Besieged: Stories from the Iron Druid Chronicles(84)

Fulk grunted, recovering his balance. The weight of the claymore showed in his face. His leathers creaked as he lunged forward for another blow, the blade biting into beer-stained wood. Only air occupied the space where Ben had stood moments before, his quick grace belying his size as he swept up his bar stool and broke it over the man in black’s head.

Cracked wood made a brief halo around Fulk’s shoulders. His strap-on boots did a little tango and then steadied as he regained his balance, his shaggy mane shaking off the splinters. He grimaced, his teeth clenched with dull yellow effort. The sword came up, came down, scoring a line through shadow and sawdust, the heavy blade lodging in the floorboards.

The stroke dodged, Ben rushed through his own dance steps and elbowed Fulk in the neck. As the man choked and went down on one knee, Ben leapt for the bar, grabbing the plumed helmet and swinging it around, aiming for that wheezing, brutish head.

Metal kissed fibreglass, the sword knocking the helmet from Ben’s grip. Sweat ran into his eyes as Fulk came up, roaring, and smacked him with the flat of the blade. If this had been an ordinary duel, Fulk might as well have hit a bear with a toothpick. The Fitzwarrens’ attempts to slay their Enemy had always remained unfairly balanced in Ben’s favour, and over the years he had grown complacent, the attacks an annoyance rather than a threat. Now his complacency caught him off guard. This was no ordinary duel. Resistant to magic as he was, bewitched steel was bewitched steel, and the ground blurred under his feet moments before his spine met the jukebox. The air flew out of his lungs even as it flew into Jimi Hendrix’s, a scratchy version of “Fire” stuttering into the gloomy space.

The song was one of Ben’s favourites, but he found it hard to appreciate under the circumstances. He groaned, trying to pull himself up. Stilettos marched up and down his back. His buttocks ached under his jeans. He tasted blood in his mouth, along with a sour, sulphurous tang, a quiet belch that helped him to his feet, his eyes flaring.

Across the bar, Fulk’s eyebrows were arcs of amusement.

“Finally waking up, are we? It’s too late, Garston.” The man in black stomped over to where Ben stood, swaying like a bulrush in a breeze. “Seems like my granny was wrong. She always said to let sleeping dogs lie.”

Fulk shrugged, dismissing the matter. Then he brought the sword down on Ben’s skull.

Or tried to. Ben raised an arm, shielding his head, and the blade sliced into his jacket, cutting through leather, flesh and down to the bone, where it stuck like a knife in frozen butter. Blood wove a pattern across the floorboards, speckling his jeans and Doc Martens. They weren’t cheap, those shoes, and Ben wasn’t happy about it.

When he exhaled, a long-suffering, pained snort, the air grew a little hot, a little smoky. He met Fulk’s gaze, waiting for the first glimmers of doubt to douse the man’s burgeoning triumph. As Fulk’s beard parted in a question, Ben reached up with his free hand and gripped the blade protruding from his flesh. The rip in his jacket grew wider, the seams straining and popping, the muscle bulging underneath. The exposed flesh rippled around the wound, shining with the hint of some tougher substance, hard, crimson and sleek, plaited neatly in heart-shaped rows, one over the over. The sight lasted only a second, long enough for Ben to wrench the claymore out of his forearm.

Hendrix climaxed in a roll of drums and a whine of feedback. The blood stopped dripping random patterns on the floor. The lips of Ben’s wound resealed like a kiss and his arm was just an arm again, human, healed and held before his chest.

“Your antique can hurt me, but have you got all day?” Ben forced a smile, a humourless rictus. “That’s what you’ll need, because I’m charmed too, remember? And as for my head, I’m kind of attached to it.”

Flummoxed, Fulk opened his mouth to speak. Ben’s fist forced the words down his throat before he had the chance. The slayer’s face crumpled, and then he was flying backwards, over the bloody floor, past the bar with its broken bottles, out through the dirty square window that guarded Legends from the daylight.

Silvery spears flashed through the rain. Teeth and glass tinkled on asphalt. Tyres screeched. Horns honked. East 7th Street slowed to a crawl as a man dressed head to toe in black leather landed in the road.

Somewhere in the distance, sirens wailed. Ben retrieved the newspaper from the bar, thinking now was perhaps a good time to leave. As he stepped through the shattered window, he could tell that the cops were heading this way, the bartender making good on his threat. Who could blame him? Thanks to this lump sprawled in the road, the month’s takings would probably go on repairs.

Stuffing the Times into his jacket, the rain hissing off his cooling shoulders, Ben crunched over to where Fulk lay, a giant groaning on a bed of crystal. He bent down, rummaging in the dazed man’s pockets. Then he clutched the slayer’s beard and pulled his face towards his own.

“And by the way, it isn’t sleeping dogs, Fulk,” he told him. “It’s dragons.”

Then he took flight into the city.