Avery followed, hunched over and moving more slowly.

We're not going to make it,Annja thought grimly. The certainty almost made her sick. She'd come all this way, solved most of the puzzles that were presented, and she was going to die inches short of the finish line.

Lightning flared, filling the sky with white-hot incandescence.

Below, not more than a hundred yards away, a road ran down the mountain. Even as Annja recognized it, she spotted five motorcycles speeding into view. Another blaze lit the night. Annja knew the men were after them.

At that moment, they saw Roux and Avery.

The motorcyclists pulled up short and unlimbered assault rifles, pulling them quickly to their shoulders.

"Roux!" Annja yelled.

The old man looked up and saw her standing on the mountainside. Then he saw the motorcycles. He reacted instantly, grabbing Avery and pulling him to ground behind a copse of trees and boulders.

The motorcycle riders howled like beasts. Rain and shadows turned their faces into those of snarling animals. They brought the rifles around in her direction.

Annja ran, hoping she could keep her footing, and plunged toward the brush to her right. Bullets ripped after her, tearing through the leaves and branches.

Knowing if she stopped she was only going to be pinned down, then attacked from above and below as Lesauvage and the rest of his men emerged from the monastery, Annja kept moving. She threw herself through the brush, heart hammering inside her chest. She knew she was moving fast; everything was in slow motion around her again.

She tripped over a loose rock and fell, sliding through the brush at least ten yards on the wet surface before she could roll to her feet. She steadied, whipping through branches and plants, skidding across loose rock.

One of the motorcycle riders pitched sideways, knocked down by rounds from Roux's rifle.

Ten yards out, almost running into a hail of gunfire from the other riders, Annja ran up onto a boulder, took two steps across it and launched herself into the air, hoping that the dark night and the rain would help hide her. She flipped, drawing the sword, then spreading her arms out to her sides to help maintain her balance while keeping her feet together.

Lightning blazed overhead and tore away the darkness.

Annja knew the men saw her as she fell toward them. Their faces filled with awe and fear.

"An angel!" one of them cried. "An angel with a sword!"

It was the drugs, Annja knew. They'd caused the man's hallucination and preyed on his fear.

She landed among them. She swept the sword out, cutting a diagonal slash through one man's weapon as he fired. The rifle blew up in his face and threw him backward.

Moving forward, Annja kicked the next motorcycle's handlebars, sending it crashing into the one beside it, taking down both riders.

The fourth man fired, missing Annja by inches as she whirled. She lashed out with the sword again, turning it so the flat of the blade caught the man along the temple and knocked him out.

I won't kill them, she told herself. Not unless I have to. Somehow that thought made a difference.

The fifth man dodged back, then dropped like a puppet with its strings cut. He hit the ground and rolled onto his back. A bullet from Roux's stolen rifle had torn out his throat. His chest jerked spasmodically twice, then he went slack.

Move, Annja told herself. Don't think about him. Deal with it later. Get everybody out safe now.

Annja grabbed the nearest motorcycle and pushed it upright. When she pulled in the clutch and touched the electronic ignition, the engine grumbled to life.

Roux ran toward her, dragging Avery after him.

"You could have gotten yourself killed with a damned fool stunt like that," the old man shouted.

"It worked," Annja replied. "There wasn't a lot of time. There still isn't." She pushed the motorcycle toward him. "Can you ride?"

"Yes. You live five hundred years, you learn a few things." Roux reloaded the assault rifle and slung it over his shoulder. Then he threw a leg over the motorcycle and climbed aboard. He glanced at Avery. "Can you ride, boy?"

"No." Avery looked like a drowned rat.

Roux sighed. "This mountain is going to be difficult at best. Carrying double is foolish." Then he shook his head. "I'm getting foolish in my dotage. Climb on, boy."

"Thank you." Avery climbed on back of the motorcycle.

"Get a good grip," Roux told him.

For just a moment, Annja couldn't help but think about Garin's story, about how his father had sent him off on horseback with Roux all those years ago. There was something paternal about Roux that she hadn't seen before.

"Here." Annja clapped a helmet on Avery's head that she'd taken from one of Lesauvage's riders.

Roux looked at her. "Can you ride one of these mechanical nightmares?"

Annja smiled at him, seeing the concern in those electric-blue eyes. "Yeah," she said. "I can. Probably better than you can."

Roux harrumphed his displeasure. "Well don't get overconfident and get yourself killed. There are still things we should talk about."

Lightning threw crooked white veins across the troubled sky. Movement along the ridge higher up caught Annja's attention.

Lesauvage and the survivors of his group fanned out along the mountainside.

"Go," Annja said.

Roux revved the motorcycle's engine and took off. Clutching him tightly, Avery hung on. Bullets raked the stones and the muddy earth where the motorcycle had been.

Taking advantage of the distraction Roux's escape afforded her, Annja retreated to another of the motorcycles. She righted it, started the engine and threw a leg over while it started forward. She stood on the pegs, cushioning the rough terrain and muscling the motorcycle to keep it upright in the mud and on the slick stone surfaces exposed between the earth and vegetation. She focused on Roux, spotting his headlight and following it along the trail.

Because he was riding double, Roux struggled with the motorcycle. Avery had no aptitude for riding. He swayed wrong or stayed straight up as Roux handled the motorcycle, creating even more difficulty.

Glancing over her shoulder, Annja saw that Lesauvage and two other men had recovered the three remaining motorcycles. They sped along in pursuit, closing the distance quickly.

We're not going to make it, Annja realized. Between the storm and Avery, we can't escape. She cursed herself for not disabling the other motorcycles, then realized that she'd only been thinking forward, not backward.

When Roux disappeared in front of her for just a moment, a desperate plan formed. Annja crested the hill Roux had just passed over, then switched off her motorcycle and ran it into the brush off the trail into the shadows. The droning engines of the pursuit motorcycles filled her ears.

She waited nervously. She breathed deep, blinking the rain from her eyes, concentrating on what she had to do. Reaching behind her, she removed the pistol from her waistband and waited.

The three motorcycles whipped by, never spotting her in the darkness.

Coolly, Annja lifted the pistol and fired at the last motorcycle's back tire, placing her shots just below the flaring ruby taillight. On the fifth or sixth shot, the rear tire blew.

Slewing out of control, the motorcycle went down in a skidding heap, shedding the rider and pieces of the fenders and body.

The pistol blew back empty. Out of ammunition, Annja tossed the weapon away. Then she pressed the electronic ignition and the engine roared to life as her headlight came on. She twisted the accelerator and let out the clutch so fast she almost lost the motorcycle.