Chapter 318: The Reaper

Elena came back around the corner and stopped.

She looked at Liam. Then at Wrath. Then at Liam again.

"Why do you both look like that," she said.

"Like what," Liam said.

"Like you just walked out of something," she said. She looked between them with the specific eyes of someone who had been reading rooms for long enough that rooms had stopped being able to hide things from her.

Wrath inclined his head slightly toward her. "Your observation is correct as always, madam," he said. "There was a small encounter."

"What kind of encounter," she said.

"Marcus Vell," Wrath said. "He introduced himself to Mr. Liam in the corridor."

Elena looked at Liam.

Liam looked at the corridor.

She was quiet for a moment. Then something moved across her face that was not worry and was not alarm and landed somewhere considerably warmer than either of those things.

"There is no need to be worked up," she said. "Today you go in there and you show them what you are made of. That is all. You shock every single person in that building."

"Don’t hype me too much," Liam said.

She looked at him. "I would not say it if I did not believe it."

He looked at her.

He smiled. Small and real and arriving before he decided on it.

She held his gaze for a moment and then looked at Wrath. "Take him to get changed," she said. "I will see you both before it starts."

She turned and went back the way she had come, her coat moving with her, her posture carrying everything it always carried.

Wrath looked at Liam.

"This way," he said.

---

Wrath took him to a room that was at the end of a corridor that ran deeper into the building than any of the others they had passed through.

Wrath opened the door and stepped back and Liam went in and stopped.

It was large.

Considerably larger than anything the outside of this building had suggested was possible inside it.

It ceiling was high, the walls finished properly, the floor a dark hardwood that had been maintained rather than neglected.

A wide couch along one wall, low and deep, the kind that had been chosen for comfort rather than appearance.

A television mounted opposite it, large and dark until it was turned on. In the far corner a small pool sat recessed into the floor, steam rising from the surface of it, the water moving very slightly, the smell of something herbal reaching across the room from it.

A wooden surround ran around the edge of it with two steps leading down. Lighting above it was softer than the rest of the room, directed downward.

A man stood near the far wall with his hands at his sides and his posture the posture of someone whose function in this room was to be available.

He nodded once when Liam came in and returned his eyes to the middle distance.

On the wall above the couch, small brass signs indicated what was where.

A W above the main door in the style of something that had been designed rather than printed. Directional details for the smaller rooms opening off the main space.

Liam looked around at all of it.

"This is yours?" he said.

"It is," Wrath said.

"This is your changing room."

"Yes."

Liam looked at the pool. At the television. At the man standing against the wall.

"It’s nice," he said.

"If you become a number," Wrath said, "you will have one of your own." He said it the way he said most things, as information rather than incentive. "Perhaps larger."

Liam looked at him.

"I can’t wait," he said.

Something moved in Wrath’s face that was the closest thing to amusement that Wrath’s face regularly produced. He pointed toward one of the doors opening off the main room. "Change in there," he said. "Miss Elena prepared something for you. It is already inside."

"Alright," Liam said.

He went through the door.

The room inside was smaller, a proper room rather than a space, with a bed against one wall dressed in dark linen, a mirror on the opposite wall running its full length, a second television mounted above a low dresser.

The lighting in here was warmer still, the kind that existed specifically to make a person feel less like they were about to do something that required genuine courage.

A bag sat on the bed.

He crossed the room and picked it up and unzipped it and looked inside.

He stood there for a moment.

Then he smiled.

---

The sound reached him before anything else did.

He was standing in the corridor outside the main floor entrance and the sound of the crowd came through the walls and the doors and everything between him and it, the specific rolling sound of a large number of people in an enclosed space who were already loud and were about to get louder.

He had been in rooms with crowds before.

This was different.

Then the voice started.

It came through speakers mounted somewhere above the main floor, and the voice was the kind of voice that had found its purpose in life and was living that purpose with complete commitment.

"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN."

The crowd responded immediately, the volume jumping in the way crowds jumped when the thing they had been waiting for announced itself.

"Welcome. Welcome, welcome, welcome. To the only place in this city where the truly extraordinary comes to prove itself. You all know where you are. You all know what this is. And you all know that what you are about to see tonight cannot be unseen."

A pause. Perfectly timed.

"Now. Before we get into it. I need to take a moment. Just a moment. To acknowledge the fact that you people showed up TONIGHT."

Applause. Genuine and sustained.

"Because tonight is not a regular night. No no no. Tonight is the kind of night that people who are not in this room right now are going to spend the next several years being told about by people who were. Tonight is a HISTORIC night. And I do not use that word lightly. I use that word because the last time two numbered fighters shared this floor, I was not standing here. The man who was standing here is no longer with us. That is how long ago that was."

The crowd went quiet in the specific way crowds went quiet when something real had arrived in a sentence.

"So before we do anything else. Before I introduce anyone or say another single word about what is coming. I want every single person in this building to take one second and understand where you are standing right now."

A beat of silence.

"Good. Now."

The energy shifted. The pause had done its work and the voice let it go and moved forward.

"Let’s talk about our first fighter tonight. You know him. You have watched him. Some of you have bet on him and won. Some of you have bet against him and learned a lesson you apparently needed to learn twice. He has been on this floor more times than most people have had memorable meals. He has faced things in this cage that would make reasonable people reconsider their life choices and he has walked out of this cage every single time. Ladies and gentlemen, with a record that speaks for itself and a presence that speaks even louder."

The music changed.

Something with weight in it, the kind of soundtrack that had been chosen specifically for the entrance of something that did not need the soundtrack but appreciated the acknowledgment.

"NUMBER EIGHT. MARCUS. VELL."

The crowd produced a sound that Liam felt in his chest through the wall.

He heard the entrance from where he was standing. He could not see it but he could feel the crowd responding to it, the specific shape of the noise changing as Marcus Vell crossed whatever space was between the corridor and the cage, the applause building and then finding a sustained level that told him everything he needed to know about how this man was received in this room.

Then the voice again.

"Look at him. Look at this man. Ladies and gentlemen is this not one of the most impressive things you have seen standing upright in your entire lives? Because I have been standing in this building for a long time and I will tell you something honestly. When Marcus Vell walks into a room, I check whether my paperwork is in order. Just in case."

Laughter. The crowd warming to the voice doing what the voice was very good at doing.

"Now. Now. We come to our second fighter tonight. And this is where I have to be careful. Because I was told things about this young man. I was told to take him seriously. I was told specifically, and I am quoting directly here, do not underestimate him."

A pause.

"Which. You know. Fine. Okay. I am a professional. I take instruction well. But I will say this." The voice dropped slightly, the confessional register of someone bringing the crowd in on something. "When they told me his record. I said okay. When they told me his background. I said okay. When they told me he was going to walk out onto this floor tonight and face NUMBER EIGHT on his very first match."

Another pause. Longer.

"I said." The voice found a gear it had been saving. "I said are you absolutely certain this young man has been made fully aware of what Number Eight does to people? Because I would hate for anyone to find out for the first time in there."

Laughter and noise mixing.

"But they assured me. They assured me he is ready. They assured me he is something this floor has not seen before. And who am I to argue with that. Who am I. I am just a man with a microphone and very good life insurance."

The laughter built.

"So without any further concern for this young man’s continued existence on this earth. Ladies and gentlemen. Making his first appearance on this floor. Coming to you fresh. Unproven. Unkilled. And apparently unafraid."

The voice found its full register.

"THE REAPER."