Out of nowhere, a long probing finger of blue. It stabbed out of the clouds, sliced across the spray-soaked air and abruptly the swoopcopter was gone. No more machine-gun fire scuttling greedily at me, no explosion, no real noise outside the crackle of abused air molecules in the path of the beam. The sky where the Dracul had been caught fire, flared up and then faded into the glow of an afterimage on my retina.

—and I slammed into the rail.

For a long moment there was only the sound of the maelstrom and the slap of wavelets against the hull just below me. I craned my head up and stared. The sky remained stubbornly empty.

“Got you, you motherfucker,” I whispered to it.

Memory slotted. I got myself upright and ran to where Isa and Sierra Tres both lay in running swipes of spray-diluted blood. Tres had propped herself against the side of the fairweather cockpit, and was tying herself a tourniquet from shreds of blood-soaked cloth. Her teeth gritted as she pulled it tight—a single grunt of pain got past her. She caught my eye and nodded, then rolled her head to where Brasil crouched beside Isa, hands frantic over the teenager’s sprawled body. I came and peered over his shoulder.

She must have taken six or seven slugs through the stomach and legs.

Below the chest, it looked as if she’d been savaged by a swamp panther.

Her face was still now, and the panting breaths from before had slowed.

Brasil looked up at me and shook his head.

“Isa?” I got on my knees beside her in her blood. “Isa, talk to me.”

“Kovacs?” She tried to roll her head towards me, but it barely moved. I leaned closer, put my face close to hers.

“I’m here, Isa.”

“I’m sorry Kovacs,” she moaned. Her voice was a little girl’s, barely above a high whisper. “I didn’t think.”

I swallowed. “Isa—”

“I’m sorry—”

And, abruptly, she stopped breathing.

THIRTY-FOUR