with Jack there was a flare of golden light, the screaming buzz saw noise, and bits of Jack's clothing flying like the fur of a fighting cat.
Jack didn't even feel the blows.
He picked up the boy by his leather jacket and held him at arm's length. The hunchback, as if he couldn't believe what was happening, kept hacking at Jack's arm, cutting the paleblue Givenchy shirt to ribbons.
Apparently, the little guy hadn't ever come up against an invincible opponent before.
"Kill him!" Sara's voice. "Jack, kill him now!"
Jack thought not. He wanted to knock this character out and find out who he was working for. He aimed a slow open-hand slap at the boy's head, one that would maybe put him out for a few hours.
The slap went through the hunchback's head without connecting. His other hand, holding the boy's jacket bunched up under his chin, was suddenly holding nothing at all. A dazed, triumphant grin passed across the boy's face as he drifted-drifted slowly, not dropped-toward the floor.
"Jack!" Sara wailed. "Jack, oh JesusJesusJesus ."
An edge of fear grated across Jack's nerves. He flicked out punches, one-two, and both passed through the boy without touching him.
The boy's feet touched the floor. His grin twisted and he dove forward, his body passing right through Jack, heading for Sara.
Jack spun and went after him. Sara was stumbling backward toward the door, holding her shoulder bag out protectively. The boy's hands sliced forward, hacking the bag in half with a ripping noise, like heavy cardboard torn by a buck knife.
Jack grabbed the hunchback's leather collar and jerked back with all his strength. The boy went insubstantial before his feet quite left the floor, but Jack had managed to impart a certain momentum and the boy sailed upward and back. Jack saw the pale face redden with fury as it disappeared through the ceiling. The lower part of his body remained visible as it shot back, then down.
"JesusJesus!" Sara was clawing at the hall door, trying to unlock it. "Oh, fuck!"
Jack had worked it out. The boy had to become substantial in order to use his buzzsaw hands. He was most vulnerable when he tried to kill.
It had been so much easier when all he had to do was grab cars full of fugitive Nazis and turn them upside down.
Sara got the door open and disappeared screaming into the hall. The leather boy soared back, his head appearing now, and Jack swiped at him a few times just in case he tried to turn himself solid again.
The hunchback kept sailing, went through the wall into Jack's back bedroom. "Hell," Jack said. He contemplated going through the wall after him and decided against it-he might get hung up partway through. He ran for the bedroom door and smashed through it in a bright flash of light. He saw the leather boy solid and on his feet, racing for the wall that led to the corridor outside. The assassin went insubstantial and dove through the wall head-first.
"Hell," Jack said again, reversed himself, ran for the hallway door.
The boy was just ahead of him. Sara wasn't visible, had probably run out onto the atrium balcony by now.
"Don't Cry for Me, Argentina" soared up from the ground floor.
Jack accelerated, swung a fist, missed the back of the boy's neck by inches. The momentum of the punch threw Jack off course and caromed him off the wall, and the boy drew ahead.
He must have heard Jack behind him, because as he reached the atrium balcony he turned, grinning his crazed grin. One buzz saw hand, just for demonstration purposes, sliced a chunk of concrete out of the balcony wall.
Jack was still moving forward with considerable momentum. He planted his feet in front of the kid and used his forward motion to torque his upper body forward, his right hand punching out toward the hunchback's chest with every ounce of strength he possessed.
The assassin went insubstantial.
The power of Jack's punch carried him over the balcony rail in a blaze of golden light.
She ran out the door and down the hallway because the stairwell had been closing in around her, about to grow an arm that would slice her in two. The terror was a solid lump in her throat.
She had no idea where she was going. A distant part of her mind observed that just now panic was her friend. Because she had no place to go, logically, and panic was better than despair.
I should just go back and offer my