~ 1889 ~

They were howling for blood.

The crowd was made up of London's finest. Gentlemen in immaculate evening wear of midnight black and snowy white. Ladies swathed in rainbow finery, and bedecked in glittering jewels that threw back the gaslight. Gently bred, raised to the manner born, the very image of an age of elegance—and they roared and screeched with every blow struck in the fighting-pit below them like the throng surrounding the guillotine during the Reign of Terror.

Humans were what they were, after all.

Junior Xiong folded one leg over the other as he sat watching the bout. As the owner of the Kodiak Club he knew what people wanted, that rush of excitement as adrenaline pumped through their blood, and he'd made his pile making sure they could find it, no matter what way they chose to get that thrill. Whether it was the wines and liquors at the bar, the services of the men and women who worked the private rooms, the risk of gambling either in the brightly lit casino hall among the rush of the crowd or in the card rooms where simple entertainment devolved into intense duels across the green baize tables, he made sure they satisfied that craving—and that brought them back for more.

The pit fights were probably the club's most popular attraction. Junior didn't bother with animals, not cocks or dogs or ratting. Animals were too remote, took too much imagination to identify with. Human fighters meant that the crowd could invest a piece of themselves in every blow struck or received. Throwing out the rules—not just the dandified Queensbury rules that made prize-fighting into a proper sport, but even the more basic standards of a bare-knuckle brawl—made sure they got what they wanted. Oh, the betting was fierce, and Junior took his cut, but he knew that gambling on the fights was just an excuse the watchers gave themselves to soothe their consciences.

Part of what drove them was that one of the fighters was a woman. Not only was it a novelty, but there was something that changed in the average person's mind when the object of violence was female. Some found it exciting, while others were horrified, but very few could entirely divorce it from their emotions.

The woman's opponent, Junior noted, was among the majority who didn't know how to react. Bart Cullen, known as the Manchester Mauler when he'd fought on the bare-knuckle circuit, was new to Junior's stable and didn't seem to have a grip on his role. Sometimes the heavyweight would strike out with sharp jabs and vicious haymakers, but other times he hesitated to use his full force or took extra time to convince himself to throw a punch.

His confusion probably wasn't helped by the fact that his opponent was smiling at him. A man just doesn't expect a woman's reaction to being punched in the jaw to be a big, toothy grin. Or for her to snap two quick body shots back at him that drew a sharp grunt.

He'd learn.

The contrast between them played well to the crowd in other ways, too. Cullen looked like what he was: tall, broad, his bare torso and arms rippling with muscle, a hint of a belly and crooked nose suggesting that he was a bit past his prime (hence why he was now a pit-fighter instead of boxing in a more legitimate forum). The woman, on the other hand, was very much the beauty to the Mauler's beast, beginning with her mane of blonde hair next to his shaved peach-fuzz. She was actually tall for a woman and broad through the shoulders, and the arms and midsection revealed by her vest-like top showed the sleek curves of developed musculature, even as the breasts beneath that top displayed the more typical type of feminine curves.

Her stance was actually better than Cullen's as well, showing superior balance and a quicker guard. She slapped aside a looping right hook so that it passed by her ear and shot a counter to the Mauler's jaw that snapped his head back. Her left foot swung up, hitting Cullen at the side of the knee and jarring the leg out from under him. His balance off, he went over onto his back, hitting the pit's dirt floor with a crash. This wasn't boxing, after all; a man had to look out for every part of the opponent. About the only things considered illegal were eye-gouging, groin attacks, and the use of weapons.

He'd learn that, too.

Junior glanced up and to his right as footsteps approached from that side. He watched as the chair next to him was pulled back and a man slipped into the seat.

"Evening, Junior."

"Torchwick."

Roman Torchwick grinned at him. He'd checked his bowler hat and white ulster at the door, so he wasn't quite so obvious a sight, but still stood out in a crowd. The redhead's boyish good looks and long-lashed eyes made him look almost as young as the girl in the pit and lent him a delicate appearance suggesting innocence and weakness.

That thought was almost enough to make Junior laugh.

Torchwick extracted a Havana from a silver cigar case, replaced the case under his coat, and struck a light. Once he got the cigar going, he leaned back indolently, his walking stick balanced against his leg, and exhaled a stream of smoke into the air. His every move was watched, hawk-like, by a pair of dark-haired twins standing at either end of the bar, one in a red dress and one in white.

"So, what brings you my way?" Junior said.

"What, I can't just be here for the fun and games?" Torchwick drawled, indicating the crowd with a wave of his hands.

This time Junior did laugh out loud.

"Seriously?"

"Well, okay, no. But it could have been. I'm a fun-loving guy, after all. I appreciate a pretty girl, whether she's spinning a roulette wheel or kicking somebody's teeth in. Can't say I'm much for bears"—he gestured towards a painting on the wall, one of many emphasizing the Kodiak Club's theme—"but I try not to let other people's bad taste be my problem."

Down in the pit, the Mauler was glowering at the woman; his scowl seemed to be growing at the same pace as her smile. He bull-rushed her, trying to hammer her against the boards with his full weight, but she spun out of the way so that the dull thud was just him crashing into them, and even got a kidney punch to his back before he swung around, whipping a savage left at her. The speed of the feral blow seemed to take her by surprise and it rocked her when it hammered into her shoulder. He came back off the boards, jabbing at her to try and use his superior reach, but she bobbed and weaved away from the punches, still grinning.

"But you're right," Torchwick said. "I did come here on business."

"Good to hear; business is what we do."

Torchwick tapped the ash from his cigar onto the floor.

"You've heard of the Star of the Tsang?"

"The Burmese ruby, brought back by Sir Reginald Galton-Chadbourne in his 1874 expedition to the Tsang Plateau. Sir Reginald was one of three survivors of the airship crash, and one of only two who returned alive to Rangoon. Pigeon's-blood red, of perfect quality, and worth twenty-five thousand pounds sterling at a conservative estimate."

Torchwick's lips twisted in a moue of distaste that would have suited a lady at a ball. Apparently, he'd been looking forward to explaining it himself to Junior and didn't like being upstaged.

"Exactly right; I applaud your knowledge of historic jewelry." He did so literally, clapping his black-gloved hands together. Junior just scowled at him.

"Did you have a point in coming here, or did you just want to hear the sound of your own voice?"

"Ah, the bear growled at me. Best not to bait it too much, I suppose."

"At least not when you're under my roof, come to buy my help."

"Your help? I hadn't realized we'd gotten that far along yet." Torchwick lifted the cigar to his lips and inhaled, the tip a glowing red point.

"Cut line; I haven't got time for your games."

"Now, Junior, the whole world, life, it's all nothing but one great game. Those dreadfully dull fellows in their bland little offices that send their agents scurrying off to every corner of the world even call it that outright, which is more wit than I'd have credited them with possessing. And there's quite an advantage to knowing that you're playing, besides."

"Oh? What's this big advantage you've got over the rest of us, Torchwick?"

"Simply this: having established that I am playing a game, I make quite certain that I play to win."

He leaned back smugly, as if he'd said something profound. And maybe he had, but if so Junior certainly didn't see it. "Play to win"—everybody did that. No one tried to lose at life; there were just some who were unlucky or stupid or both. Calling it a game didn't change anything about that.

Below, the Manchester Mauler seemed to be learning the rules of his new game. He'd gotten his reach countered by a savage side-kick to the sternum, but he managed to keep the blonde from following it up. She'd gone for a grapple, which would have given her the ability to force a surrender or break his arm if he didn't give in. Instead, he got free before she could apply the hold and was able to break the following lock as well.

Cullen returned with a quick counter that she blocked easily so she could riposte with a jab that bloodied his nose, but that was just a feint so that he could stomp hard on her front foot, pinning her in place so there was no was for her to sidestep the crushing blow to her abdomen that followed.

Of course, there was also no way for him to avoid the straight left that followed when her sculpted stomach muscles stopped his punch like an iron wall. He came free of her foot and she used a heel-kick to knock him off the boards again. The crowd howled, hissing and jeering the Mauler as he tried to prop himself up on the fence, but just as soon reversed themselves as he regained his feet and hurled himself with a bellow of rage at his opponent, cheering his maddened bull-rush with as much bloodlust as Cullen felt.

For her part, the blonde never stopped smiling.

"So you're going after the Star of the Tsang," Junior took the conversation away from life philosophies and back towards money.

"That I am. It's a pretty thing, the kind of treasure that would look good in a master thief's collection."

Junior snorted. If he was a betting man, he'd give five-to-one odds that the Star would be in Amsterdam within twelve hours of Torchwick snatching it and be reduced to a number of less dramatic but infinitely more salable stones. Just because Torchwick was a little odd didn't make him crazy. Junior didn't do business with crazy.

"You'd take a fiver off your grandmother if you thought you could get away with it."

"If I could take a fiver off my grandmother, I'd never have gotten into this line at all."

"I'd guess you'd say she played to lose, then?"

Torchwick's cane whipped around like a thunderbolt, the tip smacking into the floor right next to Junior's foot.

"There are topics, dear boy, that are not fit subjects for levity, and just look at you, you've gone and found one."

The two girls, red and white, had started forward from their unobtrusive positions by the bar, but Junior waved them back. Starting trouble was bad for business.

"Noted."

"Good. Now, the Star of the Tsang. Fascinating as a discussion of my ultimate intentions might prove for my biographer on some future date, the important point for you is that I do mean to acquire it, a task that I suspect will be worthy of my skills."

"A man like Sir Reginald, to come back alive from a place like that, he won't be taken lightly, even if it did leave him a wreck of his former self. Or especially because it did. I figure if a man goes through hell to get something, he's going to be serious about keeping it. Lucas Redmond found that out the hard way, three years back."

"Ah, I always did wonder what became of him. Some form of booby trap, I take it?"

Junior nodded once.

"Right."

"My good fortune, then that I know the perfect booby to step into that trap for me."

Junior looked at him in surprise, until he considered Torchwick's usual modus operandi and it fell into place what he meant.

"I always wondered what you did that for," he laughed.

"Well, it's also fun," Torchwick allowed, "but yes, Junior, when I make a move you can be certain that it will be made to my advantage."

It seemed to be a day for lessons. The Mauler's head snapped back when the girl's boot hammered him under the chin, her leg at full extension. He swayed dizzily for a couple of seconds, then dropped to his knees in the dirt. The crowd howled, thinking the end was near, and perhaps it was. In a daze, Cullen pitched forward, but as he did he flung out one paw-like hand, missing the blonde but sinking into, then grabbing hold of her waist-length hair.

"What I need from you, of course, is information," Torchwick went on.

"Of course."

"Details of security, where the Star is kept, what kind of protections are involved, everything you know about the Galton-Chadbourne household. The works, as it were."

"It'll cost you." Junior didn't even hesitate over the content of the request. It was what he did, after all. He dealt in commodities. The Kodiak Club offered some of those, but equally if not more lucrative was his status as the London underworld's premier information broker. Indeed, one could say that the club itself was part of the revenue from the information trade since it was the things he knew and the strings he could pull that kept it open.

"There's the difference between us, Junior. You just don't have an artistic soul, so all you can measure the world by is numbers, filthy lucre."

"Well, then, we're well-suited. Since money is just a nuisance to your elevated mind, you can just give it to me and we'll both be happy."

Torchwick rolled his eyes.

"Really, must everything you say be so predictable? You need to have a little fun once in a while." He gestured down at the pit fighters. "Even your employees are enjoying themselves more than you."

Cullen hadn't quite pulled his opponent down with him on purpose as much as his grip on the blonde's hair had reflexively clamped down with all his force and the big man's fall had dragged her down just by virtue of his being twice her size. It caught her by surprise; one moment she'd dropped him and the next she was the one being hauled down sideways to crash into the dirt.

Her grunt of pain seemed to act as a spark that roused the Mauler. Never letting go, he pushed himself back up with his free hand, hauling her back up to her knees with him. Balling his left hand into a hamlike fist, he drove it full into her face. Roaring as blood spattered, he got a leg under himself and pushed back to his feet.

He was barely more than a maddened animal now, hurt and raging against the one who'd inflicted the injury. He staggered around in a half-circle for momentum and drove the blonde face-first into the boards so hard they rattled. Cries burst from the crowd, some in shock, others excited, their blood pumping now. Keeping her pinned there, he raised his left arm and smashed his forearm down on her back in brutal, clubbing blows that were all about rage and savagery and none of the "sweet science."

Fist still clenched in her hair, he pulled her head back and smashed it against one of the support posts. Her legs buckled, and a sudden cry of shock and fear arose from the spectators. Cullen heard none of it, his own scream of blind fury echoing in his ears as he spun the woman around and hurled her across the pit. Her limp body crashed to the ground roughly in the middle and rolled several more feet. She fell facing him, the eyes looking in his direction but glazed and sightless.

The crowd was roaring now, too, and this time Cullen could hear them just fine. Cheers, curses, howls for blood. It was what they came here for, why they were watching an illegal pit fight, the savage violence of two people tearing at each other like animals. Their eagerness seemed to feed him; he threw his head back and roared out in primal exultation, the beast celebrating its victory over a rival. He pumped his fists in the air—

—gold gleamed in the gaslight—

—and the crowd fell dead silent.

Every eye in the building seemed locked on the Mauler's right hand, on the strands of hair dangling between the fingers. Among those eyes were two that were no longer glazed and glassy, but focused with deadly intent.

A mouth that was no longer smiling cried out into the silence, "You monster!"

Torchwick raised an eyebrow.

"Dare I ask?" he drawled.

"It's a teaching moment."

"Oh?"

Junior smiled thinly, with a faint trace of malice.

"Poor Bart, there, is about to learn Rule Number One of being a pit fighter."

She didn't so much stand up off the ground as exploded from it, slamming into Cullen's midsection with a thunderous shoulder charge. The breath gushed from his body as he was knocked back three steps. Two quick short-arm punches hammered his midsection as he tried to collect himself, then a left cross turned his head all but sideways, pain exploding through his jaw at the impact.

In desperation, Cullen launched a wild right roundhouse that carried enough force to lay out John L. Sullivan himself if it connected. It didn't come close to landing, though; the blonde blocked it with an uppercut to his elbow that resulted in an audible snap of bone that echoed through the pit. He'd dropped his left when he threw the punch, any thought of technique lost, and her own right landed bruisingly, fracturing at least one rib. She then came back with a left-elbow uppercut over his sagging right arm that sent him crashing back into the boards again, blood from his nose and mouth spattering the finery of those standing closest.

His vision blurring, Cullen came back at her with a straight left that was less of a punch and more a weak attempt at a shove. She grabbed his wrist and forearm and twisted. He screamed, dropping to his knees even as she pivoted into a wheel kick that came down onto his face like a leg drop and left him still and unmoving in the dirt.

The crowd exploded, screaming, cheering, cursing as money was won and lost, and the mix of their voices came together as if in a chant of exultation in a revivalist preacher's congregation.

"Yang Xiao Long! Yang! Xiao! Long! Yang! Xiao! Long!"

It rolled through the seating like a cresting wave; even Junior felt the force of it. Yang didn't fight often, these days, only when she needed a little extra money or, he sometimes thought, just when her life got too boring and she wanted something to keep her energy level cresting high. She was always a sure crowd-pleaser, though, especially when someone was stupid or unlucky enough to mess with her hair.

Nobody had to be taught that lesson more than once.

"Well?" Junior said.

"Half now, the other half after the job is successfully completed. If I'm going to trust my success to your information, then you can trust the second part of your payment to my skill."

"Done."

Torchwick dropped the cigar at his feet and used the ferrule of his cane to snuff it out.

"Then let's get to business." He waved one hand at the pit. "I'd like to arrange a little something extra to my tab, something a bit more tangible. After that display, I think I've seen quite a good omen. The Star of the Tsang will burn as brightly in my hand as that girl did in the fight, and anyone who gets in my way..."

He looked down at where the unconscious Mauler was being looked over by a staff doctor, and smiled gleefully.