Those arms were around me, pulling me into his chest, smashing my nose into the rough scrubby denim of his overalls, digging a metal button into my cheek and nearly lifting me off my feet. Breathing became difficult, and I tried fighting him, pushing at the mountain of muscle holding me, but it would have been easier to eat the Mustang with a blunt spoon. Jonas wasn’t letting go.
So I hugged him back, hoping he’d feel it before my body went numb and I slipped off into unconsciousness.
“Jonas,” I tried to say, though it came out garbled and all I could taste was dust and denim on my tongue instead of air. Pretty sure Jonas heard nothing but me mumbling. Possibly felt me squirming, but it was hard to tell because I couldn’t see or hear anything other than faded white denim and his heart pounding behind his rib cage. “Dude, let go. People… watching. I’m a Stalker, for fuck’s sake.”
“Just… let people hug you sometimes, boy,” Jonas murmured into the top of my head. I was surprised I could hear him, but my ears seemed to be open. If only I could breathe through them. “Nothing shameful in being hugged. And I know you’re feral and probably going to bite me to blood once I let go, but I… just let me hug you. No one’s going to think you’re weak for letting me hold you. You’re my boy. My son. Just as much as you were Dempsey’s and—”
A flash of metal caught in a bit of sun was the only warning I had and one I couldn’t even act against. The knife came down quick, slashing into Jonas’s arm and straight for my face. Twisting about, I fought free, pulling myself out of Jonas’s slackening hug as a rush of steaming hot blood splashed over my jaw. Cursing, Jonas yanked himself back, stumbling over the curb. His legs kicked out, trying to find some purchase, but he was too off-balance, too much in shock from the deep gash in his upper arm. His overalls’ thick fabric possibly blunted the attack, but his arm had little protection, clothed only in the thin T-shirt he wore underneath.
With Jonas fallen back, the man who attacked us leaped at me, his fleshy face twisted into a hungry expression bordering on lust. I knew him, knew him to be a Stalker, but the only thing I had eyes for was the large blade he held out in front of him, ready to skewer me with its glistening tip, Jonas’s blood sliding down its length and onto the man’s fat fingers.
My knives were out before I took another breath. Kept in oiled sheaths at my back, they were an easy enough draw, and while I mourned the empty holsters on my thighs, the blades were going to work fine. I spared a quick glance at Jonas, just enough to make sure he wasn’t bleeding out, and a giant of a man lunged at me, taking advantage of my shifting gaze.
Broad and lumbering, our attacker either just came off a run or wasn’t too in touch with his hygienic side. Like Jonas, he was wearing a pair of worn-down overalls, but they were filthy, pitted with acid burns from skinning ainmhi dubh, and the henley he had under them wasn’t in much better shape. Up close, he smelled of caked-on sloughed-off skin and unfiltered cigarettes, his hands stained a dark brown from nicotine and Iesu knew what else. As slovenly as he was, he knew enough to keep his knives sharp, because the edges were scraped tight from a good stone with no burrs along the hone.
Circling around, I placed myself between him and Jonas. He followed, keeping his knife low, its wicked hooked tip canted up. I would have to be careful of how he struck. The tip would be all he needed to sink into me, digging down past my skin and sliding up or down through whatever meat he wanted to carve out of me. I’d used those kinds of knives before, liked them for monsters, but on people? Never. Too much damage. Too much to go wrong with guts and all the squishy stuff held in by skin and firmed up by bones. Him using a hooked-tip knife told me a lot about the man and what he intended.
The son of a bitch came to kill me, because once I put myself in front of Jonas, I was all he saw.
“Clyde.” His name came to me, striking the front of my brain like I’d smacked into a low-hanging beam. “Fat Clyde Gibbons.”
He wasn’t going for small talk. Instead his dark eyes narrowed, his heavy brow dipping down low in a frown, and he shuffled forward quickly, far faster than I’d have given odds on for a man whose belly strained to burst through his overalls. His heavy boots scraped on the asphalt, kicking up small gravel bits into the curb. Caught between the walk and the parking lot, I was at more of a disadvantage than I liked, not knowing how far the walk was behind me or how far up it was. One wrong step and I’d be on my ass and Gibbons would be on me, carving under my skin with his blade until my intestines spilled free.
A lot of people think fights last forever. They just feel that way. Anything longer than fifteen seconds and the adrenaline wears off—if the fighter is sober—and fatigue sets in. The knife gets heavy in the hand, and if there’s blood, it slickens the hilt, making it hard to hold on to. I’d seen bar fights where two guys went at it for a full minute and the one everyone placed bets on winning faltered in the end, his body drained of strength, and I’ve also been there for those times when a well-aimed kick-and-slash puts someone on the floor in seconds. There are only two ways to win a fight—fast and quick or simply to outlast the other guy.
In Gibbons’s case, it was going to have to be quick, because he moved, conserving his energy until he needed to strike, making him a dangerous fighter. And since it didn’t look like anyone from the Post was coming up the hill to rescue me or shoot his head off, I was on my own.
Fast and hard it was going to be.
Or at least I hoped so, because damned if the asshole pulled the one thing I didn’t expect him to but it was my own freaking fault I let him get that close.
Jonas’s loud moan took my attention off of Gibbons. I was more worried about his dying on me than losing the fight, and in that moment, Gibbons made his move. He jumped in close, too close for a punch, then grabbed me around the chest, pinning my arms down and lifting me off the ground.
And here Jonas said hugs weren’t dangerous.
There were bands of steel built into Gibbons’s flabby body, hidden pockets of strength most people wouldn’t have given him credit for. But this was a man who made his living hunting and hefting ainmhi dubh—solid blocks of mass with heavy bones and acidic blood. It made for powerful thighs and rock-hard arms, both thick enough to crush a man—or an elfin chimera—if he had enough motivation.
Considering the price Samms told me was on my head, there was more than enough motivation for Gibbons to squeeze me hard enough to pop my eyes out of my skull.
“Son… of… a….” I grunted, flailing to get a good kick in, but Gibbons’s stranglehold on my torso was tight and there wasn’t any wiggle room. I was losing feeling in my hands. Then my fingers went numb, my knives dropping to the ground. I gave myself a few more seconds before I blacked out, and then I’d be meat under Gibbons’s blade and there’d be nothing Jonas could do to stop him. “Shit… Jonas.”
“Bleeding out and gone.” Gibbons’s sour breath choked out what little air I could get into me. “He ain’t coming to save you.”
Something in me cracked. I felt it ping, the crunch of bone following the telltale aching sting of resonating pain. As tortures went, this was small potatoes compared to what my father could do, but Gibbons was probably hoping to crush me into unconsciousness and either slit my throat or toss my limp body into the trunk of his car. Either way, if I didn’t do something quickly, I was going on a one-way ride to somewhere I wouldn’t like.