Part 24 (2/2)

She released the sword and danced to her right. Goran, as she chose to think of him, didn't have a lot of range, trying to reach around the big s.h.i.+eld. He could not stretch far enough to hit her.

The man at his side yelled in surprise as the sword simply vanished.

Annja smelled ozone. She realized the batons were tipped with electric leads. If Goran's had struck her she would have received an incapacitating shock along with any other damage the blow might do.

She scampered back to rea.s.sess the situation. Patrizinho was battling with Publico. The rock star stood with his head tipped forward, his lightly silvered dark blond hair framing his face. Two other bodyguards were stomping something on the floor. To her sick horror Annja realized she could no longer see Lys.

The two men closest to Annja, having absorbed the fact that one way or another the woman in front of them was now unarmed, glanced toward each other and charged as one. Annja was fairly certain the second was Mladko.

She lunged toward Goran on her left. Turning sideways, she slammed into his s.h.i.+eld. Taken by surprise, he rocked back onto his heels. Then he swung the s.h.i.+eld outward with all his strength, hoping to fling her to her back, where she'd be helpless against a baton thrust.

But Annja had grabbed his s.h.i.+eld's upper rim with both hands and let all her weight hang from its inch-thick polycarbonate. Adding her weight to the momentum Goran had imparted caused the s.h.i.+eld to swing open to his left like a gate.

Before an almost equally surprised Mladko could strike at her Annja had swung past the business end of his baton. She found herself right between the hulks.

With her right foot she kicked hard at the back of Goran's left knee. It wasn't a blow that could break the joint. But it did buckle it.

Already overbalanced Goran dropped to that knee. Annja got her feet beneath her, stood. She glanced quickly over her right shoulder to make sure none of the other bodyguards was trying to club or zap her from behind.

But they had clearly been ordered to stay surrounding Publico at all costs, in case more would-be a.s.sa.s.sins turned up. Patrizinho and Publico continued their death dance, oblivious to the world. For the moment she was clear. And a moment was all Annja Creed needed.

She let her weight fall back again, locking out Goran's s.h.i.+eld elbow. Mladko had turned toward Annja. He thrust his baton at her. Her latest move caused him to ram the tip of his baton against the inside of his partner's s.h.i.+eld instead.

Goran's armor could not prevent Annja's using legs and hips to torque the s.h.i.+eld and pop his elbow joint with a nasty crack. He bellowed in agony and pitched forward onto his face.

Mladko pulled his s.h.i.+eld between himself and Annja. She grabbed its top as she had his partner's. He was ready for that. He braced and stood like a rock.

She was ready for that, too. Jumping and pus.h.i.+ng hard with her arms, she scaled the s.h.i.+eld as if it were a solid wall. So strong was the polycarbonate that the cut she had made didn't open a millimeter. As she came over the top Annja bounced a s.h.i.+n kick off the side of Mladko's head. His helmet took the force of the blow most of it. But it gave her the split second she needed to scramble astride his shoulders like a monkey behind his head.

Roaring with rage, he teetered in a circle. He tried to reach her. The armor bound his joints, rendering him clumsy. He slammed himself in the faceplate with the upper rim of his s.h.i.+eld, stunning himself enough for Annja to catch hold of his baton right behind its live tip, use the leverage advantage to twist it from his hand and fling it away.

He had turned 180 degrees. Still riding Mladko's shoulders, Annja saw Publico lunge toward Patrizinho. Instantly Patrizinho's blade flashed in a backhand slash for his enemy's eyes.

Patrizinho was fast and skilled. But in the grip of his drugs Publico was faster. He reversed motion, bending backward like a limbo artist. The short sword's razor edge clipped a lock of hair from his head before swis.h.i.+ng harmlessly past.

The outward cut left Patrizinho totally open. Publico snapped forward and seized his foe. His right arm went beneath the Promessan's left. His left hand caught the biceps of Patrizinho's outflung sword arm.

Patrizinho tried to head-b.u.t.t him. Publico buried his face in the juncture of Patrizinho's right arm and neck, jamming the attack. With his right arm clamped up at an angle between his opponent's shoulder blades for leverage, Publico pushed back on the trapped arm with all his augmented strength.

Patrizinho groaned as his shoulder joint was forced from its socket.

His sword fell to the floor of the tent. Everything froze. Mladko stopped ineffectually trying to bat at Annja, momentarily more fascinated by his boss's fight than his own seemingly comical predicament. Sensing the climax had arrived, the other guards had turned to watch their master's combat.

It all burned itself into Annja's brain the guards, faces obscured by visors. The sad crumple of Lys in a pool of blood at the tent's far end, pathetic as a kitten hit by a car. Beside her an armored bodyguard lay on his back, unmoving arms outflung. The woman had not died without exacting a blood price of her own.

And then Annja's vision contracted to a tunnel around Patrizinho's beautiful face, contorted with agony and effort as he still strove to break free.

Reaching up behind Patrizinho's head, Publico grabbed a handful of his dreadlocks. Then with all his strength he yanked down. Although the muscles stood out like columns on Patrizinho's powerful neck, his head was whipped back.

Annja heard his neck break.

Chapter 35.

Publico let Patrizinho go. The beautiful young man fell back dead.

”No!” Annja screamed. Annja screamed.

Fury rose in a flood through her body, her mind. She summoned the sword. Reversing it, she drove it point downward toward where Mladko's thick neck joined the swell of his trapezius muscle.

Through the neck hole of his armor the blade plunged. Mladko gurgled, then he dropped first to his knees, then onto his face.

Springing free, Annja tore loose her sword. As nimbly as they could, the guards to left and right sprang to form a new wall between her and Publico.

Goran had struggled to a sitting position. He some-how managed to disengage his s.h.i.+eld from his ruined left arm. He reached with his good hand for the gun holstered on his right hip.

Reversing the sword again, Annja slashed at his head left-handed. The helmet was not thick enough to trap the blade as Goran's s.h.i.+eld had. Nor was it strong enough to resist being neatly split by the powerful weapon.

He went down for good.

Three of Publico's remaining armored guards stood between Annja and the billionaire, who stood astride Patrizinho's corpse grinning at her. Two others hung behind him, still guarding against reinforcements. Utterly absorbed in events inside the tent, Annja wasn't even aware if the sabotage charges the other team were supposed to set had detonated yet.

She wouldn't have counted on reinforcements had she been capable of thought.

Screaming, she feinted right, then lunged left. The men were big and strong and obviously practiced in their armor. But it still rendered them clumsy and disrupted their sense of balance.

The left-most man had fallen for Annja's feint, stepped forward with his left foot and committed his weight to it. Before he could s.h.i.+ft his balance back, Annja had run past his right side. His uns.h.i.+elded side.

As she went by she slashed backhanded at the small of the guard's back. He shrieked as the end of the blade bit through the soft flesh between hips and ribs.

One of the guards standing behind Publico charged past his master, drawing his baton for an overhand strike. Annja tipped the blade of her broadsword back over her own right shoulder and thrust the pommel straight for the angry gray eyes behind the visor.

Reflexively the guard raised the s.h.i.+eld to protect his face. Then just as automatically he lowered it to clear his counterstroke.

But Annja hadn't swung her sword merely feinted with the hilt. Taking the sword in both hands she swung it around, up, down.

It came down in the center of his helmet just as the rim of the thick s.h.i.+eld dropped to expose it.

There was a hideous squeaking crunch. The guard dropped.

Another guard charged from her right. She ducked under a horizontal swing of his baton and slashed him across his right s.h.i.+n. He howled and fell with a tremendous racket.

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