Bookshops & Bonedust (Legends & Lattes, #0)(26)

Viv emerged onto the boardwalk, staff clenched tight. She bitterly regretted leaving her saber in her room, but she was weapon enough on her own. Or she used to be.

She’d seen no blade on the man, but she knew well enough how little that could mean. Everything about him had screamed threat from the first moment she’d seen him, and she’d never been more than passingly acquainted with hesitation in the face of such a thing.

She strode after him, shedding idleness and physical fragility like an ill-fitting coat. Viv felt herself filling her own skin for the first time since she’d come to Murk, near bursting out of it. Distant thuds of pain echoed in her thigh, but they got farther away by the second.

Part of her mind reminded her of the headlong charge that had landed her in Murk in the first place, but caution was even farther away than the pain.

The man in gray was several shops down, but her strides were much longer, even using the walking staff. She chewed up the distance between them in moments.

Viv’s breath came sharp through her nose, and her lips drew tight against her fangs. For the first time in too long she felt powerful and purposeful in the way she was accustomed to.

He sensed her before she reached him and came to a casual stop. His hands were buried in his cloak.

“Hey,” she said. She let the head of the staff drop as she towered over him.

Slowly, the man turned, that white wedge of a nose swinging around like a knife blade. “Ma’am,” he said, with toneless politeness.

“Don’t fucking ma’am me,” she snarled.

“Have I done something to distress you?” he asked, his pale eyes amused.

“What were you doing in there?” Her voice came out grim and flat.

“My dear, I believe you’re letting your baser nature rule you.” He withdrew both hands from his cloak—Viv tensed as he did—but they were empty, and he splayed them in supplication. “I was only browsing. Hardly a crime. The beast caught me unawares. An honest reaction, and no harm done. Now, you must excuse me, as I—”

“I can smell it on you. Something …” There was a scent. One she recognized. She couldn’t seem to place it, but—

As she uttered the words, something in his eyes changed. The light went flat, like a fog rolled over it. His hands disappeared inside the cloak, and Viv knew with absolute certainty that when they reemerged, they wouldn’t be empty.

She eliminated the distance between them in two strides, casting the walking staff aside. It would only get in the way. Planting her left foot, she reached for him. His false smile fragmented into a snarl, and the icy glint of a blade was already half uncovered.

Viv jammed one forearm against his and brought her other hand looping up behind it, twisting sharply until the dagger spun away. From the corner of her eye, she spied the bloom of his cloak where his other arm was rising, doubtless with another knife at the ready. She brought her hand back to intercept it, curling the fabric in her fist to foul his strike. But his left foot kicked out, hooking around the heel of her damaged leg.

Before she’d been stabbed, it would’ve been like trying to move a mountain, but her knee folded, and she stumbled against him. She gave up all attempts at deflection and seized him around the middle with both arms as they fell, crushing him so flat against her that he’d not be able to bring a blade to bear.

Then they were on the ground in a spray of sand and a tangle of cloak, and the agony in her thigh burned bright again. Even so, she spun him over and straddled him, pressing his arms flat, ignoring the sizzle of pain all through her leg. She growled at him, and that smell assaulted her—cold and wrong and so familiar. Not precisely the same, but a cousin to something deadly, if only she had a moment to place it.

The man in gray bared his teeth at her in savage effort, and she felt his hand twisting, his fingers contorting. With his cloak flared to the side she could see a magestone belted to his hip, and her eyes widened as it glowed with heat. A sudden impact hammered into her, as though she’d slammed into a lake spread-eagled. Viv was blown back and across the street, smashing against the edge of the boardwalk.

Now she wished she had the staff.

This was the moment where hesitation meant the end of things. She felt the wound in her leg pull and tear, along with a rush of warm wetness as she scrambled to him on all fours. Before he could recover, Viv lunged for the magestone in his cloak. Her fingers caught in his belt and yanked as they both went over again. A satchel went flying from his shoulder and tumbled across the sand. When he struck the earth, she heard the breath blow out of him, but his hands were moving again, and she couldn’t get the belt off him.

“Stop movin’ that hand or this goes through your gods-damned throat,” came a sharp, high voice that Viv recognized.

She didn’t know if it was meant for her or the man in gray, but they both froze.

One of Gallina’s fists tangled in the man’s hood, and the other pressed a poniard against his Adam’s apple.

“Get the belt off him,” said the gnome, cool as you please. “Can’t have him castin’ again, can we?”

If someone had told Viv that morning that she’d be pleased to see Gallina, she would’ve questioned their sanity.

The man’s eyes remained fixed on Viv, wide and hateful. She grunted, shifting her weight away from the leg now oozing through her trousers, and managed to find the buckle on the thin magestone belt. Her thick fingers fumbled to open it, and she whipped it out from under him, the silver teardrop stone twinkling with flecks like mica.