David Morrell - The Covenant Of The Flame

No time!

Tess retreated into the smoke of her bedroom. Responding to her years of training, she crouched, braced one foot behind the other, and bent her knees in a sprinter's pose.

She blurted a prayer.

And propelled herself forward.

She jumped, felt her sneakers touch the balcony's ornate metal railing, and vaulted outward, hurtling through the air. In the dark, she feared that the past would reoccur, that she'd lose her grasp on the tree limb and plummet toward the lawn.

But she was twenty-eight now. Her tall lithe body reached the tree much sooner than she expected, her long arms stretching, her firm hands clutching.

The jolt of grabbing the branch swung her down, then up toward another branch. She took advantage of that motion, and as the branch she held began to droop, she hooked her legs around the farther branch and dangled, her hips bent toward the ground, balancing her weight between one branch and the other. The moment the branches stopped bobbing, she groped, hand-overhand, shifting her legs, toward where the two branches converged.

With an expert twist, she upended herself, facing downward now, and inched along the two branches, finally clutching the trunk where she huddled, supported by stout limbs, concealed by leaves.

Her heart pounded so fiercely that she feared she might become sick.

Had the gunmen seen her leap from the balcony?

Despite the flames that burst from windows near the front of the mansion, she strained to convince herself that this area remained in shadow.

The branches had bobbed. True. Yes. She couldn't pretend that they hadn't. But if the gunmen were concentrating on the doors from the mansion, they might not have thought to look toward this side of the house where there weren't any doors.

And in particular, they might not have thought to glance toward the least likely exit, a balcony on the upper floor.

Well, Tess trembled, I'll soon find out.

She yanked open her purse and tugged out her pistol. It gave her great satisfaction to think that the men who'd killed her mother might be killed by the gun her father had trained her to use. Even though it hadn't been cleaned in six years. Even though the spring in its magazine might have been weakened from so many years of having been loaded.

Tess couldn't think about that risk. All she could think about was…!

Descending the tree.

Doing her best to escape through a barrier of thick evergreen shrubs toward the darkness of a neighboring mansion.

She climbed down the tree, huddled at the base of its murky trunk, aimed toward the shadowy back of the mansion, saw no one, and bolted toward the shrubs on her right.

A bee seemed to buzz. A bullet splintered the oak.

In midstride, Tess whirled, crouched, and raised her father's pistol.

A lunging target appeared, silhouetted by flames that suddenly gushed at the back of the mansion. A target with a gun! A target who stooped and aimed toward Tess.

The lessons at the shooting range came back to her.

She squeezed the trigger. The pistol roared, its recoil jolting the barrel upward.

Ignore the recoil. Never take your eyes from the target.

She stared at the gunman and realized, heart lurching, that she'd missed!

Oh, Jesus.

She dove as the gunman fired. His weapon had a silencer. She didn't hear the spit when the gun discharged, but she definitely heard the bullet whiz over her.

Flat, both hands gripping the pistol, Tess aimed more deliberately, concentrating more fiercely, firing again. The roar made her ears ring.

With an inward scream of triumph, she saw the gunman stagger back and topple. At once her stomach cramped, from tension, from the shock of what she'd just done.

She couldn't allow herself to feel guilty about…! She had to get away .

Scrambling upward, consumed by frenzy, she raced toward the shrubs on the right. In the distance, sirens wailed. The fire department. Maybe the police. Someone in a neighboring mansion must have called them! But the sirens were too far away. They wouldn't get here soon enough to help her. Keep running!

Someone shouted from the front of the mansion.

Tess pivoted. A man with a gun darted into view.

Reflexively Tess aimed. She squeezed the trigger. Again! Then again! The first bullet struck the mansion's wall. The second hit a tree behind the gunman.

But the third knocked the gunman backward.

Tess again screamed inwardly with triumph.

Directly, the silent cheer stuck in her throat.

No!

The gunman had managed to stay on his feet. He continued to raise his weapon. Her own gun roaring, Tess fired again and slammed the man onto the lawn.

She sprinted past a flower garden, hearing bullets zing from the back of the mansion. They slashed the evergreens she ran toward and made her dive again.

Frantic, she rolled against the bottom of the shrubs, twisted, aimed at a gunman racing in her direction from the back of the house, shot three times, missed, but at least made the gunman scramble behind the cover of a gazebo.

The mansion was completely in flames now. The sirens wailed louder. Closer. As the gunman leaned from the side of the gazebo, aiming, Tess angrily shot yet again.

He spun out of sight.

But not smoothly. Tess tried to assure herself that it was possible she'd hit him, although maybe she'd merely splintered wood near his face.

She couldn't tell. It didn't matter. No time!

She crawled through a narrow gap at the bottom of the shrubs, felt branches scrape her skull, her back, her hips, and charged to her feet the moment she was through the hedge. She ran through the fire-illuminated shadows in the spacious back yard of the neighboring mansion.

Lights were on in the house. She imagined the frightened residents scrambling toward the street in case the fire spread and their own house caught fire.

Despite the roar of the blaze, she heard branches scrape behind her. Whirling, she shot three times toward where the hedge moved, heard a man groan, and urged herself onward through the deepening darkness of the extensive yard.

She veered past trees, lunged through flower gardens, tripped against the low rim of a lily pond, nearly tumbled into the water, but caught her balance, and skirted the pond, running faster.

Count how many rounds you've shot, her father had always insisted.

But in her frenzy to escape, Tess had forgotten her father's rule. How many times did I shoot?

She couldn't remember. More than ten, she was sure of that. Perhaps thirteen or… The pistol would be almost empty.

Fear chilled her despite the sweat that soaked her clothes and dripped from her face. She had to conserve her ammunition.

Chest heaving, she came to another line of evergreens. In the darkness, she couldn't help spinning to face the blazing mansion a hundred yards away. Flames licked from her bedroom. The violation made her furious. Her past, her youth, were being destroyed. Trembling, she detected no sign of anyone chasing her and sank to the ground, scurrying beneath the farther shrubs.

In the next mansion's yard, she realized, tense, that she couldn't keep running in this direction. It was too predictable. All her Pursuers had to do was hurry along the street in front of the house, get ahead of her, hide, and wait to kill her when she tried to leave the area. Her only hope was that the sirens, now very close, would force her hunters to flee.

But she couldn't count on that. She had to guarantee her protection. How ?

Breathing rapidly, shaking, confused, afraid, she made an urgent choice and instead of continuing to sprint across this yard, she darted toward its rear. After passing through the darkness between a swimming pool and a tennis court, she found her way blocked by a high stone wall. She glanced around, desperate, in search of a ladder or a tree near the wall, anything that would allow her to get over the top.