Warrior (3 page)

“You think the Master Enforcer's right
—
that the killer will turn out to be a time traveler?”

Riane snorted.
“Except for the part about him being a killer.”

Riane wasn't worried about being overheard; they were using the private com code they'd employed since she was a two-year-old and Frieka was her furry nursemaid. Even her father hadn't managed to crack it, and Baran Arvid was damned good. Neither had a succession of commanders in both the Vardonese Military and Galactic Union Temporal Enforcement.

Riane gave the house another scan. Still nothing.
“You think it's true
—
that the traitor really was his lover?”

Galar's icy question made Riane's cheeks flood with burning blood.
“Master Enforcer! I didn't mean . . .”

The woman who
called herself Charlotte Holt sat in the darkness of the living room, listening to her roommate's breathing settle into sleep. She'd enjoyed the past six months, getting to know Jessica Kelly, with her blazing, unrecognized talent, dark family past, and driven insecurities. Too, the respite from the chase had been welcome.

But the Xeran assassin would make his attack in half an hour. She had to be gone before that, and there was much to do in the meantime.

Restlessly, Charlotte rose and moved to the window to push aside the lace curtains. Though there was nothing visible beyond darkness and moonlit trees, her special senses detected the Temporal Enforcement agents waiting with varying degrees of patience around the house.

Good. The pieces were in place, just as she'd foreseen.

Pivoting with military precision, she walked into the tiny kitchen where she'd shared so many meals with Jessica. Charlotte knew the room would have been pitch black to her friend, but she could see the butcher block knife rack clearly.

She drew the blade she wanted with a soft, metallic hiss, then walked to her roommate's door and pushed it quietly open.

2

Jessica lay deeply asleep, curled in a cotton sleep
shirt under a sheet covered with tiny roses. Her dark hair spilled across her pillow, shining softly in the moonlight.

Charlotte paused in the doorway and closed her eyes, feeling alien forces gather deep inside her with a hot electric tingle. Blowing out a breath, she sent the wave of energy rolling over Jessica.

There. She'd sleep through this now.

Silent as an assassin, Charlotte moved to stand over the girl, raised her left hand, and swiftly ran the razored blade across the pad of her own index finger. She didn't even flinch at the pain. Tilting her hand, she watched fat drops of blood fall on her roommate's forehead.

As she watched, the drops pooled there for a moment, then slowly disappeared, sinking into Jessica's skin. Dark brows drew down as if in discomfort, and the girl moaned in her sleep.

“I'm sorry,” Charlotte told her softly. “I just don't have a choice.”

Turning away, she strode from the room, moving fast now, leaving her former roommate alone, asleep. And changing.

In the living room, Charlotte stopped to snatch up the leather purse she kept packed in case she had to make an emergency Jump. She paused and glanced out the window. Though she couldn't see him, she could sense the leader of the Enforcers waiting right outside, patient as a sentinel, invisible in the dark.

She frowned. He was a little too close, he and his partners. If she tried to Jump now, they'd realize she was far more than a temporal native. On the other hand, if she attempted to simply leave and find another place to Jump, one of them might follow her. She couldn't take the chance.

And she was running out of time. The assassin would be here soon.

Closing her eyes, Charlotte reached for the three minds around the house—the man, the woman's, and the wolf's. She let her power gather, sent it rolling toward them. . . .

And all three dropped, stunned unconscious, to the ground.

Charlotte sagged against the window a moment, then shook off the momentary weakness and made for the door. She clattered down the stairs, strode past the male agent's unconscious body, and started across the yard. She'd Jump as soon as she was far enough away not to leave suspicious energy traces for the agents to detect.

She hadn't quite reached the road when she sensed the roiling field of a temporal Jump spilling from the house. Charlotte spun around in horror.

A blue blaze of light lit up Jessica's window. Charlotte's mouth shaped a silent curse. The Xeran assassin had arrived.

She shot a desperate glance at the TE agents, but knew she didn't dare wake them yet. She had to put some distance between herself and the house before she could let them go. “God, Jess, I'm sorry!”

Whirling, Charlotte broke into a hard, pounding run.

Jessica'll survive,
she told herself desperately.
Jessica will make it. Just a little farther, and then I'll let them save her.

“Get up!” A
huge hand locked in Jess's hair and jerked her off her bed, white-hot agony flaring through her scalp. Jarred violently awake, she yelped and grabbed at the fist tangled in her long mane. Through tears of shock and confusion, she saw a man looming over her, the silhouette of immense shoulders blocking the dim light from the window. Teeth flashed in a snarl. “Where is she? Where's the heretic?”

He flung her against the wall so hard, she felt the Sheet-rock crack. Stars exploded behind her eyes as her head snapped back against the wall. “What?” Jess yelled. “Who the hell are—”

“Shut up!” Hot breath flooded against her skin as a face shoved inches from her own. Something cold pricked her throat as a massive body pinned her. Whatever he was wearing felt oddly slick and scaly, more like snakeskin than fabric. “Where is she?”

“Who?” She swung at him with all the ferocity her trailer park childhood had taught her.

Light flared behind her eyes again. She tasted blood, heard a metallic ringing. He'd punched her. “Your roommate! Where did she go?”

Like she'd tell him a damn thing. “Get off me!”

The sting of cold pain intensified against her throat. “Do you want to die?” He bared his teeth in her face. “Do you want me to slit your throat? Because unless you tell me everything you know about Charlotte Holt, you're dead!”

Knife. He had a knife. The cold prick she felt against her neck was a blade. Jess grabbed for his wrist with both hands, tried to force his hand back. She might as well have been pushing a forklift. “I don't know anything! She left! She's not here!” She had no idea whether Charlotte was still home or not—for all she knew, her roommate was hiding in a closet—but if this bastard didn't know where she was, Jessica wasn't going to give her away.

Galar snapped to
consciousness with his computer howling a warning in his skull.
Victim under assault!
He shot up off the leafy ground even as Frieka and Riane rolled to their feet.

The Warfem was white-faced, the wolf snarling. “What the Seven Hells . . .”

“He's got her!” Galar plunged toward the front door. “Go, go, go!”

“What happened? How the hell did he knock us out without us seeing him?” Riane demanded as they ran.

Galar didn't bother with an answer as he cleared the steps in one leap.
Give me
riaat
!
he snapped to his computer implant.

Fire flooded his veins in a wave of euphoria as the comp pumped biochemicals from reservoirs throughout his body, increasing his already considerable strength by a factor of ten even as it made him almost impervious to pain.

One thrust of his foot shattered both the wooden door and the metal and glass storm door beyond it. He ignored the broken fragments, though they raked at his T-suit as he bulled through them.

Where?
he snapped at his computer.

Lips peeling back from his teeth, he charged through the living room and down the short corridor.

Jessica struggled fruitlessly
as the thug thrust his face closer. She recoiled. His breath smelled strange. Some weird metallic taint she couldn't identify. And what were those glinting shapes protruding from his shaved head? Horns?

He sniffed at her like a bear. “Blood—I can smell her blood on you.” Was that fear in his eyes? “She's made you one of
them
!”

The man drew back the knife from her throat, lowered his aim. He meant to plunge it into her belly. Jess screamed, bucking helplessly against his hold. . . .

Wood broke with a thunderous crash in the next room. Voices roared something incomprehensible. The cops! Relief washed through her like a sun-warmed tide. Maybe she'd make it out of this after—

Her captor snarled words she didn't understand and shoved her violently away. She reeled sideways, hit the bed, and fell across it as he reached for his waist.

Shadowed figures burst into the room to slam into her attacker, driving him back into the wall. Voices bellowed in a language she didn't understand.

Okay, this new bunch sure weren't cops.

Out. She had to get
out
of here. Jessica tried to roll off the bed, but her knees gave under her. She crashed to the floor as pain detonated in her guts.

She looked down.

His knife was buried in her belly.

Get it out!
The words screamed in her head. She wrapped her hand around the hilt as a wave of cold nausea rolled through her. The knife slid free from her flesh, slowly, obscenely. Blood flooded hot down her belly. She fell back against the side of the bed and slid down until her butt hit the floor.

Her attacker was exchanging hammer blows with two others. And—a dog? She could hear snarls, see shadowed shapes writhing on the ground, a tangle of kicking legs and swinging arms.

An ambulance. Help. She had to get help. Phone in the kitchen.
Call 911.

Crawling seemed safest. She rolled onto her hands and knees and headed for the doorway. Somebody's foot slammed into her calf, and she bit her lip against a yelp.

Weak. So weak . . . Dying.

Hell, no. I am not going to die!
Determination rose in her, the same fierce refusal to give up that had driven her to paint when everyone told her a white-trash girl could never be an artist.

I am
not
going to die.

Well, this was
a planet-fuck of galactic proportions.

The supposed art thief Jumper—who should have been easy prey for the three of them—was actually a Xeran heavy-combat cyborg. He was well over two meters tall, with cybernetic implants that gave him strength greater than Galar's even in
riaat
.

Galar ducked a punch that would have taken his head off, and drove one of his own at the 'borg's belly. The impact jarred his teeth. The bastard's T-suit was so heavily armored, nothing could get through it, not even projectile weapons like the shard pistols the agents carried. Worse, the metal shards would probably ricochet, posing a risk to Jessica. Their only chance was to hit the 'borg so hard from so many directions that his suit's protection broke down under the barrage. Then Galar might be able to get a knife blade in and finish him off.

A kick blurred out of nowhere, catching him across the jaw and spinning him into the wall. Thanks to
riaat
, he didn't feel it; the berserker state his computer induced gave him fantastic strength and a near-immunity to pain.

At least until after the fight.

Galar whirled back into the battle, hungry to pay the bastard back with a sucker shot of his own.

Riane had engaged the Xeran, trading flat-footed punches with him despite the fact that he outweighed her by a hundred kilos. Frieka darted around the pair, trying to get his fangs through the 'borg's T-suit for a good bite. Defeated by the armor, the wolf cursed steadily in frustration.

Galar stepped in and swung. The blow landed with every erg of his
riaat
-enhanced strength behind it, sending the battleborg reeling back.

For an instant, the Xeran crouched against the wall and panted, eyeing them with the crazed glitter of desperation in his eyes. “You don't know what you're involved in!” He licked the blood off his lip. “That little primitive is dangerous! ”

Galar bared his teeth. “Yeah, all sixty kilos of her. Why don't you surrender and explain it to us?”

The cyborg made an anatomically impossible suggestion and lunged, swinging his knife in a blurring arc. Galar ducked and drove a punch upward, catching the 'borg's wrist. The knife went flying.

Seeing his chance, Galar bulled into him, trying to throw the big Xeran. Riane crashed into the man's thighs, adding her weight. With a howl of victory, Frieka locked his jaws around one of the battleborg's ankles.

The Xeran crashed onto his belly, Galar riding him down. Jerking a pair of force cuffs from his weapons belt, he grabbed for the 'borg's left arm and started wrestling it back.