Morganville - 10 - Bite Club (7 page)

"It's a lunging weapon," she said. "Hang on, let's get you suited up before you start attacking anything."

Suiting up sounded much less complicated than it actually was; by the time Eve had finished dressing her like a sword-bearing doll, Claire felt clumsy, hot, and claustrophobic. Between the thick padding and the tight mesh helmet, she had no idea how she was supposed to move, much less fight.

Eve had her own fencing suit, which she took out of a cheerful, skull-featuring bag of her own. Her outfit was black, with a pirate skull and crossbones where the heart would be. She looked dangerous. And a little bit crazy, even without the beekeeper helmet.

"Okay," she said. "First fighting lesson is, we don't fight, so stop pointing that foil at me. It's not going to go off."

Claire blushed and dropped the point down toward her toes. "Sorry."

"No worries. You couldn't hit me, anyway," Eve said, and smiled. "I'm going to line up next to you. Just do what I do, okay?"

The first thing, apparently, was how to grip the sword properly. That took a while.

Then there was lunging, which involved stabbing the sword out in a smooth, straight line while stepping out on her right leg in a deep crouch.

It hurt. A lot. In fact, after about ten of those, Claire was gasping for breath and sweating; in about fifteen, she was ready to cry. Eve stopped after twenty, but it seemed like she could have gone all day.

"I had to put all this on for that ?" Claire muttered, as she pulled off her helmet. Her hair was soaked with sweat and sticking to her face. "Seriously? Nobody even waved a sword at me!"

"You have to get used to the weight and moving in it," Eve said. "Suck it up, newbie."

"You're enjoying this."

"Yeah, well, a lot. I had to do it. You should, too." Eve winked. She moved off to a padded pole that had a red circle marked on it, and practiced some lunges on her own.

Her sword point landed in the circle every time.

Claire spun around at the dry sound of hands clapping. She hadn't heard anybody come into the room, but there he was, dressed in white fencing gear, with a sword in one hand and his helmet tucked under his arm. Oliver. He looked leaner and harder in the uniform.

Next to him, also dressed in white, was another figure. Amelie. The Founder of Morganville had never seemed so small before; the clothes she wore tended to enhance her height, as did the high heels. But like this, Claire realized that Amelie wasn't much taller than she was, and was very slender. In the fencing clothes, she could have passed for a boy, except for the feminine curves of her face.

"You're coming along, Eve," Amelie said. Eve broke off her lunges and stood very straight, sword point down. "I remember when you first began your lessons. I had to give personal approval for anyone who practiced those types of martial arts."

"Yeah, well, it's been a while since I was competitive," Eve said. "Hey, Ollie."

"For that," Oliver said, "you may step onto the piste."

"I didn't come to fight."

"You're dressed for it. What is that -- a foil? Nonsense. You're more suited to an epee." Oliver snorted and took another weapon from the wall, which he threw in Eve's direction. She grabbed it out of the air with her left hand. It had a deadlier look to it, Claire realized; more like a triangular blade than the square base of the foil. Still had a tip on it, but it looked like a tougher thing to master.

Eve shrugged and tossed the foil back to Oliver, who put it on the rack. "All right,"

she said, and cut the weapon -- the epee -- through the air with a hissing sound. "Your funeral, dude."

Oliver bared his teeth in a grim smile and put on his helmet. "I doubt it," he said.

Eve put on her helmet, too, and stepped into the narrow path marked on the floor.

Claire moved back to stand by Amelie, who watched with an intense, focused expression on her pale face. As Eve and Oliver raised their swords in salute, she nodded and said, "Go."

It was literally over in seconds. Claire was used to the kind of fighting from the movies -- long, clanging duels with lots of moving around and occasional cape swirling. This was fast and incredibly deadly. She didn't even see what happened, only that there was a blur of motion, some metallic clangs that came too fast to register, and suddenly Eve was standing there with Oliver's sword tip tenting the fabric of her pirate-skull emblem, right over her heart. "Well, crap," Eve said, and took a step back. "No fair using vampy speed."

"I'm not," he said. "I don't need to. Fencing was a survival skill in my day. Again?"

"Sure." Eve backed up to the far end of the marked-off strip -- the piste? -- and settled into a low crouch that somehow didn't look at all awkward.

"Go," Amelie said, and there was another blur of motion. This time, Claire made out a couple of things -- one, that Eve seemed to lunge for Oliver's chest and then dropped way down, and her point took him in the lunging leg. His slid over her shoulder. Eve hit the ground and rolled up to her feet, raising her epee in triumph.

"Dude, gotcha !" she said. "Mortal wound, right there. Femoral artery. You are so dead ."

He didn't respond at all, just walked back to his spot on the other side of the strip.

"Seriously? You can't walk away with a tie?" Eve asked. She'd pulled off her helmet, and her black eyes were wicked bright. "Can't we all just get along?"

"Fence," he barked. "Don't talk."

Eve popped her helmet back on and took her place on the strip. Amelie drew in a breath, and instead of giving the signal, said, "Oliver, perhaps you should let it go."

His helmeted face turned toward her, as if he couldn't believe she'd said it, and then focused back on Eve, who was taking the engarde stance. "Start us," he said. "Two out of three."

"He doesn't like to lose," Amelie said to Claire, and shrugged. "Very well. Go!"

Claire focused, and managed to see exactly what happened this time. Oliver lunged.

Eve parried, but he was ready for it, and got his blade back in line by knocking hers out of line. She tried for another thigh wound, but that didn't work this time.

Oliver slammed the point of his epee into her chest so powerfully, it drove her back a step and made her drop her sword.

"Oliver!" Amelie snapped, and he backed off. Eve staggered backward, lost her footing, and fell on her butt. Her epee clattered away across the floor as she put both hands to her chest, then reached up to rip her helmet off. Her face had gone chalk white, and her eyes were huge.

"Ow," she said. "Damn. That's going to leave a mark."

Oliver walked away, circling restlessly, turning his epee around and around in his gloved hand. "You asked for it," he said. "Now get off the piste if you're going to complain about a bruise."

Eve slowly rolled up to her knees, collected her helmet and sword, and stood up. She didn't seem too steady.

"Help her out," Amelie said. "Make sure she's not broken a rib. Oliver, that was unnecessary."

"What was unnecessary was her gloating," he replied. "I didn't come here to fight children, and she needs to learn the same harsh lesson I did: taunting those who are stronger has consequences."

"The stronger have a responsibility to the weaker," Amelie said. "As you very well know."

"I've had quite enough responsibility. And I thought we came here to fight, woman.

If all you want is to hold philosophical discussions while attractively dressed, surely we can do that elsewhere."

Eve looked better now, with the color coming back to her face -- coming back too fast for Claire's comfort, because there was an angry, frightened glitter in her eyes.

"Bully," she muttered.

Oliver took off his helmet and stared at her. He looked as solid as bone, and like someone nobody wanted to mess with. "I don't allow people to mock me," he said.

"And the next time you presume to call me by a pet name, I'll do worse than crack a rib for you on the piste. Now get out of the way. The adults require space."

Amelie cocked her head to one side, studying him, and said, "I'm bored with all these rules. Shall we dispense with the conventions, then?"

"By all means," Oliver said, and tossed his helmet into the corner. She put hers safely out of the way.

"Weapons?"

"I prefer the epee," she said. "Two of them."

"Ah. Florentine. That suits me well enough."

They each took two swords, and as Claire and Eve retreated back to a bench in the rear of the room, Amelie and Oliver faced off. Amelie crossed her two swords in front of her face, and Oliver followed suit; the sound of four blades cutting the air in salute made Claire shiver. "What are they doing?" she whispered.

"Free fighting," Eve answered, keeping it quiet. "No rules. More like the old-style duels."

"Not quite," Amelie said. She was almost smiling. "This likely won't end in death."

"But no guarantees," Oliver said. He was smiling, and not his usual eviler-than-you sort of twisted lips, either. He almost looked happy. "Ready?"

"Of course." Amelie didn't seem to be; she was holding her swords down, almost not seeming to know what to do with them.

Oliver took one step toward her, and the weapons snapped up and targeted him so fast, Claire blinked.

Oliver raised one over his head in a pose that made her think of a scorpion's stinger, and circled to the right. Amelie circled, too, keeping the distance between them...until suddenly she was moving, two light, quick steps, a sudden jump that ended in a sliding lunge, and both her epees hit targets, one slicing across Oliver's leg, the other under his arm. He whirled and hit her in the back with an underhand stroke -- or tried to. She must have known it was coming, because she bent forward, graceful as a willow, and rolled up on her knee to parry the next lunge.

And that was just the start.

"You know," Eve said distantly, about five minutes later, as the two vampires were still circling, slashing, hacking, and scoring points on each other, "I'm thinking that maybe I shouldn't ever piss him off. Or her. Again."

"You think?" Claire whispered back. "Jeez. It's like The Terminator meets Buffy. "

"How do they decide who wins? I mean, clearly, they're hitting each other, but they don't even pretend those are going to hurt...."

"I don't think it matters," Claire said.

She was proven right just thirty seconds later, when Amelie reached down and tapped the point of one epee three times on the floor. Oliver, moving in for a lunge, veered off at the last second and went to a neutral position.

"Done?" he asked.

"Most enjoyable," she said. "Thirty-two mortal touches for you; thirty-one for me.

But I don't mind losing to a master, Oliver." She bowed slightly, swords down.

He bowed back, a little more deeply. "Nor do I," he said. "But winning is always better. You're favoring your right again, you know."

"I noticed. We can't all overcome nature's disadvantages so easily."

They exchanged a smile, a real one, and Claire exchanged a look with Eve. Eve cleared her throat.

"Are you still here?" Oliver asked without changing his expression. He didn't look away from Amelie.

"Leave."

"Right," Claire said. "Going."

She picked up Eve's stuff and walked with her to one of the small changing rooms to strip off the sweat-damp uniforms. Eve stuffed hers into the bag and stripped off her pink shirt. Claire gasped at the forming bruise, which was at least three inches across and looked very painful.

"Dammit," Eve said. "That's going to show over my bra. Got to rethink the wardrobe for the next few days." She probed at the bruise with a fingertip and winced.

"Nothing broken, just a nice reminder not to screw around with Ollie on the pointy-object dance floor."

"I can't believe you fought him."

"Fought him? Damn, girlfriend, I got a touch on him. You know how difficult that is?

I've been a serious fencer for years, but I never even got close to a touch on anybody without a pulse. He used to duel for real, you know. Without the safety tips on the blades."

Claire could believe it. What she couldn't get her head around was that Eve thought that was cool.

Maybe, she thought, fencing isn't my sport after all.

FOUR

M
ichael was home when they arrived, and surprisingly, he wasn't playing guitar.

He was sitting on the couch in Shane's customary spot, playing a game. "Hey," he said as Claire and Eve entered.

"Nobody made dinner."

"Nobody but you was home to eat it," Eve said. "And I'm taking a wild guess that you didn't make it, either."

"Nope." He killed a zombie with a chainsaw, and ducked instinctively as another one lunged at him out of the shadows on the screen. "Guess we're all going to bed hungry, like the bad children we are."

"Guess not." Eve winked at Claire, who held up a grease-stained bag. "Seriously, you couldn't smell the burgers? Is your vampire nose on the fritz, Michael?"

"I was hoping I was imagining the burgers."

"Shut up. I got you one made extra rare. With pickles. I know you like pickles."

Michael paused the game and put the controller aside, and as he stood up, the door opened and Shane came in. He nodded to Michael as he dropped his canvas bag in the hallway, next to Eve's. "Who got burgers?"

"See, he can smell the burgers!" Eve yelled from the kitchen.

Michael ignored that. "You guys go to the gym?"

"Yeah," Shane said. "The martial arts guy is pretty hard-core."

"I got a bruise!" Eve shouted. "Big one! Right over my heart! Guess who put it there?"

Michael raised his eyebrows at Shane, who held up his hands. "Not me, man. I never touched her."

"Oliver!" Eve backed out of the kitchen door, holding plates, balancing them like a pro. "Michael, here's your almost-cooked one. Shane, got you the jalapeno burger.

Me and Claire have plain old boring ones."

"We're branching out into different forms of junk food," Michael said. "Exciting."

"Shut up. Do you want your juice warmed up?" Juice, Claire figured, was Eve's new code for blood.