Chapter One
ANYA
I sidestepped the fist coming at my head and my opponent pitched forward, his balance off. I took advantage of the situation by slamming my own fist into his flabby gut. As he doubled over he reached up and grabbed my thick, red ponytail, yanking me backwards.
Why was it always the hair? It never failed. It didn’t matter how big, buff, or macho the guy was, they always went for the hair. Biting my lip, I turned so that my back was to him and let him pull me back until I could feel his hot, rank breath on my neck. Then I lifted my knee and kicked back as hard as I could. My aim was just right and my foot connected with soft flesh. It was a low blow, but then, so was hair pulling.
“Gah!” the sailor cried out, releasing my hair. I turned to see him fall to his knees, both hands cupping his nether region. I finished him off with a foot to the shoulder, sending him sprawling on his back. The small crowd around the makeshift ring cheered so loud they drowned out the ref calling out the ten count. I stood back, catching my breath. The ref was half way through the count when the sailor flipped over on to his stomach, then rose to his knees. By the time the count reached nine the sailor was on both feet, if stumbling a bit.
Damn! That kick to his groin should have put him out. The ref stopped counting and the fight was back on.
I watched him, warily taking in every movement as he turned and glared at me. His face was bright red, rage radiating from him. Great. All I’d done was piss him off, now I had a three hundred pound rage monster to contend with. The thought was barely complete when he charged at me, letting out a gruff, angry growl. With my back at the edge of the ring and the sailors arms outstretched on either side, there was nowhere for me to go to get out of his way. I did the only thing I could. I started running toward him and at the very last moment before our bodies collided, I dropped low and to the side. At the same time I stretched out my left leg, catching the sailor’s leg just above the ankle. He stumbled, his momentum sending his entire body airborne. For one long second he flew through the air, then came crashing down face first several feet away.
I pushed to my feet and turned back to see the sailor push himself up to his knees, then up to his feet. Geezus, what would it take to put this guy down? I took a deep breath, readying myself for another round. The big man took one step forward, swayed, and crumpled to the ground. The crowd went silent, as if they were all holding their breath as the ref started his count. The sailor didn’t attempt to get up again, just laid there, his chest heaving with the force of his breath and emitting an occasional moan.
“Ten,” announced the ref, and the crowd let up an ear splitting roar.
“Once again the winner is The Spitfire!” The ref, a tall, lanky man in faded hemp-cloth overalls, grabbed my right wrist and thrust my hand high into the air. The noise of the crowd’s applause doubled.
I tried not to grimace as I nodded to the crowd, as was expected. I extracted myself from the ref’s grasp and stepped over the thick rope that had been looped around the center of the warehouse in a large circle to create a boxing ring as quickly as I could, ignoring the glare of the sailor and the two guys helping him up. I strode directly to the large, dark skinned man lounging on a stack of shipping pallets against the wall near the open bay doors. “Pete, would you tell Slim to quit calling me The Spitfire?”
“Aww hell, Anya, the crowd loves it,” he drawled. “When the patrons are happy, they bet more, and betting against a skinny little redheaded girl called “Spitfire” makes them happy. Very, very happy.” He waved a small leather bag stuffed full of coins in the air before tossing it to me.
I caught the bag easily and pulled open the draw string to peer inside. “Eighty bucks. That’s a damned good take for two fights.”
Pete grunted, “Yep. But, damn it Anya, do you have to take them down so damned fast? You gotta give the people a show. They keep betting against you because you’re going up against the biggest dudes I can find, but what they really want is a show. If you keep dropping them in the first three minutes, the bets are gonna stop rolling in. I got a business to run here.”
“Yeah, I know, I know, it’s all about the entertainment,” I rolled my eyes. I’d gotten this lecture from Pete before. “Hell, Pete, I can’t help it if you keep recruiting buffoons that don’t know how to fight.”
Pete’s Fight House was located on the riverfront for one major reason, it attracted big, burly sailors that wanted to test out their skills against other big dudes and win a little money in the process. The bigger the guys fighting, the larger the crowds and bets they drew. When I was fighting the crowd was always big. It seemed that it didn’t matter that I was undefeated, there was always a multitude of people willing to bet against me. The larger my opponent, the bigger the bets. But size didn’t matter as much as fighting skill. It wasn’t bragging to say I had skills in spades. I’d trained at the Academy with the City Guard recruits and until she’d moved out a few months ago I’d sparred daily with my sister Fiona, one of best combat mages the Black Blade Guard had to offer. I knew what I was doing in a fight. And with few exceptions, the big guys Pete recruited rarely had any real fighting skills.
Pete snorted. “I can’t be testing the guys out on their skills before I slate fights. The biggest dudes get pitted against you. It’s what people want to see. It’s up to you to make it more entertaining.”
“Okay, I’ll try harder next time,” I laughed. It was pretty much how this conversation ended every time we had it, which was weekly. “Okay, I gotta dash, I’ll catch you next week, Pete.”
“Sure, thing Anya,” Pete said, then pulled his attention back to the next fight already going on in the ring.
I grabbed my hat, cloak, and bag from the shelf Pete kept in the corner for fighters’ belongings. I had just slipped my canvas shopping bag over my shoulder and across my chest and was about to slip out the door into late morning sun when I heard a hoarse cry behind me.
“Cheat!”
I turned to see the sailor I’d just beaten, his face scraped and bloody, hobbling toward me with the help of his two friends.
“She’s a paranorm. No norm girl could move like that,” one of the men, a tall blond wearing heavy denim pants and a grungy shirt of indeterminable color, called out.
The man on the other side of the sailor I’d fought was short and broad. His hair was a couple of shades darker than the other man, but he wore clothes that, except for the shirt shade, were identical to the sailor and the other man. Pretty generic clothing for sailors. His face twisted in anger. “We’ve been cheated.”
Oh, shit balls, this wasn’t good.
The standard rules for fighting houses and street fighting leagues was that anyone could attend the fights, anyone could bet, but only norms could fight in norm slated matches. It kept the playing field level. Vamps and Shifters had super strength and speed that gave them unfair advantages that norms couldn’t compete with. Some houses allowed mages to compete in norm fights because they had to actively use their powers for an advantage, but most didn’t. It cut down on accusations of cheating. Of course there were fight house owners and bookies that had paranorms on their payroll they put in to fights as norms to hustle betters, but Pete ran a clean establishment. Pete’s fights were all above board and he hated being accused of allowing cheating in his club. Really hated it.
Before I could react in any way Pete stood, his considerable mass sliding off the crate with the grace of a cat. I couldn’t help but grin as the three guys stopped, their eyes taking in Pete. When seated, his affable grin splitting his face, Pete looked as cute and cuddly as child’s teddy bear, but when he stood he looked more like a grizzly. It was easy to mistake the girth under his gray denim overalls as flab. But his six foot frame was packed with solid muscle.
“I can assure you gentlemen,” he said in his thick, jovial voice, “Anya is not a paranorm. She is just a good fighter.”
“Bullshit,” the sailor grunt
ed, holding one arm across his ribs. I wondered if perhaps one or two had been cracked. “There is no way she’s norm. She’s too fast, too strong.”
“Yeah,” his blond buddy chimed in, obviously bolstered by the fact that there were three of them against Pete. “Look at how pale she is. And she has that cloak even though it’s plenty warm out. And why does she need wide brimmed hat? She’s got to be a vampire.”
That was their evidence? Oh, please. Though it was just mid-morning, it was a shaping up to be a warm spring day, but it had been cool when I left home at dawn. Granted, I did wear the hat to protect my skin, but that was because the creamy white skin tone that came with copper red hair easily burned, and I hated freckles. But no way was I going to explain any of that to those boneheads. Instead I grabbed my hat in one hand, the cloak in the other and, holding them out to either side of my body, took several steps backward until I was out of the building and standing full in the sun. I turned my face up toward the sky.
Vampires were allergic to the UV rays in sunlight. It was a side-effect of the N-V virus that caused vampirism. Though I burned easily, a few minutes out in the sun wouldn’t make a difference, but a vampire’s skin would start turning pink after several seconds, then red within minutes. The longer the exposure, the worse the reaction. After an hour of direct exposure most vampires would have third degree burns on the exposed area. A vampire would never step full into the sun, even if their allergy was relatively mild. Most didn’t go out between sunrise and sunset at all if they could help it. I’d only met one vampire who didn’t seem to have a reaction to the sun, but even he wore a wide hat and cloak if he went out during the day.
After a full minute I looked back at the trio still standing next to Pete. Pete was grinning, the guys all had murderous looks on their faces. I smiled sweetly, trying to not let it be a smirk. “See, not a vamp.”
“Then you are a shifter or a mage, you bitch,” the sailor growled at me, his eyes blazing.
“Whoa, fella,” Pete drawled. “There will be no name calling in my house. Just calm down.”
“Don’t tell us to calm down,” the dark haired friend spat. “She’s a fraud and you allowed it. You hustled us.”
That was not the best thing he could say to Pete. I almost felt sorry for them.
Pete gave a barely perceptible nod and three beefy men came to stand behind the sailor and his buddies. “I think we should go to my office and discuss your allegations,” Pete said, his tone low and deceptively polite.
I slapped the straw hat on my head, wiggled my fingers at the scared looking trio, and hightailed it out of there. I didn’t want to see what happened if the three guys put up a fuss.
Once around the corner and out of sight, I started running. I knew Pete would keep the three occupied for a while, but I didn’t want to be nearby when they left the fight house. They wouldn’t be in a good mood.
I jogged away from the docks, weaving through the narrow alleys between warehouses and fish stands, toward my ultimate destination. I had been on my way to the Public Market this morning when I got sidetracked at Pete’s, as I so often did.
I stopped running when I reached the edge of the lot outside the main market building. On any given day it would be easy to blend in with groups of shoppers that browsed the maze of lean-tos and shacks that housed blacksmiths, weavers, and other craftsmen. But today wasn’t just any day. It was mid-week during the one week a month that merchants and farmers traveled from all over Appalachia to Nash City to sell their wares. Families also traveled from hundreds of miles around to shop during market week. The lot teemed with shoppers and merchants. I knew that inside the huge building that had been a sports stadium before the Cataclysm it would be just as crowded. Even if the three sailors did come looking for me, they would have a heck of a time finding me.
Just in case, though, I rolled up my cloak and stuck it in my canvas shopping bag. I did the same with the straw hat. I really did need something to protect my skin from the bright sun, but I’d made eighty bucks off the match with the sailor, I could spring for a new hat quite easily. I pulled the ribbon that held my hair back and ran my fingers through the silky copper strands of my hair as it fell just about my shoulders. I rubbed the back of my head for a moment where it still smarted from being pulled.
Satisfied the sailor and his buddies wouldn’t be able to automatically pick me out in a crowd with my hair down, I headed into the market building. My first stop was my sister’s booth.
“Hey, Rivs, what’s shakin’?” I called to her as I approached.
River turned from the bin where she was arranging a pile of tomatoes she’d grown in her rooftop garden, flashing her brilliant smile at me. The smile quickly faded into a look of motherly concern, “Anya, where is your hat? You are going to freckle!”
I found her admonishment comical considering the fact that she spent 90% of her time out in the sun tending her plants or working at her market booth, yet she rarely wore sun protection of any kind. Her skin was as pale as mine, paler actually. Paired with her white blond hair it made her look fragile, almost ethereal. Yet she never burned, or freckled.
“Geez, Rivs, don’t nag. It’s in my bag. I was thinking about buying a new hat today.”
She eyed me suspiciously. “I expected you earlier this morning. You’ve been over at Pete’s haven’t you?”
“Yeah,” I said, grabbing an apple out of a bin and taking a bite. If it had been anyone else in my family I might have thought about lying, or at least giving them a smart-assed remark, but not River. Despite her eternal motherliness, River never nagged me about street-fighting. She seemed to understand it was something I needed to do, even if neither of us really understood why. So, when I came home with bruises or cuts she just cooed and soothed and gave me potions or poultices to get better.
“So, I’m guessing one or more of your opponents didn’t take too well to being beaten up by a little girl.”
“I’m not a little girl,” I huffed. “I’m three inches taller than you.”
She grinned, “You’re a little girl to those beefy blockheads you fight. I’m guessing you are hiding out in the crowd until they disperse.”
Oh, how well she knew me. “You know I had already planned to come shopping this morning. And with the loot I made at the fight, I have an excuse to spend a little extra time looking at pretties.”
“Whatever you say,” she said, laughing. “Just don’t stay out too long. If you are tired tonight at work Pinky will know you’ve been fighting again and he’ll be a grump pants for days.”
“No worries, Rivs. I’ll browse around a bit and get home in time to get plenty of beauty rest before my shift tonight.” I gave her a light kiss on the forehead. “See you later,” I told her before she went back to her stall to help the crowd of customers perusing her herbs and vegetables.
“And don’t forget to buy a new hat!” I heard her call as I headed down the aisle toward my favorite clothing stall.
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