she wore only delicate white panties. Evangeline stood still and let Gregor look at her. She wanted to look away from him, but wouldn't let herself. It was important that she didn't show any weakness. Gregor eyed her up and down several times, licking his lips and laughing breathily. Once he reached out as though to touch her, but withdrew his hand before it could enter the tanglefield. He met her eyes and gestured at the panties.
'Those. Take them off. Take them
'You do it,' said Evangeline. 'You do it, Daddy. Like you used to.'
Gregor licked his fat lips again, his deep-set eyes fixed on the white panties, and moved forward a step. Evangeline let her right hand fall to the top of her panties. Gregor's outstretched hand entered the tanglefield. Evangeline's fingers dipped slowly inside the panties. Gregor crossed the border of the tanglefield. His movements slowed to a crawl. And Evangeline's fingers grasped the hilt of the knife hidden inside her vagina and pulled it out. Her finger hit the stud on the hilt, and the monofilament blade crackled into life. The energy field supporting the molecule-thick blade clashed with the weaker tanglefield and shorted it out.
All movements crashed back to normal. Gregor shrieked in fear and outrage. Evangeline lashed out with the glowing blade and sliced up the right side of Gregor's face, cutting the fat flesh open from chin to forehead. The right eye exploded in a flurry of blood and other fluids. Gregor howled like an animal and fell backward, clutching his face. Evangeline lunged after him, grabbed him by the fat shoulders, and set the glowing knife blade next to his throat. Gregor froze where he was. Evangeline leaned over him, breathing hard.
She'd known the guard would confiscate anything she brought with her, whether it looked like a weapon or not, before letting her anywhere near Gregor. But she'd gambled they wouldn't do a full invasive body search for fear of offending Gregor.
Finlay had got her the monofilament knife. He hadn't asked any questions. It seemed a perfectly normal thing to him that somebody would want such a useful weapon. Particularly now they were officially banned.
Gregor whimpered with pain and shock as blood poured down his face and soaked his clothes. Evangeline smiled savagely. 'Stay where you are, Gregor. You even try to get up or call out, and I'll gut you.'
She let go of him and backed cautiously away, ready to kill him if she had to, but all the fight had gone out of him. Evangeline grabbed one of the sheets from the bed and wrapped up Penny's and Wax's jars in it before slinging the improvised bag over her shoulders. She heard the two glass jars bang together, and hoped the glass was tougher than it looked. Unhooked from their speakers, the heads had no way of telling her what was happening to them. Evangeline moved quickly back to Gregor, and he shrank away from the knife buzzing in her hand. She grabbed him by one shoulder, her fingers sinking deep into the thick flesh, and set the blade next to his throat again.
'All right, Gregor, we're leaving now. All of us. Get up. Get up, or I swear I'll kill you right here.'
Gregor heard the iron in her voice and knew she meant it. He heaved his massive bulk onto its feet, moving very carefully so as not to even nudge against the flickering monofilament knife. Evangeline got him moving, and they headed slowly toward the door, the only way out of the Shreck's private little torture chamber. It opened to Gregor's voice, and in a moment they were out in the corridor.
The guard outside the door turned sharply, caught unaware, and started to raise his gun. Gregor, under Evangeline's urging, ordered the guard to drop his gun and back away. He did so, reluctantly, and gestured to the other guards in the corridor to lower their weapons and stay where they were. Gregor and Evangeline moved slowly down the corridor toward the elevator. Gregor was already out of breath and beginning to tire from the effort of carrying his great weight, but his fear of Evangeline kept him moving.
They came to the elevator doors, and Gregor hit the call button. Evangeline was breathing hard herself now. She glared quickly about her at the watching guards. Guards or beetles or demons, they couldn't stop her now, as long as she kept her nerve. The wait for the elevator seemed to last forever, but finally the doors opened, and she backed Gregor in, never taking her eyes off the guards. They disappeared behind the closing doors, and Evangeline hit the lobby button so hard she nearly broke it. The ride down seemed to last centuries. Gregor kept trying to talk to her, but she shut him up by moving the knife blade a little closer to his throat. By the time the elevator finally reached the lobby, blood was running freely from several cuts on Gregor's neck.
The elevator doors opened on a whole army of guards, their guns trained on the elevator. The guards on the penthouse floor had raised the alarm. Evangeline let them get a good look at their blood-soaked master, and the glowing blade at his throat, and then yelled at them to get the hell out of her way, or she'd start cutting chunks off Gregor till they did. Gregor immediately backed her up with a stream of hysterical orders. The guards lowered their guns and backed away, opening up an aisle between the elevator and the main entrance door on the other side of the lobby.
Evangeline laughed harshly.
'Do you think I'm stupid? Drop your guns on the floor, all of you, and back away from them.'
The guards looked at Gregor and then reluctantly acquiesced. There was a loud clatter as over a hundred disrupters fell to the concrete floor of the lobby. The guards backed slowly away from them, opening up a much wider aisle. Evangeline glared suspiciously about her. There were probably still all kinds of hidden weapons, on the guards and maybe in the lobby walls, but as long as her knife was at Gregor's throat, they wouldn't dare try anything. She pushed Gregor out of the elevator and got him moving as fast as he could. This was the most dangerous part of her plan. Her gravity sled was parked near the Tower. All she had to do was get to it, and she'd be off and gone before anyone could catch her. But she still had to get to it, past an army of guards who would quite rightly fear for their lives if they let her get away. So she urged Gregor on, mercilessly forcing the pace as he gasped and heaved for breath, constantly alert for any guard stupid enough to try to be a hero.
The main door slowly grew closer. She hadn't remembered the lobby being this big. The guards watched, unmoving but for the slow turning of their beetle heads. The only sounds were the slap of feet on concrete, and Gregor's constant moaning and panting. The heads in their jars bumped against Evangeline's bare back. Her nudity didn't bother her. All that mattered was getting out alive.
At last they came to the main door, which hissed open at Gregor's approach. Evangeline could see daylight, hear everyday city noises. It was like another world. She carefully maneuvered herself and Gregor around so that they had their backs to the door, facing the guards. She could feel the tension building in them. She had to get out soon, before somebody cracked.
'All right, Gregor,' she said breathlessly, fighting to keep her voice from shaking as sweat rolled down her face. 'We're going for a little walk now.'
'Outside?' said Gregor. He seemed to recognize where he was for the first time, and panic shot through him. 'No. Not outside. Not out of my Tower! No!'
And with a burst of strength fueled by manic fear, he threw off her hold, ducked away from the knife at his throat, and stumbled toward the safety of his guards, who dived as one for their guns. Evangeline considered throwing her knife at Gregor's fat back, decided she didn't have time, and bolted through the open main door. She sprinted across the open ground to where she'd parked the gravity sled. Her bare back crawled in anticipation of the energy beams she'd probably never even have time to feel. And then behind her she heard Gregor screaming for them to take her alive, and her heart jumped. She had a chance, after all.
She forced herself to run faster, bare feet pounding painfully on the harsh ground, the glass jars hammering against her back, the cool air rushing past her bare skin. People around stopped to look at her, but no one felt like interfering. Which was just as well. Evangeline had already decided quite coldly to cut down anyone who got between her and freedom. She'd gone through too much to be stopped now. Maybe there was some Shreck in her, after all. She could see the gravity sled now, still where she'd parked it, not too far away. She was beyond pain or tiredness now, buoyed up by hope.
Then the sled was suddenly right there before her, and she skidded to a halt, stopping just short of slamming into its side. She dumped the heads in their sheet into the back of the sled, and only then heard the running footsteps behind her. Reason said they had to have been there for some time, but she'd been too busy with her own desperate thoughts to hear them. She spun around, knife in hand. Three armored guards were almost upon her, more coming behind them. Evangeline's mouth widened into a death's-head grin she'd learned from Finlay, and went to meet the first three guards with her monofilament knife at the ready.
She had an advantage. They were under orders not to kill her; she had no such encumbrance. She cut off the head of the first guard with a casual flick of the wrist, the knife cutting through steel armor and flesh and bone as easily as air. The masked head tumbled almost slowly to the ground as she turned to the next guard and plunged the knife into his chest. He screamed shrilly inside his mask. While he was collapsing, she turned to the third guard.
