Devon screams. The glove comes at her head. I want to go for my sword, but thanks to Clyde, I’m fully aware of how badly I’m positioned for that. Instead I punch at the man’s legs.
The angle’s wrong, and the wind is wild, and the distance too far, and I just graze his ankle, but Punin is balancing on the hood of a car going over a hundred miles per hour, and sometimes a graze is all it takes.
He goes down, the blow turned into an ugly flail. His metal fingers punch through the metal of the hood. He drags six-inch-long tears in the metal. He dangles there, a fish hooked.
He blinks away. Suddenly gone in a spark of light.
“Where?” Aiko shouts against the roar of the wind filling the car.
I stare around. A woman I don’t recognize is clinging to the hood of Tabitha’s car. Malcolm empties a magazine at her.
A thump from the roof of our car. Five fingers crash down, punch five holes in the car’s ceiling. Aiko yells out.
I really need to get this sword out.
I stand, leaning my body out through the empty frame of the windscreen, pitching my body until it meets the angle my head tells me is right. I twist my hand just so. Not too far clockwise or anticlockwise. I pull with fast, firm efficiency, watching the pitch of my shoulder, my elbow. The sword comes out in a quick, clean stroke.
And, actually, this could have been worth the migraine.
Punin is tearing at the roof, punching holes. His fist comes down, almost sits in Aiko’s lap.
I twist around in my seat, facing backwards, body still through the windscreen, propped up by the wind. I can see Punin towering above me. He twists, sees me. He raises his fist. I swing the sword.
A sword lances through the air in front of me. Not mine. No flames. No flash. Just sheer and deadly. It slams through Punin’s fist. He screams as he is pinned to the car.
I’m already swinging. A great cleaving swipe, aimed at his midriff. Flame spits and crackles as my sword connects with his side, continues on, embeds in spinal tissue.
Punin doesn’t even scream. Just spills himself out onto the road in a silent, bloody gush.
I stare across the road. Kayla is looking at me, leaning out of a car window, her hand still extended from the throw that speared his hand.
On the car hood—a bloody stain. No Russian. Malcolm is smiling triumphantly.
I stare at Punin’s corpse, still flapping against the car window, pinned by Kayla’s sword.
I tug my sword free, then Kayla’s. Punin’s body tumbles to the road, and rolls away. I discover I know the angle to toss the sword back to Kayla. She catches it. For a moment she might even look impressed. She nods at me, and ducks back into her car.