God brought them out of Egypt; he hath as it were the strength of the unicorn.
—Numbers, 23: 22
I opened my eyes.
I was flat on my back in a bed, staring at a ceiling. It was covered with centerfolds, pictures of nude women in an amazing array of poses. I followed them with my eyes, across the ceiling, down a wall—Ariel stood by the door, looking at me unblinkingly with those dark eyes. "Hi, there," I said.
"You're back," she said.
"Back? I never . . . ." And then I remembered. I looked down at my stomach. I wasn't wearing a shirt and could see the scar tissue where the bolt had come through. "Yeah," I said, avoiding her eyes. "I'm back."
She nodded and turned away, walking silently out the door. A minute later Malachi Lee entered, wearing baggy black pants and a white T-shirt. On the front was a picture of two vultures sitting on a fence. One of them was saying, "Patience, my ass—I wanna kill something!" Malachi's sword was slung at his side. I wondered if he ever let it out of arm's reach. "It even stays at the head of my bed when I sleep," he said, watching me look at it. I smiled.
"You certainly look better," he said as he came to the head of the bed. "How do you feel?"
"Like shit. How long did it take you to collect enough magazines to wallpaper this room?"
"Not long. I went to an adult bookstore downtown and brought them back in a wheelbarrow."
"Christ." I looked around the walls. "Don't you think this stuff is degrading?"
He shrugged. "It was something to do. You haven't seen the bathroom walls—one-dollar bills."
"Toilet paper, too?"
"Show some respect. Toilet paper is large denominations only, preferably with at least two zeroes. There's a healthy stack beside the chamber pot in case you need some."
I looked away from him. "How long was I out?"
"A long time. Four days."
Four days! "Did I eat anything? I ought to be starving but I'm not."
He nodded. "Last night you came out of it long enough for us to get some food and water into you. I don't think you knew where you were; you had a fever for three days. The sheets were soaked from your sweating. It broke last night."
I looked again at the pink mass of scar on my stomach. "It couldn't have been too bad; I'm almost healed. I thought I was dead when it happened."
He opened his mouth, closed it, and opened it again. "It was pretty bad."
"Oh, I'm sure I was probably a mess. I know the bolt came through here—" I patted my stomach "—but I must have lucked out and it didn't hit any vital organs—or did it? Come on, you can tell me. Did you have to do any backwoods surgery on me? I can take it, doc, long as I can play the piano again. What'd you have to use? Sewing needles and brandy? X-acto knives?"
"We were too late for surgery. You were dead by the time I got to you."
His face yielded nothing. "Yeah, sure," I said. "That's why you're telling me about it now."
He shrugged. "Have it your way. Do you want anything to eat?"
"How about just a glass of water?"
He nodded and left. I looked at the nude women on the ceiling. Dead? No, how could I have been? I was here now. But I remembered that darkness I'd felt, and I shivered. It must have been a dream, a fever dream—one of the strange, eidetic dreams a person can have while sleeping a recuperative sleep. Or maybe in some way I had been aware of my comatose state. Hell, I didn't know.
Malachi returned with a glass of water. Ariel followed him in. I thanked him and he left. I drank. The water was warm; nobody had a way to keep water cold in the summer anymore.
"How are you feeling, Pete?" asked Ariel.
I set the glass on the nightstand to my right. "Fine." I avoided her gaze and after a minute she began looking around at the walls. "This room is odd. So many pictures of naked women."
I said nothing.
"What are they for?"
"They're . . . pornography. Pictures intended to . . . to elicit an erotic response."
"Oh," she said, as if that explained everything. I knew it didn't; she'd stopped inquiring because she could tell I was uncomfortable.
She inclined her horn toward my stomach. "You're healing well."
I nodded.
"Talk to me, Pete. Please."
"I don't have anything to say."
"Your feelings are still hurt."
I hesitated. Why bullshit? "Yes."
"You feel I betrayed a trust between us, right? And look what I've caused you—a stab in the back. Is that it?"
Tears welled in my eyes and I didn't respond.
"Okay," she said. "I'll leave you alone." She turned and left. The room was silent and still with the feeling that she'd never really been there at all; she could have been a dream I had had while I was feverish.
I thought about getting out of bed to see if I could move around a bit, or at least stand up on my own. I thought about it until I went to sleep.
* * *
Three days dragged by. Malachi Lee came in to feed me each day and we talked. I saw nothing of Ariel. When I asked about her, Malachi shrugged and said, "I don't know. The other day, the day you came out of it, she asked if she could borrow Faust for a week or two and they both left."
"She say where she was going, or when she'd be back?"
"No." He handed me another sandwich—Spam spread on biscuit. "You ought to get your head straight about her."
I shifted uncomfortably on the bed. Ever since I'd come out of my coma I'd figured I was strong enough to walk around, but Malachi would have none of it. "What do you mean?"
"You know what I mean. You're closing her out."
I didn't say anything.
"You have something most people would give up everything for, and you're taking it for granted." He stood. "You're a spoiled child."
"What the fuck do you expect me to do? Come out of it and say, 'Hey, Ariel, you almost got me killed and cost me my soul, but no sweat'?"
"She tried to explain it to you. She was immature, even if it was only a year ago. She didn't understand what it meant."
"She was using me to test her abilities, dammit."
He cracked his knuckles absently. "Little kids play with matches, but they're not trying to burn down the house." He sat down. His sword clinked against the folding chair beside the bed. "I saw her those four days you were out of it. You didn't. You were too busy being dead."
I snorted.
"Yes, dead." He leaned forward. "Perhaps you blame Ariel for your carelessness in getting a crossbow bolt through your back. But you better realize something—she brought you back." He sat back, folded his arms, and crossed his legs. "Russ and I watched her do it. It took her all that night. For a few hours she just looked at you, never taking her eyes from your face. There was no doubt you were dead, Pete—rigor mortis had begun to set in, and so had dependent lividity, when gravity makes the blood seep to the lowest points in the body because the heart's stopped pumping. Your pupils were dilated. Your bladder and sphincter muscles—"
"Stop!"
"Sorry. But you can't deny what I saw—I was there and you weren't."
"You don't have to be so graphic about it."
The hint of a smile returned. "We'd removed the bolt, and after a while Ariel touched the wound with her horn. It started to glow. It was dim, like a flashlight with near-dead batteries, to use an anachronism. She stayed that way a few minutes and your whole body twitched. Your lips moved as though you were talking, but nothing came out—you weren't breathing yet. Then you started going through convulsions. Ariel told you that was good and for you to help her." He cleared his throat. "You vomited. It was bad; there was a lot of blood in it. Ariel said you were getting closer. You kept mouthing words at her until she started singing to you. She told you to always remember that she loved you, and her horn got so bright Russ and I couldn't look at it. It was like a nova. It died down and she lifted her horn from you and walked past us. Russ stayed with you and I followed Ariel into the living room. She damn near collapsed onto the floor. She was crying." He paused. "You know what it's like to see her cry."
"Yeah."
"She was completely drained; all the energy had been taken out of her. She said she thought you'd be all right. I could barely hear her voice." He shrugged. "That's most of it. You'd started breathing when her horn went bright, and after a while Russ had to leave. Your fever started and Ariel and I took turns keeping a watch on you. You didn't even move until the fourth day, when we managed to get some food into you. You know the rest."
I felt stupid. What was I supposed to say? "I didn't know."
"I know you didn't. But don't shut her out. It's obvious she loves you. You don't need me to tell you she's more than just a horse with a horn, more than a unicorn, even."
* * *
I learned enough about Malachi Lee in those three days to be fascinated by him. We swapped "Where were you the day of the Change?" stories. It had become a way to get to know someone, a conversational ice-breaker, the same way many things in the past had been. Where were you when the Japanese invaded Pearl Harbor? When John Kennedy was shot? When Apollo whatever-it-was landed on the Moon?
His story was simple. He'd been reading a novel in the living room of the house I was in now. About five o'clock he'd looked up from the book. Something didn't seem right; it was too quiet. After doing what just about everyone else seemed to have done—discovered the power out, the phone dead—he went outside and saw it was the same everywhere, and not just for things a power failure would account for. His mind made one big leap: he marked his place in the novel, fed Faust, took his sword from its stand, and sat on the front porch, petting Faust and waiting for looters—though he didn't get his first fence decoration until a week later, when a marine sergeant-type tried to rob him with a shotgun. "No doubt he didn't realize he'd have been better off with a baseball bat," he said, remembering, "as a shotgun isn't even well-suited as a club. But a sword—" He patted the black lacquered sheath at his hip. "A sword always works."
* * *
On the fourth day after I regained consciousness Malachi caught me wandering around the house and ordered me back to bed.
"I'm okay," I insisted. "Watch." I bent down, touched my toes with my palms, straightened up, and bent partway backward. "No fuss, no muss. I raised my shirt. "See—nice, pink, healed scar."
"It's your funeral."
At least he stopped harassing me about staying in bed and let me have the run of the house, allowing me to work my body back into shape. He showed me a few stretching exercises to help out, but mostly left me to my own devices. I was bored silly.
Three days after I'd got out of bed he caught me thumbing through his copy of A Book of Five Rings and asked if I wanted to learn to use a sword. Enthusiastic in my ignorance, I said yes.
* * *
The next two weeks were a nightmare. He worked on building stamina in my arm muscles, on honing my reflexes, and on my leg and arm flexibility, which was almost nonexistent. The training served a triple purpose: not only did I want to learn, I'd lost a lot of weight during those four black days and felt I needed to get back into shape. It also helped keep my mind off Ariel. I had trouble sleeping because I was worried about her.
"The first thing you have to learn," Malachi said, "is how to control a blade." He handed me a long piece of wood, like a baseball bat but thicker, heavier, and squared rather than rounded, and made me pick an imaginary spot three feet in front of my head. He told me to swing at it with all my strength, but to stop the bat right on the mark and not let it go past. I went past it by a good eighteen inches my first try.
"Again," he said.
I kept it up for about fifty tries and then he made me reverse direction and do the same thing. My arms ached and my hands were numb against the wood by the time I finished. I asked for a break.
"Sure," he said.
I sighed with relief, took a long drink of water, and spread out in a big X on the grass.
"Break's over," he said.
He made me swing the bat overhead and down fifty times, stopping it at chest level. I hit the ground the first three tries.
I was given a wooden sword and told to carry it at all times, never letting it out of reach. Once he rushed into my room in the middle of the night, screaming like a lunatic. I barely had time to get my hands on the wooden sword handle before his blade was at my throat.
"You're a snail," he said mildly. "You have the right idea but you're slow." He sheathed his blade without looking at it. "How can you teach swordplay to someone with no instinct for self-preservation?"
He tried to teach me accuracy by hanging sheets of notebook paper on string from the ceiling. There'd be a blur as he drew his sword and returned it to the sheath, and a neat, one-inch strip of paper would waft its way to the floor. Before it hit he'd draw again, so fast I couldn't see the blade move, and another one-inch strip would join the first.
"You try," he said, and handed me his sword.
I tried. Sometimes I even managed to hit the paper.
"Hopeless," he said. "It's hopeless."
By the end of a week's time we were dressing up in armor left over from his days in the Society for Creative Anachronism and going at it full-out with the wooden swords called bokkens. Our battles consisted mostly of him blocking everything I threw at him and knocking me on my ass with well-placed slashes and thrusts every time I did something stupid. I did something stupid a lot.
He taught me about breathing and how it must be controlled: in through the nose, out through the mouth, gradually slowing it down, using the diaphragm to expand the lungs' capacity for oxygen.
A week is time to learn a lot of things, too short a time to master any of them. Malachi even told me, "Right now you know just about enough to get yourself killed, because you have technique without expertise. You'll have to work on it on your own—it takes a long time."
"How long have you been doing it?"
"I'm thirty-three. I've been 'doing it,' as you say, ever since I began studying martial arts, which was when I was sixteen."
"Oh."
I learned about the sword itself—how a samurai considered it the embodiment of his soul because it kept him alive and represented his way of life. I learned never to touch a blade because oil from the skin mars it, causing rust and showing carelessness and disrespect. I found the twined handle was superior because it absorbed sweat and provided a firmer grip, and that the long, curved blade was meant more for wicked slashes than straight thrusts.
At the end of that first week Malachi gave me a sword. It was wrapped in oilcloth. I unrolled it carefully and there it was: black-twined, in a plain black lacquered sheath. I held it in my left hand and drew the blade. Its mirror finish blazed in the late afternoon sun. Reflections spread across the grass as I turned the blade.
I put it back into the sheath. It settled in with a comfortable snick. "I can't take this."
"Yes, you can. Oh, sure, it's worth a fortune—the blade was forged in the sixteenth century; I saved for ten years to buy it from some idiot who didn't know how much it was worth. But I have this one now." He patted his side. The tsuba rattled. "I found it in an arms museum. It's worth a dozen of the one you're holding." He reached out and I handed him the sword. He put it in his belt next to his own and drew it. It whicked as it cut the air. "This blade," he said, looking at his reflection in it, "is an exceptionally good one. I expect you always to treat it with the respect it deserves. Take care of it, keep it well-oiled and clean—I'll show you how. It ought to last your lifetime." He half-smiled. "If it doesn't get used too much, that is." He returned it to me. "And give it a name."
"A name?"
He nodded. "Every good sword has a name."
"Oh. What's your sword's name?"
"Kaishaku-nin. Literally it means 'one who assists.' You know about seppuku?"
I nodded.
"The kaishaku was the one who stood behind the man committing seppuku," he continued. "He waited until the proper cuts were made, then took off the head with one clean stroke of his katana. Usually a kaishaku was a close friend or relative of the man committing seppuku. It was a great honor."
"Does the sword have to have a Japanese name?"
"Not necessarily."
I nodded. "I'll have to think about it."
"Take your time. Work with it, get used to it, and it will name itself." He went on to tell me an improbable story about a ronin—a sort of unemployed samurai, a loner—who had a set of swords with named Pecker One and Pecker Two. The sun had set by the time he finished.
A week later as we gathered our gear and started inside after a particularly grueling session, we heard a dog barking at the front gate. Ariel and Faust had returned.
* * *
"Where the hell have you been?" I demanded.
Malachi was out back, wrestling on the grass with Faust. The black Chow growled ferociously, play-biting his arms. Malachi had already fed him two bowls of Jim Dandy.
I'd hugged Ariel when Malachi and I had greeted them at the gate. She felt so good to touch, my arms around her dove-soft coat. I became cross when we got inside, though—I'd been worried.
She looked indignant. "I took a sabbatical. I thought we needed a break from each other. At least it seemed like you needed a break from me."
"I didn't need a break from you, I just . . . didn't know how to feel." I paused. "Ariel—Malachi told me what you did for me. How you brought me back. Why didn't you tell me?"
"And hold it over your head? I didn't want to use it against you. No one should use somebody's gratitude as ammunition."
I shook my head. "I remember the darkness, the way you pulled me out of it. And then the day of the Change—it felt so damned real, as if I were there again."
"It was a memory, Pete. Nothing more."
"But I lived it over again, all of it. Why? Did you do it?"
She nodded. "I'm sorry, Pete. Sorrier than you could know. You tried so hard to forget all that happened to you, and I had to bring it back."
"Why? I'm not mad at you, I just want to know."
"When you were dead—that darkness you felt—I tried to bring you back. But I couldn't unless you wanted to come back, and I couldn't make you want to; you had to do that from within yourself."
"The Song."
"Yes. It gave you strength. It broke you from death and into a coma. But that didn't mean you were going to be able to come back to me. You still could have died any time. I needed to give you something vivid, something concrete you could hang on to. Good or bad." She lowered her head. "Those were your strongest memories, I'm afraid, and I had to make you live them over again. Please forgive me."
"Forgive you? I'm the one who should be saying that. I overreacted. I'm stupid sometimes."
She said nothing.
"I love you, you know."
She blinked. "I love you, Pete."
"Yeah, I know. It shows. So where the hell have you been!"
"No place in particular. Faust and I just wandered around the city. I found out some things you should know."
"Such as?"
"Well—most important. Emilio wants me. It appears he's been offered a large amount—of what, I don't know—for my horn."
"Why, that son of a bitch."
"Whatever. Faust and I went back to the library to follow up a hunch I had. Russ had told us about Emilio and I thought maybe he'd come looking for us after we had left the library."
"And?"
"It was a mess. Somebody had been there."
"Lovely."
"Faust led me to trading bars. I hung around and listened to talk. Apparently Russ Chaffney told somebody about me when he got back, either after we met him on the overpass or after leaving Malachi's, and—"
"—And they told somebody else, and so on. I get the idea."
"Yes. Someone wants me, all right. Half the city knows. We're probably among the last who don't, because Malachi keeps himself pretty separated from the rest of the goings-on here. I'd expect Emilio to show up within the next few days."
"Why would he wait that long?"
"I'm not sure. It seems as if he's waiting for someone, though—I'm sure he wouldn't come here alone."
"Simply wonderful. I'd better tell Malachi." I turned to go out the front door—the rest were still boarded shut. I looked back at Ariel. "Didn't anyone notice you poking around in trading bars?"
"I doubt it. I mostly stayed behind the buildings and listened—my hearing's better than yours. Besides, I can be pretty quiet when I want to."
"Gee, I hadn't noticed." I went outside to tell Malachi.
* * *
Next day: routine as usual. Up at six a.m., stretch out, work basic slashes, thrusts, blocks, and parries; practice drawing the blade and returning it without looking—that was hard as hell—break for a while, fight Malachi with bokken and homemade armor until I could barely lift my arms, then break for lunch.
I dragged myself inside, sweating.
"You're getting pretty good with that thing," said Ariel.
"Oh, yeah? You'd be good, too, if you had a homicidal maniac on the business end of it trying to do to you before you did to him."
"You're getting into shape. Amazing for a few weeks' time." She blinked. "You've changed, too. You seem more self-confident."
I grinned. "You, too, can fear no man! Send check or money order today to Malachi Lee's Sadistic School of Swordplay. Money back if not completely worn out in half a month." I got serious. "You've changed, too. Something I can't quite put my finger on. You act . . . . I don't know. Older."
She nodded. "I feel it. You can't bring somebody back from death and not be changed. I saw a little of what you felt in that darkness, Pete. It changed me. Innocence is in many ways ignorance. I lost some of my ignorance when I saw that."
"That's not good."
She tossed her head. "It happened." She scraped at the floor, then looked up, dismissing it. "So tell me about the new addition to your arsenal." She inclined her head at the sword at my left hip.
"My new appendage. Malachi gave it to me."
"That was very generous of him. He must have a lot of confidence in you; I doubt he'd give a sword—especially one as valuable as that one seems to be—to just anyone."
"You wouldn't know it, to hear him talk. 'Hopeless' this and 'waste of time' that. I'm just not Jedi material, I guess."
Though she couldn't have understood the reference, she laughed. It was good to hear; I hadn't realized how much I missed it until I heard it again.
"I'm supposed to give it a name," I said, smiling.
"Oh, really? What are you going to name it?"
"Nothing spectacular. Got any suggestions?"
"Lady Vivamus, maybe? Anduril? Durandul? Stormbringer, perhaps?"
I shook my head. "I think I'll name it Fred."
"Fred?"
"Sure. Why not?"
"Fred?"
"I like that name," I said defensively. "Tell you what—I'll make it official." I walked out the front door, making damn sure the crossbow trap wasn't connected. I'd become gun shy; every time I walked out the door now I felt this cold, prickling sensation in the small of my back.
Ariel followed me down the porch steps. I stood in the yard and drew my sword, holding it so the sunlight blazed along the length of the curved blade. I squinted up at it. "I dub thee . . . Fred!"
"Oh, shit," said Ariel, tail swishing.
I slid the blade back into the sheath without looking and with only minor fumbling. I was just beginning to get the feel of the blade, as if it really were an extension of my arm. "There you go," I said, walking back to Ariel. "It's done."
"Wait until Malachi finds out. He'll kill you."
I snorted. "I am luff tuff Nipponese swordsman now. Utterry invinciber."
Ariel's eyes widened and I turned to see Malachi behind me, shaking his head. Faust was close beside him, bright-eyed and panting in the heat. "Hopeless," said Malachi, and he turned away, still shaking his head and muttering something about silk purses and sow's ears. Or casting pearls before swine. Or something like that.
* * *
Someone shook me awake and I reached for my sword.
"Hold on, it's me!"
"Wha?" I shook my head. "Russ?"
He nodded. "Come on, get up. We need you."
I sat up and swung my legs over the side of the bed. I rubbed my eyes, still not completely awake. "What are you doing here?"
"Keep your voice down." Asmodeus sat on his shoulder, "I just got here," he said, stroking the falcon's neck feathers. "Emilio and four other people are on their way here to get Ariel. They're about a half hour behind me."
I hurried into the living room, clutching Fred. I'd been sleeping in my clothes in case I had to get up in a hurry. "What's up?" I asked Malachi.
"You know as much as we do. We're waiting."
Hell of a way to wake up . . . . Russ was looking at me strangely. "What's wrong?" I asked.
He blinked. "Oh—nothing. You just look a lot better than the last time I saw you. You ought to change your name to Lazarus."
I said nothing and looked out the window at the heads on the fence.
Russ saw me looking. "Sometimes he reminds me of those World War Two pilots who stenciled swastikas and bombs on the sides of their planes to mark their kills. Morbid." Asmodeus stirred on his shoulder. He stroked her with a finger. "It's okay," he said. He looked from the falcon to Ariel and Faust. "Place is turning into a goddamn Doctor Dolittle set," he muttered.
I looked at Malachi. He was perched on the edge of the couch. He stared out the window and didn't move.
"What are we going to do?" I asked no one in particular.
Russ answered. "We're going to wait and see what they do." He nodded at the sword in my hand. "Malachi tells me you're a natural with that thing. I sure hope so. I brought my baby." He hefted a thirty-inch Adirondack wooden baseball bat. He flipped it, caught the heavy end, let the other end fall against his forearm, and casually extended his arm toward me. The business end of the bat shot toward me, stopping an inch in front of my chest. Before I could move it was snapped away and the bat was twirling like a baton. He fanned it until he was moving it in a sort of batting stance, one hand on the smaller end, the other halfway up. He lowered the bat and grinned. "Nervous?"
"Yes."
Malachi stood up from the couch. I looked out the window. Motion. I counted four people. They began helping each other over the padlocked fence.
"We ought to nail them as they come inside," said Russ.
Malachi shook his head. "They won't come in. They'll wait for us. We'll play it their way, for now." He turned from the window and looked at us. "Let's go."
* * *
We met them just inside the front gate. Malachi wore a fill dress kimono of black silk with Kaishaku-nin secured at his side. Russ dangled the baseball bat casually. On his shoulder Asmodeus spread her wings. Faust stood quietly beside Malachi, displaying none of his usual excitement. I'd grabbed my blowgun quickly, intending to try to get off one good shot if it got down to it. Fred was slung tightly at my hip. Ariel stood behind us.
We must have looked like something out of a comically absurd Western. The Magnificent Seven meet Fantasia. I'd have been laughing if I hadn't been scared out of my wits.
One of the four men was Emilio. Another I recognized as the other man who'd been on the overpass when Ariel and I arrived in Atlanta. He carried a hatchet. The third man was tall, with long blond hair. He carried a Bear compound hunting how with a quiver attached. The fourth swaggered with a broadsword thrust through his wide leather belt.
Emilio still wore his knives. They gleamed in the morning sun: throwing knives, trench knives, push-blades, two boot-knives. In his right hand was a black-handled and wickedly curved machete. In his left a chain was coiled around his palm with about three feet dangling free. I looked nervously at Malachi, but his face registered nothing. He'd told me once during training that a good length of chain, wielded by a man who knew what he was doing, was a sword's natural enemy. "It can be thrown hard against the blade," he'd said. "It wraps around and makes the edge useless. A good tug and you're thrown off balance—and balance is everything to a swordsman. If you try to slash and hit the chain, same thing—it binds the blade."
We stopped about five yards from them. The one with the compound bow reached out, pulled out an arrow, and fitted it, but kept the bow pointed down.
Emilio and the one with the broadsword stepped forward until they were eight feet from us. "We want the horse," said Emilio.
"She's not a horse," I said. I hadn't meant to say anything but it came out before I could stop it.
Emilio laughed. His eyes flicked to my sword. "You didn't have that when you came here." He glanced at Malachi, who regarded him with absolutely no expression. "I suppose now you think you're pretty bad with it."
I tried to follow Malachi's example and said nothing.
He raised the chain, letting it swing back and forth like a pendulum. "Come on," he said to me. "Just you and me. You win and nobody bothers your pretty horse. You lose, she's mine."
"No," said Malachi. "If you want somebody, you come for me."
"Since when did you become a Boy Scout?" asked the broadsword carrier.
Malachi's face remained impassive.
"Okay," breathed Emilio, and suddenly he grinned. His teeth were even and white. "You and me, samurai." He laughed at the word.
"All right." Malachi separated himself from us, never taking his eyes from Emilio's. The two squared off. Emilio crouched forward, waving the chain from side to side. The machete weaved in slow circles, waiting. Malachi flowed into his stance. His feet were wide apart. He stood with knees bent, up on the balls of his bare feet and leaning forward slightly, bent at the waist. He'd pushed down on the sheath of his sword so that the handle pointed down, the tip up. His right hand gripped the twined handle firmly, just beneath the guard. His eyes were leveled at Emilio's chest, but they looked through him, as if he saw something there that I didn't, something hypnotizing.
Emilio twitched the chain, trying to draw Malachi into movement. Malachi remained still. His eyes narrowed; he was judging distance. Suddenly he moved, and if I hadn't spent long hours learning from him I would have missed it completely. As it was I only saw the blur. He drew his sword and slashed horizontally. It split Emilio's nose. Maintaining the sword's momentum, he turned his right wrist so the sword arced up, brought his left hand up to grab the bottom of the handle, and sliced straight down. The movement brought the sword vertically through Emilio's nose, quartering it.
The whole thing took less than half a second. Emilio hadn't had time to move.
Emilio put his hands to his face and screamed. Bright red blood flowed from between his fingers, down his forearms.
I had to piece together what happened after that. Emilio, blood still streaming freely, sank to his knees. The broadsword wielder drew and headed for Malachi, who leaned back, holding Kaishaku-nin so that the sword's tip almost touched the ground, edge upward.
Ten yards away, the one with the bow lifted it, took aim at me, and let fly. The arrow sped at me, though of course I couldn't see it, and then Ariel was in front of me, head snapping down and, just as quickly, up. The arrow broke in two.
The man looked after his shot in disbelief. He drew another hunting arrow. I brought the Aero-mag to my lips and blew. The shot was hurried, though, and the dart hit him wide of my mark. He dropped his bow and spun, clutching his shoulder. He tried to pull out the dart and couldn't; it was wedged in the socket and probably against bone. He ran away. In the confusion he must have managed to pull himself over the fence one-handed. We didn't see him again, anyhow.
Russ Chaffney, meanwhile, had engaged the hatchet-bearer. He blocked the man's powerful swings successfully with the baseball bat, holding it with both hands and catching the hatchet on the handle, just beneath the blade. He couldn't counter, though; the heavy blade didn't give him time to swing. Asmodeus had taken wing and was trying to get in at the man's eyes, but he was slashing too wildly. As Russ kept trying to get in on him the man backed out of range.
Malachi's fight with the broadsword bearer took exactly two moves. His opponent aimed a powerful stroke at Malachi's head. Malachi brought the sword straight up from its low guard position and cut through the man's wrists. The hands fell to the ground, still clutching the heavy broadsword. Without hesitating, Malachi brought the sword back, stepped in, and crosscut through the man's neck. The head rolled. Spurting blood caught Malachi across the waist as the body fell.
Russ blocked his opponent's hatchet once more, this time pulling back on the bat as he did. Wedged under the blade, the tug brought the man off balance. Russ kicked him in the stomach as he fell forward. He let out an empty-sounding whuff! and lost his grip. The hatchet fell to the grass.
Asmodeus clawed and screeched. The man brought his arms up to ward off the falcon and Russ's bat at the same time. Russ raised the bat and advanced. The man backed up and the point of Malachi's sword appeared almost magically through his chest. It made a ripping sound as it came through. The sword pulled back and he fell, hands twitching randomly.
It was over. Not ten seconds had gone by. I looked at the blood and bodies and vomited.
Emilio got away.
* * *
I had to help Russ and Malachi with the bodies. I won't talk about that, if you don't mind.
Malachi put the heads on his fence.
"Getting pretty crowded up there," said Russ. There were now eight heads atop the black spikes.
"There's plenty more room," I said heavily. "Besides, the fence goes all the way around the yard."
Russ put his hands on his hips and cocked his head to one side. "What's the matter with you?"
"Nothing. I'm always this cheerful when I kill people."
Malachi looked at me. "You didn't kill anybody, Pete."
"No. You did."
"What did you expect?"
I waved him off and turned away. "I don't know."
"Was it the blood, Pete?" asked Ariel. "You didn't expect it to be like that, did you?"
I shook my head.
"Killing isn't clean," said Malachi. "You've killed before; you should know that."
"Yeah, I've killed before. When I had to. But not like that."
Malachi stood next to Russ. "Pete. Nobody said swords were bloodless. It's not lofty and chivalrous. You had this Errol Flynn movie in your head; you never stopped to think that when you cut somebody, he bleeds." He pulled out his blade and looked at it. He'd cleaned the blood off with a silk rag. "Swords aren't romantic, glorious things. They're messy."
"You like it and you know it."
"No. I love the artistry in knowing how to use a blade, in being good with one." He raised an eyebrow. "And yes, there can even be a certain artistry in killing a man with good technique. But I don't have to like it. And I don't."
"Then why do you do it?"
"Because my sword is what I know. Because I only use it in situations where it's kill or get killed. Not because I like it. Do you think it's any less right to kill a man with a sword than with a blowgun, just because one's bloody and the other isn't?"
"It makes me sick."
Russ put a strong hand on my shoulder. "Me, too. You get used to it. You have to."
I looked at him in disgust. "Get used to it? I never want to have to."
"You have to," he repeated firmly, "or you end up like that." He jerked his head toward the fence.
* * *
We made preparations to get out of Atlanta. If someone had offered a reward for Ariel's horn, staying in one place would probably get us killed—Malachi, too. So I cleaned myself up and began packing gear away in my backpack while Ariel kept me company. We went into the living room when I finished packing. Malachi had already sponged the blood off himself and shouldered a backpack of his own. He'd had it ready for years, just in case he had to get out in a hurry. "We all ready?" he asked.
"You shouldn't come with us," said Ariel. "We don't need to cause you more trouble than we already have."
"Trouble doesn't bother me. I'm sworn to your service, if you'll remember."
"I'd not ask you to endanger yourself when it can be avoided by my leaving."
"There'll still be a reward for you, for your horn. People will still look for you."
"It won't be so bad," I said, "if we keep on the move. We've never liked to stay in any one place too long; it won't make that much difference. Except maybe to make life more interesting."
Malachi's face was stony. He adjusted a shoulder strap. "Let's go," he said.
"I'll walk with you for a while," said Russ. "But I'm staying here." He shrugged. "Atlanta's my home."
"You've helped more than enough," said Ariel. "Thank you."
We shouldered our packs and went outside. It was near noon and very hot. "So," I said, "I guess we're going to just set out and—" I stopped.
Emilio stood at the front gate. There was a large, white bandage across his nose, with a large red blotch in the middle. It looked absurdly like a Japanese flag.
"What the hell?" said Russ, frowning. "You should have killed him when you had the chance." Asmodeus shrieked. "Quiet, babe." He patted her claws, gnarled as the stumps of old bonsai trees.
"I wonder what he wants," said Ariel. "You'd think he'd have learned his—"
"Malachi!" We turned as one when Emilio shouted. "Malachi Lee!"
"You don't think he wants to take you on again?" I asked.
"One way to find out." He headed toward the gate.
"No," said Russ. "Wait. Let him come to us. If he's got back-ups, so much the better. We can get them as they come through."
Malachi scratched the back of his head. "I want to know what kind of game he's playing." We stood on the front porch, watching Emilio at the gate. Malachi folded his arms, silent.
"You're dead," Emilio yelled. "You're dead." He held onto the bars of the fence and laughed.
"I don't get it," said Russ. "I don't see anyone else around."
Faust had been sitting beside Russ's leg. Now he stood, the fur on his back bristling. He growled: low, throaty, and threatening. Asmodeus spread her wings and shrieked. Both animals were looking toward the front gate. Malachi glanced back at them, then turned back to where they were looking. There was motion behind Emilio, and what I saw heading toward us made me react—funny I could still remember the sensation—as if I'd stuck my finger in a light socket.
Coming down the road toward Malachi Lee's house was a griffin.