TEXT: 1
  THE CIRCLE SQUARED
  The Circle Squared
  The cell bars were still there when I opened my eyes that 
  morning. I sat blearily up and wiped the dried blood off of my 
  lips, trying to keep my head from ringing like a gong. The 
  jail smelled of rat droppings and industrial cleaners, the kind 
  they sell by the barrel. It made me want to throw up all over 
  again.
  Slowly, with great delicacy, I stood up from the cot and took 
  in my surroundings. How did I get here? There had been some 
  money… a bar… an intake of gin that would have killed most 
  breeds of livestock. The bottle was just about empty when the 
  trouble started. A guy — a big guy — all bent out of shape. 
  Something about a hat I crushed? A song I kept singing? I 
  wish I could remember why he was so pissed… or whether I 
  gave as good as I got.
  I rose to my feet and noisily relieved myself in the toilet. 
  My brain did its best to protest the move, but it had very little 
  say in the manner, no matter how loudly it pounded against 
  my forehead. I really shouldn’t drink so much. I’ve been pretty 
  good about it since… since Sarah and the accident… but the 
  urges are still strong. I can’t ﬁ ght them forever — not without 
  a good bender every now and again to take the edge off. Still, 
  it’s not a healthy habit. I get sloppy when I drink, and a night 
  in the cooler is the least of what can come from it. 
  The door to the cell block creaked open as I stumbled back 
  to my cot. A grinning cop with ﬂ at nose poked around the cor-
  ner and ﬁ xed me with a cheerfully hateful stare.
  “Front and center, rummy. You got a visitor.”
  I wiped my mouth again and moved over to the bars, wrap-
  ping my hands around the cool metal to steady myself. Drunks 
  don’t get visitors, especially transient drunks with moth-holes 
  in their pockets and the carefully cultivated look that says “I 
  was dragged behind a truck for six miles.” Was this trouble? 
  That cop looked awfully smug. Could they have found out who 
  I was? There were no worries about ﬁ ngerprints, nothing like 
  that, but if they dug too deep, they would learn more about me 
  than I wanted anyone to know…
  The door opened wider and my guest stepped in. Not NLEB, 
  nor the Central City PD, but that was small comfort. He stood 
  about seven feet tall: modestly thin, but full of enough wiry 
  muscle to give him some bulk. At 9:00 am, he was dressed to 
  the nines, wearing a black-on-black tuxedo marked only by a 
  single white carnation. His black bowler derby sported a thin 
  white band, and matched the rest of the ensemble almost per-
  fectly. But it wasn’t the hat that drew my attention. It was the 
  Halloween mask below it.
  A gaunt. Oh Jesus. 
  His skin was gray and leathery, like all of his kind. Pointed 
  ears stuck up from a hairless pate, twitching ever so slightly 
  in the cool jailhouse air. His nose was nothing but a pair of 
  cadaverous holes below eyes that were black and hollow as a 
  shark’s. Pointed teeth ﬂ ashed from his mouth, while the dig-
  its that emerged from his silk shirtsleeves were nothing but 
  clawed talons. Already, I could feel the effects of his draining: 
  the vampire-like aura that all gaunts possessed, sucking the 
  life out of everything around it.
  The cop shot another gleeful look my way — I was quite the 
  punchline, apparently — the closed and barred the cellblock 
  door. The other cubicles were devoid of prisoners; whether ac-
  cidentally or by design, this was a private audience. 
  “My name,” the gaunt began, “is Jack Drago.”
  “I’ve heard of you,” I replied. “You’re taller than I 
  thought.”
  “My friends in the press have never quite captured my stat-
  ure. You should have seen the pictures after the Lombard mas-
  sacre.”
  “Bet they caught the blood on your tie well enough.”
  “Well, they do what they can.” He ﬂ ashed another toothy 
  grin. The pounding in my head was back and I could feel my-
  self beginning to lose my footing. His aura was having a very 
  bad effect on my hangover.
  “So tell me,” I countered sharply, trying to hide my growing 
  discomfort, “what’s Central City’s biggest scumbag doing in a 
  drunk tank at this hour?”
  “Bright boy, listen to his questions.” Drago produced a ci-
  gar from his breast pocket, then neatly clipped the end using 
  his incisors. He spat the tip into the center of my chest. “You 
  want to ratchet your tone down a spell; it bothers me.” A ﬂ are 
  of the match, and smoke began wreathing a halo around his 
  derby hat.
  “You wouldn’t be the ﬁ rst gaunt I’ve rubbed the wrong 
  way.”
  “No, but I will most deﬁ nitely be the last.” His free hand 
  ﬂ icked out in a blink, catching my cheek with its nailed claws. 
  The blood welled freely and I could smell something beneath 
  the talons — raw hamburger, maybe several days old.
  “The precinct captain is on my payroll. I could gut you like a 
  trout and walk out of here scot free with your innards sprayed 
  all over my chest. Boys in blue would mop up your corpse and 
  not one of them — not one soul — would raise a word of com-
  plaint.”
  “Is that supposed to scare me?” I struggled to contain my 
  rising gorge.
  “If you have any sense in your palooka head it would. But 
  maybe you don’t. Maybe you’re dumb enough to take the bull 
  by the horns like you did last night. And that’s why I need 
  you.”
  He turned around and blew another smoke ring, then sniffed 
  the air through membrane of his skeletal nose. 
  “Some of my boys saw your little circus act,” he continued. 
  “You took a guy apart without breaking a sweat. Big guy, too. 
  Big hands. Must have outweighed you by forty, ﬁ fty pounds. 
  My boys said you’ve got the moves — you used to box profes-
  sionally I’m betting — but there was something else. Some-
  thing that meant your playmate’s in the hospital right now 
  instead of cooling his heels with you.
   “You got a nasty core, kiddo,” Drago turn back towards me 
  and looked me right in the eye. “You got a streak of mean in 
  you ten miles wide, and that’s exactly what I’m looking for. 
  
  THE EDGE OF MIDNIGHT
  2
  I run a club down near the Switchyards. Private gentlemen, 
  high class all the way. At certain times, we are compelled to 
  put on a show for them: boxing matches and the like which 
  don’t fall into the bounds of strict legality.”
  “Gaunt-human matches,” I muttered.
  “The very same. You’d be surprise how much people will pay 
  for a little casual bloodsport. There’s just one problem: the 
  normals I put into the ring haven’t been faring too well against 
  my fellow gaunts. The last one’s in a convalescent home with 
  permanent brain damage. The others are dead. It’s a bad prec-
  edent. Guys don’t want to get into a ring with a gaunt, pretty 
  soon people don’t want to pay to come into my club no more.”
  “That is a tragedy,” My heart sunk as I could see where he 
  was going.
  “Isn’t it? I thought I was going to have to shut my little 
  enterprise down. And then I heard about you, battling out of 
  your weight class.”
  “That was different. I was… I was drunk. And the other guy 
  wasn’t a gaunt.”
  Drago smiled his nasty smile again. “Fighting is ﬁ ghting. 
  And you my friend, know how to ﬁ ght. So here’s the deal: you 
  go into the ring tonight, you give me three rounds or more 
  against my number one bull. You do that, and you can walk out 
  of here scot free.”
  “That doesn’t sound like much,”
  “No? Turn it over in your head and see what comes leaking 
  out,” He suddenly thrust himself forward , his ugly mug just 
  inches away from mine. “We did some checking on you. No 
  name, no history, no job records, nothing but a rented room 
  signed out under a John Doe. That means you’re running from 
  something, something you don’t want found. You do this for 
  me, and my boys keep your past buried where you like it. You 
  don’t…” his voice trailed off menacingly
  My knees were weakening, the dizzy spells increasing, but I 
  still looked him right in the eye. “That’s still not much.”
  “Yes it is,” his black eyes twinkled with glee. “Guys like 
  you place a high priority on anonymity. I’m prepared to let you 
  keep yours if you do this little favor for me.” 
   “I could still say no, take my chances with the cops.”
  “You could. But then you’d make me angry, and you don’t 
  want that.”
  “You think I’m afraid of dying?”
  “Oh you don’t have to die. The police could ﬁ nd a panel truck 
  of stolen cigarettes outside that ﬂ ophouse of yours. Or a dead 
  hooker in your bed. And then they start asking questions… 
  and they won’t stop like we did.”
  He had me and he knew it.
  “Think it over,” he smiled cheerfully, then stood up. “You 
  have until noon. Just tell the man on duty that you’re ready to 
  play ball and he’ll take care of the rest. Me, I’ve got to get this 
  suit pressed and change into something more casual. The ball 
  game starts at one, and I’ve asked His Honor to cheer on the 
  Switchmen with me.
  “You have a rest, smart guy. I’ll see you tonight.”
  I could only watch him go. Thank God he was out the door 
  before my legs ﬁ nally gave way.
  ***
  Drago was right. I did know how to ﬁ ght. Back before time 
  began, boxing was all I could think about. I was no Rugged 
  MacReady, but I had good form and could pay the bills with a 
  steady stream of undercard bouts. Twenty wins, eight knock-
  outs, six losses. An entertaining little pug who could keep the 
  crowd amused. 
  Sarah never understood what drove me to keep climbing 
  into the ring. Sarah with her crooked smile and her laughter 
  in church bells and her soft hands on the back of my neck. I 
  would come home from the gym, my ﬁ sts throbbing like raw 
  steak, and she would tend to them like an angel of mercy. She 
  chided me and teased me: “You’re never going to ﬁ ght with the 
  best of them,” she would say. “You’re not that good.” And she 
  was right. I was never good enough, despite all the training 
  and all the skill and all the rage welling up in my breast at the 
  start of every round. Whatever it was that deﬁ ned a champion, 
  I simply didn’t have it.
  But I wanted it. Wanted it so badly I would have done any-
  thing for it. And in those days, I always got what I wanted.
  ***
  
  3
  THE CIRCLE SQUARED
  I held out almost ﬁ ve hours before calling for the guard. I 
  would do what Drago wanted. What choice did I have? Laugh-
  ing Boy came by and opened up my cell door with another of 
  his point-and-snicker routines. I signed out for my belongings 
  — using the “John Doe” handle, which they never looked twice 
  at — and made my way as quickly as possible out the door. 
  The sunlight beat down mercilessly onto the streets of Central 
  City, and the wind from the lake blew in a living wall of hu-
  midity. There was an evil smell to it, a dark gassy stench that 
  rolled through the streets in great invisible clouds. People 
  moved away from it, ducking through doorways or clamber-
  ing up ﬁ re escapes. But they couldn’t escape. The smell was 
  everywhere.
  I took the elevated train to my apartment and packed up 
  my things. Regardless of how this went down, I would need to 
  move on. I slipped past the manager who sat behind his desk, 
  ﬁ xated on the Switchmen game coming from the radio. I still 
  owed him for a week. As far as I was concerned, I could go on 
  owing him. I thought brieﬂ y about heading to the train station 
  and making a run for it, but soon dismissed the idea as suicide. 
  Jack Drago wasn’t the sort to let an insult go unpunished… 
  and there wasn’t anywhere I could go where he wouldn’t ﬁ nd 
  me.
  As if to compound the matter, a sleek black sedan was wait-
  ing for me when I reached the street again. A pair of goons 
  — one gaunt, one human — stood ﬂ anking the rear door, hold-
  ing it open as I approached. 
  “Get in buddy. The boss wants you all clean and scrubbed 
  for your big night.”
  I eyed them warily, then consented and got in.
  The car was cool and air conditioned, in stark contrast to 
  the stench outside. The human gangster tossed my suitcase 
  in the trunk, then shoved himself in after me, while the gaunt 
  got in on the other side. Yet the back seat held the three of us 
  comfortably, and the upholstered leather was soothing against 
  my knotted back. At an unspoken command, the driver pulled 
  into trafﬁ c, leaving my ﬂ ophouse far behind.
  Ten minutes later, they tossed me out in front of the club, 
  with my suitcase in a sad little heap next to me. The loom-
  ing brownstone seemed to glare down, pinning me to the side-
  walk like a bug on a card. The neighborhood was decorated 
  in early refugee, with a corner liquor store the only business 
  that seemed to be thriving. Up the street a tired-eyed woman 
  who might have been a waitress staggered towards her apart-
  ment, shufﬂ ing a little more quickly when she caught my gaze. 
  Somewhere close by, a train whistle echoed. It wasn’t too late 
  to cut and run…
  The club itself occupied the ﬁ rst story of the brownstone. 
  At ﬁ rst glance, it looked no different from any corner bar. But 
  then I noticed wooden Venetian blinds that kept prying eyes 
  from peering inside and the massive front door giving a look 
  that said “scram” in big block letters. With the sound of a bolt 
  turning, it swung open silently for me. Giving one last glance 
  at the abandoned street, I stepped in.
  The room I found myself in was a world away from the lower 
  class desperation outside. Oak-paneled ﬂ oors gleamed from 
  the soft light of crystal lamps, spaced evenly around the area 
  to provide maximum illumination. The bar was made of mir-
  rors and brass, and it didn’t look like it carried any of the 
  watered-down brews it was advertising in the windows. A fe-
  male bartender in a man’s tuxedo shirt stood quietly polishing 
  glasses, while the hulking bouncer who had opened the door 
  glared menacingly at me.
  “You the guy what’s boxing here tonight?” he rumbled.
  “I guess I am.”
  “Downstairs.” His ﬁ nger jerked towards an ornate eleva-
  tor standing next to a wide set of polished oak stairs heading 
  down.
  The basement was scufﬁ er, but it had its share of charm. 
  Tables covered in white cloth surrounded a stout-looking box-
  ing ring, the canvas ﬂ oor illuminated by a single spotlight. A 
  pair of archways presumably led off to locker rooms, while a 
  set of swinging doors opened on to what I could only assume 
  was a kitchen . In a few hours, it would be ﬁ lled with bigwigs 
  eating steak and lobster, goosing their mistresses, and waiting 
  to see a man get beaten to death by a hulking monstrosi-
  “You’re here. Good.” The voice was Drago’s, echoing from 
  behind the ring. He stepped out into the light, his black suit 
  now a more pedestrian cut. “How you feeling?”
  “Hung over. And cranky. “
  “We’ll ﬁ x that.” He handed me a bottle. “Bromide. To clear 
  up the cobwebs.”
  I took it wordlessly and tipped it back into my mouth. 
  “So who’s the leatherback I’m facing?”
  “‘Leatherback?!’ I’m offended, Mr. Doe. A pugilist has to 
  overcome this terrible disease, this gauntism, and you’re 
  hanging nasty labels on him.” He clucked his tongue disap-
  provingly. 
  “Right,” I sighed. “So who is he?”
  “No one of any particular consequence. Stand up guy on my 
  payroll named Hilarion Jones.”
  “HILARION JONES?!” My face went pale. “But he’s a heavy-
  weight!”
  “WAS a heavyweight. He took a fall for us a few years back 
  in the title bout. We’ve been looking out for him ever since.”
  “Wait, you don’t understand. I’ve never fought higher than 
  welterweight. He’ll massacre me!”
  Drago smiled reassuringly. “You’ll do ﬁ ne. Just like last 
  night.”
  “No, you can’t! I’ll-“
  “You’ll do what you’re goddamn well told!” His sudden fury 
  boomed in his voice. “I want you in that ring, so in that ring 
  you will Fucking. Well. Go!”
  “I can’t beat him, Drago. I can’t.”
  “It is not your JOB to beat him! It is your JOB to remain 
  standing for three lousy rounds while he works out on you! It 
  is your JOB to take his pounding like a man, and give my cus-
  tomers the show they paid for! Don’t you get it, you miserable 
  little pipsqueak?! This isn’t a boxing match, it’s a bloodletting! 
  And you’re the lamb on tonight’s menu!”
  I backed away slowly. Drago’s eyes glittered as he ﬁ xed me 
  in their sight.
  “There’s guards at every exit, kiddo. You try to leave, they’ll 
  shoot you down. Then I ﬁ nish my detective work on you and 
  hunt down anyone you ever might have cared about. You got a 
  sweetheart out there, champ? You got a sick old mother?”
  
  THE EDGE OF MIDNIGHT
  4
  My hands began to shake. “Please. Please, Mr. Drago…”
  “Please is for Sunday dinner, punk! You play your cards 
  right, you might live to have another one!” 
  His hands clenched into ﬁ sts and for a moment, I thought he 
  was going to pound on me himself. Then he seemed to contain 
  himself.
  “Look kid, it’s easy. You just stay upright, hit back when 
  you can, and dance around long enough to whet the crowd’s 
  appetite. Put in your time, and you can take a dive whenever 
  you like. Then you’re out of this mess.
  “But I want it looking good. No ﬂ inching or ducking, no go-
  ing all knock-kneed like you did back in your cell. You got a 
  good build, you’re still in shape. That should keep you around 
  long enough for Jonsey to do the real work.”
  He walked slowly past me and up towards the stairs.
  “There’s equipment in that locker room there. Suit up around 
  six, do whatever you gotta do in the meantime. But when that 
  bell rings, smart guy, you better pony up and pay the piper. It’s 
  not like you have another option.”
  ***
  The locker room was quiet and a set of trunks was all laid 
  out for me, along with gloves and a decent set of wrappings. I 
  would probably have to prep myself, but that was the least of 
  my worries. It set my suitcase down on the stone ﬂ oor and put 
  my head in my hands. A few minutes later, an eerie calm set-
  tled over me. I could feel the adrenaline ebbing away. Quietly 
  and without lifting my face, I began to review my options.
  Escape was not possible, not even if I could get out of the 
  building. The time for that would have been back at my apart-
  ment. Neither could I simply refuse to ﬁ ght. They would toss 
  me in there like a Christian to the lions and Hilarion Jones 
  would gobble me up. 
  Christ, Hilarion Jones.
  I remembered his last ﬁ ght, the one where Drago claimed 
  he took a dive. He had weighed in at two hundred and forty 
  pounds, and lasted eight rounds before his opponent put him 
  away. How much longer could he have lasted, had the ﬁ x not 
  been in? Ten rounds? Fifteen? Or would he have clocked his 
  opponent before that, sending the other gaunt sprawling to the 
  canvas in a gush of blood? 
  And I had to stand against him for 540 seconds. With six 
  fewer inches and a hundred fewer pounds. 
  Gaunt-human boxing had been outlawed for years, ever 
  since gaunt heavyweight champ Rugged MacReady killed nor-
  mal champ Royal Murdock in the ring. Gaunts had the edge 
  in size and endurance, and although weight class wasn’t a 
  problem, the gaunts’ unholy aura was. The draining normally 
  took time, but in close quarters, it tended to accelerate. Fight 
  with a gaunt for a few minutes, and you start to feel dizzy. A 
  few more and your vision went all gray. A normal human who 
  could spend six rounds in the ring with a gaunt was a paragon 
  of stamina and endurance. 
  Despite the illegality, gaunt-human boxing was still a popu-
  lar attraction in underground clubs like this one. They took 
  pugilists on their way down, hot-heads without the discipline 
  for legal ﬁ ghts, or just local thugs. Normally, a human would 
  be pitted against a gaunt in a lower weight class, to give the 
  ﬁ ght some semblance of fairness. All too often, however, it 
  would be even weight — the idea being to make the human 
  more of a rooting interest, as well as increasing the chance of 
  seeing a serious injury.
  But this, this blew them all away. This was murder plain 
  and simple.
  There was a way out of this. I had done it before. But I 
  wouldn’t do it again. I couldn’t. Not for my life or anyone 
  else’s. A sudden image sprang unbidden of Sarah. My sweet 
  Sarah howling in agony, the bones of her ﬁ ngers shattering 
  like china as her hands deﬂ ated into misshapen lumps…
  Anything to get ahead. Anything at all.
  “No,” I whispered. “Never again.” 
  I would take my medicine as best I could. Keep my guard up 
  and ﬁ nd a way — any way — to survive the punishment that 
  that animal would dish out on me.
  ***
  I was dressed and prepped by 8:00 and two more of Drago’s 
  baboons came for me at 8:30. The undercard was a brief little 
  warm-up act with a couple of ﬂ yweight gaunts; seasoning for 
  the meat grinder of the main event. 
  At 8:55, I walked towards the ring, ﬂ anked by the baboons. 
  It had been awhile since I was in any kind of formal match, but 
  even this cheap fraud brought back echoes of the old rush.
  You could do it. You could take him down. All you’d have 
  to do is-
  The crowd had arrived and dined in style; almost ﬁ ve hun-
  dred of them packed into the basement like tuxedo-clad sar-
  dines. Fat corpulent businessmen sat with girls twenty years 
  their junior, girls who paid no attention to the wedding ring on 
  their sugar daddy’s ﬁ nger. A group of young sharks with the air 
  of City Hall about them sipped brandy and puffed on cigars as 
  they watched me approach. Bodyguards and goombas ﬂ anked 
  the obvious players, their jackets bulging with extra artillery. 
  And in front of me, dancing in the ring, was my opponent.
  He was shorter than Drago, but a whole lot meatier. His 
  arms pumped up and down in rapid shadowboxing motions, 
  muscles ﬂ exing beneath his taut gray skin. His jaw jutted out 
  in a gruesome underbite; the lower fangs curled up over his 
  lips in a reptilian sneer.
  Did I say he was big? The bastard was a goddamn battle-
  ship.
  Easy as pie to ﬁ nish this in round one. And no one would 
  ever know; no one could even SEE it if you did it right-
  I closed my eyes and forced myself to focus. Had to keep 
  a clear head in the ring, remember my training, and use my 
  speed to ﬁ nd an edge somehow. On the other side of the ring 
  sat Jack Drago, back in his penguin suit with a fresh ﬂ ower in 
  the lapel. He smiled wanly and clapped as I stepped into the 
  ring, eager as anyone to see the show begin. The announcer 
  read our names to the crowd, but I was already thinking, an-
  ticipating his ﬁ rst moves and how I might avoid them. Getting 
  into the rhythm. Sensing the ebb and the ﬂ ow of how the ﬁ ght 
  might proceed.
  
  5
  THE CIRCLE SQUARED
  Jesus, he was a big bastard gaunt.
  But it wouldn’t matter if you played this smart. Not one bit.
  “I said no!” I muttered, drawing a raised eyebrow from the 
  ref. He stared at me for a moment, then ordered us over to our 
  corners. A baboon was sitting there in his shirt sleeves, with a 
  spit bucket and a couple of sponges at the ready.
  “Boss says I just gotta keep the blood out of your eyes. He 
  don’t want this over too quickly.”
  “Then he should have found me a smaller playmate.”
  The baboon ﬂ ashed an ugly gap-toothed grin and helped me 
  pull off my robe. “That’s funny. You’re a funny guy. I’ll be sure 
  and collect your teeth for you between rounds.”
  Jones was looking over at me with a mask of pure hate on 
  his face. A jagged tooth caught his upper lip, causing a razor 
  thin leakage of blood to spill down over his chin. He licked the 
  cut with a black tongue, and I swear I could see his eyes go 
  wild with the ecstasy of it. 
  Then the bell went off and the time for thinking was done. 
  ***
  He bridged the distance almost before I 
  could blink. I sidestepped an oncoming jab 
  and danced back into the middle of the ring. 
  Jones didn’t have his guard up and I made him 
  pay for it with a right cross up the middle. 
  Punching him was like punching a concrete 
  wall. He just looked down at me and then 
  countered with a ﬂ urry of blows that I could 
  barely see. The second caught me just be-
  hind the ear. I saw stars and when I came to, 
  he was looming in my sights all the larger. 
  Quickly, I threw up my arms to block another 
  assault. Each jab shuddered through my body, 
  rattling me down to the core.
  Fifteen seconds into round one. 
  I jabbed at him again and managed to catch 
  him in the throat; the Marquis of Queensbury 
  wouldn’t approve, but I didn’t see him in the 
  crowd that night. He bellowed and paused a 
  moment to catch his breath, giving me the 
  opportunity to work his ribcage a little more. 
  That clearly wasn’t going to work, but at least 
  it looked like I was putting up a ﬁ ght. Then 
  he shook his head, as if to clear it and swung 
  ’round with a vicious haymaker. It caught 
  me square in the jaw; I felt my teeth rattle 
  against each other as blood sprayed from my 
  upper lip. Before I could think he followed it 
  with a left to the nose. Crimson marked his 
  glove where he had made contact and I could 
  feel the hot mess of it bubbling slowly down 
  my chin. I hit the canvas ﬂ at on my back and 
  heard the referee starting to count. 
  Luckily, I was close to the ropes and used 
  them to pull myself up before he reached “5”. 
  Jones snarled like a wild beast and charged 
  towards me, but left an opening through 
  which I could easily duck. I danced around him for a few more 
  seconds, ignoring the pain in my head, starting to feel the 
  rhythm of the ring. I was getting into form now, thinking more 
  clearly. I began to see a pattern in his technique, too, making 
  it easier to-
  WHOOOOOOFF!!! 
  His right caught me in the gut, driving the air out of my 
  lungs. I staggered a step and barely got out of the way of his 
  follow-up, a left uppercut than might have sent me into the 
  nearest tables. The crowd roared and Jonesy lunged forward 
  while I struggled to get my guard back up. It felt like an el-
  ephant had sat on my chest; tears ﬁ lled my eyes as I struggled 
  for air, staggering backwards in a desperate attempt to hold 
  him off. The bell rung, signaling an end to the ﬁ rst round and 
  giving me a momentary reprieve.
  This could be over in a second, you know. The thought clung 
  with me as I stumbled back to my corner.
  The baboon held out the spit bucket and I emptied about a 
  quart of blood into it. Then he rammed a Q-tip full of coagu-
  lant into my nose and I could almost smile. Nice to know they 
  cared.
  
  THE EDGE OF MIDNIGHT
  6
  “You just cost me ﬁ fty bucks,” he whispered in my ear. “I 
  didn’t think you’d make it to the second round.”
  “Life is full of little disappointments,” I slurred the words in 
  what I hoped was a manly fashion.
  “Get back out there, champ. Your dance partner is wait-
  ing.”
  The bell went off again and I was on my feet. This time, 
  Jones wasn’t fooling around. He came straight at me and 
  unleashed another ﬂ urry of blows that I no longer had the 
  strength to avoid. I threw my arms up again and managed to 
  absorb the brunt of them, though it pushed me back against 
  the ropes and started the blood ﬂ owing from my nose again. 
  I swung weakly at him, grazing his shoulder in a knock that 
  a small child could have shrugged off. The canvas rolled be-
  neath me and my vision dimmed for a moment. His aura was 
  starting the affect me.
  He came at me again and I weaved drunkenly aside, ducking 
  a haymaker that would surely have knocked my teeth right out 
  of my head. I landed a blow to his lower kidneys, which drew 
  an excited gasp from the crowd as if it would actually have an 
  effect. He grunted, as if having to exert himself for the ﬁ rst 
  time, then bore down on me — those hollow shark’s eyes call-
  ing for an end to it.
  Change the rules. Change them, or you’re going to die right 
  here.
  No, I can handle this. We’re almost halfway through; just 
  one more round and then I can take a dive like a good little 
  pigeon.
  Then he swung again and the rules changed for good. The 
  blow hit me right in the chest. I felt something crack and when 
  I took in a breath, this ragged clawing pain followed up my 
  windpipe. I fell to my knees, my hands on the canvas, which 
  was when Jonesy — sweetheart that he was — landed another 
  blow on the back of my skull. I slumped down to the canvas, 
  and the ten count started again. 
  I needed to get up. I had to stand. Drago would kill me if 
  I ended things here. Somehow — to this day I can’t say how 
  — I pulled myself up to a standing position by “8,” holding off 
  defeat for a few more precious seconds. If I could just get to 
  my corner… if they would just let the end of the round come.
  The end of the round’s not coming. Jonesy’s going to ﬁ nish you 
  off right here.
  I could see the big leatherback as if in slow motion. Time 
  became a crawl as he drew his ﬁ st back for one ﬁ nal punch, 
  the one that would crush my chest like a chicken’s egg and 
  leave me in a shuddering bloody mess on the ﬂ oor.
  Just like Sarah.
  Do it. Now.
  I can’t. I won’t. Not like last time. Not like what I did to 
  her.
  Sarah isn’t here. The only people around are the ones who paid 
  to see you suffer. 
  No! No-no-no-no-no…
  Those cracked ribs are poking into your lungs, Jonesy’s aura is 
  starting to really grip you, and you’re going to drown in your own 
  blood if you can’t stop that broken-
  Alright.
  I whispered something beneath my tongue — a complex 
  mathematical formula of the kind you never see outside of 
  rocket science — and brought my ﬁ st up to counter his blow. 
  As I did, the material of my glove hardened to the consistency 
  of steel . We connected with full force and he shrieked in sur-
  prise and agony as his ﬁ ngers crumpled. In a ﬂ ash, the effect 
  was over and my glove returned to normal. But the cat was out 
  of the bag, and there was no use denying it now.
  He swung his uninjured hand towards me. I ﬁ xed it with my 
  gaze and envisioned another formula — this one dealing with 
  kinetics. The energy ﬂ owed around him, struggling to connect 
  (for some reason, magic can’t affect living ﬂ esh easily) be-
  fore ﬁ nally ﬁ xating on his glove. He shrieked again as his ﬁ st 
  slowed down, allowing me to sidestep it with a minimum of dif-
  ﬁ culty. The crowd hadn’t caught on — they saw only a heroic 
  rally — but Jonsey sure as hell did. Magic use is like battery 
  acid to gaunts, and he had clearly felt its effects before. I had 
  to move quickly.
  Reversing the formulae I had just invoked, I swung my ﬁ st 
  around in a haymaker. Its velocity increased to inhuman pro-
  portions as my glove once more became as hard as concrete. 
  It caught his jaw and sent him sprawling backwards, a blow 
  that would have felled an oak tree. I followed it with another, 
  and then another one after that. Each one sent daggers of pain 
  into his body, compounding the concussion of the blows them-
  selves into something transformative. He started to surge for-
  ward again, but then I adjusted the consistency of the canvas, 
  which sent him to the ﬂ oor. The pain in my ribs slowly faded, 
  replaced by the all-consuming obsession of those equations, 
  which now ﬂ owed freely and easily through the corridors of 
  my mind.
  Magic. Banned in every corner of the country. Subject of 
  fear and superstition. Destroyer of lives and homes, and the 
  worst kind of addiction you can ever envision.
  But damn if it doesn’t even the odds something ﬁ erce. 
  Jonesy realized what was going on, but he was helpless to 
  stop it. All he could do was squirm a little more and hope he 
  could put me away before I ﬁ nished him. Fat chance. I tore 
  into him with everything I had, my pain and fatigue chewing at 
  me, but dimming rapidly in the face of the power I felt. Images 
  ﬂ ashed in my head — Sarah and her hands, Drago and his 
  ugly mug, the anonymous back alleys where men taught me 
  to warp the laws of physics and change the boxing ring to my 
  own personal lab — but I just used them to fuel the inferno. 
  I kept it up for a full minute to keep the crowd from letting 
  on. I didn’t want it to look like he was just taking a dive, that 
  wouldn’t be kosher, but I know the impression I was giving. 
  I had given it in a dozen matches, most far more rigorously 
  enforced than this farce, and it slipped back around me with 
  the comfort of old slippers. I had been playing possum, the 
  crowd thought. I had lulled him into a false sense of security, 
  then let superior technique and a blazing will take him down. 
  That was the most obvious explanation, which is the one most 
  people inevitably swallow. No one thought a palooka like me 
  was smart enough to learn magic… no one since Sarah.
  Two more left-right combinations and bruises started ap-
  pearing on his ﬂ esh. Two more and his left eye had swollen 
  shut. I worked the lather up good and when I thought I had 
  
  7
  THE CIRCLE SQUARED
  everyone buffaloed, I ﬁ nally dropped him. When he hit the 
  canvas, I found another formula and kept the weight of a full 
  grown elephant on his back. Just to make sure he didn’t get 
  up.
  The referee was holding my glove up in triumph when my 
  body remembered how damaged it was and the room suddenly 
  faded to black. 
  ***
  When I came to, I was lying on an old army-issue cot, star-
  ing up at the linoleum tiles on the ceiling. The ﬁ rm grip of 
  white plaster swathed my ribs, while an oversized bandage 
  lay across my nose. I sat up slowly, only to see Drago perched 
  conversationally on a chair at the foot of the bad. A loaded gun 
  lay pointed in my direction on the table next to him.
  “Not too quickly, smart guy,” he spoke in a low tone. “You 
  ain’t going anywhere.”
  I groaned and lay back down against the blankets. Drago 
  continued.
  “You know, I had half a mind to shoot you right there. You 
  made my bull look awful stupid; if we hadn’t carried him outta 
  the ring, I would have thought you two were in cahoots. Little 
  punk.”
  “Where are we?” I managed weakly, my ﬁ ngers softly 
  clenching against the side of the cot.
  “Safe house. A place my boys go whenever they need resting 
  up. You looked like you could use it.”
  “Should I be thanking you or looking for the ﬁ re escape?”
  “Your choice,” he smiled. “The second option will hurt. A 
  lot.”
  “Good point.” I eyed the gun on the table. “So why am I 
  recuperating here at the Gangland Ritz instead of lying in a 
  shallow grave in the woods?”
  “Call it a whim. I get those sometimes.” He stood up. “I’ve 
  got to hand it to you kid, you’re the ﬁ rst boxer I’ve seen smart 
  enough to use magic… and you’re the ﬁ rst who was slick 
  enough to win a ﬁ ght with it. It’s a good hook. A hell of a lot 
  better than paying guys to take a dive. And the crowd ate it 
  up with a spoon.”
  “So?”
  “So I want to put you on the payroll.”
  My eyes widened. “What?!”
  “A ﬁ ghter like you could be real handy,” he went on. “A new 
  wrinkle on an old favorite. You come to work for me, and I’ll 
  throw you a steady diet of palookas who you can take apart 
  just like you took apart Jonesy.”
  “No.”
  “You use that word an awful lot. We gotta break you of the 
  habit.”
  “Look, what I did against Jonesy was a one-time deal. I 
  wasn’t thinking straight.”
  “And now you are,” he picked up the gun casually. “Which is 
  why you’ll see that it’s really in your best interests to agree.”
  “What about the NLEB? The crystal ball squads? People are 
  looking for me.”
  “And that’s different from every other warlock in the world… 
  how? People will always be looking for you kid. Stick with me 
  and they’ll never ﬁ nd you. I pay folks to look the other way. 
  I’ve built an empire on hiding the obvious in plain sight. You 
  think you’re the ﬁ rst fella I’ve made disappear?”
  I gazed at him thoughtfully for a moment. “I’ll disappear?”
  “Like a ghost. You show up for your bouts, that’s all. Hush-
  hush stuff, under the table, in front of fans who have too much 
  to lose if they start asking questions.”
  “And the money?”
  “Enough to keep you in painkillers for as long as you like. 
  You’re a natural longshot, kid. I can clean the bookies dry with 
  you. And I’ll cut you in on every payday.”
  “What if I don’t agree?”
  Drago sighed. “You’re a broken record, kid. Don’t waste my 
  time with questions I’ve already answered.”
  I closed my eyes, then opened them again.
  “No more than four ﬁ ghts a year. I use the John Doe name 
  on all of them. And I want you to send all my proﬁ ts in non-
  traceable bills to the Child of Heaven Health Ward in Gateway. 
  There’s… there’s someone there who could use the money.”
  Drago snorted indulgently. “I think that can be arranged.”
  I held out my hand. “Then you’ve got a deal.”
  ***
  And that’s how it started, my career as a warlock boxer. 
  Everything Drago promised came true. I fought gaunts and 
  unsuspecting normals in underground clubs all over the city. 
  None of my opponents knew about the ace up my sleeve and 
  they never complained about the results once Drago and his 
  goons explained things. I had a nice place to live and a few 
  boltholes to hide, and I eventually learned to stop looking over 
  my shoulder for the next torch-bearing mob. All I had to do 
  was use my magic like I had always trained to do. 
  That’s really what it all boiled down to. I took Drago’s offer 
  to keep him from killing me. I took it to gain a fresh start. I 
  took it for the safety, and for the security, and for the money 
  which I sent faithfully to the ward where Sarah will be spoon 
  fed oatmeal for the rest of her life. She’ll never know where it 
  comes from and maybe the accommodations will be better now 
  because of me.
  Yes, I did it for all those things, each reason a good one, 
  each one helping to soothe me at night when the demons come 
  slithering out of my subconscious.
  But mostly I did it because I wanted to.
  Breaking the laws of physics is a rush unparalleled in the 
  whole of creation. Feeling for the loopholes in the unbreakable 
  system, and sliding through them the way a ﬁ sh slides through 
  a drainage pipe… it ﬁ lls you with energy, it makes you feel tru-
  ly alive. For the briefest of moments, you can sense the worlds 
  beyond this one: worlds without guys like Jack Drago, where 
  good people aren’t chewed up and spat out with quite so much 
  regularity. I tried to ﬁ ght it after Sarah got hurt. I told myself 
  about all the trouble I would get into, and how the government 
  would come for me, and how’d I’d end up shot dead by a crowd 
  too fearful to let my abilities out of control. But sooner or later, 
  in some form or another, I was coming back. Why?
  Because magic is power. And power is the only reason any-
  one has for stepping into the ring.
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/The Edge of Midnight/The Edge of Midnight The Circle Squared.pdf