The man reversed the knife in his hand and cocked his arm. “Better duck,” he said.
Tom heard a soft sound behind him and he ducked, pivoted, and slashed, knowing that it was the third man, the one who’d been knocked down by the second man who’d been killed. He flicked his sword out, and it struck in the same instant as the knife thrown by the big blond man.
The last of the bikers stared at them in disbelief. He dropped the big meat cleaver he held, tried to speak past the steel stricture in his throat, failed, and fell face-forward onto the grass.
Tom got to his feet and backed a few paces away. He kept his sword in his hands, wary of the blond man now that it was just the two of them.
“Are there more of them?” he asked.
The blond man took a folded kitchen towel from his pocket and began sponging blood off his arms. “There were.”
“What?”
There was a sound—soft and strange—and Tom whirled to see a massive dog standing in the open doorway at the back of the house. He was a brute. A mix of white shepherd and Irish wolfhound. And he was covered with leather armor into which spikes and knife blades had been fastened. The spikes and the dog’s muzzle were bright with fresh blood.
The dog began walking across the yard, circling wide to stay out of range of Tom’s sword. He didn’t go over to the blond man, but instead stopped at a useful angle if the two of them planned a flanking maneuver on Tom. It was evidence of how well this dog had been trained.
“How many?” asked the man, and the dog answered with three sharp barks.
“Did—” began Tom, “did he just . . . answer you?”
“Sure,” said the blond man. “Why not?”
“He’s just a dog. . . .”
“First off, his name is Baskerville, and he’s not just a dog. He’s a combat dog, and the son and grandson of combat dogs. And, second, it’s a simple response. It’s not like he recited Candide.”
“Um . . .”
The blond man looked him up and down. “You’re the one they call Fast Tommy.”
“What?”
“That’s you, isn’t it? Japanese guy with a katana. Sometimes seen with a little kid. You’re part of that group in the mountains by the reservoir, right? What are they calling that place now? Mountainside?”
“How do you know that?”
“Word gets around,” said the man. “But you’re Fast Tommy.”
“No one calls me that.”
“Pretty sure everyone calls you that, son. Maybe not to your face. But let’s face it, the world’s getting pretty damned empty. How many Japanese guys with swords are there going to be running around in central California?”
Tom said nothing. In truth he had heard that nickname, but he disliked nicknames. That one was only marginally better than another he’d heard.
Tom the Killer.
That was a horrible nickname that had been hung on him after he had a run-in with a group of cannibals. He tried to shake it, but nicknames are like gum. They stick to you.
“Who are you?” he asked. He’d searched his memory for any stories of a man like this but came up empty.
The man smiled. He had a good smile, but it did not go very deep. It was surface and it was cold. “Captain Joe Ledger,” he said.
Neither man offered to shake hands.
“Captain of what?”
“Army Rangers, once upon a time. Though, to be precise, I was a sergeant in the army. Then a detective with the Baltimore police.”