In Death 30 - Fantasy in Death

arm. “We’ve got no beef with you.”
    “You invade our world, enslave us. We will fight you to the last breath.”
    “I don’t want your damn world.” She saved her breath, spun away from his sword, and reared up in a kick that caught him in the side. When she followed through to finish him, he feinted, fooled her, and ran a line of pain down her hip with the tip of his sword.
    She leaped back. “I’m a New York City cop, you son of a bitch. And I’m going to kick your ass.”
    Riding on fury, she came in hard, her sword flying right, left, slashing through his guard to rip his side. She pushed in, slamming her fist in his face. Blood erupted from his nose.
    “That’s how we do it in New York!”
    Rage burned in his eyes. He let out a war cry, charged in. She rammed her sword into his belly, to the hilt, yanking it free as he fell, then whirling toward Roarke.
    Blood stained the black body armor he wore and smeared the gleaming chest of his opponent. Beside them a river raged in eerie, murky red while enormous tri-winged birds swooped.
    As she ran toward him, she took the drumbeats she heard for her racing heart.
    “I’ve got this,” he snapped out.
    “Oh, for Christ’s sake.” She swung her sword up, but before she could land the blow, Roarke sliced his across his opponent’s throat.
    “I said I had it.”
    “Great. Points for you. Now—”
    She turned with every intention of rushing Var and holding the point of the sword to his throat. Another warrior leaped into her path, then another, and more.
    Men, women, tattooed, armed. And as the drumbeat came from the bones more of them rapped rhythmically on the trees.
    “We can’t take them all,” Eve murmured as she and Roarke moved instinctively to guard each other’s backs.
    “No.” He reached back, took her free hand in his, squeezed. “But we can give them a hell of a fight.”
    “We can hold them off.” She circled with them as the first group moved in slowly. “Hold them off until the backup gets here. If you can get to the controls—if you can find the damn controls, can you end it?”
    “Possibly. If you could get through to that little bastard over there.”
    “Solid line between us and him. A goddamn sword’s not enough to . . . Wait a minute, wait a damn minute.”
    It wasn’t real, she thought. Deadly, murderous, but still not real. But her weapon was. She couldn’t see it, couldn’t feel it through the program, but it was there .
    Muscle memory, habit, ingrained instinct. She shifted her sword to her left hand, drew a breath. She slapped her hand to her side, and her hand remembered. The shape, the feel, the weight.
    She fired, and watched the warrior struck by the beam fall.
    She fired again, again, scattering the field.
    “Clutch piece. Right ankle. Can you get it?”
    “No time.” Roarke whirled to strike at the man who came at her left. “Hit the controls. Blast the bloody controls.”
    “Where the hell are they?”
    She took out another before he landed his sword on Roarke’s unguarded side.
    “Right side of the door!” he shouted, grabbing a second sword from a fallen warrior. “About five feet up.”
    “Where’s the fucking door?” She sent out streams, shooting wild and blind. Those unearthly green trees fired and smoked, screams ripped the air while she struggled to orient herself.
    They just kept coming, she realized as she fired again and again in a desperate attempt to keep the charging warriors off Roarke.
    Var had rigged the game, programmed it for only one outcome.
    “Well, fuck that!”
    Across the damn river, she thought, and east. She concentrated her fire. Five feet up, she thought again, and plowed a stream in a wide swath at five feet.
    She caught movement out of the corner of her eye, started to pivot, to lift her left arm and the sword as she continued to fire with her right.
    Roarke struck in between her and the oncoming warrior, knocking the sword clear of her.
    She watched in shock and horror as the dagger in the warrior’s other hand slid into Roarke’s side.
    In the same instant tongues of flames spurted with a harsh electric crackle and snap. The images shimmered away. She grabbed Roarke, taking his weight when he swayed. “Hold on. Hold on.”
    “You cheated.” Var stood, stunned outrage on his face, in a room filling with smoke. He made a run for the door.
    Eve didn’t spare him a word, simply dropped him.
    As Var’s body jolted and jittered, she eased Roarke to the