15.
“Excuse me, sir,” Eilish said, “would you kindly—”
Eilish didn’t even get that much out before the man lashed out with a lightning fast kick and kicked her stool from beneath her so hard that it ricocheted off the counter, Eilish still on it. She didn’t stay on it for long, though, because after it cracked her, knee-first, into the counter, she came spinning back and into a waiting fist. The big guy leveled Eilish with that one punch,
and her stool flew free from beneath her, over the booth behind and out the plate-glass window to smash into the windshield of an old Cadillac in the parking lot.
Eilish landed in a heap on the floor, eyes already closed. There was a mad scramble of the few other customers, dishware clattering, as they either froze in place or went for the door.
My eyes widened as Cassidy let out a little scream and hopped back, taking her computer with her and cradling it in her arms like she was protecting her baby.
“That … was so totally unnecessary,” I said.
“Being charmed by a Siren isn’t within my mission parameters,” he rasped, his dark eyes watching me for any hint of aggression. He was standing off, waiting for me to make a move that he could counter. I knew the posture because I’d adopted it myself more than a few times.
Unfortunately, he had me backed against the counter, which didn’t give me a lot of room to maneuver without doing a flip or something, getting over it, which was going to be slow and kinda risky given he’d just moved lightning fast. There seemed to be a kind of shadowy smoke rolling off him, something I’d never seen before. It had allowed him to kick out at Eilish so quickly that I’d barely seen the movement. It wasn’t what it looked like when a speedster moved, and it wasn’t like a shadow-melding meta I’d fought down in St. Thomas, either.
This … was something new. And new tended to be scary, especially when it took down one of your team with such alacrity.
“‘Mission parameters,’ huh?” I cracked. “Sounds like Skynet finally got pissed off enough at me to send the Terminator.”
He was slightly hunched over, in a ready stance, waiting for me to make a move that I wasn’t going to be making—yet. I couldn’t believe I’d been dumb enough to sit with my back to the door, first of all, but second—
Shit, how long had it been since I’d trained?
London. Months ago. That was how long. Before …
Well, before.
As a succubus, I was fast. But this guy? He was in a class of his own. Speed wasn’t going to win, even if I’d been operating at top form.
“I’m not here to terminate you,” he said, finally replying to my joke. “If you come quietly, no harm will come to you, and your friends can leave.”
“Tempting offer,” I said. “Where would I be going?”
“That’s classified,” he said, completely straitlaced, the same way he’d replied to my Terminator riff. Like he didn’t get the joke or he just didn’t care because he was so focused on what he wanted to do—namely, bring me in.
“I’ve hit my bag and drag quota for the last few months, thanks,” I said, taking a half step away from him. I meant it to look like I was moving my stance, readying myself for a stronger defense in case he decided to come at me. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave so that I can have my waffle in peace. Otherwise, things are about to get … feisty.”
“You’ve been warned,” he said, and his shoulders swayed, that shadow-smoke rolling off them, telling me that whatever his power was, he was about to employ it in spectacular fashion. “This is your last chance to comply.”
“Yeah, you’re totally not the Terminator with that sense of gravitas,” I muttered. I bent my knees slightly, using the opportunity to hook my rear foot on the stool I’d been sitting on moments before, back when I had a hope of a tasty waffle, laden with butter and syrup.
“You have no idea who I am,” he said.
“I know who you are,” I said. “You’re the man with a giant crease down the middle of his face.”
I shifted my weight as he paused, looking at me suspiciously. Bringing the stool forward with my own version of shocking speed, I made it skitter across the floor, rattling as it moved. His eyes went low at the distractionary noise as I hucked the stool at him—
And he punched it, sending it roaring right back at me.
I dodged it by about a quarter inch—but only because I had a feeling that Mr. Blurry-with-speed was going to do something like that. I tilted sideways to do it, and it left me slightly off balance, but I’d already thrown myself into a spin, using my left foot as traction to execute a pirouette. A lot of speed came down to stance, and in this case, I knew I couldn’t match this guy for quickness.
Instead, I pushed all my chips onto “Catching him by surprise.” There was little to no chance that my opening gambit of throwing the stool was going to do that, which was why I had a backup plan. Wheels within wheels, ya know.
As I spun, I tilted and came low, wobbling. I brought my right leg up as I came around, trying to sweep his feet from beneath him.
My foot made contact with the side of his leg, and I realized my error immediately. Stupid, really.
He was anchored to the ground like a tree, having seen what I was doing a mile off. It was a clumsy, desperation maneuver that he’d probably picked out the moment I went into my spin. I’d hoped it look like I was—I dunno, breakdancing or something, but he figured it out.
I kicked his leg and he didn’t so much as cringe. Upon impact, my spin stopped, and all I had to show for my desperation maneuver was a mild ache across my instep where I’d caught him in the back of the knee, where—dammit—he should have been vulnerable to being knocked off balance.
Instead, I was the one off balance, and still wobbly as my kick bounced off. If it pained him at all, he didn’t show it. He was perfectly poised, low enough with his center of gravity that even if I’d knocked one of his legs from beneath him, he could have recovered.
He didn’t need to recover, though. He was perfectly positioned to lash out, and lash out he did, with a short punch that hit me in the ribs and launched me backward.
My left foot left the ground behind as I tumbled, hitting the counter across the back of my thighs. The sudden contact arrested my lower body’s momentum and I flipped, my head and upper body continuing on without obstacle and my lower body adjusting its momentum to go in the same direction.
The result? I tumbled ass-over-teakettle behind the counter and hit the wall knee first, then thumped into the griddle—ouch, hot!—and then torpedoed into the tile floor beneath.
I made contact all across my forearms, thumping my head lightly but enough that—yeah, ouch, I felt it. As I landed in a heap, I heard heavy feet thud as someone else came down behind the counter only a few feet away.
I opened one eye and looked up to find Mr. Terminator upside down, leering down at me with that frozen, expressionless face. “You’ll be coming with me, now,” he said, and raised a hand to deliver the finishing blow.
And there was a not a chance in hell I was going to avoid it.