Ashes and Bones Read Online Free PDF Page A

relaxed again. He’d wait until I wasn’t ready and then—
    I felt him stop behind me and to the right, then felt a forearm slip past my throat. Before he could get the choke hold on, I slipped down and backed out of his grasp. Stumbling a little, I regained my balance and threw a round kick at his gut. He got out of the way of course, but I kept my momentum going and threw the left leg at him, too.
    “Okay, not bad, not bad. Not good, but not bad, either. Good instincts, even if the moves and commitment aren’t there. You need aggression, girl! Next time, tuck your chin more before you slither out of the hold; you might not escape and you don’t want to let me get my arm under your chin ifyou can help it. Work on keeping your stance balanced as you move. And don’t ever, ever turn your back on me; I know you had momentum going from your kick, but save that fancy stuff for your Boston swor rays. If you feel like you have enough distance to run, then run, but this close, don’t give me your back. Instead, if you see you’re not going to land it, just put your foot down, square up, move in, and do a side kick.
    I did the move as he described it.
    He frowned. “For chrissakes, chamber that kick! I’ve seen harder sneezes. I want explosive action!”
    “More than twenty-five years in the field, I’ve been moving as slowly and deliberately as I could,” I muttered. “Archaeologists aren’t supposed to explode.”
    “Enough talk.”
    Temple walked around me several more times, sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly. I fought hard to keep from tensing up while still paying attention to what I could feel and hear around me. Suddenly I felt a blow from behind catch me squarely in the back; there was nowhere for me to go but down. I broke my fall and managed to turn my head so I didn’t mash my nose and face against the mat. I rolled over and went for a kick, but Mr. Temple flicked my foot aside as if he was shooing a mosquito and, with scary speed, shot in on top of me, into the mount.
    The breath left my lungs with a whoosh. Panic set in. I tried to buck my hips to throw him off me, but he was anticipating that. He simply outweighed, out-muscled me.
    As he sat on my chest, he wrapped his hands around my throat—he could have used just one, it seemed—and I tried a pluck to remove them. Again, he out-muscled me. I tried to buck with the pluck again, and it still didn’t work. I simply couldn’t get him off me, couldn’t move his hands off my throat, which now felt like it was being crushed.
    What the hell was this maniac doing? I tapped the mat, signaling that he had me.
    The pressure remained, choking me. “There’s no tapping out on the street!” a voice said, as if from a distance.
    Still I struggled. I couldn’t breathe.
    “Well?” the voice boomed. “What do you do now? If you weren’t in the safest place on earth, you’d be halfway down a darkened alley with me by now.”
    I slapped at the side of his head, shoved his chin away from me. All in vain. I was starting to see spots before my eyes.
    “Do you really think you’re going to do anything by going at the hardest places on my skull? Go for the soft bits: ears, nose, eyes, throat.”
    I grabbed at one of his ears, not sure what to do. I twisted, hard. He cursed—though not because of anything I’d done to him—and leapt up. Suddenly, air rushed into my lungs. I rolled over, coughed, struggled to my knees.
    “Jesus wept! What has that dozey slacker Nolan been doing? If you tried those party tricks on someone who didn’t have your best interest at heart, you’d be in very, very bad shape indeed.”
    He loomed over me, pointing a finger like the sawed-off end of a pool cue. “Yes, you got somewhere by twisting my ear, but only after I gave you a hint. Now I’m going to teach you, so pay attention.”
    “Ears!” he bellowed, suddenly pretending to clap his huge paws over my ears. If he’d actually done it, he might have blown both my