Skin by Kate Krake Page A

beating the snot out of whatever unfortunate had landed as
her opponent that week, occasionally getting beaten back in
return.
    The
seating was arranged in a basic amphitheatre and on one side, a
narrow, platform rose above where the crowd would be. Sveta
unlocked the door at the bottom of the platform and lead me up the
iron stairs. This was her throne.
    “ I can
feel you are nervous,” she said, resting her hand on my
knee.
    In the centre
of the room, a stage glowed beneath spotlights. It was shaped like
a cross, raised six foot above the arena floor and surrounded by a
tall wire mesh net.
    It was
not long before a crowd filled the seats below us, two hundred
people give or take. The air buzzed with a happy anticipation I
didn ’t share.
    Imogen
took a seat near Sveta ’s private dais. She gave me a
small round of exaggerated silent applause. I didn’t like it,
whatever it was meant to mean.
    The overhead
lights went off with a heavy shunting sound and the hall lit up
with a series of sharp spotlights from overhead. The crowd began to
clap in unison, a slow marching beat. Sveta rested her hand on the
top of mine and sat back comfortably in her seat with a small
satisfied smile of a queen surveying her domain.
    Two
trapdoors opened on opposite ends of the cross stage and two
figures wearing leather, Oriental inspired armour over otherwise
bare muscled skin emerged onto the platform, marching to the rhythm
of the crowd ’s applause. They met in the centre of the
cross and bowed, touching their staves. One had a long tail, like a
monkey’s, curled up to his back. The other looked wholly
human.
    “ These
are the Guardians,” Sveta whispered.
    The Guardians
stayed locked into position and the crowd continued its clap.
Another trapdoor opened on another end of the cross. A thin man
emerged with a casual stride, a complete contrast to the theatrics
of the soldiers. He wore only a small pair of shorts. He was tall
and lean, with a skinny sunken belly and built, wiry chest. Black
eyes stared out of a fur covered face, masked like a raccoon. He
stretched his mouth open to reveal a bank of needle-like fangs and
howled, a thin cry that made my skin tingle like it was blistering
and shrinking.
    The crowd
cheered, breaking their rhythmic clap into a riot of cheering
applause. The raccoon man took to his knee in a crouch at his end
of the cross and waited. The applause subsided and returned to the
beat.
    A murmur rose
out of the crowd which turned into a name, chanted over and over
like a summoning spell. Darius. Darius. Darius.
    Another
trapdoor opened at the opposite end of the stage to where the
raccoon had emerged and the crowd erupted into a furious cheer. A
man bigger than any I had ever seen, moved onto the stage with his
arms held aloft. He was a giant. Bigger than any Mech
I ’d known. His arms bulged like two battering rams,
his chest heaved, his pecs looked more like boulders than anything
human. His legs were like tree trunks. A short smear of grey hair
bristled on top of a head that was too small for the rest of him,
like a shrunken voodoo head.
    “ Are you
ready?” Sveta whispered. Her breath was hot and her skin still bore
the lingering salty smell of the sauna.
    “ For
what?” I whispered back, but she didn’t answer me.
    The
Guardians issued an echoing shout and moved to the ends of the
cross where they ’d come from, standing like sentinel
guards as the two others came to meet in the centre. I would have
thought man and beast but with the size of this Darius, I could not
conceive that he too wasn’t some kind of beast.
    They circled
one another but neither moved to make an attack. Another door
opened above their heads and some mechanics deep in the roof
shunted to life. A long tube-like cage was lowered to the cross and
my breath caught in my chest.

Contest

    The crowd
whooped and whistled as the cage sides lowered. A werewolf sloped
its hunched and hairy body onto the cross.
    Like
everyone else in