Ventus by Karl Schroeder

Karl Schroeder / Ventus / Page 90
though she weighed nothing. She broke an ornate side-table in
her fall, and skidded on into the wall. The thing went after her.
Before it reached her she was on her feet, eyes and teeth
glinting in the faint light from the window. "Bastard!" she
hissed, and Jordan didn't know whether she meant it, or him for
abandoning her to it.
It struck at her but she ducked out of the way and came
up with a piece of the table, which she swung like a club. She
hit it and the bit of table shattered. The mechal killer fell back.
"The sheet!" she screamed. Jordan leaped off the bed
and ran to her. They hunkered down under the thin stuff. It
seemed a suicidal maneuver to Jordan, like closing one's eyes
to danger. But the golden thing paused, glass globes whirling
this way and that. And then it reached down and picked up
part of the ruined table--and another part, and more, piling
wooden flinders in its arms. It was cleaning up.
Lady May groaned and slumped against the wall. Jordan
took her hands and opened them, expecting to see her cut to the
bone, and her tendons severed. She had numerous long thin
gashes on her palms and up her wrists, but nothing very deep.
And the wound in her throat was also shallow; it had nearly
stopped bleeding, though the thin shirt she had worn to bed was
soaked.
"How--?" Jordan snatched his hand back from the
examination. She opened her eyes and smiled faintly at him.
"No bruises, no deep cuts. I know. I wear armor, Jordan,
but under my skin, not over it. I can't be cut deeply. And in
my blood is a substance that goes rigid for an instant if it is
shocked. Getting thrown across the room is... nothing." She
coughed. "Almost nothing."
"Let's get out of here," he said.
She stared at the golden creature which was tidying up