Eamonn struck me as someone who would practice with an unbecoming zeal.
His smile grew broader but my eyes were drawn to the baton which he was lazily swinging in front of me. I flicked my glance outwards, trying not to become blinded to other threats but there weren’t any. It was just Eamonn and me.
“Now don’t you be worrying too much,” he said. “I’m only planning on breaking the one ankle, so you’ll still be able to ride away on that little bike of yours.”
When outnumbered or outgunned and retreat is not an option, the only thing left to do is attack. And the best defence against a long weapon like a baton is to get in close, to negate the effect and hamper them with the one thing they thought was going to put them ahead.
I launched straight in, timing it between the swipes like the kind of skipping game we used to play as kids. I knew I had to get under Eamonn’s guard and disable the arm holding the baton as fast as possible. Before it disabled me. But getting from safe distance to engagement meant passing through Eamonn’s kill zone and that was never going to be easy.
I feinted a short right to his throat. He jerked his head back automatically and I grabbed the arm holding the baton with my left hand. I ignored the baton itself, aiming to get my thumb jabbed in hard to the radial nerve that sits on top of the forearm, a couple of inches below the elbow. I nearly made it, too.
Eamonn hadn’t been expecting me to go for him there and it took him a fraction longer to react than it might have done otherwise. But not long enough. He wrenched his arm free and danced back. The baton swept round in a slashing arc and cracked against the outside of my left knee.
If I hadn’t loosened his grip slightly, or been dressed for the possibility of falling off a motorbike, at speed onto tarmac, the blow would have put me on the ground and probably in the hospital. As it was, the lessened impact was partially absorbed by the closed-cell foam padding in my leathers. It stung like hell but it didn’t do anything permanent and I didn’t go down. With barely a break in stride I slapped Eamonn’s wrist out sideways and brought the outside of my right forearm round and up hard into the side of his face.
Instinctively, he threw his head back again so I caught him on his cheekbone rather than his temple. Nevertheless, I’d put plenty into it, enough to stagger him back a pace or two. But he was tough and he’d done this kind of work before. He shook his head to clear it. His smile grew colder and wider.
“Oh ho, so you’ve got some fire in your belly, have you?” he murmured. “Well, OK then, if you insist. Both ankles . . .”
He darted forwards then, letting off another whistling blow towards my upper body this time. I went forwards to meet him, blocking so the baton cannoned off the protective padding in the sleeve of my jacket. It jarred me to the bone without severe damage, but I was on the defensive and I knew it was only a matter of time before he got lucky.
And then the drive alarm went off. Jacob had an old fire alarm bell attached to the outside of the house so he could hear it if he was in the workshop and it was loud enough to make both of us jump.
We whipped round. Eamonn reversed the baton and twisted it shut in one flowing move. He dropped the weapon back into his inside pocket like a magician’s sleight of hand. He was barely out of breath.
A black Mitsubishi Shogun rumbled quickly onto the forecourt and pulled up facing us, sharply enough to set its soft suspension rocking.
Isobel hurried out of the house with Jamie tailing along behind her. She glanced at me briefly, her eyebrows raised as though she was surprised to see me still on my feet.
Sean Meyer came out of the Shogun without seeming in any particular rush but that cool flat gaze was everywhere. He took in Eamonn’s apparently relaxed stance and wasn’t fooled for a
His smile grew broader but my eyes were drawn to the baton which he was lazily swinging in front of me. I flicked my glance outwards, trying not to become blinded to other threats but there weren’t any. It was just Eamonn and me.
“Now don’t you be worrying too much,” he said. “I’m only planning on breaking the one ankle, so you’ll still be able to ride away on that little bike of yours.”
When outnumbered or outgunned and retreat is not an option, the only thing left to do is attack. And the best defence against a long weapon like a baton is to get in close, to negate the effect and hamper them with the one thing they thought was going to put them ahead.
I launched straight in, timing it between the swipes like the kind of skipping game we used to play as kids. I knew I had to get under Eamonn’s guard and disable the arm holding the baton as fast as possible. Before it disabled me. But getting from safe distance to engagement meant passing through Eamonn’s kill zone and that was never going to be easy.
I feinted a short right to his throat. He jerked his head back automatically and I grabbed the arm holding the baton with my left hand. I ignored the baton itself, aiming to get my thumb jabbed in hard to the radial nerve that sits on top of the forearm, a couple of inches below the elbow. I nearly made it, too.
Eamonn hadn’t been expecting me to go for him there and it took him a fraction longer to react than it might have done otherwise. But not long enough. He wrenched his arm free and danced back. The baton swept round in a slashing arc and cracked against the outside of my left knee.
If I hadn’t loosened his grip slightly, or been dressed for the possibility of falling off a motorbike, at speed onto tarmac, the blow would have put me on the ground and probably in the hospital. As it was, the lessened impact was partially absorbed by the closed-cell foam padding in my leathers. It stung like hell but it didn’t do anything permanent and I didn’t go down. With barely a break in stride I slapped Eamonn’s wrist out sideways and brought the outside of my right forearm round and up hard into the side of his face.
Instinctively, he threw his head back again so I caught him on his cheekbone rather than his temple. Nevertheless, I’d put plenty into it, enough to stagger him back a pace or two. But he was tough and he’d done this kind of work before. He shook his head to clear it. His smile grew colder and wider.
“Oh ho, so you’ve got some fire in your belly, have you?” he murmured. “Well, OK then, if you insist. Both ankles . . .”
He darted forwards then, letting off another whistling blow towards my upper body this time. I went forwards to meet him, blocking so the baton cannoned off the protective padding in the sleeve of my jacket. It jarred me to the bone without severe damage, but I was on the defensive and I knew it was only a matter of time before he got lucky.
And then the drive alarm went off. Jacob had an old fire alarm bell attached to the outside of the house so he could hear it if he was in the workshop and it was loud enough to make both of us jump.
We whipped round. Eamonn reversed the baton and twisted it shut in one flowing move. He dropped the weapon back into his inside pocket like a magician’s sleight of hand. He was barely out of breath.
A black Mitsubishi Shogun rumbled quickly onto the forecourt and pulled up facing us, sharply enough to set its soft suspension rocking.
Isobel hurried out of the house with Jamie tailing along behind her. She glanced at me briefly, her eyebrows raised as though she was surprised to see me still on my feet.
Sean Meyer came out of the Shogun without seeming in any particular rush but that cool flat gaze was everywhere. He took in Eamonn’s apparently relaxed stance and wasn’t fooled for a
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