"I'm not so sure, man," Icarus stammered, hesitantly.
"Do it."
"You certain?"
"Do it."
"Okay, I'm going to count to three out loud."
"Don't bother."
Icarus gulped once, counted to three silently, then hurled the large bread knife he held in his right hand as hard as he could towards the blindfolded Victor Reilly.
Victor heard the low wooshing sound Icarus' arm made as it moved downwards through the air, and the crumpling of Icarus' shirt sleeve.
Microseconds later, he heard the slightly higher pitched thwipping noise of the knife cutting rapidly through the space between them.
Victor pivoted on his left heel, pushing out his right arm and slamming his palm against the flat side of the knife. It ricocheted away from him and clattered harmlessly against the floor.
"Wow. Okay," Icarus said.
"Again," Victor said, walking over to the spot on the concrete floor in the building's garage where he had heard the knife land. He stopped directly in front of it and reached out with his left foot. He stepped once to the left and shuffled a few inches to the right, searching. When he felt the knife beneath the sole of his shoe, he kicked it across the floor to where he knew Icarus to be standing.
"You sure?" Icarus asked.
"Again," Victor repeated, in a voice that would seem to someone unfamiliar with him to be annoyance. Icarus knew that the repetition was simply there in the absence of anything else to say. Victor Reilly had no concern for Icarus' reservations.
"Okay."
Icarus gripped the knife handle hard, and drew his arm back."
"Okay..." He repeated, and then threw.
Victor shot his right arm out as the knife neared him. He wrapped his hand around it and stopped it mere inches from his face.
He let out a small wince as he realised that he'd caught it by the blade and not by the handle, as he'd intended. With his left hand, he tucked the knife into his belt.
Icarus noticed the blood dripping from the cut in Victor's hand, and stepped forward.
"Oh, jeez, I'm sorry man..." He said.
Victor ran a finger along the wound.
"It's not deep," Victor said.
As he spoke, he heard footsteps approach the garage and stop in the doorway. He tried to guess the weight and height from the sound of the footsteps and the distance between them.
"Baxter?" He guessed.
"Got it in one," Ozzy Baxter said, leaning against the doorframe. He turned his attention to Icarus.
"Domo arigato," Ozzy said.
Icarus grinned, nearly laughing but not quite.
"That's what I like to see," Ozzy added.
Icarus approached Ozzy slowly.
"Is there any word from Munich?" He asked.
"Ah... we're not so sure on that front, Ick..."
As they spoke, Victor took his blindfold off with his free hand and wrapped it around his bleeding palm, taking a moment to crudely tie it off.
He opened his eyes, seeing nothing but the blackness that he'd started becoming accustomed to.
"But I thought Gaunt said...?" Icarus said, and was cut off.
"See, now, that's the issue," Ozzy replied.
Victor raised his uninjured hand to his face, holding it about a foot away. And then, he concentrated.
The spectrum of vision available to most humans was, since his enhancements, only part of the visual range to which Victor Reilly had access.
A faint blur began to make itself visible before Reilly's eyes. An orange shape, roughly that of his hand, with a red centre.
Victor made a mental note that his infra red still worked.
"Victor?" Ozzy said, and Victor snapped his head over to where his two teammates were standing.
He made another mental note: Icarus showed up in his field of vision as an orange-red blur, the way most people would. Ozzy barely registered, managing only a cold greenish-yellow.
"Yes?" Reilly replied.
"You hungry? We're headed to the kitchen."
"Yes."
The beginnings of a migraine made itself known at the back of Victor's head. Using his infra red for more than a few moments had always been a strain, and now was no different. He stopped concentrating and the reds around him faded.
The world was once again black.
Guiding himself using their footsteps, he followed Icarus and Ozzy out the door.
