Child of Fire

not there.

The knife moved away from my throat. The ghost knife had done its work on the ex-Marine. I caught the spell and immediately threw it.

Georgie was taken by surprise, but not by much. The ghost knife went right where I wanted it to go, cutting through the top of his trigger assembly just as he began to squeeze it. The gun didn’t go off, and a second later I heard the trigger clatter against the floor of the van.

In the time it took the broken trigger to fall, I called the spell back to me and slashed it through Georgie’s leg. It cut a long slit in his pant leg, but the cut through his leg was bloodless.

I turned toward the ex-Marine. He was slumped and sagging, all the vitality drained out of him. For safety’s sake, I slid the ghost knife through his arm one more time. It never seemed to matter where the ghost knife struck a living person-it always had the same effect.

Georgie and the ex-Marine slid to the floor as though they were fainting. The third man lunged at me, his hunting knife aimed at my throat.

I threw the ghost knife at him and batted at the knife with the protected part of my forearm. The spell disappeared into his chest. The strength went out of him, but there was still a lot of momentum behind that knife. I mistimed my block and felt the tip of the blade slice my unprotected upper arm.

The third man fell against me. I reached for the ghost knife again. If the spell went through the wall of a moving vehicle, I could be a block away from it very, very quickly. I wasn’t about to leave my only real weapon behind.

“What the hell?” the driver said. I closed my eyes.

The ghost knife flew back into the van, cutting a slit in the wall and letting in a sliver of light.

The van swerved to the right and lurched to a stop. The third man fell on top of me, knocking me to the floor. I was pinned beneath him.

The driver climbed from his seat. I heard him open the glove compartment. I didn’t try to free myself. I didn’t have time. I switched the ghost knife from my pinned left arm to my free right arm. The driver turned toward me, gun in hand. It was another.38.

If I hadn’t been lying under one of his friends, he would have had plenty of time to shoot me. We were at point-blank range, but he didn’t have a clear shot. I threw my spell at him.

He tried to slap the ghost knife away but missed it. It entered just above his navel, and as soon as it disappeared I reached for it again. The spell boomeranged back to me, passing through the driver a second time. He collapsed.

I caught it. I’d never tried that trick before. I liked it.

I shoved the man off me and struggled to my knees. All four were still awake, but they were bleary-eyed and listless. I took both knives, Georgie’s revolver, and the driver’s, too. Both guns were identical to the one I’d taken from Floyd outside the bar. Maybe the construction workers in Hammer Bay bought in bulk.

Georgie looked up at me with glazed, pleasant eyes. “Sorry about the way I treated you,” he said. “I don’t know why I was so rude.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I said. The ghost knife didn’t just take away their strength, it also cut out a person’s rage and aggression. Temporarily.

I checked the cuts on my neck and left biceps. The one on my neck was barely a scratch. It had already stopped bleeding. The one on my arm would need a couple of stitches and had come way too close to my brachial artery.

I took their wallets. The four of them had a grand total of thirty-seven dollars on them. That’s how it goes in the age of the debit card. I also took back the money Floyd “paid” me. I didn’t bother with the IDs this time.

“All right, you clowns,” I said to them. They all stared up at me with wet, docile eyes. I aimed the.38 at them. “Get on your knees beside the side door.”

They did.

“Put your hands flat on the floor. Get them next to each other.”

They pushed and nudged against one another, trying to position themselves.

“I’m sorry about all this,” the ex-Marine said. “We were just-“

“Shut up,” I said. I slid the ghost knife into my pocket and picked up the disabled revolver. I slid the cylinder release forward and dropped the rounds onto the floor. Then I picked up Annalise’s scrap of wood and put it in my pocket. “Where are the keys?”

The driver spoke up. “In the ignition.”

“What were you guys supposed to do with me?”

“Bring you to the Curl Club,” the driver answered, “so Phyllis could talk to you.”

“Phyllis?”

“Phyllis Henstrick. She runs the place, and Henstrick Construction.”

“Why does she want to talk to me?”

“She didn’t say,” the driver answered. He crouched beside the others like a little lamb. All of them stared at the barrel of the pistol in my hand. They couldn’t look away.

“I think,” Georgie said, “that it had to do with a rumor she heard about Charles Hammer sending jobs overseas.”

Of course, I thought. “Okay, boys,” I said to them. My voice was low. “Live or die?”