didn’t question it, just turned around and started leading us back toward the curtained area and the fighting. I should have known better than to try to leave the fighting early; that never really worked out for me. Onward, motherfuckers, onward.
20
CLAUDIA HELD THE curtain to a narrow hallway, but it was like a wall at a sports stadium. It curved around to either side, and I could hear the movement of a lot of people just out of sight. The noise was murmurous like an ocean made up of the movement and sounds that people make even when they think they’re not making any noise at all. She led us to the left, and we passed more curtained doorways leading into the stadium, or I guess the fighting pit.
We came to the first door, but it didn’t lead toward the sound of the crowd, it was on the wall opposite all the curtained entrances. There was also a tall, muscular guard standing by the closed door. He looked impressively big until Claudia got close enough and then you realized he was at least six inches shorter than her. Hard to be the biggest dog in the room when you’re not.
“Claudia,” he said, giving that little nod I’d seen people give me in the crowd after the fight. Among the rodere it seemed to mean more than just an acknowledgment of I see you.
Claudia didn’t nod back, which was my first clue that maybe it was like a salute in the military. You had to salute officers, but it was up the higher rank if they saluted back. She just said, “Franco,” but that was all. Apparently, she didn’t think he rated a return salute.
He opened the door for her, but when I tried to follow her in, he put an arm in my way. I stared at the arm and thought about my options. “Franco, why is your arm blocking my way?” My voice sounded normal, almost pleasant. I recognized the tone; it meant I was ready for a fight, but I was going to try to talk my way out of it first. Conservation of energy and all that.
Pierette said from behind me, “Shall I move him for you?”
“You should not be in here at all, cat,” Franco said.
Claudia was on the other side of his arm now. “Franco, she needs a doctor.”
“Anyone who lets themselves get that cut up just coming through the rats outside the pit doesn’t get to use our doctors tonight. Those are the rules, Claudia, you know that.”
“It’s not her blood,” Claudia said, stepping out of the doorway, so that I had to back up and Franco had to move his arm. Pierette stayed a little behind and to one side of me. I stepped back far enough to give myself room in case I actually had to fight my way through Franco to get medical care. Pierette moved wide and to the side of me so we could flank him if it was allowed. I admired the wererats’ having so much culture and tradition, but I was getting tired of being on the wrong side of it all.
I was hoping a dramatic gesture could cut through the bullshit, so I pulled the front of my T-shirt away from my body. It clung to my skin, soaked, and I fought the urge to start screaming Get it off me, because up to that point I’d been ignoring the sensation of so much blood in my clothes that it was like I’d been dumped in a pool fully clothed. I knew logically that I had to have been this messy before; I mean I was a vampire executioner and had spent years beheading chickens or slitting the throats of bigger livestock to raise zombies. I had to have had this much blood on me at some point, right? But if I had ever been more blood-soaked than I was right that second, I couldn’t remember it.
I pulled enough of the T-shirt out of the front of my pants so that I could squeeze it out like you’d wring a wet washcloth, but instead of water I wrung blood out on the floor.
I looked up at Franco as I held my newly bloody hands out from my body. “Not my blood.”
“You are really unpopular to have that many of us challenge you,” he said.
“Only one person tried to kill me outside, just one,” I said.
He looked even more disdainful and arrogant. “One person hurt you this