The Hard Road

Chapter 26

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Half a mile of rust-pocked tin siding and crumbling black top stretched out behind a ragged chain link fence. The only hint of the wonders inside the abandoned yarn factory was the scrum of well dressed folk huddled under a single flickering street lamp. Two muscular door men verified their wesen identities and took the door fee.

Inside, crowds of well dressed people ambled past four packed bars, half a dozen sports books taking bets, and a wooden counter full of a thousand drawers and bottles holding various pills and powders. Men and women snorted lines of cocaine, shot heroine, and downed pills, while others crowded past with red and green plastic cups full of beer and mixed drinks. Further down were booths selling burgers, chicken, kebab, pasties, and fish and chips. Others offered live rabbits, chickens, and ducks. The most popular had whole sides of beef, pork, and mutton.

The sights and smells had his senses swimming. Brilliant lights burned dots into his vision while pungent perfumes and colognes clogged his head with stink. A recreational high would have been fun. He hadn't indulged since his Hogwarts days, when Voldemort's entire army lived on methyl-amphetamines and cocaine to keep up with their leader's constant crush. Azkaban fixed that, and The Legion drug tested aggressively. During basic, it was piss in a cup once a week, and guys still got caught.

His friends from the bar all kicked in on a chunk of Kehrseite thigh, complete with green tattoos of skulls and daggers. Cheering drew his attention to a caged boxing ring where a square-jawed, reptilian monster was smashing a tawny, long eared fox man. The fight ended with the fox fellow coughing blood and unable to stand. It was some sort of amateur fighting, so he found the chalk and wrote his name on the board. His next stop was to the bookies to place bets on a dozen different fights, including his own, and then back around to the bar.

The rattle of the cage door left him left him salivating. The pre-fight timer blinked one minute. It was only then that he noticed a hodgepodge of rusty swords, dented chest plates and gauntlets, a few maces, a morning star, and a dozen other banged up weapons. The man across from him snarled and leapt for a short sword and a small shield and then started tossing things aside. Draco blinked once. Shit! This is a real fight. He rummaged the pile, but the armor and the hilts of the edge weapons were all too small. Training with the lycanthropes flashed in his brain, What he really wanted was his lead filled steel baton, but that wasn't here, so he grabbed the next best thing, a dented cricket bat. A couple quick wrist flicks confirmed what he suspected. It swung slow, like lumber, and wanted to twist in his grip.

It was the bird in the hand, though, and his reach was now almost three times the other bloke's.

The clock flashed 00:00, a horn blared, and the man transformed. Tawny fur sheeted his body. A canine snout and pointy ears replaced the man's features. Black claws tipped his fingers and short, white fangs appeared when his lips curled under an old, rusty helmet. The man was some sort of canine wesen. Koszjek and DuPont had rattled off hundred different names he couldn't remember, but with the sword clanking against the man's shield, it didn't seem to matter.

The man lunged and swung his glaius wildly, like a stick, but Draco's chunk of wood crashed down against his shield, dropping the man to his knees. He winced as the sword bit into his calf, but he whipped the clumsy bat down again, smashing a dent deep into the old pot helmet. The itching and burning and wobbly ankle lasted a second, and he was back on his toes, ready to club his opponent like a wildling. The referee blew a horn and yelled as two men lunged into the cage. One shoved Draco back and raised his hand to the roar of crowd while the second peered into the glassy eyes of the fallen fighter. Two more scooped under the man's arm pits and escorted him out to a table. A huge, black sausage ran from the man's hair line to his cheek.

A group thronged Draco, peppering him with a dozen questions. They backed off when his nose raised and slobber drizzled off his jaws. The group from the bar laughed while he shoved every scrap of their leftovers down his gullet. The waitress gawked when he swallowed a half-eaten heap of chips and fried fish scraps and laid the empty basket on her tray. She waved for him to follow, and he was rewarded by scavenging her abandoned tables. They cheered him on and passed him the wretched tailings beer cans that reeked of mango and hops while he scavenged three dozen red plastic baskets full of chicken bones, rib bones, hamburger bun halves, lettuce garnishes, and gristle scraps.

The meal left his stomach growling, but at least his eyes were starting to focus again. His burn rate was fast outstripping his consumption, so he pushed the waitress for a lot of something really fresh. She waved him to follow, and behind a set of curtains were pens full of sheep, goats, rabbits, a cow, some donkeys and a horse. For an additional fee, she could even arrange kehrseite. He quirked an eyebrow. She revealed that fifty-thousand of the buggers die every year in London alone, and Wesen ought to do their part to reduce the burden on taxpayers. The thing was, the bodies hanging in the meat locker smelled... Off. Like sickness. Three hundred euros for a sheep sounded like highway robbery, but his were all at the manor, so he passed her the cash and picked a good, healthy looking ram.

Back at the bar, tonight's new friends were clapping him on the back and buying him dreadful pints that reeked of grapefruit, mango, and dragon fruit. Their talk of his next fight left him itching for another go. The second fight was with a slope shouldered construction worker whose body sheeted with slick, black fur with yellow stripes and a feline face full of sharp fangs. The Balaam kept extending and retracting his claws. He snarled, "I eat dogs like you for breakfast."

Draco curled his lips off his sharp teeth and drawled, "Pussy."

The big cat's claws ripped ribbons into his arms, but the pain poured the coals onto his already moon fueled rage. He tore the Balaam loose and swung him into the cage. The man flipped to pounce, but he slammed him on the padded floor and swung a fist down. The punch clanked the steel under the mat. The monster dodged the right, but his left smashed straight down into the crook beside the man's shoulder, snapping his collar bone like a twig. Draco's jaws were aching to tear into the man's throat when four lion monsters threw him off. He was up like a shot, and pitched the first into the cage before he could stop. They huddled into a triangle and bulled him off the fallen man, clapped him on the shoulder, and raised his hand. Their feline scents wafted into his nostrils. Lowen, all four of them. His stomach growled, but they stared and swallowed as skin sheeted over the muscle weaving into the gashes. The first one asked, "You contagious?"

"To lycanthropy? I'm immune."

Their expressions turned from worry to all smiles. They pushed a pitcher of beer into his hands, clapped him on the shoulder, and escorted him to the back, where they had him pick an animal, "On the house."

He was halfway through a striped meat goat and his third pitcher of beer when they made him the offer: They had a very special promotion for fighters like him. Five hundred euros bought him a fight with a real life werewolf. The purse brought ten-thousand euros plus as much as he could eat. In addition, he would earn the privilege of betting whatever he wanted on the fight. Maybe it was the beer, and maybe it was the moon roaring through his skull, but it was the very best idea he had heard in ages.