Blade realized it must be a ceremony. He bowed slightly when the woman nervously placed a cup decorated with a dragon in front of him. They looked at him expectantly, and taking the hint, he took a sip. The tea was bitter, not sweet.
Beaming happily, the woodcutter pantomimed that he should drink it all.
Thinking he would get out of there that much sooner, Blade did, and set the cup down. The woman had scooted to the cupboard and returned with a plate of food resembling biscuits. Blade motioned to indicate he didn’t want any but she set the plate in front of him anyway.
“I’ve got to go,” Blade announced, and stood. He had delayed long enough. He took a step, and the room spun, which he attributed to standing too fast. But the vertigo grew worse. His legs became weak. He tried to take another step and they buckled. Belatedly, it dawned on him that there had been something in the tea. The woodcutter and the woman had tricked him. They weren’t being friendly at all.
Blade tried to bring the Commando to bear but a dark veil descended, and the last thing he felt was the jolt of hitting the floor.
CHAPTER 26
Out of all the Warriors at the Home, Hickok was considered one of the deadliest. He had no qualms about killing at the drop of a feather, and he’d drop the feather He invariably eliminated threats by shooting the threat in the head. Human, beast, mutate, hybrid, it didn’t matter. Put them down permanent, was his mantra.
But for once he’d violated his own rule. When the purple creature with four eyes went for its sidearm, Hickok didn’t kill it outright. He shot to wound. He wanted the thing to take him to its leaders. Then it howled and whipped out its sword, and his instincts took over.
Hickok fired four times, and at each shot, an eye exploded.
Lurching to a halt, the creature opened its mouth and voiced a screech fit to shatter Hickok’s eardrums. Incredibly, it managed to take another faltering step before crumbling in on itself.
As was his habit, Hickok immediately reloaded. He heard a scream, and looked over at a woman who pointed at him and went on screaming. Down the street a man began shouting, and pointed at him, too.
“Loudmouths,” Hickok said. He slid in the last cartridge, spun the Python, and snapped a shot at the ground in front of the screaming woman. Dirt flew onto her leg, and her scream choked off.
Suddenly everyone couldn’t get out of there fast enough. People ran into buildings, into side streets, into alleys, a panic that spread like wildfire. In less than two minutes, the street for blocks was deserted.
“Well now,” Hickok said. So much for keeping a low profile. He replaced the spent cartridge, twirled into the Colt into its holster, and unslung his Winchester. He was partial to pistols but the rifle could shoot a lot farther, and he had a hunch he was in for a firefight.
He supposed the smart thing to do was hunt cover. Instead, he strolled down the middle of the street, whistling and grinning as if he didn’t have a care in the world.
He couldn’t get over how strange everything was; the buildings with their stilts and peaked roofs, the signs he couldn’t read, the people with their sarongs and other traditional Thai garb.
Fear-filled faces peered at him from out of glassless windows and doorways.
Hickok’s first thought was that they were afraid of him. Then he saw how many of them were casting worried gazes at the sky, and it hit him that they were afraid of something else. His killing of the purple creature in uniform would apparently bring something worse down on their heads.
Far off, simultaneous with a faint roaring sound, a speck speared in the sky. The roar swelled as the speck grew larger. It was an aircraft of some kind, and it was coming his way.
Hickok had half a mind to stay put and see what developed, but part of him, the part he seldom heeded, warned him that he should make himself scarce. Reluctantly, he ducked into a narrow space between two buildings.
Within moments the flying craft arrived, virtually blistering the air with its racket. Shaped like a bell, it was covered with a gleaming yellow metal. It hovered over the dead creature, then flew in a small circle and gently settled to earth, the whole time roaring like a pack of lions.
Hickok reckoned more of the creatures were inside. But what emerged was considerably different.
For starters, it was female. That much was obvious from her pendant breasts, protected by curved plates incorporated into her armor. Gold like her craft, the armor covered her tall torso but not her six arms or six legs. Her skin was a vivid blue. She wore a golden helmet, and from under it spilled hip-length black hair. She had two eyes where a human’s would be, and a third eye, or something resembling an eye, in the middle of her forehead. She carried a trident as long as she was tall, and moved in quick, sharp movements.
Hickok was mesmerized. In this strange city, she was the strangest thing yet. She was a good two feet taller than the purple creature had been, a giantess who, despite her third eye and her multiple arms and legs, was breathtakingly beautiful.
She stood over the fallen creature and belied her beauty by hissing like a riled rattlesnake. Her lips parted, revealing teeth as sharp as those of the dead thing, and the tip of her thin tongue darted out.
It broke Hickok’s spell. With a toss of his head, he stepped into the open.
The blue woman had bent and was reaching for the dead creature with two of her hands.
“Hey there, gorgeous,” Hickok said.
Rearing to her full height, the blue woman whirled and
