Free Secret of the Slaves by Alex Archer Page B

was, the beam itself missed Annja. Screaming, she slashed blindly with the sword. She felt it bite and pass through the scarcely yielding solidity of wood, not flesh. Blinking wildly at tears of agony, she pressed forward.
    When she could see again, it was to glimpse her opponent’s sandaled heel vanishing into an oblong of brilliance that must have been a back door.
    A quick glance revealed Dan sitting up amid a jagged jumble of broken wood and glass, hair and shoulders dusted with bits of iridescent feather. He was holding his head in his hands and moaning.
    Without further thought she followed her instinct—which was to pursue. She sprinted toward the light. She burst out into the heat and glare at full speed and shot across the narrow alley, slamming into a wall.
    A green flash, blindingly bright even in the sun’s full glare, blasted a gouge in the wall. Annja saw her opponent running just before she disappeared around a right turn in the narrow way. The woman had snapped a shot toward where she judged her opponent would appear, not calculating that Annja would blow right through the doorway kill zone to the alley’s far side. Annja felt a cold twinge in her belly at the realization the woman could just as easily have foreseen Annja’s move had she been experienced in fighting instead of merely skilled.
    But every choice, she knew, could go either way. You had to take your pick—and pray.
    Annja ran after the vanished woman. She put the sword away as she raced along the alley. A tall white woman chasing a black one was likely to attract enough unwelcome attention. If she was waving a sword, things would spiral a lot further out of control.
    She pounded around the corner. As she did she dimly remembered something she’d read somewhere, or maybe been told—that police departments trained their officers not to pursue a firearm-wielding suspect on foot. The reason was the officer might race around a corner to find herself confronted with a felon already braced and aiming, waiting for her to show in the gun’s sights.
    Instead, Annja found herself confronting a broad street full of people in bright clothes staring in some consternation after the tall woman who had just plowed through them.
    â€œThief!” Annja shouted. It wasn’t true, so far as she knew. But to call her what she apparently was, a murderer, would only bring official scrutiny she definitely did not want. At least the baseless call of thief would give some context to her pursuit in the minds of the crowd.
    The fleeing woman glanced back over her shoulder. She saw Annja through the crowd. Her handsome face twisted in dismay. Already slowed by looking backward, she stopped, turned and brought up her hand. The muscles of Annja’s face contracted in anticipation of a green death bolt. But she kept doggedly moving forward, slowed to a jog by the desire not to jostle the passersby.
    The woman in the flared turban pointed her hand at Annja. Annja couldn’t see what she held. Her brain screamed for her to duck, dodge, dive to the sidewalk. Instead she made herself forge on, slowly closing the gap, already less than thirty yards—a long shot for a handgun.
    She made her eyes hold the other woman’s gaze. She could see indecision ripple across the beautifully chiseled dark features like wavelets across a pond, followed by frustration.
    The woman dropped her arm and stepped sideways into a door.
    Murderer or not, she has scruples about shooting into a crowd, and the self-control to heed them, Annja thought. The Promessan had some conscience, at least.
    The doorway had a warped wooden jamb covered in peeling blue paint. The door had not closed all the way. Annja plunged inside.
    It was dark. A bit of light fell on the floor from a flyspecked, yellow-stained window at the far end of the corridor she found herself in. Annja smelled strange spices, things boiling, some eye-searing kind of chemical cleanser. She was