Three Fates

quiet talk.”
    “Talking works for me. Why don’t we find a bar and do it over a friendly drink?”
    “I said keep walking.”
    Malachi bit back a hiss as the knife slid through jacket and shirt and into flesh. “That’s going to be hard to do if you keep jabbing at me with that pig-sticker.”
    “Well now,” Gideon said pleasantly as he came up behind them. “This is a dilemma. You push that knife into my brother, and I shoot you dead. Hardly anyone’s going to be happy with that eventuality.”
    “Shoot him anyway. He’s fucked up my best suit.”
    “That doesn’t seem quite fair. What do you think, Jack?”
    “Spill the guy’s guts out over the sidewalk, city employees have to clean it up. That means higher taxes for me.” He held out a hand. “But if you don’t take that knife out of my friend there and give it to me, hilt first, I’m willing to pay.”
    This time, when the tip of the steel slid out of his side, Malachi couldn’t hold back the hiss. “Fuck me, did you have to take so bloody long?”
    “Let’s have the hardware, too.” Jack moved in, smiling cheerfully and, in a move that looked like a friendly embrace, slid the gun from beneath Jasper’s jacket and under his own.
    “Are you all right, Mal?”
    “Oh, I’m fucking dandy.” He pressed a hand to his bleeding side. “What the hell were you going to shoot him dead with?”
    Gideon held up Tia’s inhaler behind Jasper’s back.
    “Oh perfect. I owe my flaming life to hypochondria.” He spotted the van, turned to Jasper and showed his teeth in a sneering smile. “We’ll have that nice, quiet talk now.” He wrenched open the cargo doors, hauled himself in.
    Tia leaped toward him, sobbing his name, but he held up a hand. “One minute. First things first.” As soon as they’d shoved Jasper in behind him, Malachi plowed a fist into his face.
    “Oh that’s fine, that’s good.” Wincing, Malachi flexed his fingers. “A broken hand’ll take my mind off the fact that I’m bleeding to death.”
    Shocked steady, Tia eased him into a chair. “Cleo, drive to Jack’s. You keep that horrible man down that end,” she ordered Gideon. “Jack, do you have a first-aid kit in here?”
    “Glove box.”
    “Rebecca?”
    “I’m getting it.”
    Despite the pain, and the extra jolt of it when she tugged his jacket off, Malachi grinned up at her. “You’re a wonder, you are. Give us a kiss.”
    “Be quiet. Be still.” Though her head spun sickly as she saw the blood spreading low on his shirt, she tore it open. She shot one fulminating look toward Jasper, now cuffed and gagged in the rear corner of the van. “You should be ashamed of yourself.”
     
     
    “HE SHOULD GO to the hospital. He should really go see a doctor, don’t you think?” Pacing Jack’s living room, Tia wrung her hands. “The cut was awfully deep. If Jack and Gideon hadn’t gotten there in time . . . If that man had gotten Malachi into the car . . .”
    “If a pig had two heads, he’d have two brains. Here now.” Eileen held out a tumbler with three generous fingers of Paddy’s. “Drink this.”
    “Oh. Well. I don’t really drink. And whiskey . . . well, I used to—sometimes—take just a little sip of some before one of my lectures. But it’s not—”
    “Tia. Chill.”
    At Cleo’s order, Tia shuddered, nodded, then took the glass and downed every drop.
    “That’s a girl,” Eileen approved. “Now you sit down.”
    “I’m too frazzled to sit. Mrs. Sullivan . . . Eileen, don’t you think he needs to be seen by a doctor?”
    “You patched him up just fine. The boy’s had worse wrestling with his brother. Here now, Rebecca’s brought you a nice clean blouse.”
    “Clean . . .” Baffled, Tia glanced down, saw the blood smeared over her shirt. “Uh-oh,” she managed as her eyes started to roll back.
    “No, you don’t. None of that now.” Eileen spoke briskly and pushed her into a chair. “No woman who can mop a man up in a moving van is going to faint away at the sight of a bit of secondhand blood. You’re not so silly.”
    Tia blinked to clear her vision. “Really?”
    “You did great,” Cleo told her. “I mean, you kicked serious ass.”
    “She was brilliant,” Rebecca agreed. “Here, change your shirt now, Tia darling, and we’ll soak your nice blouse and see if we can get the blood out of it.”
    “Do you think they’re going to beat him up?” Tia wondered.
    “Ugly Mean Guy?” Cleo passed the stained blouse