bridge of the guy’s nose where there was bone, not soft cartilage. The crunch was satisfying, but he didn’t have time to admire his handiwork. They kept coming, more and more of them, like thugs out of a clown car. One down, two more entered the fray.
Fuck. It was like fighting a goddamned mythical hydra. Cut off one bloody head and two more took its place. A second gut punch elicited a harsh exhale as Thorne staggered backward. Broken ribs, he was sure. No time to feel it. Striking out cobra-fast, he sliced the side of his palm into Fatty’s windpipe. With a gurgle, the man tottered, clutching his throat as he dropped to his knees.
Robes came at him again. Thorne’s philosophy was, if an opponent wasn’t standing, he wasn’t fighting. As Robes got close enough, Thorne grabbed the front of his loose garment, pulled him in, and at the same time stuck out his leg. The guy ran right into the obstacle, went down with a girly shriek, and lay on his belly panting.
Thorne let a short guy get close enough that he could smell the cigarette stink of his breath, Thorne’s eyes watering at the man’s powerful body odor. Jesus. He should kill the guy just for stinking. He hauled back and delivered a lower-rib shot, using the guy’s own forward momentum to make the blow memorable. The man’s gun went one way, the guy the other, but he managed to stagger back upright like a Weeble, then came back in, head lowered like a bull fixated on a red cape.
Thorne let him come, keeping the others in his peripheral vision. Stinky was in their way, so he had at least a couple of seconds to maneuver while their shots were blocked.
Stinky was breathing hard and ragged. Couldn’t get his lungs filled. Thorne compounded his problem by pummeling his rib cage, specifically his vulnerable short ribs, until the man’s breathing became even more labored.
Having sustained a similar beating from his friend Yermalof, Thorne knew how bad the guy hurt, and just how badly the guy’s chest must be screaming for mercy every time he tried to drag in a breath. Grabbing a fistful of Stinky’s thick, wiry hair, Thorne brought the guy’s nose down sharply and his own knee up hard. The sound of crushed cartilage and bone was extremely satisfying.
Flinging him aside, he ground his foot down on the guy’s wrist. A kick jettisoned the knife aside as it fell uselessly from the man’s numb fingers. For good measure Thorne gave the man a little tap on the side of the head with the toe of his boot.
He heard the man behind him seconds before he felt the breeze of a blunt instrument skimming his ear. The blow struck hard to his shoulder, hard enough to drop him to one knee.
He was up fast, but in the intervening few seconds, there was a wild cry, and Isis launched herself out of the darkness to attach herself like a spider monkey to the guy’s back. Arms and legs wrapped around the man’s torso, she hung on for dear life as the man tried to unseat her.
Jesus. If it hadn’t scared the crap out of him, Thorne would’ve laughed.
The man cursed colorfully in Arabic, whirling like a dervish with a determined woman clinging on his back, scoring her nails into the flesh of his face. She was trying to pull him off center with her weight. The man staggered and cursed, trying to pry her legs from around his waist, but she was determined and her ankles were dangerously locked together over his dick.
The diaphragm was a prime target, and Thorne made sure when he hit the guy there, he hit hard enough for every bit of air to leave the man’s lungs. It had little impact.
“Off!” Thorne yelled at Isis. He saw her eyes glinting in the darkness, then she lifted one foot and slammed her heel down with unerring accuracy directly into the man’s groin.
The injured man gave a bloodcurdling scream and doubled over to clutch his balls. Thorne’s balls contracted with him. Isis was on her feet and several steps out of range when the man’s eyes rolled back in his head and he was down.
“Good job. Let’s get the hell out of here while the going’s g—”
He shouldn’t have been so goddamned self-satisfied, because he felt a rush of air. There was someone he hadn’t seen. The man rushed him, knife gripped as an extension