The blacksmith part of my brain noted with disapproval that both our blades had gotten rather nicked in that last flurry of thrusts and parries. Another part, probably inherited from Dad, observed that it was certainly a lot harder to avoid being hit when you’re fighting someone who really wants to kill you, wasn’t it? And didn’t the snick of the blades sound just like in the movies? I’d have told both parts to shut up, except that they seemed to be drowning out, for now, the part that kept yelling at me to drop the sword and curl up in a little ball. Not a good plan.
Do something to distract him, I thought.
“So,” I said, backing away a little more. “While you’re trying to kill me—I say trying, because of course I plan to stop you if I can—satisfy my curiosity, will you?”
“You want to know if I killed her?” he said, stepping forward and gently brushing his blade against mine. “Well…if you really want to know…YES!”
As he shouted, he lunged, aiming for my throat. I parried easily and backed away again.
“Lucky you,” he sneered.
Lucky, my eye. Powerful lunge, well executed…but telegraphed. I’d known the answer to his question, of course, and I’d suspected he would lunge when he said it.
I managed to back up the stairs onto the stage, which was damned hard in long skirts. I resented the fact that Steele got to see where he was going when he bounded up the stairs after me.
Of course, if I’d known I’d be dueling a crazed killer, I’d have worn something more suitable than a low cut, full-skirted wench costume.
“Of course you killed her,” I said. “You must have gotten a good laugh, sitting there listening to me telling you all the reasons why Nate had to be the killer. But I was wondering why.”
“Why?” he snapped. “Isn’t it obvious?”
And again, he’d lunge on the words he wanted to emphasize. I was starting to like his fighting style. Predictable. Although I wished the monkeys overhead would stop chattering. They distracted me, and he didn’t even seem to notice.
“I mean, was it really just about the show and a bunch of comic books?”
“A bunch of comic books? Are you trying to tick me off?”
Actually I was. Make someone lose his temper and you have an advantage over him, my martial arts teacher always used to say. Of course, he wasn’t necessarily thinking of people waving yard-long sharpened broadswords.
Steele stopped for a moment, pulled his sword back, and took a breath.
“It was mine,” he said, “and she made a travesty of it.”
“You did sell her the rights, you know,” I said, as gently as I could.
“It wasn’t supposed to be a real sale,” he said. “I had these guys after me, trying to collect money I couldn’t possibly pay, and I had to disappear.”
“I figured your disappearance had something to do with the debt collectors,” I said. “Just out of curiosity, how did you get so far in debt? Your nephew thinks drugs.”
“Drugs,” he said, with a bitter laugh. “You can tell who raised him. Just what my brother would say.”
“So if it wasn’t drugs—”
“I paid for printing the last four issues of the comic,” he said.
He was getting caught up in what he was saying. Maybe if I kept him talking, he’d put down the sword, or at least give me a chance to knock it out of his hands.
“The publisher claimed he had cash-flow problems, so I borrowed the money,” he continued. “And then he disappeared, leaving me with all the bills. He never even printed the last issue.”
“The thirteenth issue,” I murmured.
“Exactly,” he said. “Tammy and I figured if we could get a bigger publisher to pick up the comics, I’d have more than enough to pay back the loan sharks. Or better yet, a movie deal. And once we had all that money, I could pay off my debts and resurface. But for the time being, I had to disappear, so I pretended to sell her the rights so she’d have legal authority to cut a deal.”
“And you didn’t have a backup plan in case she couldn’t cut the deal?”
He shook his head.
“I know it sounds stupid, but I never imagined it wouldn’t happen.”
“So you changed your name, faked your death under the old name, and waited for her to sell the comics and rescue you.”
“And she never did a damned thing,” he said. “The bitch!”
Predictably, he lunged on the last word, sending me scuttling backward again while overhead the monkeys shrieked and leaped about. Glad someone was enjoying the show. I wasn’t; this time he kept coming, testing my defenses again and again while I backed away, step by step. So much for distracting him.
“You never asked what happened?” I said.
“She never took my calls or answered my letters,” he said. “Didn’t want to admit she’d stopped trying.”
“Or maybe she didn’t want to admit she’d failed,” I said. “From what Nate says, she put a lot of work into it, over the years, but selling an idea for a movie or a TV series isn’t easy.”
“And when she sold it, look what happened. Crap. And you know what really ticked me off?”
I shook my head, and got ready, because I knew he’d strike when he snarled out whatever he was about to say.
“The credits!” he roared, and even though I was expecting it, I almost didn’t manage to parry. “She stole my creation, after thirty years she finally did something with it, and then she didn’t—even—mention—me—in the credits!”
He nicked me, once, during that mad flurry of thrusts, and I could feel a trickle of blood running down my arm. Maybe more than a trickle; I didn’t dare take the time to look too closely. I’d backed up, nearly to the edge of the stage. I was panting a little—as much from stress as exertion. Steele wasn’t. He was still feinting and slowly advancing. He didn’t really look all that winded. Just my luck to tangle with the one fifty-something at the whole convention in better shape than me.
“Maybe she thought you were dead?” I suggested, sliding to the side as I parried and parried again. His style was getting better, dammit. Fewer dramatic lunges and more constant pressure.
“She knew I wasn’t dead,” he said. “She helped me fake it.”
“That was in 1972,” I said. “You could have died for real in the thirty years since.”
“And that makes it all right to pretend I never existed?”
“Maybe she thought you wouldn’t want to be credited as Ichabod Dilley!” I suggested, “And it would spoil the whole purpose of the phony death if she credited Alaric Steele.”
“Hardly matters now,” he said. “She’s dead. And it’s her fault I had to give up my art all these years.”
“Give it up?” I asked. “You mean completely?”
“Going from one lousy job to another,” he said.
“Until you took up blacksmithing,” I suggested.
He shrugged.
“Gives me independence, I’ll say that much for it,” he said.
Maybe it was the insult to my chosen profession, but I parried his next several feints a lot more easily.
“Why didn’t you do another comic, when you saw Tammy wasn’t going to sell Porfiria?” I suggested. “Make your own deal.”
“Didn’t dare,” he said. “I had people after me, remember? What if they recognized my style?”
“I think you’re overestimating the aesthetic sensibilities of your loan sharks,” I said. “Not to mention their staying power—why would they keep chasing you after your brother paid your debts?”
“Well, I didn’t know that until yesterday,” he said. “That’s another thing she did to me…she had my address, and never passed along any messages from my brother. If I’d known he paid them off, I could have come out of hiding then.”
“So you were mad that you gave up your art all these years for nothing.”