Skin (17 page)

As if it were
a rehearsed part of the show, the beast threw its head back and
bellowed a strange guttural whooping sound that send the crowd into
a hushed awe. Erik looked as though he were about to fill his
pants. I took a breath and loosened my shoulders. I jumped.

The
crowd cheered as I floated through the air as if held aloft by
their adoration. I came down hard, if a little off centre, on the
thing
’s back and sent it skidding across the stage on
its grey belly, flapping like a landed fish. Erik skittered back
like a girl running from a mouse.

“
Kick
it!” I yelled at him. Erik just edged away until he was close up
against the mesh. It was not looking good. Unless he suddenly found
his balls, this was going to have to be my solo fight.

I cleared the
stage in three jumping steps, grabbed the fish monster by the neck
and pulled just as it was scrambling to its feet. I was so busy
watching Erik tremble in puppy eyed fear, it threw me off my game
and the thing reached and impossibly flexible arm around, creaming
its webbed hand into my face. Its claws pressed to my eyes as it
whooped and grunted. I released and ducked, rolling out of
reach.

Erik
moved. He lifted his leg and kicked it in the small of the back. It
didn
’t do much except save me some time to ready
myself for another jump. It all happened in the same flash. I
leaped up, thinking I would come down on the fish head and bring it
to the ground. The fish went sideways, propelling itself almost
horizontally, like it was swimming, its diamond teeth snapping, an
arrow line for Erik. It collided with the kid’s bare belly in a
slither of a second before I landed. Blood and flesh opened a
bloody wound and the kid dropped away pale and shaking. The beast
slathered, a grey tongue flicked, licking its lipless mouth and
making a high sound like it was giggling in glee. Enough
theatrics.

I grabbed its
head and twisted. There was a hard crunch as its neck snapped. At
least the thing died with a smile.

“
You
alright?”

It
wasn
’t unusual to see blood spilled on the cross, in
fact it sent the crowd into overdrive and was silently encouraged.
This was a good wound, it was going to need stitches.

“
That
was friggin’ awesome,” the kid said. His cheeks flushed red again
and the look that he was about to die of fright fell off his
face.

“
Because
we can stop if you like,” I almost hoped he would say yes. I wanted
to earn the championship, not knock down an already weak kitten and
claim it as a victory.

I
needn
’t have worried.

The
Guardians had no sooner called the next round into action then
Erik
’s fist was uppercutting my jaw. I wasn’t ready.
No, that’s not true. I was ready, I just wasn’t expecting it. It
was hard and clean. The kind of punches that win fights. I kicked
him in the stomach wound.

It
didn
’t stop him. He threw another punch, and another,
classic heavyweight moves, arms swinging as he moved forward. All I
could do was duck and weave or take another hit. He had me on the
defence and I couldn’t centre myself to jump.

I
punched back. We were going to do this old school. I landed a good
hit and another straight after, a roundhouse kick rounding out the
end. Erik didn
’t slow. Had the whole thing been a
trick, to fill me with a misplaced confidence before he kicked my
ass? Or was he just genuinely scared of monsters, but a man, even
one with animal legs, was nothing. I needed to be a
monster.

I jumped
without readying. It was sloppy and I didn’t know where I was
headed, but it gave me the edge I needed to land a good kick in the
face. Erik fell. But like one of those boxing toys that never stays
down, he popped up again. Then buried his foot deep into my
nuts.

I was
down.

I
couldn
’t breathe. Sick pain came up inside and I
spewed, face down in my own puddle of weak vomit. He kicked me
again, hard in the face. I rolled. He was on me, straddling my
chest like he was about to screw me, which, blow after blow, is
pretty much what he was doing. I tapped out into another
defeat.

There were no
rules on the cross when it came to how or what you could hit. No
one went for the balls. It was just what was agreed.

“
The kid
is new,” Cato said. I wanted to slap that amused edge off his
voice. “He didn’t know any better.”

“
He’s a
man, isn’t he? He’s got a cock, I assume. Then he should know
better just on that principle alone."

Cato was
helping clean up my face in the bathroom. I had an ice pack pressed
onto my groin. No one else was left in Sanctuary. Erik had left the
stage after lapping up the applause that should have been mine and
hadn
’t said anything to anyone. Sveta, as far as I
knew, hadn’t even been there. That was good. I didn’t want her to
see me defeated like that. She’d be hearing about it
eventually.

“
Well,
you’ll need to rest up, I’ve just seen the rotation for the rest of
the week.”

“
And?”
Cato knew what I was waiting for, and I wasn’t the only one in
Sanctuary to be eager for it.

“
You and
Darius. Next week. It’s locked in.”

I limped
through the door as quietly as I could. Quiello scurried over to
me, bounding up my leg. At least someone was happy to see me.

Sveta was,
once again, reading in bed, her face buried behind the pages of
some dry looking zoology periodical.

“
I heard
you did remarkably well against the shark tonight,” she
said.

I grunted a
wordless response.

“
And the
second round, our new friend is not so predictable it
seems?”

“
So, you
know I lost. Big Deal. That asshole fights dirty. It’s practically
a cheat.”

“
Rev,
you know there are—”

“
No
rules, yeah, yeah, I’ve heard it. But there are some rules that
just are, even when there’s none. Kicking a dude’s nads is one of
those rules. Where’d you find that punk anyway?”

“
That’s
not important,” she said. “He’s come to join us, specifically for
the arena, and we needed another Natural since you changed
sides.”

“
I
didn’t change. I was changed.”

Quiello
scampered down my arms and leaped onto the bed to snuggle in
Sveta
’s lap. His fur flashed a rainbow of colours,
never settling on one. I'd never seen the little empath do that.
Something was up with Sveta. At that stage though, I was only
worried about my bruised junk and ego.

“
It’s
just semantics, Rev. The point is you needed to be replaced. Erik
replaced you. He’s not going anywhere. It’s not his fault you
haven’t found your swing as an Animus fighter.”

“
You
replaced me.”

“
You’re
being over dramatic,” she said. She scratched Quiello behind the
ears and his fur kept on flashing as the little guy
snoozed.

“
I don’t
think I am.” I paced the foot of the bed wanting nothing more than
to fall into it, pull the blanket over my head and sleep. But I was
too pissed for that and I felt like an argument. “I think you
brought him in, specifically. He looks just like me. Where else is
he going to be replacing me?”

“
Alistair, you’re being ridiculous.”

“
Don’t
call me Alistair.” I snapped. She didn’t get to know me well, not
tonight. “I’m not imagining it. Cato was the one to point out the
similarities.”

“
Well
then Cato is imagining it too.”

“
Then
explain why he looks so much like me.”

Sveta
slammed her journal down.
“It’s a coincidence, Rev. He
looks like you because he’s a cocky young idiot who’s spent too
long staring at himself in gym room mirrors. He looks like you,
Rev, because you’re both just ordinary guys who look like everyone
else. I was wrong. You’re not special Rev, not the way you look,
nothing. You’re just a normal man who happens to be able to jump
really high. Erik is just a normal man who happened to best you on
the cross because you were too full of yourself.”

“
So you
think I’m pathetic?”

She
sighed, tired and unwilling.
“I don’t think you’re
pathetic. But I do think you’re being ridiculous. And I do think
you’ve been ridiculous for a while now. You’ve changed.”

She was right.
I had changed. I was an Animus. I was popping pills. I was letting
a woman get the better of me in every way that mattered. I was not
Rev anymore. I was not even Priest.

“
Change
is good,” I said. I was trying to convince me more than her.
“Change is improvement, evolution. It’s how anything survives. We
adapt. I’m sure you would have read something about that in one of
those books you’re always staring at.”

“
There’s
good change, purposeful change, and then there’s turning into a
conceited asshole who has lost all sight of the good man he used to
be.”

The
realisation of what was happening hit me like a point of revelation
from heaven. It was clear now what her problem was with me. She was
used to being the only special one. She had all the money and the
knowledge, she had the snake eyes and the scales. She had all eyes
on her, adoration of a crowd of two hundred people who she could
render silent with a raise of her slender hand. I was catching up
to her and she was trying to hold me back.

“
This is
because I want more implants isn’t it. You don’t want me to be
anything more than ordinary. And that’s why you’ve brought Erik in.
Just an ordinary guy, nothing special about him. He’s one hundred
percent Natural and one hundred percent nothing, just like I used
to be. But now I’m strong and I only want to get stronger and you
see that and can’t handle it.”

“
If
you’re so very strong, why is it a green kid took you down on the
cross on his first night? Why is it that you need more Animus
implants to prove to yourself that you are something more than you
really are.”

“
And
what is it that I am?”

“
You’re
broken.”

I stood naked
before the full wall bathroom mirror. Sveta was sleeping and I had
no plans to get into that bed next to her.

I looked at
this body she, days before, had told me was so special and now said
was boring and broken. There were whispers of grey starting to crop
up in my ever receding hairline. My eyes behind the glasses I was
getting less and less able to go without were tinged with red from
not having had enough sleep and dark circles underneath that would
turn into marshmallows by the end of the day.

My chest
and arms, I thought, might have expanded a little since I'd been at
Sanctuary, the different demands of the arena building my body in
different ways. But there was a small section of skin, just in
front of my armpits that I could not stop staring at. It was old
man skin, lose and floppy. I hadn
’t remembered seeing
that before.

The
scars from my injuries and surgeries were barely visible, something
to do with the creams Sveta
’s people plied me with. If
she could hand out that stuff so freely, what was the difference of
implanting something permanently?

I bounced up
and down on my toes, feeling that potential power locked in my
calves and thighs. At least one part of me still felt strong.
That’s the part I would need to focus on when I faced Darius in the
arena. It was the only thing I had left. Until I got another
implant.

The
match was slated for nine o
’clock but the punters had
started filling up Sanctuary from half past seven.

I went
down to the pits at eight to wait and to hide away from people who
would not stop asking me if I was nervous about having to face
Darius on the cross. He usually appeared in the gym in the early
afternoon but he still hadn
’t shown by dark. Maybe he
was feeling sketchy about facing me. Maybe he was not going to
show.

When the
platform lifted me into the arena, I thought the building would
collapse under the cheers of the crowd, half of them screaming out
for the Priest, the other half barracking for the giant.

Sveta was in
her box. Erik sat beside her in my seat. She could deny it all she
wanted. There was no doubt he was getting private sauna sessions of
his own. I may have still been living in her house, but she had
forgotten all about me. I told her I loved her. I meant it. Tonight
I was going to make her remember that she loved me too, even if she
was yet to say the words.

Darius
’s platform rose and the crowd thundered.
It was ridiculous that he seemed so much bigger here than
upstairs.

We moved
to the centre position, his huge mouth stretched into a sneer to
reveal those creepy small teeth. He
’d been a different
person, keeping me in those little green tabs and spotting me on
lifts, since I’d come back from the surgery. It was all because he
knew he would soon have the chance to flog me on the cross like I
was just another puny punter attempting to fell the giant. We shook
hands. He was about to see how wrong he was to underestimate
me.