by Rik Hunik
He set everything down and left Zena staring blankly upward, lying motionless on her back between the candles. By the time I passed over the next two lines he stood opposite me across the final one.
"Berk. You are far more resourceful than I imagined. Your talent is so easy to block I was sure you would never find us, and I never thought you could get through my barriers, but that's what I get for hiring an unregistered Wizard. I don't mind if you watch, but if you want a ringside seat, it must be on my terms."
I didn't want to listen to any more of his crap so I squatted and wiped blood across the last line. Before I could pull back his foot lashed out at my face, but I hadn't become pankration champ in my company by letting people kick me in the face. I twisted my head aside, just barely enough so as not to waste any time, got one hand under his ankle and stood up fast.
Instead of falling flat on his back he used the momentum to do a backflip, landing on both feet, and before I could blink he lashed a foot out at me. I caught it with both hands and gave it a sharp twist, but he sprang off the other foot, spun right around in midair and kicked me in the head on the way past. I pushed him away and shook my head to clear it.
He landed nearby on both feet and one hand, then bounced back at me. He was one of those energetic, long-legged fighters who like to kick and strike from unexpected angles, the type who don't like to get up close and personal.
So I charged in low to meet him. A fist glanced off my shoulder and another dealt a stinging blow to my ear, but my arms closed around his thighs before he could bounce. He punched the top of my head a few times but I'm sure he hurt his hand more than my head. I heaved him off his feet and slammed him down on his back, driving my shoulder into his solar plexus.
All his air blasted out. While he struggled to breathe I rolled him over, dropped my weight onto his back and elbowed him in the ribs a few times. Without giving him a free second to suck in a single breath I snaked an arm under his chin, grabbed my own wrist, and cranked my stranglehold tighter and tighter, cutting off the air to his lungs and the blood to his brain.
He struggled feebly and managed to bring one hand up to where I gripped my own wrist. Weak fingers fluttered on the back of my hand, he was seconds from unconsciousness, he had nowhere near enough strength to pry me off. He was mine.
Pain flared in my hand and my stranglehold relaxed as fire spread from the tiny wound, dancing on my skin and flowing through my veins. The bastard had just scratched me with a poisoned needle ring. I released him before he could scratch me again and increase the dose. I elbowed him in the back of the neck and head several times but the last few blows lacked force as my body slowed down.
My arms quit moving. My mind was sending the signals but my arms did not respond, hanging limply at my sides. The man under me groaned, then struggled to throw me off. On the third try he succeeded in shifting my weight enough to upset my balance. Unable to control my fall I toppled slowly, landing half on him and half on my right side.
Chapter 47
He lay there for a minute while he caught his breath, then squirmed out from under me and rolled me onto my back.
"You certainly are a persistent man, so I'll give you your ringside seat, but, as I warned you, it's on my terms." The man-in-black tossed my knife and cudgel away, took hold of one of my arms and, grunting with the effort, dragged me closer to Zena. I had no voluntary muscle control at all so when he sat me up and arranged me in a cross-legged position with my hands in my lap I stayed exactly where he positioned me.
I felt extremely vulnerable and I was pretty sure I was not going to like this show, but I didn't expect to live long enough to complain to anybody. "What have you done to me?" At least I could still talk, and my breathing and heartbeat seemed normal.
"I injected you with a drug cooked up by a dark Wizard friend of mine. In half an hour you might be able to wiggle your fingers a little bit, but by then I'll be gone. The drug I gave your girlfriend makes her do whatever I want, but the one I gave you is stronger, so you only move when you're moved, and you stay there until you're moved again. And you'll be wide awake the whole time so you can watch every detail."
"Watch what?" I already knew, but I was stalling. Half an hour would give him plenty of time, but a needle ring is an imprecise delivery system and I didn't feel like I'd taken much of a dose, so he had less time than he thought. In school I had learned ways to fight drugs like this, where sheer strength of will can only do so much when muscles don't respond like they're supposed to, but my mind was unaffected, so there were body functions and glands I could control.
"You saw the body in the stone labyrinth, and you know what that idiot Renzo did to those other women, so you know what's going to happen to your girlfriend."
"She's not my girlfriend." I denied it strongly, feeling myself getting angry.
"Of course she is, that's why you're here. Love leaves you vulnerable, don't you know?"
I hadn't known Zena long enough to fall in love with her, had I? This was not the time to think about that, or what he was planning to do to Zena, or what he had done to Belita and those other women. "You're insane. I'm here for all the women you killed, I'm here to stop you so you never kill again."
He laughed, said, "Yes, you're doing very well," and laughed louder, his high-pitched peals absorbed by the night sky.
His smugness pissed me off and I used that to deliberately feed my anger, breathing more rapidly and increasing my heart rate until I felt my temperature rising, which would burn the drug out of my system faster. "Why do you do it? What kind of cheap thrill do you get out of it?"
"Oh, I get an incredible thrill, levels of magnitude beyond the greatest orgasm you can imagine." He squatted down beside me and I saw Silvina's lips and eyes behind the masculine facade, as well as a resemblance to Belita and Zena. "But more important than that, I get a new life."
"Couldn't you just move to Africa?"
Anger flared with deranged intensity in his eyes and his lips curled up in a snarl as he leaned right into my face. "Let me tell you about my old life. I was the son of a prostitute and a senator, who denied his parenthood and never did anything for me or my mother.
"My mother forced me to dress as a girl so I could live with her and before I reached puberty she started selling me to rich men and politicians. She died a few years later but by then I had a reputation, which I turned to my advantage, accumulating a fortune fucking rich and influential men who didn't want anybody to know they were bisexual, but I hated them and I hated myself.
"I was ready to kill myself when I met a dark Wizard who convinced me I was unhappy because I was meant to be a woman. He told me about the Thirteen Moons spell, which gave me a chance to become a real woman and start a new life, so I paid his price." He shuddered. "For the past year on the night of every new moon I killed a woman, skinned her with this knife and donned her skin, becoming a woman for longer each time. Now Zena's death will complete the spell and make the change permanent."
"Why Zena?"
"Nothing personal, it's just that she resembles the other women I assimilated. She's what I need so my appearance doesn't change too much. ” He smiled at me. "You know I can't let you live, but I'm not going to kill you." His features stretched and Silvina's voice came out. "I'm going to kill you. You were a good fuck but I have to protect my investment." The features twisted back and the man's voice returned. "When I leave it will look like you killed Zena and then killed yourself. This evil knife, which you stole from the police station, made you do it. And the best part is, your death lets me get away with all the others."
"It will never work," I said, knowing that it probably would.
He laughed in my face. "Everything is in place. Who is going to stop me?"
Keep him talking, I thought, gritting my teeth. "How did Renzo get the knife from you?"
"He must have seen me go into the labyrinth with that girl last month. When I was coming out he tried to rape me so I stabbed him in the leg, but he r
an off with the knife stuck in him, and then the bastard had the nerve to get arrested."
"How inconsiderate of him."
"I couldn't believe all the cops were stupid enough to believe he was smart enough to be anything other than a copycat killer."
I winced. "You have a point there. I suppose you were responsible for his death."
"With a bit of expensive help from a dark Wizard, yes."
"I figured as much. But how did you get the knife back?"
"Your good friend Thaddeus helped me there, even though he doesn't know it. He's such a jerk I wouldn't mind if he got in trouble for it. But enough chatter, I have work to do." He kissed me on the forehead and went back to Zena.
That made stoking my anger easier. Now that his attention was away from me I hyperventilated faster and recited a mantra in my head, over and over, faster and faster. Sweat broke out all over my body, soaking into my clothes and beading on my face.
I knew from recent experience that I could increase the rate of metabolism in my body by a factor of three, so if I tried really hard and did everything right and I was lucky I could double that rate. I was fairly sure I hadn't taken a large dose, so in five or ten minutes I thought I might be able to burn enough of the drug out of my system that I could move. Maybe. If my will was strong enough and I didn't kill myself trying.
He knelt beside Zena and displayed the knife to me while he went through the motions of a spell. It gleamed with an internal light as he laid it flat on her stomach, just below her navel, where it rose and fell slowly in time to her shallow breaths. I used that as a reference, breathing three, then four, then five times for each of hers.
Moving with absurd slowness from my perspective, the man-in-black circled Zena several times doing different things with chalk and candles, becoming totally absorbed in his work, the culmination of thirteen moons of magic, but I didn't watch too closely because I had to concentrate on my own spell.
Except for my rapid breathing I held myself absolutely still because any moves I made would be accelerated, and if I started twitching and flickering he might notice and figure out that I was up to something. If he came to investigate I would be back to square one.
He had tossed my cudgel far away, perhaps right off the monument, and I could see my knife, about thirty feet away, too far out of reach to be useful, but beyond that he hadn't bothered to search me.
When he picked up the platinum knife from Zena's belly I knew I was running out of time. It was now or never.
I ceased my mantra and let go of the spell. With a subtle rush everything quickened to normal speed. The drug still lingered in my system so it took all my concentration to control my muscles as I moved my hand stiffly and slowly into my pocket and closed my fist around my little brass knocker. My entire body was nearly numb but that was as much from remaining immobile so long as from the drug.
The man-in-black knelt between Zena's legs, engrossed in his task of cutting off all her clothes. The knife seemed to be guiding his hand as it sliced through her dress from bottom hem to neckline. He was mesmerized as more and more of Zena's smooth skin was revealed.
I was somewhat distracted myself.
With an effort I got my feet under me and stood up, stiff and unsteady. The man-in-black didn't notice as I circled behind him but Zena's eyes fixed on me. The dreamy expression in them worried me. I put a finger to my lips and shook my head. Her eyes drifted to stare blankly up at the sky.
Zena was now naked, laying on the cut-up remains of her clothes. The man-in-black held the platinum knife in one hand at his eye level and chanted under his breath, which covered the little sounds I made as I crept up behind him.
I was a step away, already bringing my loaded fist down toward the back of his skull when he sensed me and turned, so my blow missed his head, but the brass knob drove into the muscle on the back of his shoulder. I was still weaker than usual but it made his hand spasm and the knife went flying, ringing musically when it hit the hard stone right beside Zena. He twisted back in the other direction and tried to take out my knee with his elbow but I blocked it with a brass knob right on the joint.
He cried out in pain but I cut it short with a solid blow to the back of his head, like I had tried to do the first time. As he slumped I pulled him aside so he wouldn't fall on top of Zena.
The knife quivered, then started inching toward Zena on its own.
Chapter 48
I grabbed the handle and pulled on it but it resisted like a live thing. An image flashed in my head, of Zena split open from groin to chin, and I felt myself wanting to make that cut, to see it happen, to feel her warm blood flowing over my hands. With a roar of inarticulate rage I yanked the knife away from Zena and hurled it from me as hard as I could, but it slid to a stop only twenty feet away, then started inching its way back.
I took hold of Zena by the shoulders and dragged her out of the circle of candles, knocking one over as I did so. The knife jerked back an inch and then darted to the center of the pentagram like a nail to a magnet and hovered six inches above the stone.
I was glad I'd moved Zena from that spot, but she wasn't safe yet. "Get away," I told her. She lethargically got to hands and knees and started crawling away while I knocked over all the other candles, stomped them out, then kicked them in different directions. The knife dropped to the stone and rang like the dying note of a bell.
I grabbed the-man-in-black by the collar and dragged him out of the pentagram, smearing some of the lines. When I was fifteen feet away the knife finally stopped ringing. I looked for Zena and saw her still crawling, getting near the edge.
"Stop," I shouted and she stopped. I stripped the jacket off the man-in-black, not caring how I twisted his arms and rolled him around, and brought it to her for she had crawled right out of the remnants of her dress and was now stark naked. Although this was not the time to appreciate the view, I couldn't help noticing.
"Put this on," I said, handing her the jacket.
She took it and did as she was told, without question or hesitation, but slowly, with no energy or enthusiasm.
I went back and tied his hands securely behind his back with his thin belt. His breathing was shallow and labored but I really didn't care about his health; in fact, I felt like kicking him, several times, as hard as I could, until he stopped breathing, believing in a way it would be better if he was dead, but I wanted him to live so he could give his story. Acastus would be interested.
I left him trussed up while I found the stairs and led Zena down. At the second landing we were met by a pair of cops. The one in the lead, the younger of the two, carried an axe and his clothes were covered with splinters from chopping through the door.
"You're under arrest," he shouted, threatening me with the axe. I had no patience left and he didn't scare me because he obviously had never been trained to fight with an axe, especially one designed for chopping wood, like this one. His threat was more like an offer to me so I grabbed the back of the axe head and yanked the axe out of his hands.
"Listen up. If I wanted to do something ugly to this woman I would have already done it and you would never know anything about it."
The other cop readied himself to attack me with his sword but Zena spoke up, "He saved me, you idiots."
The cop hesitated and I said, "So tell me, would you rather be known as the men who arrested The Skinner, or the fools who let him get away."
They glanced at each other and the one in front answered, "We'd rather arrest him."
"I'm glad you feel that way." I handed the axe back to him. "You might be a good cop someday."
"But I thought The Skinner died in captivity." He rubbed his arm.
"That was a copycat killer. The real Skinner is tied up on the roof, waiting for you to arrest him. Tell Inspector Quintus that he's a present from me, Berk." I dug one of my cards out of my pocket. "Give him this. He'll know where to find me. Now I'm taking this lovely lady home."
They bade us good night and hurried
past us up the stairs. Zena and I made our way down to the street where I flagged a cab. Even though she was still slow and a bit suggestible the exertion of the long descent seemed to have cleared much of the drug out of Zena's blood and she was acting on her own now.
During the cab ride Zena clung to me like a frightened child. "It was horrible. I didn't want to do what he told me to do but I couldn't stop myself."
I patted her gently. "It's alright now. It wasn't your fault. He used drugs and magic."
"He said he had a note from you but when I opened the envelope the paper was blank and I smelled something funny. Then he told me to come with him and I did, because he told me to. We went down to Knife Avenue and got in a cab that took us to the arch. I just kept doing whatever I was told to do. He called me by name but I never met him or even saw him before. How does he know me?"
"When you met him he was Silvina, our landlady."
"Wow. So he really was a woman."
"Through and through," I said, with too much conviction. Zena eyed me and I kept talking to derail her thought. "And if he had succeeded in taking your skin with that knife he would have been a woman again, permanently."
"That is just too gross, but at least now I know what he meant when he said, 'Part of your personality will survive in the new me.' I thought about how horrible it would be to be trapped inside with him, even for a short while, but I couldn't scream or cry."
I consoled her until she was almost home. She perked up and said, "I know where there's a knife store that needs a new owner. If you talk to the bank right way you could get a sweet deal."
"I don't know how to run a store."
"So you keep the staff."
"The staff is dead."
"How hard can it be to find somebody who can sell knives. I have a cousin who would be good at it. The point is, you'll get the whole building and you won't have to pay rent anymore. In fact, other people will be paying rent to you."