Guess what? Wrong again. The little bastard almost went to his knees, which at least gave me time to roll clear, but the three rounds I put in him didn’t do much more than make him stagger. I finally got the gun all the way out of my pocket and tried to put one right in the middle of his hood, but it was like trying to throw tennis balls at a startled cat. He zigzagged as I pulled the trigger, and I don’t think I even came close, then he was on me again. I clubbed at him with the gun barrel as that long blade slid past my chest and under my arm, slicing me again, and I realized two things at the same time: The first was that he was only trying to disable me, for now, not kill me—he still wanted to know where the feather was. But if this was Smyler holding back, I was in serious trouble, because he was fast as anything I’d ever faced. My other realization was that the only advantage I had was a little bit of size and the unusual length of his blade, which meant he had to swing his arm way back to be able to drive it home. As the momentum of his next attack brought him toward me, I dodged the thrust, lowered my head so I could smash the top of my skull into his face, then wrapped my arms around him and drove forward.

I didn’t do as well at avoiding the thrust as I’d hoped. His blade went through my coat again and took a big chunk of flesh out of my arm, which hurt even more than you’re thinking it did. I was bleeding badly now from several wounds and was going to be in a world of pain if I survived, but I was running on pure adrenaline and could only hold on and try to carry him down to the hard pavement.

Smyler seemed to have limbs everywhere. He wrapped his legs around me and squeezed my ribs until I felt one crack, but I had to ignore the pain, because I knew if I let go of one of his arms he was going to poke that nasty long knife thing into the back of my neck and then drag my paralyzed body away somewhere to ask his questions at leisure.