Eli, similarly dressed, stepped to my side and muttered to me, “I’ve worn most every kind of military and paramilitary uniform currently in use anywhere. And not one has . . . um, testicle stretchers.”
I snorted in reaction and relaxed enough that the scents in the room filled my head, clamoring for attention. Blood, vamps, humans, and from somewhere the smell of fresh baking bread. I closed my eyes and let the odors take me over for a moment, only a few heartbeats, but those seconds were enough, and the perfume of the room and the beings in it brought me to the edge of an odd tranquility. The room went quiet, as I stood there, the silence of expectancy and potential violence. My shoulders dropped and I took deep breaths of the wealth of scent patterns. I opened my eyes, feeling comfortable in my own skin for the first time since the bomb.
A form dressed in black from head to toe gestured for me to join him on the fighting floor, and I was able to move as if the thong wasn’t cutting me in half. My instructor was slight, short, and graceful, his head hidden beneath a mask like mine, but his black garb was a much cooler color than my student whites. He looked good in the outfit, even the thong part, which had two straps that divided around an athletic cup of prodigious proportions. Mithrans must believe in hitting below the belt.
My partner might have been Gee DiMercy, but Gee had been bitten by the flying light-dragon, so I was betting on Grégoire, the best fighter the Americas boasted. Better than Gee DiMercy. Better than Leo. The best. Against me. And the weapons he held to his sides were not blunted practice weapons. They were sharp enough to make the air bleed.
They looked like a death threat in steel. Like my death. Beast glared out at him through my eyes, and I heard her snarl, Steel claws. Claws in hand of predator. In hand of hunter-killer.
I knew better than to let my reactions turn to fear. Vamps can smell fear. So I let Beast’s emotions roll over into anger and insult. Loudly, I said, “I’ve had too little sleep, too little food, my house has been targeted by a bomber, and this thong is miserable. You really think that oversized pig sticker is gonna scare me?”
“No, little kitten. I think it will cut you and make you bleed if you do not learn quickly enough.” Yeah. Grégoire. I wanted to ask him about his siblings, but not while he carried a sword. Later. I accepted my blunted practice weapons from Titan Two, who had followed me out onto the fighting floor. Maybe she was acting as my second now. Made sense. Eli usually had that job, but he was flat on his back on the mat beside me, put there by Wrassler. Wrassler was wearing practice blacks, with a sword at my partner’s throat. I wished I had a camera. Titan Two put the shorter sword, the one with the notch in the blade, in my left hand and adjusted my grip on both weapons.
“That,” Grégoire said, “and this”—he held up the longer weapon—“are flat swords.” Next he indicated our short swords. Our cajas cortas, loosely translated as short box or short trap. “You will not see the like of such weapons in the human world. They are made for le Duel Sang. They are made for killing Mithrans.”
Which meant I’d better get used to them. Killing Mithrans was how I made my money.
The mat where I had practiced last night was gone and the floor, damaged by my claws, had been sanded. Someone had taped a large fighting circle on the polished wood away from the scratched area. Grégoire stood inside the taped circle, waiting. Not impatiently. Calmly. But somehow there was a big evil grin about his whole stance, as if he was itching for the chance to hurt me. Oh goody.
“Let us see what you remember from your last session,” he said, stepping out of the fighting circle. He pointed with his long sword. “Begin with your feet.”
I placed my feet in the proper positions, straightened my back, bent my knees as if I were sitting on a tall stool, and held my weapons in the first form. With his sword tip, Grégoire lifted my long sword and moved it closer in front of my body, making my body angle sharper, bladed, so as to make a smaller target. His sword tapped my arm holding the short sword and altered the angle of my elbow.
“Better,” he said. “La Destreza, the Mithran version, is fluid, flowing like water over rounded stones, liquid and graceful.” He moved his sword in a full circle, from pointing at me to his left, across his body, up even with his head, down to his right, farther down, around again at knee level, up to his left again, and back to his starting point. If it had been a bare-handed move, it would have defended against two punches, a kick, and a third punch. His sword indicated that I should try.
As best I could, I mimicked his moves. “Again,” he said. And then, “Again, right elbow not locked, but loose”—he demonstrated—“thusly.” He watched me and said, “Better. Again. Faster.”