The door opened a fraction. Something bounced on the carpet, once, twice, and landed close to his feet. He bit down on the torch and spun his jacket over the thick black disc.

A circle of actinic light flashed out from around the edges of the jacket, together with an almighty clap of thunder. Flames jetted up. He was deaf, but he could still see. He spat the torch out across the room, and suddenly someone was shooting at the tiny point of light as it sailed through the air.

Petrovitch dived the other way, brought his gun up and held his breath. His white robe reflected every last glimmer of light, but the man shrouded head to foot in black wasn’t looking his way.

He shot him twice in the back, and the figure jerked each time. Petrovitch watched the man start to turn, then slip heavily to one knee. The strange green-glowing eye of night vision rested on him.

Their guns came around, and Petrovitch fired first, straight into his face.

Out of bullets. But there was a mostly full pistol in a dead man’s grip right in front of him. He reached for it, and found himself in the crosshairs of another man in black. He looked up and saw a hint of green-cast skin.

“Pizdets.” There was no way he was going to get hold of that gun, let alone use it.

Then the man was enfolded in a shadow that lifted him off his feet and slammed him sideways. Bright flashes of gunfire moved in an arc, away from where Petrovitch lay.

He took the brief window of opportunity to pry the gun away from its entangling fingers, then immediately jammed the long barrel in the ear of the man who had come up behind the sister.

“Otsosi, potom prosi,” he hissed, and pressed harder. “Sister?”

She moved, and the body of the second gunman slid awkwardly to the floor. Petrovitch’s jacket was still on fire. She stamped it out and picked up his torch, shining it right in the remaining man’s night-vision goggles.

“Get his gun,” she said, with such authority that Petrovitch felt his own nerve falter. “And get that thing off his face.”

With the man disarmed, Petrovitch felt confident enough to wrench the goggles away. He wasn’t Japanese.

“Chyort! I was so sure they were from Hijo.”

The point of light moved from one hand to the other, and she took the man down with a punch to the stomach that made him double over before collapsing. She was on him, even while he was retching and gagging, dragging him up again by the neck and holding him against the wall. “I know who these bastards are. Paradise militia.”