“Round two will go differently.” I flashed him a wolfish grin.
He tilted his head to one side. “That so?”
“Yeah. Ever hear of Vincent Graves?”
His eyes widened and he screamed, bull-rushing me.
Guess he has.
He collided with my torso, trying to take me down.
I’d braced a heel against the wall behind me, using it to keep my balance. When his attempt failed, I capitalized on his lack of momentum and drove a knee into his sternum. The strike landed home but a dull ache manifested in the muscle around the joint. I winced. “What gives?”
Lucky pulled away from me, grimacing as he massaged his chest. “Haven’t figured it out yet?”
Son of a bitch.
“You’re manipulating chance, any bad thing that can happen in this fight is happening.” I glared at him.
He waggled a hand. “It’s more likely to happen.” His smile from earlier came back, widening.
I ran a tongue over my teeth. “If that’s the case, there’s got to be a limit. No monster’s perfect, and there’s only so long you can keep that up.”
His smile faltered, just for a moment, but enough for me to know I’d been right.
“So, how long do we do this dance before your luck turnssour?” I recalled a bit of lore I’d once read concerning leprechauns. The more they manipulated luck, the higher the chance they also had of incurring bad luck to the degree they’d altered. It was a karmic clapback of exponential proportions.
“That’s the thing about luck, spirit, you never know when it will turn. It could go poorly for you before you ever manage to turn it on me. It did for the last guy.” He winked.
“That’s why you’re feeding off kids? Trying to stockpile fortune for a rainy day?”
“Something like that. It’s not all bad. I’ve been throwing random bones here and there to the locals.” Lucky rolled his shoulders once.
“Yeah, I bet. So how about we settle this?”
“Thought you’d never ask. Follow me.” He stepped backward out of the room, turning to move down the hall.
I hadn’t expected that.
I picked up my fallen bag and followed him to a back room.
The room at the back had been cleared away but for a table... and cages. Three guesses what was inside them. More kids.
And I recognized one of them. The boy and I locked stares and he was a kid of dark hair and eyes—six years old at first guess. Andy. He gave me a look of silent plea. Wanting help. Wanting rescue.
My fingers dug into my palms.
I counted at least six more kids and it took everything I had not to throttle the monster on the spot. He probably would have expected it and turned it on me somehow.
“Sit.” Lucky motioned to a round table with two seats opposite each other.
“We going to talk this out like rational folk?” I pulled out a chair and sat.
His mouth pulled to one corner. “Something like that.” He went to a small shelf that came up to his waist, pulling a revolver from the top of it.
My eyes went owlishly large. “Oh you dirty, cheating son of a—”
He raised a hand to stop me before smacking the gun down in the center of the table.
