A Mischief in the Woodwork - By Harper Alexander Page 0,9

from my boot.

The other Albino heard the sound, and spun to face me, the stiff tail of his coat furling around him. But I had already launched myself up the mound, and seized the pocket of his coat with a fearsome grip, dragging him down. He buckled, dropping books and skidding onto his backside. I hauled him down the bank, raising my knife, but he brought a slice of debris up from the bank and slammed it against my skull.

The world spun again, and I flew to the side and onto my back, and then he was upon me pinning me to the sharp slope. My knife was still in my hand, but my hand felt senseless, grazed by nerve-crushing wreckage. He seized my wrist to immobilize my weapon, his other hand going to my throat. I swept my good arm crudely upward, clutching for the blade in my hair. My fingers fumbled against the slight hilt, and then I swept it out, gagging, and sliced at his arm.

The blade tore into his coat, and he released my throat to pin my other arm, but I crashed my forehead up into his face. As he half-crumpled, stunned, I shoved him off me, scrambling to my feet. He rose as well, still slightly dazed, but came at me again. I swiped both blades at him as he advanced, cutting his cheek, then his hand.

I saw something in his eyes falter, but he lunged again, not to be deterred that easily. I danced backward, stumbling a bit on the debris, but hurled a knife at him. It was risky, giving up a weapon, and if he ended up with it I would regret it, but I was in no state to grapple with him.

The knife caught him in the bicep, and his stance flicked back. Pain clenched his face, and he folded slightly in on himself, halting his pursuit. But it was only his arm, and he braced himself and pulled the weapon free.

Prickles ran through me.

With the bloody knife in one hand, he swept a large spike of debris off the ground with the other. I did not fancy that coming at me. I crouched shakily, keeping my eyes on him, stirring around on the ground with my fingers and coming up with a sizable shard of glass. Now we were both wickedly armed. My grasp felt decidedly more feeble on my piece of glass than his looked on his brutal spike, though.

Something fluttered inside me for that moment, but then I felt a familiar sense of feral blood stir in my recesses and leak through me.

I fixed my grip on the glass, and then I did the unthinkable.

I lunged at him first.

We met in a climactic bash of limbs and slashing weapons. I did not feel my ailments. He clubbed me with his spike, and I cut him with my shard, and then I hoisted myself off a slab of an incline and planted my boot square in his chest. He stumbled back, lurched over the obstruction, and collapsed in a jumbled rush. His head bounced off a serrated edge of stone, and he lay still on top of the offal.

I hunched, panting, and then trailed slowly forward to check him. Stabbing my knife into my hair, I twined my fingers into his hair and pulled his head to the side. A bloody bruise was welling on his forehead, but he was alive.

Knowing he was sufficiently unconscious, I knelt there for a moment or two, catching my breath. It took a conscious effort of will to release the glass in my other hand, where it was clamped tight and sealed by the cutting sharp edges. Blood ran down my palm.

Hurt returned to my body, and I grimaced hard to overcome the rising agony. It throbbed and pierced and ached all over. I felt minced and shattered.

Indignant, I reached into the Albino's big pockets and withdrew the books he had stolen, transferring them to my own pack. I took the bloody knife from his grasp, too, and cleaned it on my skirt before inserting it back into its rightful keep.

Better luck next time, fella, I thought. I hoped he had learned what he ought to have already known: you didn't cross an Albino, even if you were one yourself. There was a dreadfully fierce code amongst the scavengers. Competition was alive and well without meeting face to face.

Leaving him, I shouldered my pack and turned to abandon the square. There was