“Bored.” Guilty Jen sighed dramatically. “You want the first swing?”
Caxton smiled. She knew a trap when she heard one. “Let’s just wing it,” she said. She flicked her baton outward, extending it to its full length.
Jen bowed. And then she attacked.
She had to cover five yards of empty space before she could land a blow on Caxton. Those five yards included the burning trash can. She started to dodge left around it, signaling the move to force Caxton to dodge the other way and keep it between them. Caxton chose instead to roll to her right, closing the distance between them faster than Jen expected. She came out of her roll with her baton swinging upward, grip first. If she could shatter Jen’s kneecap straight out of the gate, this could be over very fast.
But Jen’s knee wasn’t there when her swing followed through. Instead her leg was up in the air, spinning through the deadly arc of a roundhouse kick. Caxton managed to get her head down before it was knocked off her neck, but that left her in a bad position, one knee and one arm down on the floor, her back arched up in the air, unable to see very well where the next blow would come from.
Jen spun around like a top and brought her feet down in a fighting stance like a sumo wrestler. Her hands were bunched into fists at her waist and she cried out in victory as she readied a double punch toward Caxton’s kidneys.
A punch like that would kill her. The trauma to her kidneys could lead to massive internal bleeding. Without prompt medical attention, which was definitely not available, there would be no way to stop the bleeding, and she would die in a matter of minutes. Caxton’s body knew what to do next, even if her mind was stuck for ideas. Her legs flashed out and backward like the legs of a frog jumping off a hot stone. It wasn’t much of a sweep, but it caught Guilty Jen off guard and made her stumble backward to keep her balance.
That gave Caxton just enough time to get back up on her feet and facing Jen.
Guilty Jen grinned and dropped into a low fighting crouch, one fist extended toward Caxton, the other at her hip.
“We’re wasting each other’s time here,” Caxton said. “The vampire—”
“Bored.” Without warning Jen lunged forward in an attack.
Caxton shoved her hand under her vest and pulled out the hunting knife. She didn’t have time to swing, so it would need to be a lunge, right into the other woman’s attack. Hopefully the knife would be a surprise for Jen, one she couldn’t prepare for. Caxton braced herself against the blow, bringing her other arm up to protect her face, just as Guilty Jen’s body twisted in midair. Jen’s back collided painfully with Caxton’s chest and her arms lifted up, hard. The knife was tugged out of Caxton’s grip and flew through the air to clatter on the floor.
Jen’s hands grabbed Caxton’s now-empty knife hand in a tight grip. She felt something hot and wet slick against the back of her hand—she must have cut Jen, anyway, must have sliced her palm—and then—
Hot agony raced up Caxton’s arm, all the way to her shoulder. She felt her arm twisting under pressure, felt her bones resisting, felt them start to give way—
She screamed as half the bones in her hand and forearm snapped, all at once. Guilty Jen gave her a last sadistic yank and dropped Caxton, moaning, to the floor.
She tried to force herself to get up, tried to will her body to obey her, but her muscles were twitching wildly and her blood was roaring in her ears. It was all she could do to breathe, all she could do to keep from passing out from the pain.
Leaning over her, Guilty Jen reached down and placed a hand on either side of her throat. And started to squeeze.
It was at that precise moment that the lights in the Hub came back on.
49.