When he crouched close above me I let him have it.
My bullet cut the gullet out of him.
I patted his face with my gun as he tumbled down past me.
A hand caught one of my ankles.
Clinging to the railing, I drove my other foot back. Something stopped my foot. Nothing stopped me.
A bullet flaked some of the ceiling down as I made the head of the stairs and jumped for the door to the right.
Pulling it open, I plunged in.
The other of the big man-eaters caught me—caught my plunging hundred and eighty-some pounds as a boy would catch a rubber ball.
Across the room, Chang Li Ching ran plump fingers through his thin whiskers and smiled at me. Beside