James Axler Outlander 02 Destiny Run

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of static electricity. Squinting, he saw that the bright skeins of plasma came
not from the floor, but leaped and caromed from a pair of crystal prisms on
either side of Baptiste. Little flames, gold and orange and greenish blue,
danced over her limbs, creating a borealislike nimbus around her body. He
raised the Sin
Eater, not contemplating the consequences.
The blaster, still on full auto, spit a solid stream of rounds at the sphere
on
Baptiste's right. The bullets chipped out splinters, shards ricocheting away
to splat into shapeless blobs on the armaglass. He maintained the pressure on
the trigger. Empty shell casings flew from the ejector port, tinkling down at
his feet.
The quartz prism burst in a nova of flying sparks and coiling ribbons of
yellow plasma. The glow exuded by the floor disks dimmed instantly, and Kane
shouldered his way past the door and onto the platform, dropping to his knees
beside her, whipping out his knife to slash through the cord tethering her to
the right-hand pillar. She slumped over, her body glistening with a sheen of
perspiration. Blood shone on her face, black, blue and purple bruises marked
her stomach, her ribs. Her eyes were closed, and her full breasts rose and
fell in a spasmodic, uneven rate of respiration.
His brain clouded with a homicidal fury that he had never known before. He cut
the cord binding her to the other metal post and caught her up in his arms.
Her body was stiff, terrifyingly cold.
The other quartz sphere continued to crackle and spark, spitting arcs of
energy in random, twisting patterns. One passed by Kane's cheek, fanning it
with a hot,
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Axler, James - Outlanders 02 - Destiny Run tingling shock. The spiral caressed
an armaglass wall, leaving a smoldering scorch mark.
Kane tried to lift Baptiste in a fireman's carry, but her deadweight nearly
bore him to the floor. Teeth bared, he hoisted her up under one arm, stumbling
toward the chamber door. He almost made it.
A spear of energy sprang from the orb and impaled his back. He could do
nothing but scream as agony overwhelmed him, filled his mind with nothing
else, sweeping away all the strength in his arms and legs. When he felt
himself falling, he pushed Baptiste out ahead of him.
Grant was there to catch her in his arms, preventing her limp body from
slapping down on the hard metal deck. As he staggered back, trying to keep his
footing, he saw Kane falling forward just inside the chamber, sparks showering
colorfully from the back of his coat. Though his hearing was still impaired,
it was penetrated by a sound he had never expected to hear from his partner an
unrestrained howl of agony.
Grant tried to maintain his balance under Brigid's slack weight and,
overburdened, he felt rather than heard a whup of displaced air beside his
head.
The second Mongol held a revolver in a two-fisted grip, shifting its barrel to
align him in its sights. Grant fired from the hip, his arm crooked around
Brigid's waist. One of the bullets punched his chest, crushing his sternum,
the second lodged in his brain as he was folding and the third zipped between
Sverdlovosk and the Tushe Gun, striking a spark from the bank of machinery.
The two men dived away in opposite directions. Rather than loose
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indiscriminate
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Axler, James - Outlanders 02 - Destiny Run shots, Grant placed Brigid down
gently on the floor. He slapped her sharply on both cheeks, with his left
hand. Her head lolled around, and he struck her again
hard. Her eyes opened. No thoughts, no emotions were reflected in them. The
expression on her face was dull, defeated, lifeless. He started to shake her,
then a shadow of motion shifted over his shoulder.
A hard, thin object chopped lengthwise across Grant's lower back. The force of
the blow sent shivers of pain into his kidneys, knocking him bodily forward,
very nearly smashing all the wind out of him.
Fighting off the instinct to curl into a wheezing, gasping ball, he elbowed
himself onto his side. His spine felt severed, but he knew it wasn't because
he could still move and still hurt.
Gombo stood over him, both hands gripping a sword, and he lifted it for
another downward stroke. The man's ravaged face was a clot of cooked tissue,
peeled raw and covered by leaking blisters. His hair stood in charred,
stinking clumps over his burned head. His clothes hung in smoking rags from
his heat-seared body.
Only the coat had saved Grant from being cleaved in half, but his head was
unprotected, and the next chopping stroke of the sword would mercilessly split
his cranium. He brought up the Sin Eater and a crushing weight slammed it down
again, grinding his wrist bones into the floor.
Sverdlovosk stood on his gun hand, bringing all his weight to bear on his
right foot. His left foot swooped up and smashed into the side of Grant's head
like a club. He snarled something in Russian, a command.
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Axler, James - Outlanders 02 - Destiny Run
Gombo scuttled close, sword held at a right angle to his body, positioning
himself for a decapitation. He laughed, an animal, guttural sound like a
throaty gargle.
Grant drew up his knees in a protective gesture. He shot both heels upward
with a pistoning force into the Mongol's crotch. Lifted in the air, Gombo
sailed backward. He hit the floor hard on the back of his head and neck, sword
blade chiming against the deck plates. He made a convulsive effort to rise,
then fell back and made no movement after.
Making a hissing noise, Sverdlovosk dropped, driving a knee into Grant's
diaphragm, pushing the air out of his lungs. He wrapped his fingers around
Grant's neck, thumbs pressing relentlessly against his windpipe. He was
exceptionally strong, his strength pumped up to new levels by panic and
terror.
Grant tried to free his right hand, still pressed beneath Sverdlovosk's foot,
and he struggled to prise open the fingers digging into his throat. The
Russian's sweat-
sheened face twisted in a soundless snarl of exertion and a mad determination.
Piotr Sverdlovosk's expression suddenly changed, molding itself into a rictus
of wonder and pain. A neat blue-rimmed hole appeared magically above his right
eyebrow, and the back of his head broke apart. Through the pounding of blood
in his ears, Grant heard that single, telling shot.
Sverdlovosk's fingers clamped down hard in a death spasm, then fell away.
Grant hurled him aside with an open hand, turning over to see Kane clinging to
the open door of the armaglass enclosure. His finger kept pressing the trigger
of his Sin Eater, producing only the dry clickings of a firing pin striking an
empty chamber. Behind him bolts and arcs of energy flashed and coruscated
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