Footsteps scraped carpet behind Skater.

He whirled, his moves riding the razor's edge of the boosted reflexes as adrenaline poured into his nervous system. The Predator came to a stop before him. He stared down the barrel at a thin guy in his fifties wearing a bathrobe.

"Don't shoot!" the man said. He elevated his arms quickly. "I just came down to complain about the noise coming from the apartment above me!"

Skater knew the man had seen the bodies on the other side of the desk. "What number are you?"

"Fourteen-eleven," the man answered.

Larisa was in fifteen-eleven. Skater dropped the gun away from the man. "You know the LTG number for Knight Errant Security?"

The man nodded, still not sure of himself.

"Call them," Skater said. "Tell them they've got someone down at this location." He pushed the man toward the deskcom, then sprinted for the elevator bank.

With a soft ping announcing its arrival, the doors to the elevator cage slid open. It was empty.

Skater stepped inside. After a brief hesitation, the elevator doors closed and the cage started up with a jerk. Seconds later, he stepped out onto the fifteenth floor.

Nothing moved in front of him. The corridor, sound proofed and deeply carpeted, the walls lined with expensive prints, was empty. Glass windows at both ends peered out over the other buildings in the neighborhood, filled with black space and diamond-hard stars. Red neon lights advertised the fire escape exits beside them.

He moved into the corridor and trotted toward Larisa's doss.

The doors were ornate bronze, filigreed with images from fables, which the Awakening had caused some to start speculating were possible history instead. The one on Larisa's door dealt with the Ashanti myth concerning the creation of rainbows.

Without warning, the frozen waves rolling out from a spilling waterfall in the frieze went from highlighted bronze to a gradually deepening scorched black that grew. Skater put his hand to the door. The heat soaked through the metal into his palm, already hot enough to burn. When he jerked his hand back, he saw that some of the black had come off on his skin. The soot flaked off easily.

The charred pattern spread even as he felt the heat radiate outward, quickly filling in the imprint of his palm. A fire extinguisher hung inside a cubicle in the wall down the corridor. He ran and got it, then hurried back.

Skater was sure someone had tampered with the building's security systems, or alarms would have been going off like fireworks by now. Shoving the Predator into his waistband, he kicked the door and broke the lock.

As the door opened, a sheet of flame dropped toward him. The Kevlar duster protected Skater for the most part, but he felt the fire licking at his exposed flesh. He triggered the fire extinguisher. A white cloud of fire retardent splashed against the fiery curtain confronting him. He stepped inside, carrying the extinguisher in one hand and the hose in the other.

Light from the flames illuminated the dark room. The furniture was ornate, expensive, nothing like the stuff Larisa usually went for. Fire ringed the room in a pattern that told him it was there by no accident. On the wall to his left, a fireplace blazed like a pit from hell, evidently the source of the initial flames.

"Larisa!" Skater's voice was tight, already made hoarse by the thick, coiling smoke. He laid down a pattern of flame retardent. trying to guess how the doss was laid out.

No one answered his call.

Skater avoided the flaming sofa and went around it. The floor changed from carpet to tile when he passed through a doorway, letting him know he'd stepped into the kitchen. Firelight gleamed and reflected from the metallic surfaces of the appliances. The effect was muted by the thick smoke.

He coughed and sat the extinguisher down long enough to take a bandanna from his pocket and knot it around his lower face. It helped, but only a little. He wouldn't be able to stay here long without succumbing to the smoke or lack of oxygen.

"Larisa!" Fear scattered inside him, rolling through him like a charge of DMSO invading his nervous system. He spotted a flight of stairs to his right when he evacuated the empty kitchen. So far the fire hadn't spread up the steps.

A pool of flames gathered at the foot of the stairs, further across than he could jump.

Thumbing the extinguisher's release, he laid down a solid sheet of spray before him. Stubbornly, the flames gave way turning to smoldering embers in the craters they'd made in the carpet. He tossed the empty extinguisher away and started up the stairs.

Glass shattered to his left and he turned instinctively toward the sound. Mirror shards from the wall opposite the front door dropped into the meter-high flames. Dozens of little reflections were captured in the irregular pieces.

Skater recognized the leaping form of the hell hound at the same time he felt the blistering heat of the wrought iron banister he was clutching. The soot black animal reared out of the fire, apparently untouched by the flames, standing as tall as Skater on its hind legs. Its eyes were blazing red coals above a mouthful of huge fangs. Despite the heat, the ivory gleamed.

Pushing himself to the side and releasing the hot banister, Skater narrowly avoided the creature's initial lunge. Across the room, the curtains caught with a whoosh. The fire spread their length, paused at the ceiling for a heartbeat, and flowed across it like an in-rushing tide.

At the foot of the stairs, the hell hound dug in its feet and turned to face Skater just as the carpet below it caught fire again. It leaped at him from the flames, baying out a flaming breath that spread as it came at Skater.

Twisting to avoid the creature's attack. Skater reached for his Predator. As he drew the pistol, the hell hound's flaming breath slammed into his shoulder with more physical force than he expected. His first two rounds went over the beast's head as he stumbled back along the stairs.

Blue and yellow flames clung to the duster's shoulder from the beast's fiery breath. Heat soaked in through the Kevlar hot enough to burn. Before he could bring the pistol up again, the animal was on him. Its eyes burned red, and flaming slavers dripped from its blunt muzzle as it opened wide and reached for his face. Its front paws were heavy on Skater's chest.

Thrusting his free hand up between the creature's forelegs. Skater bent his arm at the side of the animal's neck and leveraged it away from his face. The glistening fangs took a bite out of the carpet covering the stairs instead of flesh.

Skater's muscles strained to hold the hound's muzzle from his face. It bayed again, spitting more fiery breath that singed the wall beside the stairs. Skater brought the Predator's barrel up behind the beast's ear and pulled the trigger. The detonations echoed through the room even above the snapping and crackling of the flames.

Blood and bone and fur covered Skater. With a spasmodic quiver, the huge black dog collapsed. Unable to take a deep breath because of the animal's weight, the smoke, and the heat, Skater struggled to push it off him. When he got to his feet, his vision was blurry. The Predator was starting to heat up in his hand, but he refused to release it. He'd heard rumors that some corps were using hellhounds as guard dogs, but he'd never run into one before. The hound's handler had to be somewhere close.

"Larisa!" Skater could hardly hear his own voice above the inferno swirling through the spacious apartment. He reached the landing and swept his gaze across the two closed doors in front of him. Perspiration dripped off him, soaking into his clothes as his body tried to compensate for the heat facing him. His chest burned with the effort of trying to breathe, and his lungs were wracked by fits of coughing.