For the rest of Blaise's life he would believe he saw the black 10-mm eye of the pistol flash yellow. Only Takisian reflexes saved him then. He felt the hot breath of the bullet's passage as he threw himself back into the corridor, and its miniature sonic boom stung his cheek like a slap.

He hit the right-hand wall with enough force to send the air out of him, went down on butt and shoulderblades. But his training held; he kept two-handed control of the SWAT man's wonder nine, kept the pistol trained generally on the corridor mouth the whole time.

When he stopped sliding, he firmed his aim in the middle of the door where he judged the center of the Morakh's mass would appear. He held there for a dozen highspeed heartbeats, ignoring the trembling in his arms.

The monster did not follow up his advantage. Blaise fought panic like a swimmer in an undertow, forcing his mind to the surface. Durg would not pursue him, he realized. To do so would leave the door unguarded, and holding the surrounding police at bay would be Durg's main priority. Short of a direct threat to his master-or death-there was no force in the universe that could move a Morakh from his post.

The fear receded. Rage took its place. Blaise dropped his eyes to the limp body of K.C. Strange and smiled. With a gymnast's bound, he came to his feet. He flexed his knees slightly, locked his arms into the isosceles triangle of the Weaver stance, drew a deep breath.

The fat white dot of the foresight hovered like a moon over K. C. Strange's sternum. Blaise began to let the breath out. The trigger slack came in.

"Shit! There's shooting!" K. C. stopped halfway down the stairs.

"Well, it can't hurt me, at least," read George Bush's lips.

She tossed her pistol to Cosmic Traveler and fumbled a pair of handcuffs out of a pocket of Norwalk's coat. "Put these on my wrists."

"Whatever for?"

"Something's coming down. I've gotta get back to my body."

"But it's too soon! You have to get us out of here!"

"You're the ace. If I have to, I can jump somebody else. Jesus, come on."

"Oh, this is just too much. Trust Meadows to have such unreliable friends. How can you leave me and this innocent child in the lurch?"

"You, easy." She finished snapping the cuffs around Norwalk's knobby ginger-haired wrists. "Sayonara, sucker."

Blaise squeezed the trigger with one smooth pull, felt the sear break crisply.

K.C. raised her head. Her eyes met his above the sights. "No!" he screamed. The gun bucked and roared. The bullet hit K.C. two inches above the right nipple and slammed her back into the planter.

Durg at-Morakh fired three quick rounds into the corridor from which the shot had come. He was firing blind, suppressive fire; the angle was bad, and he couldn't see a target. It was impossible to cover the gaggle of prisoners, the front door, and the side corridors all at once. Even Morakh had their limitations.

Still, he could scarcely believe he had missed his first shot at the intruding policeman. There had been something behind his eyes, a flicker of touch, like nothing he had ever felt before. Perhaps that had thrown off his aim by a fraction of are.

It was no excuse. A Morakh knew no excuses, only success or death. If his lord demanded his life for K. C. Strange, it was his.

For now, he still had duty.

Cosmic Traveler and Sprout had just reached bottom when the shot hit K. C. The Traveler cringed as Durg blasted shots in return. His impulse was to go insubstantial and melt through the floor into the basement. It was the sensible thing to do. He could keep himself insubstantial only so long, and then bullets would be able to hurt him, cops would be able to lay heavy coarse hands on him. He couldn't tolerate that risk. But something-residual influence of the baseline Mark persona perhaps-made it impossible for him simply to vanish and leave Sprout to her fate.

Durg saw him, waved him back. "Go. I'll catch up with you."

Traveler rabbited up the stairs with Sprout in tow. Tears stung Blaise's eyes as he stumbled down the corridor. Oh, K.C., K.C., why did you have to choose that moment to jump back?

She was hurt too badly to muster the mental concentration needed to jump to safety in another body. She was lost to him, lost. Rage and grief rose up and threatened to overwhelm him.

Now I'll never get to torture you to death! Oh, Mark Meadows, you have much to answer for.

Durg ignored his captives' screaming. He was focused on the front entrance now. The police outside would have heard the shooting.

Bulky in his flak jacket, a SWAT man hit the outer door, popped it open, and rolled in, leveling a shotgun from the hip.

Durg had orders from his lord to avoid violence if possible, to avoid killing at all costs. Durg had mentally amended that to not killing anyone except to preserve the life of Mark or his daughter. He could always atone with his life later if Mark would not absolve him of guilt for disobedience; to preserve the life of one's lord was a higher imperative even than to obey. But Durg felt confident he need take no lives. None of these groundlings was a big enough threat.

Without seeming to hurry, he pivoted, bringing the Colt around. He fired as it came on-line.

The Kevlar jacket was guaranteed to stop anything up to a. 44 Magnum. The 10-mm was slightly less potent, equivalent to a. 4-I Magnum. As advertised, the vest did stop it. But the copper-jacketed bullet delivered a lot of energy right through the vest into the patrolman's solar plexus. He went down gasping like a grounded carp.

"Ohh," Cosmic Traveler moaned at the pistol crack that chased them up the stairs like Fate hounding a classical Greek hero. They popped out the top, and there at hand was salvation, the Traveler's ultimate refuge: a broom closet. He tried the door. Locked, of course.

"Shit," he said.

Sprout gasped. Heart in throat, he whirled, expecting to see fifteen hundred SWAT cops and federal agents thundering down on them like a herd of buffalo. Instead, the girl was staring straight at his face, and he realized he'd resumed his preferred form, a blue and hairless humanoid with a black cowl. "Wait here a moment, honey,'." he said, and stepped through the door.

Once inside, he thought, why open the door? It will only let them know I'm here. And they'd never hurt a mere child. I

The universe seemed to vibrate to a single plangent chord. A chasm opened beneath his feet. "No!" he screamed. "It's not possible! I'm supposed to get an hour! Oh, God, the fool will get me killllled!.. ."

He plummeted into black infinity.

"Something's going on here," SWAT lieutenant Dixon said to the pencil neck from plainclothes. "I'm assuming Lieutenant Norwalk has been taken hostage. I'm taking command here." He pumped his neck and shoulders a little, hearkening back to lineman days.

The honkie from Serious Crimes kind of fell on himself. "Okay."

A couple of officers had dragged Torres from the doorway, and he was unloading breakfast into what winter and half a hundred booted feet had left of a rosebush.

"All right, we're going in again, but this time we're gonna do it right. Connelly, take your men around to the left. Washington, you go right. Kelly, you get three and take the back. The rest of us are going right through the front door." There was no one in view down the corridor when Durg got there. He waved his Colt back at the terrified staffers. "I'm letting you go now. Out the front door."

The captives just stared at each other and trembled. He fired a round into the wall over their heads. It sounded like a howitzer going off.

"Now!"

They stampeded for the exit just as the cops were coming in.

For a moment, Mark Meadows stood in the dark with his hands braced against the door and his head hung between them. It had been a long time since he'd been the Traveler. He'd almost forgotten what this concentration of Lysol and ammonia smelled like.