“Amazing,” he said. “I can feel your magic. It’s racing, with your panicked heart.” His fingers tightened, a crushing force. “You’re scared.” He leaned closer. “You should be scared. You—”
Alucard grabbed the air in Berras’s lungs, and squeezed, choking off the words.
In response, his brother slammed him against the wall again, but Alucard didn’t let go. Even though he couldn’t breathe, even though his own head was beginning to spin—he crushed the air from the other man’s lungs, until, at last, he felt Berras’s fingers weaken a little around his throat. He would have to let go, thought Alucard. He would—but then Berras grinned, a feral thing full of teeth, and reared back, and threw Alucard into the wall hard enough that it crumbled, and he went crashing back, into the dark.
* * *
The door swung open, and Lila dragged her head up, hoping to see Kell.
She was disappointed.
The hired killer—the one with the black braid, Bex—ambled in, looking at Lila like she was a gift, wrapped and set beneath a Christmas tree. “Bad night?”
Lila tried to laugh, but it hurt too much. “Not sure if you’ve heard,” she said, “but you have shit taste in friends.”
“Who said they were my friends?”
Lila rolled her neck. “Then the company you keep.” The wood cut into her arms. She couldn’t move. She knew—she’d been trying for the last few minutes.
“I’m curious,” she said, trying to hide how hard it was to breathe. “What do you have against the crown?”
“Me? Nothing,” said Bex. “But a job is a job, and in my world, coin is king. Now,” she added, running her hand over the bracer on her forearm. The metal peeled away into a blade. “I guess it’s time we finish what we started.”
“Sure,” said Lila. “Just let me up.”
Bex chuckled. She brought her boot up to the chair, and leaned in. “I don’t think so.”
“Then it’s hardly a fair fight.”
Bex shrugged, and said, “No fight is truly fair.” And Lila thought, under different circumstances, they might have gotten along quite well. Hell, they might even have been friends. Or at least, the kind of acquaintances that didn’t try to kill each other.
But Bex’s blade came to rest against her cheek. It bit, the pain a whisper compared to everything else, but she felt the bead run like a tear down her face.
“Antari blood is worth a lot,” she said. “Do you really want to waste it?”
A smile twitched at the corner of Bex’s mouth. “You’re right.” The blade vanished from Lila’s cheek as she turned, moving toward a pitcher on the wall. She lifted the vessel, dumping the contents onto the floor.
“This will do,” she said. Her back was to the door, so she didn’t see what Lila did.
She sighed in relief. “You came.”
Kell stepped into the room, the black ring’s cord swinging from his fingers. “You called.” He smiled a little as he said it. That smile felt nice. Even if it faded as he noticed Bex against the wall.
“How sweet,” said the assassin, setting the pitcher down again. “But I’m afraid you’re interrupting.”
Kell looked to Lila, as if wondering why she was bound to a chair, or rather, why she was still bound, why she hadn’t used her ample magic to get herself free. And since there was no time to explain, she simply said, “This one’s all yours.”
Mercifully, Kell didn’t ask. He just drew his sword, and shifted, putting himself between Lila and Bex.
“Again, the blades,” said Bex with a smirk. “Careful, Antari, someone will wonder what’s happened to your magic.”
Lila saw Kell’s shoulders stiffen, and in that moment, Bex attacked.
She lunged toward his chest, only to drop her knife at the last instant, into her other hand, intending to drive it up from below, but Lila had taught Kell that move, one of a hundred in their sparring sessions, and so he was there, cutting downward before the blade could slice his front.
The swords clashed, and scraped, searching for skin and finding only steel.
She’d taught him well. All those months aboard the Barron, in sunshine and in rain, training the Antari out of Kell, stripping him of everything but sword, and speed. He moved as fast as Bex, even as her metal became molten, changing form, multiplying. He moved with all the grace of a born fighter.
And then, he made a mistake.
One of Bex’s blades gashed his arm, and the sword fell from his grip, and skated across the floor, out of Kell’s reach, and into Bex’s.