Magic Strikes(88)
itself.
I squeezed through the door behind Raphael and Andrea, who sat nicely next to each other.
Everyone was there, except Doolittle. I perched on the top step, the cement cold under my butt.
The Reapers fielded only two fighters against the rival team's four. The first was Mart. The
second was a woman: small, curvy, sensuous, with a waterfall of dark hair falling down her back.
She looked so much like Olivia she could have been her sister. Derek saw her and tensed.
Facing them were the four members of the opposing team. The first was a huge Asian man, solid
and thick like a brick. He had to be their Stone. Behind him stood Sling, a lean, dark-skinned archer
armed with a bow and a belt filled with knives and darts. At least thirty arrows protruded from the
sand in front of him, ready to be grabbed. To the left their Swordmaster waited, a young white man
with blond hair who apparently thought he was Japanese: he wore the traditional dark blue kimono
and lighter blue hakama garment with a pleated skirt over it. He carried a katana-no surprise there.
The last was a woman, a mage, judging by her position in the very back. A wise choice, given the
magic was up.
The gong sounded.
The archer fired. The arrow sliced the air and fell harmlessly into the sand as Mart dodged in a
blur. The archer drew and fired again, with preternatural quickness. Mart dodged left, right, left, his
sword held passively by his side. They thought they had him pinned. Not bloody likely.
The Stone advanced, surprisingly light on his feet. Behind him the female mage began to work
something complicated, waving her arms through the air.
The Swordmaster charged the Reaper woman.
She leaned back, her arms flung out like the wings of a bird about to take flight. Mart made no
move to assist her.
Ten feet from her the Swordmaster drew his blade in a flash. Should've waited . . .
The woman's bottom jaw unhinged and dropped down. Magic lashed my senses, hard and
searing hot. The woman strained and vomited a dark cloud into the swordsman's face. The cloud
swarmed and clamped on to the swordsman. He staggered, his charge aborted in midstep. A faint
buzz echoed through the Pit.
«Bees?» I guessed.
«Wasps,» Derek said.
The swordsman screamed and spun in place.
Mart charged across the sand, a trail of arrows pinning his shadow to the sand, and thrust straight
into the Stone's gut. The man folded.
The swarm plaguing the swordsman split in half. The new swarm snapped to the archer like a
black lasso. He ran.
As the Stone crumbled, the female mage jerked her arms. A cone of fire struck from her fingers,
twisting like a horizontal tornado. Mart leapt into the air. She swung the cone up, but not fast
enough. He landed on her, hammering a hard kick into the side of her neck. The impact knocked her
off her feet, but not before I saw her head snap to the side.
«Broken neck,» Andrea said.
The swarm caught the archer. He veered left and ran straight into Mart's sword. Mart cut him
down with two short, precise strokes and walked over to the swordsman, who was still bellowing
like a stuck pig. The Reaper watched him flail for a long moment, as if puzzled, then ended it in a
single cut. The swarm vanished. The swordsman's head rolled on the sand.
The crowd roared in delight.
The shapeshifters next to me didn't make a sound.
«HERE IS HOW IT WORKS,» JIM SAID SOFTLY, WHILE the cleaners loaded the bodies
onto stretchers and raked the sand for stray body parts. «There are four fights in all. First, the
qualifying bout, then second tier, third tier, and the championship fight. Only the championship
fight has the entire team. The rest give us a choice. We can field one to four people for each fight. If
we field four and lose all, we are automatically disqualified as 'unable to continue.' «
He paused to let it sink in. Apparently he'd been busy acquiring the information: he actually had
a clipboard with notes written on a legal pad, as if he were coaching a baseball team.
«Despite this rule, most teams field four. Fielding three is risky.» He looked down the steps at
Curran.
Curran shrugged. «It's your game.»
So Jim retained Stratego. That was big of His Majesty.
«We break into two teams,» Jim said. «Three and four.»
So far, so good.
«This will minimize our risk of being eliminated and will permit us to rest between the fights.»
Made total sense.
«Raphael, Andrea, Derek, and I will be in group one, and Curran, Kate, and Dali in group two.»
Full break. «You want me to fight with him? On the same team?»
«Yes.»
Suddenly I had an urgent need to run away screaming. «Why?»
«Derek, Raphael, and I have similar fighting styles. We move across the field. Andrea is a