She was already reaching for the second blade before the first one reached its target. She threw hard. She threw fast. She’d never missed a target since accepting her gifts as a teenager and she watched in disbelief as the man stepped quickly to the side so that the first blade barely nicked the side of his neck. The second blade, on the other hand, thudded solidly right into the center of his chest.
For a moment, she foolishly thought it was over, but then he yanked the knife out of the heavy leather armor, casually glancing at the bloody tipfor a moment before casting the weapon aside. Then he moved after her again, ignoring the trickle of blood running down the side of his neck.
“Is that the best you have, Paladin?” He snorted. “I find it hard to believe Patterson is paying you to keep him safe when you can’t even save yourself.”
The man swung one of his curved blades, aiming a blow that would have taken off her head if she hadn’t recalled her own sword. Even then, she had to scramble yet again to avoid getting hit. She’d never come close to losing a fight since taking up the mantle of Paladin and now she was forced to accept that this man could easily kill her. It was a humbling epiphany, to say the least.
She considered calling Deven and asking for backup, but the thought of this cold-blooded monster going after her brother sent chills down her spine.
Still, refusing to give up, Karissa fought back, shifting her fighting style and trying to depend more on speed and deception than the brute force advantage she was used to having. At the same time, she pulled one of her last two knives and held it in her left hand, not to throw but to block those swings that made it past her first line of defense.
The change in tactical approach slowed down her opponent, at least enough to allow Karissa to get in a few offensive swipes of her own. None reached home, and even as her opponent wasforced to defend himself, she couldn’t help thinking he was toying with her. The constant smile on his face did nothing to alleviate that suspicion. He was enjoying this.
That snide smile slipped a bit when she landed a solid kick to the center of his chest, sending him tumbling twenty feet down the concourse and bouncing off one of the floor-to-ceiling windows. Too bad he didn’t go through it.
“My, my, my,” he murmured, returning casually to his feet as if amused by the fact that she’d put him on his ass. “Perhaps there’s more to you than it seems. I almost felt that last blow. That hasn’t happened in a very long time. Could it be that Athena got it right for once?”
The words were barely out of his mouth when one of his blades slipped past her defenses, the razor-sharp tip slicing a line across her midsection. Karissa didn’t feel anything, but with a blade as sharp as the one he wielded, that didn’t mean a thing. Refusing to look down to see how badly she was injured, she instead threw herself backward, knowing the next swing of his sword would probably kill her immediately.
She hit the ground rolling, coming up on one knee to cast a dazzle glamour in the man’s face, immediately followed by both of her remaining knives. Having learned her lesson the first time, she didn’t bother aiming for the upper body. Thistime, she threw one straight at the man’s crotch, the other for the section of thigh left exposed by the leather armor pieces hanging down from his torso. With the glamour blinding him, he should only be able to block one at best, but she needed to hurt him enough to make him back off a bit.
Even temporarily blinded as he was, the man was able to deflect the first blade. But thethunkas the second knife sank deep into his thigh was immensely satisfying.
Karissa came up holding her sword to parry the next attack, only to find the man casually waving away her dazzle glamour. Then he reached down to pluck the knife out of his leg like it was nothing more than a splinter.
“Perhaps there’s more fight in you than I expected,” he said as he tossed the bloody knife aside, his eyes so dark now they were practically sucking the available light out of the concourse. “But as much fun as this has all been, I’m done playing. Don’t worry, before I kill Patterson, I’ll be sure to tell him you earned every penny of your fee.”
As he spoke, the two swords he’d been using faded away in that dark, inky cloud that had preceded the change in the man’s clothes. In the next instant, another weapon appeared. This one was a six-foot-long spear with a flat, leaf-shaped metal head on one end and a blunted spike on the other.
The man came toward her, twirling and spinningthe spear around his arms and body in a blurring pattern that was so fast she could hear the sharpened tip whistling through the air.
Karissa took an involuntary step backward. Having never fought anyone holding this kind of weapon, she knew she was in way over her head. But if she turned and tried to run, he’d put the thing through her back.
Taking a deep breath, Karissa pushed down the ever-present sense of dread and took a step forward to meet him, blade held high above her.
But as the man closed the last few yards separating them, there was a clatter of noise behind her. Karissa threw herself to the side as the sound of gunfire filled the concourse.
She snapped her head around to see Deven and several other members of Patterson’s security detail standing in the open doorway of the kitchen, every one of them firing toward the man wielding the spear.
The man cursed and Karissa turned to see an expression of rage on his face like nothing she’d ever seen before. It was as if he was trying to kill them all with nothing but his anger.
He spun his spear so fast now it created a wall of dark color in front of him as he deflected the bullets. With another snarl of fury, he backed toward the windows behind him, those inky shadows she’d seen earlier coalescing into existence and quickly enveloping him.
“This isn’t over, Paladin,” he hissed before he disappeared completely.
A second later, the black smoke faded, leaving nothing behind but a bullet-riddled window and a group of stunned and rattled security guards.
“What the hell?” one of them murmured, only for Deven to cut him off in a firm tone not to be ignored—which was pretty impressive considering he was only eighteen.
“Go check on Patterson,” her brother ordered. “I want a dozen men around him at all times until he’s ready to leave and then a fully secured motorcade back to his hotel. And don’t tell anyone about what you just saw.”
None of the men argued, though Karissa didn’t miss the terrified glances they gave to the place recently occupied by the black shadow.
A moment later, Deven was at her side, though it took a second for her to realize he was focused on her injury. A cool breeze let her know he’d pulled the hem of her silky blouse up enough to expose the wound. Whatever he saw made him inhale sharply.
“That can’t be good,” she murmured.
Glancing down, she saw that the wound wasn’t as bad as it could have been. Thanks to her fast healing, it was now little more than a thin line across her stomach, two inches above her belly button, no deeper than a paper cut. Honestly, it stung more than hurt.
