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carried out on a stretcher as often as my arm was raised in victory and sometimes was both victor and victim simultaneously. On more than one occasion, fights that I was winning were stopped because I had so grievously injured myself in order to defeat my opponent that the judges and audience alike were repulsed. Many an audience was treated to the sight of me trying to choke out an opponent using my own shattered arm as a garrote. Eventually I was banned from legal competition. That’s when I went underground. It wasn’t long before I ran into Vlad again.
    Vlad was heavily tapped into the black market. Most of his bizarre attractions were looted from crypts and shrines, kidnapped from jungles, and smuggled from medical research facilities. Nothing happened underground that Bill Vlad didn’t catch wind of. So when news of a guy who felt no pain and defeated opponents while taking injuries that would have crippled most men began to spread among the criminal underground, Bill Vlad immediately rushed in to capitalize. He offered me twice as much money as I had been making, if only he could pick all of my opponents. I knew there would be a catch but, after years of exploitation and abuse, my sense of self-worth was small enough to be purchased...even by the devil himself...even by Bill Vlad.
    So that’s how I wound up back in the employment of the evil showman with the handlebar moustache, flaming red hair, bloodless white skin, and shark-toothed grin like a demented Dumbo the clown, fighting creatures literally plucked from the darkest bowels of the earth. That’s how I wound up facing this guy with the choirboy face and a punch like George Foreman.
    ***
    He swung at me again and this time I rolled with the punch. Even so, the force behind it was tremendous. I wouldn’t be able to take many more of those. I kicked him in the leg, landing my shin on his thigh with the force of an axe chopping wood. His leg buckled and he had to struggle to stay on his feet. His face contorted in agony but he continued to fight.
    I kicked him in the same spot again and again until a ghastly black and purple bruise swelled on his thigh and he began to limp. Then I brought my shin up into his side and was satisfied to feel it meet the resistance of his rib cage and then break on through, causing all the air to expel from the choirboy’s lungs in an anguished bark. He wilted and doubled over and I slipped around him to get him in a chokehold, wanting to end it quickly. He fought hard to keep me from securing my forearm under his chin and around his throat, so I wrapped up his arm instead. I grabbed his wrist and tossed both my legs over his shoulder with his arm locked between them. It took only a thrust of my pelvis to snap his elbow.
    Choirboy howled in pain and continued to howl as his flesh began to melt and reform. I could hear his bones snapping and popping as they reorganized themselves under his skin. I didn’t know what the hell was going on until the fur began to sprout all over him. He stopped howling and began to growl. I watched his ears grow and the tail sprout from his ass as his wrestling trunks tore.
    “Fucking Vlad! He put me in here with a goddamned werewolf!”
    I felt the pressure as his slavering fangs clamped down on my forearm and crushed my ulna and radius bones. Blood spurted from my fractured and lacerated arm, and I knew that I’d been badly wounded. I felt the tug as my forearm separated from my humerus and disappeared down Choirboy’s throat. I didn’t cry out. What would have been the point? I didn’t feel a thing. But now the clock was ticking again. If I didn’t kill this thing soon I would bleed to death.
    The silver and gray werewolf stood to his full seven-foot height, with bits of flesh from my amputated arm clinging to the fur around its snout, which was dark and shiny with my blood. He still had those big puppy-dog eyes, but his snarling predatorial grimace didn’t look quite so dopey with the