Keep focused, Zachary. It’s not in your lot to be cast among fools.
Zachary checked his watch. They were late and had probably missed half the performance. He kicked a giant rat that crossed his boot, then lifted his gaze to the teeming shouts in front of him.
“Trouble up ahead,” said O’Reilly. “I don’t want to get involved with a mob. Might as well turn around and go home.”
Zachary favored the course of events that led to an inviting warm bed. Over O’Reilly’s head, he surveyed the crowd that had turned more violent. He turned on his heel, and then swiveled, completing a double take. A familiar blonde-haired woman appeared, her hair askew and with a fist coming straight at her. Her screams rocketed through his veins. Zachary charged into the crowd.
“Elizabeth!”
Chapter Twenty-One
Elizabeth screamed and ducked. Someone caught her arm, jerking her savagely forward onto her feet. She fought to free herself, running her nails down his arm.
“Stop it, Elizabeth, it’s me.”
“My God, Zachary. How are you here?” He dragged her against his chest, stumbling backward with the force of his haul. Zachary shoved her behind him, stood there, planted between her and the mob.
She saw the cougar emerge in a calm, steady stance with lethal claws. Her assailant puffed and swung but never saw the danger. She drew a sharp breath as the giant threw his punch. Zachary seemed to move past her, past him. For an instant, they were together, and then the giant lurched past, grabbing air, and crashed to the ground. From behind, another giant came at Zachary, the man’s neck swiveled back and forth on powerful shoulders, the kind of shoulders that could easily lift a duet of oxen.
The thug hopped from side to side, bending one way, bending the other, knocking those aside him to the street. His huge feet stamped divots in the mud.
Zachary moved. His face tight and burning, his teeth bared, his feet spread, and his body coiled to strike. With a sound that was no sound, an explosion of air and force sent the giant tumbling into the crowd.
Zachary held Elizabeth against him, his back pressed to her.
“Fiona!” O’Reilly yelled. The Irishman plunged deeper into the hostile crowd.
“Mrs. Merriweather?” Elizabeth shrieked, scanning the crowd, worried the old woman had been trampled.
“Chen has her. He is an entire army protecting her.”
“Oh, it’s a fight you want?” said a corpulent and ominous brute, fists up, and daring to step in front of Zachary
Zachary lowered his right shoulder and charged, slamming his fist into a giant’s sternum with a series of powerful blows, and then kicked a weight-bearing leg out from under the man. Elizabeth swallowed. Was this a fighting style of east and west?
Another assailant came at him, eyes wild, launching a right. Zachary sidestepped. The buzz swept beside his head. The thug’s momentum carried him in a curve, his kidney exposed for the taking. Zachary hit a short right, a colossal blow, a blow that would have cracked an iron beam. The thug stumbled and bent viciously backward from the force of the punch, the breath whooshing out of him. He tottered, and his right leg went stiff.
He trembled like aspen leaves in the wind, then, grinning, the hulk of a man righted himself and lunged. Zachary stepped back, and then with the edge of his hand chopped with herculean force against the thug’s jaw. Crack.
Jaw hanging, the thug straightened and charged, swinging fists, first right, then left, none of them reaching Zachary. Like a dance it was. Zachary there and then not there. Dizzying speed of feet, legs, trunk, arms, hands, choreographed to attack with lethal force.
He crouched, and with low leg sweeps, and mind-boggling speed, he disabled fierce numbers. He was more deadly in close combat and against men double his size. The melee kept after him, underestimating the skill required to take him down.
Fiona and Mrs. Merriweather suddenly appeared and clung to Elizabeth. Chen, Zachary, and O’Reilly formed a protective circle, inching them away from the melee.
Elizabeth’s widened her eyes. Chen, like Zachary, possessed the same aggressive fighting mien except his moves flowed supernatural and different than these unfortunate thugs had experienced. Baffling flying snap kicks, backward rolls and onto his feet again. Kicking, leaping, impossible whirling blocks, mystically suspended high above in the air, denying blows from every opponent, and knocking them unconscious.
“Good God,” said Mrs. Merriweather. “I’ve never seen the like.”
Elizabeth gasped. O’Reilly, a beast, rushed to meet their numbers, with pounding fists and a bloodcurdling yell that rocketed up Elizabeth’s spine. He grasped one of the thug’s wrists and broke it in two. He stopped and hit the next thug with a colossal right that seemed to come up all the way from his planted feet and with his fist driving right through and beyond. The thug’s falling body weight whipped his head out from under O’Reilly’s moving hand, allowing the momentum to carry him onward, shoulder first into the guy behind him. O’Reilly kicked a thug between the legs, and the man’s head jerked downward at the same time O’Reilly’s elbow sailed upward, doubling the impact of the blow.
With the screech of police whistles, the crowd scattered.
“We must get the women away to keep them from scandal.” Zachary picked up Elizabeth followed by O’Reilly carrying Fiona, and then Chen gathering up a surprised Mrs. Merriweather.
“I apologize, Mrs. Merriweather, but hurry is important,” said the Chinaman.
They traversed through a network of shadowy streets sloshing through large puddles. There were hardly any streetlamps and what light existed revealed the contours of shabby buildings. Four blocks away, Zachary whistled for a hack.
