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By now Millie had seen her opportunity. The Katushev's battery-driven motor
hummed into life, its turret turning smoothly as she sought to target Szwart where he
stood isolated from the rest by some two or three paces. And Millie wasn't the only one
in action.
The Necroscope had commenced his run, hurling himself diagonally across the
steel-plated disc toward the Gate. Level with Malinari and Liz, he went to intercept them
at the Gate's event horizon. But out of the corner of his eye Malinari had seen him and
deliberately slowed down. For with the exception of the hag Vavara's interference, it
was all working out almost exactly as planned.
Three of E-Branch's avengers  Millie, Trask, and the Necroscope were now
involved in the action, but there was still a fourth to come. For Malinari's telepathic
probes had not been in error back there in the magmass cavern when momentarily they
had seemed to detect a presence other than Trask's. They had in fact detected just
such a presence, only to be tricked, deflected from their quarry by a Traveller survival
technique. And of course, Lardis Lidesci was one of the greatest survivors of all time.
Out from the shaft he stepped, with his razor-edged machete in his clenched fist,
the strap of Trask's sausage bag over his shoulder, and disposable sunglasses
protecting his eyes. And no more than twenty feet ahead of him, there stood Szwart with
his ropy hands held up in front of his grotesque face, his gasping, whistling voice
cursing the light from the Gate.
Lardis didn't think twice  and to hell with his rheumatic joints!  as he drew back
his throwing arm and let fly with all the deadly accuracy of a Szgany marksman. Coated
with silver at its tip, the machete made a whup-whup-whupping sound as it spun end
over end once, twice, three times and slammed into Szwart's back point first. But
already in the process of alien, automatic metamorphosis, Szwart's being was
something less than solid, and the Old Lidesci's weapon passed three-quarters through
him, so that the first six inches stuck out in front.
Szwart drew it out point first, gazed at it through eyes in flood, then turned and
glared his astonishment  then his fury  at Lardis, and took one menacing step towards
him. Which was when Millie thumbed the Katushev's firing studs.
The Lord of Darkness was swatted, holed, mangled like a rag doll, snatched from
his feet and thrown down, with blobs of his blood and chunks of his protoflesh flying.
And under the Katushev's canopy Millie laughed and cried, bouncing in her seat like a
lunatic as she eased her thumbs off the studs and the obscene cacophony of cannon-
fire ceased. And there on the steel plates, beginning at the spot where Szwart had been
standing, lay a trail like a scarlet skid mark, leading to a steaming, immobile mound of
weird flesh twenty or more feet away. And:
'Take me down under London, would you, you bastard thing?' Millie cried.
Vampirise me with your bloody spores, would you? You're done for, Szwart, but you're
not going to hell alone!'
The Katushev's motor hummed again, but Millie was too late. The action had
moved on, and friends and enemies alike were now too close together...
Malinari was almost at the Gate. Its glaring white surface, the event horizon,
seemed to beckon him. But the hag Vavara was hot on his heels, her face a mask of
loathing, and her chomping bottom jaw dripping blood. And not only Vavara but Jake
Cutter, too.
The Necroscope was coming fast; he would arrive at the same time; and he wore
a harness slung loosely over his shoulders, a bottle of incendiary chemicals on his back,
and such a scowl of determination on his face that Malinari felt a sudden twinge of self-
doubt. But it wasn't only Jake's look that did it  it was the squat-bodied flame-thrower in
his white-knuckled hands!
He had found the weapon hanging from its hook in the sentry box, and it had
seemed to make a lot more sense than a machine pistol. For no matter how lethal the
latter might be against an ordinary man, it wasn't likely to unnerve Nephran Malinari, not
while he was holding Liz. But the sight the very notion  of a flame-thrower just might.
And in fact it had.
'Let her go, Malinari,' Jake yelled. 'I'm the one you want, not the girl.' And pointing
the flame-throwers's nozzle, he took up first pressure on the trigger and ignited the pilot
light.
'I haven't harmed your lover,' Malinari snarled. 'Not yet. So don't worry about me,
worry about that one!' And he pointed at Vavara.
For she had seen the danger, too, and came bearing down on Jake with her long
arms reaching and her face a mask of blood.
'Jake, look out!' Liz cried, writhing in Malinari's arms.
She needn't have worried; the Necroscope was already swinging the flame-
thrower in Vavara's direction, and now he squeezed the trigger all the way home. A
roaring, white-hot jet of flame  a demon's tongue of fire  licked out, striking Vavara full
in the face and stopping her just as surely as if she'd slammed head-on into a brick wall.
Vavara shrieked to match the hissing shriek of Jake's lance  danced a mad
dance while he hosed her down  finally slumped to the fish-scale plates in a spreading
pool of her own fluids. Her smoke, steam and stench rose up...
But Malinari had turned Liz to face Jake, and held her like a shield between
himself and Jake's weapon. And: [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]