"Dear God," I murmured earnestly. I'd quit worrying about who could overhear me when I prayed a long time ago. When you live with werewolves, there is no such thing as a private conversation even if you are talking to God. "Please don't let me end up in a wheelchair again. No broken bones would be a happy bonus, but I'm not expecting you to make up for my stupidity quite so completely." And then, even more sincerely, I said, "Whatever happens, you don't let that vampire make it out of here still moving. If he wins, it will be bad news. Any help you can give us will be appreciated. Amen."
Stefan heard me. He didn't look, but his mouth softened, and he shook his head.
"Go," he said, and stepped back against the wall where the spectators had been allowed to watch. He stood next to Asil and Honey, which I had a bare instant to appreciate - if something happened to me, I knew he'd do his best to get the wolves out of here. Not that Asil would need much help.
Vampires are loud when they fight. I don't know why that took me by surprise. I've been in a lot of sparring matches, and they get noisy. Maybe it was because werewolf fights are quieter, the silence imposed by the need to keep hidden. Though people know about the wolves, public fighting is still forbidden.
My job was to watch Frost, and that was what I'd do. The basement was "in," Hao had explained. I couldn't go outside the basement without forfeiting my place in the battle. That didn't mean I'd get out of fighting. It just meant that Stefan would have to kill me. That's why they had to have a powerful Master of Ceremonies. He would enforce the rules during the fight and declare the winner.
I found a perch on top of a broken section of walls with my back to the outer wall. Probably Frost wouldn't try anything too soon. Unlike human fights - or even werewolf fights - vampire fights could take a long time. Not breathing, not needing a beating heart meant that a vampire was dangerous long after a werewolf would be unconscious. It takes a great deal of damage to make a vampire lose consciousness.
The soot, disturbed by the violent action of the fighters, flew in a foot-high miasma of blackness. The footing was made worse because only part of the floor was tiled. Not even Marsilia was immune to inconvenient stumbles.
I was very grateful for Asil's perspicacity in grabbing a coat for me. Once I stopped moving, I quickly grew chilled. Tucking my hands in my pockets, I encountered Zee's abbreviated magic sword. Tad's warnings rang in my head, so I had no intention of drawing it under anything but the most dire circumstances. But it gave me something to fiddle with - and that actually helped me focus on something besides how terrified I was.
The action was so quick it was difficult to split my attention, and I was trying to watch Frost. Even so, I caught glimpses of Hao fighting and wished my sensei could see him.
I have to admit that Shamus attracted my attention first. Vampires usually look pretty human. I've only seen their true faces, what the monster inside looks like, a couple of times. Once would have been enough, but Shamus wore his monster on the outside.
His eyes glowed - not like a flashlight. It was more like a small Christmas tree light or a Siamese cat's eyes in the dark if the cat's eye actually lit up instead of catching and reflecting light. In a cat, it was cool - in a vampire it was just freaky. His lips were pulled back until his face looked as though it had been created to be a canvas to hold fangs and those faintly sparkling eyes. His fingernails lengthened until they were nearly as good a weapon as a werewolf's claws. There was nothing human left in Shamus at all.
Wulfe had released him from his chain, though the collar was still on. If Shamus wasn't twice Hao's weight, he was very near to it. He was fast - and, as promised, utterly ferocious. After Hao hit him once, Shamus was totally intent on reducing Hao to a pile of sludge.
But Hao was never where Shamus thought he was.
"Flow like water," Sensei Johanson often said, usually in a tone of exasperation. And he came pretty close. But I'd never seen anything like Hao.
Hao flowed like water. Sharp claws passed harmlessly by - and so close that a quarter of an inch more would have had Hao's skin sliced like a prisoner rolled in razor wire. He twisted, stopped, leaned back, and nothing touched him. It was beautiful.