Time began to slow when Marie stumbled forward. I don't know what causes that phenomenon of mind and body that occurs when a person faces peril. It might simply be a case of chemical changes putting the body in a heightened sense of alert. Perhaps, though, when an unexpected danger unfolds, the mind plays it out faster than it can actually occur, giving the body extra time to react.
When Cervantes told us to sit, Broad Shoulders shoved Marie toward a sofa. She swung her arm against him. He fired the gun.
The world changed. I seized Broad Shoulder's gun hand, pushed it down, and snapped the ridge of my right hand into his trachea.
Broad Shoulders dropped the pistol, clutched his shattered windpipe and pitched to the floor.
Marie was still moving forward when Cervantes shifted his aim. She was small and not seen as a threat. He was focused on me.
Marie veered toward Cervantes. She grabbed his gun arm in both hands and drove against it.
Before Cervantes could shove Marie away, I sprang forward and hooked my fist into his temple. His knees were giving way as I struck again, swinging the heel of my hand into the crown of his head. I heard a crack.
At the same instant Goliath's fist slammed into the back of my head. I fell, still conscious, but stunned.
He dropped onto me with his knees on the backs of my thighs and one hand on the back of my neck. With his free fist, he pounded my rib cage. All I could do was tense against the blows.
Everyone underestimated Marie, even after they'd seen her in action.
Marie shot Goliath in the hip, not the meaty part, but in the joint. He screamed and slashed his arm into her. She dropped the gun and it skittered across the floor.
Goliath pushed off my back and stood on his good leg. He lunged at Marie, but awkwardly.
She might have gotten away completely if Goliath's reach had been shorter. He grabbed her shirt.
She kicked at his wounded hip.
He howled, but still wrapped his other hand around her throat.
I staggered to my feet, feeling like my back and right lung had been pierced by branding irons. I lurched toward Goliath, hit his side and wrapped my right arm around his neck.
Goliath twisted as we fell so that my left shoulder hit the floor.
I managed to keep the pressure on his neck, but I didn't have the leverage I needed to bear down. He arched his back against me and twisted his shoulder into my chest. If he did that once more he would break the hold and have the advantage of leverage.
Goliath had another plan. He found the corner of my eye with his thumb. I felt it slipping between the orb and the socket, but then I heard a shot, and then another.
Goliath screamed and rolled off me.
One more shot sounded.
Broad Shoulders was sitting against the sofa. His back arched spasmodically each time he tried to draw breath through his collapsed windpipe. He gestured toward Marie's pistol and pointed to the side of his head.
Sorry. If we did it, it would be murder without benefit of self-defense. If we let you hold the gun, you might first seek revenge.
I looked away from his eyes, but they had already seared their images into my memory. The faint sound of a footfall came from the stairway. It was Oddsson. He saw what had happened and scurried back up the stairs.
I knelt beside Broad Shoulders and said what I knew of last rites as he lost consciousness. Why I cared, I can't say. I wasn't a priest or even a believer, but somewhere in my being still dwelled the boy who was a Catholic.
Sentiment did not affect my instinct for self-preservation.
If the crack I had heard when I hit Cervantes on top of his head meant that there was a fracture at the coronal suture, he was not a threat, at least not until he had recovered in a hospital. If it was a less severe injury, then Marie and I would have an exposed rear. Just to be safe, I broke each of his arms at the elbow.
Then we went to find Geir Oddsson.