Intensity

snout. It wheezed and hacked and made shrill sounds of distress.
        Chyna turned from it. She kept moving.
        She was surprised to hear herself speaking aloud: "Shit, shit, shit…"
        Onward, then, to the head of the porch steps, where she glanced back warily and saw that the big dog was on its feet, wobbling in circles, shaking its head. Between sharp squeals of pain, it was sneezing violently.
        The second dog virtually flew out of the darkness, attacking as Chyna descended the bottom step. From the corner of her eye, she detected movement to her left, turned her head, and saw an airborne Doberman- oh, God -like an incoming mortar round. Though she raised her left arm and started to swing toward the dog, she wasn't quick enough, and before she could loose a stream of ammonia, she was hit so hard that she was nearly bowled off her feet. She stumbled sideways but somehow maintained her balance.
        The Doberman's teeth were sunk into the thick sleeve on her left arm. It wasn't merely holding her as a police dog would have done but was working at the padding as if chewing on meat, trying to rip off a chunk and severely disable her, tear open an artery so she would bleed to death, but fortunately its teeth hadn't penetrated to her flesh.
        After coming at her in disciplined silence, the dog still wasn't snarling. But from low in its throat issued a sound halfway between a growl and a hungry keening, an eerie and needful cry that Chyna heard too clearly in spite of her padded helmet.
        Point-blank, reaching across her body with her right hand, she squirted a stream of ammonia into the Doberman's fierce black eyes.
        The dog's jaws flew open as if they were part of a mechanical device that had popped a tension spring, and it spun away from her, silvery strings of saliva trailing from its black lips, howling in agony.
        She remembered the words of warning on the ammonia label: Causes substantial but temporary eye injury .
        Squealing like an injured child, the dog rolled in the grass, pawing at its eyes as the first animal had pawed at its snout, but with even greater urgency.
        The manufacturer recommended rinsing contaminated eyes with plenty of water for fifteen minutes. The dog had no water, unless it instinctively made its way to a stream or pond, so it would not be a problem to her for at least a quarter of an hour, most likely far longer.
        The Doberman sprang to its feet and chased its tail, snapping its teeth. It stumbled and fell again, scrambled erect, and streaked away into the night, temporarily blinded, in considerable pain.
        Incredibly, listening to the poor thing's screams as she hurried toward the motor home, Chyna winced with remorse. It would have torn her apart without hesitation if it could have gotten at her, but it was a mindless killer only by training, not by nature. In a way, the dogs were just other victims of Edgler Vess, their lives bent to his purpose. She would have spared them suffering if she had been able to rely solely on the protective clothing.
        How many more dogs?
        Vess had implied there was a pack. Hadn't he said four? Of course, he might be lying. There might be only two.
         Move, move, move.
        At the passenger-side cockpit door of the motor home, she tried the handle. Locked.
         No more dogs, just five seconds without dogs, please.
        She dropped the spray bottle from her right hand, so she could pinch the bow of the key between her thumb and finger. She was barely able to feel it through the thick gloves.
        Her hand was shaking. The key missed the keyhole and chattered against the chrome face of the lock cylinder. She would have dropped it if it hadn't been sewn to the glove.
        From behind this time, just as she was about to slip the key into the door on her second try, a Doberman hit her, leaping onto her back, biting at the nape of her neck.
        She was slammed forward against the vehicle. The face shield on her helmet smacked hard against the door.
        The dog's teeth were sunk into the thick rolled collar of the trainer's jacket, no doubt also into the padding on the segmented plastic collar that she wore under the jacket to protect her neck. It was holding on to her by its teeth, tearing at her ineffectively with its claws, like a demon lover in a nightmare.
        As the dog's impact had pitched her forward against the