Nightside 11 - A Hard Days Knight

happening below.
    More than half the thugs were on the floor: unconscious, bleeding, shot by their own people, or still recovering from various dirty tricks. Most of them wouldn’t be taking any more interest in proceedings for a while, and the rest were too busy cursing their fellows for being such lousy shots. Russell could still be heard screaming orders and abuse, almost incandescent with rage. I never knew he had it in him. Bullet-holes had pock-marked the first-floor wall, and all my frosted glass was gone. The gun smoke was slowly clearing, but there was still only intermittent light from outside. It occurred to me that I shouldn’t be able to see all this as clearly as I did ... And then I pushed the thought aside, as some of the thugs reloaded their guns and started cautiously up the stairs towards me, driven on by Russell’s screeching voice.
    I could feel Excalibur on my back, a fierce and dangerous presence, nagging at me like an aching tooth, demanding to be drawn and used. The sword would have made short work of the thugs, guns or no; but I didn’t want to draw it. I didn’t need a legendary sword to see off a few bad guys with delusions of adequacy. I was John Taylor, no longer trying to be normal.
    I took a flashbang out of my coat-pocket, primed it, and tossed it lightly down the stairs. I counted off five, then turned my head away and squeezed my eyes shut. The flashbang detonated, filling the stairs with unbearably bright light. The thugs screamed like little girls as the fierce-light-blasted eyes adjusted to the gloom, and they fired blindly ahead of them, peppering the stairs and the walls but not coming anywhere near me. I waited till they stopped firing, then strolled casually back down the stairs, snatching the guns out of their hands and hitting them here and there with vicious intent. One by one, I kicked their unconscious bodies down the stairs and threw their guns after them. I’ve never cared for the things. One lone thug remained, at the foot of the stairs. He’d managed to avoid the worst of the flashbang, and the pepper, and had his gun trained on me. He looked seriously spooked, though; his hand was trembling, and his eyes were almost painfully wide as he watched me descend the stairs towards him. I’d taken down his entire gang, and I wasn’t even breathing hard.
    I gave him my best unnerving smile. “Tell you what: you run away now, terribly quickly, and I won’t do horrible and upsetting things to your person.”
    His hand was seriously trembling by then. Sweat was running down his face. I let my smile widen a little, and he made a low, whining noise.
    “Boo!” I said, and he turned and ran for his life. Potentially sensible young man, I thought.
    I went back into my old office. Russell made a small, horrified sound in the back of his throat as he saw me. He backed away, and I went after him. He kept retreating until he slammed up against the barred window and realised he had nowhere else to go. All the colour had gone out of his face, but his wide eyes were still sharp and mean and calculating. If I was stupid enough to turn my back on him, he’d stick a knife in it. I stopped in the middle of the room and considered him thoughtfully.
    “How do you like being the big man, Russell?” I said. “Making loans to desperate people, at two thousand per cent interest, then sending round the leg-breakers when they can’t keep up with the payments? Taking your cut from all the drugs and the working girls and the protection rackets? Leeching money from all the small people, like you used to be? You were never interested in any of that, back in the day.”
    “Never had any money, back in the day, Mr. Taylor.” His voice was flat and collected, wary rather than frightened. “I’m a whole new man, with a whole new life. I don’t need you to protect me any more. And you’re out of tricks.”
    “You think so?” I said.
    “Of course; or you wouldn’t be standing there talking to me. Talk all you like. I’ve put in a call. There’ll be more of my people here any minute.”
    I took his gun out of my pocket and offered it to him. He gaped at me for a moment, then snatched it from my hand and pointed it at me. As his finger tightened on the trigger, I took all the bullets out of his gun and let them fall from my open hand onto the floor, jumping and rattling noisily. Russell made a high, whining noise, and pulled the trigger anyway. When nothing happened, he threw the gun