I cursed myself for not paying attention, and for not going into the café.
“That’s offensive,” the con man crooned. “And even rather foolish. I’ve been watching you, and you’re always alone.”
The pleasantry in his voice turned my stomach.
I forced myself to breathe slowly to quell the rise of panic. When I spoke again, I was relieved I sounded calm.
“I’m new here.”
“I know you are. Don’t you want a friend?”
“I’m selective.”
“It is rather intriguing,” the con man said with a slithering quality to his tone.
“How could a woman child like you come here all alone? You have no family and no connections. You have only two changes of clothes which you’ve worn out, yet somehow you can afford an apartment from one of the greediest landladies in the Capital City.”
His smell was the odor of rage.
The acrid scent wafted off the con man in waves.
Thus the easygoing manner of conversation made me desperate to get away from him.
“You have no visitors,” he wheedled. “Which means you’re not a fancy whore, like Carla and Filly. So where does your money come from, neighbor?”
My street was a half block away, and my building was two blocks down.
Even if I could outrun him, the con man lived there too.
I would have to get up the stairs, in my apartment, and lock the door before he could catch up with me.
So there was no refuge there.
I had no doubt the con man had cruel intentions towards me.
The memory came to mind of the Brute gripping the hair of the Patron’s Daughter in his fist as he pummeled his manmeat into her from behind. Somehow I knew I would suffer a similar humiliation if the con man had his way.
I turned and ran as fast as I could for the Avenue of the Theaters. Getting back to a crowd was my only chance.
I hadn’t gone twenty paces before the weasel-faced con man caught up with me and grabbed my elbow. I tried to shake him off, but his bony hand could have been a vise.
“Let go of me!” I snarled, relieved at the ferocity in my voice.
I was terrified, but at least my fear didn’t show.
“Well, aren’t you a fierce little snit,” he said.
“Settle down, neighbor. Let’s go home and have the kind of drink that will relax us both where we can have a conversation, and maybe come to understand each other better.”
The con man gripped my left arm and kept me close to him, turning me back towards the street of our building.
I had never been so frightened in my life.
But as that weasel with the river rat teeth pulled me towards certain doom, something else came up in me as well.
Everything I had endured to get to the Capital City surged inside with a force beyond memories and thought. The threat of losing all I had and much worse to this contemptible grifter brought up a wrath in me I’d never known before.
There was no way in hell I could have allowed that to happen.
“I said let go of me!”
I threw my right fist at him with all my might.
The con man didn’t see it coming and my strike landed on his jaw.
But to my horror, my body was now a traitor to my will.
I had acted as a hardscrabble peasant with a sturdy frame layered with muscle, and burly hands thickened from arduous work. But I no longer had such a form and therefore, I had no power behind my punch.
All I did was enrage him.
“You vicious wench!”
He gripped me by the throat and squeezed.
I clawed his arm and kicked at his legs. I tried to scream, but he held his hand over my mouth to silence me.
I bit down on the meat of his palm with my healthy, sharp teeth.
The con man howled and hit me so hard on the side of my face, I blacked out for an instant.
Suddenly, I was freed from his clutches.
I didn’t see how it happened.
But I heard a loud thump. Then the con man lurched and his fingers released my throat.
The sudden intake of air was so intense I became dizzy and lost my balance.
Rather than fall to the ground, a pair of strong hands caught me.
I knew this couldn’t be the con man from the gentle strength holding me in the middle of my back until I was steady.
