You see-it's my elbow, she thought to him, knowing he couldn't hear her, but willing him to take the bait.
My elbow hurts too much; I'm distracted; the stick is no longer an extension of me. My right side is unprotected.
She was as good at it as any mother bird who pretends to have a broken wing to lure a predator away from her nest. And she could see the flash of triumph in Morgead's eyes.
That's it; don't waste time injuring me anymore ... come in for the kill.
He was doing it. He'd stopped trying to get her into a corner. With his handsome face intent, his eyes narrowed in concentration, he was maneuvering for a single decisive strike; a takedown to end the combat.
But as he raised his fighting stick to make it, Jez pulled her own stick back as if she were afraid to block, afraid of the jarring contact. This was the moment. If he caught on now, if he realized why she was positioning her stick this way, he'd never make the move she wanted him to. He'd go back to disarming her.
I'm too hurt to block properly; my arm's too weak to raise, she thought, letting her shoulders droop and her body sway tiredly. It wasn't hard to pretend. The pain in various parts of her body was real enough, and if she let herself feel it, it was very nearly disabling.
Morgead fell for it.
He made the strike she wanted; straight down. At that instant Jez slid her leading foot back, shifting just out of range. His stick whistled by her nose-missing. And then, before he could raise it again, while he was unguarded, Jez lunged. She put all the power of her body behind it, all her strength, slipping in between Morgead's arms and driving the stick to his midsection.
The air in his lungs exploded out in a harsh gasp and he doubled over.
Jez didn't hesitate. She had to finish him instantly, because in a second he would be fully recovered. By the time he was completely bent over she was already whipping her stick out and around to strike him behind the knee. Again, she put her whole weight behind the blow, following through to scoop him onto his back.
Morgead landed with a thud. Before he could move, Jez snap-kicked hard, catching his wrist and knocking his stick away. It clattered across the floor, oak on oak.
Then she held the pointed end of her own stick to his throat "Yield or die," she said breathlessly, and smiled.
Morgead glared up at her.
He was even more breathless than she was, but there was nothing like surrender in those green eyes. He was mad.
"You tricked me!"
"All's fair."
He just looked at her balefully from under the disordered hair that fell across his forehead. He was sprawled flat, long legs stretched out, arms flung to either side, with the tip of the snakewood fighting stick resting snugly in the pale hollow of his throat. He was completely at her mercy-or at least that was how it seemed.
Jez knew him better.
She knew that he never gave up, and that when he wasn't too mad to think, he was as smart as she was.
And as sneaky. Right now the helpless act was about as sincere as her wounded bird routine.
So she was ready when he threw another blast of Power at her. She saw his pupils dilate like a cat's about to pounce, and she braced herself, shifting the stick minutely to push into his collarbone as she leaned forward.
The energy smashed into her. She could almost see it now, with the sixth sense that was part of her vampire heritage. It was like the downrush of a nuclear cloud, the part that went flowing along the ground, destroying everything in its path, spreading in a circle from the point of impact. It seemed to be faintly green, the color of Morgead's eyes. And it packed quite a punch.
Jez gritted her teeth and hung on to the fighting stick, keeping it in place, letting the Power wash through her. It blew her hair back to stream in a hot wind and it seemed to last forever.
But finally it was over, and she was tingling with pain, with a metallic feeling in her teeth. And Morgead was still trapped.
He hissed at her, an amazingly reptilian sound.
"Got anything else?" Jez said, grinning down at him with narrowed eyes. Every bruise on her body hurt afresh in the aftermath of the blast-but she wasn't going to let him see that. "No? I didn't think so."
Morgead's upper lip lifted. "Drop dead, Jezebel."
Nobody was allowed to use her full name. "You first, Morgy," she suggested, and leaned harder on the stick.
The green eyes were beautifully luminous now, with sheer anger and hatred. "So kill me," he said nastily.
"Morgead-"
"It's the only way you're going to win. Otherwise I'm just going to lie here and wait to recharge. And when I've got enough Power I'll hit you again."
"You never know when it's over, do you?"
'It's never over."
Jez bit down on a rush of fury and exasperation. 'I didn't want to have to do this," she snarled, "but I will."
She didn't kill him. Instead, she hurt him.
She grabbed his wrist and locked it, with her hand holding his and her stick on top of his wrist. She could use leverage here to cause severe pain- or to break the bone.
"Give up, Morgead."
"Bite me."
"I'm going to break your wrist."
'Tine. I hope you enjoy it." He kept glaring.
Like a little kid threatening to play on the freeway, Jez thought, and suddenly, inexplicably she was almost overcome by laughter. She choked it back.
She didn't want to break his wrist. But she knew she had to. And she had to do it soon, before he regenerated enough Power to hit her again. She couldn't take another of those blasts.
"Morgead, give!" She put enough pressure on his wrist that it really hurt.
He gave her the evil eye through dark lashes.
"You're so stubborn!" Jez put on more pressure.