Liam grinned wider when he saw it. “Impressive, but you haven’t seen my lance yet. Drop your trappings and I’ll show you. You can even keep a few knives on, if you’d like. Would only make it more interesting.”
He lunged forward, but I didn’t take the bait. Instead I flung the five knives in my left hand at him and whirled to avoid the blow from the ghoul behind me. With a single swipe that reverberated through my arm, I sent the blade into the ghoul’s neck with all my strength.
It came out on the other side. The ghoul’s head rotated on its axis for a moment, wide eyes fixed on mine, before it plopped to the ground. There was only one way to kill a ghoul, and that was it.
Liam yanked my silver knives out of him as if they were merely toothpicks.
“You nasty bitch, now I’m going to hurt you! Magnus has been my friend for over forty years!”
That signaled the end to the bantering. Liam came at me with incredible speed. He had no weapons except his body and his teeth, but those were formidable. Liam pounded his fists into me, and I retaliated with punishing blows. For several minutes, we just hammered at each other, knocking over every table and lamp in our path. Finally he threw me across the room, and I crashed near the unusual art piece I’d admired. When he came after me, I kicked out and knocked him backward into the display case. Then I tore the sculpture off the wall and chucked it at his head.
Liam ducked, cursing when the intricate artwork broke into pieces behind him.
“Don’t you have any bleedin’ respect for artifacts? That piece was older than I am! And how in the blazes did you get eyes like that?”
I didn’t need to look to know what he was talking about. My formerly gray gaze would now be glowing as green as Liam’s. Fighting brought out the proof of my mixed heritage that my unknown vampire father had left me.
“That bone puzzle was older than you are, huh? So you’re what, two hundred? Two fifty? You’re strong then. I’ve skewered vamps as old as seven hundred who didn’t hit as hard as you do. You’re going to be fun to kill.”
God help me, but I wasn’t kidding. There was no sport when I just staked a vampire and let my team sweep up the remains.
Liam grinned at me. “Two hundred and twenty, poppet. In pulseless years, that is. The other ones weren’t good for anything but poverty and misery. London was a sewage back then. Looks much better now.”
“Too bad you won’t be seeing it again.”
“I doubt that, poppet. You think you’ll enjoy killing me? I know I’ll love fucking you.”
“Let’s see what you’ve got,” I taunted.
He flew across the room—too swiftly for me to avoid him—and delivered a brutal blow to my head. It made light explode in my brain and would have put a normal person right into the grave. Me, I’d never been normal, so while I fought nausea, I also reacted quickly.
I went limp, letting my mouth hang open and my eyes roll back as I dropped to the ground with my throat temptingly tilted upward. Near my relaxed hand was one of the throwing knives he’d pulled from his chest. Would Liam kick me while I was down, or see how badly I was hurt?
My gamble paid off. “That’s better,” Liam muttered, and knelt next to me. He let his hands travel over my body, and then he grunted in amusement.
“Talk about an army of one. Woman’s wearing a whole bloody arsenal.”
He unzipped my pants in a businesslike manner. Probably he was going to strip me of my knives; that would be the smart thing. When he pulled my pants past my hips, however, he paused. His fingers traced over the tattoo on my hip that I’d gotten four years ago, right after I left my old life in Ohio behind for this new one.
Seizing my chance, I closed my hand over the nearby dagger and drove the knife into his heart. Liam’s shocked eyes met mine as he froze.
“I thought if the Alexander didn’t kill me, nothing would... ”
I was just about to deliver that final, fatal twist when the last piece clicked. A ship named the Alexander. He was from London, and he’d been dead about two hundred and twenty years. He had Aborigine artwork, given to him from a friend in Australia...
“Which one are you?” I asked, holding the knife still. If he moved, it would shred his heart. If he stayed motionless, it wouldn’t kill him. Yet.
“What?”
“In 1788, four convicts sailed to South Wales penal colonies on a ship named the Alexander. One escaped soon after arriving. A year later, that runaway convict returned and killed everyone but his three friends. One of them was turned into a vampire by choice, two by force. I know who you’re not, so tell me who you are.”
If it were possible, he looked even more astonished than he had when I stabbed him in the heart. “Only a few people in the world know that story.”
I gave the blade a menacing flick that edged it fractions deeper. He got the point, all right.
“Ian. I am Ian.”