He was still conscious enough to feel the cold kiss of steel; then she rammed the blade up under his breastbone, angling slightly to the left. It was an ordinary single-edged belt-knife, more tool than weapon, but eight inches of sharp steel would do the job anyway.
"And you know," she went on to the still-twitching corpse, "I really don't like it when anyone except another dyke calls me a dyke."
Tiphaine left the knife where it was; if there were any useable prints on the horn of the hilt, they'd be the unconscious Dave's. Now, to get out, she should be able to use the courtyard door:
"Hold it! We don't want to harm you!"
A head rose, a man standing on the stairs. Blond, sharp-featured; enough like her to be her brother, ironically enough. No way back. Decision and action followed together; she closed her eyes to get the advantage of a crucial second's adjustment, whirled, kicked over the lamp and leapt forward over his head as it winked out. Darkness descended, not absolute but shocking to anyone expecting the light to continue. In midair she twisted and drew her legs up, and landed in a crouch behind him; wood rapped painfully against her shin, but she didn't fall. Instead she was in a perfect three-point stance, two feet and left hand supporting her, the right fist curled back to her ear.
The narrow confines of the stairwell trapped the man above her for an instant. In that instant she struck, hammering a knuckle into the inside of his thigh where it would paralyze the muscle. The leg buckled under him. Tiphaine slapped both her hands down on the wood of the stair as he fell and struck out behind her with both feet, a mule-kick at the shadowy figure behind her at the bottom of the stairs, lashing out with all the strength of her long, hard-muscled legs.
Thump.
Surprise almost slowed her as the half-seen opponent managed to get forearms up for a cross-block, riding the bone-shattering force of the blow backward, falling to the asphalt floor of the warehouse.
Fast, that one. Be careful!
Tiphaine let her feet fall back just in time for the man she'd leg-punched to topple back on top of her. The weight drove an ufffff! from between her teeth, but she made her arms and legs springs to push back at him, tossing him headforemost with his spine to the stairs. With a strangled yell he went hurtling down the stairs behind her, even as she turned and crouched and leapt again; he landed hard, and yelled again, this time in pain.
The ground floor of the warehouse gave her space to move. The man was tangled up with the one she'd kicked. A corner of her mind registered moon-pale hair: Astrid Larsson. The door was temptingly open:
Instead she turned and ran down an alleyway between towering piles of full, sixty-pound sacks of oats, the layout flashing through her mind as she moved. A deep bass voice swore outside the doorway, and the floor thudded as a man came through; he'd been waiting outside. John Hordle. Every bit as big as she remembered him but astonishingly quick, right on her heels. If those hands closed on her, she was doomed. It would be like trying to fight a grizzly.
No choice.
She sprang again, landed halfway up a fourteen-foot stack of bagged grain and scrambled to the top like a squirrel running up a tree. Across the top of it, slippery burlap moving beneath the soft gripping soles of her boots. The whole stack thudded and shivered under her as Hordle's massive weight slammed into it without slowing, then started to topple towards the wall in an avalanche that could shatter bones and kill. Desperate, Tiphaine let that fling her towards the window there, launching herself out with her arms crossed before her face.
Crash.
Glass shattered, and the thin laths broke and twisted. Tiphaine's belly drew up of itself-she had a fifty-fifty chance of carving her own guts out and spilling them on the ground, with a crazy stunt like this. At least she wouldn't have to try and explain to Lady Sandra how she'd missed four people lying in wait Then she was rolling on the asphalt in the cold darkness; only superficial cuts. They stung, but no tendons were severed, no muscle deeply gashed. Rolling, up on her feet again, and another figure was coming around the corner of the warehouse, clearing a stack of boxes with a raking stride and landing smoothly, beautifully fluent. A woman, as tall as she, black hair-Eilir Mackenzie. The others would be seconds behind her.
Tiphaine turned and leapt again, her foot hitting the top of a wheelbarrow leaned against the cinderblock outer wall of the Hatfield property and giving her a brace for another scrabbling jump. The top of the wall had a coil of barbed wire on it, bad but better than spikes or broken glass. She grabbed, heedless of the sharp iron punching into her palms, wrenched, pulled, flung her body up sideways and rolled across it, pulling with desperate strength as cloth and skin tore.
Whump. The sidewalk outside struck her, nearly knocking out her wind. That wouldn't do.
She was up and running down the street, pulling the rope and grapnel slung over her shoulder loose. As she did she filled her lungs and screamed:
"Help! Police! Murder! Help!" and for good measure added a scream pure and simple, a shriek of fear and pain. Summoning one wasn't all that difficult.
There weren't many houses in this neighborhood, but there were some, and night-watchmen as well. Lights flared, and doors opened, spilling yellow flame-light onto the pavement. A whistle sounded sharply not far away, and a clatter of hooves. The grapnel buzzed over her head and flew out, and the thin, strong rope snaked behind it. The tines came down on the peak of a roof, and she hit the side of the building running, swarming up the knotted rope with the strength of her arms alone and fending off with her feet; for a heart-stopping instant she thought the blood on her palms had made them too slick, but the chamois leather gave her enough traction.
No time to stop on the roof, though her lungs burned and the cold air was like some hot, thin gas rasping her lungs. She snatched up the rope behind her as she ran, heedless of the risk of tripping, gathered it into a rough bundle and jerked the grapnel free as she passed. An alleyway beyond, another roof past it she pumped arms and legs to gather momentum, leapt outward Behind her a great bass voice shouted: "What a sodding balls-up!"
Corvallis, Oregon
January 12th, 2008/Change Year 9
Michael Havel stirred the body with a boot, carefully avoiding the tacky red-brown trickle of blood from the death-wound and the corpse's mouth and nose, still congealing in the cold air of a winter dawn. He was thankful there weren't any flies; a few tiny footprints indicated that the rats had been nosing around, though they hadn't had peace enough to settle in for a snack.
"Three guesses as to the cause of death," he said dryly, touching a toe to the staghorn hilt of the knife whose blade had been driven up under the ribs.
"Gee, that's a toughie," Signe said, her tone as pawky as his.
We've been married going on ten years and we're starting to think alike, Havel thought. Apparently that old saying is true.
Signe wrinkled her nose at the smell, but stooped over the tumbled corpse, which lay in a tangle of limbs and the collapsed cot. The others were out in the open space that made up most of the upper story of the warehouse, apart from Bill Hatfield, who was apparently still reaming out his unfortunate guards down below, near where they'd been found. In between times, he yelled at the police, who were shouting back. The gray light was gradually swelling, as the sun rose behind the clouds.
And am I glad I'm not those guards! the lord of the Bearkillers thought. Assuming it wasn't what it looked like, they're still never going to live it down.
"Look," his wife said, and pulled back the padded gambeson the dead man wore-they made passable winter coats-and the shirt beneath. "Someone broke his collarbone before they killed him. I thought the way his arm was lying was a bit strange."
Havel grunted and leaned over, his hands on his knees. There was a little blood where the skin had been broken, and the bone gave under his probing fingertip. Someone had done exactly that-good sharp fracture, but not enough damage to have been done by a blade. At a guess, something metal and with an edge, but a blunt one.