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I hooked him around the neck and yanked. He tumbled into the hole. He scrambled onto me and tried to pin my arms. When he couldn't get a grip on them, he seized my hair. I slammed my open palm into the bottom of his jaw. He grunted, and fell back.
I slid out from under him. He reached for me again, but I scrambled out of the way, and grabbed the edge of the hatch, hoisting myself up. When he came at me, I kicked him in the face. He stumbled back. I dropped into the hole and fell on him.
He bucked to throw me off, but I managed to flip him onto his stomach. I kneeled as best I could on his back. Then I grasped his hands and held them and, with my teeth, untied the extra piece of vine. He rocked and wriggled and cursed, but after a few tries, I got the vine tied around his wrists and ankles.
"You think you're clever?" he snarled. "One scream from me and every one of those beasties up there will come running--"
"Whoops, almost forgot. Thanks."
I stuffed my other sock into his mouth. Then I paid him the same honor he'd promised me: I grabbed him by the hair and hauled him out of the crawl space.
"So," I said as I dumped him on the bedroom floor.
"Are you going to tell me how to catch the Nix?"
He only narrowed his eyes, a "fuck you" in any language.
"Fine," I said. "I'll come back in a couple of days, see whether you've changed your mind."
As I walked toward the living room, Dachev made a guttural sound behind his gag.
"Oh, no, don't worry," I said. "I'm not going to abandon you. You'll have plenty of company...just as soon as I tell your comrades where you are."
He let me get as far as the front door, then banged his shoulder against the floor to get my attention. I peeked around the bedroom doorway.
"Yes?"
He grunted and gnashed at his gag. I yanked the sock from his mouth.
"Ready to talk?" I said.
"Untie me first."
I laughed.
"Then no deal. You'll take what you want and leave me like this."
"No, I won't, but since you don't know me well enough to trust my word, I'll meet you halfway. I'll untie your feet now. Then, if I do betray you, at least you can run."
He let out a stream of obscenities, at least one of which lost something in the translation to English.
"Keep that up and I'll stick the sock back in." I cast the lie-detection spell. "Now start talking or I start walking."
He snarled, but, after a moment, spat out his part of the incantation.
"How can the Nix be caught?" I asked.
Another hesitation, then, "By killing the host body."
"I know that. But you did it without the sword. How?"
For at least a minute, the only sound was the grinding of his teeth, as he struggled to think of some other way out of this. Finally, he said, "By killing...and yet not killing."
"I don't do riddles."
He leaned back to look up at me. "No? Why? Because they require you to use more than your fists and your feet? Not much in that pretty head of yours, is there?"
"No. Just enough to trick you."
