spattered on the pale surface of the wall behind him. The ricochet peened away from the stone, flicking a divot of plaster and revealing the limestone block beneath as it keened down the passageway.
Killing him with the Power would have been quieter, but it might have activated the guardian Wreakings…and he would need all his reserves before they got away, probably. Cheba stumbled to a halt with a boy and girl on either side of her, her hands resting on their shoulders. Adrian's heart lurched for an instant at the sight of their faces; then control clamped down steely cold.
'You're not my maman -' the girl began, as the boy gazed gape-mouthed at the dead man.
' Tzi-ci-satza,'Adrian snarled, and made a gesture with his left hand. Push with the mind…
The children's eyes rolled up in their heads, and their minds plummeted down into something almost like natural sleep. He'd expected that, hoped for it; Shadowspawn children were often prekeyed for that, with Wreakings laid on in earliest toddlerhood. He had been, and Adrienne as well; removing it had been part of their training when they neared puberty. Cheba gave a cry of dismay and clutched at the small forms, cushioning their fall to the carpet.
'They're all right,' Adrian snapped. 'Asleep, merely. You carry the girl. Hurry, an alarm has gone off!'
'But-'
'They will not shoot and endanger Adrienne's children, they know she would flay them by inches for the rest of eternity. Go!'
A seven-year-old was more of a burden than he'd anticipated; Adrienne's body was very strong for her size, but that size was a fifth less than his. The utter limpness helped; his heart started to turn again, as the boy's face drooped into the curve of his neck.
No time, no time…
They took the distance at a quick walk. Adrian could feel the electronic nerves of the security system shrilling; he split off part of his mind to push -
Wires melted, arcs sprang between conduits. Redundant systems came online as the lights flickered, but some of those failed too. Cheba gasped but toiled along behind him. Servants fled his shout of, 'Get out of my way!'
The guards at the front door hesitated just a moment too long, caught between the impossibility of firing and the knowledge of what would also happen if they let their mistress' children be abducted.
Crack! Crack!
Both flipped backwards and slumped to the ground; at ten yards he could manage head shots. He dropped the Glock and scooped up the Steyr assault rifle in one hand as they stumble-ran down the long steps.
'Alert! Alert! Intruder is not Dona Adrienne! The Donas children have been captured! Alert! Aleeeiaeoughtg-'
The loudspeakers exploded in cascades of flame. Adrian staggered; he was using the Power with reckless abandon. They dropped the children into the Ferrari's narrow backseat.
'I will hold them!' Cheba snapped, and scrambled in to kneel facing backwards, her arms bracing the small forms.
Adrian vaulted into the driver's bucket seat of the sports car, his foot stamping on the accelerator. The turbocharged engine screamed like a horse in agony, and the rear wheels spun black smoke into the night. Lights were snapping on all across the estate grounds as the acceleration punched him back into the padding; he could hear Cheba grunt as she threw herself forward to pin the children safely in place against inertia.
He took the curving approach with insane daring, mind like a needle point of diamond as he pushed at the probabilities even as his body switched wrists on the wheel and worked the shift-stick. The last stretch was level… right to the firmly closed and locked gates. The covers on the stone gate pillars had flipped up, and the tele- operated robot guns were tracking him. He grinned like a shark and stood on the brake, turning in a skidding pinwheel that came within a hair of flipping the car as it scrubbed off velocity. The air stank of burning rubber and burning fuel oil and the sweat of terror, a scent that made the hairs stand up along his neck in a predator's bristle. Cheba was screaming now, but he could feel how she still braced herself with everything that was in her.
She is almost as brave as Ellen, some remote part of him thought.
The operators of the guns at last dared to fire one economical burst directly into the long hood of the Ferrari. The engine seized just as the nose came around to point at the gate once more. The two guards had thrown away their rifles, and they were running at him with their heavy kukris raised, the in-curved chopping blades glinting where their silver inlays caught the floodlights. Their minds were like eyes that had looked into the sun, but their training and the warrior souls within kept them moving; their reflex was to run towards danger.
Even as the car slowed Adrian was moving. Forward, letting his clothes fall away as he reverted to his own default form, impalpable as he passed through the windshield. Then another change in midleap, and the sabertooth gave a screaming roar; and for an instant Adrian understood in his bones how his ancestors had ruled the world for a hundred thousand years.
He landed as delicately as a house cat pouncing for a butterfly, and one plate-broad paw slammed hooked claws across a mercenary's face and throat, the dewclaw ripping half the scalp free. The man gave a bubbling shriek and spun away to die with his face swiped away like a putty mask, leaving only red bone and grinning teeth and staring eyes above a spouting tear in the throat.
' Ayo Ghorkali!' the second man shouted, and struck.
A half ton of carnivore slammed into his chest as the blade came down, and a razor edge of silver sliced into the skin over Adrian's spine. In the same instant his bear-thick forearms closed around the man, ripping at the body armor that covered his back, shredding it. The six-inch fangs stabbed down as the grip positioned the prey. Crisp popping sensations as the serrated ivory steak knives drove deep.
Blood foamed across his mouth, irresistible, wine of terror and effort. He allowed himself six long swallows, and felt new strength course through him. When he rose it was as a naked man whose face dripped a red that was almost black in the flickering light.
Two lances of fire from outside the estate wall rammed into the robot turrets and they exploded in flame and smoke-trailing fragments. Half a second later the reinforced bumper and grille of the van rammed the gates. Tortured steel snapped, and the great portals buckled enough to let a man through. It wasn't a man, though; Guha came instead, running towards the wrecked car whose hood was wreathed in fire. Adrian turned; a platoon of Gurkhas was double-timing down the roadway towards him, spread out in a rough skirmish line with their kukris raised. As he saw them they broke into a charge.
His hands went up. ' Aki, tzeeen, alalaaal!' he screamed, the Mhabrogast tearing at his throat, turning his mind into a set of lethal razors.
Four of the Gurkhas simply dropped in their tracks; hearts locked in spasm or brains flooding from burst veins. Another two began hacking at each other madly; and two rifles exploded as the propellant in the cartridges spontaneously ignited. The others wavered for an instant, then came on still faster. Adrian staggered with the effort, wheezing suddenly as the stolen strength of the dead soldier's blood flowed out of him again. For a moment his night-walker's form flickered, and he was a pillar of mist with yellow eyes, until it steadied again.
A heavy machine gun cut loose behind him, tracers snapping by overhead; Jack Farmer was shooting from the hatch on the vehicle's roof, screaming:
'Die, you cocksucking traitors, die, motherfuckers, die, die!'
His shooting was much less frenzied than his shout, or the emotions pouring off him. Men died; the. 50 caliber made nothing of infantry armor, especially at this range, blasting through and turning bodies into tumbling bags of smashed bone and flesh or ripping off limbs. Ellen was out of the van too, her sniper rifle snapping off rounds as she braced it through a gap in the gate. The. 338 Lapua rounds were silver-cored, which didn't matter, and heavy and moving fast, which did. She worked the bolt methodically, swayed back a little with the recoil, set herself, picked another target through the night-vision scope, breathed out, fired.
Cheba ran past with Leila in her arms. Salvador met her at the gap in the buckled gate, snatched the child and practically hurled her through, and then into the vehicle. Guha was close behind her when one of the Gurkhas at last lost control and began shooting, a long burst that walked tracer towards her.
Adrian groped for the Power, but he was spent. Guha saw the burst coming and dropped, curling her body around Leon's small form and wrapping herself in a protective shield. Three of the light high-velocity bullets smacked into her back with sounds like fists striking meat. Little spots flecked up on her clothing, and the armor beneath was the light law-enforcement type. She sprawled, blood draining from mouth and nose.
