The meth head with the sword charged. She was no expert with this weapon of hers; Court determined this instantly. In the narrow hall she should have been advancing forward with the point of the katana, but instead she swung it from side to side, slamming the blade into both walls as she closed wildly.
Court did not see her any differently because she was a woman; any sense of chivalry or gender bias in a force-on-force encounter had been trained out of him years and years ago. He saw her only as a threat. A target. He brought the AK up to his shoulder, used his thumb to make sure the fire selector was set to semiautomatic, centered the blade sight on her chest, and moved his finger to the trigger.
But before he could press the trigger and drop the woman, fully automatic gunfire erupted somewhere in the house. Suddenly jagged perforations pocked the paneling of the hallway, waist-high, halfway between Court and the charging woman with the sword. Though the holes appeared in both sides of the hall, Court could tell the shooting was coming from his right, so he dropped down onto his left shoulder, landing on the cold linoleum, and he returned fire with his AK, sending rounds of lead back in the direction of the gunfire, shooting through the wall next to him.
The woman with the sword made it less than halfway to Court before she was cut down. One of the bullets fired by the unseen attacker ripped through the paneling and then sliced through both of her thighs, causing her to stumble and fall awkwardly to her knees. The sword flew from her hands and clanged along the floor, then it slid, hilt-first, all the way to Court.
Court ignored the sword and kept firing the Kalashnikov at the wall just inches in front of him. The crushing volume of the rifle’s reports in the long, narrow space made his ears squeal, but he continued raking the barrel of his weapon back and forth, shooting all the while, desperate to suppress the incoming gunfire. Red-hot ejected shell casings bounced around the floor all around him and ricocheted back into his face, while splinters of paneling pricked his eyes and covered his hair and clothing.
It was clear to him by the incredible amount of gunfire that he was up against more than one weapon, perhaps as many as three. He emptied his AK and crawled for the other lying nearby, scooping it up. He continued firing, pushing himself along the floor with his feet and flattening himself even lower to the filthy linoleum as an incoming round punched a massive hole in the wall less than a foot above his head. Court jammed his Kalashnikov through the opening to return fire, again sweeping his muzzle back and forth. He had no idea who or what he was shooting at—his training and his years of experience commanded his actions now. He was in a fight for his life, and he did not pause to consider the consequences of each thumbnail-sized round he sent tearing through the wall at 2,350 feet per second.
Finally this second weapon clicked on an empty chamber and he took a moment to just lie there and listen. His ears were battered enough from all the shooting, and the heavy music coming from another part of the house droned on, but he was reasonably sure the incoming fire had stopped. The woman moaned on the floor ten feet away, but he ignored her as he climbed to one knee.
Court dropped the rifle on the floor there next to him and he heaved the sword. He stood back up and headed down the hall, hoping to make it to any more threats in the house before they had a chance to regroup and attack.
When he reached the woman he decided he needed to check her for any weapons. She had nothing on her other than a crack pipe, a thick roll of twenties, and a lighter. He saw her bloody thighs, and determined from the location of the wounds that the arteries in her legs remained intact, and she would probably survive.
He thought she was out of the fight completely, but before he could stand back up she looked up to him, bared her teeth, and tried to scratch at his eyes with her fingernails.
Court punched her in her left temple with the hilt of the sword, dazing her instantly. He then grabbed her by the waistband of her jeans in the small of her back, and he lifted her off the floor. He walked on, carrying her like a rag doll, holding the sword in his right hand as he dragged her along with his left.
He found the stereo in the main living room and turned it off, and as soon as he did so he heard the two men outside, frantically beating on the boarded windows next to the front door, trying to get back in.