A Lonely Resurrection

arm across my body, and whipped it forward like a tennis backhand. The baton starting telescoping out. By the time it reached Murakami’s lead ankle, it had achieved its proper twenty-six inches. The impact of that steel to his ankle was one of the best feelings I’d ever known. If I’d missed, I would have been dead a few seconds later.
    But I didn’t miss. I felt bone shatter under the steel and heard Murakami howl. An instant later all I could see was white dog, coming at me like a cruise missile.
    I managed to get my left arm up in front of my throat. The dog shot forward and clamped onto it just above the wrist. There was an explosion of pain. The impact knocked me backward.
    I knew if I fell to my back with that creature on top of me there wouldn’t even be body parts for the clean-up crew afterward. Partly by instinct, partly by judo training, I let our paired momentum somersault us backward and rolled into a squat on the other end of it. The dog still had me just above the wrist, snarling and shaking its head, holding on in a dead game grip the way it had been trained. I couldn’t feel anything in my arm anymore.
    I tried to bring the baton up and crack the thing over the head, but I couldn’t get any leverage. The dog’s claws scraped against the pavement, seeking purchase, leverage from which it could force me over onto my back.
    I dropped the baton and reached around with my good hand, scrabbling for its testicles. The beast dodged left, then right, knowing what I was going for. I found it anyway. I grabbed that canine package and yanked downward as hard as I’ve ever yanked anything in my life. The jaws loosened and I jerked my arm free.
    I lurched to my feet. The dog writhed for a moment, then got its legs under it. It snarled and stared up at me with bloodshot eyes.
    I glanced at my left hand. It was clamped around the pepper spray canister with rigor mortis determination. The tendons must have locked up from the pressure of the animal’s jaws.
    The dog’s muscles coiled together. I pried the canister loose with my good hand. The dog leaped. I turned the canister forward and depressed the trigger.
    There was a satisfying sound of gas escaping under pressure, and a red cloud hit the beast directly in the face. Its momentum carried it into me and knocked me backward, but it was jerking and slobbering now, no longer attacking. I kicked out from under its twitching body and rolled to a crouch.
    The dog started writhing on the ground, rubbing its snout frantically into the tarmac as though trying to wipe off the substance that was causing its agony. I held the canister closer. When the animal turned its wheezing face toward me, I aimed directly into its nose and mouth and depressed the trigger. A thick cloud jetted out, and then, just as suddenly, died, the canister’s contents exhausted.
    But it was enough. The dog’s body launched into spasms that made its previous writhing look like playful stretching by comparison. Oleoresin capsicum irritant is ordinarily nonfatal, but I thought a concentrated double dose like the one the dog had just received might prove the exception.
    I looked over at Murakami. He was on his feet, but was keeping his weight entirely off his wounded ankle. He had the Kershaw in his right hand, held close to his body.
    I looked down and saw the baton. I swept it up in my good hand and approached him, my left arm hanging uselessly.
    He was growling from deep in his chest, sounding not unlike his dog.
    I moved around him in a wary circle, forcing him to adjust, trying to gauge the extent of his mobility. I knew the ankle shot had been potent. I also knew he might try to exaggerate the extent of the damage, to get me to overcommit and attempt to finish him too quickly. If he could grab the baton or otherwise get inside my guard, his knife and two good arms would prove decisive.
    So I took my time. I feinted with the baton. Left, then right. I circled toward the knife hand, making it more difficult for him to snatch something with his free fingers, keeping him moving, stressing the ankle.
    I let him get used to the left/right feints. Then I ran one straight up the middle, jabbing the steel directly at his face and neck. He parried with his free hand, trying to grab the baton, but I’d been expecting it and snapped the unit out of the way in time. Then, just as suddenly, I backhanded it in, cracking him along the side of his skull.
    He dropped to one knee but I didn’t rush