"Why?"
"The little death!" she explained.
A premonition of danger made a cold track in his brain. He swung around.
Nadia Petrovna stood very straight not four feet from him. Big tears stood like drops of crystal in her long black eyes. She was holding her tiny dart-gun at Gavin's chest.
"May God rest your soul." She uttered the words in a choked voice, and pulled the trigger.
Gavin was caught completely flatfooted. He glimpsed a flash as the splinter of steel zipped at his chest and knew he was a dead man.
The dart struck his breast and stood straight out from his blouse. He stared down at it in panic.
But no fire of poison coursed through his veins.
He remembered his dart-proof plastic vest with a flood of relief. Another needle stuck through his blouse into the vest as Nadia pulled the trigger a second time.
Gavin crumpled slowly forward.