Deadtown

seven-inch, razor-sharp blade. It was the sword I’d be carrying with me every night; my best chance for sending a Hellion back to hell. I slashed it in the air with my right hand, listening to the swish swish of the blade. Then I shifted the sword to my left and made the same move. Too slow. The blade made no sound as it cut through the air.

That was the point of practicing: to strengthen my left arm, to make it quick and agile. As I’d done the previous night in Lucado’s hallway, I started the basic routine: cut, parry, thrust. I wanted to make these motions second nature to my new fighting arm. Cut, parry, thrust. As I got into the rhythm of the motions, I increased the speed.

Juliet watched from the sofa. “You remind me of Jock,” she said.

I laughed but didn’t pause in my motions. “No one’s ever mistaken me for a jock before.”

“No, not ajock. Giacomo di Grassi. A fencing master I knew in Modena. That must’ve been . . . oh, around 1580 or so.”

Okay, that made me pause. In fact, I stopped and stared. “You knew di Grassi? The guy who wrote His True Art of Defence?”

“Is that what they call it in English? I like the Italian title better: Ragione di adoprar sicuramente l’arme, si da offesa come da difesa. Wordy, but mellifluous.”

“Yeah, very catchy. Wow, I can’t believe you actually knew di Grassi. Aunt Mab made me spend two whole summers on that book. That’s one of his routines I was doing.”

“I could tell. But Jock fought right-handed. It looks odd, using your left hand.”

“It feels odd, too. Believe me, I’d fight right-handed if I could.” I explained how the demon mark made my right arm useless in the presence of the Destroyer.

“Too bad the Hellion isn’t on your side. Think of the power that mark could give you.”

“Power?” The thought turned my stomach. “It’s the power to destroy; nothing more. This demon is threatening to annihilate all of Boston, killing as many people as it can. I wouldn’t want that kind of power.”

Juliet shrugged. “Humans come and go. Cities rise and fall. After you’ve lived through a century or two, it’s not that a big deal.”

“Well, I’m not going to be around that long, so it is a big deal to me. I’ve got to protect the things I care about.” I practiced an upward thrust. “I’ve got to avenge my father’s death.”

“Now you sound like Jock, too. He was big on honor, vengeance, noble causes—all that sort of thing.” Her eyes went a little misty. “I was crazy about him for a while. I offered to turn him, but he said no.”

“Really?”

“He didn’t want to be undead. He said he’d lose his edge as a swordsman if he knew he couldn’t be defeated.”

“Unless his opponent used a silver blade and got him through the heart.”

“No one ever got near Giacomo’s heart.” She sighed. “Not even me.”

She watched me for a few minutes, then said, “That’s not how Jock would have done it. Lead with the same foot you thrust with.”

“You’re right.” I tried again, lunging forward with my left foot as I made a sharp thrust with the sword, then brought my right foot forward to make them even. “It’s hard doing it left-handed. It’s like trying to be my own mirror image.” I went through the move several more times.

“That looks better,” Juliet said. The phone rang. “I’ll get it. Might be tonight’s dinner. He said he’d call.” She stretched across the sofa to pick up the receiver on the end table.

As Juliet talked on the phone, I continued the move—thrust/lunge, step—then did the sequence backward to return to my original position. The trick was to get the movement so encoded in my body that I wouldn’t have to think about it. I tried again, screwing up the footwork. Damn. I felt like throwing the sword across the room. Who was I kidding? I’d be lucky if I didn’t trip over my own feet when I met up with Difethwr.

Juliet had put the phone down and was sitting up again.

“Who was it?” I asked.

“The garage. Your car’s ready. You can pick it up tomorrow, but they close at noon.”

The phone rang again. “Ah, this must be for me,” Juliet said, reaching over to answer it. But she spoke only for a moment, saying nothing more than hello and okay before she hung up.

“That was Clyde,” she said. “You’ve got a visitor on the way up.”

Before I could ask who it was, there was a knock at the door. I lay my sword on the coffee table and went over to answer. I’d barely turned the knob when the door flew open and a furious Tina flounced into the room.

“Where were you?” she demanded.

“Huh?”

She pushed past me and went over to a chair, where she dropped the armload of extra clothing she’d been wearing to protect her skin from the late afternoon sun: baseball hat, hooded sweatshirt, scarf, gloves, sunglasses, even an umbrella. That left her with a pink T-shirt emblazoned with the word

FLIRTATIOUS in sparkly letters and a baby-blue pair of low-slung jeans, along with sneakers that looked like astronaut shoes.

She put her hands on her hips and glared at me. “Where were you yesterday? When we were supposed to go over my lesson?”

“Lesson?” asked Juliet.

Tina answered Juliet but kept looking at me. “Yeah, Vicky promised I could be her apprentice. She promised to teach me about demon slaying. But obviously, she lied.”

Oh, no. I’d forgotten all about quizzing Tina on the first twenty-five pages of Russom’s.

“I’m sorry, Tina.”

“So what were you doing?”

“Well, let’s see—fighting off a kidnapping attempt and shapeshifting into a panther, for starters. I didn’t even come out of the shift until after ten. And then I was late for a job, so I had to rush over to the North End.”

Tina’s bloodred eyes went wide for a moment. Then she rolled them. “Oh, please. You expect me to believe a lame story like that?”

“You’re as bad as my client. How come nobody ever believes me? Ask Juliet.”

Tina turned to Juliet, who smiled and held out her hands, palms up. “That’s what she told me. Unless she was lying to me, too.”

“Thanks a lot.” I put my hand on Tina’s shoulder, but she shrugged it off. “Did you even read the first chapter?” I asked. “When I saw you the night before, you didn’t sound too interested.”

“I read fifty pages. Go ahead; quiz me. Ask me anything.”

“Okay. What kind of demons was I fighting in Mr. Funderburk’s dream?”

Another eye roll. “That’s so easy. Inimicus somniorum, popularly known as Drudes, or dream-demons. Here’s their classification: kingdom, spiritus; phylum, malus; class, demonia; order, terrificus; family, conjuratus; genus, Inimicus; species, somniorum.” She ticked off the categories on her fingers. “Drudes feed off fear, taking the form of whatever scares the victim most, causing nightmares. They’re usually generated by the victim’s own psyche, although they can be conjured. Occasionally, other kinds of demons can enter the victim’s dreamscape by taking the form of a Drude.”

“Wow,” Juliet said.

I was impressed, too.

“What do you want to hear about next: Eidolons or Harpies?”

“No, no, that’s okay, Tina. I believe you studied. And I’m sorry I didn’t show up for the lesson.”

“So let’s do it now.”

“I can’t. I’ve got a lot going on at the moment.”

“I knew you didn’t mean it.” Her eyes were accusing. “I knew you wouldn’t really teach me.”

“I will. Especially now that I know you’ll study. But I can’t start today.”

“Why not?” She looked around the room as though she’d just noticed it. “And how come all your furniture is