The Stainless Steel Rat

It was a silent, nightmare battle. Both of us were half-dazed from my drop, yet we knew it was life we were battling for. I couldn't stand because of my bruised leg and he was instantly on top of me, heavier and stronger. He couldn't use the arm I had landed on, but it took all the strength of both my arms to hold away the menacing blade. There was no sound other than our hoarse panting.

This assassin was going to win as weight and remorseless strength brought the knife down. Sweat almost blinded me, but I could still see well enough to notice the twisted way his other arm hung. I had broken a bone when I hit—yet he had never made a sound.

There is no such thing as fair fighting when you are struggling for your life. Isquirmedmy leg out from under him and managed to bend it enough to dig the knee into his broken arm. His whole body shuddered. I did it again.Harder.He twisted, trying to pull away from the pain. I heaved sideways, throwing him off balance. His elbow bent as be tried to save himself from falling and I put all my strength in both hands turning that sinewy wrist and driving the hand backwards.

It almost worked, but he was still stronger than I was and the point of the blade merely scratched his chest. Even as I was fighting to turn the hand again he shuddered and died.

A ruse would not have tricked me—but this was no ruse. I felt every muscle in his body tighten rock-bard in a spasm as he fell sideways. My grip on his wrist didn't lessen until the light came on in the room behind me. Only then did I see the ugly yellow stain halfway up the blade of the knife.A quick-acting nerve poison, silent and deadly.There, on the sleeve of my shirt, was a thin yellow mark where the blade had brushed me. I knew these poisons didn't need apuncture,they could work just as well on the naked skin.

With infinite caution, struggling against the fatigue that wanted my hands to shake, I peeled my shirt slowly off. Only when it had been buried on top of the corpse did I let myself drop backwards, gasping for air.

My leg could work now, though it hurt hideously. It must have been bruised but not broken since it supported my weight. Turning, I stumbled to the high window and threw it open. Light streamed out on the body behind me. Angelina was sitting up in bed, her face smooth and her hands folded on the covers in front of her.Only her eyes showing any awareness of what had happened.

"Dead," I said with a dry throat, and spat to clear it. "Killed byhis ownpoison." I slumped into the room, testing my leg.

"I was sleeping, I didn't hear him open the window," she said. "Thank you."

Actress, liar, cheat, murderess.She had played a hundred roles in countless voices. Yet when she said those final words there was a ring of unforged feeling to them. This murder attempt had come too soon after the earlier traumatic scene. Her defenses were still down, her real emotions showing.

Her hair hung to her shoulders, brushing the single ribbons of her nightgown, which was made of some thin and soft fabric; intimate. This sight, on top of the events of the evening, removed any reserve I might have had. I was kneeling by the bed, holding her shoulders and staring deep into her eyes, trying to reach what lay behind them. The locket with the broken chain lay on the bedside table. I grabbed it in my fist.

"Don't you realize this girl doesn't exist except in your memory," I said, and Angelina didn't move. "It's past like everything else. You were a baby—now you're a woman. You were a little girl—now you're a woman. You may have been this girl—but you are not any more!"

With a convulsive movement I turned and hurled the thing out of the window into the darkness.

"You're none of those things of the past, Angelina!" I said withan intensitylouder than a shout. "You are yourself… just yourself!"

I kissed her then and there was no trace of the pushing away or rejection there had been before. As I needed her, she needed me.

Chapter 18

Dawn was just touching the sky when I brought the assassin's body in to the Count. I was deprived of the pleasure of waking him since the sergeant of the guard had already done this when the roof sentry had been discovered. The guard was dead too, from a tiny puncture of the same poison-tipped blade. The guardsmen and the Count were all gathered around the body on the floor of the Count's sitting room and chattering away about this mystery, the inexplicable death of the sentry. They didn't see me until I dropped my corpse down by the otherone,and they all jumped back.

"Here's the killer," I told them, not without a certain amount of pride. Count Cassitor must have recognized the thug because he gave a shuddering start and popped his eyes.No doubt an ex-relative, brother-in-law or something.I imagined he hadn't believed that the Radebrechen family would really go through with their threats of revenge.