Black Knight (18 page)

The first part of my plan has worked. I have a machete; it feels good in my hand. It reminds me of the staff Syn gave me when I fought Russ. The wood is heavy and hard enough to be petrified.

Just as important—two of Nordra’s people are dying and their cries are scaring the shit out of the rest of his team. If Nordra himself didn’t appear so damn inscrutable I’d feel a whole lot better.

He adds, obviously impressed with my swift work, “But maybe you will deliver,” he says.

“These people you killed, they weren’t witches,” I say, trying to make it sound like a statement of fact, when in reality I’m looking for facts.

“You must know there’s only one in each group.”

I shift to his right, the cries of my victims beginning to die down as they choke on their own blood. The pitiful sounds continue to work their sick magic on Nordra’s backup. His girls keep retreating deeper and deeper into the trees.

“Then why bother with the humans?” I say, taking a casual dip to untie my boots. Slowly, while I circle, I work free of them and kick them off, along with my socks. Barefoot may not be best while hiking miles in the woods, but when it comes to a hand-to-hand fight in a meadow, the extra traction of feeling every blade of grass can make the difference between life and death.

“Why did you kill the two behind you?” he asks.

“They were sneaking up on me.”

Nordra gestures to the bodies. “These ones were in my way.”

“What about me?” I ask.

He speaks seriously and for all the world he sounds sincere. “You and I, we can work together. Dispose of the deadweight assigned to us and then go after the others. It would be faster that way.”

By “others” he means other witches. The deadweight are those who aren’t connected, people like Marc and Ora. Normally I’d think how tragic it is how little regard Nordra has for human life, but from where I’m standing, only a few feet in front of him, his remarks seem perfectly natural. He’s a throwback to a Viking warrior, who lives to kill, nothing else.

“You must know only one can survive,” I say, testing to see whether he’s read the same plaque.

Nordra nods. “In the end there would be only the two of us. Then, and only then, would we fight.”

“Why should I trust you to let it go that far?”

He gestures over his bulky shoulder. “As a sign of good faith I’ll slay what’s left of my group. You will do likewise.” He pauses. “I know you have brought three of them with you.”

“Your offer is tempting. It would simplify matters. But what do you need with me? You’re obviously very strong.”

For once he appears troubled. “The other witches on this island—their powers are strange and unpredictable.”

“How so?”

He shakes his head. “Join me and I’ll tell you what I have seen. Otherwise, we fight, we fight now.”

“Like I said, I’m interested. But I don’t know you.”

He grows impatient. “Surely you’ve heard of Nordra. My word is my bond. Ask any witch, Tar or Lapra.”

“Which are you, Tar or Lapra?”

“I am my own person. But enough talk. Decide.”

“Give me a minute to think.”

For the first time he acts concerned. “There is no time. Viper hunts nearby. I have seen her handiwork and smelled her trail. It will take the two of us to stop her.” He pauses. “Surely you have heard of her?”

“I know Viper. And I’ll help you fight her. But leave the other members of my group out of this.”

“No!” Nordra says viciously. “Humans cannot help. Dispose of yours and you will have my trust. That’s my final offer.”

“Very well,” I reply, sliding the tip of my machete into the ground and transferring a spear into my right hand. “My answer is no.”

Nordra nods. “So be it.”

He attacks; he comes straight at me with his machete raised. I barely have time to get off my spear. He’s ten yards away. I aim for the center of his bare chest and let it fly with six times the speed of the finest fastball in Major League Baseball. In other words, almost as fast as a speeding bullet.

He swats the spear away as if it were a fly.

I reach for my machete; he knows I will reach for it. But it’s a feint. He’s coming too fast. I’ll have time to grab the weapon but not enough time to raise it and block his initial blow. So I let it be and instead rise up on the balls of my feet, spinning like a cyclone on the big toe of my left foot and suddenly lashing out with my right foot. It’s a move Herme, the son of Syn and Kendor, taught me, and it can be devastating if it’s not expected.

Nordra did not expect it.

My heel crashes into his sternum and shatters it.

He staggers back with the wind knocked out of him and probably fragments of bone rammed into his chest cavity. I’m amazed he’s still standing. The blow should have killed him. Herme had assured me it would kill anybody if done correctly.

Yet somehow, in the space of seconds, Nordra transforms from a pale dying Viking back to a tan Nordic god. He sucks in a deep shuddering breath and I hear his sternum crack—his healed sternum. I finally realize what I’m facing. A witch who doesn’t merely possess the healing gene, but one who can almost instantly heal himself.

I drop my spears and grab the machete. The only reason I was able to plant my foot on his chest is because I fooled him. Already I can see he’s not only stronger than me, he’s faster. Never mind that he’s an experienced killer when I’m just a month free of high school. True, Herme has tutored me on how to defend myself, and Kendor—despite his denial to the contrary—taught Herme, but I’m still a beginner when it comes to fighting other witches.

Nordra knows that. He smiles as he watches me resume my circling. “You should have struck immediately after your kick. That was your chance. You won’t get another.”

“Syn felt the same way,” I taunt.

“Kendor was with you when you faced her.”

“True. But Kendor was dead when I killed her.”

Nordra nods as if he’s going to continue to talk but then he leaps toward me, rising five feet off the ground. Ducking, I do the ridiculous, the least expected. I run under him, slicing at his left knee. My machete makes contact but it’s not a true sword. It’s not sharp enough. I bruise him, badly, but I don’t take off his leg.

Yet I remember his own advice. He heals too fast. I can’t take even a one-second break between blows. Our backs are to each other when I whirl and try to take off his head. But he ducks, I miss him, and my momentum sends me into an out-of-control spin.

I’m too close to him, I know the danger. Yet I have no time to regain my balance. I catch a blurred image of him raising his machete. He’s obviously a master at decapitation and he’s going to take off my head. I can’t get my machete up in time to block the blow. I can’t duck. I can’t do
anything
!

Except jump. Even spinning out of control, I’m still able to bend my knees and flex the muscles in my legs enough to send me soaring upward. A fraction of a second slower and I would have been cut in two. I feel the breeze of his slashing machete on the bottoms of my feet as I rise.

The jump works, it extends my life—an extra two seconds. From ten feet above the ground, I look down in search of a miracle, only to find Nordra directly below me.

Yet he’s made a second error. In his lust to separate my head from my torso, he swung too hard, putting every last fiber of his being into his blow. As a result it’s his turn to be caught spinning out of control due to excess momentum caused by a bad miss.

The fact that I have just cut into his left knee also helps. His healing ability isn’t truly instantaneous—it’s just awfully fast. His injured knee is still a problem, it’s still healing. I know because he staggers as he spins.

This is one of those rare instants where his size and strength are a disadvantage. I’m only half his size. He may be fast but he’s not nimble. Bottom line—he can’t duplicate the height of my leap into the air.

I don’t strike at his head. It’s the obvious move and even in the midst of his wild gyration he still possesses enough smarts to raise his machete to block such a blow. Instead, as I descend, I place the tip of my machete on the top of his massive skull. I’m not trying to draw blood—I’m trying to line up my fall.

I drop directly onto his shoulders, my legs gripping his neck. I don’t know who’s more shocked—him or me—that my crazy move has worked. I’m sure he’s never had to “play horsey” with an opponent before.

I grab his head. I have it in my hands, I’m ready to snap his neck. He’s completely vulnerable and there’s no reason for me to hesitate. He’s a murderer. His latest victims lie strewn in pieces all over the meadow and I’m sure they’re only a fraction of the people he’s killed in his life. He deserves to die.

Yet I do hesitate. Throwing spears at his creeping minions, pinning them to trees, even letting them die slow, painful deaths, that didn’t bother me as much as it does to hold Nordra’s head—his life—in my hands. It makes no sense.

Yet it does make sense, unfortunately. Soldiers often talk about how in battle they can shoot and kill the enemy at a distance. But to come right up to them, to stab them with a bayonet, or worse, a knife, to hear and feel the blade go in another person’s body, it can overwhelm even battle-tested marines.

Yet I don’t have the luxury of being overwhelmed.

Logic intercedes.

If I don’t kill him, he’s going to kill me.

Slipping my right palm beneath his chin, I grip a handful of hair at the base of his skull and viciously rotate his head farther than it has any right to go. I hear a bone crack and am only a millisecond from snapping every vertebrae in his neck . . .

When his machete swings up and strikes my left wrist.

The sharp end hits my green bracelet. Had it struck anywhere else, it would have taken off my hand. Still, the blow is painful and I hear a loud pop. Pain rockets up my arm. I figure it’s my own bone breaking and fear I’ve waited too long. With his free hand Nordra reaches up and grabs me by my shirt and tosses me over his head as if I were as light as a pillow. I know what awaits me when I strike the ground.

Death. He will decapitate me when I land.

Yet something miraculous happens. I take forever to hit the ground. Well, maybe not forever but a long time. I wonder if it’s because I’m about to die. If my brain can’t cope with the grim reality and has overloaded and shorted out and caused the last second of my existence to last and last.

If I’m objective, though, I’d have to say time is suddenly moving at quarter speed. I take four seconds to hit the ground, and in those seconds, Nordra scarcely moves at all. I don’t know why, I’m dumbfounded. When I do strike the ground, I hear the stone inside my bracelet click against itself and realize that Nordra must have broken it with his machete.

But I pay it little heed because when I land time returns to normal. For me, not for Nordra. He’s still acting like a figure that’s been caught on film and replayed in slow motion. He sees me, that’s clear. His eyes swell with rage and the veins in his neck pop. I know I broke one of his cervical vertebrae but I don’t know which one. Obviously I didn’t get the top joint, which would have killed or paralyzed him. The bastard’s still moving, still preparing to cut off my head.

But I have time to escape, four times more time than I should have. Not being the sort to look a gift horse in the mouth—or question all the weird shit that keeps happening in my life—I jump up and race to the edge of the meadow, grab my spears, boots, and socks, and run into the trees. I keep the machete. Whatever’s happened to Nordra, or me, I figure I’ll be seeing him again soon.

Twenty minutes later, I find Marc and Ora in the worst way possible—by following Shira’s screams. Whatever happened to time in the meadow has stopped here in the forest. And it’s clear I’m not the only one who ran into a witch.

Shira lies writhing on the ground with Marc desperately trying to put out her burning shirt by smothering the flames with his own shirt. Only the fire won’t die and Marc is getting his own hands burned.

Meanwhile, Ora stands pinned to a tree by a spear that has pierced far inside his left shoulder. It sickens me to see my own dirty trick used against my own people. Ora isn’t bleeding heavily but is clearly in pain, although he hides it well. Yet it’s obvious his inability to help Shira is causing him more grief than his wound.

“Stand aside!” I snap at Marc as I push him out of the way and reach for the water bottles in my pack. The reason Shira’s shirt keeps burning is because it’s been sprayed with molten lava. I don’t think Marc knows that.

“Get out your water!” I order Marc as I pour my own supply over the flames. The instant the liquid hits the lava a jet of steam strikes us in the face and Shira’s shrieks echo through the forest. I keep pouring, though, going through a dozen pint-size bottles before the flames are finally out and the lava loses its ghastly red glow.

Yet a mass of bloody flesh has taken its place. The left half of Shira’s chest and a large portion of her left side, down to her waist, is severely burned. I want to try to heal her—I have the gene for healing. Unfortunately, I’ve used the power only sparingly: to cure Lara’s colic and Jimmy when he had a bad flu. I doubt I can summon enough juice to cure Shira.

The lava intimidates me the most. In large swabs it’s literally fused with burnt skin and I can hardly tell the black flesh from the black rock.

Shira’s cries begin to die down. It’s a mixed blessing. I want her to black out and escape her agony but fear she’ll go into shock. Marc shares my concern.

“We can’t let her lose consciousness,” he warns. “We have to keep her awake.”

“Who’d want to live through this?” I mumble, the adrenaline-fueled rush I had felt after escaping Nordra being replaced by a feeling of despair. It was childish but I’d actually felt excited running back to my partners. I felt pumped up—ready to share what I’d learned and help plan how we’d strike back. Clearly the intoxication of escaping death had gone to my head. Now I wished I had never left my friends alone.

I don’t even know what happened to them—who attacked them, and if the person is still in the area—and I’m surprised to discover I’m in no hurry to know. It won’t change a thing, I try to tell myself. But the truth is far more disturbing.