The metal fence pressed cold against Daemon's back.
Selvin's desperate weight pinned him in what should have been a compromising position. But annoyance flickered behind the demon mask's eye holes, not fear, not concern, just irritation at being handled like some street corner amateur.
"Get off," Daemon said quietly, his voice carrying the weight of finality.
Selvin's grip tightened, sweat mixing with blood as he tried to land short punches from the clinch.
His breathing was ragged, desperate, the sound of a drowning man fighting for air.
His technique was sloppy though, his earlier precision dissolved in the cocktail of pain and panic that Daemon had injected into his nervous system.
When Selvin didn't respond, too focused on maintaining his hold and landing anything that might turn the tide, Daemon's patience evaporated.
His hands found Selvin's shoulders with surgical precision, fingers digging into pressure points that most fighters didn't even know existed.
The effect was immediate and devastating. Selvin's arms went numb, his grip loosening as if someone had cut the strings of a puppet.
Daemon slammed a punch into his gut.
The crowd's roar intensified, a wave of sound that crashed against the warehouse walls and echoed back amplified.
They could smell blood in the water now, sense the approaching climax of violence they'd paid to witness.
Selvin struggled to his hands and knees, his vision swimming in and out of focus like a broken television.
Blood dripped steadily from his nose onto the white canvas. He looked up through swollen eyes just in time to see Daemon approaching with the measured pace of an executioner walking to the gallows.
"You wanted a fight?" Daemon said, his voice somehow carrying over the noise despite its casual tone. "Here it is."
What followed wasn't a beating. It was violence.Daemon's strikes came in calculated sequences, each one building on the damage of the last.
A knee to the floating ribs that folded Selvin in half, driving the remaining air from his lungs with an audible whoosh.
An uppercut that snapped his head back with the sharp crack of bones compressing.
A hook to the liver that sent shockwaves through his entire torso, making his legs forget how to support his weight.
From his corner, Selvin's coach screamed instructions but his ear was filled with blood and ringing sharply.
Daemon landed another combination. A jab. A cross. A hook. Each strike finding its target.
Selvin's head snapped back and forth like a speed bag, saliva and blood painting patterns in the air.
"What's wrong?" Daemon asked as he stepped back to admire his handiwork. "You were talking so much before. Something about mama's boys and foster homes?"
Selvin tried to respond, but his jaw wasn't cooperating. The words came out as a mumbled slur that might have been an apology or a curse,even he wasn't sure which.
The end came suddenly. Selvin's legs finally gave up their pretense of supporting him, buckling like broken twigs.
His arms dropped to his sides, and his eyes rolled back until only the whites showed, two pale moons in a face that looked like it had been used for batting practice.
He swayed for a moment like a tree deciding which way to fall, then collapsed face-first onto the canvas with a sound that made half the crowd collectively hold their breath.
His body hit the mat with the finality of a coffin lid closing.
The referee rushed in, but it was too late. Selvin Hands was unconscious before he hit the ground, his chest rising and falling in the shallow rhythm of someone whose body had simply shut down to protect whatever was left of his brain function.
"Winner by knockout," the announcer's voice boomed over the sound system, though his words were barely audible over the eruption that followed, "the Sleeping devil and our very own fallen Angel. DAEMON SINNERS!"
The warehouse exploded into pandemonium. Bodies pressed against the octagon's fence until the metal groaned under the pressure, voices screamed until they went hoarse, and money changed hands in frantic exchanges as bets were settled and new ones placed for the next fight.
Female voices cut through the chaos like sirens.
"Daemon! Look at me!"
"Over here, baby! I've got something for you!"
"Take off the mask! Let us see that pretty face!"
Women pressed against the barrier with desperate urgency, some barely legal, others old enough to be his mother but young enough to pretend otherwise.
They waved crumpled bills, phone numbers scrawled on cocktail napkins, articles of clothing that made the security guards shift nervously.
Their eyes held a hunger that had nothing to do with the sport and everything to do with the dark magnetism that surrounded the masked figure in the center of the octagon.
Daemon ignored them all. He vaulted over the fence with the same fluid grace he'd entered with, leaving the chaos behind as he headed for the dressing room.
Behind him,nurses rushed to check on Selvin, whose coach was already spinning the loss to anyone who would listen, talking about bad luck and referee interference and how his fighter had been robbed.
*****
In the dressing room, the air hung thick with the smell of sweat and the metallic tang of blood that never quite washed out of the mats.
Daemon sat on a folding chair instinctively pulling off his gloves.
The ritual was meditative, each piece of equipment removed with the same careful precision he'd used to dismantle his opponent.
His hands, revealed inch by inch as the tape unwound, bore the scars of a hundred fights, some official, most not.
Kensuke burst through the door like a man half his age, his weathered face flushed with excitement and what might have been genuine pride.
In his gnarled hands, he clutched a thin envelope that looked like it had been recycled from someone's electric bill.
"Beautiful work out there, kid," he wheezed, his voice rough with decades of cigarettes and shouting over fight crowds. "Absolutely beautiful. You dropped that boy like a sack of wet cement. The crowd was eating it up with a spoon."
Daemon said nothing, focusing on unwrapping the tape from his knuckles.
"Here's your cut," the old man said, extending the envelope with a flourish that suggested he was handing over a lottery jackpot. "Minus my percentage, of course, and the house fee, and the medical insurance, and the…."
"How much?" Daemon interrupted, his voice carrying the weight of someone who already knew he wasn't going to like the answer.
Kensuke's smile faltered slightly. "Fourteen dollars?