Vendetta (8 page)

I was right. She can read his mind. His intentions. "You are not going to
damn
yourself for me," I tell him, voic
e growing louder.

"It's not your choice to make," Mara says calmly. "It's his. And you're right. It's foolish."

"Seth, promise me that . . ."

"I'm not promising anything!" he says, eyes flashing, infuriated for having been exposed. "You made your choice. Y
ou chose to help us. If it comes down to my soul or your life, I'm choosing you. I failed you once, Genesis. I'm not going to fail you again."

"You haven't failed me!"

The angry flush of his face deepens, the vein in his neck pulsing. "I left when you need
ed me most!"

"It doesn't matter anymore!"

"It matters to me!"

"I am
nothing!
" I counter, voice wild and shaking, furious at him for even considering . . .

His arm swings wide, sweeping over the console table in the entryway, sending a glass bowl
full of marbles soaring.

"You are
everything!
"

The vase hits the leg of the end table, shattering, and the shimmery blue droplets crash to the floor, mingling with shards of glass.

"This is insane," Mara mutters. She presses her fingers into the bridge o
f her nose, eyes closing. "And a little melodramatic for my taste, but I'm in no position to judge you, am I? Consider this a friendly warning," she goes on, gaze flitting back and forth between us. "If the Council finds out how serious the two of you are
about each other, you're
both
as good as damned. Which brings me to the real reason I'm here."

"Which is?" I ask, struggling to even my shortened breaths.

"Making sure
you
don't die."

N
INE

"First and foremost, never get closer to a
Diabol
than you must. They're unnaturally strong. Not impossible to fight off, but they have an intrinsic, brute strength. Any blow you can inflict from a distance is a good thing."

Mara re-appeared the following morning. She moved in like some sort of drill serg
eant, yanking me out of bed and forcing Seth and Joshua to move furniture. The living room has been transformed. The couch, coffee table, and end tables are pushed to the walls, giving us more floor space. Mara's next request was a thick slab of wood, now
propped against a wall on the other side of the room.  

"Knife throwing is a combat skill," she goes on. "If you can throw a knife accurately, you'll always have the advantage. The challenge comes in hitting your target's center. This isn't a problem for
your average human rapist or mugger or murderer. Aim for any of the major arteries, and they'll bleed out in minutes. Demons are more complicated. An injury that would mortally wound a human might set a demon back, but it won't kill him. At worst, he has t
o find a new host body. Seth was right, to an extent.
Diabols
are driven largely by malice. They're programmed to inflict evil, so we're going to concentrate on the throat. Seth?" she calls.

Seth and Joshua are camped on the couch, watching. He rises, movi
ng toward us.

"Please. By the board."

"If you think I'm going to be her living target, you're kidding yourself."

She tosses a contemptuous glance in my direction. "Then you have more confidence in her than I."

"The girl is tough, Mara. Trust me."

I swallo
w back a smile as Seth positions himself in front of the piece of wood.

"Get as close as you can. I'm going to outline you."

She removes a thick, permanent marker from the pocket of her yoga pants, and follows the curves of Seth's body. His head. Arms. Le
gs.

"You have a five to six-inch window when you're aiming for the throat." She draws a circle around it. Like I don't know where a person's throat is located. "If we can get you throwing consistently, the other centers are nothing."

Mara heads to the silv
erware drawer. She grabs a handful of knives and tosses them toward me. They clink against each other, clattering at my feet.

"Butter knives? What are butter knives going to do? I have this." I lift the leg
of my workout pants, revealing the sheath strapped to my leg. I remove the dagger, passing it to Mara.

"It's long enough. It's heavy enough. It feels balanced," she eyes the thin, steely blade. The serrated edge. "The problem will be the handle. If you're
throwing this, the handle will not hold up long term. Keep it on you for protection, but I'll secure a different set of knives—ones that are a single, solid piece. Meant for throwing. 

"Fine. I still don't understand what butter knives are going to do."

"Have you ever thrown a knife before?" she asks me.

"On purpose? No."

Mara plucks one off the floor. She steps back, cocking her arm. In one fluid motion the knife sails from her fingers, landing in the middle of the outline of Seth's chest.        

"That
hurt," Joshua mumbles.

"Wow. Okay." I pick up one of the knives and curl my fingers around it, feeling its weight in my hand, and throw. It hits the board with a clang and falls to the floor. I bite into my lower lip, frowning, reaching for another. No lu
ck.

"Are you left-handed or right-handed?" Mara asks.

"Right."

"We'll start there, but you'll learn to throw with both hands."

She picks up another butter knife and passes it to me. "Move closer."

I take a few steps forward, until I'm about six feet from t
he target, and try again. Nothing.

"At this distance, your knife will need half a rotation, so I want you to hold the blade in your hand."

I flip the knife over, grasping the blade.

"A death grip is not needed," she says, prying my fingers loose. "Touch li
ghtly. Pinch it between your fingers. Now hold the knife straight up, blade side facing you."

I throw again. It hits the board and bounces to the floor.

My pulse edges a degree. "I'm doing everything you say!"

"This isn't baseball, Genesis. At this range,
you're gently tossing. The further away you are from the target, the harder you'll throw and the more rotations you'll need. Right now, your goal is to lodge that knife somewhere in the board."

I pick up a new knife, pinch the blade carefully, and throw. I
t barely hits the target. I heave a sigh, feeling the frustration welling inside.

"Left foot forward," Mara says. "Try to rock into your throw. Gently."

I toss her a withering look. I rock on the balls of my feet, feeling a rhythm, studying the target. I r
elease the knife from my fingers. Another miss. 

"Don't flick your wrist," she says. "You lose all control."

I spin around to face her. "Look. I'm trying my best. How can I learn to do this if you keep criticizing me every two seconds?"

"This isn't critic
ism. This is me telling you everything you need to know to keep you from getting killed."

"You don't have to be so rude about it."

Mara looks to Seth, pushing the stray wisps of blonde hair from her face. "Can you please convey that I wasn't sent here to c
oddle her, so if she wants someone to pat her on the back and tell her how amazing she is, she's going to have to find someone else to do it?"

"Seth, can you tell Mara that I'm the last person on this planet who needs to be coddled, and if she'll give me a
chance, I'll get it?"

He passes an amused look between us, clearly not needing to deliver these messages.

I reach for the knives piled on the floor. "Stop pissing me off," I tell her.

She steps back, folds her arms across her chest. "
It's going to take practice. This isn't something you should presume to excel at overnight."

"Then stop expecting me to." I grasp a new blade in my hand and close my eyes, feeling the cool steel between my fingers. Left foot forward. Rock into it. One . .
. two . . . three. I let go. There is no clatter.

When I open my eyes the knife is slanted, poking out of the board. It didn't hit Seth's outline, but it stuck. I laugh, thrilled at the hint of progress. I bounce to the board and pull the knife from it, t
hen collect the others.

My next dozen throws are failures. My confidence slips with every miss.

"Don't flick your wrist," Mara reminds me.

I bite back the evil words poised on my lips. On my next throw, I puncture Seth's leg.

"Better. Keep in mind that t
he closer you are to the tip, the more spin you'll need. If you choke up, you'll gain more control."

I choke up on the blade, clutching it carefully. I feel the rhythm, the rhythm, the rhythm, and toss.
Hit
.

"Maybe we should've drawn
your
outline, Mara,"
I tell her. "You know, as incentive."

I toss another. Miss. And another. Miss.

"I don't get it. I'm doing the same thing every time," I mumble.

"You're flicking your wrist," Seth says from across the room.

I spin on my heel, turning to him. "Do you want to
try this? Because it's not as easy as it looks."

"Focus, Genesis," Mara snaps. "Once you have a feel for what it takes to hit the target, it becomes a matter of training your muscles to remember."

I spend the next two hours tossing knife after knife afte
r knife. There are dents from where I missed, notches where I didn't, and slivers of wood littering the floor. The side of my index finger is red from rubbing against the blade, aching and raw.

"Move back another three feet," Mara says. "The further you m
ove from your target, the more spin you'll require. If you're six to eight feet away, you need only a half spin. Throw from the blade. By nine to ten feet, you'll need a full spin. Throw from the handle. After this, you must adjust every three feet. Spin a
nd a half, two full spins, two and a half spins, et cetera."

I take a few steps back. "So now I need to throw from the handle?"

"One spin," she confirms.

I position myself correctly, find my rhythm, but discover that, with the full spin, I'm back where I s
tarted: each knife clanking to the ground.

"She will need to learn to gauge her distance from objects," Mara says. She's talking to Seth, so I continue to throw. "
Diabols
are unpredictable, but she stands a better chance if she can calculate how far they a
re and strike from a distance."

My next throw is a hit. I feel their eyes on me, watching, evaluating.

"She must be able to throw from every distance, every angle, with both arms."

"She'll get it," Seth assures her.

"You have an absurd amount of faith in
her."

I grip the handle in my fingers, concentrating on the few inches shaping the throat. I pull back . . . toss. . . .

Perfect.

A surprised smile twists my lips as I move to the target, detaching the knife jammed into the neck of the outline.

"Screw
you," I tell her.   

T
EN

In the end, though, Mara screwed me. She wove herself into my daily routine. I threw knives for hours. Steel blades puncturing the wooden board, whittling away at it until
Seth's form nearly disappeared. Until we had to bring in a new slab and I chiseled the wood out of that one, too. She had me jogging through the streets of Carter's neighborhood. An endless stretch of manicured lawns and palm trees and houses on steroids.
I spent nearly every waking hour of every day training, and, at night, I collapsed, wholly exhausted.  

"Harder, Genesis," Seth says.

I grit my teeth and right cross, punching the focus mitt with my fist. "Harder!" he demands.

I swipe a trail of sweat aw
ay from my forehead with the back of my hand. "Are you serious? I’m hitting as hard as I can."

"I'm saying if you're holding back because of me, don't. You're not going to hurt me."

"I'm
not
holding back."

"Do a left jab, right cross."

I punch the mitts,
breaths heavy.