For Love of Mother-Not - Alan Dean Foster [53]
The door at the far end of the room was ajar. It led out onto a curving porch. He hurried to it but paused just inside to throw a chair out ahead of him. When no one fired on it, he took a deep breath and jumped out, rolling across the porch and springing out of the roll into a fighting crouch.
There was no enemy waiting to confront him—the porch was deserted. The beach off to the left was not. Two mudders were parked on the shore. As Flinx watched helplessly, the travelers he had sought for so long piled into the two crafts. Heedless now of his own safety, he charged down the steps onto the slight slope leading toward the lake shore. The first mudder was already cruising across the wave tops. By the time he reached the water’s edge and sank exhausted to his knees, the useless knife held limply in his right hand, both craft were already well out on the lake surface itself.
Fighting for breath, Flinx forced himself erect and started back up the slope. He would have to go after them quickly. If he lost sight of them on the vast lake, he would have no way of knowing on which far shore they would emerge. He staggered around the front of the lodge and grabbed at the entrance to his mudder. A supine and unsettled shape stared back at him. Pip looked distinctly unhappy. It flittered once, then collapsed back onto the seat.
“Fine help you were,” Flinx snapped at his pet. The minidrag, if possible, managed to look even more miserable. Clearly, it had sensed danger to Flinx and had tried to go to his aid, but simply couldn’t manage to get airborne.
Flinx started to climb into the cab when a voice and a hand on his shoulder restrained him. “Just a minute.” Flinx tensed, but a glance at Pip showed that the flying snake was not reacting defensively.
“I can’t,” he started to say as he turned. When he saw who was confronting him, he found himself able only to stare.
She seemed to tower over him, though in reality she was no more than a couple of centimeters taller. Black hair fell in tight ringlets to her shoulders. Her bush jacket was tucked into pants that were tucked into low boots. She was slim but not skinny. The mouth and nose were child-sized, the cheekbones high beneath huge, owl-like brown eyes. Her skin was nearly as dark as Flinx’s, but it was a product of the glare from the nearby lake and not heredity. She was the most strikingly beautiful woman he had ever seen.
He tracked down his voice and mumbled, “I have to go after them.” The hand remained on his shoulder. He might have thrown it off, and might not.
“My name’s Lauren Walder,” she said. “I’m the general manager at Granite Shallows.” Her voice was full of barely controlled fury as she used her head to gesture toward the lake. Ringlets flew. “What have you to do with those idiots?”
“They’ve kidnapped my mother, the woman who adopted me,” he explained. “I don’t know why, and I don’t much care right now. I just want to get her back.”
“You’re a little out-numbered, aren’t you?”
“I’m used to that.” He pointed toward the dining-room windows and the still-open porch doorway. “It’s not me lying dead on your floor in there.”
She frowned at him, drawing her brows together. “How do you know the man’s dead?”
“Because I killed him.”
“I see,” she said, studying him in a new light “With what?”
“My stiletto,” he said.
“I don’t see any stiletto.” She looked him up and down.
“You’re not supposed to. Look, I’ve got to go. If I get too far behind them—”
“Take it easy,” she said, trying to soothe him. “I’ve got something I have to show you.”
“You don’t seem to understand,” he said insistently. “I’ve no way to track them. I won’t know where they touch land and—”
“Don’t worry about it. You won’t lose them.”
“How do you know?”
“Because we’ll run them down in a little while. Let them relax and think they’ve escaped.” Her fingers tightened on his shoulder. “I promise you we’ll catch them.”
“Well . . .” He spared another glance for Pip. Maybe in a little while