Read 03. The Maze in the Mirror for Free Online

would spray enough water to coat them with what would be hard ice in a very short time.
    The one thing she'd always hated about this area was the bitter cold, the feeling of never being really warm. Now, suddenly, she found herself feeling quite good about bitter cold, snow, and ice. They were allies that even the best security system couldn't provide on its own.
    They did in fact seem to be all around, and not at all reticent about shouting orders. She didn't recognize the language but that was to be expected.
    The odds were that they spoke something beyond anyone's ability on this world to understand. Of course, to her it kind of sounded like the Chinese army.
    That thought did worry her a little. The house was protected from casual attack, from people wanting in even if they had the usual tools and weapons. It was not a house built by the Company, though, but an old estate house that had been in the hands of one family for almost two centuries before the last heir, a writer, committed suicide here and it was sold to the Company through a blind. A bazooka, for example, would still blow in that steel door.
    She decided to retreat upstairs and let the first floor fend for itself, something it was doing quite well.
    Bond stirred. "What is happening?" he managed.
    "They're here. They got us cut off for a little bit and they been tryin' to get through the security system, so far with heavy losses," she told him, some pride in her voice. "Still, they been awful quiet all of a sudden for a fairly long time. Either they gave up, or got in the barn to warm up a little, or they're settin' up and plannin' somethin'."
    "Probably the latter. They won't give up. They can't. They will die first. There is a drug-most of them are slaves to it. If they return without me, or without proof of my death, they won't get it and they will die horribly. You can not believe what lengths they will go to."
    She felt a knot in her stomach. "Yes, I can, too. They once had me on that shit."
    "And you kicked the habit?" He sounded morethan impressed. "Oh, of course, that was the old drug where you had a chance. Organic stuff from way up the line. This is all synthetic, much nastier, but you know their desperation."
    She nodded. The idea of a drug even more powerful than the most powerful ever known before was her worst nightmare come true. She had become a whore, a slave, a double agent, and more under that old one, and it had taken everything she had and all the knowledge and skills of the Company's super medical technology to break her free of dependence on it. Most never could break if, the treatment either broke them or they lived on a level of it rather than try. If it wasn't for Sam she couldn't have, either. The worst part was how utterly selfish the addiction made you. You'd rob, betray, even kill innocents, even those you loved, to sustain it, but never once did she think of killing herself because that would deny her the next fix. Those poor devils out there would get in or die trying.
    "The rest are probably Ginzu," he told her. "A fanatical warrior cult that considers a commission a debt of honor and who would prefer death to dishonor. They are quite skilled with knives that they create themselves and which they can use to inflict extreme torture. I escaped from them, which is where my wounds come from. I should prefer to die rather than fall into their hands again."
    She nodded. Suddenly there was a series of thumps from the roof, and she thought fast. Normally the roof was slick and she could make it slicker, but right now it was piled up with snow and there might be a possible footing. Right up topwas an old widow's walk with attic access. Even it was electrified and fortified just in case, but it was also far weaker, being original to the house. But if they could get in the attic . . .
    There was the sound of muffled blasts from the roof. Conventional shotgun, it sounded like- maybe Cal's from the barn. Loaded up and at close range it would