The one thing I had going for me was that I still wasn’t afraid. Not with Shadow driving. All I felt was a deep, cold anger. A determination to kill my enemy no matter what.
He lunged. I scrambled straight back. He kept coming, and I went on backpedaling, trying to look like I’d forgotten how to do anything else. Then I dodged sideways and stuck out my foot.
It was like trying to trip a charging rhino. It almost threw me off balance when my ankle hooked his. But not quite. He pitched forward. I locked my hands together and hammered them down at the nape of his neck.
But the blow never landed. Even in the middle of falling down, he somehow knew what was coming and wrenched himself around to swipe at me. I had to jerk away, and didn’t jerk far enough. His claws ripped my shirt and the skin underneath. The force of the swing knocked me staggering off balance.
Wotan got his feet under him before I did. He bent at the knees to pounce. Then the sound of piping swirled through the air, and he hesitated. It gave me the extra second I needed to get my balance back, and then the music suddenly cut off. I assumed Timon or one of his stooges had made A’marie stop playing. Because hey, you wouldn’t want me to have any help against a giant with a six-foot reach and claws that could cut metal. Then it wouldn’t be a fair fight.
Everybody was either standing along the walls or in the doorway of the Grand Ballroom to watch the fight, and I caught a glimpse of A’marie as Wotan and I circled one another. To my relief, no one had hurt her, which made one of us. She gasped, and her silvery eyes popped open wide, when she got a good look at the blood running down my chest.
Another quarter turn showed me the Pharaoh with Davis standing beside him. The mummy blew a stream of smoke, and it twisted and swirled into shapes like it had before. Only this time, they were hieroglyphics.
At first that didn’t mean anything to me, and then it did. It seemed like the Pharaoh was giving me a hint. But I was going to have to get tricky if I wanted to find out for sure. Because I couldn’t just run back into the ballroom. Wotan would catch me if I tried.
He roared, spit flying from his jaws, and rushed me. I retreated, stooped, caught the edge of one of the Persian rugs, and flipped it upward. Shadow’s aim was good even when I was beat up and bleeding. The carpet fell over Wotan’s head.
He clawed at me anyway, and would have torn my face off if I hadn’t dodged. I ran around him to a little table with a porcelain vase of flowers on it. I snatched up the vase and, without looking or breaking stride, lobbed it over my shoulder in the direction of the windows. It crashed down a moment later.
The idea was to buy me one more second. To make Wotan look the wrong direction as he yanked the rug off his head.
Maybe it worked. Because in another moment, I was almost to the ballroom doorway, and he hadn’t overtaken me yet.
But there were fight fans blocking my way. Luckily, they started to scramble aside. It made enough of a hole for me to bull my way through. I ran on.
Behind me, someone screamed, and the floor shook. I realized Wotan was rushing up behind me like an Amtrak train hurtling down a track. I’d meant to circle around the poker table, but I dived and rolled across the felt instead, smearing it with blood as I tumbled along. I knocked over clattering stacks of chips. My foot clipped the chest of deeds. Then I dropped onto my feet and stumbled onward.
I heard the crash when Wotan flung the table out of his way. Easily, I’m sure, but it cost him another instant. Time enough for me to make it to the chair where he’d been sitting, grab the sword he’d left there, and jerk it out of the scabbard.
Before, I’d sensed that the sword hated everybody in the world except Wotan. But the Pharaoh had said he’d turned it against its owner, and now I could feel that, too. It would still have been happy to cut anybody who came in range, but its bloodlust was focused on the giant who stopped short at the sight of it. In fact, it almost felt like it was trying to yank itself out of my grip and fly at him, although really, that was just a mental thing.
So that was all good. It still left the fact that I’d never even touched a sword before. But the Army had taught me to fight with a knife, and given me about two minutes of bayonet training. I wrapped my fingers around the hilt and hoped that what I knew would transfer.
Meanwhile, Wotan snarled and snatched up a chair. The sword had canceled out his reach advantage, but now he had it back.
I rushed him and hacked at his fingers. He blocked with the chair, and the sword clanked against it. He straightened his arms and ran at me.
I twisted out of the way a split second before the chair legs would have rammed into me. And if normal me had managed just that, it would have been amazing, considering the shape I was in. But normal me didn’t have Shadow’s talent for dishing out punishment, and maybe the sword helped, too. I kept pivoting, spun completely around, and cut into Wotan’s back as he lunged by.
The sword didn’t chop into his spine like I wanted. But at least it made him roar and lurch off balance. At least, when the blade jerked out of the wound, I finally got to see some of his blood. I grinned and ran at him, trying to land another shot before he could turn back around.
But he did turn, and the chair turned with him, whirling just an inch or two off the floor. I couldn’t dodge it in a sensible way, so I tried to jump high into the air and let it sweep by underneath me.
The hero in an action movie could have done it. Maybe even Shadow could have done it, if I hadn’t been beat to hell and bleeding all over myself. But as it was, I didn’t do it. The chair smashed into my legs and smashed pain into them. I slammed down on the floor.
Wotan swung the chair repeatedly, and I flung myself back and forth to keep it from pounding down on me. It was like a stamping shoe, and I was a roach that didn’t want to get squashed. Finally it broke apart in his hands-we were having trouble killing each other, but we were hell on the furniture-and maybe that startled him, because he hesitated. I wrenched myself around and sliced his leg just below the knee.
He bellowed. I tried to scramble up and stick the sword in his chest, but more pain ripped through my left leg when it took my weight and I almost fell back down. It made the thrust clumsy and slow, and Wotan was able to backpedal out of range.
But he almost fell down doing that. We were both hobbling, me, thanks to a broken bone, probably, and him because of whatever damage the sword had done.
He snarled and said, “I’m… stronger.” He was forcing the words out with an animal’s throat and tongue, and I almost couldn’t understand them. “No dancing around… I win.”
I just glared. Shadow wasn’t much of a talker.
He wasn’t a quitter, either. Panting, what was left of my clothes glued to me with blood and sweat, I limped forward.
Wotan looked around, found another chair-the damn things were everywhere-and threw it.
He was right. I couldn’t dodge like before. I tried, but the chair clipped me anyway. Reeling, fighting to stay on my feet, I stumbled partway around.
At once I heard or maybe just sensed him rushing me as best he could. I lurched back around with my right arm raised like I wanted to cut at his head.
He grabbed it by the wrist and stopped it dead. Then the red eyes widened when he noticed the sword wasn’t in my right hand anymore.
It was in my left, where I’d shifted it during the instant my back was turned. I stabbed it up under his ribs, and it drove in all the way to the guard. Inside my head, the sword squealed like a little girl who just got what she really wanted for Christmas.