The man with the eyepatch opened the door for us. “Enjoy yourselves,” he said, “but I wouldn’t send them into the cage today, unless you’re ready to scrape them off the ground.”
“We’re just here to watch and learn,” said Sharon.
“Smart man.”
We were waved in and hurried close at Sharon’s heels, anxious to escape the door lurkers’ stares. Seven-foot Sharon had to duck to pass through the doorway, and he stayed ducked the entire time we were inside, so low were the ceilings. The room we entered was dark and reeked of smoke, and until my eyes adjusted all I could see were pinpricks of orange light glowing here and there. Slowly the room came into view, lit by oil lamps trimmed so low they gave no more light than matches. It was long and narrow, with bunk beds built into the walls like you might find in the lightless bowels of an ocean-going ship.
I tripped over something and nearly lost my balance.
“Why is it so dark in here?” I muttered, already breaking my promise not to ask questions.
“The eyes get sensitive as the effects of ambro wear off,” Sharon explained. “Even weak daylight is nearly unbearable.”
That’s when I noticed the people in the bunks, some sprawled and sleeping, others sitting up in nests of rumpled sheets. They watched us, smoking listlessly and speaking in murmurs. A few talked to themselves, reeling out incomprehensible monologues. Several had bandaged faces, like the doormen, or wore masks. I wanted to ask about the masks, but I wanted to get that hollow and get out of there even more.
We pushed through a curtain of hanging beads and entered a room that was somewhat brighter and considerably more crowded than the first. A burly man stood on a chair at the opposite wall, directing people to one of two doors. “Fighters to the left, spectators to the right!” he shouted. “Place your bets in the parlor!”
I could hear voices yelling a few rooms away, and a moment later the crowd parted to allow three men to pass, two of whom were dragging the third, who was unconscious and bleeding. Whistles and catcalls followed them.
“That’s what losers look like!” the man on the chair bellowed. “And that,” he said, pointing into a side room, “is what cowards look like!”
I peeked into the room, where two men under guard stood miserably for all to see. They were covered in tar and feathers.
“Let them be a reminder,” said the man. “All fighters must spend two minutes in the cage, minimum!”
“So which are you?” Sharon asked me. “A fighter or a spectator?”
I felt my chest tighten as I tried to imagine what was about to happen: I wasn’t just going to tame this hollow, but do it in front of a rowdy and potentially hostile audience—and then try and get out. I found myself hoping that it wasn’t too injured, because I had a feeling I’d need its strength to clear us an exit. These peculiars weren’t going to give up their new toy without a fight.
“A fighter,” I said. “To really control it, I’m going to have to get close.”
Emma met my eyes and smiled. You can do this, her smile said, and I knew, in that moment, that I could. I strode through the door meant for fighters, buoyed with new confidence, Sharon and Emma following behind me.
That confidence lasted approximately four seconds, which was the length of time it took me to walk into the room and notice the blood that was puddled and smeared all over the floors and walls. A river of it led down a light-filled hall and out an open door, through which I could see another crowd and, just beyond them, the bars of a large cage.
A shrill call came from outside. The next combatant was being summoned.
A man emerged from a darkened room to our right. He was stripped to the waist and wore a plain white mask. He stood at the top of the hall for a moment as if gathering his courage. Then he tipped back his head and raised his hand above it. In his hand he held a small glass vial.
“Don’t look,” Sharon said, backing us against a wall. But I couldn’t help myself.
Slowly the man poured black liquid from the vial into each of his mask’s eye holes. Then he dropped the empty vial, lowered his head, and began to groan. For a few seconds he seemed paralyzed, but then his body shuddered and two cones of white light shot from the eye holes of his mask. Even in the bright room they were distinct.
Emma gasped. The man, who had thought he was alone, turned toward us in surprise. His eye-beams arced over our heads and the wall above us sizzled.
“Just passing through!” Sharon said, the tone of which managed to say, Howdy, friend! and Please don’t kill us with those things! at the same time.
“Pass through, then,” the man snarled.
By then his eye beams were starting to fade, and just as he turned away they flickered and winked out. He walked down the hall and went out the door, leaving two wisps of smoke curling in his wake. When he’d gone I ventured a look at the wallpaper above our heads. A pair of caramel singe marks traced the path his eyes had made across the wall. Thank God he hadn’t looked me in the eye.
“Before we go a step farther,” I said to Sharon, “I think you’d better explain.”
“Ambrosia,” Sharon said. “Fighters take it to give themselves enhanced abilities. Trouble is, it doesn’t last long, and when it wears off you’re left weaker than before. If you make a habit of it, your ability wears down to almost nothing—until you take more ambro. Pretty soon you’re taking it not just to fight, but to function as a peculiar. You become dependent on whoever’s selling it.” He nodded to the room on our right, where murmuring voices created an odd counterpoint to the full-throated shouts outside. “It was the greatest trick the wights ever pulled, making that stuff. No one here will ever betray them, so long as they’re addicted to ambrosia.”
I peeked into the side room to see what a peculiar drug dealer looked like, and I caught a glimpse of someone in a bizarre bearded mask flanked by two men holding guns.
“What happened with that man’s eyes?” Emma asked.
“The burst of light is a side effect,” Sharon said. “Another is that, over a period of years, the ambro melts your face. That’s how you know the hard-core users—they wear masks to hide the damage.”
As Emma and I shared a look of disgust, a voice inside the room summoned us. “Hello out there,” the dealer called. “Come in here, please!”
“Sorry,” I said, “We have to go—”
Sharon poked my shoulder and hissed, “You’re a slave, remember?”
“Uh, yes sir,” I said, and went as far as the door.
The masked man was sitting in a little chair in a room with frescoed walls. He held himself with unsettling stillness, one arm resting on a side table and his legs crossed delicately at the knee. His gunmen occupied two corners of the room, and in another stood a wooden chest on wheels.
“Don’t be afraid,” the dealer said, beckoning me in. “Your friends can come, too.”
I took another few steps into the room, Sharon and Emma just behind me.
“I haven’t seen you around before,” the dealer said.
“I just bought him,” Sharon said. “He doesn’t even have a—”
“Was I speaking to you?” the dealer said sharply.
Sharon went quiet.
“No, I wasn’t,” the dealer said. He stroked his fake beard and seemed to study me through the hollowed eyes of his mask. I wondered what he looked like underneath, and just how much ambrosia you’d have to pour into your face before you melted it. Then I shuddered and wished I hadn’t.
“You’re here to fight,” he said.
I told him that I was.
“Well, you’re in luck. I just got a prime batch of ambro, so your chances of survival have shot up dramatically!”
“I don’t need any, thank you.”
He looked at his gunmen for a reaction—they remained stone-faced—and then he laughed. “That’s a hollowgast out there, you know. You’ve heard of them?”
They were all I could think about, especially the one outside. I was
desperate to be on my way, but this creepy guy clearly ran the place, and making him angry was more trouble than we needed.
“I’ve heard of them,” I said.
“And how do you think you’ll do against one?”
“I think I’ll do okay.”
“Just okay?” The man crossed his arms. “What I want to know is: should I put money on you? Are you going to win?”
I told him what he wanted to hear. “Yes.”
“Well, if I’m going to put money on you, you’re going to need some help.” He stood up, went to the medicine cabinet, and opened its doors. The interior glittered with glass vials—rows of them, all brimming with dark liquid, the tops plugged with tiny corks. He plucked one out and brought it to me. “Take this,” he said, holding out the vial. “It takes all your best attributes and magnifies them times ten.”
“No thank you,” I said. “I don’t need it.”
“That’s what they all say at first. Then, after they get beaten—if they survive—everyone takes it.” He turned the vial in his hand and held it to the weak light. The ambrosia inside swam with sparkling, silvery particles. I stared, despite myself.
“What’s it made of?” I asked.
He laughed. “Snips and snails and puppy dog’s tails.” He held it toward me again. “No charge,” he said.
“He said he doesn’t want any,” Sharon said sharply.
I thought the dealer would lash out at him, but instead he cocked his head at Sharon and said, “Don’t I know you?”
“I don’t think so,” Sharon said.
“Sure I do,” the dealer said, nodding. “You were one of my best customers. What happened to you?”
“I kicked the habit.”
The dealer stepped toward him. “Looks like you waited too long,” he said, and pulled teasingly on Sharon’s hood.
Sharon snatched the dealer’s hand. The guards raised their guns.
“Careful,” the dealer said.
Sharon held him a moment longer, then let go.
“Now,” the dealer said, turning toward me. “You’re not going to refuse a free sample, are you?”
I had no intention of ever uncorking the stuff, but it seemed like the best way to end this was to take it. So I did.
“Good boy,” the dealer said, and he shooed us from the room.
“You were an addict?” Emma hissed at Sharon. “Why didn’t you tell us?”
“What difference would it have made?” Sharon said. “Yes, I had some bad years. Then Bentham took me in and weaned me off the stuff.”
I turned to look at him, trying to imagine. “Bentham did?”
“Like I said, I owe the man my life.”
Emma took the vial and held it up. In the stronger light, the silvery bits inside the black liquid shone like tiny flakes of sun. It was mesmerizing, and despite the side effects, I couldn’t help but wonder how a few drops might enhance my abilities. “He wouldn’t say what was in it,” Emma said.
“We are,” Sharon said. “Little bits of our stolen souls, crushed up and fed back to us by the wights. A piece of every peculiar they kidnap winds up in a vial like that one.”
Emma thrust the vial away in horror, and Sharon took it and tucked it into his cloak. “Never know when one of these might come in handy,” he said.
“Knowing what it’s made of,” I said, “I can’t believe you’d ever take that stuff.”
“I never said I was proud of myself,” Sharon said.
The whole diabolical scheme was perfect in its evilness. The wights had turned the peculiars of Devil’s Acre into cannibals, hungry for their own souls. Addicting them to ambrosia ensured their control and kept the population in check. If we didn’t free them soon, our friends’ souls would be the next to fill those vials.
I heard the hollow roar—it sounded like a cry of victory—and the man we’d watched take ambro a minute earlier was dragged through door and past us down the hall, bleeding and unconscious.
My turn, I thought, and a thrill of adrenaline shot through me.
* * *
Out back of the ambro den was a walled courtyard, the centerpiece of which was a freestanding cage about forty feet square, its sturdy bars easily capable, it seemed to me, of containing a hollowgast. A line had been painted in the dirt approximately as far from the cage bars as a hollow’s tongues could reach, and the crowd, made up of forty or so rough-looking peculiars, had wisely planted themselves behind it. The courtyard’s walls were ringed with smaller cages, and inside a tiger, a wolf, and what looked like a full-grown grimbear—animals of lesser interest, at least compared to a hollowgast—were being held to fight another day.
The main attraction could be seen pacing inside the big cage, tethered to a heavy iron post by a chain around its neck. It was in such a sorry state that I was tempted to feel bad for it. The hollowgast had been splashed with white paint and daubed here and there with mud, which made it visible to everyone but also a bit ridiculous looking, like a Dalmatian or a mime. It was limping badly and leaving trails of black blood, and its muscular tongues, which in anticipation of a fight would normally have been whipping around in the air, were dragging limply behind it. Hurt and humiliated, it was far from the nightmare vision I had become accustomed to, but the crowd, having never seen a hollow, seemed impressed nevertheless. Which was just as well: even in this much-reduced state, the hollow had managed to knock out several fighters in a row. It was still plenty dangerous, and very unpredictable. Which is why, I assumed, men armed with rifles were stationed around the courtyard. Better safe than sorry.
I huddled with Sharon and Emma to strategize. The problem, we agreed, wasn’t getting me into the cage with the hollow. It wasn’t even controlling the hollow—we were working under the assumption that I could do it. The problem would be getting the hollow out, and away from these people.
“Think you could melt through that chain around its neck?” I asked Emma.
“If I had two days to do it,” she said. “I don’t suppose we could just explain to everyone that we really need the hollow and we’ll bring it back when we’re finished?”
“You wouldn’t even get that whole sentence out,” said Sharon, eyeing the rowdy crowd. “This is more fun than these blighters have had in years. No chance.”
“Next fighter!” shouted a woman standing watch from a second-story window.
Away from the crowd, a small clutch of men argued about which of them would fight next. There was already plenty of blood soaking the ground inside the cage, and none seemed in a hurry to contribute more. They’d been drawing straws, and a well-built man who was stripped to the waist had just picked the short one.
“No mask,” Sharon said, noting the man’s bushy mustache and relatively unscarred face. “He must be just starting out.”
The man gathered his courage and strutted toward the crowd. In a loud, Spanish-accented voice, he told them he’d never been beaten in a fight, that he was going to kill the hollow and keep its head for a trophy, and that his peculiar ability—ultraquick healing—would make it impossible for the hollow to inflict a mortal wound.
“See these beauty marks?” he said, turning to show off a collection of nasty, claw-shaped scars on his back. “A grim gave them to me last week. They were an inch deep,” he claimed, “and healed the same day!” He pointed at the hollow in the cage. “That wrinkled old thing doesn’t stand a chance!”
“Now it’s definitely going to kill him,” Emma said.
The man poured a vial of ambro into his eyes. His body stiffened and light beams shot from his pupils, leaving a cataract of burn marks on the ground. A moment later they winked out. Thus fortified, he strode confidently to the cage door, where a man with a large key ring met him to unlock it.
“Keep an eye on the guy with the keys,” I said. “We might need those.”
Sharon reached into his pocket and drew out a wriggling rat by its tail. “Did you hear that, Xavier?” he said to the rat. “Go get the keys.” He d
ropped the rodent on the ground and it scurried away.
The boastful fighter entered the cage and began to face off with the hollow. He’d taken a small knife from his belt and assumed a bent-kneed stance, but other than that he showed little appetite for a fight. Instead, he seemed to be running out the clock by running his mouth, giving a speech with all the blowhard bluster of a professional wrestler. “Come at me, you animal! I am not afraid! I’ll slice out your tongues and make a belt to hold up my pants! I’ll pick my teeth with your toenails and mount your head on my wall!”
The hollow watched him boredly.
The fighter made a show of drawing his knife across his forearm, and as blood began to well he held up the wound. It healed and closed before a single drop could reach the ground. “I am invincible!” he cried. “I am not afraid!”
Suddenly the hollow faked toward the man and roared, which so startled him that he dropped his knife and threw his arms across his face. It seemed the hollow had grown tired of him.
The crowd burst into riotous laughter—and so did we—and the man, red-faced with embarrassment, bent to pick up his knife. Now the hollow was moving toward him, chains clinking as it went, tongues extended and curled like clenched fists.
The man realized he’d have to engage the monster if he was to salvage his dignity, so he took a few tentative steps forward while brandishing the knife. The hollow flicked one of its painted tongues at him. The man swiped at it with his knife—and connected. Cut, the hollow squealed and retracted the tongue, then hissed at the man like an angry cat.
“That’ll teach you to attack Don Fernando!” the man shouted.
“This guy never learns,” I said. “Taunting hollows is a bad idea.”
He seemed to have the hollow on the run. It backed away while the man approached, still hissing and waving his knife. When the hollow could retreat no farther, its back against the bars of the cage, the man raised his knife. “Prepare to die, demon spawn!” he shouted, and charged.
For a moment I wondered if I’d have to step in and save the hollow, but soon it became clear that it had set a trap. Snaking beneath the man was all the slack of the hollow’s chain, which the hollow grabbed and swept violently to one side, sending Don Fernando flying head-first into a metal post. Clonk—and he was out, limp on the ground. Another KO.