Portal to Passion: Science Fiction Romance

by Amber Stuart

  Anyway, everything seemed to be going according to plan at first.

  Nothing like a good foot chase through dark streets to evoke that whole “serial killer” motif, especially when the guy is built like a linebacker and already has a few wrist slaps for aggravated assault, all of them filed by women.

  Then the guy turns out to be some kind of amateur track enthusiast, even after four shots of tequila, and I start to get worried. Truthfully, I’d expected my biggest problem to be keeping him interested long enough to chase me the full five or six blocks.

  Turns out, I needn't have worried.

  On the plus side, the street cameras Irene and I scoped along the route that morning should be getting pretty authentic shots of terror on my face as I ran.

  All of my sequencing was off now, too, even if I managed to stay ahead of him.

  Meaning, at this rate, we’d both arrive early.

  If that happened, I’d have to improvise to keep from getting beat up for real... or, better yet, maybe strangled or raped.

  I’d estimated a good five or six minutes of chase time, maybe longer if I managed to work a few breathers into the mix before we hit the target area. Instead, only about two minutes had ticked by according to my mental clock, and I had less than one block to go. Really, I'd be lucky to get him there at all before he dragged me to the pavement like a wolf on a lame deer.

  So yeah, Plan B was seeming pretty likely.

  It might make me look significantly less like a victim, especially if I got too creative with the self-defense moves, but I wasn't about to take one for the team, either, no matter how much this chick was paying me.

  I heard the mark’s breathing growing louder behind me. His footfalls seemed to drum in my head, too, making a sharper, higher noise in the dampness of the concrete. My super-tread boots generally treated me right in these close-quarter gigs, but I hadn't banked on him running like he wore track shoes, even in his thousand dollar loafers. I’d expected a lot of things to slow him down that hadn’t, though, not only his taste in the douche-y range of footwear, one pair of which probably cost more than most people’s monthly paychecks and got shined every Thursday by some golf cabana boy... if not this guy's train-wreck of a wife.

  Grabbing the edge of the brick wall to fling myself faster around the corner, I let out a short gasp when the guy grabbed at my jacket and almost caught me for real.

  Unsurprisingly, I guess, I wore a mini-skirt and tights, and while the material was super stretchy, it might be slowing me down more than I'd really let myself think about when I shimmied into it earlier that evening. But hey, I had to look the part, and this guy didn't like women in pants, figuratively or literally.

  As it was, he'd given a good, hard stare at my boots when I first hopped off that barstool, as if he thought those were a bit too dyke-y even with the pancake makeup and coiffed hair over my sheer and uncomfortably low-cut blouse.

  Digging my toes into the concrete at the bottom of the narrow street, I forced out an extra burst of speed to put some distance between us.

  Lungs burning in my chest, I fought to pump my arms and legs harder, pounding my way down the street and still counting steps in my head, even though I'd walked the whole route just that morning and knew exactly how far I had yet to go. Feeling him right behind me again, I realized he'd closed the gap a second time and sprinted faster, feeling the first edges of honest to God panic as he paced me.

  Hell, he was going to catch me.

  I could see the hot zone by then... but it almost didn't matter.

  I had to be a good few minutes ahead of the planned drop, so improvisation was now definitely in the playbook. I didn't hold back any reserves that time when I pumped my arms, trying to get just that little extra distance ahead so I could get there a second or two before him. I'd played this card before, sure, but it had been a few months, and this guy had a good eighty pounds and six inches of height on the tattoo-covered Mexican kid high on crystal meth who'd last forced me off the regular game-plan and into the uncharted.

  In that case, I had the whole racism thing playing on my side, for once... and while I didn’t feel good about it, it definitely sped things along. The cops saw the doped-up gang-looking kid picking on a hot chick in a leather skirt and they immediately descended with sirens blaring.

  So yeah, I might not be fully white bread, with my half-Japanese mom and half-Cuban dad, but I was pretty enough and dressed conservatively enough that they rushed to my defense anyway.

  This time, the guy was full-on white bread, wearing a suit, and handsome in that boring, Ken doll on steroids kind of way. He looked the part of a young stockbroker, so I'd have to make the victim thing a lot more convincing.

  Even so, when I got him in the alley, I didn't hesitate to skid sideways once I'd gone past the circle of orange light from the streetlamp. The mark, who'd been so intent on chasing me it hadn't occurred to him that I might stop running, couldn't compensate.

  He nearly fell over as he darted sideways to follow me, grasping at my arm and back with long arms and thick fingers. He lost his balance just enough to buy me time... smashing sideways into a row of garbage cans near a squat, green dumpster. I heard the smack of his shoulder and chest against the dumpster, but barely registered either as I repositioned myself on his other side.

  I didn't give him the time to recover.

  Frankly, I didn't intend to wait and see if he might have some crazy, kick-ass ninja skills that Irene had also somehow missed in her background check before we went live.

  Shifting my weight on the laced up boots, I reached his side before he could recover, my weight balanced into a low fighting stance. When he whirled to face me, I aimed two sharp, fast kicks, using every ounce of weight and momentum I could muster in my five-foot-three frame... both of them at the joint of his right knee. Without letting that foot drop to the pavement, I swiveled my hip and round-housed the same knee from the side, that time pivoting my whole body.

  I felt the crack. Hell, I almost heard it.

  He went down. Hard.

  I always thought it was pretty funny how in the movies these skinny chicks in lycra were always going for head kicks and upper body kicks with big “hi-yas!” in some close quarter fight with a mondo-buff dude who was a foot taller than them.

  Way stupid.

  High kicks left you all kinds of exposed.

  And yeah, while getting kicked in the face wasn't exactly fun, unless you managed to dislocate the guy's jaw, it wouldn't necessarily drop your opponent, either.

  Knees, on the other hand... knees were reliable.

  No matter how big they are, you kick someone hard enough and at the right angle in the knee, and down they go. Getting a kneecap slammed out of joint by a steel-toed boot hurt like hell. In fact, it sort of felt like having your joint pulled apart with pliers.

  This guy was no exception.

  He dropped to the same knee I'd just bent in three different directions, all of that two-hundred-plus weight landing on a pretty small point of contact. I didn't hear a crunch that time, or anything remotely so dramatic, but when he hit that pavement, boy, he let out a scream.

  He screamed so loud I flinched back in reflex, balling my hands into fists.

  That was the other thing about knees. If you got them out of whack with the joint, the pain just went on and on without really getting much better.

  That's when I kicked him in the face.

  Way more effective at that point, in my personal experience.

  Still, this guy didn't go all the way down.

  He grunted, then fell sideways into the garbage cans with a lot of clanging and bother, but he knocked away my foot with one arm when I went to kick him again. He gripped the wall as soon as I gave him space, and then he seemed to be trying to get up, using his one good knee to lurch that muscular body upright.

  I could almost feel the fury emanating off him by then.

  It was like a tangi
ble force. Like radiation coming off an old microwave oven.

  It scrunched his face into a dark red, mottled shape, almost unrecognizable from the handsome smooth-talker who first approached me in that crappy, chrome-covered, eighties-themed club. The monster under that blond-and-dimple-headed mask reared its head, and, looking at it, I felt my nerves twanging a few octaves higher, in spite of myself.

  This guy really did live in Bundy country.

  Really, my instincts told me to knock him out and get the hell out of there... but if I did that, that would be the end of this gig.

  No payday.

  Worse, I was thinking at that point, this psycho would go free.

  So, after a bare second of hesitation, I stepped back, watching him stagger to his feet.

  Reminding myself I just needed to stall him, that I only needed a few minutes and this show would be over, I fought to keep my cool, and my head on straight.

  If I freaked out, or got too scared, things could turn on me real quick.

  Already, the guy would probably be screaming for his lawyer when the cops finally showed. If he managed to convince them that I was the one who went bezerk on him, I could very well be waving bye-bye to the sympathetic police and hello to aggravated assault charges. Worse, I'd lose my lucrative fee and this dickhead would be back on the Seattle city streets, getting his kicks off beating up drunk ex-sorority chicks outside of clubs and raping them with kitchen appliances when they refused to service him to his satisfaction.

  So yeah, against my better judgment, I held my ground.

  I needed my Bundy up and fighting when the men in blue showed up... which should be happening sometime in the next, oh... two to three minutes.

  About as long as your average round in a ring fight, as it happens.

  Stockbroker guy stood over me now, his tie askew under his collar, his lip bleeding from the kick to the face. His knee already stretched his pants where the joint swelled under the material. He still looked pissed as hell, but the creep actually smiled at me as he glared into my eyes with that death-like stare, his fists balled up in a reasonable approximation of a fighting stance.

  Yeah. Shit. He looked like he knew how to fight. Box, anyway.

  Hopefully, he just went to a few lame, dancy, kickboxing classes at his nationally-franchised and overpriced McGym.

  "You like it rough, huh, bitch?" he said, hunching his shoulders. "Well, come on then. Give it your best shot...”

  I fought back a surprised chuckle, deciding it probably wouldn’t be wise.

  Forcing my expression still, I measured his face, instead, trying to decide if I should risk getting near him. I knew I probably wouldn't be able to pull off the frightened bar girl bit at this juncture, not convincingly anyway. I opted to say nothing, thinking that enflaming him further might not be all that smart, either.

  Still, I had to fight a bit to keep the roll out of my eyes.

  Seriously. Didn't these guys ever learn any new lines? Why was it always bitch this, and whore that? And what was up with the lame clichés? “Give it your best shot?” Seriously? I mean, who actually talks like that?

  "What's wrong?" he sneered. "You seemed like you had a lot to say to me before, cunt. Worried your little jazzercize class might not get you out of the mess your mouth got you into? Well, you should be worried, bitch...”

  He lunged right after he spoke, moving faster than I would have credited him, especially given what I'd just done to his knee.

  When I moved back and sideways, trying to get out of his way, he caught me in a roundhouse punch to the temple that I only just managed to duck. I still caught the tail end of it, but most of the force of the blow missed. Still, the contact alone was enough to jar me, which was enough for him to get in a second punch to my sternum.

  That one hurt.

  It hurt enough that my instincts kicked in, maybe outside of my better judgment. I kicked out without thought, aiming for his knee again, but that time he moved faster, blocking my kick with his forearm, the same one attached to the fist that just sort-of got me in the temple.

  Yeah. Shit. This guy could fight.

  Maybe not Oscar De La Hoya fight, but definitely a good cut above most of the jerkoffs I got stuck sparring with down at that ratty boxing gym I lived in on most of my spare afternoons and weekends. My head had already started falling into that more serious, fight-for-your-life kind of place, even as it occurred to me again that I might be in for a real smack-down type situation.

  But before I could make a decision about what to do next, something else happened.

  Something pretty weird.

  2

  NEW GUY

  I HAVE NO idea where the guy came from.

  He appeared out of nowhere, and then he was just standing right next to me.

  I literally glanced to my right elbow, feeling a shift in the air, and there the guy was.

  He didn't look at me, either, not even when I stared right at him. Instead, he continued to focus straight ahead, his eyes completely taken with the Bundy guy in the thousand-dollar suit. The new guy seemed to study him from head to foot very carefully, pausing on his baby blue eyes, hurt knee, bleeding lip and that “I'm gonna kill you” look on his face.

  Then, he took in the length of him again.

  The new guy, who didn’t look like he wanted to kill anyone in particular, stood about two inches taller than the stockbroker-slash-date-rapist, but he didn’t have anywhere near the other guy’s bulk. Possibly because he seemed to lack a survival instinct altogether, he didn't look afraid, even though my wannabe Bundy probably weighed two of him and looked ready to kill a mountain cat with his bare hands.

  The new guy looked at the mark like he was taking his measurements, instead.

  If anything, his dark eyes bordered on puzzled.

  As for me, I couldn’t take my eyes off the new guy’s face.

  It wasn’t because he was particularly handsome or hot or whatever.

  If anything, his looks struck me as pretty weird, almost unnervingly precise from the top of his head down to his boot-clad feet. He looked like he might have been part robot, or some kind of animated mannequin. His features structured his face with an odd symmetry matched only by his body, too perfect in some way I couldn’t define to myself, even though I tried pretty danged hard in those few seconds.

  Just as strangely, that oddly-symmetrical face worked for him, too... meaning, it suited him, and seemed to really belong to him, if that makes sense.

  I really couldn’t figure out what was wrong with his face, though, so I kept going back and forth between that and his body, trying to decide what it was about both that bugged me so much. When I tried to pin it down, I kept going back to the thought that he looked borderline artificial, like he wasn’t entirely real.

  Whatever his deal was, it distracted me for longer than it should have, given the circumstances. If the stockbroker hadn’t been staring at him, too, he could have taken me down in that two or three-second gap.

  The new guy seemed oblivious to both of our stares, however.

  Whoever he was, he continued to look at the man with the bleeding lip, but without acknowledging the other’s reactions to him. He didn’t so much as blink, from what I could tell, for what must have been a good ten seconds of uninterrupted staring.

  Then he turned, facing me.

  "I heard a scream," he said.

  His words came out stilted, mechanical-sounding, but strangely matter-of-fact.

  When I only blinked at him, still holding my fists up towards the douche bag in the suit, the new guy reached out tentatively, touching my arm. Something in the touch was strangely intimate, as if he’d just read my pulse, temperature, feelings and intent through the trashy vinyl jacket I wore over the see-through lace top with the plunging neckline. The new guy with the dark eyes, who wore a weird, black body-suit thing I only then noticed, and who had weirdly straight black hair around that oddly put-togeth
er face, tilted his head to one side, almost like a bird.

  "I heard a scream," he repeated.

  Neither the stockbroker nor I said a word. Neither of us probably breathed.

  The new guy continued to stare down at me alone, his eyes holding an added scrutiny.

  "Did you scream?" he said.

  Clearing my throat, I found myself answering him.

  "No," I said. "That was him." I motioned towards the blue-eyed suit-wearing sociopath with my head, without lowering either of my hands. “...He screamed."

  “Is that true?” the new guy said, looking up at the larger man. “Did you scream?”

  The monster in the thousand dollar suit didn’t answer. He only repositioned his fists in the air, a blank look on his face, as if he wasn’t sure which of us he wanted to hit first.

  The new guy looked back at me.

  "Are you attacking him?" he asked me.

  "What?" I said. "No, man. Are you blind? This guy wants to kill me...” I glanced up at the alley's camera in reflex. How the hell was this scene going to play to the cops now? There was no way I'd be able to pin much on the mark, not unless this guy got on board. "No... I'm not attacking him. I'm defending myself. Didn’t you see him chasing me... ?”

  There was a long-seeming pause.

  “No,” the new guy said. “No, I did not.” He looked around himself, as if suddenly unsure where he was. “I’m not sure why I came here. It’s not safe.”

  “You’re damn straight it’s not safe!” I blurted. “Are you going to help me, man? Call the cops or something?"

  The man with the symmetrical face only blinked at me.

  "I heard a scream," he repeated, his voice the same as before. “...I was nearby. I thought I should look. I wouldn't usually look. I am new here. Too new."

  I felt my fists clench tighter in front of me.

  New? What did he mean, new? Was this guy a tourist?

  That would explain a lot, although I couldn’t hear any kind of accent in his words, despite his strange manner of speaking. I watched as he glanced behind himself again, almost as if he expected someone to be chasing him, too. When he looked back at me, though, his expression held only that oddly blank puzzlement.