Touched by Lightning (4 page)

But that quick glance became a startled stare as he finally focused on the scene in front of him. Mendoza was splayed on a red velvet fainting couch, his pants and boxers around his ankles. A woman stood over him, rather than beneath him the way Brit originally feared. The big dealer, the monster who’d killed dozens of men, had raped and beaten hundreds of women who worked for him, gasped and moaned as blood poured out of a gaping slash in his throat.

“What the fuck,” Brit breathed in shock, his gaze darting from Mendoza to the woman standing over him.

Brit’s brain snapped to attention, cataloging the scene in the blink of an eye. And found himself caught captive by a pair of feral green eyes. The woman looked to be in her mid-twenties, her sharp face with high cheekbones, a short nose and full lips giving her a lived-in look. Tendrils of dark hair fell into her eyes, freed from her thick braid. Numerous piercings shone along her ears, while a delicate hoop dangled from one nostril.

Unable to help himself, Brit let his gaze trail down her petite, lean body and felt his heart leap. She was an easy five foot five with legs that seemed to go on forever and the short skirt she wore only emphasized their length. Lean, but not emaciated, the woman had curves displayed by her clothing and tattoos that marched down her biceps to her elbows. They were all grayscale, which showed to perfection against her pale skin that showed smears of red and the early signs of bruising.

That was what shook Brit out of his daze, that and the big frigging knife she held with practiced ease. It dripped blood, but from the size of the blade and the amount of blood, he knew it had been what ripped open Mendoza’s throat. Mendoza, whose gaze had left the woman and drifted to Brit. He held a bloody hand out to Brit, making those moaning, gasping sounds he’d heard before he entered the building.

The girl took a step back, once again drawing Brit’s gaze. Her expression dared him to come after her and the way she balanced on the balls of her feet, it was obvious she expected him to do just that. Instead, he held his hands out to show her he was unarmed.

“It’s okay, honey,” he tried to soothe as he stepped forward. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

She curled her lip at him and backed up, her gaze darting between Brit and Mendoza. Now that she’d moved out of the way, he was able to see even more blood on the dealer’s body, lots and lots of it had pooled on the floor next to the lounge. He couldn’t see where the bastard was bleeding from, but judging by the smell in the air, the tears and sweat trickling down Mendoza’s face, it was bad. Very bad.

I need help here
, he thought even as he tried to figure out how to keep the girl from running and Mendoza from dying on his watch. The bastard needed to be taken in alive so they could find out who his employer was, but there was no way he’d let this woman leave. Something about her called to him, urged him to forget about duty and honor so he could follow her anywhere she went.

She took another step back.

“Don’t,” he tried again, taking two steps forward. “I’m not going to hurt you, I’m with—”

But he never got the chance to tell her anything else because another door banged open. He glanced over his shoulder to see Mendoza’s other lieutenant, Big Rob, step into the room. The man took in the scene with one look and immediately reached for his gun.

“No!” Brit shouted, turning his attention to the new threat, conjuring a ball of electricity in his hand.

Before he could do anything to stop Big Rob from shooting anyone, a knife whizzed by his head close enough to ruffle his hair and buried itself in Rob’s shoulder. The gun fell to the floor and the big man let out a scream of pain. Another blade quickly followed the first and found its mark in the man’s throat, cutting short another shout.

This entire operation was going to hell in a handbag and there was only one way to salvage it. Drawing back some of the power from the ball of energy, he spun around and flung it at the woman sprinting away from him. It hit her square between the shoulder blades, but other than sucking in a hissing breath and stumbling, she kept her balance and disappeared around a wall he hadn’t noticed. Brit wanted to go after her, to stop her and find out what she was doing here, but duty stopped him.

We’re fucked and we need a cleanup team, pronto. And some healers. I don’t know if Mendoza is going to make it.
He sent the thought off to his superior who’d tapped into his mind for this operation.
Mendoza is in bad shape, Joe, and I didn’t do it.

Her heavy sigh echoed around his mind.
How bad is he? And who was that woman? I’d love to know where she got her skirt from.

Brit shook his head and approached the sofa where Mendoza lay bleeding from— He stopped and gagged, his dick and balls shriveling up from the sight before him. The woman, whoever she was, had worked the dealer over good, slicing him in key places to make him bleed out slowly but surely. But it was what was missing that made Brit want to cover his jewels protectively. Mendoza’s balls were gone. Chopped off and left within reach of the dying man as a silent taunt.

I like her style
, Joe purred in the back of his mind.
I think we need to figure out who she is and ask if she takes requests. I know a few men who deserve to have their balls cut off.

Brit shuddered and reached out to check Mendoza for a pulse, but the bastard was dead.
He’s gone
, he told his boss and the Director of the Order of Themis.

That’s disappointing
, she sighed.
Okay, secure the other guy, Murphy has Bull in restraints and in the back of the van. He’ll be with you in a few and we can start looking through Mendoza’s files. It would’ve been nice to get the information from him, but since he’s dead, we’ll have to do it the old-fashioned way. I’ll send in Beta Tactical Unit to get as much information from the scene as we can.

Pissed because they’d lost the chance to question Mendoza, Brit turned his attention to Rob, who was also slowly bleeding out. He raced to the man and did his best to stem the blood until the tactical unit could make it. There was a medic on each team who could patch the fucker up enough to find out who that girl had been. She’d single-handedly destroyed the sting and brought down one of the most prolific pimps Kansas City had seen in decades. He wanted to know who she was, where she was and why she’d done it. And he wanted to know yesterday.

* * * * *

Sixteen watched from the shadows of a building as several people converged upon Mendoza’s hideout. She’d shoved Tora out of the driver’s seat of Gyda’s body, more able to plot and plan their escape than the Beast. The team, and there was no other way to describe them, arrived in mean-looking SUVs with tinted glass and big grills on the front. The first vehicle carried six people, four men and two women, all dressed in clothing she’d seen on SWAT teams over the years. The women stormed down the alley with the men right behind them, providing cover. Two more black SUVs arrived with even more official-looking people, but it was the violent-pink Hummer that caught her attention.

A woman stepped out. She had to be at least six feet tall and built like a brick shithouse. The vehicle, the obviously expensive cut of her suit and the platforms she wore looked out of place in the squalor that was Mendoza’s territory. She looked as though she should’ve been strolling Rodeo Drive rather than marching into the slums.

The woman stopped suddenly and looked in the direction of Sixteen’s hiding spot. She eased deeper into the shadows, even though there was no way the woman could see her. But the hair standing straight on the back of her neck warned her not to underestimate this woman with the prissy appearance. A low growl formed in her throat at the possible threat facing her.

She wanted to charge out of the shadows and take the woman down, take the threat out before it could get her, but she could feel Gyda pushing back to the surface. After that little stunt Gyda had pulled in their hotel room, the cutting bullshit, she’d had to work twice as hard to be accurate when she threw her knives. The activity had pulled at the cuts and caused them to bleed again. If she didn’t get back to the hotel soon, she’d probably pass out from blood loss and she could just imagine how freaked out Gyda would be to wake up in an alley. Again.

Sixteen stepped away from the hive of activity just as the police showed up with a meat wagon behind them. She memorized the face of the woman who greeted the cops with a box of doughnuts and coffee, promising herself she’d find out who those people were. And who that man was.

As she crept through the alleys back to her hotel room, Sixteen thought about that man with the deep-brown eyes and dark hair and her heart began to pound again. She’d been worried one of Mendoza’s men might interrupt her playtime, but the man who’d walked in hadn’t been one of the bastard’s men. He couldn’t have been. The instant she’d seen him, her body had frozen in shock and awe. It wasn’t as though she hadn’t seen good-looking men, hadn’t fucked some of them when she was able to escape Gyda’s prissy ways, but this man had left her stunned.

He’d smelled strongly of ozone and musk, a heady combination that made her pussy wet thinking about it now. His features bordered on pretty with thick eyelashes, full, sensual lips and a cleft chin, but the slightly crooked nose saved him from looking as though he belonged in a boy band. He was thickly muscled but moved with grace and the ink peeking from beneath his tight black t-shirt made her fingertips tingle with the need to trace his tattoos.

Where Gyda played the nun, Sixteen enjoyed sex as long as she had control. Tora, on the other hand, was all about finding a man who could control them. This man, the man who could call electricity to him like he would a faithful pet, wouldn’t let her run things. He was more Tora’s speed, which explained the Beast’s fascination with him. Sixteen wasn’t so idiotic as to give any man control. Then again, he was almost sexy enough to tempt her to let him try.

He fascinated her, his emotions like liquid silver, flowing from one to the next, but his expression hadn’t changed. It proved he had impressive self-control. He’d gone from dread to disgust to shock to anger and then compassion all within a two-minute window. When he’d seen her, his protectiveness had risen. Toward her. It’d surrounded her like a fleece blanket on a cold night, warming her from the outside in. No one had felt protective of her since she left Estelle and Leo’s house. None of the men she’d let in her bed over the years or the people who claimed to care for Gyda had felt as protective of her as this man had. And it hadn’t changed when she’d taken out Big Rob.

Then had come the regret seconds before he threw that ball of electricity at her. Sixteen paused on the edge of the parking lot leading to her hotel, her body shuddering with remembered pleasure. If this was what Gyda felt when she cut herself, then she could understand why she did it so frequently. That electricity had felt like pure magic, like high-octane lust as it hit her back and spread across her skin. She swore she could still feel it now, as though her body had absorbed it and transferred it to every cell. Her pussy was slick, her nipples hard and if he had been in front of her, she would’ve jumped him.

Sixteen entered her hotel room and locked the door behind her, leaning on the barrier that separated her from the rest of the world. She was covered in blood, both hers and Mendoza’s and she had to take care of her knives before Gyda woke up and took over. If Miss Prissy Ass woke up smelling like the bastard who’d raped them all those years ago, she’d take the razorblade to her arms again. Sixteen was damn tired of losing blood over those bastards. It was why she sought them out to bring them to justice. Maybe if she killed all of them, tortured them as much as they’d tortured Gyda, then maybe she could get on with her life. It was the reason she and Tora hunted the bastards. They’d eventually run out of men to kill and hopefully by then, Gyda would finally open up to understanding that she had a future.

The tattooed man would be a good way to bring Gyda into the land of the living if he could be controlled. Sixteen stopped next to the ratty desk and pulled the papers she’d stolen from Mendoza’s files out of her top. They contained the information she’d need for the next group of assholes who deserved to die. She smoothed the crinkled pages, placing the bible on top to flatten them while she slept and pushed into her bathroom with the intention of showering before she went to sleep. There was nothing else she could do tonight.

She stepped under the tepid drizzle of water coming out of the showerhead and closed her eyes. In the morning Gyda would remember everything that happened tonight, including Sixteen’s reaction to the tattooed man—Tora would make sure of it. That would go one of two ways. Either Gyda would flip out and play with her fucking razorblade again to get away from what she thought was wrong, or she’d ignore it. Sixteen wasn’t about to let that happen though. If she had to, she’d go hunting for a different kind of prey this time around. It was time to teach Gyda that there could be real pleasure between a man and a woman, not just pain.

Although that tattooed man might be the wrong one to play with. She frowned at the mildewed tile in front of her. He wouldn’t let her lead. She could tell just by looking at him. It turned her on, but Sixteen wasn’t sure she could handle being dominated by a man. Not yet at least. Maybe later, after they finished this revenge business, Sixteen would guide Gyda back here for another go at him. But only then. Not before.

Two days later

Brit stared at the body of yet another low-level dealer, one who was suspected of having ties to Mendoza. This one had been systematically punished in the same way Mendoza had, his balls sitting on his torso like a present. He wasn’t sure if he was just getting used to the sight, but he didn’t cringe as much as the other guys had when they saw it. Probably because he knew this bastard had been personally responsible for the trafficking of girls as young as ten into the skin trade. The sick fuck’s name had been connected to at least twelve child pornography movies, but there had never been anything solid to arrest him on.

Now Alistair Brown lay on his tacky leopard-print sheets sans his balls. Other supes moved around the body, trying to pick up information from the room, but Brit didn’t need his abilities to know the girl he’d met at Mendoza’s had done this. According to the coroner’s gut reaction, Alistair had been killed at least eighteen hours before his body was discovered by his landlord. That meant the girl had to have made off with the information Brit and Joe had intended to pick up at Mendoza’s place.

He turned away from the bed as the coroner did his thing with the body and glanced around the rest of the room. Most of the pictures had been cleared out by the KCPD to turn over to the FBI. So many organizations working together and they hadn’t managed to catch him before he hurt those kids. It was enough to make Brit want to puke, but he held the bile back. Part of him was downright impressed with the girl. She was taking out scum that didn’t deserve to see a day in court, yet the way the Order of Themis operated prohibited vigilantism.

The coroner and lab rats left with the body and all the evidence they thought they needed, surrendering the room to the O.T.. They waited for the door to close behind the last uniformed cop before they moved.

The Tactical Unit’s Sensor stepped in with the Void at her back. “We need the room,” Janice announced. “There was a supe here, we just need to find out who they are and what they can do.”

An hour later, Janice stepped outside the bedroom while Carrie did her cleaning. Voids were prized because of their ability to wipe away unwanted psychic energies and residue from a person, object or area. Once Carrie was finished with the cleansing, people who were high-level psychics, mediums or anything else would be able to step inside without being subject to Alistair’s death or what he’d done in that room before his death.

“It was a supe,” Janice announced to the T.U. leader, a big man named Murphy who could turn his skin into solid titanium. “I caught a few hints of empathy but for the most part, she seems to be pure physical ability.”

“She?” Murphy asked as the others in his unit perked up.

Janice’s smile was sly and pointedly turned in her leader’s direction. “I knew it was a female before we even went in to check the psychic signature. Only a woman would deal out justice by cutting a man’s balls off.” The look she cast Murphy suggested she wouldn’t mind cutting his off.

Brit didn’t want to get caught up in any domestic tiffs and cut in before Murphy could unleash on his Sensor. “What kind of physical abilities are we talking about here? I caught her red-handed. Literally. Yet she didn’t attack me.”

She turned away from Murphy and glanced at Brit with little interest. Thank God. Janice was a real ball-buster. She shrugged. “I couldn’t tell, but I don’t think she’s an energy caster. Troy? You said you thought the perp might have enhanced strength?” she asked the T.U.’s Medic.

The shaggy-haired healer nodded. “Alistair was a big man, well over three hundred pounds. I consulted with the coroner and we both believe the attacker was much shorter and left-handed. Those knife wounds were deep and placed with careful precision. There were bruises on Alistair’s thighs showing whoever castrated him held him down. They have to have speed and strength on their side and I concur with Janice’s belief that it’s a woman. They tend to be a little more um, vindictive.”

Brit wasn’t surprised. Not really. Joe hadn’t been able to get a reading on his mystery girl. What the Director had learned had been taken from Brit’s mind during the short meeting. She said she thought she felt the girl’s signature outside Mendoza’s building, but couldn’t be sure because it’d seemed more animalistic than like a person. There had been a few members of the O.T. in the past who were a little closer to their primal halves. There were shifters who tended to lean more toward their animal sides, but this woman hadn’t been in a shifted form when she did her work. She’d used a weapon, knives specifically. And she was left-handed.

He nodded to Murphy. “I’ll let Joe know about your preliminary reports,” he said to the taller man. “If you find out anything else, let me know, I’ll be at home the rest of the evening.”

Carrie stepped out of the blood-soaked room, looking a little worse for wear. “What do you mean you’ll be at home the rest of the evening? It’s Spa Night.”

Fuck.
He shrugged. “I’m not going.”

The gaping jaws of the entire twelve-person Tactical Unit did not bode well for Brit’s plans for the evening. Even Murphy, who was known as one of the toughest sons of bitches in the O.T., appeared shocked by Brit’s refusal to attend
Spa Night
. He shuddered at the thought. When Joe took over as Director and leader of the Second Sector, she’d begun instituting employee morale activities. That sounded good on paper, but it was a nightmare for men like Brit who weren’t in touch with their feminine sides.

Joe’s idea of good employee activities was to order pedicures and full-body massages. Sure, Brit would’ve been on board with a massage from some cute thing with a killer figure, but the men were assigned male masseurs. Then there’d been the trust exercises with games like Stiff as a Board, Light as a Feather and shit like that. The women loved the employee solidarity days, loved the activities Joe insisted everyone enjoy. The men, not so much. Brit, as one of Joe’s Siphons, had a little more leeway with the boss lady and had tried to get her to allow them activities for men and activities for women. As in the ladies would get Spa Nights and the men would get tickets to games, or Poker Night or something manly. She’d allowed it for the last three months and everyone had rejoiced.

I can
feel
you stressing out, Britton
, she said in his head now as though she sensed him about to blow a fuse.
Spa Night is a good way to detox all of that angst and anger right out of your system. So suck it up, buttercup.

He gnashed his teeth and glared at the others before he stalked out of the house with as much dignity as he could manage. Which wasn’t much considering Joe was trying to serve his balls up on a silver dish the way Alistair’s had been.

Oh please, you’re such a drama king, Britton. You need to be there tonight because I have a feeling something big is going to happen.

Pausing at the door of his truck, Brit frowned.
Big? As in what?

She laughed.
You’ll see.

Brit climbed in his truck, slamming the door shut behind him. Yeah, yeah, she always promised excitement and then hit him upside the head with girly shit. The last time she’d told him something great would happen, he’d found himself sitting in the middle of a pink plastic princess castle with eight six-year-old girls singing, “Pink fluffy unicorns dancing on rainbows.”

You looked so cute in your crown
, she said now with a laugh.

He turned the key, the roaring of the engine drowning out Joe’s amusement. Something, some no doubt animalistic instinct had him glancing through the window before he pulled away, his eyes searching the late-afternoon shadows. He didn’t see anything, but his mind and instinct kept telling him it was out there and watching him.

Brit shook his head and tore away from the curb of Alistair’s depraved lair with a squeal of tires.

* * * * *

Gyda had no idea why she was watching some big, muscled, tattooed man driving away, but she simply had to. She wanted to blame it on Sixteen, but something about him intrigued her. Her empathic abilities had been at full strength when he stormed from the house of that child molester, face as dark as a storm cloud. Yet despite his obvious bad temper, she hadn’t sensed violence and the other negative emotions usually associated with it. He felt…amused and even affectionate as he argued with someone in his mind.

At first, she’d thought he was crazy, maybe as crazy as she, but then she’d caught the vibration of another person’s thoughts and she’d pulled back immediately. That vibe reminded her of something and it stirred Tora back to the surface, her feral Beast snarling as it pictured a woman with blonde hair, blue eyes and a pink Hummer.

Gyda shook her head at the ridiculous image, yet even as she did so, she felt the remembered pressure as the woman swept the area for psychic signatures. It was the same thing Gyda did, except she searched for emotions. This woman, this giantess, searched for thoughts. She recalled those eyes resting on Sixteen’s hiding spot and knew the woman had discovered her. But she hadn’t told the officials.

She waited until the taillights of the truck turned the corner before she pushed off with the bike she’d temporarily liberated from its owner, a pretty rich boy who’d kicked at the machine because he didn’t know how to drive it. Blacked-out completely from spokes to the engine block, it was one with the night and a badass machine she’d love to keep if it weren’t stolen. She dropped back from the man’s truck when he stopped at a light, easing down an alley. It was insanity to follow a stranger she was certain had nothing to do with Sixteen’s and Tora’s quest of vengeance.

A sad smile pulled at her lips. She’d known she was crazy the day Sixteen appeared in her mind. The wild girl was her constant companion the way kids had imaginary friends. Tora had been a quieter presence, lurking deeper down, skulking in the darkness until she was dragged into the light. She was even wilder and stronger than Sixteen and Gyda had known she wasn’t right. She’d seen a movie once about a woman with multiple personalities and knew she was the same. Was insanity the same as alcoholism or any other addiction in that acknowledging you were crazy was the first step in recovery?

Tora snarled in the back of her mind, urging her to forget the self-analysis and get with the plan. Normally she didn’t bow to Tora’s desires when Gyda was in control of things, but the man intrigued all of them. She continued ghosting him across Kansas City, keeping back when he slowed down and speeding up when he hit the interstate as she tried to puzzle out why she was following him. He wasn’t like the others Tora and Sixteen had tracked over the years.

He didn’t seem to be scum and he even stopped for a dog that ran in front of his truck when he reached the end of the exit ramp. His truck wasn’t flashy, his tattoos were amazing, but not the prison tats she’d seen on so many of the men they’d taken down. He could’ve used his powers against Sixteen in Mendoza’s office, could’ve killed them, but he hadn’t. He’d tried to reassure
her
even though she was holding the bloodied weapon. None of that explained Sixteen’s or Tora’s fascination. The only thing that did was the remembered heat in her body from the thoughts Sixteen had about him. About touching him and having him touch her. Even now, on a bike riding down Market Street, Gyda remembered that warmth and shivered because it could only mean one thing.

They wanted to have sex with him.

The revelation came to her as she was taking a turn and she nearly wiped out, only the reflexes she’d honed after years of stealing and jacking bikes kept her from skidding across the street. She straightened with her heart in her throat, the bike losing speed. She hated when Tora or Sixteen used her body to do…those things with it. It didn’t happen a lot, which she was eternally thankful for, but when the others did have sex, Gyda was the one who woke up with the need to stab and slash. Only knowing none of those men had hurt her, had indeed ceded control of their bodies to Sixteen, or been strong enough to appease Tora’s need to be dominated, kept her from reenacting every bad slasher flick she’d ever seen. Instead, she’d become quite adept at slipping away at dawn, or whatever time she woke up from Tora or Sixteen’s fun and games, and disappearing from the area.

This shouldn’t have been any different from every other time Tora’s or Sixteen’s hormones got involved, but it was because Gyda could tell by looking at him that this man wasn’t going to play boy toy for either of her companions. He was too Alpha for that too…tough to act the boy for anyone.

The truck came to a slow stop before pulling into a parking garage next to what looked like a turn-of-the-century factory. Except this was unlike any factory she’d ever seen. Gyda kept driving as though she were just passing by, darting her gaze to the building to check it out. The parking garage was attached to an eight-foot brick wall that ran the length of the street for at least a block before it turned at the next intersection. She followed the wall, catching glimpses of tall buildings inside, numerous windows lit from within and shadows passing by. It looked like a military compound except without the guard towers. Taking the next turn, she continued following the wall, noting the recessed doors at spaced intervals along with cargo doors as though they accepted deliveries. Wondering what kind of people her tattooed stranger worked for, she finally found the front of the compound.

A stately older structure stood at the forefront of all those other buildings like an art deco sentinel. Gas lamps lit the walk lining the street and another set sat on either side of the entrance to the building. Gyda frowned at the unexpected sight, slowing her bike to read the name of the complex. And nearly wrecked again when she saw the words Order of Themis Second Sector Headquarters etched in the marble above the double doors on the front of the building.