• • •

We opened the door to the roar of voices and the clack-clack-clack of multiple wood staves. I took it in with a glance. All of the fighting rings were in use. There were five now, since the new mats had been delivered and installed. In the back of the room, Leo was sparring with Ro Moore, Katie’s Enforcer. Katie was sparring with her sister. And in the ring closest to me, Gee DiMercy, my Enforcer—which still felt weird on my tongue and in my mind—was sparring with a tribal woman, a Canadian vamp.

The woman Gee fought was as tall as I was but with much stronger bone structure and enviable shoulders, with long hair the color of the night sky. Amusement and interest sparkled in her black eyes. Her name was Namida, which meant Star Dancer in Ojibwe, and my Enforcer had been enamored of her since the first time he laid eyes on the vamp in Canada. Judging from the smell of blood and pain on the air, the Canadians were learning how New Orleans’s vamps fought. In a word, dirty.

Gee was gifted at personal glamour, and because Namida was so tall, he had made his human-shaped body taller and leaner, and his face more traditionally Anishinaabe than his usual Spanish. Two other Canadian vamps were fighting with local vamps. They were good, their technique different from the La Destreza taught in NOLA.

All the fighting pairs were using sticks instead of longswords, one in each hand, bruising hardwood. Bone-breaking hardwood. Some sparred with two long sticks, some with one long and one shorter. The longer staves had the length and balance and heft of flat swords. The shorter staves were styled to match the caja corta, loosely translated as “short box” or “short trap.” Both kinds were made for killing Mithrans. And Namida was landing taps on Gee. My Enforcer was one of the best fighters in NOLA, and Namida was laying a hurting on him. She was fast, even for a vamp. But then, Gee might be executing some deceptive courting, letting her beat him up as foreplay.

I stepped inside and out of the doorway, beneath the camera over my head. The others lined up next to me and the door closed. The gym was old-fashioned, with ancient wood floors, patched in a few places since I joined Leo’s team. (Beast’s claws were hard on floors.) There were cameras everywhere, covering the entire room with its full basketball court, newly painted shuffleboard court, and the padded circular fighting mats.

Gee danced out of the way and I caught a glimpse of Ro in the back, completing a move I hadn’t seen her use before. She swept across at Leo’s collarbone with her right stick—a decapitation move—and then shoved Leo with the end of the left stick. Had she been wielding swords, she would have taken off his head and pierced his heart, two fatal moves against a vamp at once. As it was, Leo was shoved out of the ring and onto the wood.

He laughed. It was a pleased sound, silken, joyful, captivating. I glanced at Ayatas to see him narrow his eyes at the sensation of the laughter dancing along his skin. I couldn’t be mesmerized, but I didn’t know if it was a skinwalker thing or a Beast thing. Ayatas didn’t roll over and pant for attention, but he did seem a little rattled. Leo’s laughter made his people happy, ready to follow him to the ends of the earth. Ro Moore joined in the laughter and Leo said, “You are faster than I expected. The sharing of blood was well worth your healing. I am pleased.” Ro clacked her staves together, crossing them without looking away from Leo. He wasn’t above cheating. This time, he clacked his sticks together and held out a hand for Ro’s staves, before turning to the doorway. “My Enforcer,” he called. “You bring us a guest.”

I gave him a small nod. Leo was wearing fighting clothes fashioned with a twist all his own. He was shirtless, to show the pure white of his scars, scars from wounds that no human could have survived, and not many vamps. Nudity in the fighting rings was uncommon among the Europeans and there had been a lot of chatter about Leo going naked for the entire Sangre Duello proceedings, just to shake them up. Sadly, that had sorta been my idea, when I suggested they play Petruchio and Kate in Taming of the Shrew to shake up the EuroVamps. I hadn’t meant naked. I really hadn’t meant naked.

There was also chatter about Leo leaving blood on his body after feedings and fights, and acting the crude, naïve thug, to throw off Titus’s fine-tuned sensibilities. It would make a good show, but Leo was fastidious. No way was he going to be messy, bloody, or dirty or display unsophisticated or bad manners for any length of time. I was pretty sure Derek had a pool going for how long Leo would last unshowered.

The Sangre Duello was a more violent, less systematic version of Les Duels Sang, the codified legal duels that decided a vamp’s place in clan and city. While it started out polite, Sangre Duello had no matches where the winner moved up in a predetermined order. The Duello meant death at the end as challengers dueled and killed opponents until the only vamps left were the most protected, the very best fighters, and the MOCs. First blood in the battles was meant to maim, and duels to the death were expected. There was no way to think of the contests as games. They required mental stamina, clear thinking, excellent understanding of tactics and strategy, physical endurance, and skill. And in the end, the willingness to kill.

When the European emperor’s servants came ashore, onto Leo’s territory, and attacked by means both magical and weapons based, Leo’s U.S. vampire scions and human servants started dying in greater numbers, and Leo could see his power base slipping away. To keep his people alive and safe, the MOC felt he had no choice but to demand Sangre Duello. But if Leo lost, his loyal people lost and would likely be killed outright, as would all his blood-servants, blood-slaves, cattle, and every other para as Titus and his victorious fangheads rolled over New Orleans and took over the United States. Hence Leo’s consideration of most anything to throw off the EV emperor’s plans and reasoning.

Eli had suggested getting together with some former Navy SEALs and swimming out to the emperor’s boat with enough explosives to sink them to the bottom of the gulf, but there were likely prisoners on the boat. Leo had nixed that idea, but it was still floating around the security types as a last-ditch strategy. And likely it was something the U.S. military was keeping on a back burner as a black ops possibility should Titus win.

Leo popped in front of us, moving with vamp speed and the distinctive sound of displaced air. His black hair had come loose from its fighting queue at the back of his neck and the old scars on his torso were bone white against his vamp-pale skin. His fangs were out. His still-human eyes were on Ayatas. “My guest for tea this evening,” he said around his fangs. “My sworn ally Rosanne Romanello, from Sedona, has hinted that you are quite the warrior.” He extended Ro Moore’s staves. “Shall we?” It was more a demand than an invitation.

I turned to Ayatas. He had visited the Master of the City of Sedona? I knew Rosanne. I had probably helped to save her life. She knew what I was, and would have had no reason to keep any secrets from Ayatas. I gave the special agent a toothy expression that couldn’t really be called amusement. More like gotcha. Holding his eyes, I said, “Have fun, Ayatas. And, Leo, watch out. He’s sneaky as a snake.”

“The better to spar with.” Leo waggled the staves.

His face showing nothing, Ayatas slid out of his jacket, then his shoulder holster, and unclipped his badge, handing them to Derek. He pulled an elastic out of a pocket and pulled his hair back, tucking it into his shirt where the long strands couldn’t blind him. The tail could still be used as a weapon, but it would take close contact to get a hand on it. Then he kicked off his dress shoes and peeled off his socks. Even his sweaty feet smelled floral as he accepted the staves and walked across the gym to the empty fighting mat.

The fighting mats cleared out and the number of spectators along the walls and sitting on the bleachers increased. Someone whispered, “Prepararse para la muerte,” which was Spanish for “Prepare for death.” I said, softly, but loud enough for Leo to hear, “This man is a special agent of PsyLED and under the protection of the Enforcer.” And he may be my brother. Or not. If Ayatas somehow hurt Leo, I might be able to keep him alive long enough to get him outside.

The men went through the meet-and-greet ceremony, a truncated version that skipped the names and titles and went straight to tapping staves together in a salute. Ayatas moved in and tapped Leo’s staves, then back out, fast. Faster than human. Skinwalker-fast. I knew that speed. Without Beast, it was my own speed. Pulling on Beast’s abilities was like skinwalker on turbo.