Germ

Then it came: big and heavy, smashing into the pavement behind him.

He swung around. A body was crumpled low, covered in glass and wood chips. For a moment, he was certain the assailant had hurled somebody through the window, hoping to crush Stephen. Then the shoulders moved, shaking off the debris. A face turned up to him. it was his attacker. He rose, shedding glass. Blood trickled from cuts in his forehead and cheek.

Stephen assessed the situation, realized that running was pointless. The man would overtake them all with predatory ease.

Stephen took a step back and opened his arms, a gesture of peace. 'What is this, man?' he asked.

The assailant grinned, humorless and cold. But it was his eyes that convinced Stephen: he was here to kill. Nothing was going to stop him.

Nothing but me, Stephen thought.

He brought his left leg forward and shifted his hips back over his right leg—a hu kool chase stance. He was ready to kick or defend.

'Stephen!' It was Julia. 'I got him. Get out of the way!'

The killer moved in, thrusting his armored fist forward, cat-quick.

Stephen parried the blow with an upward sweep of his left forearm. The impact was like slamming into a car bumper, but he succeeded in knocking the fist off course. Even before their arms made contact, Stephen's right arm sailed forward, the heel of his palm aiming for the spot between the nose and upper lip. A well-placed blow would cause incapacitating pain.

He never made contact.

As if time skipped a few beats, the killer was gripping Stephen's wrist, stopping the locomotion power of his hand two inches before its target.

The assailant glared at Stephen, inches from his face. Stephen saw nothing in his opponent's countenance but animal fury. Then the killer twisted his lips into what might pass as a smile in certain demonic circles and nodded. The gesture said Touche.

'We don't have to do this,' Stephen said through clenched teeth. He knew they did, but deep inside, he remembered the last time he had battled; his conscience didn't want to be here.

The assailant pulled down fiercely on Stephen's arm, bringing his knee up at the same time, calculated to shatter the radius and ulna.

Anticipating the motion, Stephen swiveled his hips. The blow struck him hard on the thigh. Turning his defensive movement into an offensive one, Stephen swung his leg between them, then around his opponent's side. He yanked his leg back. It collided with the killer's leg, on which all his weight rested. His mind jumped ahead, working through the motions he'd make as his opponent hit the ground.

Which he never did.

Normally, a man will protect himself in a fall by swinging his arms toward the ground; but the killer never released Stephen's right wrist. Instead, he used it to hold himself up and pivot around with the force of Stephen's kick. Before Stephen realized what was happening, the killer's back was to him, and he felt himself pulled by his arm over the killer's head. He collided with the sidewalk. He sensed movement over him and rolled. The gauntlet smashed into the pavement where his face had been, kicking up rock chips and a quick plume of concrete dust.

If he'd kept rolling away, as his mind screamed at him to do, he knew his opponent would jump ahead, pin him, and kill him. Instead, he rolled back, grabbing hold of the killer's arm with both hands. Before the killer had a chance to kick, Stephen hoisted his lower body into the air and planted a stunning blow with the tip of his boot into the top of the man's head. Anchored by Stephen's grip on his arm, the killer staggered . . .

Then dropped his knee onto Stephen's forehead.

forty-two

Light swam back into his mind, forming itself into images: the building on his left, blue sky, white clouds, a flash of leg, and the killer standing over him, poised to bring his spiked fist into Stephen's head.

Stephen swung his arm straight up, aiming for the clouds high above. He struck the killer between the legs.

The gauntleted warrior tumbled away.

Stephen rolled and pushed himself up. He kicked out, catching the man in the side. As the killer staggered back, Stephen lowered his torso and kicked his booted heel into his opponent's sternum.

The killer flew backward into the bank's display window, crashing through and disappearing behind a waterfall of shattering glass. A huge pane sliced down like a guillotine. An instant later, Stephen caught the full force of a roundhouse kick to the side of his head as the killer leaped over the glass-toothed sill. Stephen's head snapped back painfully. He wanted to fall, to let the black cloud hovering at the edge of his consciousness engulf him and just. . . fall. Instead, he jerked his head upright and raged the black cloud away—just in time to see a saber-sized sheet of glass arcing on a horizontal plane toward his neck, blurring with speed.

He ducked.

The glass, clasped in the killer's hands, disappeared in a screaming, dissolving collision with the brick that flanked the bank's windows.

Stephen drove his head into the killer's stomach and felt the pain of a fist gripping the hair on the back of his head. Rather than pull back, he pushed forward, knocking his opponent off balance. They both went down. As the killer hit concrete, Stephen somersaulted over him, using the momentum to tear his head away from the fist.

He felt like he'd been cracked on the back of the head with a lead pipe. He blocked out the pain; it was something he was getting used to.

He rolled away, tumbling out of the killer's reach. On his feet, down for mere seconds.

The killer too—standing ten feet away, bent at the knees, arms out like an attacking wrestler. He rocked slightly on the balls of his feet, ready. The man was tall, only slightly shorter than he was, maybe six foot four. At roughly 260 muscular pounds, the man's proportions were similar to a body builder's; he possessed none of the lankiness common among tall men. Through the unzipped opening of the black Windbreaker, a dark green pullover clung to bulging pectorals. Quick eyes watched Stephen's every move.

Stephen sucked in a deep breath, then another. Sweat stung his eye. He tasted blood: a lot of it. A chill trickled down his spine as he realized the killer was breathing in the unhurried rhythm of a body at rest, barely perceptible in the shallow rise and fall of his massive chest. No perspiration at all. Just blood. Cuts and gashes and scrapes freckled the killer's face and one visible hand . . . a hand that still clutched a clump of brown, bloody hair and what looked like—a piece of scalp.

The attacker raised his fist to examine his prize. He focused on Stephen and smiled.

'That's gotta hurt,' he said in a strong voice, no trace of humor. He casually pushed the hair into the breast pocket of the Windbreaker, seeming to dare Stephen to retrieve what had been taken from him.

'Stephen!'

It was Allen, behind him some distance. Panicked, by the sound of his voice.

The killer glared.

'Run, Stephen!'

'Stephen, I can get him.' Julia's voice, closer. Cool as a whole patch of cucumbers. 'Move out of the way.'

He glanced back quickly. Julia was on the sidewalk right behind him, thirty feet—

'Watch—!' she screamed, and he dropped straight down, knowing what was coming. The gauntlet passed over him, so close he felt it stir the hair remaining on top of his head. He rolled into the killer's legs, but the killer leaped away so fast it was as though he had never been there. Stephen swept his massive leg around, appearing to target his opponent's ankles, but intending only to buy enough time to jump up.

When he did, he found the killer several steps away, nearly under the uncrushed part of the canopy that had cushioned Stephen's fall.

The man moved to strike a blow to Stephen's chest, but pulled away at the last moment.

Stephen kicked out, realizing too late that his assailant had feigned the punch to draw him in.

The killer caught hold of his leg, pinning it between the crook of his left arm and one of the poles that held