Intimidator (16 page)

As the atmosphere began to buffet them and the glow of heat flickered upon the forward parts of the amber cocoon, he saw that Dassenze had received a message. His speech vibrated through the glasslike cocoon to Stom.

“Willow is being attacked. Even I cannot reach her fast enough to stop this. Brask will get there before us yet is also too distant.”

He couldn’t speak but he blinked to show he’d heard what Dassenze had said. As long as they didn’t mean to kill her instantly, there was hope.

Hope. His heart clenched and he said a prayer in his mind.

They screamed lower, flames burning off them, diving headfirst toward the surface of the planet.

The lecture on the amplification of DNA from white blood cells had been as boring as picking paint colors, but not just because of the subject matter, which had very little new in it. The pull was there again, only this time
he
was close and it wasn’t a vague tug, he was here, nearby. The man with the incisive green eyes. Talia could almost taste him.

At the end of the lecture, she strode out of the lecture theatre and headed for the car park, already texting Allan to say she wasn’t going to make the lab work session. Her car was her Suzuki Swift that she’d had shipped in by train. As she spun the wheel to take her onto the motorway, she was grateful for her forethought. The sword in the trunk was a cheap modern version of a katana, but it felt right in her hand, even if the grip needed redoing.

The pull grew stronger as she neared Inala and she weaved down side streets until she reached a dead end. Bad neighborhood. Most of the houses looked tatty, their yards overgrown with grass and discarded car parts. Windows were busted, graffiti had taken over most flat surfaces, and half the shops she’d passed looked ready to fall down or be burgled.

She slammed the car door behind her; to the right was a towering gray concrete reservoir. Strange, it was the only structure that was clean – no graffiti.

She looked around. Nothing but kids playing. That mind-twisting
pull
teased her. He was here somewhere.

If she was crazy, this was when the men in white coats should come get her. Carrying a sword in public was enough to earn a criminal charge if she scared anyone, but she’d put a blanket in her trunk just for this sort of occasion. With the sword wrapped and tucked under her arm, she sauntered in the direction the pull took her – past a neat, white-fenced house and to the side of the reservoir. Here was a small forest – gray-trunked eucalypts and tallow wood trees.

She drew the sword and let the blanket flow to the ground. She breathed with her eyes half shut. Yes. Close. Like a wind beckoning. A purpose flowed into her and she became, not just a forensic biologist on sabbatical in a strange city who’d eaten too much sushi for dinner last night and had put on a few pounds, no, with that purpose, she became a warrior taken by a cause.

Her body moved toward what called her – dedicated in every muscle to arriving there without being heard or seen. Ridiculous and improbable given her upbringing, but this was her, her true being, with a sword in hand. Somewhere ahead was both her mystery and her destiny.

What she’d do when she reached him, she didn’t know, but with something sharp in her hand, she was queen. Rock, paper, scissors, sword.

Every flicker of grass blade impinged on her consciousness, as did every warble and flutter of wing, every sway of branch, every shadow that darkened her surrounds. She’d never trained at anything but kendo but here, now, something had happened. She was ninja, astro boy, bat girl, and Uma Thurman from
Kill Bill
, on crack, with sprinkles on top.

Energy squeezed from her every cell, told her she was deadly, and she believed it. Fuck yeah.

Which was how she came across the three of them circling the woman on the ground like vultures who’d forgotten the last down payment on their wings. She stood at the edge of light and shadow, twirling her katana’s point on the leather of her boot, watching them, and they had no clue.

It was possible she would have floated on by, sneaked flatfooted through the trees, because
he
was there, just on the other side of this small clearing. Possible – the pull was that bad.

Maybe this girl, who seemed unconscious, knew the men? Hey, who knew? Only when she stirred and mumbled, the tattooed one laughed and flipped her over onto her back. Another one, a tall guy with a red beard, dressed in biker leather, denim, and chains, pulled out a corkscrew.

What the hey?

Then the third, bald man drew a hacksaw from under his coat.

Etiquette said you introduced yourself, even if she had an urge to separate their heads from their torsos. Besides, it was a little illegal to behead people and so far all they’d done was gather around a flaked-out girl and show off their kitchen and man tools collection.

She took a deep breath and slowly walked over. Go, ninja girl.

“Hey guys, I’m all for kinky sex, but don’t you think the hacksaw is taking it a little far?”

They turned and looked at her. Redbeard, baldie, and tattooed guy. She nodded to each of them.

Redbeard shrugged and stepped toward her. “We was just about to have fun. You wanna join in?” He nodded at her sword. “Think you can use that?”

The others spread out and began a classic encirclement.

“This?” She tilted the blade and sneered at it. “Picked it up in a junk sale.”

Baldie, to her right, chuckled and she noted his position. Tattooed guy, still showing to the left, in her peripheral vision, dragged out a revolver and started speaking. “Hand over –”

The katana was point down but cutting edge up and theoretically that was good as she could sweep in one continuous motion. Samurai would keep their katanas ready in just such a position, only they had them tucked into their obi.

Hers was out and within lethal range of them all. They were unaware.

Strictly speaking, legally, she couldn’t say they’d done more than frighten her, and so deadly force wasn’t allowed. She could hit them and run, but she couldn’t do anything really bad…

He continued his speech. “…the sword.”

Redbeard unslung a chain to go with his corkscrew.

The barrel of the revolver cleared Tattooed guy’s coat opening and was swinging out.

No deadly force until he shot her?

Fuck this.

In one arc, starting on the left, she sliced through Tattooed guy’s throat, which meant carotid artery spurt…
damn the blood spray would get her
…severed Redbeard’s wrist then on the reverse arc, separated Redbeard’s head from his neck…
using a corkscrew on a girl, jeez.
There was a
crack
and a
spang
.

In the air, a blade spun, flinging glints of light.

As she swiveled to deal with Baldie, she recognized the sounds and the altered feel of the katana for what it was – the blade had snapped, one inch from the grip. Her left hand reached out at speed.

Well that was a bad buy.
But at least her astro-ninja-batgirl instincts were working. She’d grabbed the blade with her left hand and now held it like an Olympic torch gone wrong. Shouldn’t that be hurting? The thing was sharp as well as cheap.

Baldie gaped at her, with a mother fucking huge cannon of a gun pointed her way. But beyond him was an onrushing man in a coat. Him, her brain screamed.
Him, him, him.

Yeah, I get it.
Whatever part of her was doing the proximity alert, it needed to turn down the volume. Maybe these guys were all together? Crap. No, please, not Coatman.

With the snapped-off blade in her left hand, she spiked Tattooed guy clean through the nose and up into the cribriform plate that separated nose and brain. Things went
splurt
. She was amazed when
A
her left hand that held the naked blade didn’t split in half and
B
the blade came out again like she’d plunged it into spaghetti and not skull and brain.

Maybe she was Bladegirl not ninjagirl? Names needed deciding.

Again the man had possessed the hacksaw, ergo, he deserved dying, muchly.

He was collapsing already and likely dead, when her cute, scary, green-eyed guy, currently known as Coatman, came leaping over the top, his hand outstretched, gun in it.

A flash recall told her letting him grab her neck was bad. She dodged and made to cut his leg, just a little, only to find her arm had turned to rock. She couldn’t cut him, but she could dance. Her agility was still there. With a swerve and a duck, she slipped away.

The man rolled and came up on his feet. He tucked the gun away under his long black coat.

There was blood everywhere. Forensics would have a field day with this. Blood spatter, severed fucking heads, corkscrews. While still keeping a wary eye on…

“Who are you?” she demanded, eyes narrowing. “I know you.”

I’ve travelled for a thousand miles to find you.

This man she’d searched for had a simple presence most men never achieved. Self-assured and wide, yet she’d bet all of him under that partly open coat was muscle. Sandy hair that glinted gold at the tips and a squarish, rugged face.

She had an itch to trace the creases there and ask him where he got those awesome blue cheek tattoos. Like shark gills or something. They’d even been shaded so they looked carved in.

“You remember me? Curious. My name is Brask. I came to help her. Though technically, I shouldn’t.” He gestured at the girl who had curled up into a ball. “And you, you need me to help you clean up all this. They’re dead. Your world doesn’t like people getting dead, do they?”

“My world?”

“What else do you remember, apart from me in general?” The deep sexy purr of his voice struck low and made her long-neglected lady bits quiver warmly to life. This Brask could have been a beast in another life.

She had to do a slow shuffle and step to keep him distant. He seemed determined to close the gap, and whenever she stepped away, he followed.

“Not much. I don’t remember anything much at all. Stay there, please. I’ve got this.” She brandished the broken sword in her bloodied fist.

He halted and cocked one eyebrow. “Shouldn’t that have cut you? Can I see your hand? And I’ve got a gun, by the way. Gun trumps sword.”

“Not in my world,” she muttered. Funny how both of them were sparring despite all the dead, like they were immune or something. She’d never thought herself callous. Later, she had a feeling all this was going to crash down on her. She gave her mind a metaphorical shake. “No, you can’t see my hand. Help her, and stop stalking me.”

He grunted dismissively but bent then went to one knee and peered at the girl. While he did that, she spread her palm. Blood, but not hers. No cuts. None. This was freaky.

“She seems to be recovering. I can’t touch her to be sure. Willow, if you can hear me, Stom is coming.”

“Stom? Is that her boyfriend? Weird name. Why can’t you touch her? Step back and I’ll check her out.”

“Stom is not her boyfriend, Talia. He’s her bond mate and possibly her Master.” He smiled oddly as he said that, as if he knew something she didn’t. “They’re coming soon so you needn’t touch her. Don’t be surprised.”

“Uh-huh.” What an odd thing to say. All of that had been. The sensual menace radiating from this Brask was affecting her. It was exhilarating. Such a scary yet fascinating game. Playing mysteries with a man who’d watched her kill three other men and not batted an eyelid.

“You’re not scared of me, are you?” she asked gently.

“No.” He laughed.

“Maybe you should be.”

“I doubt that. Maybe you should be scared of me, Talia.” He took a step nearer and in the face of what she’d just told him, she stood her ground. Damn, the man had grown some inches.

Chasing this guy was like following a hurricane, and holding onto its tail.

Her name. He’d said it before. “How do you know my name?”

“Because. I’ll tell you, if you tell me why you’re here.”

Shit. He’d put his finger on the anomaly.

“Really? You swear?”

“I do, and I never break my word.”

It seemed, in that instant, that finding out how he knew her name was the secret to end all secrets. They’d met before and he was about to say how.

But the reason why she decided to tell him wasn’t just to get his answer; it was because this had become a sexual game. And what she would say was going to up the stakes.

“I’m here because I knew you would be. I’ve been tracking you, Brask.”

He swallowed and his eyes widened. “How?”

That wasn’t in the contract they’d just made, but she told him. “I can feel where you are.”

He froze at that. The type of freeze that said he wanted to conceal how he felt about what she’d said. And that, alone, provoked her to tease him. Very slowly, she smiled in a way that said,
gotcha
.

Brask replied, narrow lipped and nasty. “I know your name because I’ve met you before, on the rooftop apartment where your sister used to live. I know where she is now. She’s alive and happy, but you know what makes me happy? That I then made you forget. I can do what I like with you, Talia.”

Shit.
She quailed a little. Was that the truth? This man was more dangerous than she’d imagined. But, Brittany was alive? Nothing could best that, or so she thought.

Not until a flaming comet appeared in the sky and plummeted to the earth at her feet, and two men stepped forth. One of them was covered in bronze scales. A glance from his golden eyes made the world about her fade and her knees weaken.

She stared until a hand grasped her neck.

“Thought that would distract you.” Brask looked into her eyes.

A powerful jolt swept her and she collapsed to her knees. When she tried to rise, the jolt hit her again.

“You’re so resistant to this, miss. I’d love to know why. Sleep. Forget.”

She remembered laying a hand on his at the angle of her shoulder, and the flash striking her again at the same time as a wave of goose bumps.

“I need to get a new strategy. The
look
isn’t working with you. You may not like it, but I can’t have you tracking me in this out-of-control state, no matter how good you are with a sword.”