Rafael (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter #28) - Laurell K. Hamilton Page 0,89

at the same time, and then Hector had to defend against both of us.

I ducked under his arm, the sword whistling over my head, and I might have been scared of that sound so close to me, but I was moving too fast and trying to slice open his femoral with one sword, while raising the other up to guard myself just in case he tried for my throat as I whirled past him.

He turned so I cut the front of his thigh instead of the artery, but I cut along his side as I went past, because some damage was better than none. He bent a little forward, but I was at his back and didn’t have time to wonder why as he tried to turn with a sword swinging toward me, but Pierette moved in closer in front of him, and I came up behind him, aiming for the side of his throat.

He moved his head just enough that I missed the kill shot, but blood still showed on his skin as I moved past him and was in front of him again as Pierette glided around him from the other side, so that we traded front for back, and I was suddenly facing Hector on my own.

One blade came for my throat at the same time that the other blade tried to slice open my stomach and pierce my liver. I swayed my upper body out of reach and brought my own sword up to block the liver shot. Hector stumbled, but I still had to block one of his blades as I spun away from his second. He collapsed to his knees, and my blade was coming for his unprotected throat when another sword was suddenly there saving him.

I stepped back from Hector where he knelt in the sand, swords up, ready to defend against the new threat. Pierette was moving with me. It was Claudia and Benito, both forcing us back from the kill.

“What the hell are you doing?” I asked.

“Neva says we need him alive,” Benito said.

“To find his master,” Claudia added.

“You have betrayed our laws, the duel is forfeit, I am king,” Hector said, but he spat blood on the sand. It wasn’t from anything I’d managed to do to him. I fought the urge to glance at Pierette or ask what she’d done at his back to make him spit blood.

Fredo came to stand between the two fallen fighters. He was still trying for an appearance of neutrality, but he turned the mic on and spoke for the almost silent crowd. “If we heal no matter what is done to us, then our fighting skills mean nothing. A vampire has violated our holy of holies; the vampire would put a king of their choice on our throne. Those closest to him have smelled the vampire on the traitor’s skin. It is not enough to kill the traitor; we must slay his vampire master.”

The crowd cheered, and some of them made a high, guttural hissing noise, which I think was the rat equivalent of cheering, or maybe it meant something else altogether. As long as they agreed that we could do what needed to be done to Hector and Padma, I didn’t care what it meant.

“We must end this threat in its entirety,” Neva said from much closer than I’d expected. All three of the brujas were on the sands. How had I missed five people coming down here? That kind of carelessness could get you killed in a fight. Oh hell, I’d been listening to Fredo and the crowd. I couldn’t even blame the combat.

Hector got to his feet. He’d healed whatever Pierette had done to him. Claudia, Benito, Pierette, and I went down into a fighting stance. “Four against one, is that what has become of the honor of the rodere?”

Neva yelled a word I didn’t understand and stamped one foot hard on the sand. I felt something rush past, and then Hector stumbled on the sand as if someone had tripped him. Claudia and Benito were on him before he’d regained his balance. I didn’t know what had just happened, but they did. Pierette and I moved up, but Benito and Claudia had disarmed him with nearly identical flourishes that drew more blood, as they forced his swords to the sand. They kicked them out of his reach. Hector rushed Benito, sweeping one arm and sword past him, but Benito hooked Hector’s leg and sent him sprawling backward, fighting for