from two hundred to two thousand vibrations per second, depending on the
size and the use to which it is to be put. Make it eight inches long,
add serrated, diamond-pointed teeth, and you have the man-killing
vibroblade. Its danger is in its power; that shivering blade can cut
through flesh, cartilage, and bone with almost no effort. It's a knife
with power steering.

But that kind of power can be a weakness as well as a strength.

The little gadget that Mike the Angel carried did more than just detect
the nearby operation of a vibroblade. It was also a defense. The gadget
focused a high-density magnetic field on any vibroblade that came
anywhere within six inches of Mike's body.

In that field, the steel blade simply couldn't move. It was as though it
had been caught in a vise. The blade no longer vibrated; it had become
nothing more than an overly fancy bread knife.

The trouble was that the power unit in the heavy hilt simply wouldn't
accept the fact that the blade was immovable. That power unit was in
there to move something, and by heaven, _something_ had to move.

The hilt jerked and bucked in the kid's hand, taking skin with it. Then
it began to smoke and burn under the overload. The plastic shell cracked
and hot copper and silver splattered out of it. The kid screamed as the
molten metal burned his hand.

Mike the Angel put a hand against the kid's chest and shoved. As the boy
toppled backward, Mike turned to face the other boy.

Only it wasn't a boy.

She was wearing gold lip paint and had sprayed her hair blue, but she
knew how to handle a vibroblade at least as well as her boy friend had.
Just as Mike the Angel turned, she lunged forward, aiming for the small
of his back.

And she, too, screamed as she lost her blade in a flash of heat.

Then she grabbed for something in her pocket. Regretfully, Mike the
Angel brought the edge of his hand down against the side of her neck in
a paralyzing, but not deadly, rabbit punch. She dropped, senseless, and
a small gun spilled out of the waist pocket of her zipsuit and skittered
across the floor. Mike paused only long enough to make sure she was out,
then he turned back to his first opponent.

As he had anticipated, Harry MacDougal had taken charge. The kid was
sprawled flat on the floor, and Old Harry was holding a shock gun in his
hand.

Mike the Angel took a deep breath.

"Yer trousers are on fire," said Harry.

Mike yelped as he felt the heat, and h