Winter Moon

on its westward course, was mostly hidden by an overcast.
        She was being irresponsible. She wasn't protecting Toby. If anything, she was putting him in greater jeopardy. Over the top. Out of control. She knew it. Couldn't help it. She'd had enough. Couldn't take any more. Couldn't stop.
        To her right lay the covered rear porch, the patio in front of it. The backyard was lit only patchily by what moonlight penetrated the ragged veil of clouds. Tall eucalyptuses, smaller benjaminas, and low shrubs were dappled with lunar silver.
        She was on the west side of the house. She moved to her left along the.walkway, toward the south.
        At the corner she halted, listening. Because there was no wind, she could clearly hear the vicious hissing, a sound that only stoked her anger.
        Murmurs of conversation. Couldn't catch the words.
        Stealthy footsteps hurrying toward the back of the house. A low, suppressed laugh, almost a giggle. Having such a good time at their game.
        Judging the moment of his appearance by the sound of his swiftly approaching footsteps, intending to scare the living hell out of him, Heather moved forward. With perfect timing, she met him at the turn in the sidewalk.
        She was surprised to see he was taller than she was. She had expected them to be ten years old, eleven, twelve at the oldest.
        The prowler let out a faint
        "Ah!" of alarm.
        Putting the fear of God into them was going to be a harder proposition than if they'd been younger. And no retreating now. They'd drag her down. And then..
        She kept moving, collided with him, rammed him backward across the eight-foot-wide setback and into the ivy-covered concrete-block wall that marked the southern property line.
        The can of spray paint flew out of his hand, clattered against the sidewalk.
        The impact knocked the wind out of him. His mouth sagged open, and he gasped for breath.
        Footsteps. The second one. Running toward her.
        Pressed against the first boy, face-to-face, even in the darkness, she saw that he was sixteen or seventeen, maybe older. Plenty old enough to know better.
        She rammed her right knee up between his spread legs and turned away from him as he fell, wheezing and retching, into the flower bed along the wall.
        The second boy was coming at her fast. He didn't see the gun, and she didn't have time to stop him with a threat.
        She stepped toward him instead of away, spun on her left foot, and kicked him in the crotch with her right. Because she'd moved into him, it was a deep kick, she caught him with her ankle and the upper part of the bridge of her foot instead of with her toes..He crashed past her, slammed into the sidewalk, and rolled against the first boy, afflicted by an identical fit of retching.
        A third one was coming at her along the sidewalk from the front of the house, but he skidded to a halt fifteen feet away and started to back up.
        "Stop right there," she said. "I've got a gun." Though she raised the Korth, holding it in a two-hand grip, she did not raise her voice, and her calm control made the order more menacing than if she had shouted it in an He stopped, but maybe he couldn't see the revolver in the dark. His body language said he was still contemplating making a break for it.
        "So help me God," she said, still at a conversational level, "I'll blow your brains out." She was surprised by the cold hatred in her voice.
        She wouldn't really have shot him. She was sure of that. Yet the sound of her own voice frightened her… and made her wonder.
        His shoulders sagged. His entire posture changed. He believed her threat.
        A dark exhilaration filled her. Nearly three months of intense taste kwon do and women's defense classes, provided free to members of police families three times a week at the division gym, had paid off. Her right foot hurt like blazes, probably almost as badly as the second boy's crotch hurt him. She might have broken a bone in it, would certainly be hobbling around for a week even if there wasn't a fracture, but she felt so good about nailing the three vandals that she was happy to suffer for her triumph.
        "Come here," she said. "Now, come on, come on."
        The third kid raised his hands over his head. He was holding a spray can in each of them.
        "Get down on the ground with your buddies," she