93.

  Brick charged at me, the knife flashing in his hand.

  I barely ducked in time, the blade whistling past my face. I swung Grandad’s bat, and caught him in the ribs. It was only a glancing blow and the Rune didn’t activate. Brick grunted but didn’t go down. He was built of pure muscle and hate.

  Brick came at me again, slashing wildly. I stepped back, trying to keep my distance, but the room was too small. The tip of the blade grazed my arm, and I hissed in pain.

  “You think you can fuck with me?” Brick growled, his breath hot and reeking of whisky. “I’ve been fighting my whole damn life. You’re just a kid with a stick.”

  He lunged again, but this time I was ready. I sidestepped and raised the bat to bring it down on Brick’s arm, but the big man was quick. He saw the blow coming and swung his elbow round in a high arc, catching me across the cheek bone and almost knocking me out cold. My legs wobbled and I staggered backwards.

  Brick roared and tackled me, driving me into the wall. The air rushed out of my lungs, and stars danced in my vision. He drew the blade back to stab me and I grabbed his wrist. Desperately, we struggled over the blade, snarling and cursing at each other. Brick then snapped his head up, catching me in the chin and bouncing the back of my head off the wall.

  I heard the shriek of metal against carapace and for a moment Brick looked confused. I looked down and saw he had tried to drive the knife straight into my heart. I used that second of hesitation to bring my knee up. I tried to hit him in the groin but he shifted his leg, so I went for the stomach instead.

  Brick staggered back. He coughed and spat a thick wad of yellow phlegm out of his mouth. I levelled my Grandad’s bat, and we circled each other slowly. Brick grinned maniacally at me, tossing his dagger from hand to hand. He darted in, and I swung the bat at him wildly. He lurched backwards, and we continued to circle. I knew I didn't have much left in me. I was so exhausted that I was dragging my feet through the glass and crumbled masonry as I tried to keep Brick in front of me. My left leg was beginning to go numb. I had to end this quickly, but Brick seemed to be in no rush. In fact, he seemed to be enjoying himself.

  He darted at me again, blade first, and I swung the bat, trying to land the rune this time. But Brick had baited me. He had feinted forward, and I'd fallen for it. My bat swooshed in the air past his face, and then he was on me. This time, he knew I was armoured, so instead of stabbing me in the front, he tried to stab me from the back. The blade met the carapace again, but Brick wasn't taken by surprise. Instead, he grabbed me around the side of my throat, drove me forward, and tried to stab me in the back of the neck. I twisted desperately and drove my Knucks into his thigh, but even as I did, I barely felt any energy. It was enough to startle Brick for a second, and his grip loosened. I threw myself away from him. He looked down at his leg, then up at me curiously, grinning again.

  “You are full of dirty little tricks, aren't you, gutter rat?” Brick growled.

  I said nothing. Silently, I tried to charge energy into my Knucks, but there was barely a crackle. I'd overused my powers, and now the well had run dry. I was going to have to fight Brick one-on-one with no magical assistance. I swallowed and took a ragged breath, and then Brick charged at me again. He didn't come blade first this time; he was waiting for Grandad's bat. I saw him instinctively curl up his left arm like a boxer would to deflect a blow, and that was his first mistake. Just like Black John had done, he didn't realise Grandad’s bat couldn’t be blocked.

  I swung as hard as I could, but again there was only the faintest trickle of energy running through the bat. The crack should have sent Brick flying across the room, but instead, it just staggered him sideways a bit. Even as he stumbled, he lashed out with the dagger and caught me across the arm, slicing deep into my bicep. I cried out and whipped the bat at him again, but now it had just become a chunk of wood, and not a very hefty chunk of wood at that. The bat slapped against Brick’s hip, even though he shrugged the blow off, he still stumbled sideways..

  Brick was clumsy on his feet, and he couldn’t halt his momentum. The hand that held the blade punched out to the wall to catch him, while his free hand swung at me. I barely avoided the punch but didn't avoid the second one that came with the hand holding the knife. He cracked me straight across the bridge of my already damaged nose, and I went sprawling. Brick chuckled as he languidly followed my body.

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  “How the fuck did you take out Black John?” he growled. “Fucking disgrace. He should be ashamed of himself.”

  Brick tossed the dagger from hand to hand again, twirling it around and around. I pulled myself backwards, my hands scraping across the floor as I tried to get away from him. I was too terrified to turn my back on him and crawl. My legs felt like they had no strength left in them. My head was still spinning, blood pounded in my ears, and my face felt like it was on fire. I could already feel my cheekbones starting to swell from where the elbow had connected, and I tasted blood in my mouth.

  "Come on, gutter rat," Brick spat, kicking my boot. "Come on, fucking do something! Where's all your big talk now? Fucking running around in the shadows…" he kicked me again. "Beating up little punks and nobodies!" This time, he aimed to kick at my face, and I just managed to get my hand in the way. "Burning my fucking shipment!" he stomped down on my face. My forearm couldn't stop the heavy thud of his naked feet, the heel of his dirty foot slammed into my lip and my head ricocheted backwards.

  "You're just another fucking nobody… a nothing!" Brick snarled at me, grabbing hold of my shirt and pulling me up. "Nothing," he growled again. "Worthless, fucking useless, weak little piece of…" and that's when I slammed the Chalk Bomb into his mouth.

  The whole world exploded in white powder. Brick's mouth and throat were so clogged with the stuff he couldn't even scream. He retched and dry-heaved, dropping me and clawing at his eyes. I wheezed as the cloying white powder filled my nose and mouth. I just about managed to close my eyes, but I was so out of breath I couldn't stop myself from sucking in a deep lungful of the chalky powder. We separated from each other, Brick staggering backwards, spitting and dry retching, while I crawled along the floor on my elbows, trying to find a wall or something I could use to pull myself up with.

  I heard Brick retch behind me. I turned, and the whole room was covered in white powder, but the wind was blowing so fiercely all the way up here that the cloud quickly dissipated. I saw Brick pawing at his eyes, spittle dripping down his chin. He opened his eyes and looked at me. His whole face was pure white, but those eyes were black and burning with hatred. He roared and ran at me, and I threw a Bang Rock at his feet. The Rock exploded, and it looked like it caught the inside of one of his feet right where the arch was. There was a splatter of blood as it opened a laceration across the bottom of his foot. Brick howled. He lurched and knocked over a table that was covered in paraphernalia, sending drugs and needles skittering across the floor.

  And then I was on him. I threw my broken body across the room, stumbled, and fell on the big man, and we began to scrap tooth and nail on the floor. It felt like fighting a wild bear; Brick was so strong and feral. He clawed at me. He punched me. He even tried to bite my face at one point, but only managed to get a mouthful of balaclava. Even then, he wrenched his head back like a fighting dog and tore half my balaclava off. It was all I could do to keep the feral beast from tearing my throat out. But another place where the brass knuckles were superior over the previous model was that they were still effective even with no magic energy coursing through them. I snapped out my left fist, my right holding Brick's face away from me, and I cracked him straight across the bridge of his nose. There was an ugly snapping sound, and I saw his eyes fill with tears as his nose caved in.

  I reached back to punch him again, but Brick hadn't lived this long and this filthy without learning how to fight dirty. He slammed the palm of his hand into my face and bucked hips , spinning me over and pinning me underneath him. He clawed at my eyes, trying to tear them from my face as he snarled. Again, the balaclava was the only thing that saved me, as his finger got tangled in the hole his teeth had created. He tore at the mask, and I wrenched my head back, throwing wild punches up at him, the brass knuckles banging off the side of his skull again and again. But Brick didn't care. He was trying to rip my eyes out, and a few blows to the side of the head weren't going to slow him down. I could feel his dirty fingernails digging into the flesh around my eyes. Just as I felt his thumb pressing into my eyeball, I managed to draw my knees up and kick Brick away from me, sending him sprawling backwards into the table. I rolled over into a crouching position, wiping blood from my cheek where Brick's nails had torn gouges in them.

  I looked up and saw that Brick had landed on a needle, and it had gone straight through the tricep. He looked down at it too, and then he just pulled it out and threw it to one side. My stomach churned at the sight. Brick didn't even feel it. His foot, though, was bubbling blood, and I could see from the ginger way he was moving that there was no way it could bear weight properly. One of his eyes had started swelling from where I had landed a couple of blows with the brass knuckles, and his nose was badly wonky and broken, with blood gushing from both nostrils. He panted, still spitting up white chalk.

  "It's over, Brick," I said to him. "This doesn't have to go any further. Just give up.”

  Brick's face contorted venomously.

  "Give up?" he spat. "It ain’t over until I’m dead!”

  Then he moved with such ferocious speed it belied understanding, but he didn't charge towards me: he went for Sherbert.

  "No!" I screamed as he shoved Sherbert in the chest and sent him toppling over backwards, out into the abyss.

  "Noooooooooooooo!”