Women of the Otherworld 10.5 - Counterfeit Magic (6 page)

* * * *

“Witch versus sorcerer,” the balding man was saying.
“The match of the century.”

Actually, the match of the past
few
centuries, and a rivalry I’d be happy to see die a quiet death. The man continued expounding on his idea for setting Savannah up in a special event. Ethan was listening, but I could see he wasn’t interested.
Too gimmicky for his tastes.

“They’d each use their own magic, of course,” the promoter continued.
“The ultimate showdown.
Prove for once and for all who has the better magic.”

“It’s not a matter of
better
,” I said. “It’s different, and if you restrict a witch to her own spells, you’re seriously handicapping her in the ring. While we have minor offensive magic, such as the fireball, most of ours is defensive, like that binding spell. If we have to use our own, you’d have a witch fending off a sorcerer, but doing very little damage, which only lends credence to the stereotype of witches.”

“Run, little witch-mouse, run,” Savannah muttered. “Hide from the big bad sorcerer.”

Ethan nodded. He got it, but the promoter looked as if he’d tuned out halfway through my explanation.

“If you
were
to have a witch versus sorcerer match,” I continued, “it would make more sense to let them use any magic they know.”

Savannah grinned. “
Which would benefit the witch.
Most of us learn sorcerer magic, too. Sorcerers don’t bother with ours. If that puts them at a disadvantage, it’s their own fault. Not like they
can’t
learn it.”

They continued talking. The conversation wasn’t going anywhere useful—not for our investigation’s purposes, anyway. I looked around for Tommy and spotted the fighter in the back corner. A man was clearly trying to talk to him, but Tommy didn’t want to listen, shaking his head, arms crossed,
gaze
traveling the room.

I backed up a little for a better look at the situation. The other man was in his fifties.
Heavyset.
A former fighter?
A badly set nose said yes. The cut of his suit, though, insisted he was no has-been.
Another promoter?
An agent?

Whatever he was trying to tell Tommy, he really wanted to say it, gesturing and leaning forward. The younger man just leaned back and kept shaking his head. Then Tommy went still. He turned to the old fighter, giving him his full attention.

The man said something. Tommy’s gaze flitted around the room and landed on his brother. He put a hand on the older man’s upper arm, guided him into the office, and shut the door behind them.

I was about to excuse myself from the conversation—and see if I could overhear Tommy’s—when the next match was announced. Both were return fighters, so their supernatural types weren’t a secret. When they announced that one was a teleporting half-demon, I stopped.

My gaze slid to the office. As interesting as that conversation looked, it was unlikely to have anything to do with Jared Cookson. Better to take advantage of this segue.

I turned to Savannah. “Did you hear that?
An Evanidus?
That must be tough to beat.”

“Hell, yeah,” she said. “He can just zip away every time his opponent throws a punch. I’m surprised you allow them, Ethan. Is it even possible to beat one?”

The promoter chuckled. “Oh, yeah, it’s possible.” He nudged Ethan. “Remember that girl a few months ago?”

Ethan shook his head.

“You should have seen her,” the promoter said.
“Only a
Tripudio
, but still able to teleport far enough to avoid a blow.
Really pretty girl.
All dressed up nice, like you were. Only with her, it wasn’t a show.”

“Never done more than bitch-slap another girl?” Savannah said.

“I doubt she’d even done that.”

“Why would a chick like that even bother showing up?”

Ethan shrugged. “With her powers, I suppose she thought it would be easy money.”

The promoter laughed.
“Easy money for everyone who bet
against
her.
Even the guy she came with did.”

“Huh,” I said.
“Sounds like maybe she threw the fight.”

I glanced at Ethan, but his expression was blank—intentionally blank, I suspected.

“I bet she did,” Savannah said. “How’d she react when she found out her friend bet against her? No, let me guess. She was furious.
Stormed out.
Put on a
helluva
show.”

“You got it.” The promoter nodded sagely, as if he’d known it was an act, but I could tell the possibility hadn’t occurred to him.

Ethan gave no reaction. This wasn’t a revelation to him. Spend any amount of time around Ethan
Gallante
, and you couldn’t mistake him for a dumb hustler, easily conned.

It would have looked as if Ava had cheated. Then she roared off in her partner’s car, leaving him stranded with the club owners. He wasn’t seen again… until his body washed up on the nearby shore.

According to our file, the
Gallantes
had a reputation for running a fair operation. How far would they go to protect it?

“—how you have to do it,” the promoter was saying. He was pointing at the ring, where the Evanidus half-demon was using his power not only to escape blows, but to land them.

Savannah nodded. “If you’re a good fighter already, it’s a useful power. Otherwise, you’re just going to wear yourself out dodging blows.”

The half-demon’s opponent—a sorcerer—hit him with a knockback. The half-demon staggered against the ropes.

“The sorcerer isn’t trying to hide his hand gestures,” Savannah said. “He’s telegraphing his moves. The half-demon should have been able to zip out of the way easily.”

“He should have,” the promoter said. “Now watch.”

The half-demon righted himself, shaking it off, dazed. The sorcerer smiled, lifted his fingers for a stronger spell—and got grabbed in a head-lock as the half-demon teleported behind him.

The promoter shook his head. “How many times has Davy used that move?”

“Often enough that Leo’s an idiot for not seeing it coming,” Ethan said as the referee counted down.

The match ended. The half-demon—Davy—left the ring, grinning and accepting high-fives as he went. He headed toward Tommy, and I realized I’d been so caught up in the fight that I hadn’t seen Tommy leave the office, which meant I hadn’t seen his expression when he did. Now he was grinning at Davy, and the guy who’d taken him aside was nowhere to be seen. Damn.

“Now, Davy would make a good match-up for you, Georgia,” Ethan murmured. “Some of our boys would be an ass about fighting a woman, but Davy’s a good guy.” He paused. “Or perhaps we should start you slower and work up to Davy as a main event.”

“That might be a good idea,” Savannah said.
“Little out of my league right now.”

Ethan nodded approvingly, as if he’d been testing whether her ego outweighed her common sense. He’d value the latter, and Savannah was adroit enough to realize that.

“Perhaps Tommy, then.
He’s a better fighter than Davy, but if we let you use your powers, it would be an even match.
A good exhibition event.
Introduce you to a bigger crowd. Work up some excitement in the circuit.” He started toward his brother, and waved for us to follow.

Davy was still pushing through the throng. When he disappeared, Savannah laughed.

“Taking the express route,” she said. “Damn, that’s a sweet power.”

We watched for Davy to reappear beside Tommy. Instead, a cry went up from the crowd. Someone shouted for a doctor.

Ethan raced over. Davy
lay
face-down on the floor. Someone reached out to turn him over.

“No!” Ethan said. “Don’t touch him. His neck may have been injured in the fight.”

“Is he breathing?” someone asked.

“Of course,” Ethan said. “He’s just unconscious.”

“He doesn’t look like he’s—”

“He’s fine.” Tommy stepped between his brother and the crowd.
“Now everyone out.
We need to get Dr. Phillips in here.
Rico!”

The bouncer appeared from the cloak room.

“Get the boys and clear this place. Have Pete wait in the parking lot for the doctor.”

I squeezed in beside Ethan. “I know first aid. I—”

“I’m a paramedic,” Ethan said.

As I rose, I took a closer look at Davy. Then the employees from the parking lot swarmed in, shooing everyone out of the gym. When one tried to move me along, I said I needed to find Savannah and ducked away.

I found her cornered by the promoter again. He was still talking up a sorcerer-witch match. If Ethan wasn’t interested, he knew another fight club that would be. She tried to shake him. He wasn’t budging, and soon we were swept along with the others, out the door and through the field to our rental.

When we reached the lot, Savannah finally brushed off the promoter, taking his card and promising to call and “talk about it.”

Even that brief pause was enough to have one of the guards swoop down and bustle us along until we were in our car and lining up to leave the lot.

“Really eager to get us out of here, aren’t they?” Savannah said. When I didn’t answer, she glanced at me. “And you know why, don’t you?”

“I do. That fighter wasn’t unconscious. He was dead.”

Taking Care of Business

When the line of cars from the fight club turned right toward Santa Cruz, Savannah turned left. She circled back down the next road until we came out on the other side of the club. We parked,
then
walked through an outcropping of woods.

The secondary lot was empty. Even the primary lot only had three cars in it—the Mercedes and the pickup from earlier, plus a silver BMW.

“Ethan, Tommy and the doctor,” Savannah whispered. “They’ve gotten rid of everyone else.
Even the staff.”

A crashing in the undergrowth had us launching cover spells. It was a man, tramping through the field to the small lot. He couldn’t have been much over forty, but he heaved and puffed like a locomotive, jowls and belly quivering. The doctor, I presumed, and not one who heeded his own advice about healthy living. As he drew closer, I could see the medical bag in one hand and an envelope in the other. He climbed into his car and roared off.

We released our cover spells.

“Paid him off and sent him on his way,” Savannah said. “But why call him in at all, if the guy was already dead?”

“Covering their backs.
The staff saw the doctor arrive, and if anyone asks the doctor later, he’ll say Davy was fine.”

“All that to hide one death?
It didn’t even happen in the ring.
No offense, but maybe you’re wrong and the guy really is fine.”

I waved toward the barn.
“One way to find out.”

* * * *

That top-notch soundproofing job really didn’t help when we wanted to eavesdrop. They’d locked the door, too. An unlock spell solved that.

We slid in under blur spells. The voices came clear then—Ethan and Tommy, arguing.

“Do you think I
want
to do this?” Ethan was saying. “If you have a better idea, please let me know, because this is a shitty thing to do to a good kid like Davy.”