Chapter 13: Bounty Paid In Full
Nik planted his feet, a brawler’s stance, shoulders loose, jaw relaxed, as if the violence were a second language he spoke better than his mother’s.
He met the hooded man’s eyes and, with a nimbleness that belied his bulk, whipped the brass-knuckled fist into the attacker’s temple. Bone crunched.
The garrote slackened, then spiraled to the floor alongside the man, who spasmed twice before curling up around his own blood.
Apollo had only an instant to marvel at the efficiency before the woman ducked in low, aiming a sap at Nik’s knee.
He lurched backward, swore, and caught the blow on his shin. The shock of it produced a sound halfway between laughter and a scream.
It was the masked man who came at Apollo, knife drawn, steps measured and precise. For a moment, Apollo expected the old terror, the hesitation, but what he felt was only boredom and a dull contempt.
He let the man close, let the blade come within an arm’s length, and then brought the walking stick up in a clean, classical arc, striking with the butt, not the head, so the impact rammed up through the assailant’s wrist and into the soft meat behind the jaw.
The mask fractured. Teeth snapped together with a clack like dice on a marble table.
A second, then a third strike, Apollo did not remember planning these, only the way they resolved themselves as if written in a libretto. The masked man collapsed, pawing at his ruined mouth.
The woman, momentarily off-balance, feinted at Nik again, then shifted her weight with a dancer’s discipline and thrust for Apollo’s gut.
He sidestepped, but her free hand caught him by the collar and jerked him forward. He felt the knife slide along his ribs, not quite breaking skin but close enough for the heat of it to register as pain.