S Stirling - The Council of Shadows

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.

Adrian took three paces and heaved her over his shoulder. Ellen was beside him, rifle discarded; she grabbed for his son and dragged the boy backwards out of the pool of blood, throwing him into a fireman's carry. Together they struggled through the wreckage of the gate. Adrian tossed Guha's limp form into the van, and dove after her.

Blackness.

"Had the devil of a time getting you out of that steel coffin before you smothered," Farmer grumbled, looking down at the plastic cast on his arm. "That's where I got this from a stray round, and the ricochet hit Cheba in the thigh. We weren't even sure your etheric form had made it back to the meat body. Then the black helicopter spiraled in and we piled in…God, what a movie it would make."

Adrian smiled thinly. He still felt as if every inch of him had been beaten with clubs until his skin came off and then he was dipped in acid; that was what you got for overusing the Power. Even a private feeding with Ellen had made him feel only a little better, enough to keep down some of the Brotherhood's shanghaied Red Cross blood. The institutional beige-and-brown atmosphere of the safe-house hospital wasn't helping either.

"You need help, honey?" Ellen said. "You could stay in the wheelchair for this, you know."

Slowly Adrian stood. The rail of the bed rattled a bit as he put out a hand when everything swayed, and then steadied. He opened his mouth to say he could stand on his own, then smiled and let her put an arm around his waist; his went over her shoulders.

"Thank you," he said. "Thank you very much."

"You're welcome. This way. The doctor says she can't say much, but she insisted."

"She saved my son," Adrian said. "She can insist as she pleases."

The hospital was set up in orthodox fashion, until you noticed there were no exterior windows; the rooms opened off a central corridor, with two or three beds in each. Most were vacant; the next held a sullen Cheba, and Eric Salvador sitting in a chair beside her bed being politely implacable about keeping her in it. Beyond that was Guha's.

No convalescence here; it was simple flat-out borderline-fatal injury. Adrian's nose flared slightly at the smell of pain. The doctors thought the agent would live, but three pulverized ribs and a perforated lung were not something you could shrug off. Jack Farmer was speaking as they walked in:

"And you are going to take some time off. We never did get to go on that holiday in Mauritius you always talked about…Okay, here he is."

The nurse watching the monitors gave him a warning glance as he nodded.

"Second…time…save," Guha said breathily as he bent over her.

The painkilling drugs were making her muzzy, but he could feel the effort of will she put forth into mastering it. The tubes rattled a little as she moved one arm slightly.

"Got to tell you. Harvey…said not. Owe you. Harvey…has the bomb. I…can feel…you should know. Black-path if you don't. Harvey…has the bomb."

"Bomb?" Adrian said softly.

There was an image in her mind. A flash of light…

"Used…plutonium from the…Never mind. Twenty-five kilo-ton. In Istanbul. To Tbilisi."

Adrian blinked. "What? You could never conceal something like that-"

"Boase. Figured it out. Got it. Harvey's taking it to Tbilisi."

Her eyes fluttered closed. The nurse pointed warningly out the door, and Adrian walked-stumbled-in that direction, holding himself up against the jamb. Images strobed through his mind, a wild tangle of possibilities with a dead center where the Power simply wasn't.

"Bomb?" Ellen said. "That redneck maniac has a nuclear bomb?"

"He's going to try to destroy the Council," Adrian said with soft wonder. "All the most powerful Shadowspawn adepts in one place. That hasn't happened since before Hiroshima. And with Boase's shield to keep it from being detected."