Robert Liparulo - The 13 th tribe

The man tried to jerk his hand away, but it might as well have been bolted to Jagger’s hook. He tugged and tugged, casting a stunned expression at Jagger. Jagger flexed his biceps, deltoids, trapeziuses, and the rest of his upper-body muscles-all of them contributing to the power of his grip. In the second it took the man to draw breath, Jagger heard his fingers break-like eggshells and Fritos under a booted heel-then his scream obscured all other sounds.

Jagger released RoboHand’s tension, slid the prehensor off the fingers, clamped the gun barrel, and pulled it away. He swung it around to his real hand, which found the trigger and grip wet and sticky with blood.

A locomotive drove into his cheekbone. As his head snapped back, he realized the man had elbowed him: a bony joint, powered by a muscular arm and backed by the weight of the man’s upper body. Considering the excruciating pain his attacker must have been in, it was impossible for the man to have risen so quickly and launched such a precise counterstrike, but the exploding nerves in Jagger’s face screamed otherwise. The man spasmed upward like a bucking bronc and came back down on him. His left knee pinned Jagger’s gun arm; his right foot slammed down on the prosthetic.

Jagger rocked back and forth, twisted and pulled his arms. He kicked his legs up, but the man leaned forward, out of reach. His mangled hand was tucked to this chest, and he was grinning. He reached to his side and produced a sword. Its blade was about two and a half feet long, three inches wide, and marbled with blood.

Jagger squirmed, rocked, pulled, tugged, kicked.

“First you,” the man said. His tongue slid over his lower lip. “Then the boy. What’s his name?” He looked around and called, “Tyler! Tyler!”

“No!” Jagger said. He rocked left and twisted his fake arm. It popped free of the man’s boot. He shot it up to the man’s neck and squeezed. The hooks slid over a hard surface, ripping away the scaly material and exposing a metal collar.

“Pretty cool, huh?” the man said and laughed. He swung the sword down at Jagger’s face. Jagger caught it with RoboHand, kicking up sparks and stopping the blade six inches in front of his face.

Through gritted teeth Jagger said, “Not as cool as mine.”

He twisted his arm and wrist, but with his back and other arm pinned, he couldn’t generate enough strength to wrest away the blade. The best he could do was not let go, and he wasn’t sure that was enough. The man was strong, and knew the kind of fighting moves that made him dangerous beyond his strength and weaponry. Jagger could think of a dozen ways the guy could push the sword into his face or weaken him enough to maneuver it free.

The man leaned over and rested his forehead on the back of the blade, which quivered under the pressure of converse forces.

“You know,” the man said, “we were going to leave you alone. But you got in our way-you and the kid-and that gives us permission. Not just that, an obligation.” He straightened, looked around again. “Tyyyyler! Here, boy!”

Under the man’s knee, Jagger’s right arm was out of action, but not his wrist. He tucked it in as far as it would bend, gave it every bit of concentration not already allocated to keeping the blade out of his flesh, and pulled the handgun’s trigger.

A red blossom bloomed on the man’s cheek, instantly followed by another, larger one on the other side, higher up. He spat blood. It ran over his lip and down his chin, along with a white chunk of tooth. He released his grip on the sword and toppled.

Jagger flicked the sword away and reached for the man’s wrist, thinking he was going for the gun. RoboHand snagged his sleeve, ripping it along a seam. The man thudded down over Jagger’s gun arm. The man’s own arm extended overhead onto the terrace, as if reaching for something. The tear in the sleeve revealed a glittering gold tattoo on the inside of his forearm-a comet or fireball, as far as Jagger could tell.

He held the torn-off swath of scaly material over his face, watching it shake as his muscles tried to process the flood of adrenaline coursing through them. He closed his eyes.

The man remained conscious, but not fully there. He squirmed and gurgled out unintelligible words. With the man’s chest over the gun, Jagger thought about how easy it would be to twist the weapon again and put another slug into him.

He heard footsteps and opened his eyes. Rising onto an elbow, he scanned the terrace. It was empty. The fight had taken him away from the arch, so he couldn’t see the walkway on the other side of it.

“Tyler?”

He reached for his baton. It moved away from him, scraping on the stone tiles, then it lifted off the ground. His mouth dropped open as he watched it dance in midair. It rose high, and that’s when he saw the eyes, only eyes. They blinked, and the baton sailed down at his head.

The blow didn’t knock him out, but it might as well have. A spike of pain pierced his brain, kicking up incongruous thoughts like disturbed bats:

— Tyler, get to bed — technically speaking, the brain itself does not possess the sensory nerve endings to feel pain — ha ha ha ha ha — I did not come to bring peace, but a sword — the children! not the children too — the monastery was founded by the Roman Empress Helena in 330 AD — you’re here at the pleasure of Gheronda — and that gives us permission — you and the kid — you and the kid Jagger groaned, touched the new wound, and pulled his fingers away to visually confirm the blood he felt. It took his eyes a few seconds to focus.

Fast breathing drew his attention toward the man lying on his arm. His back rose and fell far more slowly than the quick breaths Jagger heard. He noticed the eyes: they were hovering near the man’s head, which teetered one way then the other unnaturally.

A woman’s voice whispered, “Phin… Phin!”

The eyes moved higher and stared at him. White sclera formed twin almond shapes, irises that appeared black in the dim light. They shifted down, and the man’s body began to roll over. Jagger tugged his arm out and pulled it close, tucking the handgun under his leg.

The eyes rose straight up and disappeared. Footsteps pattered around him. The backpack the man had dropped floated off the terrace, its strap forming a triangle above it. It swooped around, and the strap became an upside-down teardrop over what must have been someone’s shoulder. He was looking at the part of the pack that ordinarily pressed against a wearer’s back.

Jagger caught a glimpse of the eyes and said, “Who are you?”

The pack bounced in the air until it hovered over the man’s feet. One of his legs rose, the pack rotated, and the man slid away, trailing a slick of blood over the terrace. His unelevated leg cantered out, bent at the knee. The man gurgled, shook his head, lifted it.

“Ev-ah,” he said through blood and shattered teeth.

Jagger wondered if his tongue was intact.

He shook his head again and said, “No, no, wait”-or so Jagger interpreted from the “ oh, oh, aith ” the man gurgled out.

His leg came down. The pack moved around to his head and lowered, stopping a foot off the ground. His head rose-too steadily and too high to be his own doing. Jagger imagined the hand that must be holding it, the invisible woman crouching beside it. There was whispering, gurgling. The man’s head turned, and he spat. More whispering. The head lowered and the pack rose. The eyes stared at Jagger.

“Where’s the boy?” came the woman’s voice.

Jagger felt ice crystals form in his blood. He regretted not finishing the job, not pulling the trigger one last time. He sat up, bending his legs to keep the gun hidden.