Jetta’s tired. Her chest is rising and falling in rapid breaths, and sweat has plastered her blunt two-toned bangs against her pale forehead. Perry has the advantage, not just in size, but because he wasn’t the one performing for the second half of the show. Jetta’s energy is waning.
In a surprise attack, he knocks her with a level kick to the stomach, nearly sending her on her ass. With one arm clutched around her middle, she tries to gain ground between them to give herself time to recover, but Perry’s not letting her have an inch. She nearly trips over two of the unconscious shifters sprawled on the ground behind her, barely steadying her feet in time.
Swiping at some blood trickling from her swollen nose, she uses the unconscious forms to her advantage by leaping over them with swift agility. Perry follows, but his steps are blockier, his feet larger, and he doesn’t move as quickly as she does.
Vamps standing in the front surge closer, their hands gesturing in tandem with their shouts. Perry seems to be the crowd favorite. He usually is, since he’s built like a bear. No surprise there since he shifts into one.
A couple of the vamps inch closer still, straining to reach the female with the sweetened blood where some of it is dripping onto the floor from her unconscious form. But Kaazu’s magic makes itself known when one of them gets too close, and a barrier of spitting electricity shows itself for a split second, jolting the vamp back.
Stepping on top of his unconscious comrades, Perry stalks Jetta without any sort of poise. Whereas every move of Jetta’s is somehow artistic and pretty to watch, Perry lumbers forward without any of her grace.
Having nearly made a full circle around each other, Jetta swipes at the sweat on her brow. I can see exhaustion burdening her bones and oppressing her muscles. She won’t be able to last much longer.
My own power is waning too. I’ve pushed it tonight, far more than I usually do. But it was a necessity. And despite the fact that Jetta’s collar still sits around her neck, something is different. I can feel it.
Perhaps it’s the half-conjurer blood that runs through my veins, but I can feel magic. I can feel my own collar right now, a lazy cyclone of power that spins around my throat in a constant hum. It’s strong magic. Effective magic. Only the best conjurers can make collars like this.
Nearly perdurable, the collars won’t break or come loose or weaken, no matter what instrument you take to it. A fact made known to every single one of my troupe members over the years as we’ve all tried and failed to get it off. A conjurer put it on us, so it takes a conjurer to remove it, and Kaazu would never let any of us go.
The pretty contract that he has us all sign—the one that promises riches and glory for just a few years of service—is a lie. The devil is in the details. Or in this case, the catch is in the collar.
Sure, he promises to pay us handsomely for each show. And he does...in theory. But what he doesn’t tell you? He charges us for everything. Training. Costumes. Hell, even food. His protection. The beds we sleep in. The roofs we sleep under. Everything.
The training costs are the worst. Those can be up to five figures if he feels like it. And we have no say in it at all or any leg to stand on to fight it. Because we signed the contract that gave him full control.
Astronomical prices add up and up until there are so many zeroes, we owe him. The laughable pennies he subtracts from those amounts as our “pay” don’t even make a dent.
By the time our contract is over, we are in so much debt to him that our freedom no longer belongs to us. So he adds more years, and we quickly realize that there is no leaving. We belong to him, with his made up debts and deficits, forever.
We wear these collars without hope of ever getting them off. I’ve worn mine since I was five years old and my family sold me because the money meant more to them than I did. I didn’t even know how to write my name yet, let alone read, when Kaazu made me sign on the dotted line. A shaken scribble, a blue slash against white paper, and I