Page 76 of Rafael (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 28)

FREDO PATTED HECTORdown, tracing the edges of the fight shorts and even making him open his mouth to check that he wasn’t hiding anything there. He did the same for Rafael. He even checked their bare feet and hands and ran fingers over their hair. It was more like a prison search then even a cop pat-down.

When Fredo was satisfied that neither fighter was carrying anything but what God gave them to fight with, he literally drew a line in the sand between the two men. Then he reached back and hit the switch on something at his waist that I hadn’t even seen until he touched it. I realized it was a cordless microphone setup when Fredo spoke into the tiny mic by his mouth. I could see it as a thin black line almost lost in his beard now that I knew what I was looking for.

“Our king and his challenger have agreed to single blade and claws until one of them is dead.”

Rafael spoke low to him, but Hector wasn’t having any calming talk. He did a little bounce on the sand and it was just a little too high; again I thought dance training with his fight training maybe?

Hector held his hand out for the microphone, and Fredo passed him the tiny wired piece. “After I kill you, I will carve the crown from your skin, old man!”

Rafael just reached his hand toward Fredo, who pulled a blade from one of the many on him and handed it hilt first to his king. Hector threw the tiny microphone toward Fredo, who didn’t bother trying to catch it, he just let it dangle from the other half of the wire. Fredo pulled a blade that looked to be a match to the one he’d handed Rafael and offered it to Hector.

They took a stance on either side of the line in the sand. Fredo moved back from them toward the edge of the pit, and then Fredo must have shut the microphone off, because he shouted something that I couldn’t understand from here. Rafael saluted Hector with his knife. Hector returned the gesture, but with the blade pointed at the ground; in practice it points up or a little to the side, never at the ground, because that means it’s a fight to the death, as inI’m going to put you in the ground. I hadn’t been able to see Rafael, but I guess he gave the same salute. This wasn’t training, or practice, it was for real. The men moved in a blur too fast for me to follow and the fight was on.

28

IN THE MOVIESknife fights last a long time, because it’s supposed to be good cinematography, it’s supposed to be pretty and exciting. In real life they’re fast, because you’re fighting for your life and you don’t give a damn about pretty, you want to survive. Rafael and Hector moved forward at the same time, but the exchange of blades and arms blocking and moving them each past each other was so fast I couldn’t follow it with my eyes. It was like special-effects fast and then Rafael was bleeding from his lower arm, but Hector was bleeding from his side. Blur of movement and blood. The side wound bled more, dripping down in a bright red wash I hoped meant it was deeper, but wasn’t sure. They both ignored the wounds as if they were nothing; neither of them even hesitated. Most people will when they get cut, and a lot of them die in that moment, because the person who isn’t cut takes advantage of it, but neither of the men on the sand was going to make that amateur mistake. The first exchange had turned them around so that Rafael was facing us and all I could see was Hector’s back.

Rafael’s concentration was all on the man in front of him. I’d had all his attention on me in the bedroom, but not like this; this truly was the world narrowing down tothe person in front of you. People think sex is the only intimate physical act, but they’re wrong. Intimacy implies pleasure to most people; those people have never experienced real violence firsthand. It’s incredibly intimate when someone is trying to kill you up close with a blade or their hands, the kind of intimacy that will give you nightmares.

They blurred past each other on the sand, and again I cursed myself for not being able to tell what they’d done. I was supposed to be good with a blade, but their speed made me blind to the intricacies of what they were doing. They glided and spun and used the empty hand to block and pass each other past their bodies. Suddenly blood flowed down Hector’s upper arm. The blood on his side had flowed down until it was darkening the edge of his orange shorts. That wound seemed to be bleeding worse than any of the others on either of them. Was it deeper? In a worse spot? I might have asked Claudia, but Hector launched himself at Rafael, who had to back up suddenly. I didn’t see the wound at first, because his longer black shorts hid it, but the material of the shorts themselves was cut open over the thigh. The color of the cloth covering so much skin made it hard to judge how bad it was, but it was a new wound and that was bad enough.

I thought,Rafael needs to finish this soon. The longer a knife fight went on, the greater your chance of being hurt or worse. Only the two of them being incredibly good and well matched had made it last this long, but they were whittling each other down; if something spectacular didn’t happen soon, the small wounds would accumulate and force a mistake.

I heard Claudia whisper, “Finish him.” I didn’t have to ask to know she was thinking the same thing I was.

Hector committed to a blow that tried for a liver shot, Rafael used his knife and free hand to move Hector past him, and I knew the blade was used because blood spilledout to shine in the lights. Rafael did something with his leg, and Hector was on his knees and Rafael still had control of his arm trapped across his chest with the knife. It was his empty hand that was going for Hector’s throat. What the hell was he planning to do?

Rafael’s hand touched the side of the other man’s neck, and blood welled dark and rich. Hector’s arm blurred out toward Rafael’s groin but hit his outer thigh instead, and blood welled there, too. “What the fuck?” I said.

“Claws,” Claudia said, before Rafael ripped them out of the front of Hector’s throat, and Hector did the same to the side of Rafael’s thigh. It ripped open his leg, so that the long shorts hung ragged and blood poured, but it fountained out of Hector’s throat, staining the sand in a wet, splattering arc.

Rafael was having trouble putting weight on the leg, as he kept control of Hector’s arm against his chest where he’d flayed the man’s arm open with the blade and was still using it to control and cut him more. If they’d been human, the fight would have been over, but they weren’t, and I’d seen powerful shapeshifters heal throat wounds that bad.

“His hand,” Pierette said, “Rafael’s only called claws on one hand. That’s very rare.”

“I’ve never seen anyone do that,” I said.

Rafael still held his knife, but when Hector called claws, he’d had to give up his blade even if his arm could have held on, because once the long claws came out, they wouldn’t wrap around a hilt.

“Rafael es muy macho,” Benito said, and I knew he meant it in the best sense, as in strong and powerful.

Rafael used the arm as a lever to put Hector on his stomach. The blood gushed into the sand so fast it turned black. Rafael used the braced arm and body to steady himself, or that was what it looked like as he moved the extra step to Hector’s side. He broke the arm at the elbow,a wet meaty sound that carried in the sudden silence, before he let himself collapse to one knee, pinning Hector’s lower back, the injured leg held awkwardly off to the side. It was bleeding bad enough that he’d need to heal it soon before he lost too much blood. He used his claws to grab Hector’s hair and pull the head back. I expected more blood to fountain out, but it didn’t; maybe there wasn’t enough left? With his knee pinning the body, he lifted most of the chest upward with the hair, as he moved the knife into place to tear out the other wells of the throat.

Hector’s eyes were still open. I wasn’t close enough to see the dead stare, and then I saw him blink. I had time to say, “He blinked.”

Claudia said, “His eyes.”

Hector used his working hand to fling sand up and into Rafael’s face at the same time he twisted and bucked underneath him, using his undamaged legs to send Rafael sliding off his back, but Rafael still had Hector’s hair in one hand and a blade. He used the hair to flip Hector with him, so that Rafael’s own body weight brought Hector’s back down to Rafael’s chest, and he plunged the knife into the side of the neck he hadn’t cut before. His good leg was around Hector’s waist so that he was holding him against him as he plunged the knife into the neck and tore it outward, the blade version of what he’d done with claws to the other side, but this time blood didn’t fountain out.

Power breathed like the faintest of winds, trying to hide what it was, but I knew. I said, “Vampire.”

“What?” Claudia asked.

“Vampire; Padma is pumping more power into little Hector.”

“What kind of power?” Benito asked.

“Healing,” Pierette said.

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