“Go on, then,” the man said.
Sheepishly, the woman walked up to the Warrior. “Here.” She offered him the book. “Tiger sent this. He said you might enjoy reading it while you wait.”
“Thank you,” Blade said, taking the volume, “And thank him.”
The woman nodded and dashed from the chamber.
What was this? Blade gazed at the purple cover. The Portable Poe.
There was a bookmark protruding above the pages. He opened the book to the appropriate page and found several photographs had been underlined in blue ink. Blade started reading.
“I have sometimes amused myself by endeavoring to fancy what would be the fate of any individual gifted, or rather accursed, with an intellect very far superior to that of his race. Of course, he would be conscious of his superiority; nor could he (if otherwise constituted as man is) help manifesting his consciousness. Thus he must make himself enemies at all points.”
Blade straightened, frowning. So that was it. Tiger did believe he was some sort of superior man. He resumed reading.
“And since his opinions and speculations would widely differ from those of all mankind—that he would be considered a madman, is evident.
How horribly painful such a condition! Hell could invent no greater torture than that of being charged with abnormal weakness on account of being abnormally strong.”
Blade recalled the sight of his Bowies sticking from Oakes’s eye sockets, and then he read the sentence written in the margin of the book, evidently in Tiger’s handwriting.
“It is my destiny to subjugate all inferiors!”
Blade looked up at the doorway.
Uh-oh.
Chapter Thirteen
Rikki had never known birds could be so deadly.
The flock swirled and dove and arched above the Montlake Bridge, the gulls diving at the humans and attempting to peck or claw at the Sharks with ruthless abandon. The birds invariably went for the face, concentrating on the eyes, as if they somehow knew the humans were vulnerable in the facial area.
For their part, the Sharks were shouting and cursing and shrieking, all the while conducting a running fight with the gulls. A few firearms boomed. Knives, axes, and swords were brought into play. The Sharks were determined to reach the trees at the south end of the bridge, while the gulls were equally determined to stop them.
Rikki was hard pressed to evade the sea gulls. He blocked bird after bird, swatting them aside as they came at his face. Once a talon scraped his right cheek.
Fabiana was using her shotgun as a club, apparently conserving her ammunition. She warded off repeated assaults, but in the struggle she inadvertently moved ever closer to the railing along the west side of Montlake Bridge.
Gar was a whirlwind, swinging his shotgun right and left, concentrating on protecting his sister at his own expense. Oblivious to his own safety, he bore several deep gashes on his arms and neck.
A large gull hurtled toward Rikki, talons outstretched. The Warrior twisted to the left, avoiding the bird’s sharp claws, and clamped his hands on the gull’s wings. He held onto the sea gull’s squirming form, then bent the wings backwards until they snapped. The bird tried to peck his fingers as he released it, and it attempted to snap at his feet as it landed on the bridge. Rikki jumped into the air and came down with both heels first, directly on top of the gull’s head.
There was a faint crunch and the bird expired.
Rikki spun as a man screamed to his rear.
The Shark called Buck was in trouble. Two gulls were clinging to his face, one of them with its talons imbedded in his eyes. He was futilely swatting at the birds while screeching at the top of his lungs.
The gulls were pecking furiously at the man’s face.
Buck staggered and fell to his knees. He dropped his revolver and Rikki’s pouch but clung to the katana scabbard, vainly attempting to bludgeon the gulls with it.
Rikki reached the Shark’s side in two strides. He tore the scabbard from Buck’s grasp, then whipped out the katana. In one glistening swipe, he drove the sword through both birds, severing the gulls in half.
Three of the four feathery sections flopped to the pavement, but the fourth, the lower half of the gull which had its claw buried in Buck’s eyes, held fast, the talons reflexively clamped onto the eyeballs. Suffering intolerably, blubbering and wailing, Buck gripped the lower half of the gull and pulled, trying to pry the claws from his face. Instead, to his ultimate horror, he tore his eyeballs from their sockets. He doubled over, sobbing pathetically.
Rikki, momentarily unassailed, stuck his scabbard under his belt, aligning it over his left hip. He took hold of the katana with both hands.
Just as five gulls attacked.
Rikki decapitated one of the gulls with his first stroke. His second chopped off a wing apiece on two other birds and they flapped to the ground using their good wing to retard their fall.
The remaining pair dove for the Warrior’s face.
Rikki crouched under a pair of slashing talons, spearing his katana upward into the gull’s body. The bird squawked as it died, and he jerked his blade free to confront the last of the five.
The gull was winging skyward.
Rikki abruptly realized his opportunity had arrived. The Sharks were immersed in their combat with the sea gulls; not one of them was so much as looking in his direction. In the confusing midst of the combat, he could easily slip off and return to Yama. He grinned and turned to the north.
Behind him, a woman screamed.
Not just any woman.
The tone was unmistakably Fabiana’s.
Rikki rotated on his heels. There she was, backed up to the railing, fighting for her life against a dense concentration of gulls, perhaps a dozen of them, some tugging at her long hair with their beaks, others slashing at her body, tearing her leather garments and the flesh underneath, and several going for her eyes.
Gar was trying to reach her, but a wall of hovering gulls separated him from his sister. He could not dare fire for fear of striking her.
Fabiana cast a pleading glance in the Warrior’s direction. “Help me! Please!”
Rikki-Tikki-Tavi never hesitated. He waded into the gulls with his katana flashing in a scintillating exhibition of matchless swordsmanship.
Six, seven, eight gulls died in half as many seconds, and then Rikki was next to Fabiana, shielding her with his body and holding the sea gulls at bay.
The next moment, as swiftly as they had attacked, the gulls departed.
As if they were reacting to an invisible command, they soared high on the currents en masse, reformed into a cohesive flock, and flew to the east.
Rikki surveyed the bridge. It was littered with the dead and the dying, with scores of birds and well over a dozen Sharks. Moans and cries of despair wafted skyward. Pools of blood and feathers were everywhere.
“Thank you,” Fabiana said softly.
Rikki turned, smiling. Her hair was disheveled, with a few feathers entangled in the strands. She was cut on her face and neck, and sweat caked her skin, sweat intermixed with blood. For all that, she was extraordinarily lovely, and Rikki had to force himself to think of his beloved Lexine, the woman he cherished, who was awaiting him at the Home.
“You saved my life,” Fab stated.
“I could do no less,” Rikki declared.
For a moment they stared into one another’s eyes, sharing an unspoken bond of deep affection. Only for a moment. Before reality intruded on their silent emotional exchange.
“Drop the sword, little man!”
Rikki pivoted to the south.
Gar was holding his shotgun leveled at the Warrior’s stomach, not five feet away, his finger on the trigger. “I said drop it!”