With bruised and aching hands, Evan fumbled out the keys, dropped them, picked them up, all the while sensing Slatcher’s rolling-boulder approach. He fought the key into the first vault and grabbed the stock of the combat shotgun, swinging it free and scattering the sheathed katana and the tray of shotgun shells across the roof.
Slatcher was on him.
There was no time to bring the Benelli around, no time to do anything but lean to dodge the hurtling mass. Slatcher clipped him, knocking the shotgun away and crushing himself into the lowered tailgate. The collision was seismic. Bone crunched, but Slatcher gave up only an understated grunt. Evan dove for the shotgun, but it skittered out of reach toward the metal bars guarding the broad concrete overhang. The ammo boxes had burst open, red shells spraying everywhere. Bouncing off the truck, Slatcher nearly slipped on them, but he regained his footing and squared to Evan. Breathing hard, Evan pulled himself unevenly to his feet.
Slatcher stood stooped, favoring his broken hip. His split chin had painted a bib of crimson down his shirt. Blood trickled down his arms, dripped from his fingers. The collision with the truck had stunned him, and Evan had one shot to capitalize on that.
Slatcher lumbered toward him, hands coming up into fighting position. Evan sidestepped, forcing him to circle the wrong way and set his weight onto that broken hip. Slatcher gritted his teeth and took a quivering step. Bone crunched. Before he could set himself, Evan stepped forward, planting his left foot, and delivered a wing chun oblique kick with his right, pivoting to piston his heel forward, aiming beneath the pillar of Slatcher’s lead thigh. He hit the knee squarely, shattering it backward, and the big man bellowed and sagged, somehow keeping his feet. For an instant Evan wobbled off balance, time enough for Slatcher to hop forward, rotating the immense base of his hips and driving a reverse punch into Evan’s solar plexus.
Pain exploded in his wound, torpedoing through his insides. The force of the blow knocked him off his feet, and then he had only a sideways view of the rooftop as he slid back and racked into the guardrails. The back of his head clanged off the metal, concussion flares hazing the world. The sun-baked concrete cooked his cheek, and he felt a curious detachment as he watched Slatcher drag himself across the sideways roof, growing larger.
Evan blinked, snapping to. He turned his head. Through the guardrails was only the concrete slab of the solar-paneled overhang, a ten-foot ring around the structure, petals of green-black glass. Beyond that a seven-story drop. He blinked again, harder. There was more, if he could just see it. His bowling-ball slide into the rail had knocked the katana beneath the bottom metal rung, as well as a number of shotgun shells, still spinning like tops. But he wasn’t focused on them. He was focused on the Benelli combat shotgun just beyond, the barrel come to rest several inches off the rim.
Evan pulled himself up the guardrails, a boxer climbing the ropes, and spilled over the top. Slatcher’s fist skimmed overhead, missing by inches. The shells clattered; the sword finished a lazy half rotation, then fell, slotted into the space between solar panels.
Evan crawled along the curved eave toward the shotgun, hands and knees sliding on the slick solar panels. He heard Slatcher shatter a panel behind him, landing hard. Evan’s fingers strained, inches from the shotgun stock.
Slatcher lunged for him, grabbing his calf, knocking Evan’s hand forward into the Benelli.
It skimmed soundlessly off the rim. For a moment it floated against the pretty glass backdrop of La Reverie. Then it vanished. The breeze ruffled Evan’s hair, and he felt the soothing warmth of the sun on his cheek. A poetic moment of ordinary life.
Then Slatcher ripped him backward. Evan fell from all fours onto his stomach.
Rotating on his hip, he hurled his weight into a turn and kicked Slatcher with everything he had left. The top of his foot struck just below Slatcher’s jaw, hooking the big man’s head and spinning him toward the brink.
Slatcher’s broad fingers scrabbled for purchase across the sleek silicon, sending shotgun shells scattering. His legs drifted off the lip, and then his hips went, that low center of gravity tipping him over. His elbows ledged the rim. Then slipped. Slatcher’s bloody hand flailed up over his head.
And caught something.
The sheathed katana, stuck in the gap between sets of solar panels.
It protruded from the roof’s edge like a bracketed flag from the side of a building. Slatcher’s downward weight wedged the long sword handle tighter into place, pulling it horizontal until it locked between the panels and the concrete lip of the roof.
His mighty arm trembled. The hand tendons were frayed from the bullet wound, his fingers not clenching fully.
A suspended moment. And then his other hand flew up, clamping onto the scabbard beside the first.
He started to draw himself back toward the rooftop.
A pull-up, one hundred feet above the sidewalk.
The sheath slid an inch off the hilt. Slatcher froze. If the sheath went, he went with it. The equilibrium held. After a moment’s pause, he began inching his way up again.
Biting his cheek against the pain, Evan pulled himself toward Slatcher and the sword. Slatcher’s face strained, a vein popping in his temple. Still, he made headway.
Evan came within range. He positioned himself to kick Slatcher off, but Slatcher watched him intently, ready to react even from his compromised position. If any part of Evan’s body came within reach, he had little doubt Slatcher would latch on to it and bring Evan with him.
Evan turned to the sword instead. He fought to free it from between the panels, but Slatcher’s weight pinned it in place. He grabbed the base of the scabbard and attempted to force it off the length of sword, but the same was true, the downward pressure too strong.
Slatcher kept rising, his elbows hovering just off the concrete rim, nearly able to set down.
A crackling sound turned them both to statues.
Evan’s eyes dropped to that hairline crack in the sheath from when Peter had dropped it. The crackling noise resumed. The fissure expanded. Then forked. The fracture lines spread beneath Slatcher’s hands.
Evan’s breath snagged in his throat. Slatcher’s eyes, level with Evan’s, widened, bloodshot lines pronounced in the sclera. His lips trembled, his Adam’s apple jerking.
Both men watched, motionless.
The sheath broke into pieces beneath Slatcher’s fingers, his grip slipping, his weight tugging him downward again.
He jerked his hands off one at a time, letting the fragments fall away, his palms slapping back onto the metal itself, acquiring a new grip.
Evan waited for the cutting edge to ribbon his hands, but no — in a stroke of luck, Slatcher was hanging from the dull back of the sword.
Through clenched teeth Slatcher released a hiss of amusement at his good fortune. His neck sheeting with muscle, he coiled his arms, those cantaloupe biceps bulging, raising his giant frame again.
The two-century-old tamahagane steel flexed, the edge grinding on the concrete lip. The metal, used for cannonballs in the Meiji era, would not break.
Slatcher rose another few inches, his face lifting above the lip of the roof.
The sword grip was elongated, designed for a two-hand samurai hold. Beyond the length wedged beneath the solar panels, four extra inches protruded. Just wide enough for Evan’s fingers. The cord wrap gave him a good grip, the round tsuba guard pinching the edge of his hand.