by dark wind
With the speed of a weretiger, Kamerone Cree was out of his seat and the teenage boy was a foot off the carpet, his designer tennis shoes scissoring the air, his designer shirt front clutched in the hands of a man whose eyes were glowing a deep, scarlet red.
“Go...away!” Cree repeated and tossed the teenage boy like a piece of refuse into the seats across from him.
Kory Kimball’s back hit the arm of one of the theatre seats and he yelped as he slid to the dirty floor amidst crushed popcorn and spilled soda pop. But as painful and humiliating as the fall was, the sheer terror of looking up at the glistening teeth and pulsating laser-red eyes of the man who’d thrown him, kept the teenager from making a sound.
“You should respect your elders, boy,” the man advised. “Did your sire not teach you this?” Kory bobbed his head, his mouth opening and closing like a catfish’s. He knew he couldn’t possibly be seeing the man’s ears elongating and his fingernails extending into claws, but he would later tell his friends at the arcade that the bastard who had attacked him had been more beast than man.
“Now, go...away!” Cree insisted and took a step toward the terrified boy.
Galvanized into action at the impending threat, Kory let out a high-pitched shriek and scrambled backward on all fours until he reached the far aisle. Twisting his body, he gained his feet and took off running, not bothering to see if the man was following him.
“Fool,” Cree called himself. He knew the boy would alert the theater staff that would in turn make a call to the security force. For a moment, he contemplated leaving quietly, slipping out the exit door before any further harm could be done.
But he let the moment pass and returned to his seat.
He was still sitting there staring at the blank screen when the Dougherty County police arrived.
“Strip,” theSergeant ordered.
A muscle worked in Cree’s jaw but he said nothing. He shrugged out of the leather jacket and tossed it to one of the two men flanking the Sergeant. He yanked the shirt from the waistband of his jeans and began unbuttoning it with one hand while the other hand opened and closed into a fist at his side.
Sergeant Joe Hampton watched their prisoner carefully. The man put up no resistance when he’d been arrested at the Georgia Nine-o-Plex on Westover Road. He’d been cuffed, read his rights then shoved into the back of a cruiser. There had been no identification found on the pat down and the perp had not responded to questioning. The only time he’s shown any sign of hesitation to do as he was told was when they made him remove the necklace he was wearing. For a moment, Hampton thought the prisoner would balk at the demand, but then he’d jerked the gold chain over his head and flung it to the counter, staring at it intently for a moment before shrugging as though it didn’t matter.
Photographed and printed before being brought down to lockup, the man had ignored all attempts to learn his identity. He’d even smirked when he was printed, giving the impression that he knew something they did not.
That ‘something’ had been the fact that the perp had no fingerprints. Not one swirl, not one knick, nothing.
The pads of his fingertips were as smooth as glass.
“It’ll make it harder to find out who he is,” O’Hearn in booking had promised, “but we’ll do it. We’ve seen this sort of thing before. I’ll alert the G.B.I.”
The words hired assassin had swept through the police station and every cop within a ten miles radius had found a reason to drop by to take a look at the prisoner.
“I wouldn’t want to tangle with him in a back alley,” was the consensus of the majority of policemen.
Cree dragged off his shirt and let it fall to the floor.
“What’s that?” Brent Busbee asked, pointing at the tattoo on Cree’s chest. He unfolded his beefy arms and stepped closer to the bare-chested man. “Hot damn! That looks like it was burnt on!” Cree stared straight ahead of him, ignoring the overweight security man standing closer than was comfortable for the Reaper. He was unbuckling his belt when Busbee reached out to touch the laser-imprinted Reaper insignia. Before anyone could react, Busbee was sailing across the room, hitting the wall with enough force to knock five posters to the floor.
“Do not touch me!” Cree’s lips skinned back.
Hampton whipped out his stun gun and zapped the prisoner who merely shrugged off the electrical charge as though it were the nuisance of a pesky insect.
“Is that the best you can do, Keeper?”
“Keeper?” Terry Akins, the third cop, repeated, drawing his service revolver. He flexed his knees, brought the weapon up, cradling his right wrist in his left hand, and flicked off the safety. “You fucking move and I’ll fry you, mister!”
Something evil crawled through the prisoner’s heated gaze and all three policemen felt the hair standing on their arms. Quickly drawing his own piece, Busbee shook his head and pointed it pointblank at the prisoner.
Hampton increased the voltage on his stun gun and hit the prisoner again, staggering the man this time, but doing no more damage than a mosquito bite. He flicked the dial to full capacity and was relieved when the man went to his knees with the jolt.
“Cuff him!” Hampton ordered and Busbee and Akins were on the prisoner, pressing him to the tile floor.
Cree felt his arms being jerked behind him and the chill of the handcuffs encircling his wrists. He grunted as the stainless steel bracelets were clamped too tightly, but made no move to break free of the men restraining him although he could have done so with ease. He grunted again as he was dragged to his feet because the man on his left-Busbee-slammed his fist into Cree’s back, disturbing the parasite and the thing responded by pressing against a nerve along Cree’s spine. The pain was intense for a second and Cree’s knees buckled.
Thinking it was the result of Busbee’s fist that caused the prisoner to double over in pain, the Sergeant stepped forward and grabbed the other cop’s arm before he could deliver another rabbit punch to the prisoner’s kidney. “Knock it off, Busbee!” Hampton shouted. “We don’t need a brutality charge from this bastard!”
“Sarge?” Neils Tolvert spoke from the doorway. Tolvert was on duty at the desk.
“We’re busy right now,” Hampton snapped. “What the hell you want?”
“We got a man on his way down here from the office of Veterans Affairs,” Tolvert answered.
“For what?”
“This here guy is one of theirs.” Tolvert chuckled. “Escaped from their loony bin up at Augusta. Turkish War Syndrome or some such nonsense.”
“Black ops,” Busbee suggested, elbowing Akins as they held the prisoner between them. “Didn’t I tell you he was black ops?”
“I don’t give a rat’s ass what he is. He’s spending time with us,” Hampton replied. He jerked his chin toward the prisoner. “Get the rest of them clothes off him and throw him in a cell by himself until the VA guy gets here.”
Curiously detached from his surroundings and the rough hands on his jeans, boots and socks, Cree allowed the security men to remove his clothing, smiling nastily when one made the comment that their prisoner wore no underwear.
“Then let him sit butt naked for all I care.”
Shoved into a grimy cell a few minutes later, Cree sat down on the bunk, drew his knees into the perimeter of his arms and waited for Kahn to come get him. That it would be Tylan, he had no doubt.
That Tylan would be furious was another given.
A slow, malicious smile spread on Kamerone Cree’s dark face. He liked nothing better than annoying the Admiral.
“He’s where?” Bridget asked, her eyes wide.
“You heard me,” Tylan sighed from his cell phone.
“What did he do?” She was balancing her son on her hip and Jaelin was whining, wanting his supper.
“Assault and battery on a minor for starters,” Tylan reported. “Resisting arrest has been added just since I spoke with the cops a little while ago.”
She gasped. “He attacked a chi
ld?”
“A teenage asshole according to the Hunter who called me. It seems our boy took exception to be ordered out of the theater after the movie was over. He picked the kid up and threw him into the seats.”
“How badly was the kid hurt?”
“More bruised ego than bruised Terran flesh I gather,” Tylan answered. “But Kam could have killed him.”
Bridget felt sick to her stomach. “What the hell is wrong with him, Ty?” she demanded. Jaelin let out an angry howl, making a grab for the receiver. When his mother kept it out of his reach, he howled louder.
“Like father, like son.”
“I can’t talk now. Are you going after him?”
“Yes, I have that delightful chore.”
“Then tell him not to bother coming home this evening,” she told him. “The door will be locked!” Tylan clucked his tongue. “And that would stop him, Bridie?”
“Until he starts acting like a normal person, I don’t want him around my son!” With that said, Bridget slammed the phone into the cradle.
Kahn frowned at the abrupt end of the conversation, then tossed his cell phone to the passenger seat.
“Hell, the man ain’t normal to begin with!” he complained and pressed his foot harder on the accelerator of his sports car.
Akkadia Kahmalput her foot on the fire hydrant and untied then re-tied the shoelaces of her tennis shoes. All the while, she kept an eye on the white building in which the most wanted man in the universe was temporarily incarcerated. Straightening, she lifted her right wrist to her mouth. To the casual observer, it looked as though the woman in the gray sweatshirt and sweatpants was wiping her lips on the cuff. In actuality, Major Akkadia Kahmal of the Amazeen Elite Strike Force was sending a message to a long-range starcruiser orbiting Terra.
“Have you locked in on him?” Akkadia asked.
“We are experiencing technical difficulties at this time, Major, but expect to be back online momentarily,” was the message from the LRS Aluvial.
“He will be without the blocking device. May I suggest you hurry?”
“We are hurrying Major,” the ship’s engineer shot back. “We are as anxious as you to retrieve our target.”
No, you aren’t.She saw that she was being watched from across the way by a Terran security officer and lifted her hand in greeting, smiling her welcome to him. Flexing her leg muscles as she’d seen Terran runners do, she tossed her long braid of red hair over her shoulder and began to jog down the sidewalk, glancing back with a coy look that made the security officer smile.
Bringing her hand up to her cheek, she pretended to wipe her chin. “Hurry!” she hissed into the Vid-Com link at her wrist. As she rounded the corner at the end of the block, she did not see the midnight blue foreign sports car pull into the alley beside the Courthouse just as the sun went down.
Chapter Sixteen
“Do you haveany idea how much trouble you caused me this afternoon?” Kahn jerked open the car door.
“Do you think I care how much trouble I caused you?” Cree slid into the passenger seat and slammed the door hard enough to make the sports car rock on its chassis.
“It cost me a thousand Terran dollars to get your bail.”
“You have more money than Alel. What the hell are you complaining about?”
“Not to mention the rigmarole we’re gonna have to go through to get this shit settled!” He shoved his hand into his pocket to retrieve his car keys. “Paegan is having to hack into the VA records even as we speak!”
“Ain’t that special?”
“I should have left your ass in there.”
“Why didn’t you?”
Kahn slammed his hand against the steering wheel. “What if you had gone into Transition? Did the possibility of that ever cross your mind?”
“I’m nowhere near time to Transition.”
Kahn shuddered, putting the key into the ignition. “My god! Just the thought of you going into full-”
“There she is,” Cree said softly, but his voice was filled with hatred. He put his hand on the door handle.
Tylan Kahn snapped his head up, saw the woman standing under the glow of a mercury streetlight then reached out to grab Cree’s arm before the Reaper could leave the car. “You stay right where you are!”
“She’s mine,” Cree growled.
Before Tylan could contradict the statement, the air began vibrating and the sports car began to glow.
“The disk!” Kahn shouted. “Do you have it on?”
An unaccustomed look of fear flew across Cree’s face and his normal ruddy color fled in its wake. He turned to stare at Tylan, started to speak, but before he could, the former Admiral ripped open his own shirt, snatched a chain from his neck and shoved it into Cree’s hand, molding his fingers around Cree’s.
“Listen!” Kahn ordered, his psychic talent homing in on the woman down the block.
“We can’t lock on!” the engineer shouted to Major Kahmal. “Abort. Abort!” From her position half a block away, Kahmal glared at the two men in the sports car and knew they’d been able to intercept the frantic order. She wished she could reach into the waistband of her sweats and pull out the weapon that would disintegrate the car and the men sitting inside. But her orders had been firm: “Bring him back alive, Major. We must have him alive!” Kahmal ground her teeth and cursed. This had been the perfect time to retrieve the Reaper while he was vulnerable and without the blocking device. From now on, he would be on his guard and the capture would be more difficult.
“If looks could kill, huh?” Kahn whispered, his heart beating so loudly he could feel the blood rushing through his temples.
“Do you know her?” Cree asked. One of the broken links of the chain Kahn had thrust into his hand was biting into his flesh, but he reveled in the pain, knowing without it, he’d not be sitting where he was.
“How would I know an Amazeen? I’ve never been on their accursed world!”
“She’s one of your mother’s friends,” Cree reminded him. “You know that as well as I.”
“And that means I should know her?” Kahn tightened his grip on Cree’s hand. “Where is your disk, anyway?”
“The keepers took it.”
“Cops,” Kahn corrected with exasperation. “They are cops on this world, Cree.” Cree leaned back in the seat, never taking his eyes from the tall red-haired woman down the street.
“You must have sent Tealson to get yours after we spoke this morning.”
“And you’d better be gods-be-damned glad I did, Cree.”
As the men watched, the Amazeen bounty hunter vanished and they knew she’d been beamed back on board whatever ship had brought her here.
“Much as I hate to suggest this,” Kahn said through clenched teeth, “we need to go in and get your disk.”
“Let go of my hand and I’ll get it myself.”
“And have them snatch me?” Kahn snorted. “Not on your worthless hide, Reaper!”
“They don’t want you.”
“Just open the door and get out,” Kahn snapped, swinging his leg over the gearshift. He kept a tight grip on Cree’s hand.
Cree stared at his former commanding officer. “Are you kidding me?” he asked incredulously, lifting the hand Kahn had such a death grip on. “You really think I’m going to walk in there with you holding my gods-be-damned hand, Kahn?”
“Get out of the car and let’s get this over with!” Kahn shouted, pushing Cree with his hip. When Cree started to protest, Kahn increased the pressure on Cree’s hand. “That’s an order, Captain!” Cree squinted at the man beside him. “You don’t have any authority over me, Kahn.” He shook his head. “Not anymore. Not here.”
“You owe me,” Kahn forced out from between tightly clenched teeth. “I demand honor be met for the debt.”
“How do I...?”
“Where would you be right now if I hadn’t come to the jail to bail you out tonight, Reaper?” Kahn pointed to the heavens. “You owe me a debt
of honor. Now get your ass out of the car!”
“I am not...”
“‘I will obediently follow the commands I am given at the discretion of my commanding officers’,” Kahn recited the Reaper’s Oath.
“You are no longer my commanding officer.”
“‘I am a Reaper’,” Kahn recited. “’I will die a Reaper’.”
“I know what I am!”
“Then you will be a Reaper until the day you die and are standing in judgment before Alel,” Kahn reminded him. “The word is your honor. You made the vow. Has your honor fled, Reaper?” Cree stared at Kahn, consigning the former military leader to the very depths of the Abyss. Put in that light, he had no choice but to do as Kahn bid.
“Get out of the car and let’s get this over with,” snapped Kahn.
It was humiliating, but Cree did as he was told. He kept his hot eyes on the ground as he and Tylan Kahn walked back into the jail to retrieve his disk. The wait for the security man to bring it to him seemed to take forever. But the moment the disk was in his possession, he snatched his hand from Kahn’s grip and stared down the amused security men behind the desk.
“He’s not well,” Kahn said in a low, pitying voice. “Sometimes he just likes to have his hand held. Shell shock. You know how it is, guys.” Kahn tapped his temple. “Something blasted loose in here, you understand?”
The security men stopped smiling when the low, throaty growl erupted from the man they had booked earlier that evening.
“Come along, Kami,” Kahn encouraged. “It’s been a long day, hasn’t it, little buddy?”
“Aye and your days are numbered,” Cree grumbled under his breath as they went out the door.
Once outside, Kahn glanced around but there was no suspicious female in site.
“Sorry they didn’t snatch me?” Cree snarled.
“Just shut the hell up.” Kahn replied. Before anything else could happen, he cranked the car and pulled into the street.
The streetlights overhead passed like giant fireflies flitting past the car as Kahn drove faster than the posted speed limit. His hand on the gearshift was firm, his foot steady on the pedal as he worked his way through the gears until the sports car was running like a weretiger through the nearly empty streets.
