Four and Twenty Blackbirds (Eden Moore 1)

"You won't," he said with enough of that intimidating confidence to frighten me. He stepped forward in two long strides. Where had he gotten that? Where had he been hiding that knife, that huge knife big enough to be a machete?

He smiled, and this time I saw his teeth, as jaundiced as his eyes. "You won't even try to stop me, my baby. In fact, you're going to give me . . . a hand. "

A sudden understanding of the threat jolted me free of my stupor; I dropped to a crouch and grabbed the gun. Too late—he was too close. He stomped one huge foot down on my wrist before I could pull the trigger, and I no longer had any doubt that he was as strong as he sounded, and a hundred times stronger than he looked.

I shrieked and tried to yank myself out from under him. With a mighty heave I pulled away, and his balance faltered, but that move cost me the gun; I had to leave it beside his foot to extricate myself.

Avery ignored the gun and brought the knife down right where my arm had been. The blade stuck into the wood, but not so hard that he couldn't retrieve it. He held it aloft again, and we circled each other like fighting dogs. I was still on the floor, in a crablike backwards crawl trying to get away from him, but I had nowhere to go. He was now between me and the door, and the only window was beside it.

"I don't want to kill you," he insisted, knife securely poised in his grip, loudly contradicting his words.

"I don't believe you. "

"All I need is your right hand—no, not even

that if you'll hold still. I need your fourth finger—and that's all. That's all I need to use your power. And it's mine to take. I gave it to you. "

"No part of my body is yours to take. You stay the hell away from me. "

He lunged forward and I scrambled backwards, knocking into the wall and sliding along it until we opposed each other once more. "But I need your power, child. I can either take it from your hand, or I can kill you—it's up to you. To kill you would return it to me just as surely, but you've got to believe I'd rather see you alive. "

"But I don't believe it. And I swear to God that if you touch me, I'll feed you your heart. "

Avery laughed, and the knife turned in his fist. "No, my pretty one. You don't want my power. And if you kill me, you'll take it whether you want it or not. That's another reason you've got to let me have my way. "

"Forget it. And I don't need your power. I just need you to leave us alone. "

"Have it your way, then. I'll still have it my way too. " He dove for me again.

I scrambled back to the left, towards the stove, and as he bore down on me I reached up, feeling madly about for anything I could use as a weapon. I seized on a handle, and without looking up to see what it was I flipped it forward. A small pot, filled with a smelly, boiling liquid, sailed over my head and caught Avery in the side of the face. He reeled away, catching himself against the far wall and wiping at the dark, hot liquid.

Something about the way he recovered himself, eyes narrowing and shoulders stiffening, made me cringe. Now I'd made him angry. I expected him to make some battle cry or villainous threat, but he did neither. Instead he charged forward again, and this time he caught me by the shoulder before I could dart a hasty evasion.

He raised the knife and drove it down hard—I caught his forearm but not soon enough. The knife went in just above my left breast, but not too deep. It tore skin and scraped against bone, but did little other damage. The sound of the metal inside me made my teeth ache as much as the split flesh stung, but that was all. It could be worse, or so I frantically assured myself. I'm not bleeding bad. It could be a lot worse.

I pulled my legs up between us and pried him back enough to force him to retract the knife. I held him at bay like that, with my feet against his stomach, one of his bony arms in my fist, keeping that enormous blade clear. With the other arm we wrestled each other, his fingers reaching for my throat and mine clawing at his face, digging for eyes or other tender spots.

Everything I touched felt like thick, wadded parchment. He was made up of false parts, all stringy skin and wrinkled leather. I scraped at his cheek and neck, and where blood should have oozed there was nothing. It wasn't working.

Time to change my approach.

I closed my hand into a fist and started swinging. I didn't have enough room to get a lot of force behind it, so I aimed at what was close and possibly vulnerable. First I popped his nose, up from underneath. I heard something crack, maybe even break, but he was unimpressed. I hit it again, with no more effect, so I switched to his throat—his Adam's apple was bobbing right above my face so I punched it for all I was worth and he gagged. He sucked in a jagged breath and gave a tiny convulsion. The victory was a small one; I'd barely distracted him, but if nothing else, I knew now that he could be hurt. It would take a lot of doing, but all this effort might not be futile.

Mentally crossing my fingers, I let go of the hand that was going for my throat. In the split second before his fingers closed around my windpipe, I grabbed at the hand with the knife and bent it, aiming the tip of the blade at Avery's own throat and shoving with all my strength.

It went in.

Not much, not deep—no deeper than he'd cut me—but he let go of my neck and pulled himself off me. He pressed his fingers to the wound, and when he removed them I saw the gash I'd made oozing with dark, thick blood. It swelled thickly to the surface, not splashing or running but only making a small spot of heavy slime beneath his jawbone. It looked appallingly like the sort of fluid that might leak from a corpse.

While he stared at me, and then down at his dirty fingers, I climbed slowly to my feet, bracing myself against the stove and trying not to touch anything hot. There were two more pots bubbling away, and I'd use them both if I had to.

"All right," he finally said. "No more games. We'll do this your way, and see how you like it. "

With that, his eyes rolled back in his head and he pulled in a great breath of air. I could hear his lungs expanding, and expanding, and expanding. I knew there was no way they could hold so much. Even the pressure in the room dropped, and my ears ached until I flexed a yawn and they popped. My sinuses swelled in my head, and my chest felt weak. Still Avery's mouth was gaping, pulling every molecule of oxygen into himself.

His hands clasped one another, and gradually he raised them up higher, past his elbows, past his shoulders, above his head. And when they could lift no farther, his eyeballs swung down into their proper position. He opened his palms. And a great shock wave, much like the one I'd felt by the side of the road, burst through the cabin.

Malachi, from his somewhat limited position hog-tied on the bed, merely curled into the corner. But I was standing there like a fool when it hit, and I was thrown against a wall—no, through a wall—no, half through the wall, and half out the window. My head blasted through the glass, and my neck and collarbones followed. When the last of the vibrations died away, I was hanging over the windowsill, glass shards peppering my hair and clothes.