A foot snapped out and caught me in the side of my thigh, driving deep into the muscle with a strength that felt powerful enough to crack the bone underneath. The pain stole my breath and I struggled to work through it—I had to work through it.
“You can’t beat me,” she said, her words following me as I rolled out of reach. “Not even the Sandman could beat me, so you should save me time and let me kill you quickly. That is mercy in our world.”
I stumbled to my feet and held my knife at the ready, the leg she’d kicked screaming that it was indeed broken. Sweat poured down my spine, more from the pain than exertion.
“Not a chance,” I growled. Balancing on one toe and a foot, I held my knife out to the side. I didn’t dare throw it. Unlike her, I only had one, and I couldn’t risk losing it. But that didn’t mean I was going to stay on the defensive.
I lunged forward as she approached and caught the tip of my blade against her left forearm, slashing through her bare skin. Blood sprayed, and I kept moving, ignoring the pain in my leg as best I could, trying not to limp. Teeth gritted, I circled her.
“The Sandman could kick your ass,” I said. “He’d have killed me by now, not just bored me to death with chitchat.” God, now I was defending the miserable bastard.
Her eyes narrowed and she moved her wrists in circles, loosening them. “I trained him. Trust me when I say I could kill him and you without breaking a sweat.” She didn’t bother to wrap her arm, and the blood dripped continuously, splattering the once pristine white tile floor with brilliant color. As if to prove her point, she came at me again, both knives whipping with a speed I could barely follow. I dodged the first two swipes, sidestepping and giving ground. The third and fourth cut into me, one horizontally across my belly, the other straight up the middle of my chest, as if she wanted to bisect me along the sternum.
Pain radiated from each wound, pulsing in time with my heartbeat. I kept myself in a crouch as she shot toward me again.
I’d never felt so sluggish in my life. What the hell was wrong with me? Or was she just that good?
I’d block one slash, and she’d catch me with the other blade. The only thing I had going for me was the frustration written clearly on her face—she’d thought I’d be an easy kill. But the tide was turning against me. I saw it in the tight set of her lips, the glittering anger in her eyes, the way she forced me back, step by step. I knew I needed help, but I had no idea how to get it. Could I reverse the mind speaking business with the Sandman? Worth a try. With all I had, I sent a thought out into the ether.
Attack in the main hall!
“Thought you’d finish me off quickly before you got caught, huh?” I asked, never looking away from her, not even for a split second. “Maybe you’re not as good as you think if you’re having trouble with a newbie like me? Must be getting rusty in your old age. What are you, fifty, sixty?” She didn’t look older than forty, but I needed her distracted.
She hissed at me like a pissed off cat. I didn’t know if making her mad would help, but I doubted I could make things worse at this point.
Every muscle in me shook as we parried, tremors racking my body. It had something to do with her knives. The black blade burned like ice when it clipped me, and the copper one sent a numbing flash of energy through the muscles it dug into—like touching a live outlet.
“Do you not wonder where everyone is?” She circled me. “The House of Wonder does not want you here. Abomination. Chameleon. They have left you here and turned their eyes away while I kill you.”
I stared at her, shock filtering through the wounds and clearing my head. “They . . . hired a hit on me?”
Her smile was back now. “And you’re surprised? That is what this world is—and the House of Wonder rules it however they see fit. Dog eat dog.”
From behind her came the softest of sounds. “Woof.”
She spun and the clang of blade on blade told me help of some sort had arrived.
I caught a flash of dark hair, and I got to say, I thought it was Rory at first, because it wasn’t often I saw the man in question without his aviators on.
The Sandman moved like liquid. His fist snapped out, and he caught her in the spot I’d already sliced her arm with the distinct crack of bone breaking. They were evenly matched in speed, and a slice of red bloomed across his cheek as if he hadn’t just delivered her a blow that should have dropped her to her knees.
Maybe he couldn’t beat her on his own, like she said, but he wasn’t alone in this fight. I wasn’t done with her, even if I was trembling from head to toe.
I still didn’t want to throw my knife, but that was not the only weapon I had on me.
Pulling my wand, I pointed it at her, drew a breath, and prepared to utter the word that had taken down a T-Rex. She turned to look at me, somehow sensing my intent. “Cheating now, are we?”
Before I could speak, she was gone in a flash of red hair, running for the main doors that led out into the city. They opened on their own as she approached, and then slammed behind her.
Shaking all over, hard enough to make my teeth chatter, I stared at the closed doors. “Is she really gone?”
“Put that damn thing away before someone else sees it,” the Sandman snapped at me.
Fumbling with the wand, fingers numbing rapidly, I tucked it back against my forearm. I was struggling to see, but I tried to focus on Rufus. Funny name, Rufus, for a guy like the Sandman. Sunshine. I liked calling him Sunshine better. Yes, that nickname had stuck to him from the first day I’d met him.
I might have been speaking out loud, if the look of irritation on his face was any indication.
On my knees, I stared up at him. “They are going to be pissed about all this blood on their pretty tile floor. What a mess. You think they have a spell to clean it up? Or will they make their slaves do it?”
His lips may have twitched. Maybe. He bent at the waist and hauled me up and over his shoulder as if I weighed nothing, my limbs pretty damn limp, my neck unable to hold my head up. Blood dripped from almost every limb as the Sandman carried me away from the gory scene.
“Are you going to finish me off?” I asked as my head lolled. “I think those blades of hers are infused with something, you know.”
“Two kinds of poison,” he said. “And a truth serum, as well.”
“Well, shit,” I mumbled. “Don’t ask me any questions then, I’ll give you all my secrets!” And then I giggled. Like a damn schoolgirl. Because part of my brain was still with it, even if it wasn’t in charge at the moment, and I was dying of embarrassment faster than the poison was apparently killing me.
We left a trail of blood through the foyer, through several doors, and down a set of stairs until I was deposited onto a simple cot in a brightly lit room. The ceiling above me was tiled like the floor, filigrees of gold and silver scrolled through it like vines, and I found myself focusing on it.
“Drava spira was used, as well as the silkworm moth,” Sandman said to someone. I rolled my head to a curvy woman at my side.
I waved a limp hand at her. “Hi, Mara.”
“Girl, how are you doing this? I haven’t seen someone get into this much trouble in years, not since . . .” She shook her head as she went to work on me. She’d been one of the healers through the Culling Trials. I’d liked her then, I liked her now.