I tried to tell myself that this would be an end. That after this, I would be free.
Of what? my stubborn self preservation instinct demanded. Could I print up some business cards saying Sean Danet, Immortal Faith Healer? Could I stop running every few years? Settle down with a good woman and trade her in for a newer model once she got wrinkles and osteoporosis? And, assuming that everything did actually go according to plan, which is hardly ever a given even when there isn’t a swordfight on the agenda, on what was I basing my faith that the Doors clan would actually follow through on the deal if I did win? I was risking everything, and for what? A few more years at a job I enjoyed with a few short-lived friends.
And Sarah.
Was this in any possible way worth it?
Yes, I decided.
The sheer flat certainty of my answer surprised me. It came from somewhere deep and primal. More innate even than my knee-jerk self-preservation instinct. I hadn’t realized that I had a more ingrained motivation.
Being a man of science and reason as well as instinct, I felt the need to analyze my decision. It was a decision, as emphatic and final as any I’d made, of that I had no doubt. I just wanted to know, as a wise man had once put it, the cause in which I was expected to die.
What was it about this woman that made her so much better than a million others? Well, part of it was the year of her birth. Vast improvements had been made in the field of young women recently. For most of western history, they had been considered subservient to men, and while I’d certainly enjoyed the company of a number of them, and my tastes had always run toward the least subservient of the bunch, it certainly colored how they saw themselves.
Then, very recently, when women had begun to make strides, there was a tendency to have a bit of a chip on the shoulder. Again, nothing I wasn’t willing to work around.
But it was refreshing and exhilarating to meet a generation of women who truly felt that they were equals, who took it as a given that they deserved to be treated as such. That quiet expectation delivered results far beyond what any strident demands could have.
In a way, Sarah was the epitome of that new mindset. She didn’t just wait to be pursued or seduced; she was equally willing to take the lead or follow mine when I seemed on a roll. She was even helping me in my current situation, doing a lot of the mental heavy lifting.
Could that be it?
In a way, Sarah was a comrade in arms. We were sharing a foxhole, shoulder to shoulder in the line.
I hadn’t ever done that with a lover.
My world had always been segregated. There were girlfriends and squadmates and never the twain shall meet. I expected different things from each, and thought of them differently.
Did that make me sexist? I wondered. Probably. For most of my long life the world had been pretty clearly divided into what men did and what women did. I was still adjusting to the times.
I think I’ve always treated women well, but had I treated them as equals? Not usually, I had to admit. I mean, I respected them, cared about them, I was thoughtful and generous. I tried never to take them for granted or lie to them more than I had to, to keep my secrets, but had I ever felt that bond of shared trust? No, I had to say I hadn’t.
Well, except for Nique, but she was—
Standing beside me in the line. I had mentally sorted her into the category of other men, since men served beside you and shared one kind of reliance, and women—
Huh. Maybe that was one reason I hadn’t felt any strong sexual attraction towards Nique. You cared about your buddies. Cared deeply. But you didn’t fantasize about sleeping with them.
OK, so how did that explain my feelings for Sarah? Was it that I’d lusted first, trusted second? Maybe. Whatever the reason, she, pretty much uniquely in my life, stood in both camps: a lover and a partner.
Which made her someone I wasn’t about to walk away from.
I hoped Doors didn’t kill me. It would be such a waste to have made this journey of personal discovery and not live to use any of it.
Chapter 35
PETE AND I DROVE OUT to the Essex Mill complex. As the erstwhile epicenter of the American textile industry, Philips Mills was full of abandoned mill buildings. Now most were just massive, empty brick shells, filled with pigeons. In place of the dirty, unsafe, exploited labor of the weavers of the industrial revolution, it now saw the dirty, unsafe, exploited labor of prostitution and drug dealing.
Developers were planning to turn the old buildings into condominiums, shops, and restaurants. The theory was that it would attract wealthy homeowners and shoppers to the city, creating legitimate prosperity.
The dealers and hookers would survive. Some would find other slums, some would sell better drugs and cleaner girls to the new arrivals, enjoying the new prosperity.
The Essex Mills had been one of the biggest complexes. Four long, narrow four-story mill buildings formed a quadrangle a hundred yards on a side. The enclosed space was littered with small outbuildings that had served as guard shacks, warehouses, and carpenters or machinist shops back when the mills were active. Now, they stood empty.
The area also held a good deal of construction equipment and trailers. Perfect for an ambush. Not that I thought they’d try that, given how he’d want this done right, and how he’d have to expect all my careful blackmail info to come out if he tried something, but a paranoid survivor streak can’t help but notice.
A trenchcoated heavy waved us to a corner of the yard where a trailer screened a small cleared space off from both the worst of the wind and casual view.
We parked and got out. Pete checking the placement of the Browning in his pocket and then slinging over his shoulder the jump kit that he had borrowed from one of the spare ambulances.
Doors stood at the far side of the space, three men behind him. I couldn’t see any weapons, but they all wore those stylish long black coats, so I was sure they were packing something. A table stood to one side. A case containing the swords lay open on it.
The man himself stood out from the rest of the crowd. Like me, he wore a white shirt under his long coat. This was part of the custom. It was easier to spot blood on a white shirt; too much blood, and the seconds could halt play.
If he was as nervous as I, he didn’t show it. There was an intensity etched on his lean face, a glint of predatory anticipation in those steely grey eyes.
Pete set the big jump kit on the table, made sure he had some bandages and IV supplies ready. We were only a block and a half from the hospital, and Pete had the numbers for today’s ambulance crews in his cell, so if I did lose, and nobody got too ugly, I might have a chance. I’m not sure just how lethal a wound it would take to kill me. I’d recovered from some bad injuries, but never anything that would be instantly fatal to a lucky man in good health. I hoped this wouldn’t be the day I’d find out.
Doors’ second indicated the case on the table. I looked in and saw an exquisite matched set of dueling swords. Narrow, pointed blades, triangular in cross-section. Stiff, sharp and deadly. No edge to speak of, just a swift, wicked needle to puncture a man’s vitals. As far as I could tell, they were identical. I lifted one out and gripped it, feeling the heft and balance as it settled into my hand.
Holding that weapon would make Ghandi want to pick a fight.
It was perfect. It was a first kiss, a nine-minute guitar solo, the first cup of coffee on deck on a brisk October morning, a twelve-year-old single malt, a lover’s satisfied sigh. It felt light and alive in my hand, an extension of my fingers and wrist and arm and thoughts. Forget the Manhattan Project, it purred seductively, forget John Moses Browning. I am the most sophisticated instrument of death ever forged by the hand of man. Just making a quick parry and thrust with it I wanted to fence the world, impale the heavens and spill an ocean of blood.
It was a very nice sword. I nodded approval.
Doors took the other sword, twin to the one I held, and we saluted, then came en garde.
I took
a deep breath and blew it out through pursed lips. I felt the roiling in my stomach subside, the energy of fear channeled into imminent action. My reactions felt keen, my step light, my senses sharper. I felt the electric surge humming through my body, the exhilaration of the moment.
That’s why men skydive and race horses and fight bulls. The addictive rush of adrenaline, the thrill of feeling life’s fleeting and fragile nature made it that much more precious. After the clean, sharp taste of life on the edge, some men found it impossible to return to the drabness of an ordinary existence.
For myself, I’d have been happier with a pint in my hand and a pretty girl on my knee, but I was grateful for the pick me up.
I took a careful look at my foe. His form was textbook. Knees bent, back erect, right foot pointed at me, left at a precise ninety degree angle. His body was turned almost sideways, his left hand out behind him to provide a counterweight to his extension and lunge. You could have drawn a line through both of his heels to me. Perfect for Olympic foil.
I kept my own stance just a bit more open, my body a shade more forward, my left hand out to the side, not behind. All that would shorten my lunge a bit, but gave me more lateral mobility. Here, we weren’t confined to a strip. We could circle, and while it probably wouldn’t make a difference, fending off a thrust with my left hand was better than taking it in the body.
When the judge gave us the command, Doors sprang forward, slapped my blade aside and lunged. I scrambled back, parried by a whisker. I began a riposte, but he stopped it almost before it started. He kept moving forward, testing my guard, throwing firm, quick attacks at me. I gave ground, circling to my left, keeping my guard close.
Damn, he was fast.
He was aggressive, but not rash. I hoped he would overextend, but he disappointed me, not leaving himself open for a sneaky counter or swift riposte. Fast, strong, and skilled. All that I could handle; but he was also smart, and obviously trusted on his talent to bring him victory so long as he didn’t make a mistake.
Good as he was, he was very orthodox. I held him off less by speed or skill than by instinct, reading where he intended to attack, subconsciously knowing where, thanks to centuries of practice and training and masters who had discovered that it was the right attack to make. That and the fact that actual dueling swords were just a bit heavier and stiffer than the sporting weapons he’d won medals with. That little difference that slowed his reactions just the tiniest bit. It probably kept me alive.
When I thought I had his measure, I threw my first real counter. He deflected it with a flick of his wrist, beat my blade to the right, then disengaged under my parry. I leapt back, reversed my blade into a circular parry in sixte, deflected his thrust and made a riposte to his chest.
With a speed he must have kept in reserve, he counterparried and drove his point back at me. I frantically backpedaled and parried, barely catching it in time. His point actually ripped through the sleeve of my shirt and I felt the cold steel slide across my shoulder, but doing me no harm beyond raising goose-bumps.
Seeing me almost impaled on my first real attack, he smiled a cold, predatory smile. More a baring of fangs than an expression of happiness. He increased the speed and power of his attacks, and I held him off with difficulty, straining to my limit.
I was fencing better than I ever had, but he was so fast and I was tiring and my bad ankle was starting to feel stiff. Sooner or later—no, sooner—I would stumble or lose the rhythm and it would be over. I shoved down my growing fear and focused.
What did I have that he didn’t? He was at least as skilled, he was faster, he was stronger, he was younger.
Younger.
And trained to compete.
My coach’s words came back to me. Nobody fences Italian anymore.
I increased the extension of my sword arm, started making wider parries. Doors’ smile grew. I must have looked tired. I let my point drift just a hair’s breadth too far to the right, giving him an opening he couldn’t resist.
His lunge was like a lightning bolt. He threw his whole body into the attack, extending his arm and launching himself explosively forward. His back leg, his shoulder, elbow, wrist and the point of his sword making one straight line toward my heart.
My blade was a bit high and right of his attack. Instead of sweeping my arm and weapon across to my left, I twisted my wrist in and down, catching the middle of his blade near the guard of my own weapon. Keeping my elbow at a slight angle out to my right, I guided his point down and to the side while driving my own toward his body. I advanced into his lunge, robbing him of the split second between his realizing what I’d done and being able to do anything about it. His body offered almost no resistance to the sharp, narrow point. I felt the blade slide along something solid, a rib maybe, or his spine. He gave a startled gasp.
The combined movement of his lunge and my advance brought us very close. His right foot actually landed on mine and I looked into his eyes from less than a foot away. The guards of our swords butted together, his point far out to my right, half of my blade buried in his body.
His face registered surprise more than pain. A tiny, strangled cough forced its way past his lips, and the sword dropped from his hand. I put my left hand on his chest.
‘Everybody stay right where you are!’ Pete shouted. I had no attention to spare him, I just hoped he’d keep the situation under control and didn’t squeeze the trigger by mistake.
I sent my awareness deep into my enemy’s body, exploring the wound. The sword had entered just below his right breast, passed through his right lung at a slight downward angle, piercing his descending aorta and going out just to the left of his spine.
I looked him in the eye and gave him a smile. ‘This sword is through the biggest blood vessel in your body,’ I told him. ‘When I pull it out, you’ll bleed to death in less than a minute. You could fall backwards onto an operating table and the best surgeon in the world couldn’t save you. I think we can call that a mortal wound.’
I whipped the blade free. Blood surged out behind it, spattering thick and warm on my knee. I sent some energy quickly through to seal the hole in the great vessel, stopping the loss of the precious fluid. Once I was satisfied that the blood loss was staunched, I repaired the lung, then finally the connective tissues and skin, leaving only a matched pair of scars, front and back, for him to remember me by.
When I was finished I stood, stepped back and spoke, clearly enough that all potential witnesses would hear.
‘By every rule of single combat your life belongs to me. That does not mean that I want to take it now.’ I spoke the words that Conrad’s pen had put in General D’Hubert’s mouth. The words that Sarah had pointed out held the one loophole in this mad vendetta. I tried to plagiarize with a straight face.
‘What do you mean?’ he demanded.
‘By right of combat,’ I said, ‘I hold your life in my hand. As a gesture of good faith to your family, and to mend the rift between us, I will not take it. But I insist that in light of this meeting, you consider yourself, in all matters concerning me, a dead man.’
A bit formal, but it seemed to fit the occasion. I saluted, reluctantly placed the sword on the table and walked briskly away.
I didn’t look back. I just projected the absolute confidence that nobody would try to stop me. That’s one of the secrets to effective leadership: if you don’t believe it, nobody else will.
Plus, I wanted to get out of sight so I could resume limping and panting.
Chapter 36
THE FOUR OF US WALKED BACK to my apartment, laughing and joking in the hallway. I had my good arm around Sarah, who was still clinging to me, and Pete had my keys.
Pete opened the door and stepped in, reaching for the light switch.
There was a sudden rush of motion; Pete started to step back, and there was a silver blur as he reeled back into me, blood spraying from a cut throat. I shoved Sarah aside as a man came at me, bloody blade driving toward my chest. I grabbed
the wrist, instinctively using my left hand. Block with the left, attack with the right had become ingrained.
In this case it was a mistake. The man swung his arm, banging my broken wrist against the doorjamb. The pain was literally blinding. The well placed punch I was going to deliver to his throat got lost somewhere and he drove a much less sophisticated but brutal fist into my ribs.
I staggered back, gasping. He yanked his knife hand free of my grip.
I stepped in and tried to swing at his body, to keep too close for him to use his knife, but he blocked my punch, and stiff-armed me.
I saw him poised, light on the balls of his feet, his knife held low, ready to strike. I ran through my options, unarmed, injured and taken by surprise. Against this guy, the only hope I had was to try to trap his knife, in my body if need be, for long enough so Sarah and Nique could do something.
Like escape.
Looking at him, I felt a rush of fear—fear of the pain of being knifed and the oblivion of death; for the women behind me; for Pete who was bleeding out in my doorway. But most of all I felt that this just wasn’t fair.
I had taken a Hail Mary of a plan and made it work, and now I was probably going to die here, when it should all be over.
When he made his move, I sidestepped, deflected his wrist with my good hand, and tried to catch him with an elbow to the neck, but he put his chin down and I only grazed him, then took another punch in the ribs for my pain. While I was busy sucking wind and feeling nauseous, he kicked my legs out from under me.
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