Phantom Prospect - Alex Archer [72]
She heard something clink on the floor, and as the man tried to bring the gun up level with her, he squeezed the trigger and frowned.
Nothing happened.
Annja didn’t wait for him to correct the problem. She slashed down at him. He gave up trying to fire the gun and used it to knock her blade away from him. Annja’s sword went flying across the floor. The man punched Annja in the stomach. Annja fell back gagging and retching.
She couldn’t get any air into her lungs.
The man was a highly trained fighter. He aimed a kick at her head and Annja barely had a second to dodge it before he caught her with another one in the lower back. Annja felt the steel toes of his boots sink into her kidneys and she grunted.
But then she rolled back, trapping his legs and lifting to toss him onto his backside. She came up, still trying to catch her breath. He punched at her but Annja brushed his strikes away, going for a sharp knee to his groin. She caught him and he grunted, knocking his head against Annja’s upper lip. Annja felt the lip balloon into some swollen mess. She reached for her sword blade, which was still about ten feet away.
He tackled her around the waist and then dragged her away from it. Annja scrambled to get her feet under her, looking for any purchase she could find on the damp floor of the corridor.
She felt his hands clawing at her and then managed to get one foot under her. She drove off her other leg and fell forward as he refused to give up the fight.
Annja turned around and raked his face with her fingernails. He winced as blood streamed. Annja kicked again and, this time, he backed off a little.
Annja summoned her sword to her and at last wrapped her hands around the hilt. She sensed movement behind her as the man came up with his submachine gun and fumbled with it for a moment.
Annja dived to the right as the explosion of bullets swept across the corridor, ricocheting off the stone walls.
Annja threw the sword and heard the sudden intake of breath as it sank into the man’s stomach and pierced his vital organs.
He coughed and spit blood across the wall.
The shooting stopped.
Annja’s ears rang and her head screamed in protest at the horrible noise. But she quickly drew out her sword as the man sank to his knees and then toppled forward, dead.
A pool of blood spread out from his body and then ran into the trough on the left side, quickly mixing with the water and sliding away toward the drainage area.
Annja wiped her brow and took quick stock of her own injuries. Her lip was a swollen mess and her kidneys hurt like hell, but she was alive.
Apart from the sudden barrage of gunshots, there’d been little noise during the entire fight aside from the grunts and sounds of exertion. It always amazed Annja how little noise occurred in hand-to-hand combat. No one screamed or yelled or did any of the craziness that happened in martial-arts movies.
Usually it was quick, dirty, sweaty stuff that left one person dead and the other alive, for better or for worse.
Annja hefted her sword and used some of the water running down a nearby wall to wash the man’s blood off.
She dragged her victim’s body behind the curve where she’d waited for him before the fight. It wouldn’t do for long, but it might keep his corpse concealed for a few minutes.
Of course, the entire complex had probably heard the gunfire and knew something was wrong. The fact that more people hadn’t come rushing had her somewhat confused. Annja had expected instant backups to fly at her from wherever the corridor led.
But no one had.
She wondered if the sound had even reached them. Perhaps due to the construction of this facility, sound didn’t echo or bounce along as it might elsewhere? She didn’t know. Acoustics weren’t something she knew much about. One thing was certain. She had to reach the end of the corridor and see where she was. Annja took off again, walking up the slope toward