Path of the Tiger, стр. 453
Adriana’s desperate, madcap shooting was way off the mark, and the recoil from the jumping gun kicked her hard in the shoulder, bowling her off the sprinting tiger. She tumbled along the ground while the gun clattered off to the side. The short burst of firing had missed its target by a long shot – intentionally, for Adriana did not have it in her to shoot someone – but it had provided just enough of a distraction to throw Kimiko’s concentration off, and the precious second or two it bought was all that William needed.
From twenty feet away from his target, sprinting at full tilt, he launched himself into a leap, roaring with bestial fury. Kimiko managed to recover from the unexpected shock of being shot at, and squeezed off two quick shots before William smashed into her with the momentum of a plummeting meteorite. One bullet punched into one of his leading legs, bouncing off a bone, which remained intact, and exiting the flesh without doing much damage, while the other zipped through the ruff of his neck, but only grazed his skin. Upon impact he plunged his claws through her armour into her back and pulled her into a savage roll as his weight and hers combined hit the ground with a tremendous impact. As they rolled he kicked at her with his feet, his claws slashing through her armour and opening up deep wounds across her midriff.
When they came to a stop Kimiko tried to reach for one of her tantos, but William pre-empted this and lunged for her arm, biting down on it with bone-crushing force, snapping her forearm with a sickening crack. She screamed with pain, but her warrior’s muscle memory had already kicked in with full force, for with her other hand she had already grabbed another tanto, with which she tried to stab at William’s face. With his tiger reflexes he jerked his head swiftly back, evading the slash, and in the same motion he swatted her arm with a massive paw, battering the blade out of her hand and sending it skittering down the corridor. He sprang back off her, and as she tried to sit up and reach for her katana, he walloped her hard across the side of her face with a forepaw in a brutal slap – a slap in which his claws were fully extended. They tore huge, gaping cuts across her face, ripping a chunk of her nose off, leaving half her cheek hanging like a butcher’s cut, and tearing her left ear entirely off of her head.
Kimiko fell forward, dazed and nearly unconscious from the power of the blow, and William grabbed her by the shoulder in his jaws. He could have killed her then – part of him was urging him to, for he did not know the extent of her betrayal – but he simply could not. Whatever she had done to them, he could not forget the friendship that had existed between them for so long. Bellowing out a roar of cold rage as the heart-crushing pain of betrayal gnawed at his innards, he flicked his neck and head, flinging her frame as easily as if it had been that of a mere doll. She hurtled through the air, hit the top of the stairs, and then tumbled limply down the stairwell, disappearing into the darkness.
And now, coming from another stairwell on the other side of the building, William’s tiger ears picked up the sound of many combat boots racing upward. The Huntsmen were almost here.
He sprinted around the corner and saw Adriana propped up against a wall near the spot where she had fallen off his back, groaning with pain, with her elbows skinned and bleeding. The sight of her injuries, even though they were not serious, shoved blunt razor blades through William’s flesh. He hurried over to her, and the sight of the tears flowing freely from her eyes almost made his heart explode with both anger and grief.
‘Come on love, climb back on. We have to flee, we have to flee right now!’
Adriana nodded through her tears and heaved herself up. She started hobbling over to the AK-47, but William’s voice echoed immediately in her mind.
‘No, leave it. We don’t need that now, just the bag. Quickly!’
She nodded, slung the bag over her shoulder and climbed onto William’s back.
‘Lock your arms around my neck, love, and dig your knees into your ribs. Hold tight with your arms and thighs, as tight as you can.’
She did so, closing her eyes and immersing herself in his presence. Despite everything that had just happened she felt so at ease, so swathed in calm that it almost blew her mind. This feeling, this sensation of belonging was so intense that it was, paradoxically, far more frightening than anything else that had happened thus far. She inhaled this mystical being’s scent; rich and musky in its rawness. She felt his muscles moving beneath her, felt him building up speed. She thought she heard hostile shouts echoing behind her, and she may have even heard a gunshot or two.
It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered any more.
She opened her eyes and saw a smashed-open window, through which a huge moon, like a laughing yellow Buddha, levitated above the scattered, inverted Milky Way of dirty lights that was Bangkok.
Then they were sailing through the window, flying through the air with the ground so far below that the cars and scooters looked like little matchbox toys. Their trajectory was taking them towards the faraway and seemingly impossible target of a balcony of a neighbouring building, rushing towards them at an incredible