Ruby Fever (Hidden Legacy, #6)(53)

The bushes went flying. A crystal blade emerged. Buller bore down on me like a nightmare come to life.

I scrambled through the brush to the main driveway. He was only feet behind me.

I burst through the hedges onto the main driveway and straight into Alessandro. He grabbed me by my shoulder and shoved me behind him. An unfamiliar man who was probably Konstantin in a new shape caught me and pulled me out of the way.

Buller carved his way through a hedge and loomed in front of us, a faceless knight ready to slaughter.

Orange sparks flared around Alessandro’s hand and coalesced into a short sword.

Buller struck. The crystal sword sliced through the air. Alessandro leaned out of the way and sliced across Buller’s forearm. It wasn’t a lash. He’d planted the knife onto the crystal bracer and rolled his wrist, cutting a half crescent through it. Before Buller moved to counter, Alessandro caught the knife on the other side of his arm and sliced upward. Buller whipped around, but Alessandro clamped his hand on the bracer and ripped it away.

How?

The Crystal Knight howled, his voice muffled. Blood drenched his right arm from mid-forearm to his fingers. Muscle glistened under the blood, as if Alessandro had skinned his hand.

Buller flicked a second crystal blade onto his left arm and stabbed at Alessandro, crystals flowing over his injured right hand. Alessandro dropped under the thrust, sliced at Buller’s leading leg, and tore another bloody chunk of crystal free.

Buller screamed and kicked at him in a frantic frenzy. Alessandro had nowhere to go. He braced, took the kick, rolled across the driveway, and sprang to his feet. A trickle of blood wet his lips. He flicked it off and started toward Buller.

The armamagus took a small step back.

The crystal armor was like a ballistic vest—it stopped a fast projectile but not the comparatively slow knife.

I needed a blade.

I whipped around and saw a boot knife in Konstantin’s hand. It looked like one of ours. He must’ve taken it off somebody.

“Knife!”

He blinked at me.

“Give me your knife!”

He held it out to me. “This is unwise . . .”

I grabbed it off his palm.

Buller was a whirlwind of crystal blades. Alessandro floated around him, carving pieces off.

I was a siren through my father but also magus Sagittarius through my mother. I only got a little bit of it. She never missed while my magic helped me stab my opponent in the most vulnerable spot. It required two things to activate: a blade and a target. I had both.

Magic zinged through my palm and pulled me toward Buller. I swayed from foot to foot, looking for an opening.

Buller slashed at Alessandro. Sparks pulsed, and a heavy modern replica of a falcata on my sword wall popped into his left hand. Instead of dodging, Alessandro blocked the vertical slash, knocking the arm aside, and carved a cut on Buller’s helmet. Blood swelled.

My magic pulled me. I darted behind Buller and lashed across his back. It was like slicing through a thick bunch of fiber-optic cables. The blade sank in with an odd crunch. Buller whipped around toward me. His crystal sword grazed my arm, drawing a hot line of pain across my shoulder, and then Alessandro carved a three-inch ribbon off his side.

We moved around him, slicing, slashing, cutting, just as we’d practiced hundreds of times against every conceivable practice construct and mech Linus could throw at us. We bled him cut by cut, like two wolves fighting a bear.

Buller raged. He had been invulnerable for so long, and now we hurt him again and again, and the pain and fury had driven him mad. Blood drenched his crystal armor. He kept trying to regrow it, but we had ripped too much of it away. Chunks of raw muscle wept blood through the gaps. The crystal crawled, trying to seal the gashes, but it was slow, and we kept opening more.

My face was splattered with blood, and I didn’t know whose. My arm was getting tired, the exertion of making deep cuts gnawing at it. He couldn’t keep this up forever, but neither could we.

Buller charged Alessandro, throwing everything into his assault. Alessandro dodged. Our eyes met for a quarter of the second, and I knew this was my shot.

Alessandro let go of his falcata. The orange glow dropped a riot shield into his hand, and he jerked it up. Buller hammered at it. The sword cut through the reinforced polycarbonate like it was butter. Instead of shying back, Alessandro braced. Buller smelled blood in the water. In a strength vs strength clash, Alessandro would lose, and Buller knew it. He rained blows onto the shield, hacking off chunks of it, locked onto Alessandro with the instinct of a predator sensing wounded prey.

Alessandro stumbled.

Buller pounded on the remnants of the shield.

I slipped my knife through a narrow gap into his liver.

He didn’t notice.

I pulled the blade free and stabbed him again, fast, driving the blade into his flesh over and over like an icepick, flinging blood each time I pulled it out.

Buller jerked, arching his back.

Alessandro dropped the stub of the shield and leaped up. A ten-inch karambit knife shaped like a double-edged tiger claw flashed in his hand. He sliced at Buller’s throat.

The Crystal Knight fell to his knees. A muffled gurgle escaped his mouth, the sound of his last moments skittering away. He collapsed on his side. The crystal armor melted, leaving a dead man on our driveway. He was large, muscular, and pale, with sparse light brown hair cut short and a weak chin he’d tried to cover up with a goatee. His body was a patchwork of gaping wounds and missing skin.