Page 28 of Deathless
Diego was inside beingthe man everyone needed him to be, but I couldn't be in that house for one more second.
I stepped off the porch, and the cold hit me through the fabric. The SUVs at the end of the road sat where they'd been since last night, one at each exit, headlights aimed inward. Achilles had added a third sometime after the fight. I lit a cigarette and walked toward the far end of the property because I needed to be somewhere that didn't have music and opinions and Diego's voice coming through the walls doing things to my chest I couldn't afford.
The grass soaked through my boots. I followed the stone wall past the courtyard, past the kitchen window where someone was arguing about leftovers, and around the back where the olive trees started. The katana hung across my back, and the weight of it kept my shoulders level.
A crack split the air, and I stopped.
Eight stood at the base of the largest olive tree with her arm coming forward. A knife buried itself in the trunk. She walked toretrieve it, yanked it free, and walked back to her mark without looking at me.
She threw again. The blade struck low and left. She frowned at it.
I leaned against the wall and smoked.
She threw six more times. The grouping tightened with each one, but her release was late, and the blade kept burying at an angle that would glance off bone instead of punching through. She knew it, too. Her frown deepened each time she pulled the knife from the bark.
"Your grip is wrong," I said.
She turned.
"Here." I pushed off the wall and crouched beside her. "Let me show you."
She held the knife out. I repositioned it a quarter turn in her palm, adjusting where her index finger sat along the spine. Her hand was cold and small under mine. I held the position so she could memorize the pressure, then stepped back.
She threw.
The crack came back sharp and clean, and the blade buried straight, flush to the hilt.
She stared at it. Then she walked to the tree, pulled the knife free, and came back to her mark. She adjusted her grip exactly where I'd placed it and threw again. Same crack. Same angle.
She looked at me. I couldn't read the expression, but something in it had changed from the flat assessment she used for threats and strangers. I was in a different category now. I didn't know which one.
"Again," I said. "Same grip. Let the wrist do the work."
She threw. The blade punched into the trunk an inch from the last hole.
"Good."
She retrieved the knife. This time when she came back, she stood closer to me. Close enough that I could see the dirt under her fingernails and a scratch on her wrist from the olive bark.
I sat on the low wall and lit another cigarette. She threw again, adjusted, and threw again. The rhythm of it settled over us: the soft thud of her boots on the grass, the crack of the blade in the wood, the quiet pull as she worked it free. I smoked, and she threw, and neither of us needed it to be anything else.
The music from the house pressed faintly through the stone. Someone laughed, and a door opened and closed. The SUV headlights at the end of the road burned steadily, white against the dark.
Eight came back from the tree and sat on the wall beside me. She left a gap the width of her fist between us and put the knife across her knees.
I glanced at her hands. She'd wrapped the knife handle in electrical tape the same way I wrapped my hilts. I'd never shown her that. She'd picked it up from proximity, the way kids pick up everything, by standing close and paying attention.
She had tape residue on her thumb. I had the same residue on mine.
I looked away and took a drag.
She put the knife down between us with the handle toward me.
I looked at it. Then at her.
She kept her eyes on the road and waited.
I picked up the knife and turned it in my fingers. The balance was off, weighted too far back for throwing, and the edge needed work. I pulled the small stone from my pocket, the one I used on the katana, and started running it along the blade. The scraping sound was thin and steady in the cold air.
