Free Right Hand Magic by Nancy A. Collins Page A

bloodthirsty reputation in the human world, but among our own kind there are only two situations where fighting to the death is acceptable—mating and protecting our families,” Lukas explained. “Anything else is an unpardonable sin. You must understand that what we were being forced to do was an abomination.”
    The picture faded out for a second. When it returned, I saw the henchman with the fauxhawk who had drugged Lukas unlocking the were-cat’s cage. He had a buddy with him, and they were both laughing at something. The one with the fauxhawk pushed a button on this gadget that looked like a universal remote. Suddenly Lukas fell to the ground in convulsions. The bastards tormenting him laughed and jolted him at least two more times before fixing a leash onto his collar.
    They took him out of his cage and led him, still in his human form, out of the kennel and into some kind of tunnel. At the end was a door. Next to it stood the werewolf Phelan.
    “They’re taking me to my first fight,” Lukas explained, his voice oddly flat. “I could hear people shouting and laughing on the other side of the door. I could also smell sawdust and blood. Lots of blood.”
    Phelan grinned at Lukas and held up a hypodermic. The werewolf then shoved the needle into Lukas’s arm and opened the door. The two Malandanti threw Lukas across the threshold like bouncers kicking out a drunk, then slammed the door shut behind him. By the time the boy hit the sawdust, he was already changing into his were-cougar aspect.
    Lukas stood at the bottom of a pit fifty feet across, with wooden sides twenty feet high, topped with bales of razor wire. Beyond the pit were bleachers full of spectators. Some were human, some were Kymerans, but all of them were waving handfuls of money. I could tell they were shouting at the top of their lungs, even though there was no sound.
    Of all the faces peering down at Lukas, one in particular caught my attention. It belonged to a heavyset Kymeran with slicked-back hair. He was wearing an expensive suit and had gold rings on every finger.
    “Who’s that?” I asked, pointing to the figure in the gazing glass.
    “That’s Boss Marz,” Lukas said, a mixture of hatred and fear in his voice. “I knew it was him the moment I smelled him. He’s the alpha, for sure.”
    A panel in the wall on the other side of the pit slid open. I couldn’t see what was on the other side, but I knew it had to be big and pissed off from the way the spectators overhead started shaking more handfuls of money at one another. The picture suddenly went hay-wire, and when it reappeared I saw Lukas, still in his were-cat form, roaring in triumph, his fur sticky with blood. The crowd overhead was even wilder than before. Then I realized Lukas was straddling a disemboweled African lion. I don’t know if Boss Marz caught it in the wild or if he bought it from a circus, but I could tell from its ribs that he had starved it before setting it loose.
    “I don’t really remember much about the fights themselves,” Lukas explained.“The drugs that force the change also trigger a blood rage that makes rational thought almost impossible.”
    The picture inside the gazing crystal blurred and re-focused itself long enough to show a glimpse of Lukas in his were-cat form battling first a jaguar, then a grizzly bear, and finally a gryphon.
    “Bloody abdabs!” Hexe gasped upon seeing the eagle-headed lion. “Those things are on the Endangered Species List. And that son of a bitch uses them for pit fighting?”
    The image in the crystal resolved into that of Lukas being taken from his cage and led down the tunnel yet again. Phelan gave him the same shot, just like before, and then sent him into the pit. But this time his opponent wasn’t a beast, or even a half-beast. It was a werewolf.
    “That’s Rufus.” Lukas’s eyes shone with unshed tears as he stared at his friend’s image, trapped within the crystal. “Every one knows that once the lunacy