Away from the crowd, a small clutch of men argued about which of them would fight next. There was already plenty of blood soaking the ground inside the cage, and none seemed in a hurry to contribute more. They’d been drawing straws, and a well-built man who was stripped to the waist had just picked the short one.
“No mask,” Sharon said, noting the man’s bushy mustache and relatively unscarred face. “He must be just starting out.”
The man gathered his courage and strutted toward the crowd. In a loud, Spanish-accented voice, he told them he’d never been beaten in a fight, that he was going to kill the hollow and keep its head for a trophy, and that his peculiar ability—ultraquick healing—would make it impossible for the hollow to inflict a mortal wound.
“See these beauty marks?” he said, turning to show off a collection of nasty, claw-shaped scars on his back. “A grim gave them to me last week. They were an inch deep,” he claimed, “and healed the same day!” He pointed at the hollow in the cage. “That wrinkled old thing doesn’t stand a chance!”
“Now it’s definitely going to kill him,” Emma said.
The man poured a vial of ambro into his eyes. His body stiffened and light beams shot from his pupils, leaving a cataract of burn marks on the ground. A moment later they winked out. Thus fortified, he strode confidently to the cage door, where a man with a large key ring met him to unlock it.
“Keep an eye on the guy with the keys,” I said. “We might need those.”
Sharon reached into his pocket and drew out a wriggling rat by its tail. “Did you hear that, Xavier?” he said to the rat. “Go get the keys.” He dropped the rodent on the ground and it scurried away.
The boastful fighter entered the cage and began to face off with the hollow. He’d taken a small knife from his belt and assumed a bent-kneed stance, but other than that he showed little appetite for a fight. Instead, he seemed to be running out the clock by running his mouth, giving a speech with all the blowhard bluster of a professional wrestler. “Come at me, you animal! I am not afraid! I’ll slice out your tongues and make a belt to hold up my pants! I’ll pick my teeth with your toenails and mount your head on my wall!”
The hollow watched him boredly.
The fighter made a show of drawing his knife across his forearm, and as blood began to well he held up the wound. It healed and closed before a single drop could reach the ground. “I am invincible!” he cried. “I am not afraid!”
Suddenly the hollow faked toward the man and roared, which so startled him that he dropped his knife and threw his arms across his face. It seemed the hollow had grown tired of him.
The crowd burst into riotous laughter—and so did we—and the man, red-faced with embarrassment, bent to pick up his knife. Now the hollow was moving toward him, chains clinking as it went, tongues extended and curled like clenched fists.
The man realized he’d have to engage the monster if he was to salvage his dignity, so he took a few tentative steps forward while brandishing the knife. The hollow flicked one of its painted tongues at him. The man swiped at it with his knife—and connected. Cut, the hollow squealed and retracted the tongue, then hissed at the man like an angry cat.
“That’ll teach you to attack Don Fernando!” the man shouted.
“This guy never learns,” I said. “Taunting hollows is a bad idea.”
He seemed to have the hollow on the run. It backed away while the man approached, still hissing and waving his knife. When the hollow could retreat no farther, its back against the bars of the cage, the man raised his knife. “Prepare to die, demon spawn!” he shouted, and charged.
For a moment I wondered if I’d have to step in and save the hollow, but soon it became clear that it had set a trap. Snaking beneath the man was all the slack of the hollow’s chain, which the hollow grabbed and swept violently to one side, sending Don Fernando flying head-first into a metal post. Clonk—and he was out, limp on the ground. Another KO.
He’d been such a shameless braggart that the crowd couldn’t help cheering.
A team of men with torches and electric-tipped taser poles ran into the cage and kept the hollow at bay while the unconscious fighter was dragged out.
“Who’s next?” the referee woman shouted.
The remaining fighters traded looks of apprehension, then resumed arguing. Now no one wanted to enter the cage.
Except me.
The man’s ridiculous performance and the hollow’s trick had given me an idea. It wasn’t a sure-fire plan, or even a good one, but it was something, and that was better than nothing. We—meaning the hollow and I—were going to fake its death.
*
I screwed up my courage and, as tends to happen while I’m doing something either slightly brave or very foolish, my brain disengaged from my body. I seemed to watch myself from afar as I waved an arm at the referee and shouted, “I’ll go next!”
Before then I’d been invisible; now the crowd and the fighters all turned to stare.
“What’s your plan?” Emma whispered to me.
I had one but had been so caught up with working it out that I’d failed to share it with Emma or Sharon, and now I had no time to lay it out for them. Which was probably for the best. If spoken aloud, I feared it might sound ridiculous or, worse yet, impossible, and then I’d lose my nerve.
“I think it’s better if I just show you,” I said. “But it definitely won’t work unless we get those keys.”
“Don’t worry, Xavier’s on the job,” said Sharon. We heard a squeak and looked down to see the rat in question with a piece of cheese in its mouth. Sharon picked him up and scolded him. “Keys, I said, not cheese!”
“I’ll get them,” Emma assured me. “Just promise you’ll come back in one piece.”
I promised. She wished me luck and kissed me on the lips. Then I looked at Sharon, who tilted his head at me as if to say, I hope you’re not expecting a kiss from me, too, and I just laughed and walked toward the fighters.
They were looking me up and down. I was sure they thought I was crazy, and yet none of them tried to stop me. After all, if this ill-prepared kid, who wasn’t even going to take a vial of ambro before his fight, wanted to throw himself at the beast and wear it down a little, that was a gift they were willing to accept. And if I died trying, I was just a slave anyway. Which made me hate them and put me in mind of the poor kidnapped peculiars whose extracted souls were swimming around in the vials they all clutched—which made me even angrier. I did my best to channel all that rage into unwavering determination and focus, but it was mostly just distracting.
And yet. While the man with the keys was working to open the cage, I looked inward and found, to my surprise and delight, that I was not racked with doubt, nor haunted by visions of my impending death, nor battling waves of terror. I had met and exerted control over this hollow twice before; this would be the third time. Despite my anger, I was calm and quiet, and within this quiet I found that the words I needed were waiting for me, ready to be spoken.
The man opened the door and I stepped into the cage. He’d only just closed it when the hollow started toward me, rattling its chain like an angry ghost.
Tongue, don’t fail me now.
I raised a hand to hide my mouth and said, in guttural Hollow:
Stop.
The hollow stopped.
Sit, I said.
It sat.