deserve a little more for what they’ve been through? We’re not talking about ancestors. Most of the Shifters who were slaves are still alive. They lost their freedom to make their masters rich.”
“We’re giving privileges to animals.” Audrey paused near a torch. The flames rivaled her hair color. “If you have compassion for them, this will not work out in your favor. I would hate to lose another.”
I folded my arms. “So I’ll be fighting Shifters?”
“That’s exactly what I mean. Shifters and only Shifters.”
“You know as well as I do that a Mage can knock a Shifter out with a blast, and it wouldn’t take long to finish the job. They’re tough, but it would take a large animal or a couple of wolves to make it a fair fight. Especially with all these weapons conveniently hanging on the walls that they wouldn’t be able to use in animal form.”
“Precisely.”
In the quiet of the room, all I heard was the crackling fire from the torches. I ruminated over the facts and concluded that people were paying to watch only one outcome, and that was for a Shifter to die. Maybe they took bets on how long it would last or which weapon would do it. The people most likely to watch these fights would be ancients, ones with pockets deeper than this ring. Maybe some of them had once owned Shifters and were bitter about their circumstance.
“What happens if a Mage loses and can’t fight anymore?” I asked, thinking how the dead women weren’t Shifters.
“Now that’s a smart question.” When she resumed walking along the wall, I turned to watch her. “Rumor has it you’re a serious fighter, one who isn’t a stranger to death. Only one fighter will walk away from the matches down here. Some of the animals won’t kill women, so they leave their maimed bodies on the floor. When a Mage is dominated, we stop the fight. We don’t like disappointing our clients, so that Mage will never fight here again.”
“When the Shifter doesn’t kill them and you can’t use them anymore, do you scrub their memories?”
“Believe it or not, scrubbing memories isn’t guaranteed. People have gone on to remember fragments of their life, and I can’t afford to have anyone remembering my face or anything that could compromise my business. We have no choice but to put them down.”
A cold chill swept over me. “How do you do that?” I asked, staring at the chopping block.
She caught the direction of my gaze. “We’re not monsters. After Pablo heals them, he removes their light and kills them humanely. Too many bodies showing up with animal wounds would draw attention, and skilled Sensor detectives might be called in. We had someone cleaning for us, but when we found out where he was dumping them, we decided to find another way. It’s not as easy as you might think to get rid of a body. The Shifters are easier to manage because they die in animal form. We can drop them off in the woods and no one would look twice at their remains. I’m telling you this, Robin, because you need to know what’s at stake. You can’t afford to lose. If you lose, even if you live, you won’t leave alive. If you triumph, as I fully expect you to, then you will retire a very wealthy woman. By that point you’ll be in so deep that you won’t be able to report us without signing your own death warrant.”
I looked up at the archways, imagining the faces of a captive audience cheering for blood. Cheering for death. “Where do you get the Shifters from?”
When Audrey circled back to the doorway, she lifted a torch from the inside hall. “Come with me.”
I caught up and fell into step beside her. “I didn’t notice windows up there or private rooms.”
“This is an exclusive fellowship,” she replied as she led me through a narrow hall with a low ceiling. “We haven’t added new members for the past eighty years.”
“Aren’t you afraid someone might charm them and accidentally find out about this operation?”
“No. We have safeguards in place.” Audrey looked over her shoulder at me. “Most of the girls ask about the money first.”
My face flushed. I was treating this like an investigation more than a job offer, so it was time to switch gears. “I just like to know what I’m getting into first. Money makes people do stupid things.”