She left the marked outline of the strip, going outside the parameters of the combat field. That fit so well, he should have seen it coming. Of course she wouldn’t recognize boundaries. Now all the wheels and works of his brain were stripping gears in their speed to devise a strategy to match hers.
Too late. She rushed him from the side, slashing at the padded bib beneath his mask. This time he felt the point close to flesh. Only the jacket’s high collar, one thin layer of material, protected his throat.
“How many times do you suppose I have to do that before I get down to the real thing?” Her sword was lowered to her side. It rose swiftly, faster than his eye could follow. She stabbed his mask at the level of his eyes, and he jumped back, hitting the wall, the last possible step of retreat.
“Can’t you guess?” She turned her back on him and walked to the far end of the strip. He moved away from the wall and resumed his own place within the marked outlines of the field. They stared at one another across this space.
“You watched me work over Koozeman at the gallery. Then you passed your guesswork along to your sister.”
There was no warning before the rush. Long-stepping, she came after him, jabbing holes in the air, coming closer, now lunging to thrust, recovering her move and lunging again. “You damn amateur!” Every attack maneuver was hers, leaving him only the defensive moves and the escaping backward steps.
“You’ve made so many stupid mistakes, Quinn. Aubry wasn’t the primary target. You were wrong about that.” Steel clanged with rapid strikes and counterstrikes, and in her swings he discerned the rhythm of a hammer on a nail.
“How can you possibly know-”
She broke off the attack and stepped back. “It was always a money motive.” She lowered her sword. “The killer stood to make money on the death of the artist, Peter Ariel. Aubry came in while they were cutting up his body.”
“No, it didn’t happen that way. I was called there to discover the bodies because Aubry was one of the victims. The setup was planned before she even died!”
“No, Quinn. The killers needed a critic to kick off the hype. Koozeman probably figured the police were too stupid to recognize a dead body as a work of art. So he used Aubry’s name as bait for you. But she was never meant to show up at the gallery. That was an accident. Something went wrong.”
She was dangling the sword carelessly in her hand. Now it rose suddenly to attack position. Forgetting forty years of training which told him to wait on her advance, he stepped back too soon, his sword rising to parry. But she never left her place on the strip. Now she let her saber dangle again. And his own sword came down. She smiled, and in that smile, she told him that she owned him now.
“Let’s go over the lies you told to Markowitz. You were late getting to the gallery that night.”
“Yes, but I explained that.”
“You lied to Markowitz. You’ll have to do better with me.”
“As I explained to your father, the cab was caught in a traffic jam on a street where a film was being made. So I had to get out and take a subway. I’m no good at navigating subways. I’d never used-”
“Markowitz knew you lied to him. I found his copy of the shooting schedule for that old movie and all the city location permits. It took me a while to work it out. The film location wasn’t between your apartment and the gallery. And that’s all the old man knew-that you lied. He never got to interview the family. He didn’t know Sabra was meeting your mother that night. But I did- after I talked to Aubry’s father. Then I noticed the shooting location was midway between your house and your mother’s. So you and your sister saw the movie crew on the way to your mother’s house. I even know you drove there in her car.”
“Sabra was never-”
She rushed him with long steps, a swing and a cut to the arm. His parry was too late. He looked down to the blood drops staining his sleeve. She had bloodied him, and yet he remained true to the brotherhood which refused to believe that the female could be the deadlier sex. The wound was hard evidence against her gender, and still he would only defend and retreat. His mind was coming apart; his code remained intact. He could finish her with one thrust, and yet he would not.
And she knew it.
“What’s the point of lying anymore?” She lowered her sword and stalked off to the far end of the strip. “You got the message at your mother’s house-you called the paper or they tracked you down. Then you and Sabra drove her car to the gallery. You were late, but not late enough to account for the delay in calling the police.”
“You couldn’t possibly know that.”
“Oh, no? Tell me what doesn’t fit. Sabra saw what they’d done to Aubry, and she went right over the screaming edge. You needed time to calm her down and get her safely away-time to plan. You had to keep the police and the media away from Sabra. You decided she couldn’t stand up to an interrogation-what a gentleman. You made up the subway story to explain why you were late calling the police, why there would be no record of a cab log. So they couldn’t follow the trail back to your mother’s house and Sabra. That was the first lie.”
She left the strip to walk around him, making side circles, slow and quiet. This was no maneuver learned at school-she was playing with him. His life had been lived within parameters of form, where all the moves were familiar, almost a ballet. Nothing in his experience had prepared him for what lay beyond the boundary lines. The sight of Aubry had ruptured his mind and not taught him a thing.
He turned to watch Mallory, moving as she moved, revolving to keep pace with her circles. All the aggression was hers, she picked the shots, began the dance and stopped it when she wished. She controlled the court, the game, himself.
She was so sure she was going to beat him-that much, but no more, was in her face. And worse, it was in his own mind as Mallory danced up to the mark to play, ignoring his blade, she thought so little of his chances.
His concentration was broken. He missed the parry and let her through to bloody his side. She backed away again to the center of the court. And now she broke with any pretense of form, running across the floor, her saber describing circles in the air. When she had closed the distance, she dropped to one knee and sliced low toward his unprotected thigh, a forbidden zone which no opponent ever aimed for.
He cursed himself for not anticipating her. He had heard the rip of material, but he would not look down. If she had cut him again, it would do him no good to see the blood. He parried the next rush, doing twice the brainwork to cover his body and his legs.
She broke off, stepping back, light as a cat, to the end of the strip. When she moved forward again, it was still on cat’s feet, an unhurried, stalking advance.
She began this bout in slow-action time, the cadence of casual conversation, as her blade met his in easy strikes and counters. The swordplay accelerated with more rapid strikes, but still no force, light touches only- You kiss my sword, and I kiss yours. Faster now, and faster-quick reports of steel sounded on steel. The tempo was more the breathless pace of something carnal, heart pounding-
Suddenly, Mallory broke with him and retreated to the edge of the strip.
Sweat blurred his eyes as she came dancing back to him with short steps and a rather ordinary gambit. He parried easily, and this should have made him suspicious. Instead of answering his parry with a riposte, she let her steel slide down his sword until she closed with him, hilt to hilt, swords pointing up, only a few inches between their bodies. She pressed closer until they stood corps-a-corps, in the forbidden contact of opponents.
Softly, she said, “I’m going to take you now.”
And he believed her. He was staring into the long slants of her green eyes. Her sword was disengaging, lowering. And this was the moment where he lost the match, even before he felt her metal slipping into the handle of his saber. With one elegant move, she backed away and ripped the steel from his hand with the pry bar of her own sword and sent his saber flying across the court, clanging to the floor.