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yelled, eyes wide as much with terror as rage.
    These boys sure have a limited vocabulary,
Max thought, as she kept climbing.
    Beneath her, the guy ducked inside, then came leaping out into the night. He snared the rope, and his momentum threatened to rip the tether from her grasp. Surprised by his boldness, she could feel his weight at the far end of the rope, and knew the line wouldn't support both of them. . . .
    “The rope won't hold!” she called down, warning him.
    “Fuck you, little girl!”
    That limited vocabulary seemed suddenly ominous. . . .
    Feeling not so smug now, climbing even faster, she moved toward the rooftop, the guy now climbing the rope below her, chasing her toward the roof, heedless of the peril he was placing both of them in. As she looked up the last ten feet, she could see the rope straining against the twisted metal of the roof's distorted edge. Beyond that, the stars hung bright and glittering in the sky, as if lighting her way, until they were eclipsed by a face . . .
    . . . Kafelnikov's.
    Opening a switchblade with a nasty
click,
the Brood's leader said, “Stupid bitch . . . I told you I was going to kill you!”
    “I'm getting really tired of you boys calling me that,” she said. “Your manners
suck
. . . .”
    With no alternative, and that weight below her, she kept climbing, narrowing the distance between herself and the Brood members on the roof.
    Kafelnikov bent down, the knife starting to slice through the thin rope. “Just be a couple more seconds . . . and then nobody'll be calling you ‘bitch' again, rest assured, my dear. . . . Nobody'll call you anything but dead!”
    The Russian was carving at the rope, threads popping, his face a pale terrible thing just above her, closer, closer. . . .
    “Boss,
no!
” the skinny guy below her whined, but it was too late.
    Kafelnikov's blade cut the rope.
    Max let go, the rope and the skinny guy tumbling down out of sight, a screaming man riding a snake.
    But as she let go, Max launched herself upward, spearing the lapels of Kafelnikov's coat in either hand. Just as gravity took over and started to pull them both over the edge, two members of the Brood grabbed their leader and just managed, barely managed, to keep him—and Max—from pitching to the pavement far below.
    And so she hung there, holding on to his coat, Kafelnikov's face only inches from hers—they might have kissed, though she found his breath (what was that, sardines?) offensive—and the other two Broodsters strained to keep their fearless leader from falling, their grip on their superior's arms preventing him from doing anything to rid himself of Max.
    Inexorably, gravity tilted them farther over the edge. In his panic, Kafelnikov fought to tear himself from the grip of his own men so he could try to pry Max's hands from his coat; but his loyal boys were just too strong, and kept trying to pull him away.
    Just as it seemed the skinny Brood leader and the shapely cat burglar would tumble through the night together, Max looked up at the Russian and smiled.
    Kafelnikov's eyes went wide in wonderment and rage—he might have been thinking,
If only she were one of mine!
—then Max headbutted him, breaking his nose, and almost prying him loose from his goons.
    Blood sprayed and the Russian howled. Tearing one arm free, he swung wildly for Max's face; but she simply let go of him . . .
    . . . and his follow-through carried him back out of sight onto the roof with his two goons in tow.
    As Max fell through the night sky, a falling star, she grinned, enjoying the rush of air on her face. Not only did she have what she'd come for, she'd gotten to bloody the nose of the Brood's leader—not a bad evening's work, so far.
    As she passed the seventh floor again, she pulled the metal ring on her suit that deployed the chute and a tiny turbine blower that filled the chute with warm air and provided enough updraft to give her an easy descent and a relatively soft landing.
    She had