Chapter Thirteen
Eoin—who had lived so many years numb—felt shredded by emotion. Fear. For himself. For Hannah. Even for their bloody parrot companion. Guilt. Over his mother. Over his sister. Disgust. With the violence. With the blasted, depraved crowd. With his own weakness.
Nothing made sense. Not this hidden, massive underground space.
Not the secrecy surrounding this entertainment—which, although abhorrent, wasn’t illegal.
Not the Purveyor’s demand that Eoin, a random person in the crowd, fight in the middle of the female bout.
Swounds, even the existence of a mysterious, powerful figure named the Purveyor was absurd and unsettling.
Eoin knew that he’d blundered into a trap, but why was someone trying to ensnare him and why here? Was his mother still connected to this place? Had she fought… and bled… in this very ring?
A roar ripped through the air, and Eoin froze. Every hair follicle stood at attention as a bone-deep chill washed over him.
Hell. Was he to fight the bloody bear? Did they think this was the Roman Empire and this dank hole the Colosseum? Of all the ways Eoin thought he would die, he’d never thought it would be as a modern-day gladiator fighting in a venatio.
“The bear’s escaped!”
Was Hannah speaking? Even though she was attempting to sound more masculine, he’d recognize her voice anywhere. So many aspects of her seemed embedded upon his very soul.
Rawrrrrrrrrrrr!
How was that rumble coming from overhead? Eoin vaguely recalled that bears could climb, but he doubted that the rickety wooden pillars could hold even his weight, let alone an angry bruin’s.
The crowd quieted, and heads bobbed. It was clear that everyone was trying to determine the extent of the danger.
Rawrrrrrrr!
The second roar triggered pure chaos. Yells and screams erupted throughout the chamber.
The throng was no longer focused on the ring or on Eoin but on their own safety.
Some of the shouts floated down to Eoin as he desperately tried to assess the situation.
How was he supposed to get Hannah and himself to safety if there was a bear on the loose…
or if the gathered mass stampeded in the tight, cramped quarters?
They could literally bring down the entire building if too many people pushed against the poorly installed supports.
“Shite!”
“That’s sounds like Ursus!”
“He’s escaped!”
“I hate that bear.”
“Get away from the exit!”
“But how will we flee?”
“I won’t walk straight into its open maw!”
“I don’t want to be eaten!”
“Not dinner! Not dinner!”
Was the last cry… Pan’s? Eoin craned his neck toward the ceiling, and he thought he saw a streak of green.
A thud sounded behind him. Eoin whirled, reaching for his gun with one hand and fisting the other. He relaxed a fraction when he spied Hannah.
“Say you’ll capture the bear!” Hannah shouted in his face.
“What?” Eoin asked, his voice sounding distant even to his own ears. His normally fast-paced mind could not keep up with hers. It was clear that she had a plan, but what?
“Quick! Before this throng turns into a completely mindless mob!”
“You want me to catch a bruin? With just my hands? Not even a rope?”
“It’s Pan.”
“What?”
“Pan’s the bear,” Hannah explained. “It’s the only scheme I could devise. Quick! Before it’s too late to calm the crowd.”
Pan was the bear?
“Look up!” Hannah commanded.
Eoin did as he was told. This time, he definitely did catch sight of the rascal. As the feathered menace swept through an opening in one of the precarious supports, it opened its beak. A distinctive roar followed.
Swounds, Hannah was a genius—a reckless and unpredictable genius—yet a genius nonetheless.
Eoin had no time, though, to process his growing swell of gratitude and pride.
He’d have time to feel impressed by her quick thinking once they were safe and they’d stopped the potential disaster of their own creation.
Already the crowd had begun to jostle toward the exit.
The master of ceremonies had disappeared—presumably slinking toward an escape route rather than attempting to quiet the crowd that he’d whipped to the edge of a frenzy.
To Eoin’s horror, he saw the boy that he’d helped earlier get knocked to the ground near the lip of the pit.
“I will wrestle the bear back into his cage!” Eoin cried as loudly as he could, the force of his scream already burning his throat.
It was a rather absurd statement, and it felt even more ridiculous by the theatrical way in which Eoin shouted. Mr. Powys, Eoin was not. He definitely should not be treading the boards on any stage.
But his shout worked. Those around him heard, at least.
“The new fighter is going to battle the bear!”
“Let him through!”
“What’s going on?”
“A boxer will take care of the bear! Make way for him!”
“Make way!”
Eoin helped Hannah from the pit before scrambling out himself.
He only paused to snatch the scrawny youth around his middle and hoist the boy over his shoulders.
Given the lad’s last reaction to Eoin’s help, Eoin was grateful that the youngster didn’t fight him.
The adolescent must have realized he’d be crushed otherwise.
Hannah pressed close to Eoin’s side. He wished he could sling his arm around her to add more protection, but he had his hands full.
A small gap had opened in the crowd, but Eoin still needed to shoulder their way toward the exit.
As news of his promise to contain Ursus spread, a path began to clear.
Eoin felt like Moses parting the Red Sea as he strode through the mass of milling men.
In a surprisingly short amount of time, Eoin and Hannah reached the narrow hallway leading to the exit. Eoin angled his body so that he didn’t knock the adolescent’s head or feet against the walls. No one followed.
Well, no one except the parrot.
Pan flew gracefully into the passage and landed on Hannah’s shoulder. He began preening himself in a manner that could only be described as extremely self-satisfied. The bird was a fiend—a useful, life-saving fiend—but a fiend nonetheless.
When they had gone a few feet down the tunnel, Eoin lifted the youth off his shoulders and set him on the ground. The adolescent gripped his side, his brown eyes wide in his pinched, too-thin face.
“Are you really going to fight and catch Ursus?” the boy asked.
“Stay here, lad,” Eoin said, not trusting the boy with their ruse. “I’ll return in a moment.”
As much as Eoin wanted to immediately flee with Hannah, simply disappearing could retrigger the terror. The only way to avoid disaster was to mock-fight Ursus and then announce his “victory.”
“You’re going with him?” the youngster asked Hannah as she started to follow Eoin.
“Oh, I’m very good at corralling animals.” Hannah winked, and Eoin couldn’t help but marvel at how she kept her humor even in a circumstance like this.
“How do I pretend to battle a bear?” Eoin asked Hannah as soon as they were out of earshot.
Hannah lifted the shoulder not serving as a parrot-perch and let it drop. “Make a lot of noise, I suppose. Pan will also be happy to assist. As I said, he adores mimicry.”
Hannah glanced over at her passenger. “Pan, can you be a dear and roar again?”
Pan happily obliged. Tossing back his lime head with a flourish, he emitted a rather terrifying growl.
This, of course, displeased Ursus, who was already watching their approach with undisguised loathing. The bruin’s snout shot into the air as the beast let out his own battle cry. Pan snarled right back. Ursus slammed against his cage, the noise echoing down the hall.
Hannah nudged Eoin. “Yell. Pretend you’re grappling with Ursus, but make sure it sounds like you’re winning.”
“Take that, bear!” Eoin shouted, and a blush heated his face even though Hannah was the only witness to this utter farce.
Pan flew into the air as he cackled evilly. Swooping near the beast’s caged head, he emitted a taunting roar—almost as good as the bruin’s own.
Ursus lunged, rattling the wrought iron, his back paws thudding on the ground. His trimmed talons scraped against the metal.
“What’s that?” someone cried from the arena.
“In you go, you great brute!” Eoin shouted like an extremely bad stage actor.
“Has he already caged the bear?”
“I wish I could see the fight!”
“Yes! Why are we all hanging back?”
Hannah tugged on Eoin’s sleeve. “We best run. Ursus has suffered enough. And those blighters out there are liable to force you into the pit again instead of thanking you.”
Eoin heard a shuffling sound. He glanced over to find the adolescent standing in the gloom, his brown eyes solemn and guarded. Eoin had no idea how much the boy had overheard, but he suspected that the boy realized all their lies.
“The bear’s been caught!” the youth cried out loudly as he motioned for Eoin and Hannah to flee. “The bear’s been caught!”
Eoin nodded his thanks, touched that the distrustful youth had come to their aid. Then he stepped back to allow Hannah to pass.
“You set the pace,” Eoin instructed. “Your stride is shorter.”
And Eoin wanted to protect Hannah. Luckily, she didn’t protest. She only nodded curtly and bolted up the rickety stairs.
Eoin waited for a few minutes, watching the tunnel to make sure no one was close behind.
Then he turned and took two steps at a time.
He easily caught up to her, but he could hear the voices coming closer.
When they reached the top, Hannah pounded on the door.
Eoin leaned over her to slam his own fist against the oak.
There was the scrape of wood knocking against wood, and then the guard’s face appeared. “Done already? It must have been a good but short fight. It’s been awfully noisy today.”