Matt Drake 07 - Blood Vengeance (10 page)

“This ain
’t gonna be pretty,” Ribeye said.

Alicia made eye contact with Lomas.
“Not everyone will survive. Just do the best you can.”

Lomas revved up the Monster. “Take
‘em apart, boys.”

Mai
met the master assassin, Gyuki, in the green depths of Shinjuku Park, close to the Hilton in central Tokyo. At any other time, the scenery would have called to her. Multi-hued tall and short trees, sculpted bushes, temples, bridges and acres of lush greenery offered a tranquil place for her mind to dwell, but not on this day.

The place of their meeting was
a low, arched bridge spanning a narrow body of water. Trees overhung both sides, and natural vegetation had built up all around. It was a good place for a clandestine meet.

Mai saw the figure
standing in the center of the bridge as she approached. It had been a long time since she had seen Gyuki; a long time since she had even
heard
of him. When he looked up, pinning her with his gaze, she saw the fire in his eyes was as furious and fanatical as ever.

“Your prayers were not answered,” were his first words to her in so many years she
had forgotten. “I did not die.”

“Master Gyuki.” She inclined her head.
“The years have not changed you, though perhaps the world has?”

“Is that your way of inferring that
you
have changed?” Gyuki spat the words, the deep furrows across his face creasing. “In what way? To consort with our enemy?”

Mai watched him very carefully, mindful of every fluid change in his body. His hands and arms were hidden deep inside a flowing black cloak
which reached to his knees, and his face was partly shaded by a wide-brimmed hat. “I consort only with those I wish to,” Mai said evenly. “Just like any girl who is not owned. Tell me, Master Gyuki, do you have the same luxury?”

The assassin
’s eyes widened. Mai slipped into a defensive stance. She knew her friend, Dai Hibiki, was observing the exchange through the lens of a high-powered rifle, but Gyuki was quick.

Was he quicker than a bullet?

Of course,
she thought. A man didn’t become the greatest Ninja assassin of all time through tardiness in battle.

It isn
’t being faster than the bullet.
She remembered his teachings.
It is offering the person behind the barrel many distractions.

“The Clan made you,” Gyuki said. “Yet you show your disrespect.”

Mai shook her head. She had been determined not to get into a slanging match with Gyuki, it would do her no good, but his visionless words spoke purely of blind faith. Here was a man who had never loved anything, owned anything, or experienced the happiness of childhood, even his own. Here was a machine, made by older machines that should have died out long ago.

Extinction would be good for them.

“The Clan
bought
me. Imprisoned me. Molded me into a killer with no soul, no heart. They killed with impunity and, I daresay, probably still do. Some of those old jobs I heard about, and the one I observed,” she shook her head, “still haunt me.”

“It is our life
,” Gyuki said simply. “It is what we were born to do.”

“Not me
,” Mai said. “I was dragged from the arms of my penniless parents. I, who had known only adoration and love, was suddenly told it was fight or die. Survive or perish in adversity. You had no right to impose that law. You still don’t.”

“You will return to the Clan for the rest of your life,” Gyuki told her harshly. “And you will do our bidding, whatever that may be.
We own you and always have. There will be no other life for you, Mai Kitano.”

“And how do you intend to enforce your words?”

Mai faced off the master assassin, confident in her own ability, but knowing he was probably better. The odds still stood at two-to-one, though. She was sure he hadn’t spotted Hibiki.

Gyuki didn
’t move. His fiery glare bored into her own eyes as if he was trying to set her on fire. Maybe he could do that. Mai wondered if she’d played too many video games in her past. Then Gyuki did move, but it was only a step toward the edge of the bridge. He clasped the rails, deliberately not looking at her.

“Your parents are with us now.”

Mai gasped. Nothing could have shocked her more. Chika had disowned her parents when she found out about Mai, and Mai herself had not known them since she was a child. Neither sister knew of their whereabouts and had privately thought they might have passed away. The broken hearted tended to die young.

Mai grasped the rail, trying to steady herself. “
You mean you have them imprisoned? In your village?”

“They reside in the Clan village,” Gyuki acknowledged. “We have a job for you.” He produced a manila folder from deep inside the folds of his cloak. “Everything is in there. Do this job, Mai Kitano, or you will never see your parents alive again.
And even after them we would sacrifice Chika, and Hibiki, and then you. For the Clan”

Gyuki turned to walk away. “The quicker you get it done, the quicker yo
u will see your parents.”

“You must let them go!” Mai called after him. “If I do this you must let them go.”

Gyuki did not answer.

Lomas gunned the Ducati forward so hard Alicia was thrown
backwards and almost dismounted. Blood lust coursed through the man’s veins, mixed with more than a little fear. Alicia steadied herself and yanked out her pistol. She leaned around her boyfriend’s bulk, sighting down the barrel. A blue Nissan sped toward her with a man hanging out the passenger side, rifle in hand. The driver toted a small handgun through his own window. More Nissans stretched across the three-lane Autobahn. Half of Lomas’s biker gang peeled out beside him, filling the road; the other half shot off in the other direction.

“Crash an
’ burn, boys,” Lomas breathed into his helmet mic. “It was always gonna come down to this.”

Both enemies raced toward each other at reckless speed, the cluttered row of bikes grumbling toward the screaming pearl-blue line-up of cars.
Lomas shouted over the uproar, “So here’s another first for you!”

“Oh, I
’ve been in a charge before,” Alicia said, remembering Czechoslovakia. “But never whilst riding a Monster!”

Lomas ducked his head even lower. “
Crazy beautiful,” he mumbled. “Now I know what Slash meant.”

Alicia fired,
destroying her enemy’s windscreen. Shots drilled back, zipping overhead. A single bullet clanged off the engine block, ricocheting harmlessly away. Alicia switched her aim to the tires and fired twice, mindful that she only had one spare clip. Both her shots bounced off the tarmac.

To their left a bike went down, scraping
along at high speed with a noise like a felled leviathan. Its rider, JPS, spun beside it, shredding his leathers as he went. He was one of the unarmed bikers, but determined to help distract their attackers. In seconds, the bikes and cars ate up the ground separating them and came together. One bike struck the side of a car, bouncing off and sending its rider screaming over the parapet of the bridge. Lomas cursed heavily. The car veered across the path of another, sending both vehicles into a slide. Two more bikes went down, one with its rider shot, the other through sheer bad luck.

Lomas hung low over his engine as his bike shot through the gap between two cars. Bullets flew horizontally.
Alicia ducked to the left, firing blindly to the right. They were past in less than two seconds. When she breathed again and turned around, all four cars were already lining back up, preparing for another charge. Beyond them, the rest of the bikers hustled through their own bullet-strewn gauntlet, taking fire.

The blue Nissans screamed
in unison. The vehicles spurted forward, laying down acres of rubber. Clouds of bluish smoke obscured the scene behind them. Lomas blipped the throttle of the Ducati, looking across the line at his men and women.

“Hit it.”

The column surged ahead. Whipper’s bike ran next to theirs, letting her notorious weapon unfurl behind as she took off. Alicia popped a Nissan’s driver-side tire with her first shot this time, then the tire of the one running beside it. One of the cars started to swerve crazily toward them.

“Shit
,” Lomas all but yelped, speculating on the best way to go. The Nissan swung sharply about. Alicia took out a rear tire and then suddenly the whole vehicle flipped, its occupants rattling crazily around the interior as the three-ton runaway killing machine bounced straight for them.

Alicia saw Whipper to her right unleash her whip expertly toward the arm of the driver who sought to shoot her. The hard twined rope slashed through the air at the speed of sound, lashing the gun from his hand and severing two fingers. The man
’s scream was lost as that car also turned sharply.

Now Alicia
had two death traps tumbling toward her.

And no way to save herself.
It was all in the hands of Lomas, a situation she rarely faced and absolutely detested. The biker leader laid it down, leaning the bike over hard and sliding, scraping the big machine along the ground. Sparks flew from the bike, the fairing, and from the metal heel-tips of his boots. The first Nissan slammed down with an almighty crash no more than six inches before them, then rose just enough for the Ducati to slide right under. The spinning car bonnet glanced off Lomas’s helmet, knocking his head back hard. Alicia saw the Nissan’s occupants with their faces pressed hard up against the windscreen and bodies hanging loosely. Already dead.

She
fought to help Lomas, angling her weight so the bike ground its way beyond the path of the second Nissan, but their combined weight wasn’t quite enough. The blue car struck the ground hard just as the Ducati grated by, smashing down on its front wheel and flipping both Lomas and Alicia into the air.

Alicia flailed as she
flew and landed heavily, tucking on impact. The air rushed from her lungs. The biker’s suit saved her flesh from being churned to Swiss cheese; the helmet protected her skull. She rolled with the momentum, decreasing the impact, and came up on one knee.

Both vehicles smashed into one another with a thump like a house falling down. Debris scattered across the carriageway.
She spotted at least two unmoving bodies and several rifles. But that didn’t matter for now. Quickly, she turned to Lomas and shook his shoulder.

“That was close. C
’mon, this ain’t no time for a nap, dickhead.”

Lomas rolled over, but
only through the momentum caused by Alicia’s shaking. His form lay inert, still. Alicia pulled his helmet off and stared at his face.

“No.”

She slapped his cheeks before thinking to check for a pulse. As her heart rose into her mouth, Alicia Myles did the one thing she had shunned since childhood.

She prayed for another person.

“Please, God. Please, God. Please . . .”

Lomas
’s eyes flickered open. The pulse beneath her finger was weak, but tangible. “Christ,” he muttered. “That hurt.”

Alicia scanned his body. There
were no obvious injuries: no blood, no crooked joints. If Lomas was in pain, the damage was on the inside.

“Wait here. I
’ll get help.”

She took in the situation.
The bad news was that many of the bikers were down, at least half of them clearly wounded or unmoving. The good news was that only one of the Nissans remained. She skimmed across the scene at both ends of the bridge, not liking what she saw. All four BMWs were still in place.

To her side
, Lomas’s Ducati still rumbled. A germ of an idea entered her head.

“I think
we—”

The hand that grabbed her wrist was desperate. Alicia started and flicked her gaze back to Lomas. What she saw turned her insides to ice. Bright
-red blood bubbled up through his open mouth. The biker tried to talk, but the gush of blood made him cough and choke.

“Lomas.”
Her voice was emotionless.

“If this
. . . if this is the last . . . fight of the Slayers,” he managed. “Make sure . . . we win.”

Alicia held his hand and moved her head close until their noses were touching. She knew her lover was about to die and no one could save him. She took in the last moments of his life, his breath, and savored them. His last gasp came,
but it was the sudden silence that was most overwhelming. The abrupt absence of sound.

She sat back, looking up, searching the black skies for an answer, a plan.
Anything. If there was one time in her life she thought her prayers had been answered this had been it. But nothing existed up there. It was all shit.

Forged in adversity, born to battle, Alicia rose to stand over the body of the biker leader. Fast as a fox she hefted up the Ducati and gave a huge bellow, a great rallying call.

“To me!”
she cried.
“You want to win? Come to me!”

The weary and the half-dead, the bleeding and the broken, those
on their last legs and last bullets, all stood up. Ribeye and Whipper, Laid-Back Lex and Knuckler, Dirty Sarah and Trace, rose like heroes among the ashes. Alicia revved the Ducati and leaned over as it spurted forward, scooping up two of the rifles. The surviving bikers dashed to their machines, jumping astride the seats and gunning them toward her. Alicia spun the Monster on its back wheel, leaving a cloud of dust all around her.

“
Go to hell, you bastards.”

As the rest of the bikers drew level with her, Alicia opened the Ducati
’s throttle, sending it zipping forward at an alarming pace. As she rode, she laid both rifles across each other, balanced on the front of the bike, their barrels facing forward and stocks nestled into the pit of her arms. The gap between her and the BMWs decreased fast, and soon she could make out moon-like faces staring through the half-smoked windows. Another two seconds and Alicia took her hands off the handlebars, steering with the weight of her body and pressure on the rifles, and let loose a double salvo from hell.

Bullets spewed from the barrels, firing in two directions, decimating the sides of the big SUVs. With an effort
, she concentrated her fire toward the gap in the middle, destroying the front and back ends of the respective vehicles. Metal chunks cleaved away. Doors flew open as men scrambled to safety. The rear car collapsed, its wheels destroyed. To her left and right the surviving biker crew fired and slashed and threw whatever weapons they could at the fleeing men, taking out as many as possible for the friends they had left behind. Alicia’s focus was the narrow gap and the stream of bullets. She could allow nothing else to enter her thoughts right now. It was all about death and escape, blood and vengeance.

The Ducati shot through the breach, twitching as its t
ires hit debris on the way through. Alicia let go of the rifles, but didn’t stop. She turned in her seat, seeing her comrades shimmy and swerve in her wake as they negotiated the small opening. With the road open before her again, she opened the throttle and keyed her Bluetooth helmet mic.

“Is this thing still working?”

“I hear you.” Trace’s voice. The others joined in one by one.

“We should take a moment for our friends.” Alicia waited in silence, seething as the dark skies began to lighten.

“I’m heading for the nearest airport,” she then said; anger, passion and loss thickening her voice. “The crazy bastard who sanctioned this is walking free in DC. Who’s with me?”