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him seemed to sharpen. No, not a man to hesitate. Probably not a man to take by surprise
either. Rushing him would be a stupid bloody risk, but Joel was angry enough to chance
it.
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Too Many Fairy Princes
 Your contract is with Mr. Ringle. If you can find him, you re welcome to
renegotiate with him. But I m giving you thirty seconds to get out of here before I call the
police. You cut me. That isn t legal. I can have you put away for that.
 It s healed remarkably well. Drake lifted an eyebrow in amusement.  Yes, I can
see a jury believing I opened your face when you stand in front of them looking like
this.
Joel made the decision, settled his breathing, and began to feel out for his body s chi,
to help him spring into sudden, explosive motion.
 As for the police. Drake narrowed his eyes, as though he could see what Joel was
doing.  Please. Since I came to this city, I have done more to control crime than they ever
could. The chief of police sends me a bottle of brandy at Christmas, and I send him one
of my enemies, gift-wrapped. I don t think you know what you re dealing with, but 
He was midsentence when Joel sprang. Joel pushed off with all the power in his legs.
But he knew, the moment he moved, it was too slow. Drake looked faintly, intellectually
surprised, as though he hadn t really believed Joel had it in him. Their gazes caught and
Joel felt his brain freeze behind his eyes. The man lived up to his name; he had a
dragon s old, cold, reptilian stare. Pitiless.
As Joel ran at him, Drake stepped back and fired.
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Chapter Thirteen
Motionless and disregarded on the sofa, Kjartan had been preparing for this. The
moment the bang rang out he spread both hands, plucked Joel out of the world and, with
accuracy he didn t think he had, inserted him back behind Drake. The bullet passed
through the air where Joel had been and slammed into the wall by the window. Plaster
flew, and the room filled with the greasy, sulphurous stink of spent gunpowder.
Joel staggered as he landed, unprepared for the sudden change of position. He
lurched into a weak punch at Drake s kidneys, but Drake who surely should have been
more surprised, Kjartan thought simply spun on one heel and slammed an elbow into
Joel s sternum, following it up with a back fist to the face. As Joel doubled over, all the
breath driven out of him, Drake settled the mouth of the gun against the top of Joel s
shoulder.
If he pulled the trigger now, it would not kill Joel. It would just break his collarbone
and shatter the joint of his arm, maybe lodge in the capsule of the ball joint, give Joel a
new understanding of agony, and cripple him for life.
Kjartan was not prepared to let that happen. Though his sword was lost, he formed a
new one out of the glass in the windows, filigreed and annealed together into unbreakable
hardness. With a yowl of fury, he leapt forward and slashed for Drake s bent neck.
A white, tearing moment. Kjartan thought the sword had gone straight through the
backbone and the body had simply disappeared. Then his sword struck and rebounded
from something that rang out like crystal, and Drake was back, gun still in one hand, the
other holding a shield that flamed like diamond.
But Drake s little disappearing act had given Joel time to get his breath. Joel
straightened from his crouch and drove his whole body up beneath Drake s arm. The gun
went off a second time, plaster raining down from the ceiling as the bullet sank into the
Too Many Fairy Princes
ornate ceiling rose. As Kjartan kept Drake s shield arm occupied, kept his attention, Joel
seized the wrist of his gun hand, jabbed two fingers deep into the flesh of his biceps at a
very particular point. Drake flinched and his fingers jerked open. As the gun fell to the
floor, Kjartan kicked to send it skittering under the kitchen table.
Still Drake did not break or beg for mercy. This pleased Kjartan, who had none to
give. He clicked his fingers again, and the electricity he had banished from the
neighbourhood rushed back in. He could feel all the wires in the walls pulsing with the
stuff. Reaching out for it, he drew it into his hands, formed it into a spear and stabbed
it hissing, crackling, blue-white as a thunderbolt at Drake s chest, where his small and
withered heart should beat.
Another moment of stasis, and then Drake caught the thunderbolt in his now
weaponless hand. Lashing and biting like a ball of adders, the strands of electric current
wound up his arm and sank beneath his skin. His eyes gleamed silver-white, and his grin
crackled with charge as he made a wide, theatrical gesture and a sword made out of
lightning grew from his hand.
Something very ancient stirred in Kjartan then. He recognised a challenge when he
saw it. He stepped back, to give himself space to do this correctly, and called a weighted
net of adamantine fibre to his left hand, armour to his body and a helm to his head. There
were ritual words that should have been said earlier, but it seemed they were past that
stage already. For Drake laughed with a ringing, joyous sound and was suddenly clad in
black obsidian armour and a helm like a dragon s maw.
 We should be doing this in the arena, said Drake, his voice sounding happy for the
first time since Kjartan had met him. And he spoke the truth. Halfway down the cliffs on
the opposite side of Thoka Bay, in a natural bowl worn away in days when the sea was
higher, was Vagar s place of justice. Its rough walls were beautified by the pierced long [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]