Book Excerpt: Stranger Back Home by E.L. Haines
Dancing With Daggers
“Hello, Sparrow.” I spun around to see a strikingly attractive lady with rich auburn hair. She was slim, but curvaceous, and wore a form-fitting leather outfit. “You’re looking… tall.”
“Skip the small talk, Jane-Lindsay, and stay three paces away from me.” On stage behind me, Dame Azaria wrapped up her speeches and told the crowds around us to welcome the next entertainment of tonight’s ball. Everyone began cheering as a band came to the stage, six mustachioed musicians who did kinda resemble waiters, now that I was looking at their costumes from the outside.
Despite the raucous applause that erupted, Jane-Lindsay’s voice was still clear—either because I was so focused on her, or because the voice was so sexy. In fact, many of the people around us were actually starting to pay attention to her more than the upcoming musicians.
“Oh, Sparrow, that’s no way to talk to an old friend. Why, I haven’t seen you since…”
“Since the last time we talked,” I finished for her. “Which probably should have been the last time we talked. You handcuffed me to a bathtub and tried to sell me to bounty hunters. I’m really not sure why you think we could be friends.”
She smiled, seductively, and took a step closer. I raised my mandolin menacingly in between us, as if to warn her that it was a deadly instrument and I wasn’t afraid to play it. Where was Dante? I couldn’t afford to take my eyes off of the femme fatale in front of me to look for him. To be honest, my eyes were quite comfortable staying where they were.
“I only wanted to talk,” Jane-Lindsay insisted.
“I’m not interested in talking with you.”
She winked. “Perhaps I can make the conversation more interesting.” Several people around us were beginning to take an interest, that was for sure. She turned her head down and to the side, demurely, and clasped her hands behind her back. The net effect of this combo prominently displayed her rather attention-grabbing breasts as she took another slinking step closer.
Perhaps only because I’ve practiced misdirection so much in my own past, I could immediately tell when it was being used against me. I couldn’t see her hands, and that was a clear warning bell. I casually dropped the mandolin case to my side, freeing up both of my hands.
She lunged forward for the last step, and her right hand swung in an arc that would have terminated at my neck, if I hadn’t caught her wrist in mid-air. I arrested her motion and her face came to an abrupt halt scant inches away from my own, with a half-wicked, half-suggestive snarl on her face. I sacrificed a quick glance at her right hand, where I saw a short blade, easily concealable yet perfectly adequate for close-up murder. Or attempted murder, hopefully. We were still undecided which it would turn out to be.
Those innocent witnesses around us, who had been entranced by her captivating voice and sensual body, failed to notice the small dagger, and instead just gaped at our sudden and dramatic contact.
That’s when the six musicians on stage struck up their tune.
Jane-Lindsay began slowly and seductively sliding her left hand down her side, toward her hip. I didn’t know what she might have concealed there, in her tight leather outfit, but I assumed it was more bad news for me. I snagged her hand and trapped it against her waist.
She began pressing against me with her full frame, pushing me backwards, and I took slow, deliberate steps to avoid losing my balance. The crowd behind me hustled to get out of our way, and a melancholic voice on stage began to sing:
I bragged one day to all my friends
That heartbreak is a threat that always misses.
Jane-Lindsay must have taken that as a suggestion, because she turned our direction toward the stage, hoping to trap me against it. “You know,” I hissed, through clenched teeth, “weapons are illegal here in District One. You could go to jail for this.”
“Only if someone notices.”
“You mean like one of the guards on the stage?”
Her eyes flickered away from my face, searching the stage for trouble, and this was all the misdirection that I needed. I let go of her waist and slipped under her right arm, letting her motion continue forward toward the stage. I kept her right hand (the one holding the blade) tightly restrained, locked her elbow straight, and began leading her in a clockwise circle around me.
Jane-Lindsay glared at me from the corner of her right eye, and I glared right back from my left eye. Her left hand was free, and probably holding another small blade by now, but in this position she couldn’t reach me with it.
For proof, I brought a bottle to my lips
And drank enough to forget about your kisses.
I swept her in a full circle like this, one eye locked on her face, and the other eye trying to maintain peripheral awareness of the innocent bystanders surrounding us. They had cleared a small circle of open space, and were all watching us, mesmerized by our movements.
“What were you talking to Bancroft about just now?” she challenged me.
“The mayor? Why, he was inviting me to a dinner party.”
“Perhaps he’ll finish then what I’m starting now,” Jane-Lindsay suggested.
“I don’t know if he likes to dance.”
She twisted under my left arm, spinning her body counter-clockwise, and I could tell that her left hand was preparing a low slash across my midsection. As she spun, I trailed my right hand down her arm, from her shoulder to her elbow to her wrist, and then grabbed that hand tightly to prevent her attack.
I let her momentum continue, leading her into a second spin with my left hand, until her arms were crossed in front of her. I pulled her body back tightly in a sweetheart position on my right side, locking her crossed arms around her stomach, where they propped up her breasts once again.
I really needed to stop getting distracted by those things.
I told my friends to find me a new love
So that in her arms, I might not regret you.
We promenaded around past our audience like this, hand-in-hand (well, I was hand-in-hand—my partner was dagger-in-hand), as our audience whistled and cheered.
“You’re attracting a lot of attention to this attempted murder,” I told Jane-Lindsay.
“And you’re getting in over your head,” she warned me, abruptly ducking and backing out of my embrace. I spun around to face her, but continued my slow march backwards around the perimeter of our little clearing. She stalked after me, eyes smoldering.
Your betrayals gave birth to my hatred
So I prayed for Death to come collect you.
Jane-Lindsay began twirling like a ballerina as she advanced toward me, keeping her eyes locked on mine, swiftly snapping her head around when she was forced to break eye contact. I kept backing away, keeping out of reach of her hands, which I knew still held those small knives.
“What do you have to do with the Ornithology Club?” she asked, between gyrations.
“Huh?” Between the whirling and the question, I was a little disoriented. “I don’t even know who they are.”
“Don’t play dumb with me, Sparrow.”
“You can’t tell me what to do,” I answered.
She suddenly leapt at me, pirouetting and slashing wildly across my body with her right hand. I was too far away for this strike to be effective, and I knew she would follow it with a spinning back-handed attack from her left dagger. Rather than continuing to back out of her reach, I closed the distance between us while her back was turned. I snaked my right arm under her left elbow, twisted my hips around, and bowed at the waist.
Jane-Lindsay flipped over my back, legs pinwheeling in the air and dropping the knife in her left hand. Although she was totally unprepared for this judo-like move, she was still naturally agile, and landed cat-like on her feet. Onlookers roared in appreciation but backed up further, expanding our circle in concern for their own safety. Our audience had grown far beyond our immediate neighbors and now numbered in the hundreds.
“You’re not bad at this,” I acknowledged, kicking her dropped dagger aside.
“Don’t get too cocky, Sparrow,” she grinned evilly. “I still have one left.”
I’ll tell you the truth, just between us
I never stopped loving you, although I’ve been without you.
I ignored her advice, and began arrogantly strutting toward her. The audience apparently loved my transition from reactive to aggressive, and cheered me on.
Jane-Lindsay didn’t know what to make of that, and tried to keep a smug look on her face as she backed away from me.
Backing away from me, but directly toward one of the guards standing by the stairs which led up the stage. If he would only notice the weapon in her hand, this dangerous game would be over, and I would be the victor.
But Jane-Lindsay didn’t know what I was up to, and continued to banter with me. “You know, the only reason you escaped me during our last encounter is because your boring stories put me to sleep.”
“My stories have only gotten more boring,” I lied again, “and the only reason you captured me is because you ambushed me, naked, in the bathtub.”
“You should always expect your enemy to take advantage of the environment when she is trying to trap you, Sparrow.”
“And you should probably expect your enemy to be capable of entrapment also,” I impudently warned her, as she backed into the guard.
Her eyes went wide in sudden realization, and she plunged her right hand into a bouquet of flowers on the stage. When she withdrew it, it was holding a rose instead of a dagger. She placed the stem between her ruby lips and winked at the guard, who was staring overtly, and rather rudely, at her chest. At least I wasn’t the only one.
In my dreams, I’ve been madly chasing you,
Hoping to learn something new about you.
Armed with nothing but a rose, Jane-Lindsay began advancing to meet me. It didn’t look like a deadly weapon, but my wild imagination immediately envisioned several ways that she could kill me with a flower. I had never trained for this kind of encounter before.
Just between us, I will always remember you,
And since we aren’t together, I have but one confession.
Running out of options, I resorted to the same tactic that I had used against her in our last encounter. When I had claimed that I had become more boring than ever, that wasn’t entirely a lie. I mean, I hoped that my stories were entertaining, but I had also been developing my innate magical ability to put people to sleep with my soothing voice. This incantation had come in handy on a number of occasions.
I grabbed Jane-Lindsay in a close embrace, and sang along with the last stanza of the mariachi’s song:[1]
This hate I have for you is not truly hate
Only pain that leaves a hateful impression.
As I whispered these words, I imparted some mysterious energy into them. Perhaps Emeritus was right, and I was creating a singularity between our minds, or our souls. Not our hearts—don’t even suggest that.
The mariachi band on stage let this final note drag out, and Jane-Lindsay’s eyes began to droop heavily, and her leg muscles began to relax and buckle. I lowered her into a gentle dip, rather than dropping her unceremoniously on the plaza grounds.
This magical moment was broken when a nearby spectator began loudly and obnoxiously clapping and cheering. I turned my attention upon Dante, who was back from his snack attack and looking at us with unabashed admiration. “Bravo, Sparrow, bravo!” he shouted.
His ill-timed cheers woke Jane-Lindsay from my spell. Her eyes snapped open, and then scowled at me. As everyone else—and I mean everyone else—joined in the applause directed at us, she rose from her lowered position to stand next to me, taking the rose out of her mouth with delicate fingers. She slowly, and tantalizingly, brought her lips close to my own, and then amorously placed the rose in my mouth rather than the expected kiss. The crowd laughed, and I bowed to them, rose stem still in my mouth. This brief distraction was apparently enough for Jane-Lindsay to retrieve her knife, because as I straightened up, she placed one affectionate hand on my elbow, smiled to the crowd, and surreptitiously stabbed the blade into my underarm with her other hand, severing the brachial artery.
The rose dropped from my now-gaping mouth. That’s when she gave me the expected kiss. Then, while the crowd went wild, she danced away into the darkness of the night, disappearing from my rapidly-fading sight.
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