Blue Moon by Laurell K. Hamilton Page A

black belt in judo. But Mel’s companion was almost as big as Officer Maiden, and not half as pretty. They both outweighed me and Jason by a hundred pounds apiece, or more. They’d been big most of their lives. They thought it made them tough. Up until this moment, it probably had. In fact, it still might. I wasn’t going to stand there and trade blows with them. I’d loose. Whatever I was going to do had to be quick and take my opponent out immediately. Anything less, and I stood a very good chance of getting seriously hurt.
    I’d bet on me against any bad guy my size. Trouble was, as usual, none of the bad guys were my size. There was a tightness in my gut, a nervous tremble. I realized with something close to shock that I was more afraid right now than I had been with Jamil in the truck. This wasn’t a dominance game with rules. No one was going to say uncle when someone was bleeding. Scared? Who, me? But it had been a long time since I’d stood up to the bad guys without pulling a weapon. Was I becoming too dependent on hardware? Maybe.
    Jason and I moved back, sliding a little away from each other. You need room to fight. The thought occurred that I’d never really seen Jason fight. He could have thrown the pickup truck they came in across the street, but I didn’t know if he knew how to fight. If you throw human beings around like toys, people can get badly hurt. I didn’t want Jason in jail, either.
    â€œDon’t kill anyone,” I said.
    Jason smiled, but it was just a baring of teeth. “Gee, you’re no fun.” That first prickle of energy that said shapeshifter breathed along my body.
    Mel had been moving forward in a flat-footed, untrained movement. No martial arts, no boxing, just big. The other guy was in a stance. He knew what he was doing. Jason could heal a broken jaw in less than a day; I couldn’t. I wanted Mel. But he’d stopped moving forward. There were goose bumps on his hairy arms. “What the hell was that?”
    He was big and stupid, but he was psychic enough to feel a shapeshifter. Interesting.
    â€œWho the hell are we? What the hell was that? Mel, you need better questions,” I said.
    â€œFuck you,” he said.
    I smiled and motioned him forward with both hands. “Come and get it, Mel, if you think you’re man enough.”
    He let out a roar and ran at me. He literally ran at me with his beefy arms wide like he was going to do a bear hug. The bigger guy with him rushed Jason. I had a sense of movement and knew Shang-Da wasn’t on the porch anymore. There was no time to be afraid. No time to think. Just to move. To do what I’d done a thousand times in practice in the dojo, but never in real life. Never for real.
    I ducked Mel’s outstretched arms and did two things almost simultaneously: I caught his left arm as he went past and swept his legs out from under him. He fell heavily to his knees, and I got a joint lock on his arm. I really hadn’t decided to break the arm. A joint lock on an elbow hurts enough that most people will negotiate after you prove just how much it hurts. Mel didn’t give me time. I caught a flash of the blade. I broke his arm. It made a thick wet sound, flopping loose like a chicken wing bent backwards.
    He shrieked. Screaming didn’t cover the sound. The blade was in his other hand, but he seemed to have forgotten it for the moment.
    â€œDrop the knife, Mel,” I said.
    He tried to get to his feet, one knee hyperextended to the side. I kicked the knee and heard it give a deep, low pop. A bone breaking is a crisp, sharp sound. A joint doesn’t break as clean, but it breaks easier.
    He fell on the ground, writhing, screaming.
    â€œThrow the knife away, Mel!” I was yelling at him.
    The knife went airborne, lost across the fence into the next yard. I stepped away from Mel, just in case he had another surprise. Everybody else had been busy, too.
    The big