Their pistols momentarily forgotten, both were ducking and cringing. They fell sideways to avoid the whirling blade that was exuding clouds of steam as the sprinklers pattered down upon it. The flames might not have been real, but they were as hot as hell and the blade was sharp as a serpent’s tooth as it chunked solidly into the wall near them, neatly slicing off the tip of the fat man’s ponytail as he fell on his ass trying to get out of the way.

The fat one fell to the Angel’s left, the sword vibrating in the wall and impeding her access to him, so she swatted the skinny one with the desk as he desperately tried to bring his pistol into line. He got off a shot, but the bullet flew over the Angel’s head as her ungainly club smashed into him on his head and torso. It was only cheap hotel furniture and it shattered as it drove him down to the floor, but it was more solid than he was. He had time for a single scream that segued into a choking gurgle as it passed his lips.

The Angel dropped the desk leg and pulled her steaming sword out of the wall. She slashed at the fat one, but he wanted no more of her. He vanished, sinking through the hotel-room floor faster than a boulder through water. He left no trace of his passing, except for a single gasped word.

“Gospody!”

The Angel sat down on the edge of the adjacent bed, sighed, and said automatically, “Don’t blaspheme.”

She glanced over at the skinny guy. He was still there and apparently alive and conscious. His arms and legs were moving feebly as he lay on the floor among the wreckage of the desk. She slipped the tip of her sword under the largest piece of debris and flipped it off him. His eyes were half closed. He was bleeding from his mouth and a nose that had once been rather sharp and prominent, but was now smashed flat. His gun lay on the floor by his side. On his chest, among the remains of the shattered desk, lay a closed laptop.

The Angel’s eyes gleamed. “Jamal’s computer,” she said. It had been in a desk drawer that now also lay splintered on the man’s chest.

She took her hands from the sword hilt and the blade disappeared. She arose from the bed, knelt down before her feebly groaning prisoner, and picked up his gun. She glanced at it. She had no idea what kind it was. She didn’t like guns. She ejected the clip, checked the chamber (Billy had taught her how to do this; he didn’t like guns either, but he used them if he had to), and she tossed the weapon onto the bed.

The man groaned. The Angel eyed him grimly. He and his fat partner must have been waiting for Jamal to return. Waiting to kill him. She didn’t like hit men, either.