LITMIR.BIZ

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shudder of cold fear and revulsion.

      “Delicious,” Algul said with a grin, his teeth stained with blood.

      Kensington tried to swallow, but his throat was too tight, too dry. His heart hammered in his chest. “The U.S. government will not negotiate for our freedom. We will not give in to terrorist demands!”

      Algul quirked an eyebrow and handed Kensington’s skin to one of his followers. “Terrorist demands? You silly, silly fool.”

      The bone-handled knife rose to the captain’s throat. “First, I am not a terrorist. I am the spiritual leader of my people, the warriors of the night who seek freedom from the oppression of those who seek to shine their light upon us.”

      The edge slit Kensington’s skin, a slow trickle of blood crawling down his chest.

      “Second, I do not have demands. Indeed, I wish for more of your compatriots to throw their lives away in coming after me. I am Algul, the demon blood-drinking prince of darkness. And I thirst greedily.”

      The knife bit deeper. One of Algul’s followers pressed a goblet into his master’s hand, and the madman brought the rim up to catch the sudden splash. The cut was wicked, bleeding profusely, but it hadn’t severed a major artery. Kensington knew he’d bleed to death from this wound, but unfortunately, it would be a slow, arduous process. He struggled against his bonds, spitting and cursing, but Algul held his cup steady as it filled.

      Then the madman stepped back and raised the goblet to the cameramen. “This is the blood of the enemy, which I give to you, my followers!”

      Kensington watched in horror as Algul decanted the blood into his mouth, streaks of crimson rolling down his chin, pouring onto his chest. The American’s heart hammered and he struggled, trying to rip free, but his strength poured out of him, down his own torso in the torrent of life that pumped from his wound.

      Algul turned to Kensington, and smiled, his mouth a crimson mask. “You may feast now, my friends.”

      Suddenly, red-clay-caked bodies blocked the glare of the klieg lights, bloodshot eyes staring at him, their mouths agape and slack.

      Kensington swore he wouldn’t scream in horror, but when they lunged at him, his howls streaked through the darkness as if on the hooves of a nightmare.

      AMANDA CASH CHUCKLED into the phone as she listened to Carmen Delahunt on the other end of the line.

      “I’ll be there in a couple days for the Expo,” Delahunt said. “Maybe then we can get together and you can update me on your hunt for Ka55andra.”

      Cash looked at the calendar. The San Francisco Law Enforcement Technology Exposition was scheduled for that Friday and “white-hat” hackers like her team would be attending. “White hats,” as they called themselves, were computer experts who used their skills for the sake of preventing cybercrime. Some, like her friend Carmen, worked for the government, even though Delahunt never really let on exactly where in the government she worked. Amanda herself, and her team, freelanced their work.

      Delahunt had tapped Cash and her crew for assistance in tracking down a notorious cybercriminal who called herself Ka55andra. Identified only by her call sign, she proclaimed to be a prophetess of a new age, seeking to tear down the stone walls of the government and to destroy the Department of Homeland Security. So far, the cyberwitch had proved herself to be a formidable force, sending military units and agents into death traps for numerous terrorists and criminals. Ka55andra’s reign of terror had been responsible for the deaths of three hundred lawmen, soldiers and intelligence operatives around the globe, and she showed no signs of abatement.

      That was why Delahunt had started using the resources of Cash’s crew, HedSpayce, for gathering information on Ka55andra. For Cash, it was no major problem. Her crew had enough ability, and what they couldn’t get on their own, they asked for around the bulletin boards across the Net, as discreetly as possible.

      Having Ka55andra, someone who had ties to international terrorists and assassins, finding out they were on her trail would have been hazardous to HedSpayce’s health.

      “I’ll look forward to seeing you, Carmen,” Cash said. “We haven’t gotten together in a couple years.”

      “Yeah. Unfortunately, in the work I’m in, business is too good,” Delahunt answered, sounding sullen, defeated.

      Cash figured that her friend worked for something akin to the CIA or the Department of Homeland Security, and she felt a pang of sympathy. If work was keeping her busy, that meant that she was keeping her finger on the pulse of tragedies and horrors across the globe. Trying to maintain a watch on that either turned you callous or slowly bled your spirit one atrocity at a time.

      “I’m sorry to hear that, Carm.”

      “It’s okay. Anything you have, just send it to my BBS. I’ll have my department look it over, too,” Delahunt answered. “I just wish we could budget you more money.”

      “No problem, Carm. Though, maybe a little tax break come April…”

      Delahunt chuckled on the other side. “We’ll see what we can do, Mandy.”

      “Thanks,” Cash answered, not quite certain whether Delahunt was joking or not.

      The door of the warehouse loft offices was rapped, and Cash sighed. “I’ll have to talk to you later. Sounds like we’re getting a new delivery.”

      “All right. Take care, okay?”

      “Sure,” Cash replied, and she turned off the phone and tucked it into her pocket.

      She opened the door and looked up to see one of the largest human beings she’d ever seen. He looked down on her but remained silent. A voice from below caught her attention, and she looked at a squat little man holding a clipboard.

      “Is this HedSpayce?” the dwarf asked.

      “Uh, yeah,” Cash answered. She looked past the dwarf and the giant, seeing a lanky, long-haired man with a handlebar mustache standing in the hall. He looked as if he were made out of toothpicks, he was so skinny. His eyes were black, and creepy. They had dollies, loaded with stacks of boxes of paper, diskettes and other office supplies. These weren’t their usual deliverymen, even though they wore the right uniforms and their boxes were stamped with the right return labels.

      She just didn’t know. The mammoth delivery man looked too mean, too cruel, to be anything other than a professional wrestler, or worse, a serial killer. The giant somehow managed to squeeze his wide shoulders through the doorjamb and rolled his dolly toward the center of the office.

      “Where do we drop this off?” the little one asked. Cash looked down at him as he pushed his cart in.

      “Oh, the supply room is this way,” she said as he handed her the clipboard.

      The clipboard was one of those digital delivery invoices, with a stylus to sign your name on a pressure-sensitive LED screen. HedSpayce’s office address was displayed on another little screen at the top of the brown unit. She signed her name and started to hand the clipboard back to the dwarf when something snaked around her throat.

      It was an arm, the wiry thin limb of the creepy, long-haired delivery man. Suddenly, that toothpick-thin body was a lot stronger than she thought, corded muscles squeezing her throat and picking her up off the ground. Her feet kicked and she tried to let out a choked scream.

      Nothing got past that strong, muscular forearm.

      Henley, a handsome young black kid, rose, shouting at the man strangling her. The giant turned swiftly and wrapped his massive hands around Henley’s head and yanked him off his feet, snapping his body around and hurling him through a bank of cubicles. As the young hacker’s body crashed through the offices, screams of confusion filled the air.

      Cash struggled, her fingers trying to dig into the forearm of the killer strangling her, but the cords of his muscles were too tight. It was like squeezing steel. His other arm snaked around and he aimed a long-barreled

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