“Are you kidding?” said Molly. “I grew up with Isabella and Louise! And I am just in the mood to hit someone. . . .”
“Never knew you when you weren’t,” I said.
Molly beamed at me. “Nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
And together we went forward to face the Security goons, and something in the way we held ourselves, and something in our smiles, slowed them down for just a moment. Which was all we needed.
I put aside my usual practised fighting skills; they needed my armour’s strength and speed to back them up. Instead, I fell back upon the basic scrapping skills drilled into me from a very early age by the family Sarjeant-at-Arms. As children, we weren’t allowed to use our armour against him in the practise ring; he shut down our torcs and made us fight barehanded. We all learned to defend ourselves quickly, because it was either that or get the crap knocked out of us on a regular basis. No use complaining to the family—they just said it built character. They said that about a lot of things I hated, but there was no denying the Sarjeant-at-Arms taught us how to fight. It was all that kept us out of the family hospital.
Remember: nuts and noses, hit their soft parts with your hard parts, and whenever possible trick an enemy into using his own strength against him. And never hit a man when he’s down; put the boot in. It’s safer, and more efficient. I could hear the Sarjeant-at-Arm’s voice in my head as I went to meet my enemy. That horrid, implacable voice.
I ducked the first goon’s punch, and used the second goon’s overextended blow to throw him over my shoulder. I tripped a third, and took the fourth’s blow on my shoulder. It hurt like hell. I wasn’t used to taking punches any more. I let the pain drive me on. I grabbed the fourth goon by the lapels of his tuxedo, pulled him forward, and head-butted him in the face. He cried out as his nose broke, and blood splashed across my face. I threw him away from me, ducked a punch from the fifth goon, kept moving, grabbed up a tall potted plant, and threw it at the sixth goon. He caught it automatically, and I lunged forward and sucker-punched him in the throat through the foliage. He fell backwards with the plant on top of him, making horrible choking noises.
Fists hit me from every direction, hitting hard, and it was all I could do to keep moving, and try to take the blows in places that wouldn’t put me down. The pain took my breath away, but I kept bobbing and weaving, ducking some punches and doing my best to block the rest. I caught one overextended hand in mine, twisted the man around, and threw him face first into the wall. He hit hard, and slumped to the floor, twitching. A really big goon lunged at me with both arms outstretched, his hands going for my throat. I let him come forward, let his hands fasten around my throat, and then kneed him in the groin with great thoroughness. His breath shot out of his mouth, his grip loosened, and his head lowered. I rabbit-punched him on the back of the neck, just to be sure, and he was unconscious before he hit the floor. Another goon grabbed me from behind; two huge arms closing around me, forcing the breath from my lungs. I stamped hard on his left foot, and felt the bones break in his toes. He cried out in pain and outrage, but his grip didn’t loosen. So I stamped down hard again, grinding the broken toes under my heel, and this time his grip loosened enough for me to surge forward and then back, slamming the back of my head into his face. I felt warm blood splash across the back of my neck. I broke his hold, and spun round to see blood gushing from his smashed mouth. It made me feel good. I hit him hard, just under the sternum, and all the colour went out of his face as my fist compressed his heart. He fell to the floor, and curled into a ball.
The one remaining goon on his feet decided he wanted to box, his huge fists held out before him. He looked like he’d done it before, so I decided I wasn’t going to play. I took off one of my shoes, and threw it in his face. And while he was distracted, I kicked him good and hard in the nuts with the foot that still had a shoe on it. He bent right over, as though bowing to me, and I viciously back-elbowed him in the kidneys till he went down.
The trouble with being big and strong is that you often don’t feel the need to learn how to fight. You just assume that being the biggest man in the room automatically makes you the winner. Well, no, not if you’re up against someone who’s been trained by a family who’ve spent centuries refining the art of fighting dirty. And, if you are someone who has learned how to take on the Drood Sarjeant-at-Arms and walk away reasonably intact, nothing is ever going to frighten you again.
I stood for a moment, bent half over, struggling to get my breathing back under control. It felt surprisingly good, to know for a fact that I wasn’t dependent on my armour to get things done. Nothing like proving to yourself that you can still hold up your end of a ruck to raise the old self-esteem. It’s the man, not the armour. The family always tells us that, but we never really believe it until we find out the hard way.
I put my shoe back on, and then looked around for Molly. Five unconscious and somewhat bloody Security goons were piled up in one corner of the lobby, and Molly was stabbing two stiff fingers into the eyes of the sixth. He screamed briefly, and put both hands up to protect his face. Molly kicked the goon hard enough in the left knee to dislodge the knee-cap, and he fell to the floor, still screaming. Molly kicked him really hard in the head, and he stopped screaming. Molly smiled sweetly, and looked round to see how I was doing.
We moved slowly and just a bit painfully towards each other. She saw the blood on my face, and I quickly raised a hand to assure her it wasn’t mine. We stood together, face to face, not leaning on each other because we didn’t want to appear weak in the face of so many potential enemies. We smiled at each other, as we learned to breathe more deliberately, and our heart-beats fell back to something closer to normal. And then we both turned to look at the concierge behind his desk.
We smiled at him, just daring him to try to run. And then we walked back to the desk, taking our time, while he stared at us with wide, frightened eyes. I stood before the concierge, took out my Colt Repeater, and placed the long barrel right between his eyes. The concierge went even paler, and made a high whimpering noise.
“Check the reservations again,” I said. “Perhaps there’s been an error.”
“An error! Yes, of course, sir and madam! Ha-ha!” said the concierge, smiling desperately. “Here are your names: Shaman Bond and Molly Metcalf! They were here all along—please don’t shoot me.”
“You didn’t even look,” said Molly.
“You are very definitely booked into this hotel!” said the concierge. “Here is your electronic door key. Do please enjoy your stay.”
“We’d better,” I said.
I stepped back, and made the Colt disappear back into its holster, while the concierge gestured urgently for the baggage boys. A dozen or so quickly gathered up our suitcases between them and headed smartly for the escalators. Molly sniffed loudly.
“They’d better not all be expecting a tip.”
“I’ve got a tip for them,” I said. “But they probably wouldn’t want to hear it.”
Molly looked at me thoughtfully. “How much money have you got on you, sweetie? I mean, actual cash? We’re in France . . . they have Euros. I haven’t got any Euros. Have you?”
“Now that you mention it, no. A field agent usually receives a wodge of local cash along with his legend, but this all happened in a bit of a hurry. Can’t you just conjure some up?”
“Not the kind of bank-notes that will fool Casino Security, no!”
I looked around for Frankie, who was still lurking by the newsstand, and he hurried over to join us, smiling shamefacedly.