Page 83 of Obsidian Prince

He struck again with each hand, the bricks breaking, sliding, and crumbling, leaving the bloody imprints of his knuckles in the indentations. Finally, he bared his sharp teeth and growled as he struck. Bones crunched as the blocks ground together and fell out of the window. John cradled that hand to his chest. When the blocks stopped falling, a two-foot-wide hole let in the fresh air. It had taken less than half a minute.

He hit the blocks on either side with his shoulders, toppling them to the ground to make the hole big enough for Liliana’s slight form.

John helped her through the hole and extended his unbroken hand through it, palm up like a step. She pulled a safety line from the spinneret in her wrist and looped the end around John Runningwolf. He seemed to be the sturdiest thing in the area.

“Go, go!”

Liliana went. She put the majority of her weight on the leg that didn’t have a hole in it and a bulky bloody bandage tied to it. She hooked her arm blades into ragged cracks in the mortar, stuck her silk to anything that looked sturdy enough to hold her weight. She went up nearly as fast as an insect. When she had to put her weight on the bad leg, she just gritted her teeth like John punching the bricks with the crunch of broken bone.

Her leg would heal, too.

It made her dizzy when she pushed with too much of her weight on that leg. She really needed not to pass out right now. The drop was seven stories at this point. She probably wouldn’t go splat at the bottom, but she couldn’t save Alexander if she was dangling unconscious from a safety line.

She checked on him with her fourth eyes.

The man who looked like Officer West poured water from a bottle over the unconscious man’s head, then tossed the water bottle aside.

Alexander blinked blearily to wakefulness, water dripping from his face and hair.

He lived, for now. But looking forward in time, she still saw him on the ground, unbound from the chair. Zoe Giovanni put two fingers on his throat for a long moment, and with despair in her voice, said, “He’s dead.”

No matter what Liliana did, she couldn’t save him.

Blinking tears, she climbed in through the window. It didn’t matter how long he would live, she would fight for this man until he drew his last breath.

Alexander looked over his shoulder and the assassin who had a fist cocked back to hit him again, stopped and looked up.

“I thought maybe you decided not to come after all,” Alexander said.

She stood to her full height once inside. “Sorry I’m late. I had a very bad day.” She limped a few steps, the bloody sleeves of the makeshift bandage dragging.

Alexander spat blood onto the floor, then wiped his mouth on his t-shirt. “Mine hasn’t exactly been roses and sunshine either.”

“I suppose I should have expected you,” the man with Officer West’s face said.

“Hello, Rizki,” Liliana said. “Everyone already knows you are not Officer West.”

“Hah!” he laughed. “You have cost me my scapegoat, Spiderling. I should be mad, but I am glad to see that you grew up so smart.”

“I’m not a child anymore.”

“You two know each other?” Alexander asked blearily.

“This is my sister’s husband,” she told Alexander. “Let him be, Rizki.” Liliana limped another step closer until she stood next to the chair Alexander was tied to. “He is mine to protect. You cannot have his life.”

The big man shrugged. He touched his belt buckle with three fingers. His face and body melted like hot wax when the candle flame is lit. He changed to someone smaller, only a few inches taller than Liliana, his hair dark and his eyes almond, but the belt buckle stayed the same. He stretched as if wearing another man’s body and face had been confining. The handsome Asian features and the sparkle in his eye were all too familiar. “Ah, Spiderling, I am sorry, but I have a contract.” Even his voice shifted, from Officer West’s baritone to a lightly accented tenor. “I have already accepted the money.” He shrugged as if in apology, his voice expressing mild regret. “You know my honor will not allow him to live now.”

In one motion, he drew a short, straight sword from a sheath on his back and brought it down.

Liliana’s arm blade blocked it just above Alexander’s stoic face.

He barely flinched.

She suspected Rizki meant to make Alexander’s death a fait accompli so he could avoid having to fight her. He would win. Rizki was an expert swordsman before Liliana was born. Plus, she wasn’t exactly in top fighting form with the bullet hole in her leg.

If she fought him, she would die, but she knew Rizki didn’t want to kill her. No one had paid him for her life. He hated to work for free.

“Your client doesn’t want his death,” she said. “Your client wants the sword.”

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