Too bad it didn't see Nik.
The blade of the scythe missed my stomach by millimeters. It tore through my leather jacket as if it were no more substantial than an illusion as Niko hit Sawney from the side and carried him away from me. The icy clamp peeled from my throat and I fell. Landing in a crouch, I coughed against the air that had curdled in my frozen throat. Niko and Sawney had landed ten feet away: Niko on his feet and Sawney on his back with a sword pinning him to a wooden pallet. Dead center through his gut … or what I guessed to be his gut. The sword blade disappeared into the darkness that was Sawney, but Nik didn't stop there. His hand a blur of motion, he slammed a dagger into the Redcap's neck to pin him further. Then, because he was loaded for bear, he drew his second big blade. He'd seen how much effect my gun and my knife had had, but he swung the machete anyway. When I saw where he aimed, I knew what he was thinking. If you can't kill it …
Disassemble it.
My brother in action; it was something to see. When he lifted his blade, he had the grace and elegance of Lancelot on the field of honor, and when he brought it down, he had the efficiency of the family butcher down the street. The metal bit through the shoulder joint of the arm that controlled the scythe and then Nik kicked it away. Not the weapon— the entire arm. Yeah, safe to say that when Niko disarmed someone, he didn't fuck around. Proof positive was in the next blow. He'd seen how quick Sawney was with that scythe, and he'd taken care of that first. Now the second step was to end it. Sawney's head was the next thing to be kicked across the floor or it should've been, but things were never that easy.
Before Nik could take that next blow, Sawney exploded upward into the air above us, suddenly upright and with his feet at least three feet above the floor. The surge tossed Niko backward with the force of a vicious, storm-driven wave. Impaled by a sword and dagger, the legend hung suspended. Hung and gurgled. It was only when he pulled the dagger from his throat that I recognized the gurgle for what it was. Laughter.
I lunged at him as his hand, the one he had left, moved to the hilt of Niko's sword to pull it free. I reached him as the blade came loose and the wooden pallet clattered to the floor. "Pretty." Sawney held the sword high. "A fetching blade. Bonny. Bonnybonnybonny." The laughter ratcheted higher and higher into the crazed cackle of a hyena—bloody-mouthed, full-bellied, and happy. Two of a kind, because Sawney was that, through and through. When I jumped up and hit him, the laughter didn't stop. It kept on and on, all I could hear.
My tackle didn't move him, not an inch. How he managed to float there, I didn't know. Or care. I just wanted him dead, down, or both. With my arms wrapped around his torso, he and I hung suspended in the air, like flies in amber…until Niko joined us. He didn't add the weight of his body, though. He was smarter there than I had been. He used a more effective weight, that of a baseball bat. At least that's what it felt like, even from the other side of it. A massive blow was slammed across Sawney's back. It did what I hadn't. We tumbled through the air and hit the front of the van, the hood, and then the windshield. It cracked underneath us, but held—just barely. I grabbed for the sword in Sawney's hand, but he was already gone, disappearing upward into the darkness. Niko was in his place almost instantly, a black metal rod in his hand. Telescoping and two feet long, it wasn't a baseball bat. It was an illegal version of a police baton and a helluva lot more vicious than your average Louisville Slugger.
"New toy?" I asked hoarsely.
"I like to treat myself once in a while." He held out a hand and pulled me out of the hollow my impact had formed in the safety glass. I made it to my knees, considered trying for my feet, and decided against it. Bracing myself on the hood of the van, I looked up and saw nothing. Not a damn thing.
"Shit." I had his smell now, up close and personal. Ice, bone, and insanity. I hadn't known the latter had a specific scent. It did. "He's gone." It was true. The taint in the air had faded a fraction, from present to past.
"I'm not surprised." Nik slipped off the hood and away to return seconds later. "He took his arm and scythe with him."
"So much for souvenirs." My chest was beginning to hurt, the cotton wool ache migrating to a raw acid sear. It burned so savagely that I didn't want to look at the damage Sawney had left behind. Setting my teeth against the pain, I eased my way from the hood down to the floor. It wasn't graceful, but it wasn't a drunken stumble either. It didn't matter; Niko spotted the hesitation immediately.
He didn't waste time asking if I was hurt; he went straight to the heart of the matter. "Where?"
"He …" I gave a reluctant dark laugh as I laid the flat of my hand on my chest. It was too strange, too goddamn weird. And terrifying. It made it hard to find the words and harder to put them out there. "Jesus. He ate me."
Niko didn't laugh in turn. He didn't see the humor, dark or otherwise. Truthfully neither did I. With a pen flashlight from his pocket for the examination, he pushed aside my hand and spread my jacket. He didn't have to lift my shirt. I guessed the hole in it matched the one in me. Straight-shot viewing. For him … I didn't bother to look, not yet. Nik's face, calm, became even more so. It wasn't a good sign. "I suppose I get to be the pretty one now," he said lightly. Minutes later, I had a thick bulk of gauze taped to my upper chest. There wasn't much blood soaking through and that didn't necessarily seem a positive. And when Niko's hand fastened onto the back of my jacket to urge me into a walk, that didn't seem like one either.
"I'm okay," I insisted. I was. It hurt like hell, but I was all right. I certainly could walk. One foot in front of the other—it's not that difficult.
"I know," he said agreeably. Far too agreeably, and he didn't let go as we walked outside and hailed a cab.
"You lost your sword." He'd lost it only once before … to Hob. Hob the kidnapper. Hob the megalomaniac. Hob the shit-head. It wasn't a good memory. The homicidal puck had nearly killed Nik, and I'd used Nik's sword to return the favor. "You lost your sword," I said again, oddly shook-up over it. More than I should've been. After all, Sawney wasn't Hob and Niko was right here.
"I'll get it back or I'll get a new one. It doesn't matter." His grip on me tightened as my legs went a little rubbery…developed a mind of their own. Yet one more thing to add to the "not good" list.
"You know," I said with a sudden dawning of truth, "Mr. Goldstein would've kicked Lancelot's ass."
"The butcher?" He gave it the solemn consideration it deserved. "I believe you're right." Damn straight I was, but there was no denying I had a new empathy for the cows that Mr. Goldstein chopped into steaks and rump roasts.
Being the cow wasn't much fun.
8
We made it home in record time for New York traffic, which was nice. I liked home. Home was good. Sawney wasn't there and massive painkillers were. It was a win-win.
"We need a healer. Now."
"Yes, I know we need a healer, Niko," Goodfellow said with a strained patience. "But we don't have one."
We'd had a healer. Rafferty Jeftichew. He'd saved my life once upon a time. Twice upon a time actually. But he'd disappeared in the past month. Closed up his house and vanished. When your healer took off, it was bad news, especially if you didn't know if your insides matched your human outsides. And a hospital would know, Rafferty had told us, either from imaging or blood work.
"A doctor, then." It was said with determination although Niko knew better…knew it wasn't possible.