This time it was nothing like the wild flailing from before.
Pilsen's attacks turned cunning - the iron pipe came from the left, then the right, feints folded into real strikes until it was impossible to tell where the blow would actually land.
Russell's cane carved silver arcs through the moonlight.
Block.
Step aside. Counter.
Block again.
Had Charlotte been there, she would have recognized it at once - the way Russell moved now was identical to what she had seen from that Phantom Thief when she crossed blades with him at Buckingham Palace.
As though the same master had taught them both.
Crack!
Another violent collision, their weapons locked hard against each other, the two of them frozen into a single straining silhouette in the moonlight.
Russell could see Pilsen's face inches from his own, twisted, savage, both bloodshot eyes burning with a mad hunger to live.
"Who the hell are you?" Pilsen forced the words out through clenched teeth.
"A Scotland Yard copper? No, you don't move like one. Bounty hunter? None of them are as young as you."
"A student," Russell said.
Pilsen blinked, thrown.
In that single instant of distraction, Russell surged forward, shoving the cane outward while his body turned and his boot drove into Pilsen's gut.
The kick landed clean.
Pilsen grunted, stumbled back several steps, and slammed spine-first into the corridor wall.
His body sagged for a moment - then he steadied himself again. The hand still gripped the iron pipe. The eyes were still fixed on Russell.
"A student..." He repeated the word, and the snarl at the corner of his mouth widened. "Since when the hell do students fight like that?"
"That's nothing. Over in the East, high schoolers save the world."
"Here I am, a university student, and the best I can manage is scrapping with some thug. Honestly, it's a bit sad."
As he spoke he settled back into his stance, his gaze sweeping over Pilsen, hunting for the next opening.
"Pilsen." Russell's voice softened a fraction. "The Professor wants you dead. Scotland Yard is the only thing left that can protect you."
"Put the weapon down, come with us, and you still have a-"
He never finished. Pilsen let out a sudden roar and threw himself at Russell like a beast run to the end of its rope, reckless, utterly indifferent to whether he lived or died.
In that moment he had stopped caring about form or technique.
He only wanted to take someone down with him.
Russell's brow creased. He brought the cane up to meet him.
Another dense burst of metal on wood rang out and echoed down the empty corridor.
Their shadows crossed in the moonlight, split apart, crossed again.
The iron pipe tore a gash in the hem of Russell's coat; the cane came down hard on Pilsen's shoulder with a dull thud.
But he didn't stop.
It was as if he couldn't feel his own wounds at all - eyes red, swinging that weapon again and again.
Russell began to feel the pressure.
Not because Pilsen had gotten stronger, but because Pilsen had stopped caring.
He didn't care whether he got hurt. He didn't care whether he walked away alive. He was running on instinct and rage alone, tearing at Russell like a feral dog.
Another brutal clash, and the cane nearly jolted out of Russell's hands.
He gave half a step, barely holding his footing, and was about to counter when-
Pilsen's left hand drew a short knife from his belt.
The blade caught the moonlight, cold and glittering, painful to look at.
Russell's pupils narrowed.
The iron pipe in Pilsen's right hand came whistling in again.
Russell twisted aside and swept the cane at his legs, but Pilsen leapt clear of it.
He landed badly, though, off balance for a heartbeat, and staggered back a step.
Russell didn't hesitate. He seized the moment, stepped in, and drove the cane forward like a sword straight into Pilsen's chest.
Pilsen grunted and toppled backward - but he didn't go down.
He caught himself on the wall with the hand holding the short knife, reeling, then lifted his head and pinned Russell with those bloodshot eyes.
There was something in them Russell had never seen before.
Then he straightened up and charged.
This time there was no guard at all.
He simply came.
Fastest speed, hardest force, without the slightest care for what it cost him.
Russell's cane struck Pilsen's shoulder.
That cane was cut from good hardwood, and a blow like that was enough to put a grown man on the floor and keep him there.
Pilsen's shoulder gave a heavy, muffled crunch. His body listed to one side.
He didn't stop.
He didn't even acknowledge the arm that could no longer be lifted - he only tightened his remaining hand around the short knife and kept coming.
Russell's second strike went to his stomach.
The tip of the cane rammed deep into Pilsen's gut. He doubled over, blood welling up out of his mouth.
But with the adrenaline in him, Pilsen still did not stop.
Instead he closed the distance, and raised the short knife high overhead.
The point gleamed cold in the moonlight, and Russell's eyes went to it.
And in the next instant Pilsen hurled the knife away to one side.
Russell's attention followed it - which meant he missed the beast that lunged at him.
Thud!
A dull impact. Russell felt an enormous force slam into him head-on, and it carried him all the way to the edge of the corridor.
His back struck the railing. The wood groaned under the weight, ready to give.
Pilsen's face was right there, inches away.
It was smeared with blood and sweat, the eyes bulging, the pupils unfocused and yet locked onto him.
Blood ran from the corner of his mouth and dripped onto Russell's collar, warm and sticky.
A raw howl tore out of Pilsen's throat as both hands bore down on the cane Russell had braced crosswise in front of him, every ounce of his strength going into shoving Russell off the second floor.
"Die!"
Damn it...!
Russell set his teeth, spine against the railing, both hands clamped on the cane, wrestling Pilsen for every inch.
"The Professor wants you dead. Only Scotland Yard can protect you."
"Turn yourself in now," he ground out, "and there's still time!"
Pilsen's eyes were a web of burst blood vessels now, his face a mask of savage, delirious fury.
He seemed to understand there was no road left for him. And if that was so, he'd take someone with him.
"To hell with the Professor, and to hell with Scotland Yard - there is nobody in this world who gets to judge me!"
Russell could feel his own body sinking, inch by inch.
In open Fighting it would have been fine. But this was a contest of raw strength.
And in size and power, Pilsen was simply not in the same weight class.
The railing was creaking louder now, as if it might snap at any second.
He could even smell the thick tobacco stink coming off Pilsen, mixed with sweat and alcohol. It made his stomach turn.
This couldn't go on.
Russell drew a deep breath and drove his knee up hard into Pilsen's belly - exactly where the cane had struck him a moment ago.
Pilsen let out a strangled grunt, and the force behind his hands slackened.
Now.
Russell pivoted sharply, using Pilsen's own forward momentum, and pulled him along with it.
Pilsen lurched into empty air and staggered headlong into the railing.
The cane swept precisely into the back of his knee, forcing him down onto one leg, and then it came across his throat, pinning him against the railing.
"Don't move," Russell said, low. "If you'd rather not die, behave."
Pilsen's breath came in violent heaves, like an animal subdued but not tamed, eyes threaded with blood, head straining upward again and again, still trying to turn on him.
With the cane jammed against his windpipe, all he could produce was a garbled, rasping snarl.
Russell planted a foot on his back and pressed him forward. Suffocation blurred Pilsen's vision, and his struggling grew weaker.
He couldn't breathe anymore.
And just as consciousness was about to slip away, Pilsen's gaze seemed to catch on something. He stared straight ahead, straining to make out a shape in the darkening blur.
In the next instant his pupils shrank to points, and his eyes filled with shock and terror.
Then his body went completely limp.
Russell exhaled a long breath and lifted his foot away.
He was about to look for something to tie the unconscious Pilsen with when-
Bang!
A single sharp gunshot rang out through the silent manor.
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