Page 29 of To Clutch a Razor (Curse Bearer #2)

A STONE FOR TWO BIRDS

It’s not a long drive to the harbor south of the Loop.

They go in Niko’s car, where the wind rattles the cloth top, and there’s an R.E.M.

song—“Drive”—playing over the speakers. The only other car in the parking lot has two teenagers in it, probably about to make out; Niko doesn’t linger long enough to find out.

The Razor’s sword is in the back seat, wrapped up in cloth. It took some creative magic to smuggle it here on the plane, but Niko’s done it before. He’s eager to get rid of it. He doesn’t like the way he feels in its presence, like his head is stuffed up. It’s stifling, somehow.

Niko had to make a plan on the fly, since he never planned to take the sword to begin with—and he doesn’t even know why Dymitr told him to.

They’ll take out the boat that Niko rented from some creature-friendly company—owned by nixies, naturally—and drop the sword in the middle of Lake Michigan.

He intended to do it alone, but Dymitr offered to go with him, with a hard look in his eyes that Niko was desperate to understand. So he agreed.

He gets out of the car and reaches into the back seat to pick up the sword. He winces when he touches it, his ears muffled and his head pulsing like a headache without pain. He doesn’t bother to lock his door—anyone who wants to break into a cloth-top Jeep just needs a knife and a can-do attitude.

Dymitr is standing at the front of the car, staring at the water. It looks more like an ocean than a lake, here, with the waves rippling in the moonlight, the repetitive sound of them crashing against the rocks. He turns to Niko.

“Can I…?” he asks, and he holds out a hand for the sword.

It means something, Niko thinks, that he doesn’t hesitate to hand the weapon over to Dymitr. And he might have, last week. But that was before he saw the lengths to which Dymitr would go to protect Ala, to protect someone who wasn’t human.

Dymitr is careful as he unwraps the blade.

He closes his hand around the golden handle, and red spills into his palm, red pools in his eyes.

Niko steps back, all his instincts screaming at him to transform and attack before he gets attacked himself.

But instead of turning away, he forces himself to look.

He needs to be honest with himself about what Dymitr is, just as he needs Dymitr to be honest with himself about what Niko is.

“Do you know what will happen to her without it?” Dymitr asks, and it’s absurd, to talk to an armed Knight like this.

“I know it’ll hurt her, like being separated from your sword hurt you,” Niko says. “But beyond that… no.”

“She’ll go mad.” Dymitr turns the blade over, studying it. “She’ll be haunted by all the creatures she’s killed, and then she’ll lose her mind.”

“Well, I didn’t want to be the one who killed your mother, but I’m not going to weep for her.”

“I know.”

Dymitr sounds strange. Detached. Then he wraps the sword in cloth again, the red receding from his hands, from his eyes. He balances the weapon on his palms, and looks up at Niko, with that same hard expression Niko saw when he insisted on coming along.

“Don’t throw it in the water,” Dymitr says.

“I’m not going to spare her—”

Dymitr holds up a hand to silence him. “I mean, there’s a better use for it.”

Niko raises his eyebrows. “And that is…?”

“She’ll be able to track it using magic,” Dymitr says. “She’ll come here, with another Knight, since they almost always travel in pairs. And she’ll go wherever the sword is. To a place of your choosing.”

Niko catches on, suddenly. “You want me to set a trap.”

“Set a trap,” Dymitr says. “Use Lidia Kostka as bait so you can save her life. Put her in your debt, so she stops trying to get you killed.”

The wind blows the smell of lake water toward them. It shivers through the leaves of nearby trees, and scatters debris across the parking lot. The teenagers in the car at the other end of the lot are leaving now, the bass in their SUV thumping as they pull out onto the street.

Niko stares at Dymitr, who looks steely-eyed and certain.

It occurs to him that he’s talking not to Dymitr with the soft heart, who wears rumpled shirts and carried Niko’s duffel bag through O’Hare Airport because he was tired from the flight…

but to Dymitr the Knight, who knows his way around a bow and can track any supernatural creature that walks the earth.

“If my trap worked, I would have to kill your mother,” Niko says. “Which is the thing you didn’t want me to do before.”

“I’m aware of that.”

“And you’re okay with it, suddenly?”

Dymitr looks out at the water again.

“In the weapons room, before you came,” he says softly, “she cut into me twelve times. Each time, I begged her for mercy. It only made her cut deeper.”

Niko can feel Dymitr’s rage, like swallowing a mouthful of high-proof brandy. It burns all the way down, and settles in Niko’s stomach like a warm meal.

“I thought I knew what she was. But I didn’t.” Dymitr swallows hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing painfully. “That was my mistake. But I won’t make it again.”

Niko considers this. Dymitr looks… decided. It’s the way he looked when he knelt before Baba Jaga and asked her to destroy him. Niko may not know Dymitr that well, but he knows that he’s not careless with his words. If he says something has changed… it’s changed.

As for the idea of using the sword to lure Marzena in, well, it’s Niko’s preferred strategy.

To choose the place where he faces the Knight.

To set a trap. To control the surroundings, to watch his quarry’s approach.

And using Lidia Kostka as bait would certainly solve the problem of her trying to get him killed.

But there’s also the small matter of Marzena My?liwiec being the Razor .

“When I fought her before,” Niko says slowly, “I barely survived it. I’ll be honest—I’m not eager to do it again.”

“This time will be different.” Dymitr looks him in the eye. “This time, you’ll have me.”

Niko takes the sword from Dymitr, and sets it down on the hood of the Jeep. He steps in close, grabs Dymitr by the chin, and kisses him hard.

The moon glimmers on the lake. The night is just beginning.