Preying for keeps

They reached the corner opposite the entrance at the same instant someone cut the power to the dining room. Darkness swallowed the recessed lighting in an eyeblink. Only the floodlights outside the glass wall and the uncertain scattering of muzzle flashes trapped inside the room provided any kind of illumination.

Skater switched over to low-light vision and sca

"Skater fragging sold us out to the yakuza!" McKenzie roared. "It's a set-up!"

Tracking the voice. Skater sca

Light blinded Skater for a second, then he was aware of the ruby dot that took shape just below his left eye. He was moving when he felt the force hit him, knocking his head back against the wall. He struggled with consciousness as his back scraped and bumped him down the wall and the blood ran warm down his face.

21

Throbbing pain filled Skater's head and he had to fight to get his arms and legs moving. His vision doubled, then blurred, and the low-light enhancers fragged up his depth perception altogether by overreacting to light and shadow.

"Kid!" Duran roared from somewhere nearby.

Skater tracked the ork's voice amid the gunfire and screams. Gunpowder stink filled the air. He turned his head and concentrated on the rectangle of light coming from the wall of glass. Evidently the floodlights out in the Sound operated independently of the ones inside the Gray Line. Shapes slipped across the glass surface and threw moving shadows into the room, but he couldn't distinguish what they were.

A yakuza came out of the darkness at him, chipped eyes gleaming in the dark. He carried a taser, and the dart on the end sparked blue-white electricity.

Skater raised the Predator and fired till the man went down. Dumping the empty clip, he shoved another one home. He activated the commlink. "Trey."

"I'm here, chummer." Trey was positioned out of sight and using an external mike.

Skater threw himself behind an overturned table and had to shove the corpse of one of McKenzie's men out of the way. Bullets and fletchettes thudded into the table top. One of them skidded off the Kevlar weave of his jacket. The side of his face was covered with a warm, bloody mask. He couldn't tell how bad it was, but his vision was coming back on-line. "Time to go."

"I'm ready. On your mark."

At the back of the room, highlighted by the uneven illumination coming from the glass wall, McKenzie's shaman stood making intricate gestures while his razored girlfriend stood guard. She'd taken a clear bulletproof shield from a shopping bag at her feet and was holding it in front of their faces. Bullets drew lines of fire across the surface.

"Shaman's sca

"I see him," Skater said. Another fusillade of bullets tore chunks from the table as two Mafia yabos came streaking toward his position. He got his feet under him, knowing it was all going to happen quickly. Blood blurred the vision in his left eye and tasted of salt on his lips.

A fireball flickered into view in the shaman's hand, then arced the length of the room with a fiery tail twisting out behind it As Skater abandoned his position, the ball of fire struck the table and reduced it to flaming splinters that pin-wheeled through the air.

The smoke given off by the blast cut deep into his lungs. Oxygen in the nearby area was reduced.

Counting on the distraction of the fireball exploding so close to the two men rushing him. Skater threw himself into the air and hit the second man with a flying kick. He landed, keeping his footing with difficulty as the after-effect of the fireball shot a glare of light across the room. Before the first man could turn. Skater shoved the Predator to the back of the man's skull and pulled the trigger.

The corpse dropped to the restaurant floor, most of its head missing.

McKenzie was in front of him, but partially blocked by yak gu

The sight made Skater sick, but he couldn't fire at McKenzie without hitting i

"Fire in the hole!" the dwarf responded from the boat waiting at the dock above.

Skater looked at the wall of glass-in front of him. A frozen instant juiced by the adrenaline hitting his nervous system afforded him a crystal-clear clarity. He felt a bullet smash into the back of his leg against the Kevlar, buckling his knee with numbing force. He almost went down, but maintained his stance through an effort of will.

The glass wall had been pockmarked by earlier gunfire. Bullets were stuck in the glass in misshapen chunks of lead. Cracks bled away from them like crater veins. The damage distorted the view and affected magnification.

Without warning, but right on cue, the glass wall shattered into thousands of shards and the water rushed in. Emergency klaxons shrilled. Panels moved away from the baseboards of the wails, revealing drains. Pump engines fired to life, the sound venting through the drains.

It was all going as pla

The water came over Skater in a rush, cold and briny, and filled with the flip-flop of the rainbow-colored fish that glowed in the dark. He remained standing with difficulty, the Predator tight in his hand. Salt burned in the wound along the side of his head. In a heartbeat, the water level had risen from his ankles to his thighs, swirling across chairs and tables, pushing everything before it.

He shoved an approaching chair out of the way and looked around for Duran. The ork was out of the torrent's way, holding his own in the comer beside the shattered glass wall, his hair matted to him like an animal's. He was firing measured shots in various directions, targeting both Mafia and yakuza gu

"Duran!" Skater yelled.

"Move!" the ork responded, dropping an empty clip from the Scorpion and feeding in another.

Angry voices were lost over the rush of the invading water, but Skater could hear McKenzie yelling orders to kill Duran and him. He tapped the subdermal radio, hoping Trey would still be able to hear him. 'Trey."

"I'm still here, chummer."

Skater fought his way through the water as it flooded up to his waist. It would be only seconds before he could no longer challenge the incoming tide, and the strength of the water didn't appear to be flagging. He spared a glance toward the entrance and spotted Trey at the side of the open double doors, where he'd been waiting in reserve. Skater was relieved to see that the restaurant's patrons were beating a hasty retreat from the dining room through the double doors, guided by the Gray Line wait staff.