"Speed that mocks the tick of time"

I saw the intent in her eyes. She was going to slay me on the spot. Quickly – quicker than ever before – I slid my silver chain onto my wrist and withdrew my hand from my cloak. She didn’t react. I was moving but the Ordeen wasn’t. She was just staring at me, anger creasing her brow. The moment expanded. Time flickered and froze. I felt strange. I was the only thing moving in an utterly still world. I wasn’t breathing. My heart wasn’t beating.

Was this what the Ordeen had meant by ‘a speed that mocks the tick of time’? Had I really inherited it from Mam? Was it something similar to what the Fiend used? That same trick had allowed me to pluck a blade from the air the previous summer when Grimalkin had hurled it at my head.

Taking very careful aim, all my focus on the target, I cracked the chain and hurled it straight at her. I had no fear at all that I would miss. Moving targets are always difficult to hit, but she was as immobile as the practice post in the Spook’s Chipenden garden.

The chain fell in a perfect spiral over her head and tightened against her body. Her eyes widened and seemed to bulge in her sockets and she slumped to her knees, in obvious pain. She screamed before arching backwards, the veins in her neck distending. Then she convulsed, pitched forward and landed hard upon her chin, her neck extended, her face still towards me. I’d heard a sharp snapping sound. Was it a bone breaking? Was it her neck?

B6 C17