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“Are you a fucking doctor?” Tears streamed down his cheeks, and it was my turn for an inappropriate grin.
I ignored the word doctor without flinching. “No. But I am really, really good at hurting people. Besides, you wanted Des to ease up, didn’t you? Now he can let you go.” I gave Desmond a nod, and he released Jock.
Too bad Desmond had been the only thing keeping my attacker upright. Jock stumbled and flopped onto the path, painful grunts muffled into
the limestone. Funny how fuck still sounds the same even with a mouthful of gravel.
Desmond grabbed him by the back of his collar and propped him into a sitting position, alleviating the pressure on his knee. Dirt had smeared the tear streaks on Jock’s face, so instead of looking relatively pulled together, now he appeared to have been rolled straight out of the Vietnam War.
“Tell me what you’re doing out here.” I kept my sword down, but I didn’t think the weapon was necessary anymore as far as threats went.
Jock spit at me.
Both Desmond and Genie seemed ready to flay him alive, but I lifted one hand to stop them. He hadn’t even gotten me. The red glow around Genie’s hand had become much brighter and now covered all the way up to her wrist, but at some point she had engaged the safety on her weapon. At least she was playing it smart, like I’d hoped. I had to admit, I was curious to know what she could do with her glowy fingers, but perhaps using Jock as a guinea pig wasn’t the nicest way to find out.
“I think I asked you politely. This is me doing things the easy way. If you’d prefer we do them the hard way, we certainly can.”
“God, are you still fucking talking?” Jock groaned.
“All right, you want to do it the hard way then. Desmond, put him on his back.”
Desmond did as I asked without question, though from the way he was watching me I suspected he had one or two he might like to ask. The most predominant of which was probably, What are you going to do to him?
To be honest, I didn’t know. But I suspected Jock had information I wanted, and I would do anything within reason to get that information from him.
Once he was on his back, I stood over him, my blade pressed to his sternum. “Want to know something fun I’ve learned about the human body?”
Jock struggled against Desmond’s hold, but the werewolf was too strong for him. “I ain’t telling you a goddamn thing.”
“What I’ve learned is this,” I went on as if he hadn’t spoken. “The human body is almost perfectly symmetrical. Everything is balanced between the right and the left. So we have basically two of all our parts.” I touched my sword to his left arm, then his right. “Two arms. Two legs. Two hands. Two ears. The list goes on and on.”
“You can count to two. Good for you.”
I liked that he wasn’t afraid of me, because it made the next step that much sweeter. I lifted my sword and rammed it into his shoulder, wedging the blade in the meat of his armpit where it would hurt like hell but not do any serious damage.
He screamed like I’d cut off his balls. Which he also had two of, so I might use them to make my point further if he decided he didn’t want to listen.
“See. Now you only have one arm.”
Jock wailed, writhing around on the path like a fish plucked from the sea. My sword had gone all the way through him, keeping his upper body pinned in place, but he still managed to toss himself to and fro a fair bit.
“You bitch. You fucking bitch.” His words were garbled by a mouthful of saliva, which dribbled down his chin as he cussed at me.
“That really is your favorite thing to call me, isn’t it? Look, up until now I’ve been nice. I didn’t break your knee. I didn’t cut off your arm. But I have to draw the line at name-calling.” I glanced quickly to Genie, who was staring at me like I was someone she’d never met before. “Tell me who is responsible for this, and I’ll let you go.”
“If you let me go, I will hunt you to the end of the earth, cut off your head and rape the fucking hole, you bi—”
“Bitch. Yeah, I got it. Thanks. How about this, then? You talk, or I make sure you only have one of everything left.” I placed my foot near his crotch and toed his nuts meaningfully. “I’m pretty sure there are some things you’d like to keep paired up, yeah?”
He went still, and his eyes stopped rolling around long enough to fix me with a crazy man’s glare. Then he laughed.
God, I hated it when they laughed.
“Doesn’t matter whether you know who they are or not. Knowing won’t stop them. You can’t win this. They will find you and everyone you love, and before this night is over you’ll be wishing you let me kill you when I had the chance.”
I snorted and pulled the sword out of his arm, giving it an extra twist for good measure.
“Jock, better and scarier men than you have threatened me. Scarier women have followed through. And quite frankly, I think you’re full of shit. I think a bunch of power-starved assholes with a little magic are running around the city, and I think it’s about time someone cut them off at the knees. Now tell me where to find them.”
