In the girls’ locker room I was met by frowning female blood-servants, ones I hadn’t encountered before but whose names I recognized on the personnel list as being fonctionnaires des Duels Sang. Which I now understood as blood-servants who served at blood-duels. They were older, actually gray-haired, which is not common for blood-servants, and had severe expressions and stocky builds. They looked like weight lifters, broad and muscular Titans. They were also crotchety, harsh, unyielding, and dressed in matching outfits that looked like catcher uniforms at a baseball game. And though they tried to hide it, they were horrified at my total ignorance of their purpose.

As if I were a rag doll, the women stripped me. I nearly decked them until I realized that they were playing the role of lady’s maid or valet or squire. But it was a near thing. When I was down to the Lycra, they stuffed me into a pair of white knickers with built-in suspenders that they called braces. Socks that went to my thighs. Flat-soled shoes that were reinforced oddly, one shoe with extra padding in front and the other with the padding in back and were impossible to walk in without a slight duck waddle.

Over the stupid knickers and my T-shirt went a plastic chest protector. Think Roman gladiator chest protector, but of heavy-duty plastic with boob shapes. Over that went a white, long-sleeved shirt that sealed up the back, lightly padded with Dyneema, a new puncture-resistant material. It was reinforced with a heavier layer of plastic foam. I was informed that this was the Mithran blood-duel version of a plastron—the underarm protector used in fencing. To which I nodded as if that meant something to me. It didn’t. Titan One told me that in Olympic fencing, it would only cover the right side. Again I nodded, though that made no sense at all. Half a shirt?

All I knew was that the layers made fluid movement difficult. The shirt collar was a doubled length of Dyneema, secured with Velcro as a gorget. I looked like a too-tall, scrawny image of the Pillsbury Doughboy.

And then the two Titans held out another shirt with a strap at the bottom hem. They made me step through the strap and pulled the shirt up my body. The strap was a thong. Seriously. The female blood-servants dressing me called it a croissard, but it was a thong. It went on top of my knickers, attaching the front of the overshirt to the back. And the thong moved. Into the most uncomfortable places. I pulled at it, trying to find a comfortable spot for the thong, but there wasn’t one until Titan Two loosened it. I was pretty sure she thought I was hilarious.

The gloves were made of Dyneema, covered with suede, and had rubberized grips. They, like the outfit, were specialized for le Duel Sang, gloves the European vamps insisted upon, as their duels tended to be much bloodier than historical duels or Olympic fencing. The gloves I liked, the rest, not so much. My only peace of mind came from the addition of a few surprises I tucked into my sleeves when the Titans weren’t looking.

While one of the Titans braided my hair and tucked it up under my head shield, I studied myself in the mirror. I looked like an idiot. The Titans thought I looked great as they led me to the workout room.

If Eli laughed, I’d stab him.

In that garb I stood in the doorway of the workout room and glared, but no one laughed or even appeared to think I was dressed oddly. The crowd in the underground gym was bigger than normal, whether because everyone hoped to see a rainbow dragon again or they wanted to see me get sliced to ribbons while wearing a padded, thonged monkey suit, I didn’t know.

Eli, similarly dressed, stepped to my side and muttered to me, “I’ve worn most every kind of military and paramilitary uniform currently in use anywhere. And not one has . . . um, testicle stretchers.”

I snorted in reaction and relaxed enough that the scents in the room filled my head, clamoring for attention. Blood, vamps, humans, and from somewhere the smell of fresh baking bread. I closed my eyes and let the odors take me over for a moment, only a few heartbeats, but those seconds were enough, and the perfume of the room and the beings in it brought me to the edge of an odd tranquility. The room went quiet, as I stood there, the silence of expectancy and potential violence. My shoulders dropped and I took deep breaths of the wealth of scent patterns. I opened my eyes, feeling comfortable in my own skin for the first time since the bomb.

A form dressed in black from head to toe gestured for me to join him on the fighting floor, and I was able to move as if the thong wasn’t cutting me in half. My instructor was slight, short, and graceful, his head hidden beneath a mask like mine, but his black garb was a much cooler color than my student whites. He looked good in the outfit, even the thong part, which had two straps that divided around an athletic cup of prodigious proportions. Mithrans must believe in hitting below the belt.

My partner might have been Gee DiMercy, but Gee had been bitten by the flying light-dragon, so I was betting on Grégoire, the best fighter the Americas boasted. Better than Gee DiMercy. Better than Leo. The best. Against me. And the weapons he held to his sides were not blunted practice weapons. They were sharp enough to make the air bleed.

They looked like a death threat in steel. Like my death. Beast glared out at him through my eyes, and I heard her snarl, Steel claws. Claws in hand of predator. In hand of hunter-killer.

I knew better than to let my reactions turn to fear. Vamps can smell fear. So I let Beast’s emotions roll over into anger and insult. Loudly, I said, “I’ve had too little sleep, too little food, my house has been targeted by a bomber, and this thong is miserable. You really think that oversized pig sticker is gonna scare me?”

“No, little kitten. I think it will cut you and make you bleed if you do not learn quickly enough.” Yeah. Grégoire. I wanted to ask him about his siblings, but not while he carried a sword. Later. I accepted my blunted practice weapons from Titan Two, who had followed me out onto the fighting floor. Maybe she was acting as my second now. Made sense. Eli usually had that job, but he was flat on his back on the mat beside me, put there by Wrassler. Wrassler was wearing practice blacks, with a sword at my partner’s throat. I wished I had a camera. Titan Two put the shorter sword, the one with the notch in the blade, in my left hand and adjusted my grip on both weapons.

“That,” Grégoire said, “and this”—he held up the longer weapon—“are flat swords.” Next he indicated our short swords. Our cajas cortas, loosely translated as short box or short trap. “You will not see the like of such weapons in the human world. They are made for le Duel Sang. They are made for killing Mithrans.”