He and Guccio circled the room, hopping over fallen chairs and discarded tableware. Twice more, they exchanged blows, with neither taking any serious damage. Adam needed to end this decisively, but the vampire’s dagger meant that he held that advantage in reach.

They circled for a few more seconds, then Guccio slid smoothly into a long, gliding lunge. Fast as a striking snake, the dagger flicked toward Adam’s stomach. Only a shift in weight had signaled the move, but Adam leaped back a pace, forcing the vampire to either fall short or commit to an awkward running attack. Guccio, proving he was no novice, aborted the lunge before closing enough to allow Adam to engage.

Guccio sneered. “I see you have some training,” he said. “Your teacher was inferior. Your footwork is wooden—”

Me and Muhammad Ali, thought Adam, though he didn’t respond aloud. We float like a butterfly and sting like a bee. No one was perfect—and fighting was always one big compromise. But his footwork was fine.

Guccio was still speaking, trying to distract Adam with words. “You are too concerned with defense to mount a proper offense. I had expected more from you—the great Adam Hauptman. Allow me to educate you.”

Guccio snatched another tablecloth and dropped it over his left arm. It hung at knee level.

“This is the cloak,” he said. “Its use is to confuse and conceal.” He gave the dagger a quick flourish, moving his dagger hand beneath the cloth. “The dagger hides behind the cloak,” he said. “And now begins the game. Where is the dagger, and where will it strike?”

As Guccio moved, he made the cloth dance in a way designed to lead Adam into making assumptions about his movement and the dagger position. Twice Adam was sure he saw the beginning of an attack, but the wolf disagreed, reading the vampire’s intention differently. Adam listened to the wolf.

Guccio moved the cloth in a fluttering swoop, while the dagger appeared in a reverse grip, slashing at Adam’s throat. The blade lay backward along Guccio’s arm. Most blocks or grabs would result in serious damage to Adam’s hands. As it blurred across Adam’s throat, the vampire bent his wrist back, allowing the blade to snap forward and take a wider path. Guccio’s body was close behind it, sliding in an arc past Adam.

Adam jerked his head back. The blade sang as it passed by, slicing open nothing but air. Adam threw a hard jab. He hit, but the fluttering cloth had made him misjudge, and it was just a glancing blow, barely hard enough to make Guccio throw in a short step to regain his balance. The vampire whirled past Adam, discarding the tablecloth. The green woven linen fluttered to the ground to land across the dead woman’s feet.

As Adam pivoted to face the vampire again, a sharp pain drew his attention to the fork sticking out just under his ribs on the left side. Guccio must have grabbed the fork with the tablecloth and used the cloth to conceal it.