The Hyde tried to cry out in pain, but he couldn’t force a sound through his closed-off throat. He’d never felt anything like it before, as the Little Lord. Never knew there could be a pain like it. His eyes bulged, tears coursing down his stricken face, hurting so bad he couldn’t move a muscle. He didn’t even have the sense to fall down. So I lined up and kicked him in the groin again, putting all my strength behind it. A large part of the crowd cried out in sympathy. The Hyde finally fell down, as all the strength went out of his legs, hitting the hard stone of the circle floor with a crash, and then curling up into a foetal ball. And in the end all he could do, to get away from the pain, was turn back into the Little Lord again.
Round One to me. If I had to fight, I’d fight my way.
I did a lap of honour around the Arena, smiling and waving, acknowledging the cheers and laughter from the crowd. And then that broke off, as loud voices cried out a warning. I turned around, to find the Little Lord had changed shape again. And once again, she’d gone for size and strength.
If anything, she was even bigger than before. A good ten feet tall, her lithe body covered with dark grey fur. Her great head rose up, her face lengthening into a muzzle full of blocky teeth and savage canines. Great pointed ears, eyes yellow as urine. Her back hunched, bending her half over with great ridges of muscle under the grey fur. Her feet were paws, her hands viciously clawed. She’d made herself into a werewolf. Or at least, her idea of one. A huge shaggy figure towering over me, her mouth stretched in a wide hungry smile. The thick doggy scent of her, rich with blood and musk, was almost overpowering. The Hyde had been threatening; the werewolf was actually dangerous.
So I just stood my ground, nodded casually to her, and thought about it. I could have turned into something equally monstrous; God knows I’ve seen worse things in my travels. But I was still determined not to play the Casino’s Game in the Casino’s way, rending and tearing and spilling blood, for the amusement of the crowd. No head-to-head brutality . . . I would win this one with a little lateral thinking.
The werewolf padded forward, yellow eyes gleaming fiercely, clawed hands reaching out to tear my flesh. And I just stood there and smiled, with my hands behind my back. The Little Lord should have had enough sense to be suspicious, but she was all wolf now, driven by the beast’s needs and instincts.
I remembered when Ethel first gifted the Droods with her own strange matter armour, and how we learned to change its shape to suit our needs. I had, on occasion, extended the armour of my golden hands into long golden sword-blades. So, as the werewolf lunged forward, I concentrated on my hands. I could change any part of my body now, into anything I could think of, and right then . . . I was thinking of silver. I waited till the werewolf was almost upon me, lunging for my throat, and once again I stepped forward inside her reach, brought my hands out from behind my back, and showed her the silver blades where my hands had been.
She knew them immediately for what they were, but there was no time for her to stop. She just kept coming, and I thrust both silver blades deep into her heart.
The impact as we closed drove me backwards, but I was expecting that, and kept my balance. The werewolf cried out horribly. I ground both blades deeper into her chest, into her heart, and we skidded to a halt. I pulled both blades out, and jammed them both into her gut. The werewolf cried out again, and collapsed onto the unforgiving ground. Her dark blood pumped thickly on the stone floor. She was dying, and she knew it, so she did the only thing she could. She turned back into the Little Lord, shrinking away from my silver blades, away from the things that were killing her.
I let her do it. She scrambled away from me on all fours, holding the tatters of her clothing to her. It was obvious to anyone who cared to look, now, that the Little Lord was a woman . . . but no one in the audience cared. They were all leaning forward, smiling eagerly, to see what would happen next. They’d never seen a Game like this.
The Little Lord changed again, quickly, desperate to regain the advantage. The stone floor of the circle blew apart as she made contact with the ground beneath, and turned herself into a huge archetypal female figure. A Gaia woman, an earth goddess, rising up and up, growing huge and powerful as she drew on more earth for her body from under the Arena. She towered over me, vast and potent, an overwhelmingly female figure. Big enough to stamp me into a bloody mess on the stone floor, or grab me up and hug me to her earthy bosom, and smother me in dirt. But I . . . was thinking about the man I’d seen earlier, in the hotel lobby. Who’d been so scared of what the manager Jonathon Scott might do that he dissolved into water and ran away. I thought I could do better than that.
So I turned myself into a great spring of water, pumping up out of the ground, rising up into a massive boiling fountain with all the pressure of a fire hose behind it. I hit the earth goddess in the face, with enough force to blow her features off. And then I hit her with so much water, I just washed her away. She fell apart, running like thick mud, collapsing in on herself, until there was nothing left of her but mud, spattered across the Arena.
It took us both a while to come back from that. Remembering what a human shape was, and why it was important. Re-forming our human bodies from the elemental forms we’d taken. But I still remembered duty and honour, because I was never free of them, and so I was the first to pull myself together. I stumbled forward to stand over the Little Lord as she took her original shape again. I still had my clothes, intact, because I didn’t think as literally as she did. This time, I didn’t wait for her to change first; I just bent down and slipped one arm round her neck as her head came up, and tightened my hold. Cutting off the air to the throat, and the blood flow to the brain.
Chokehold.
She turned into a horse, and I clung grimly to her neck as she reared up, kicking out her front legs and shaking her great head, trying to throw me off. When she found she couldn’t, she changed again, becoming a massive grizzly bear. I pushed my face deep into her dark fur, tightening my hold. She clawed at my back with her great paws, and I cried out as they raked my flesh to the bone; but I just healed myself and hung on. She became a huge snake, bucking and coiling and writhing, slamming me against the stone floor, over and over. But I wouldn’t let go. I grabbed my arm with my other hand, tightening the hold still further, holding on with all my strength. Until she couldn’t breathe any more, or the blood couldn’t reach her brain, and she passed out.
I lay on the cold stone floor, breathing hard and shaking, my arm locked so tight around the returned Little Lord’s neck that I could barely feel it. I could have maintained the hold until she died, but I couldn’t see the point. I let go of her and stood up, and a generic flunky was quickly there, to raise one arm above my head, as the winner.
The crowd cheered and applauded, happily enough. There hadn’t been much blood, and no death, but they’d been entertained. I jerked my arm away from the flunky, and looked down at the unconscious Little Lord. Such a small, pathetic figure, in the tatters of her suit. The top hat long gone. She could have won if she’d just thought to turn into something that didn’t need to breathe, or require blood flowing to the brain. But she’d never encountered anything like that.
I walked steadily out of the Arena. The crowd had already stopped applauding. They’d hoped for more, from me and the Little Lord, but I was glad to have disappointed them. As I reached the front row of the stone seats, I could feel the change potion vanish within me, all the possibilities dropping away, until I was just me again. I was glad to feel them go. It’s hard enough just being me.