I do not want to realize! The thought flashed through his mind. They mean us evil—they mean her evil—and evildoers deserve whatever comes to them!
Yet even as he rebelled, he knew she was right. This was no death fang, devoid of reason. These were two-legs, and he could not slay such as they as he would have slain a death fang or a snow hunter. Not unless there was clearly no other choice.
Perhaps not, he thought grimly. But if they do not leave me another choice….
* * *
Later, it was all a blur in Stephanie’s memory.
She felt Lionheart flash from her shoulder into the branches of an overhead tree. She sensed her father grabbing her mother, pushing her behind him and reaching for Stephanie herself. But she ducked under his hand, because one of the vague shapes coming out of the shrubbery carried a weapon of some kind in his right hand, and Stephanie dived for it.
He was a third again her height and undoubtedly outweighed her two-to-one, but she didn’t think about that at the moment. She got her hands on his wrist, shoved it upward with all her strength, and kicked him in the right knee as hard as she could.
Stephanie Harrington would never be a tall woman, but she was a genie, genetically engineered to live in a gravity well thirty percent higher than that of humanity’s birth world, and she was scared to death. The combination of her enhanced muscles and that blast of pure adrenaline had unfortunate consequences for the lead mugger, and he screamed in anguish as his kneecap shattered.
Something hissed past Stephanie’s ear, and the trank dart buried itself in the tree’s bark. She twisted from the hips, getting her shoulders and back into it, and the injured mugger released the tranquilizer pistol. It thudded to the ground, and she heard a high, falsetto squeal from the second assailant in line.
* * *
Climbs Quickly recognized the sound. He had heard it before when Speaks Falsely had faced the young death fang at Bright Water Clan’s nesting place. It was one of the two-legs’ weapons, but not one of the ones that killed instantly, and he saw another one of it in one hand of the second attacking two-leg.
He launched himself from his tree-branch perch as the two-leg Death Fang’s Bane had kicked collapsed, wailing and clutching at his injured limb. He arced over Death Fang’s Bane’s head and struck the second two-leg’s weapon hand with both hand-feet and his remaining true-hand, and his claws sank deep.
His victim howled, waving his right arm frantically as the knife-clawed demon ripped at him. The thug had no idea how fortunate he was, how easily Climbs Quickly could have shredded his entire forearm. In fact, he thought that was exactly what the treecat was doing, and he flung away the tranquilizer pistol, beating at the hissing cream and gray monster with his left hand.
Climbs Quickly’s true-feet raked the two-leg’s other hand, and he hissed again—this time in fierce satisfaction—as the evildoer cried out in fresh pain. He would have preferred to spend a little more time dealing suitably with anyone who threatened his two-leg, but there were more of them behind the first two, and he abandoned his initial victim to hit a second assailant in the chest.
* * *
Stephanie released the first mugger’s wrist to go bounding after Lionheart. It was a mistake.
Despite the anguish of his broken kneecap, the thug managed to get one hand up and grabbed her ankle as she went by. She fell, sprawling forward, just managing to catch herself on her hands before she landed flat on her face.
“Stephanie!”
She’d never heard Karl sound quite like that, but she had no time to dwell on it at the moment. Instead, she twisted to one side and her free foot slammed into her attacker’s chin. It wasn’t as clean and powerful as the kick which had broken his kneecap, but it was more than sufficient to encourage him to let go of her ankle.
She rolled away from him, flinging herself back to her feet, but before she could come back upright, Karl went past her. He couldn’t see exactly what happened next, but whatever it was, it didn’t take very long. She heard a sharp, meaty thud, then a grunt of exertion, a gasp of what was probably pain, and over all of that a strange voice screaming “Get it off! Get it off!”
And then, suddenly, it was all over.
The man she’d kicked was curled in a knot, cradling his broken kneecap with one hand and trying to comfort his equally broken jaw with the other. The first man Lionheart had hit was on his knees, clutching his freely bleeding hands and forearms against his chest. The one who’d been screaming to “Get it off!” was backed against a tree trunk, his tunic and shirt shredded, his chest oozing blood from at least a dozen shallow cuts, while Lionheart crouched in front of him, lashing his tail and hissing. It was obvious from the thug’s expression that he had absolutely no interest in challenging the treecat’s obvious rage a second time.
And then there was Karl, and Stephanie’s eyes widened as she saw one man lying unconscious and another down on one knee, been sharply forward and obviously trying not to whimper in pain while Karl twisted his arm up behind him, high enough to press his wrist against the back of his neck.
“Are you all right, Steph?” Karl demanded, and she nodded.
“Y-Yes,” she said, and flushed furiously as she heard the catch in her voice. Then she whirled. “Mom! Dad!”
“We’re fine, Steph!” There was a shaky edge in Richard’s voice, too, but he managed to smile as he stood hugging her mother. “We’re fine. Thanks to you and Lionheart—and Karl.” He cocked his head, looking at the younger man. “That was very, ah, efficient of you, Karl,” he said.
“My dad always said it was important to know how to take care of yourself, Dr. Richard,” Karl replied with a brief smile. “He was pretty serious about teaching us how to do it, too.” He shrugged. “I earned my black belt three T-years ago. Never really expected to need it, though.”
He gave Richard another smile, but his attention seemed to be focused on Stephanie.
“You’re bleeding, Steph,” he said a bit sharply, and Stephanie looked down as she realized she’d bloodied one knee through her shredded trousers when the first thug tripped her.
“Only a scraped knee, Karl,” she said quickly.
“Good. In that case—”
“Security!” a voice snapped, and the beam of a powerful hand lamp speared the battered group. “Everybody just stay where you are till we get this straightened out!”
* * *
“Stephanie, I am so sorry this happened!” Gwendolyn Adair shook her head, her expression more distraught than Stephanie had ever dreamed she could look. “I can’t imagine how they managed to get onto the grounds in the first place!”
“Whoever hired them must’ve hacked our security protocols, ma’am,” the senior uniformed guard said unhappily. “The LPD says they were loaded to their uni-links, anyway.”
“But why?” Marjorie Harrington asked. “I mean, I’m sure the members of your cousin’s club have to be rich enough to be worth mugging, Ms. Adair. But why go to all the trouble of hacking your security and then jump on us, instead?”
“’Fraid I can answer that one, too, Dr. Harrington,” the security man said heavily. “The police found an animal carrier in the shrubbery. I’m guessing they meant to trank the lot of you, including Lionheart, then shove him into the carrier.”
“They wanted to kidnap Lionheart?!” Stephanie demanded.
“We don’t know that yet, Stephanie,” Gwendolyn replied. “It does sound as if it could make sense, but I wouldn’t jump to any conclusions yet.”