Secret Of The Slaves. Alex Archer

she had slammed against mere seconds before, before the woman’s hand came level with her dark eyes.

      Annja had learned that she could dodge gunshots. Not because she could move faster than bullets, but because she’d found herself adept at reading the body motions of an opponent. She could see the motion of muscle and tendons in a gun hand, the paling of a trigger-finger knuckle as pressure was applied. When she had such warning she simply got out from in front of the muzzle before the shot was fired. It was a foolproof way of being missed.

      And now it was fortunate that she acted before the shot was fired.

      A green flash suddenly filled the shop. It filled Annja’s head with what seemed like emerald needles, stabbing and ricocheting inside her skull. The backs of her eyes hurt. A crack like thunder seemed almost incidental.

      Impossible as it seemed, she knew what had happened. In college a careless classmate had flashed a laser pointer in her eyes from across the quadrangle. Although it was a low-power device and rated safe, the headache and vision disruption had persisted for hours. The aftereffects hadn’t completely gone away for two days.

      This was no mere pointer. She had gotten only side-scatters of coherent light and it had severe effects. Dazzled, she hit the far side of the counter. She smelled smoke and heard the crackling of flames.

      She came up onto all fours, moved cautiously forward. Another green flare lit the shop with an accompanying crack of ionized air. The counter’s bulk had absorbed a shot meant for her.

      She called back the sword. Her mind raced. She realized the energy weapon had some limitations, probably including a recharge time. Otherwise the woman would simply hold down the trigger and slash through Annja’s concealing counter until she found flesh.

      The thought chilled Annja with a dread that threatened to sap her strength. She remembered the oft-spoken words of her teachers—it was not the weapon but the wielder!

      Crouching with one hand on the floor, gritty with spilled powders, she stuck her head around the counter’s end. A green flash blew a corner from the counter and set the wood to smoldering. But Annja had plotted her moves in her mind. She had withdrawn her head before the other woman could fire. Now Annja launched herself in a low dive, turning it into a forward roll that carried her past the foot of the main counter, where Mafalda lay. Fortunately her blood had pooled at the other end.

      A second shot shattered the middle of that counter into flaming splinters, so close that spinning fragments seared Annja’s bare leg. She gathered her limbs under her and, with all the strength that fear and fury could lend her, leaped over the counter and Mafalda’s body.

      The energy hand weapon apparently cycled quicker than Annja had estimated. She was met by a dazzling flash that sent more emerald needles stabbing through her brain to the back of her skull.

       9

      Dazzling though it 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.