“Sure, Jim,” the ork security guard said impassively. “Try not to disturb the neighbors, eh?”

The van rolled another few meters forward, and the rigger parked it a little way down a side street.

“Now, lads, let’s get this straight,” Jim said to emphasize the final briefing. “As little noise as possible and keep the casualties down. Disable at all times. Use the grenades and the tank shots whenever possible, and let’s keep this nice and quick and painless. For us, anyway.”

A dry laugh came from a dark-haired elf toying with an elaborate weapon that appeared to combine a grenade launcher, integrated taser, and trank-shot barrel all in one, and that was before the manufacturers had added stabilizers, IR sights, and whole range of other gizmos. Geraint had been impressed by the size of the elf’s muscles to even carry the thing, though the gyromount harness was obviously helping with that. That he could still move with amazing swiftness when encumbered by the monstrosity was a testimony to his wired reflexes.

It was a well-balanced squad, Michael thought. Two trolls for strength and power, two elves for speed and reaction, a dwarf who appeared to be a combined engineer, quartermaster, and tactician rolled into one, and a single human who looked as big as the trolls and as fast as the elves, not even Counting the chromed rigger. Judging by Serrin’s thoughtful look, Geraint guessed that one of the elves was a magical adept at the very least, probably assensing even as they were approaching the building. The team ordered the nobleman not to come in until they’d disabled anything that moved inside number 16, and he was only too happy to comply. The flag of the Tuscany Republic hung outside, but that wouldn’t do the occupants any good. it wasn’t the official residence of the ambassador Geraint had reassured them that while a raid might cause a slight ripple, it would be nothing he couldn’t handle.

The black-swathed, armored figures slipped out the back of the van and merged effortlessly into the night, leaving the rigger behind to monitor the scene from a dozen different angles and taking downloaded data from the head cameras of two of those approaching the building. Within seconds the familiar tinkle of breaking glass announced that a gas grenade had hit the first floor of the building even as rope lines were being fired to enable the elves to strike at any targets upstairs.

“Good, aren’t they?” Geraint whispered as they watched the monitors’ grainy image of broken windows and black figures darting into the building. “I think we can venture forth ourselves now. Right through the front door. Do you want to wait here?” He looked at Kristen, who shot back a look of disdain.

“Don’t be patronizing,” Senin admonished him. “She once saved my skin by shooting someone in the head.”

“As you wish,” Geraint said mildly, Climbing out of the van, Like the others, he wore light body armor, and Serrin had already locked a bullet barrier spell around himself and Kristen. They raced around the side street and made for the front entrance, already opened by one of the trolls who had a supercharged taser hefted at the ready.

“Not much resistance,” the troll growled rather disappointedly as they approached Then the sudden chatter of handgun fire came from the basement of the building.

“You spoke too soon,” Geraint said as he made for the inside of the building, gripping his machine pistol more firmly with one hand while fastening his respirator with the other to ward off the effects of the trank gas billowing down the stairs. Passing through the hallway, he dimly took in the large reception room to his right, where the dwarf had three terrified clerks bent over a table while he toyed with the trigger of a Predator and began handcuffing them. Geraint made for the stairs where the elf with the integrated arsenal masquerading as a single weapon stood, casually dumping a grenade down the stairs and standing back to blow open the doors at the bottom. The explosion was less than Geraint anticipated, the door flimsy and easily blown apart, with debris mostly flying into the underground garage rather than back up toward them. By the time he reached the stairs, the elf was already through the shattered doorway, hunting the prey that had escaped and sought to flee by car.

The whir of a taser line hummed through the semi-darkness at the figure racing toward the parked vehicles. Geraint could just see the man duck and the line whiz over his head; the elf cursed and decided to dispense with precise targeting. A second gas grenade went flying into the parking lot, but the man pulled something up around his neck that looked to Geraint like a respirator. Then, from above them, it seemed for a moment as if the entire building shook and reverberated. Geraint had never been in an earthquake, but be imagined this must be what one would feel like. it really did seem like the entire place might fall down around their ears at any moment. He stepped smartly out of the stairwell behind the elf, who let off a burst of gunfire to scare his target, then began to run at him like a cheetah with a jalapeno enema up its tail.

A deep, grinding sound like two rock faces trying to sandpaper each other to dust came from upstairs just as their quarry managed to get into the car, start it up, and steer the vehicle toward the garage doors, with the elf still in hot pursuit. The SAS elf dropped to his knees and launched another grenade shot as the car veered crazily toward the exit. It didn’t look as if the doors would open properly before the car got to them, and even if the elf missed, Geraint judged that the driver would quite possibly get his head ripped off together with the roof of his Westwind.

The cacophony of Sound made the Welshman turn and take the risk of making his way back up the stairs, leaving the fleeing car and its passenger to their elven pursuer. Upstairs, it seemed as if half the roof had collapsed. Plaster, wood, stone, and a once-fine chandelier lay strewn in the hallway. Geraint gripped his gun again and advanced up the stairs. Of the others, save for the dwarf completing his work, there was no sign.

When he got to the landing, the scene was astounding. Every door leading off it was open, and in one bedroom that approached palatial splendor he could see one of the trolls laid out cold with a seeping pool of blood spreading from his back and neck. Incongruously, in the bathroom someone had seemed to take serious objection to avocado green bath fittings by blowing them into ceramic shrapnel, but it was the scene in the large sitting room that caught his eye. The place was filled with broken glass and smashed furnishings, and there were at least three prone bodies in it. Of the ones moving, Serrin and the other elf were engaged in what appeared to be a desperate struggle. Michael was lying slumped in a corner but there was no blood on him and it looked as if he were merely knocked out cold. Kristen had her Predator gripped in both hands, waiting for a clear shot.

Serrin was standing rock still engaged in a magical struggle with a bizarre figure, a human-like form that seemed to be shaped of muddied clay, trying to claw its way toward him and Kristen. The other elf was flinging himself, long serried knife in hand, at a suited, dark-haired man crouched across a table from him, his gaze fixed on the clay figure. Even as Geraint approached, the clay figure managed to force its way to Serrin and strike him with one of its limbs, knocking the elf to the floor. The other elf leapt over the table and buried his knife in his opponent’s right shoulder blade only a hand’s length from his heart. As Kristen and Geraint poured bullets into whatever it was that had struck Serrin senseless, the man screamed and the clay creature wavered and began to topple. As it fell backward, almost as if in slo-mo, its form dissolved into a wave of rolling, liquid clay, pouring into a huge puddle of formless, slimy mud that seeped over the Persian carpet.