“Yeah,” agreed Nash, careful how he phrased the next statement. “Glad I’m not blind.”
“What about that jolt?” asked John Wayne, leading Nash away from the scene. “He said he gave you everything he had left.”
Nash considered lying. He also considered how the consequences of lying got worse with every telling. What would be next? An image came to mind of his large intestines protruding from his mouth after being puked up. Nash wasn’t in the mood to find out if that could really happen.
He settled on saying, “All I know is I feel like I got sodomized by a lightning bug the size of a house.”
John Wayne barked laughter and said, “I like you, kid. You screwed up, we’ll get you back on your feet. And since that was your first fight, you get to buy drinks.”
All Nash really wanted was a huge dinner. The nausea was fading and he felt like he could eat whatever anyone threw at him. “What? How does that work?”
“Each big first on the island is a round of drinks. First fight, first bounty, first time going to the Cold side of the island. Longstanding Ranger tradition. Lucky for you there’s no drinking age here.” John Wayne seemed genuinely surprised that Nash hadn’t heard of that tradition. “You can’t tell me you haven’t seen that on the hollows.”
Nash hadn’t seen that, but he wouldn’t mind buying, if he had any money. “They cleaned me out,” said Nash. “Didn’t leave me a brass mil.”
“No problem. I know a place that will gladly open a tab for Rangers.”
Going into debt so quick on the island sounded like a bad idea, but it was nothing compared to rushing into the fight they’d just taken on, so he nodded. It would give him time to ask some questions and finally catch his breath. Not to mention shovel some calories down his gullet.
John Wayne looked over both shoulders and put his arm around Nash as they walked. In a low voice, he said, “I know what you were trying to do with the coin. I see the whole knight in shining armor persona you’re going for, and it will make a great scene for the hollows. Now just nod your head like I’m giving you some secret advice. When they air this, they can just add some dramatic music and pan out.”
Nash was pretty sure the cameras and microphones—the eyes and ears—that covered Hollow Island would pick up every word, and he didn’t care what the outside world saw on the hollows. He wasn’t here to be famous. He kept his mouth shut and nodded.
“Also a good call throwing the coin back in his face if you don’t intend to accept a bribe. It’s bad business going around accepting bribes then turning traitor on your money train.”
“It’s bad business accepting any bribes,” countered Nash.
“You go ahead and tell yourself that now, young un. Someday you’ll learn that the world isn’t all black and white.”
Based on what the wizard had said about John Wayne being easy to work with, this was obviously a point they wouldn’t see eye to eye on no matter how much they discussed it, so Nash brought up a new topic. “Why didn’t they kill us? It would have been easy.”
“It’s a delicate ecosystem on Hollow Island, and killing Rangers disrupts it in a way most men aren’t man enough for. Maybe in a dark alley if they catch you alone, but not two Rangers a block from the market after a dozen people saw us following them and heard the gunshots.”
Maybe Nash had been right to hold back. Didn’t the professional courtesy, or whatever it was, go both ways? Hopefully he wouldn’t be in that situation again for quite a while.
John Wayne went on. “We Rangers are a selfish and ornery group of sonbitches and daughters of whores, but it’s asking for a whole heap o’ trouble to kill one of us. So they’ll shock us, kick us, bite us, spit at us, and rob us if they can get away with it, and it’s our own fault if we let them.”
“Cut off our pinkies.” Nash held up his left hand.
“Oh, son!” John Wayne covered his mouth with his fist and laughed without conscience. “You really will remember this day forever.”
“Glad one of us is entertained.” Nash shoved his hand into his pocket, even though it stung the wound.
John Wayne’s nose twitched. “And you’ve pissed yourself. Guess I shouldn’t be surprised.” He gave Nash some distance as they continued down the street.
Nash clamped his mouth shut and tried to feel grateful that his spinal cord hadn’t blown out through his rectum.
“Anyway, another tactic they sometimes use is to hurt our public image and make it look like our fault. Turn the citizens against us.”
They’d definitely done that with Chiel. “How’d you know she’d be going down this street right then? And that they’d be here too?”
“Contacts, son. I talk to the right people. I have … arrangements with the right people. Like I said, sometimes the world isn’t black and white, and because of it, we’re able to make a difference.” In a conspiratorial tone, he added, “And on those days we don’t feel like making a difference, at least we can make a few coins.” He winked his mechanical eye, and it made a tink, tink sound.
That sounded shady as an umbrella in hell. Another discussion for another day.
“That’s the first lesson you need to learn, piker. Sometimes you just accept the coin.”
The words made Nash feel … alone. There were half a million people on the island, and he was attached to his trainer for thirteen more days. Yet this was not the world he thought he’d signed up for, and from what he saw so far, there was no place here where he fit.
He needed to find that niche, find at least one person who he could relate to. Maybe that was Karolina, maybe it would turn out to be another Ranger. Because, after all, there was no going home.
4
En Tête a Tête
<< While the diet of Vamps doesn’t consist entirely of blood, they can metabolize vast amounts due to an enzyme which they produce following engineering of their genes. It is the least impressive of their modifications.
- José María Montierth, Vampire Expert >>
Drum beats reverberated through every corner of San Juan as Livi ran with four Bête Noires trailing by half a block. Bête became more appropriate with every step—the night would be more of a gamble than Livi was used to. She should have known, when the first one allowed himself to be lured so easily, that more would appear. It had taken less than a block for the other three to emerge from the darkness and join the chase.
One way or another, the night would be more than she’d bargained for—either cleaning up more trash from the streets, or getting more of a challenge than she was up for.
A mixture of asphalt and gravel rasped underfoot, threatening to send Livi careening into the street with every corner she turned. The tight leather she wore made her stride choppy, but she managed to maintain her lead.
Also clad in black, the Bête Noires spun, vaulted, and launched themselves over and around any objects along the side of the road. Perfect. The theatrics would delight her viewers and boost her ratings. The ostentatious free running also slowed the Bêtes somewhat, allowing Livi a reasonable pace while maintaining her lead—a blessing since endurance was not one of her strengths. On the contrary, a lack of endurance was her biggest weakness.
The lowest of the three martial arts Castes, Bête Noires were only minimally modified. Ninjas with delusions of grandeur. All Ninjas had high opinions of themselves, but in terms of skill-to-swagger ratio, Bête Noires were further out of whack than the other sub-classes. Even so, four Jennies of any Caste would test her skills. Enhanced hearing brought their panting to her ears as they vaulted and spun over and around obstacles on the gritty road.
Empty buildings lined the kerosene-lamp lighted streets in this part of the city, broken up by an occasional tavern. Music and carousing briefly drowned out the drums as she passed, but patrons in this neighborhood weren’t the kind who came to the rescue of a damsel in distress. Like animals in the wild, they were more likely to gauge the threat and try to steal prey from a weaker hunter.
&n
bsp; BOOM, boom, boom, boom. BOOM, boom, boom, boom. The Druids were out in force in the nearby hills, flooding the city with their hypnotic drum rhythms as they did every full moon.
The city streets narrowed, and frequent intersections led to smaller cross streets. It would be impossible to make it back to a populated part of the city; she was already starting to fatigue. Her alley was the only chance. It lay in a forgotten corner of the abandoned part of the city.
Tiny lenses of concealed eyes specked the walls along the street leading to her alley. Only because of familiarity with the area did she know where the cameras were located. It was because of her repeated visits to the area that so many eyes had been installed. Her legs burned as she paused at the mouth of the alley, where a pair of obvious eyes were perched on a corner of the brick building, opposite a flickering lamp.
The Bête Noires had ceased the urban acrobatics, and now stalked toward her, drawing weapons and swinging them in wide arcs. Two carried blades—a katana and a wicked pair of sais. One helicoptered a bo staff above his head. His fat partner with a stained cloak struggled to catch his breath, the end of his nunchucks scraping the ground with every other step.
I wouldn’t drink his blood if he was the last man on Hollow Island. With the strict quarantine every immigrant had to pass through, there was next to no risk of contracting serious diseases, but Livi still had standards.
After giving the eyes a moment to capture her, Livi bolted into the alley. Her alley. A few items cluttered the end of the moonlit alley: a half-rotten barrel, the fender of an ancient car, some broken cinder blocks. Continuing the act for the benefit of the eyes and the Bêtes, Livi ran to the far wall and pounded on the cinder blocks then tried to find purchase with her fingers as if she could climb to safety.
Grinning like snakes approaching a cornered rodent, her stalkers entered the alley and strutted in step with the deep bass of the mountain drummers. Livi wasn’t the only one performing for an audience.
They took their time closing the gap.
So you think you’re toying with me? Your little possum has teeth, friends.
Two men and one woman spread across the alley. The one with the bo staff stood behind, leaning on his weapon as if posing on the red carpet. He was handsome enough to pull it off, too.
“Please don’t hurt me,” she begged when they stopped less than ten feet away. “I have money.”
“Yeah, right,” said the woman with the katana sword. She had an unremarkable look to her, someone you would walk past on the street without noticing. “You couldn’t hide a mil in that suit and you’ve got no purse.”
The dumpy Bête added, “It’s not your money we’re interested in, anyway.”
Saliva glistened in the slob’s unkempt beard. Yes, he was actually drooling.
The full moon provided plenty of light for her enhanced eyes. Even an unmodified plebe could probably see clearly on such a night. Livi cringed into the moonlight along the wall on the right where the barrel and fender lay, acting like a scared-of-the-dark child. Staying out of shadows probably wouldn’t matter to the camera engineers. Most likely they could capture her in complete darkness, but Livi always did what she could for a better shot, and it paid off every time she went to the depo.
“Are you Bait Noires?” she asked, pronouncing it wrong on purpose, looking for a rise. It was funny what got under some people’s skin.
“It’s pronounced bet,” said the katana Ninja.
The man with nunchucks grunted like a gorilla.
“What does Bête Noire mean, anyway?” she asked, stalling, allowing the tension of the scene to build.
“It means we do what we want to whoever we want,” said the man in the middle, scraping the metal spikes of his sais as if sharpening knives.
Using his staff to part the others like curtains, the fourth man stepped to the front. Clean-shaven and well-built with styled, light brown hair, he was the best looking of the group by far. “Bête Noire,” he said in a smooth French accent. “It means zeh black beast.”
French men had always been too sissy for Livi, but this one made her reconsider her opinion. Silky, but not soft. Under different circumstances …
“May I ask your name, mademoiselle?”
“Livi.”
“Livi, a beautiful name for a stunning woman. I am Henri-Marie.” He paused to look her up and down. “With looks like zat, you could ‘ave been a Sprite.”
They still saw her as a defenseless bimbo. One more small advantage. “Let’s just say my … tastes, run in different veins.” With his great line about zeh black beast, the chase scene had become a dark improv act. Without realizing it, she had laid on her Brazilian accent thicker than normal. “You know, Henry Marie, it takes more than black clothes to be a beast.”
“Would zees suffice?” He nodded toward the lumpy man with nunchucks.
The man ambled forward a few steps, looking like a rotten potato. He stretched stumpy legs and arms as his companions stepped back. Livi heard a crack as his back stretched and he let out a satisfied moan. In a society where most men bought their bread with sweat in the soil, obese people were uncommon, except maybe among the royalty.
Settling into a Kyokushin stance, he shouted, “Hai!” and burst into a routine in which his nunchucks changed from prop to weapon. The man moved implausibly fast, like the fat character in a fighting video game. Livi had a hard time following the flow of sticks whipping around shoulders, back, head, and legs. The fighting potato sporadically struck the ground, sending a sharp crack into the air. The whirring weapon gave the impression of wings encircling a bumblebee.
Livi’s hopes that the group might be unskilled disappeared. Four Jennies who could fight like that were a bigger challenge than she’d ever faced. There was no hope of backup or a rescue if she bit off more than she could chew. The remoteness of the alley was the reason she’d chosen it in the first place.
On the plus side, if things went right, the night might garner her highest ratings yet, since death episodes were always major events.
When he finished his demonstration, the potato leaned on his knees, wheezing. With skills like that, most fights were probably over before he got much of a workout.
Livi whispered, “I won’t make you fight long, babaca.”
With drum beats and gasping as a backdrop, the leader of the gang asked, “And what do you sink now?”
She was sure he was laying the sexy French accent on heavy on purpose. “Not bad.” Livi’s eyes flicked down to the rotten barrel. “But I was thinking something more like this.” Using her tongue to trigger the tiny lever behind her back tooth, she hissed as her fangs activated with an amplified zhing!
With genetically-enhanced muscles, she bent and snatched a pair of fang-shaped daggers from the barrel and lunged at the potato. His eyes barely had time to widen before he died.
Told you I wouldn’t make you fight long.
In fights against multiple, underestimating opponents, the first was always a freebie. Livi had to remember to put that in her autobiography one day.
Three to one.
As the others raised weapons in defense, Livi did her own urban acrobatics, using the car fender to launch toward the wall then pushing off while vaulting over the Ninjas and spinning to face them from behind.
From his position behind the two men with blades, Henri-Marie ordered, “Use Holy Water, Bêtes.”
Livi cringed. It had been a mistake to give them a chance to regroup. The water wasn’t holy, of course. It wasn’t even water, just concentrated colloidal silver. To most people it was as harmless as water, some even drank it as a folk ward against Vamps and Wares. But in a Vamp’s bloodstream it would produce weakness. At a high enough concentration, three or four small cuts or so she’d been told, it would lead to seizure, coma, and death.
Looking on the bright side, Livi thought, At least with the Bête Noires here, I’ll be able to skip the coma part.
As the Bêtes reached into cloak pockets, L
ivi lunged at the short one with the sais. Holding a weapon in each hand while trying to reach an inside pocket, he was quick enough to dodge her first blow as if by reflex, but she was already following it up with her other knife. The Ninja paid for his lack of speed with his life.
Two to one.
The woman’s katana dripped with Holy Water by the time the sais clattered to the ground, followed by their former wielder.
At least there was only one blade left. Holy Water was harmless as long as it didn’t get into her bloodstream.
The invigorating aroma of blood filled the night air as Henri-Marie stepped up next to the woman with the katana. One end of his bo staff had been removed to reveal a wet, metal tip gleaming in the light of the moon.
That changed things. The spear could be used to strike, or as a javelin. She was fast, but she’d never faced a javelin before, and there was no saying if she was fast enough to dodge that kind of projectile at such close distance. Livi didn’t have the endurance to run. Backing up, she lowered her daggers, offering a truce. The two she’d killed had been taken by surprise but these two were ready to fight.
Yes, she was a vigilante, but only in the sense that she killed people who tried to kill her. Not like she was out to save the world. Or even cared about anyone else in the world, for that matter. If the fight ended now, her viewers should be reasonably happy, especially since she was guaranteed to live to fight another day if they accepted her gesture of truce.
The Bête Noires grinned, rodent-like, and slithered through the shadows after her.
“No truce?” she asked. When they continued stalking toward her, she had her answer.
The large pair of eyes at the mouth of the alley swiveled to follow her into the moonlight, spinning silently on their track. At least a dozen other eyes, small and fixed, had her in view. The further she retreated away from the alley, the cameras would become more sparse. If she was going to give her audience the highest quality, three-dimensional hollows she imagined they were used to, the mouth of the alley was the place to fight, if it was a fight the Ninjas wanted.
A Route of Wares: An Urban Fantasy Action Adventure: Hollow Island Book One Page 4
