The Grave Shadows

31. Babies

Will gulped and kept the blade behind him. Simon rocked on his heels, and Everett clutched him to stand still.

Bill Watts tucked the mask under his sword arm and walked to the weapon rack. He pulled out two sabers and threw them in front of his boys. Three plastrons, three gloves, three jackets, three lamés, three masks, flopped on the floor. "Come at me," he said.

Bill Watts stepped away from the piste to the plane next to the steel partition. The thing about Bill Watts was: he taught the rules as he hurled you around the room. Currently, Everett understood that the man wanted to fence three Watts boys at once. Bill Watts fully dressing in the epee gear meant his whole body was a target. The brothers messily armored themselves waist-up with full sleeve lamés and sabers said Bill Watts would slap them around but expected no quarter. It was Bill Watts's kind of insult, but to be fair, two of the brats were useless right now.

Bill Watts, with heels together and body erect, pointed the tip of the blade at his sons. He saluted, slipped in the mask, and took the position. "En garde!" he roared.

Will and Simon, on the verge of vomiting in their masks, wobbled beside Everett.

"Pret! Allez!" Bill Watts's scream could resurrect Dawn Cathedral.

Like a bullet, Bill Watts came at Everett, his epee darting for a heart. Everett parried, but Bill Watts disengaged and lunged. A tip of the blade plunged on Everett's protected chest. The room flashed red even though they weren't wired.

Retreating, Everett swirled the saber while Will and Simon clumsily advanced. Bill Watts was unforgiving lightning, his blade striking three of his sons in the rhythmic tick of a speedy clock, the attacks undetectable even in the trained eyes.

"Bend your knees!" Bill Watts's persistence chased Will off his feet.

Will fell on his back and cursed at the ceiling.

With an advance-lunge, Everett swung his saber at Bill Watts's upper left arm, the King of Colt's foible, the spot Everett had carefully discovered after so many years of torturing and observing, but the epee stopped his saber mid-air.

"Your head, Everett!" Bill Watts yelled, disengaged, and struck the top of Everett's mask. He tilted back as Simon's blade was coming for him.

At the second Simon's recklessness became worthwhile, Everett flunged with Bill Watts's left arm as a target.

Bill Watts parried and reposted in a split second.

Together, Simon and Everett stormed their father, but Bill Watts's retreat was a balestra to Everett and the expulsion of Simon's blade.

Everett in frustration, Will on the quivering en garde, and Simon with the retrieved saber—three Watts boys, grunting, flew at their father like wild dogs, but none of them was able to make a single touch. Bill Watts elegantly thrust the epee into their chests again and again. And again.

Simon stumbled forward and crashed on his knees. The fun was enough for his body but seducing his nerve.

Needing to get his hand bloody, Will parried but failed to reposte. The drunken boys got in Everett's way rather than helped him. Right then, Bill Watts's blade glided down Will's and flicked upward.

Will shrilled as if the blade had gone under his skin. He flunged and hit nothing, letting Bill Watts's blade slam him to the floor.

Everett clenched his jaw and flew at Bill Watts with rage on his fingertips controlling the saber.

"Use your head, Everett!" Bill Watts parried, parried, reposted—touched. Touched! Touched! Touched!

Everett fumbled backward as Bill Watts blasted his lamé.

Bill Watts stomped his front foot, and Everett flinched. The epee slapped Everett's mask and shot his chest with the force beyond the law of fencing.

The stone floor numbed Everett's back, and Bill Watts was on one knee above him. The water hissed through the mesh of Bill Watts's mask, the tip of the epee on Everett's chest. Bill Watts yanked the mask off Everett's face, the son's rising chest swallowing the blade of the father.

"Father!" Simon cried out.

Everett gaped at the mask that continued to spill sweat on top of him. The blade dug farther into the layer of his gear. The pressure was meant to crack his bone into his heart. The distraught fall was salty while the reluctant footsteps sweetly pitied him. Through the mesh, Bill Watts's breath had never been so chaotic, his adamance never this soft, his intention never this shivering, anger never weaker than desperation.

The blade grazed away from Everett's chest. Bill Watts grabbed a fistful of the lamé to lift his son from failure. He backed away, drifting to the gear table, and freed himself from the mask and the glove. The partition slid wide open for the dolls to laugh at three of his pathetic sons who couldn't make one touch of the lone opponent.

"If you want children, stop running around the house like ones. Will, Simon—you two are old enough to give me grandchildren. But you're drunkards, wasting away in your little bar, consorting with tramps. Be men and find the ones who fit our bloodline. Find a Cyan Cooper!"

Bill Watts's lesson burned Everett's chest fiercer than the echo of the blade.

"And Everett, I don't care you want to fly away and ruin things anywhere. Don't take Colt's things out of Colt!"