He edged deeper into the maze, peeked around a corner, and scanned the shadows for his next move, his next threat. The cheeks of his butt clamped tighter in the ancient response to fear. It didn't matter how many hundreds of times he went into combat; the fear was there. It had better be. When the fear leaves, you die.
He swallowed metallic spit.
Dark, odd-shaped lumps could be bags of trash or lurking death. Tracks in the snow could be ten hours old or ten seconds. Blackness at the head of a fire escape might be a sentry or only plywood and ice against the sky.
A whistle echoed down the alley: a mockingbird singing in February in Maine. Another echoed back. That was all he bloody well needed, a street gang trained as Indian scouts.
His glance flicked back to the roof edge: something moved against the stars. Damn kids held the high ground.
Brian slipped from shadow to shadow, crouching behind transformers humming to themselves under the snow, sneaking around rusty package vans that hadn't moved for at least three storms. The moldy back-alley smells of soaked cardboard, garbage, and cat-piss wiped Maureen's fragrance from his memory.
Welcome to the real world, Brian Albion.
One of the trash-bags stretched, found a more comfortable place to squat, and returned to sentry duty. So much for that way out. Brian could step around a corner into the Summer Country and escape, but he had a sneaking suspicion he'd find Fiona waiting for him at the gate.
He still wondered if they were after him or after Maureen. Could be either. Could be both. The kids could just want to help him with the excess weight in his wallet, but he rather doubted that.
Snow crunched behind him along the way he had come. He thought of gamekeepers driving the grouse to the guns. Which way was the weakest line, the escape from the trap? Which way did they want him to think was weak? Which alleys led out, and which dead-ended against a blank brick wall?
Brian flipped a mental coin and crept right, uphill. Getting pinned against the river sounded really bad. Railroad yards waited down there, too, wide spaces with nothing higher than steel rails to hide behind. No fun.
A shadow peeled loose from a doorway and whistled. Brian spun towards the kid, sensed a club, and took it hard on his left arm before a nerve-hold and two spear-handed jabs dumped the brat in the snow. A kick kept him down. Lying there, he was ragged and scrawny, probably no older than fourteen.
Cannon fodder, Brian thought, as he glanced around for other moving shadows.
His arm hung limp and tingled from fingertips clear up to his neck. He tried to shake it out and then scratched it off his equipment list for the evening. The odds were rotten: they had more bodies than he had arms and legs.
Albion's last stand. How does that saying go? Today is a good day for someone else to die?
More shadows loomed up ahead. Brian glanced around for any good-looking corners to guard his back.
His chess-brain wondered if this welcoming committee had been hired by Fiona or by Dougal. It made a difference. Fiona probably wouldn't kill him unless jealousy had really pinched her on the ass. Dougal wouldn't think twice about it.
The shadows split up. There were two of them, not impossible odds. Both swung clubs in the casual way that said they wanted to terrorize him, wanted him to surrender and save them the effort of beating him into pulp. If they were serious, they would have moved by now.
Probably Fiona, then.
Bugger this!
Brian stared the closest one in the eyes. I am not here, he thought. You saw a cat skitter across the alley, you saw melting snow fall from the rusty iron of that fire-escape, you saw shadows from three different things combined by nothing more than your point of view. I am not here.
The kid's eyes widened in the thin light reflected from the street-lamps. He swung wildly, probing for the ghost that had just faded away before his eyes.
Brian spun to the second kid, the larger one, turning inside the arc of his club and taking it on his ribs. Something cracked. He managed to tangle the pipe in his useless left arm and hooked an ankle throw. The boy went down, and a heel-kick to the head kept him there.
Pain whacked his knees from behind, a reminder from the kid he'd spelled. He'd dropped concentration on that one, lost control. Brian went with the blow, falling, rolling, spinning on his back to bring his feet up between himself and his enemy.
Down isn't dead. Brian's legs scissored the kid's right knee and twisted him down into a snow-bank. Brian rolled along the contact and whipped a kick to the back of the head. Three down. Those ribs are going to be a problem, in half an hour or so. Better move while you still can, old son.
He continued his roll to bring his feet under him and staggered back upright. His eyes locked on the silver shimmer of a blade held low in front of shadow.
Shit. He'd left his knife at the hotel. The Cave had a metal-detector at the door--hard to explain needing a kukri for a night of music.
So much for finesse. Barehanded against a knife, he was going to get cut. He just hoped he could choose where.
Brian kicked snow, trying to startle or even blind his enemy. The kid moved in, knife low and slashing, and Brian spun away. One leg wasn't working right, the one the club got. That wasn't good.
Another slash, another careful crab-scuttle advance. The kid knew what he was doing. No rushes, no stabs, no reaching.
Time. Concentration. Using Power required both. Brian didn't even try. He just watched the
