“My name’s Nash. I’m a Ranger.”
After blinking some more and working her jaw, Livi said slowly, “A master of the obvious game, I see. Point for you.”
“Obvious game?” Nash asked. “What?”
“I should give you two points. One for the gun, one for the eye.”
Her speech was improving, but it seemed like she was hallucinating. It was impossible to know how much Holy Water she’d taken. A couple of his Holy Barbs had lodged in her, but he suspected she’d been exposed by the Wares before he showed up. So he prepared another dose of antidote. “You’re not making sense.”
Rolling her eyes, she forced out a slurred tone of voice that somehow still sounded like a first grade teacher, “In the obvious game you get a point for saying something painfully obvious. The greenest piker on Hollow Island can see you’re a Ranger from a mile away.”
If she could be this scorching with only her eyes and mouth, Nash would have his hands full when she regained the use of the rest of her body. “You’re not gonna bite me if I give you more antidote, are you?” She was the first Vamp he’d seen and he had no idea what to expect.
“Your righteous blood would probably burn my evil mouth like Holy Water.”
“For a quadriplegic alone in the middle of San Juan, who’s all full of holes, you’re awfully smarmy.” He couldn’t turn her over to the bounty office fast enough.
“It’s good to smarm, whatever that means. Keeps me young.”
“Along with biting would-be rescuers?” asked Nash.
“Nah,” she said with a sneer. “I don’t kill children.” It had been a few days since Nash had heard comments about his age, only because no one had talked to him in that time.
Nash didn’t reply, hoping the dark night would hide the blush in his cheeks.
Enough muscle control returned for Livi to lift her head and look at her arm, where Nash was pushing more antidote into a vein. His flatpack lay next to him on the ground, a few medical supplies spilling out.
“Some Mayhew Brew or painkillers would be nice,” she said as her head thumped back to the street.
“Not as nice as a thank you.”
That shut her up for the moment. Smart comments weren’t his style with strangers, but it seemed like the only way to talk to her.
The Vamp’s body control returned by degrees. She flexed her hands and arms one at a time. With a nervous tremor in his hands, Nash wrapped her wounded shoulders with linen. It was obvious she had merciless curves, but the black leather was the perfect imitator of the darkness and without staring, he couldn’t tell where her body ended and the night began.
It wasn’t that he didn’t have any experience with girls, it was that he had no experience with women.
As he wrapped around her torso, his hand brushed her chest and she jumped at the chance to tell him about it. “Oh, the innocent hero ploy is just an act so you can take advantage of a defenseless girl.”
“No, I didn’t mean … sorry.”
Livi giggled.
If Nash didn’t stand his ground, she’d back him up until he sat like a puppy and licked her hand. He said, “You’re anything but defenseless.”
The linen wrap bumped her shoulder on the next pass.
“Ouch! I liked it better when you were taking liberties.”
Nash didn’t bite.
When the bandaging was done, he helped her sit up and tried to examine her scalp. Half-clotted blood glopped from her hair, but the limited light made it impossible to know if the violent head-banging seizures had split her skin, and if so, if the bleeding had stopped. If she needed stitches, Nash would leave it to someone with more experience.
Livi eventually pushed herself up to a squat.
On a field trip to the Central Park Zoo years ago, Nash and his classmates had been lucky enough to see a newborn giraffe just hours after being born. Right now, Livi looked exactly like that giraffe trying to find its legs.
For some time she breathed and blinked then asked, “You going to try to arrest me?”
“Uh huh.”
“Why? I was obviously acting in self-defense.”
“There’s a bounty out. Wanted for murder. Sounds like it goes way beyond these … men.” He looked at the torn throats of the two dead Wares and felt like he might be sick. If he had to guess, he’d say she’d done it with her teeth.
“They’re all self-defense.”
“Not for me to decide.” He’d scared off her attackers, saved her life, and it was time to reap the benefits.
If he brought in fifty kilos, he wouldn’t have to do actual work for months. After filling his belly, then filling it again, that kind of money was enough of a cushion to spend some time looking for his sister without being obvious that he was trying to find her. After the bad impression he’d made his first twenty-four hours, he didn’t want to smear Karolina’s reputation by association. The last thing he wanted was for people to try to get to him by hurting his sister.
“It always seemed so strange,” said Livi. “Create monsters and expect them to not act like monsters.”
“I think they know you’ll act like monsters. It’s the premise of this place, and the basis of H.I.P.’s profit strategy.” Nash gave the Vamp some space, not sure how incapacitated she was at this point. If it came to a fight, some distance would let him use his gun. With the effects of Holy Water and Holy Barbs circulating in her system, he didn’t need to cuff her. The antidote didn’t last long, and she’d need more soon to stay alive. “I still can’t figure out why anyone would want to be a monster. Or come live with people like you. If you want to be a farmer or baker why not just stay on the outside and do it.”
“People like me, huh?” Livi seemed to have mastered the basic art of balance again. “You have something against Brazilians?”
“What? No. I meant …” Nash trailed off, realizing she’d caught him.
Livi said, “With ten billion people in the world, it’s not hard to find half a million lunatics.”
What had John Wayne called them? Misguided imbeciles?
When Livi twisted to stretch, Nash noticed a couple barbs in her calf that he hadn’t seen when he pulled the ones from her face.
“Stand still,” he said. When she did so, and nodded acknowledgement, he came forward and yanked them out one at a time. He held the silver slivers up for Livi to see.
“Holy Barbs,” Livi said. “Here I thought you were my rescuer, but you shot me.”
“Point for you,” said Nash.
“My hero.” She rolled her eyes. “Are those Barbs what you wanted me to thank you for?”
“When you wallow with pigs, you can’t complain about the flies.”
“Perfect,” grumbled Livi. “You’re one of those guys who loves one-liners. That’s not obnoxious at all. And I’d rather spend a year with pigs than a minute with Wares. Or an hour with Rangers—oh wait. Pigs and Rangers are the same thing.”
“That’s original,” said Nash. “About as original as your tired Vamp outfit.”
Her gaze got sharp. Apparently the skin-tight black leather was a touchy point for her. That might come in useful later if he was serious about verbal sparring, because the irritation he saw in her was not an act. In fact, considering what she’d been through, the Vamp looked strong. Ready to run, ready to fight. She peered past him into the depths of the alley.
Like an idiot he followed her gaze. “Are the Wares—” He barely saw the elbow she swung at his nose. But he’d been wary that she might try something so he was ready. The elbow was as graceless as a cat wearing boxing gloves. He deflected the blow. Gloating over his quick reflexes, he didn’t see her black-clad leg until her foot connected with his temple, sending him flying face first to the street.
What a kick! What flexibility. At his best, Nash had never been able to kick like that.
As she started to run, Nash reflexively reached out a hand and grabbed her ankle. Karma was with Livi and she ended up on her face, spittin
g out gravel. She rolled over and he found himself looming over her, fist cocked to hammer her face. He hesitated. Her flawless face. Nash had sparred with women before but with the exception of the lunging Ware, he had never full on punched any girl or woman in the face without gloves and headgear in play.
“Afraid to punch a girl?” Livi asked with a flirtatious laugh. “I’ve never fought a gentleman before.” She kicked out with her free leg, catching him in the side of his gut. Gasping, he doubled over. She brought her knee up to his nose. Bright lights flashed in his eyes as he reached for his gun.
When his vision cleared she was running down the street, her black outfit the perfect camouflage. She shouted over her shoulder, “Sorry, coração, but jails aren’t really my thing.”
“I’ll shoot, Livi.”
“How can you shoot a lady when you can’t even punch one?”
As an answer, he pulled the trigger. The slightest muzzle flash lit the street and a flash of silver sparkled in the moonlight as more Holy Barbs chased her down the alley. With the sound of a quick spate of hailstones on hard-packed dirt, they pierced her leather and skin. Within a few steps she wobbled like a drunk in high heels, then slowed and walked in jerky movements, a wind-up toy losing steam. Seconds later she was face down again.
Nash took his time getting to her; she wasn’t seizing yet. Rubbing his bruised temple he thought, Lucky that was her toe. The stiletto heel might’ve killed me.
After an initial spurt, his nose had stopped bleeding. Nash wiped the blood off his upper lip and leaned over Livi. Half of her face was visible and her eyes tracked up at him. No fewer than a dozen Barbs protruded from heel to head, but he was in no hurry to alleviate her suffering at the moment.
“Is my nose crooked?” Running a hand along it, it felt crooked, and his stuffy voice made it sound crooked. Half a dozen times in MMA bouts and practice he’d seen guys straighten a broken nose. With one hand he cupped his nose tightly, holding as much of it as possible along the length of it. With his other hand, he drew back and used his palm to smack the anchored nose back into alignment.
His mouth opened in a bellow of pain. Nothing escaped his mouth, but tears were running down either side of his nose. The remedy had hurt worse than the initial injury. It took at least a dozen forceful breaths to clear his vision and minimize the pain to a bearable level. Hopefully it was straight now, because he was not going to go through that again.
Slowly, Nash walked to Livi’s side and knelt next to her. “I’ll run out of antidote before I run out of Barbs,” he said, yanking the needles out of her back, legs, and butt.
She tried to answer but her tongue flopped out limply onto the gravel and dirt.
Nash had never wanted a camera so bad in his life. “That’s attractive.” Just as her eyes rolled back and began to twitch, he administered a shot of antidote into her thigh. The muscle would provide slower absorption than a vein, slowing her down a little.
While the antidote worked its magic, Nash moved over to the wall of an abandoned building and leaned against it to catch the rest of his breath.
Eye control returned first to the Vamp. When Livi’s jaw started working, she said, “I only said I wouldn’t bite. I didn’t say I wouldn’t kill you.” The drugged state exaggerated her enchanting Brazilian accent.
“Wouldn’t what me? I didn’t catch that.”
“Kill.” The ‘l’s at the end of the word came out like they’d been swallowed.
“You won’t keyu me?”
She wasn’t amused. “Go lick soap, piker.” Speaking more carefully she repeated herself, forcing the ‘l’ out for emphasis. “Kill.”
Nash chuckled and slid further out of her range. Hopefully she’d calm down by the time she got to her feet.
It took longer than the first time, but he passed the time by studying her bio. Livi Barbosa, fifty kilo bounty. Former name Bianna Lopes, a mortgage broker from Brasília, Brazil. If he hadn’t read it twice, he wouldn’t believe it because he could not see her sitting across a desk taking and mortgage application and discussing amortization. Livi was a Vamp—point for Nash—and had immigrated five years ago. Twenty-six years old, had a history in San Juan as a vigilante of sorts. Her sister had died in the Hour War while on some sort of field trip, and that had fueled her desires to immigrate. She had no blood relatives on the island, lived a solitary life hunting down the scum of the streets of San Juan, and had chalked up 100 kills.
One hundred! There it was in green fluorescent font.
The final two bits of information in the bio read: Modification Level 3. Star Rating 4. Both were the highest possible. Nash was yet to see anyone over Star Rating 2 in person. All those kills had to be what had built up the audience. Even if they were self-defense, that was a lot of killing. What would killing that many people do to a person?
More than he had since this odd encounter had started, Nash felt underpowered in so many ways next to her.
When she did stand, she winced or cursed with every movement. She held out her wrists. “So, Nash. Are you going to cuff me now?” Hearing her say his name made him understand how people always fell prey to vampires in the stories without putting up a fight.
He shook his head at her outstretched wrists. “There’s no need to restrain you. The half-life of the antidote is shorter than whatever’s in Holy Barbs, so I really hope you don’t run. I didn’t risk my life against a full route of Wares so you could die in some dark alley.” That was way too many words. He reminded himself of the one decent lesson his trainer taught him. Talk low, talk slow, and don’t say too much.
“But how will you shoot me again if I don’t run? It’s so much fun, after all.” If she hadn’t bantered with him since they met he might’ve thought she seriously wanted to get shot again. “How many more bullets do you have, anyway?”
Reaching back awkwardly, he patted his flatpack. “Plenty.”
“And what’s to stop me from killing you and taking the antidote?” Even when she talked about killing him it wasn’t unsexy. This was getting ridiculous. He felt like he’d never seen a real woman before, which was even weirder because she wasn’t technically human at this point. She was a Jennie.
So was Nash for that matter. Still, the two of them were not compatible. And it didn’t matter because she was so far out of his league, they weren’t even playing the same game.
That knowledge didn’t make it any easier for him to focus.
He finally said, “Rangers’ supplies and guns are bioprinted so they don’t work for anyone else.” She had to know that much at least. “Besides, you don’t keyu good people, Livi.” As soon as he said it, he hoped she didn’t ask how he knew that. Details about what his eye could do were among his biggest secrets. To cover his slip, he added, “You said yourself it was self-defense.”
“You’d bet your life on that?” Her expression changed from taunting to curious. “Wait. How do you know my name?”
Another slip. He gently motioned her up the road to buy himself time. She walked and he followed. “You told me your name when you were coming around.” He gulped and staggered a step as painful nausea gripped his stomach.
“You obviously just immigrated, Boy Ranger. You watched my show before you came in, didn’t you?”
Nash had seen her in commercials, a Ranger crossover or two, on magazine covers, and click bait headlines, but he couldn’t stand shows about criminals or abject violence, so he’d never seen her show. From the bio, he knew that she was all about violence and drama, as if his personal experience with her hadn’t told him so. “What?” he said with mock wonder. “You have a show?”
Livi stopped and turned to face him. “Admit it, you’re a fan. Tell you what, you let me go, along with a few vials of that antidote, and I’ll give you an autograph!” Her eyes grew patronizingly wide. Failing to get a response, she started walking again. “If you didn’t see me on the hollows then they taught you about me in some class about dangerous monsters in Ranger School, right?
I must be badder than I thought.”
Nash was so off kilter around her, it felt like a bad sitcom. He had to get rid of her and quick. A short stop at someone who could sew up her shoulders, possibly her head too, and he’d deliver her to the bounty office. In half an hour he’d never have to see her again.
Never get to see her again. The way her hips swayed when she strutted made it hard to think anything else.
As they turned a corner into the inner city, she asked, “Do you always show up just when the damsel’s in distress?”
How does she keep asking questions relating to what this eye can do?
The urgent dispatch to save her was the first he’d received directly, but there was no way she could know about that. Either the Mayor of San Juan or someone in the Corporation wanted her to survive the night, but didn’t give him reasons, just a massive bounty that he couldn’t pass up. The dispatch hadn’t even said anything about a ‘damsel in distress,’ as she put it. He liked to think that he’d come running just as fast to save someone as he would to grab a huge paycheck.
Maybe they didn’t know him as well as they thought they did so they dangled a bunch of money in front of him. Someone somewhere thought he could handle a route of Wares on his own. Either that, or they just wanted more action tonight, and didn’t care who came out ahead. He still had no idea if other Rangers had received it or not.
Nash didn’t know much about the mayor, but he doubted the mayor had the power to put out an APB like that. The arrows giving him directions would be impossible without knowing Nash’s exact location every second. Which left H.I.P. as the interested party. Nash had always thought they didn’t interfere in personal lives and conflicts, but the events of the night were making him strongly suspect otherwise.
Livi was watching him, waiting for an answer and he still didn’t have an explanation for what brought him to her rescue, so he ignored the question and just watched the street ahead. There was no saying the Wares wouldn’t come back, or they wouldn’t encounter some other psychopath Jennie out tonight.
“You could’ve come five minutes earlier,” muttered Livi. “I’ll be lucky if this dog scratch doesn’t fester.”
A Route of Wares: An Urban Fantasy Action Adventure: Hollow Island Book One Page 13
