glee of users looking for a fix.
Hidden until they were almost on it, the cage rose up in front of them. Bolted to cement, the gray chain link fence had bits of fast drying crimson splattered on it. It wasn't big, at only fifteen feet to a side with bare concrete for a floor.
Dressed in piss stained pants, two dirty old men ripped and tore at each other in the cage. Yellow nails ripped leathery faces, blood running into scraggly beards. The feral men pounded into each other; faces stretched in death's head grins.
Rocky smiled at the sight, something low and mean slithering through his eyes. "That's what I want to see. Remember, you're the warmup, so make it good." Pointing at Cesare, the man yelled out. "You're up first, ugly. Take your spot over there."
Cesare didn't mind being first. He wanted this; it was a shit hole of a place, but it was where he wanted to be. Here, he could prove the training hadn't been for nothing. In this place of savage degradation, he could prove he wasn't one dark alley away from being raped to death.
A warm rush of approval flowed through the bond. The wolf wanted him to fight, to see him carve his supremacy into the bodies of the weak, smelly things. Disgust threaded its hot approval. It didn't like this room with its stink of humanity and desperation. Or the rat people who lusted after other's blood but were too scared to bleed themselves.
Exhausted and bloody, one man hit the ground hard, elbow splintering on concrete. His high-pitched screams rode the roaring, orgasmic joy of the crowd, like a woman wound tight around her lover.
The winner fell to his knees, gasping as two cleaners entered. Dressed in tight black t-shirts, baseball bats swung lightly in their hands, metal gleaming under brutal lights. A quick smack with the bat sent the broken bit of flesh shambling out of the cage. It was hard to see him as a man; the cage had turned him into less than tenderized meat. With a broken elbow and no money, he was the walking dead once he hit concrete.
Even as the two men were being pushed out of the ring, Rocky opened the fencing and motioned for Cesare to enter. Doing his job, the man still kept a watchful stare on the wolf. They knew if the wolf wanted into the ring, cheap chain link wouldn't stop it. He wasn't scared of some ugly homeless kid, but a wolf the size of a grizzly was a fucking problem.
Cesare's feet scuffed across the dirty concrete of the cage. Hard as stone, it was comfort to a man depending on foot work to get him out from under the hammer. The wolf was with him, its presence a color in a world bound to black and white. Emotions greater than anything he'd felt in his savage life swirled around him. The raw difference between a picture of the night and feeling the moon in your soul, the cold threading your hair, and the sanctuary of midnight.
Cesare couldn't help comparing this tawdry fighting cage to the Sanguine Nativitate. The Sanguine Nativitate was beautiful in its naked aggression. It was pure and unashamed of its greedy need to see the young bleed and die for its pleasure. Under the bright sun, in a stadium built for one hunger, they glorified their basest needs.
This place was wholly human, partaking of its deepest, most craven desires. Humanity lived to see degradation, wedded to humiliation, it beat shame into every child ripped from the womb. They came here to get what they couldn't anywhere else. Choking on the stink of unwashed bodies, gorging themselves on blood and humiliation, they fed the hungers breeding in their diseased meat. Unable to face their true natures, they'd twisted them into this depraved circus of flesh.
Cesare's opponent smiled with crooked, yellow teeth, spots of black dotting them with rot. A shit colored beard blended into his matted, dirt streaked chest. He was over twice Cesare's weight and a good five inches taller.
Swaggering forward, the man's smile twisted into a smirk. Bigger and stronger, he'd used its blessings every day on the streets to get what he wanted. A dark thread of arousal threaded through the man's eyes as he drank in Cesare's childlike body. He was a thug, a bully who'd raped his way through life. He'd gloried in using his fat. His weight pinning them down, tightening calloused hands around a child's throat, cutting off screams ....
Settling on the balls of his feet, Cesare didn't have to pretend to be a victim, he was one. Shoulders dropping, chin lowering with a faint tremble, he averted his eyes from the man. It was all so fucking easy.
The moment formed around Cesare, senses compressing until only his territory existed. The world faded away in the crystalline instant of clarity. A thin line of spittle burbled from the man's mouth, winding off his chin as he stepped into Cesare's realm.
Snapping forward, Cesare's kick caught the guy in his bloated stomach, folding the man over. Feet shifting, power gathering as muscles aligned, knees flexed as the moment slowed around him. Lifting off the ground, his leap sent his knee rocketing into the man's face.
Disintegrating under the force, the man's nose splattered across his face. Facial bones splintered and cracked under the bone hammer. Flung back, he clutched his face as blood erupted out of his hands, painting the floor in scarlet. Wet screams came from tubby as he stumbled around, eyes blind with pain and tears.
The noise of the crowd was the baying of some strange beast. Only insanity ruled the immense sound. It was a hateful orgasm of voracious need. The cleaners walked around Cesare without a look, homing in on his lurching opponent. Prodding the bleeding man with quick jabs from metal bats, they cleared the ring.
The gate opened, and another man walked his way in. He was about the same size as the first one, but that was all they had in common. The other was doughy were this guy was strength gone to seed.
Cesare kept his spot in the middle of the ring, forcing the man to come to him. He wanted to see how he moved, the play of muscle under skin, and the wary way he stepped. Keeping the center gave the guy the initiative, but it paid off in knowledge.
The man side stepped around Cesare, unwilling to commit. For a more experienced fighter it would be a tactic, for this guy, it was so he could work up his courage. Bruises dotted the man's chest from his previous fights, black tinting to blue and yellow at the edges. He was a winner, like the other guy, which meant that greed drove him into the ring. Cesare watched the man, shifting to keep him in sight.
Creasing the outside of his bubble, the man lunged at Cesare, hands open and grasping, teeth pulling back in a grimace of anger. Turning to the side, Cesare snatched the man's hand out of the air. The moment pushing Cesare into the shape it demanded. A sharp twist broke the man's wrist; the popping of bones trembling up through Cesare's fingers. Locking the arm into place, Cesare thrust forward with a palm strike. Meat tore under the strike, the shoulder popping out of place. Arching his back, the man sent a scream into the maw of the greedy crowd.
A subtle push ripped away the man's center of balance. Wallowing in instability, a smooth sweep dumped him on the blood-stained concrete. Curling into a ball, tears ran down the man's face as his mouth stretched in unheard screams. Clutching his twisted and broken wrist to his chest, the man squirmed away from Cesare.
Again, the men with the bats came. A whack to the head was enough incentive to get the man shuffling out of the cage. Three other men walked through the fence to face Cesare. They left broken with only the echo of their screams marking their sacrifice to humanity's truth.
As the last one stumbled out of the cage, the two attendants turned, pointing back the way Cesare had come. Rocky stood with the cage door open, but it was the luminous golden eyes of the wolf that captured Cesare.
Joyous pride thundered down the link from the beast. An innocent joy at seeing him burn his dominance into the flesh of the stinking meat. It cared nothing for the pain he'd inflicted with casual cruelty. The only thing that mattered was that Cesare had fought and won.