Taking the steps up onto the altar, Smoke brought her to a stop. He took both of her hands in his and faced her. It was just them and rows of empty pews. He looked deep into her eyes. “You know, we might not make it until tomorrow.”
She swallowed the lump in her throat. “Well, then if you want to marry me, we better.”
With the side of his mouth turned up in a smile, he bent down and kissed her.
She felt her body melt in his strong arms. It was a great kiss. Soft. Sweet. Everlasting. One to live for. One worth dying for.
“Ahem,” a voice interrupted.
They broke it off. It was Sam. “Sorry, but they’re pretty eager downstairs.”
Gathering her breath, Sid rubbed the palms of her hands on her jeans, glanced at Smoke, then to Sam. “Okay.”
Behind the curtains they went, and down an old set of well-built stairs crafted from a fine dark oak. The area beneath the church was a lot of stone archways and alcoves, a little damp and musty.
Sam ducked into one of them, and they followed.
Inside was a large chamber filled with wine racks and whiskey barrels—hiding a modern lab that had been set up inside. Large computer monitors, a network server, conference table, and chairs. A coffee pot was brewing.
“Hey, Sid,” Guppy said. He sat reading a magazine at the conference table, which was piled with papers. “Nice place, huh?”
Mal Carlson was behind the monitors, pecking away. “Actually, it used to be an old speakeasy. Can you believe that? Right below a church, of all things. But it’s been a safe house for well over a century. Almost two.”
“And it stinks,” Asia said. She was propped up on an old loveseat that looked like it came out of a fraternity house. She faced a television and held a steaming mug of joe in her lap. “TV reception is crap.”
“So what’s the hurry?” Sidney said, making her way to the table and pulling up a chair behind Mal. A familiar scene was on the screens. It was live images of the battle with the giants in the garage. “Hey, how did you get that?”
“I’ve got cameras in the Hellcat,” Mal said, taking a sip of coffee. “Among other things.”
“So when I was down there fighting for my life, you sat watching?” she asked.
“We were close,” he said. His eyes drifted to Smoke. “At least he was. You’re all right, aren’t you?”
She moved her sling and elbow. She’d dislocated it before, but it still felt like hell to move. “My wing’s busted, but I can still shoot if I have to.”
“Asia!” Mal called out.
“What!” the Chinese woman yelled, still glued to her TV.
“Fix up Sid’s shoulder, will you?”
The little woman huffed, got up, and shuffled over. She eased around the table. “Which shoulder?”
“Uh, the one with the sling on it.”
Asia yanked it off.
“Ow!”
“Shut up and be still. Take your shirt off.”
“What? No!”
“Don’t be so modest. You have nice body. You can leave your brassiere on.”
Sam and Guppy started chuckling.
“Look, I think I’ll be fine.”
A pair of scissors appeared in Asia’s hands and she began cutting Sid’s top off.
“Hey!”
Asia tossed the shirt aside. No one was looking at Sid except Sam, who walked over and handed Asia a tube filled with long needles. “You’ll love this, Sid.” She cleared the papers off the table and rolled out a sleeping bag on it. “Here, lie down and just relax. But don’t look. That makes it kinda weird.” She produced a small dowel rod. “Oh, and bite down on this. You might not need it, but every little bit helps.”
Sidney lay down on the sleeping bag. The smell of something calming filled her nostrils.
Asia’s warm hands began massaging her shoulders.
She’s got strong hands for such a little woman.
“Relax,” Asia said, but her voice was far from soothing. “You are too tight. Stiff like old woman.” She continued to rub. Her fingers dug deep into Sidney’s skin and bore into the muscle.
Sid’s forehead burst out in sweat. Something in her shoulder popped and cracked. She bit into the dowel rod hard. “Ugh!”
“Be still,” Asia ordered.
Sid saw a long sliver of silver from the corner of her eye. Something sharp pinched her skin. It pierced deeper and deeper. It burned like fire.
“This is the cool part,” Sam said, “but maybe you should close your eyes.”
“Why?” Sid mumbled with the dowel in her mouth.
Sam’s eyes were glued to Sidney’s bad shoulder.
Sid glanced at it. The skin began to poke out. Her head broke out in a cold sweat just as the long needle poked clean through the skin. Sid’s first instinct was to jump away. Her courage held. It was rewarded. The throbbing pain in her shoulder was replaced with pure euphoria. The dowel rod dropped from her mouth. “Morning Glory! How did you do that?”
“Ancient Chinese secret,” Asia said. “Just stay still. I’m not finished yet.” She poked more needles into Sid’s back.
Sid didn’t feel a one of them. She said, “Again, what’s the rush?”
“Well,” Mal stated, “We’ve come to a conclusion about this fine mess we’re in.”
“And that is?”
Mal rubbed his temples, shook his head. “We need to close in on them before they close in on us. If we don’t pull this off now, Sid, I’m afraid it’s all over.”
CHAPTER 32
“Over?” Sid glanced at Smoke, whose dark eyes were fixed on Mal. “I don’t follow.”
“We’ve got a pretty big mess on our hands. They want Smoke gone. They want the Black Slate team defunded, and they’re getting pretty close to pulling it off. The main concern is Smoke’s safety, and they’ve gone to an awful lot of trouble to get him out of the picture.” Mal sighed. “An awful lot.”
“What did you do to piss them off so bad?” Sid said to Smoke.
Smoke shrugged.
“It’s not what he did; it’s what he didn’t do,” Mal said. “Well, that’s not entirely true. Smoke’s been throwing wrenches into their missions right and left. It really gets them bent out of shape. Of course you know that. But in this case, they made him an offer and he refused. Actually, they’ve made him several offers.”
“Like they did me?” Sid said. She turned to face Smoke. “And why are they so interested in you anyway? You aren’t a shifter, are you?”
Taken aback, Smoke said, “Me? No.”
Sid’s eyes narrowed on him. There were plenty of things Smoke did that were hard to understand. Being a shifter would explain a lot of them.
“You say they made you an offer?” Mal asked Sid.
“Wilhelm did. He said they needed a replacement for Deanne Drukker.” She squirmed a little. Asia was still over her, doing some insane method of acupuncture. There was a little biting here and there, but the sensation still felt good. “Basically he says they’ll keep asking until I say yes.”
Mal pulled more video up on the screen. It wasn’t the best picture, and the angle was bad. “I can’t read lips as well as I used to, but it seems what you said was truth. I need to get that microphone on the Hellcat fixed. It should have been working. Then we would have had Wilhelm talking.”
It was a little bit surreal watching herself having a conversation with Wilhelm and Reggie. She was transfixed. She felt violated. “Wait? Microphone? You can record me inside the car?”
Sam leaned over Sidney’s shoulder and said into her ear, “Just because we can doesn’t mean we are.”
“I only activate the surveillance systems when needed,” Mal said, “so you have your privacy most of the time.”
“Where is the Hellcat?” she asked.
“We got it back,” Guppy said. “It was a heck of a thing getting it flipped back over.”
“Yeah, play that giant thing again,” Sam said, twirling her finger, “the part wh
en they flip Sid over and spin her around like a carnival top.”
Mal pulled it up. The two giants’ strength was freakish. Everything about them was. The one that Sid could see didn’t even strain when he helped flip the car over.
Hanging by Sid’s shoulder, Sam said, “Those guys are awesome. And really gruesome.”
Sid eyed her.
“But evil, of course.”
“I’m sure an exploding bullet will take care of them,” Sid replied.
“Maybe. Maybe not,” Mal said. He zoomed the screen in on another image of the giants. “Based off our analysis, the bigger these shifters are, the tougher their bones and skin. It might take more than an exploding bullet to upend them. But those giants aren’t the mission; Reggie the Doppelganger is. We need him to turn himself in, for Smoke’s benefit.” He removed a jump drive. “So the goal is to blackmail them. After all, we have Wilhelm on video, alive and well. With giants. It might be enough to call this manhunt off Smoke. Call it an ace in the hole.”
“And if we deliver it to them and they don’t bite?”
“Then you and Smoke will have to bring Reggie in yourselves.” He handed Smoke the jump drive. “Like I said, the walls are closing in. This needs to be done, now.”
Sidney winced. Asia was taking the needles out of her shoulder one by one. “So, who are we supposed to take this to?”
“We were able to track that limousine. There’s an estate several miles out of town. It parked there. It’s all loaded in the Hellcat’s GPS now.” Mal turned and faced her. “Since they’re recruiting you, I think you should deliver the package. We’ll stay close by in case things get too scary.”
“Can’t we just call them out and meet them on neutral ground?” Smoke said.
“I don’t think they’ll hurt Sid.” Mal looked up at her. “Do you?”
“No, I don’t guess.”
“Look, we can’t talk all day. At first I wanted to hit them hard and heavy. Rattle things. But I think this tactic is better. It will at least get them off our backs for a while. Give us some time to figure out who Kane Lancaster is.”
“Don’t they have a bounty on me and Smoke?” Sid said. “Do you think this is enough to settle them down?”
“I think you can convince them of that,” Mal said, “but just in case there’s going to be a fight on your hands, you might want to take a super vitamin and suit up before you go.” He handed them each a sweetheart suit.
Sid made her way into the next alcove and put hers on.
“Shoulder feel better now?” Asia asked her, suddenly right there.
Sid rolled her shoulder. “I can’t remember the last time it felt this good.”
“Good, then don’t screw it up again.”
Sam was there too, holding out a long-sleeved T-shirt.
Sid put it on and smiled gratefully at Sam.
“Um, you guys?” Guppy interjected. “You might want to take a look at the breaking news on the television channels.”
“What? Why?” Sam said, making her way to Guppy’s side. “Oh crap. It’s a conference at the hospital. It’s Wilhelm.”
Sid ran over to the television.
Guppy turned up the volume.
Wilhelm was speaking to a host of reporters from a hospital bed. “I pulled through. Thank the Almighty, I pulled through.” He shifted in his bed and grimaced. “But I think it was the good news that woke me up. A little bird whispered in my ear telling me that they caught my so-called assassin. Well, looks like I fooled him, didn’t I?”
The captivated reporters chuckled.
Wilhelm started coughing. “Anyway, I want to thank the fine men and women of so many law enforcement agencies that came together to bring this man to justice, though I am sad that he won’t see a day in court. Death seems like an easy way out to a menace like him.”
Sid stood staring at the screen with her mouth half open. She wasn’t the only one either. “They’re covering the entire hoax up. I can’t believe it.”
CHAPTER 33
Wilhelm dropped a name: Reginald Baker. There were pictures too. A dead man on the streets who looked a little like Smoke, but his face was bloated.
“I don’t suppose that video is going to do us a lot of good now,” Sid said to Mal, “but does this mean Smoke’s off the hook?”
Mal rubbed his chin. “I’ve still got a bad feeling that the walls are closing in.” He started pulling up images from the cameras on the streets around the church they were in. It was pouring rain so hard you couldn’t make out anything. “You know, it wasn’t supposed to rain today.”
Sid hadn’t been paying attention, but of course strange weather patterns often happened when you lived near the coast. She pointed at one of the smaller camera views on the screen. A tight knot of men were rushing up the church steps through the pouring rain.
“We’ve been breached.” Mal pecked away on the keyboard. “We need to get out of here.”
“Too late,” Smoke said. He started loading clips of ammo into guns. “Did you say you had some more of those vitamins?”
“Yeah, why?” Mal said.
Smoke pointed at the screen. Two monstrous men strode up the outside stairs, great arms swinging five steps at a time. “That’s why.”
Mal took an Rx bottle out of his pocket, filled with bright green pills. “Take these. There’s still some issues with the time release.” He tossed one to Sid. “Better something than nothing.”
Heart racing, she said, “Bottoms up,” and swallowed down the pill.
Mal, Sam, Guppy, and Asia scurried to gather whatever equipment they could get their hands on.
“We’ll hold them off,” Smoke said, slapping a clip into his gun. “You guys just get out and get out now.”
The four of them fled out of the alcove and down the corridor. Smoke and Sid faced the opposite way out to the upstairs. “Maybe this church is sacred ground to them. You know, like in Highlander.” He eased forward. “What do you think?”
“I don’t think anything is sacred to them,” she replied. She loaded a clip of blue-tipped armor-piercing bullets. “I just want to shoot them.”
Things were quiet, dead quiet, for just a few seconds. And then a rush of fleet feet clamored down the steps. Half a dozen men, maybe deaders, appeared—decked out from head to toe in tactical gear.
Sid and Smoke fired.
One of the deaders tossed a grenade. It seemed to float in the air.
Sid heard Smoke yell, “Stun grenade!” He shoved her into the alcove. The grenade hit the floor.
Boooomph!
Sid’s entire body shook with ram-like force. The tight confines of the basement made the stun grenade’s impact ten times worse. She saw bright spots. Felt the floor moving. Every nerve in her body was a jangled mess. As she fought her way to her knees, the floor spun. She started to puke.
Smoke was on his feet. He staggered between Sid and the oncoming deaders, holding only a knife in his hand.
That’s when it happened.
A deader emerged from the shadows behind Smoke, slack-jawed and ugly. It swung a crude piece of steel like a club and landed a blow in the meat of Smoke’s shoulder.
The knife fell from Smoke’s fingers.
The deader cocked back to swing again.
No!
Sid lifted her hand and squeezed the trigger.
The gun didn’t fire. The Glock wasn’t there.
She spread her fingers wide and stretched them out for the gun that lay inches from her grasp. It might as well have been ten yards. She couldn’t get it in time.
There was a heavy thud as Smoke got whacked again.
Another deader emerged in full tactical gear. Wielding its club like a cleaver, it closed in on Sid and chopped at her.
Summoning all she had, Sid rolled. Her fingers wrapped around her gun and she opened fire.
Blam! Blam!
The bullets ripped through the deader’s face. Its club still came down on her hip.
Whac
k!
Shrugging off the blow, Sid kicked out its leg, climbed on top of it, and blasted into its chest with a scream.
“Aaaaeeeeeeh!”
Blam!
The deader died.
Game over.
“Smoke,” she said, looking around. “Smoke?”
The rangy man was gone. Only a trail of blood remained that disappeared around the bend of the alcove. Forcing herself to her feet, Sid stumbled headlong into the corridor. It was packed with deaders.
They swarmed her.
She unloaded her clip.
Blam! Blam! Blam!
Some stumbled, others fell. The rest covered her like bears on honey.
She fought and kicked with all her might.
But they dragged her battered body across the floor like a soaked mop, bouncing her head off the tiles.
She couldn’t see anything. All she could do was smell the wretched stench of the decaying bodies.
They propped her up against a wall and backed away.
Smoke was there, holding his head. Blood seeped through his fingers. He said something to her about a helmet, or forgetting it.
She still could barely hear. The sweetheart suit had absorbed a good bit of the stun grenade’s impact, but she thought it might be a long time before her senses returned to normal. Panting, she surveyed her surroundings.
“Oh no.”
Mal, Sam, Asia, and Guppy were bound up and held at gunpoint.
There were at least twenty deaders in the basement room. It was some old auditorium of some sort, maybe a municipal room. The deaders weren’t the only ones in there either. There was a man, the mirror image of Smoke. And behind him, heads just inches below some colorful banners, were the giants, Thorgrim and Rexor. One held a huge hammer, the other an axe with four blades.
Reginald the doppelganger applauded. “The bounty on your heads is still good. I think it’s time I cashed in on it. Oh, and I don’t need the money. I just like drama.”
CHAPTER 34
Everyone had a gun on them. Sid. Smoke. Their friends’ hands were bound up behind their backs. Their mouths were gagged. Sam’s eyes were wide with fear. Mal’s face was a mask of concentration. Guppy’s eyes were hard and cold. Asia looked agitated. But the group’s intent was clear. They wanted Smoke and Sid to get them out of there.
The Supernatural Bounty Hunter Files: Special Edition Fantasy Bundle, Books 1 thru 5 (Smoke Special Edition) Page 65
