[alansplace]

I forgot to post this back when I was reading Small Favor.

Marcone tilted his head to one side for a moment and then murmured, “Does anyone else hear…strings?”

“Ah,” I said, and pumped my fist in the air. “Ah-hahahah! Have you ever heard anything so magnificently pompous and overblown in your life?”

Deep, ringing French horns joined the string sections, echoing over the hilltop.

“What is that?” Sanya murmured.

“That,” I crowed, “is Wagner, baby!”

Never let it be said that a Chooser of the Slain can’t make an entrance.

Miss Gard brought the reconditioned Huey up from the eastern side of the island, flying about a quarter of an inch over the treetops, blasting “The Ride of the Valkyries” from loudspeakers mounted on the chopper’s underside. Wind, sleet, and all, still she flew flawlessly through the night, having used the twin jets of the Fireball rounds, visible for miles over the pitch-black lake, to orient herself as to where to arrive. The Huey turned broadside as it rose over the hilltop, music blaring loud enough to shake snow from the treetops. The side door of the chopper was open, revealing Mister Hendricks manning a rotating-barreled minigun fixed to the deck of the helicopter—completely illegally, of course.

But then, I suppose that’s really one major advantage to working with criminals. They just don’t care about that sort of thing.

The barrels began to spin, and a tongue of flame licked out from the front of the gun. Snow and earth erupted into the air in a long trench in front of the cannon. I risked a peek and saw men clad in dark fatigues leaping for cover as a swath of devastation slewed back and forth across the open hilltop and pounded the mound of stones into a mound of gravel.

“There’s our ride!” I said. “Let’s go!”