"Because it doesn't work that way!" Morgead was pacing now, tossing hair out of his eyes again as he turned to glare at her. "Blood in, blood out. Since you're apparently not dead, you abandoned us. You're not allowed to do that! And you certainly can't expect to just walk back in and become my second again-"
"I don't!" Jez yelled. She had to shut him up. "I have no intention of becoming your second-in-command!" she said when he finally paused. "I came to challenge you as leader."
Morgead's jaw dropped.
Jez let her breath out. That wasn't exactly how she'd planned to say it. But now, seeing his shock, she felt more in control. She leaned casually against the wall, smiled at him, and said smoothly, 'I was leader when I left, remember."
"You... have got to be ... joking." Morgead stared at her. "You expect to waltz back in here as leader?"
"If I can beat you. I think I can. I did it once."
He stared for another minute, seeming beyond words. Then he threw back his head and laughed.
It was a scary sound.
When he looked at her again, his eyes were bright and hard. "Yeah, you did. I've gotten better since then."
Jez said three words. "So have I."
And with that, everything changed. Morgead shifted position-only slightly, but he was now in a fighting stance. Jez felt adrenaline flow through her own body. The challenge had been issued and accepted;
there was nothing more to say. They were now facing each other ready to fight.
And this she could deal with. She was much better at fighting than at playing with words. She knew Morgead in this mood; his pride and his skill had been questioned and he was now absolutely determined to win. This was very familiar.
Without taking his eyes from her, he reached out and picked a fighting stick from the rack behind him.
Japanese oak, Jez noted. Heavy, well-seasoned, resilient. Good choice.
The fire-hardened end was very pointy.
He wouldn't try to use that first, though. First, he would go for disarming her. The simplest way to do this was to break the wrist of her dominant hand. After that he'd go for critical points and nerve centers. He didn't play around at this.
A minute change in Morgead's posture alerted her, and then they were both moving.
He swung his stick up and down in a perfect arc, aiming for her right wrist. Jez blocked easily with her own stick and felt the shock as wood clashed with wood. She instantly changed her grip and tried for a trap, but he whipped his stick out of the way and was facing her again as if he'd never moved in the first place.
He smiled at her.
He's right. He's gotten better. A small chill went through Jez, and for the first time she worried about her ability to beat him.
Because I have to do it without killing him, she thought. She wasn't at all sure he had the same concern about not killing her.
"You're so predictable, Morgead," she told him. "I could fight you in my sleep." She feinted toward his wrist and then tried to sweep his legs out from underneath him.
He blocked and tried for a trap. "Oh, yeah? And you hit like a four-year-old. You couldn't take me down if I stood here and let you."
They circled each other warily.
The snakewood stick was warm in Jez's hands. It was funny, some distant part of her mind thought irrelevantly, how the most humble and lowly of human weapons was the most dangerous to vampires.
But it was also the most versatile weapon in the world. With a stick, unlike a knife or gun or sword, you could fine-tune the degree of pain and injury you caused. You could disarm and control attackers, and-if the circumstances required it-you could inflict pain without permanently injuring them.
Of course if they were vampires, you could also kill them, which you couldn't do with a knife or gun.
Only wood could stop the vampire heart permanently, which was why the fighting stick was the weapon of choice for vampires who wanted to hurt each other... and for vampire hunters.
Jez grinned at Morgead, knowing it was not a particularly nice smile.
Her feet whispered across the worn oak boards of the floor. She and Morgead had practiced here countless times, measuring themselves against each other, training themselves to be the best. And it had worked. They were both masters of this most deadly weapon.
But no fight had ever mattered as much as this one.
"Next you're going to try for a head strike," she informed Morgead coolly. "Because you always do."
"You think you know everything. But you don't know me anymore. I've changed," he told her, just as calmly-and went for a head strike.
"Psyche," he said as she blocked it and wood clashed with a sharp whack.
"Wrong." Jez twisted her stick sharply, got leverage on his, and whipped it down, holding it against his upper thighs. "Trap." She grinned into his face.
And was startled for a moment. She hadn't been this close to him in a long time. His eyes-they were so green, gem-colored, and full of strange light.
For just an instant neither of them moved; then-weapons down, their gazes connected. Their faces were so close their breath mingled.
Then Morgead slipped out of the trap. "Don't try that stuff," he said nastily.
"What stuff?" The moment her stick was free of his, she snapped it up again, reversing her grip and thrusting toward his eyes.
"You know what stuff!" He deflected her thrust with unnecessary force. "That I'm Jez and I'm so wild and beautiful' stuff. That 'Why don't you just drop your stick and let me hit you because it'll be fun' stuff."
"Morgead... what are you... talking about?" In between the words she attacked, a strike to his throat and then one to his temple. He blocked and evaded-which was just what she wanted. Evasion. Retreat.