Page 56 of As Angels Sin

I fake a right and Mark bobs his head. I send a left hook which connects squarely against his jaw as he tries to double once again. It stuns him, and makes him stumble backward, but I’ll give credit where it’s due. Not many people could take a blow like that and walk it off.

A single drop of red falls from his lip, and he charges at me like a bull, not holding back anymore. I evade the first few slices of his blade, by keeping my distance, but I can’t avoid him forever. The next time he charges at me with a pointy-edged stab, I throw myself into him. The blade narrowly misses something important, but cuts a hole into my favorite jacket. I wrap my arm around his and pin it with mine and my body. I halt my grip near his elbow, and grab the flimsy joint with my hand. I bend it back until Mark howls.

“Mother fucker,” he shouts.

“You’re not wrong,” I say, realizing that the only bad joke is the one you don’t try to tell. He won’t understand it, since the onlythree people who know/knew Fiametta is pregnant are the two of us and the now decaying false king.

I bend his elbow again, harder this time. I am testing it to breaking point, but the angle doesn’t allow it to go all the way. I drive my forehead into his nose once, twice and then a third time for good measure. He tumbles back and I let him go. He falls to the floor, and I follow.

I feel a sharp sting in my upper thigh as I straddle his body. I look down and see the Bowie’s handle sticking out of me, the same knife I thought he’d dropped after taking those severe blows to his skull.

My momentary lapse of concentration gives Mark the opportunity to throw a punch that both me and my shadow miss. It collides with my face, and I see stars. Another lands, and the universe unfolds behind my eyelids.

My turn.

I catch his arm as it travels toward me for a third strike. Mark is still too dazed to topple me over, but too strong to give up the fight, He tries to topple me though. I halt him by digging my knees into the crooks of his elbows, thus pinning his arms in place.

“You.” I hit him. “Should.” Again. “Have.” Three punches in quick concession. “Gone.” One more against his swollen, bloody face for good measure. “Home.”

He’s not dead. I don’t think I want him to be. But he isn’t moving.

I roll off of him, and stare at the knife’s handle again. It hurts now, but it’s going to be much worse when I pull it out.

Mark makes a shuffling sound, and I turn back to him. Too late, he’s already up and his hands are reaching for a pistol.

Fuck.

I grab the knife handle and pull it out like. I don’t scream, even though I really want to. Mark lifts his gun to my head, but I grabhis hand. I push it just in time. He fires twice and deafens my left ear.

I use his arm as a rope, and pull myself back to him. Falling back on all my years of military training in close-quarters’ combat, I roll myself on top of Mark. My weight advantage topples him over again, but I don’t stop until I’m behind him, pulling his wrist to me the whole way. A sickening pop comes from his shoulder, and he bellows.

He tries to sit up, but I wrap my legs around his sides and pull him closer. He tries to squirm, but notices that his Bowie’s blade is approaching. With one arm out of commission, he catches my wrist in his good hand.

Mark says something, but I can’t hear it. I am still deaf from the gunshots, but after receiving the knife to the leg, I won’t let myself lose my focus again.

“Fuck, wait, stop.” I do hear that time, as I drive my second hand onto the handle of the Bowie knife, overpowering him.

If he’d have let go, it wouldn’t have happened so quickly. The blade would’ve sunk and pierced what it needed to. But he doesn’t, and so it goes slow. The knife inches its way deeper even as he tries to push me away. Finally, it is in till the hilt, and too deep for him to survive.

“It’s over, Mark. Don’t fight it.” I hold the handle, one-handed now. I swear I can feel his heart beating through the blade. “Go easy into the great beyond.”

Mark coughs and a first trickle of red trickles out of his mouth. He swallows, coughs again, and groans.

Just die already.

“You remember that kid...” He struggles to get the words out, heaving short, sharp breaths into his punctured lungs. “Fucking Dalton something.”

“Douglas Dalton,” I say. How could I forget him? He’s the boy who set me on the path I walk today.

“That’s right,” Mark wheezes. “Double D like your momma’s tits.” He laughs and coughs, remembering how the other kids used to tease Douglas. I never took part in their bullying, and for some reason that made me his target. “For a bully, he sure got bullied a lot himself.”

I don’t interrupt him. If his dying wish is to reminisce, I’ll let him.

It’s the least I can do for my oldest friend.

“D... Di...” He chokes and sputters over every syllable. But no matter how hard it is, he fights to get it out. “Did you hear what happened with him in the end?”

“No.” I’ve never cared.

---