Witch World (33 page)

Russell grinned. “Good old Joe and Barry. Felt sort of bad about them. But what’s a guy to do?”

“You . . . you scum!” I cried.

Russell was amused. “That’s not what you thought last night when you were tearing off my clothes.”

“I’ve been told Russell has been an immense help to us over the last hundred years,” Susan said. “We’re considering granting him a place in our Order.”

Russell frowned. “I thought that was a done deal.”

Susan shook her head. “The impatience of youth. All our other members are at least three centuries old. Aren’t you a little young to be given such an important position?”

“Judge me by my accomplishments, not my age,” Russell said. “After all, wasn’t I the one who brought you Jessica?”

“True. But are you certain you can do what it takes to be a member of our Order?” Susan asked.

“I can do anything,” he replied.

Susan stared at him a long time before responding. “There’s a reason you’ve never been here before.”

“What is it?”

Susan stood and gestured to the circular space at the far side of the living area. Specifically, she pointed to two instruments hanging on the wall. I had not paid them any heed before. One was a sword. Not being an expert in blades, I couldn’t say when and where it had been created. Because it was fully sheathed in leather, I could only assume how sharp it was.

The second weapon, if that’s what it was, appeared to be a long wooden stick. At first I thought it was bamboo, but a closer look revealed a lack of partitions or internal chambers. The stick was either hollow or solid, I couldn’t tell, but without touching it, I sensed the wood was hard, perhaps even petrified.

“Both of you came here tonight wanting something,” Susan said. “You, Jessica, want your daughter back. I have
made you an offer as to how you can fulfill that desire, but I must add one final condition. Before I hand Lara over to you, I have to know you’re strong enough to be her mother. Do you understand?”

“I understand enough to know that your definition of strength is not the same as mine,” I replied.

“True. But since I’m the one who is to decide the fate of your daughter, my definition is the only one that matters.” She paused. “Having a high number of witch genes doesn’t guarantee real power. I’ve seen witches with three genes defeat those with six because their will demanded that they win. It burned with desire, and fire.” Susan came close to me and pointed to my solar plexus. It was as if she could read my mind. “Do you know why they call it the solar plexus?” she asked.

I remembered lying dead on a cold morgue slab.

Then suddenly coming to life, when attacked.

“No,” I said.

“Because it’s the center of the fire of life. In India they call that center the seat of Agni, which means ‘fire.’ In China it’s the source of Chi, or life energy. In ancient Egypt it was where Ra, the sun god, was worshipped in the human body. The tradition doesn’t matter, they were all saying the same thing. When the fire burns bright, so does one’s life.”

“Why the lecture?” I asked.

Susan ignored me and turned to Russell. “To join the Order takes more than loyalty and the accomplishment of difficult
deeds. You, too, must demonstrate this fire by showing how deep is your will to win, and your desire to live.”

“I’ve never heard I had to fight another witch to become a member of the Order,” Russell said.

Susan smiled faintly. “That’s because those who failed the test are no longer with us. And those who passed the test are wise enough not to talk about it.” She looked back and forth between us. “Only one of you will leave this room alive.”

“I’m confused,” Russell said. “I was told she was important.”

“She is. But only if she’s capable of killing you.”

Russell stiffened. “I’ve served the Lapras since I was born.”

Susan nodded. “Because of your loyalty, I’ll let you choose whatever weapon you prefer.”

Russell gestured to me. “At least find me a witch worth killing. Two days ago she wasn’t even connected.”

Susan turned away and spoke over her shoulder. “Then your place in the Order is all but assured,” she said.

“I’d prefer to fight an equal,” Russell said, and the fact he was arguing against killing me made me wonder if I was wrong about him all over again.

“Don’t underestimate Jessica,” Susan said as she took a seat on a sofa from where she had a clear view of the black circle. “She’s a mother fighting for her child. Few creatures in nature are more dangerous. Plus she has plenty of witch genes. They may be buried deep, but you know how the fear of death can force them to the surface.”

Russell considered, then bowed in Susan’s direction. “Very well, I choose the sword,” he said.

I erupted. “Like you give a damn that it’s going to be an unfair fight!” I cried.

Russell shrugged and strolled toward the sword. “I didn’t come here to lose my head,” he said.

“You’re a hypocrite and a traitor,” I swore. My fear increased dramatically. This was really happening. I couldn’t talk my way out of it. One of us was going to die, for real—it didn’t matter which world we were in.

“And you’re as good as dead,” he replied as he lifted the protective leather and unsheathed the sword.

“Consider, Jessica,” Susan said. “The blade is three feet long and heavy. The staff is six feet long and hard as stone. You’ll have double the reach and should be able to block his every blow.” She gestured for me to collect my weapon. “And don’t be bitter. In the morgue, I warned you this time would come.”

It was a bitter memory that brought her words back to me.

“You were lucky this time. . . . But don’t think for a second that you’re in control.”

“I should have killed you before I left that hospital,” I said as I crossed the black circle and retrieved the stick, or what Susan called the staff. It was indeed as hard as petrified wood, although it appeared to have been coated with amber, which had dried and given it an extra gripping quality. It felt remarkably light in my hands. I balanced it in the middle, hoping that
would make it easier to block a blow from either side.

Russell, meanwhile, was loosening up, stretching his muscles, cutting the air with his sword. He was fast; his repeated slashes seemed to dissect the oxygen molecules. His blade sang and there wasn’t a trace of hesitation in his movements.

I knew I’d be a fool to hope for his sympathy.

He removed his jacket and kicked off his shoes and socks. I wondered if I should do likewise. Yet I had not dressed fancy for the meeting. I had on my favorite Nikes—the rubber soles seemed to grip the black floor.

Susan spoke from the couch. “Prepare yourself. There’s only one rule. You’re to stay in the circle until your opponent is dead.” She paused. “Begin!”

Immediately Russell began to circle, forcing me to move to my left when I would have preferred to go right. His expression was focused, he didn’t look scared.

Yet he took me seriously. The first blow he attempted was what I knew to be a “killing blow.” He swung straight for the top of my skull, and I would have died if I hadn’t blocked it.

But my newfound strength, my reflexes, they were fully available to me. My instinct was working as well. Without thinking, my hands leaped farther apart so that when the blade fell on me, inches from my head, there was plenty of room on my staff to repel the blow.

I half expected his sword to get stuck in my staff but the wood cleanly blocked the blow. That fact seemed to surprise
Russell. For an instant he let the blade linger atop the staff. Taking advantage of his hesitation, I lashed out with my left foot and struck his right rib cage.

I heard a distinct crack. He gasped.

“Lara’s not going to lose her mother,” I swore. “Nothing else matters.”

“Wrong!” he shouted, withdrawing his blade and swinging at my calves. I had to hop to avoid his blow, and assumed his miss would give me a shot at his head. I took it but he anticipated the blow, and ducked, and I missed by a mile.

Indeed, I realized a second later, his attack and his response to my blow had all been a setup. The instant my staff flew by the spot where his head had been, he tossed his blade from his right hand to his left and slashed upward at my right arm. My failed blow had left my right side exposed. I had to twist hard to the left to avoid losing my right arm at the elbow.

I barely made it. The razor-sharp steel caught the skin on the outside of my arm. It sliced off a chunk of flesh. I was lucky the cut wasn’t any larger or I would have lost the use of my arm.

But with pain screaming up my elbow into my brain and blood flying through the air, I felt far from lucky. He paused to survey the damage he’d done. God, how I hated his guts right then, so much so that I wanted to see them spilled over the floor.

“Lara’s never going to know her mother,” he said, completing his earlier remark.

He resumed circling. Now he came at me from my right because he no longer feared that arm. His approach was sound. I was bleeding heavily, the warm liquid seeping down my arm and spilling onto the staff, making my grip slippery.

I kept waiting for my healing gene to activate but then I realized the ability needed my attention to work. If I could have a brief break, sit and close my eyes for two minutes, focus on the wound, I could probably stop the bleeding.

But he wasn’t going to give me that break. His pursuit was relentless. He came over the top again with his sword. I repelled him, but then he stabbed straight at me, several times in quick succession, and I had to dodge left and right, back and forth. He came close to driving me out of the circle. Behind me, I heard Susan clapping, the bitch.

The contest was only a few minutes old when I began to recognize Russell’s strategy. He was staying
constantly
on the offensive. My initial kick had broken his ribs, but it had cost me more than it was worth—because it had warned him how dangerous I was if I was given a chance to think, to recover. If I’d been smart, I would never have let him know at the start how strong I was. Now he was wary. Now he wasn’t going to give me a chance to breathe.

He swung for my legs again. I tried something different. Planting my staff in the floor, I used it like a small tree to block his blow. The tactic surprised him and I saw an opening. I kicked with my right leg at his left knee. He saw the blow
coming. At the last instant he backed up. But my foot caught his kneecap and again I heard a crack.

I had torn cartilage, maybe even severed a ligament. But I was inexperienced. I should have capitalized on my good fortune rather than celebrate it. I should have struck again, immediately. That had been the whole point of Kendor’s story about Caesar. In battle, if you have the advantage, take it, even if it means you have to be brutal. While sitting beside the desert lake with Kendor, I wondered if he had foreseen this precise moment and had been trying to warn me.

Russell took advantage of my hesitation. Showing a level of swiftness he had never revealed before, he spun a full three hundred and sixty degrees on his uninjured leg and tried to decapitate me with a sword that almost turned invisible with speed.

I blocked his blow. It took both my arms and my heels dug in to stop the sword from slicing through my neck but I did it. In the process I lost the little finger on my left hand, plus another chunk of flesh. The red tissue fell to the floor as my blood gushed in the air.

Again, I heard Susan clap.

Again, Russell began to circle.

The floor was soaked in blood. I could no longer trust my grip. I wanted to call time-out to take off my shoes, to put my finger back on, to heal. My staff was slippery at both ends. I was afraid to swing it at full strength. How did I know it wouldn’t fly out of my hands?

Then I saw him smile, reading my thoughts, counting on the fact that I would stay on the defensive. I realized as clear as the blood running down both my arms that only a bold move could save me. But first I had to be sure of one thing.

“You couldn’t do this if you cared,” I whispered.

He nodded faintly. “I never did, Jessica.”

I took a long step back, to the edge of the circle, and gripped as best I could the end of the staff. I swung it at him. He blocked the blow. I swung again and again, he kept blocking me. I didn’t care—I was going to use all six feet of my weapon, and I wasn’t going to let him rest even if I was desperate to stop. I hacked at him like he was an attacking lion, my breath on fire, and chased him around the circle.

Then I made a mistake. Or else fate did.

I slipped. I slipped on my own blood.

I didn’t fall to the floor but I lost my balance and suddenly my staff was way out of position and I was wide open to attack. Again, Russell showed his age and experience. He didn’t go nuts and try to chop me in two. But he did make a calculated thrust into my stomach. The blade went all the way through me. It poked out my back.

He withdrew the sword and took a step back.

It was the first pause he had taken.

He waited for me to fall.

Blood poured from my front like a faucet. I felt a warm river slide down my lower back. A puddle formed at my feet
and turned my white Nikes red. The blood pulsed onto the floor, in rhythm with my heart, and each squirt brought a deeper wave of dizziness. I blinked and for an instant there were three Russells. It was strange, I thought, how in the background I still saw only one Susan.

I felt her cold eyes on me. She leaned forward, mildly curious how I would choose to spend the last seconds of my life. Yet, like in the morgue—when her eyes had met mine and I knew she knew I was alive—I felt she wanted to tell me something.

Then I realized she already had.

Her lecture about the fire of life in the solar plexus.

The Agni, the Chi, the sun god Ra.

That magical fire, smoldering inside, waiting to be activated in the right circumstance, and in the proper way, if I just knew how. Of course I already knew the secret. I had done it before to stay alive. I could do it again, to heal myself, after I had dealt with my foe.

There was a reason she had given Russell first choice.