Biker Chicks: An Anthology of Hot MC Romance (22 page)

She barreled into the man with the wrench, grabbing for the back of his hair at full speed, pulling him away from Roper and slamming his face into one of the temporary display walls. The noise drew the attention of the man with the lead pipe, who called for the others, and turned on her.

Luca back-pedaled away from a swing of the pipe, noticing the others approaching quickly, likewise with makeshift weapons. She barely ducked another swing from the pipe, and came back up in an uppercut, dropping the saboteur to the ground, setting the pipe rolling away from his hand.

With two toughs approaching her, and the man she’d originally dropped already recovering, Luca dove after the pipe, rolling back to her feet much better armed. The first man who came at her swung his makeshift weapon clumsily, and she smashed the pipe into his knuckles, forcing him to drop his weapon. The man who’d had the wrench lunged, but she saw the motion, turning and dropping him with a smash over the head.

After he dropped, the others thought better of fighting it out, helping the man she’d punched back to his feet before the three took off at a run. Luca made sure the unconscious man was well and truly out, then took off after them—just in time to hear shouts and the noise of horses from the direction of the stage. It was too far away to do much, and judging by the noise, there were people on horseback, likely to only get further away. Her own horse had been stabled before they took the train here. She didn’t even have her sword, much less a gun. Cursing for a moment, Luca’s eye set on the bike, then on the still-terrified inventor. “Guess you’ll get me to test this thing after all. Hope you’re right about it being a match for all those horses. How’s this thing work?”

A few instructions later, focusing on starting, turning, and going faster, the bike roared to life as she leaned down for speed, taking off toward the performance area. By the time she reached it, she noticed someone missing she’d expected to be front and center in the midst of chaos. Over the years, calming the crowd had effectively become one of Emily’s hobbies.

The crowd Emily was apparently not calming didn’t even try to talk over the sound of the large steam-bike as the mercenary looked at them. Various of them simply pointed. Moments after that, she was gunning the engine again and taking off after the kidnappers.

She caught sight of them soon after. While she couldn’t hear what he was saying over the roar of her engine, one of them at the lead of the small knot of horsemen was shouting something back at others. She also quickly noticed their hostage—Emily was secured to the back of a saddle, hands bound. The rest had loaded saddle bags full of who-knew-what from the show, while the apparent leader had their insurance policy. Luca didn’t count on any of it slowing them down much, and she knew she wouldn’t have the advantage of surprise for long with the noise from her engine. She quickly pushed the bike up to full speed, old cavalry reflexes kicking in as she made tight turns around the fountains and sculptures.

She was closing the ground quickly when the leader, looking back again to shout something else, either spotted her or heard the bike over his own shouts and the horses. He pointed her out, then turned, kicking his horse into a run, with the others following suit. They raced through the displays, crashing through anyone or anything fragile enough to just be knocked aside, and around everything else. Luca took the shortest route, cutting tight corners, and gaining bit by bit.

Closing in on the pair in the rear, she stood, one hand remaining on the handlebars, the other reaching for the lead pipe. The nearest man turned in the saddle as best he could, firing back toward her, but the awkward angle and jostling of the horse threw his aim off, and the bullets ricocheted to one side. She caught up, smashing the pipe down on his hand, forcing him to drop the gun. The next swing hit under his chin, and he slumped, then tumbled back off the horse. As soon as that horse veered off, she saw the other rear-guard rider leveling his gun at her. She slowed the bike, pulling back behind him as he fired. He continued trying to aim at her as she veered side to side. After a couple more missed shots, she throttled back up, catching up, standing up in the seat again, and smashing him over the back of the head as she caught up, then passed, leaving the unconscious man tumbling back off the horse behind her.

She counted five still ahead of her, all turning and heading for another exhibition section of the park instead of away and toward open ground, possibly having figured out their pursuer could cover the ground faster than they could. As she tore after them, shots rang out ahead of her. While one whined by her head and hit a statue of some giant lizard, another grazed her arm, almost causing her to lose control of the bike.

Ahead of her, the riders circled around and among other statues of—the word was dinosaurs, yes—and various stands bearing informational plaques. The obstacles made for a trickier course for her and cut her visibility, but it also blocked lines of fire.

She kept taking the shortest route, straight toward an even bigger dinosaur statue, ducking low as the bike rocketed between the giant’s legs. Another shot missed her but pelted her with plaster fragments. As she closed in, one of the men dropped his empty gun, going for a heavy wrench. She pulled alongside him to stay out of the other’s line of fire, the remaining trio getting further ahead while she engaged the pair that slowed to fight. She managed to get the pipe up in time to block a swing of the wrench, but numbness shot up her injured arm, almost causing her to drop the pipe.

She saw motion out of her peripheral vision, shifting to see the other rider dropping back behind them and leveling the gun. Out of options, she threw the pipe, only grazing him, but causing his horse to rear up and throw the rider.

Before she could get her guard up fully, the wrench came down again. While she blocked part of the swing, it still grazed her skull. She and the bike fell—and went skidding into a plaster reconstruction of an equally immense dinosaur’s skeleton, the casted bones collapsing on top of her.

After rolling to a painful stop, Luca’s eye opened, first registering a metallic plaque in front of her face, from a knocked over display: Iguanodon bernissartensis. Trying to shake off the crash and fall, she staggered to her feet, to see the man who’d been thrown off his horse coming after her at a staggering run. Grabbing for the nearest weapons, she managed an arm bone in one hand, and what seemed like a giant thumb in the other, with a hooked claw still attached. She blocked his initial attack with the former, and then slashed down, cutting into his chest with the claw, finding it made a wickedly effective, if unbalanced, weapon. He went down, clutching at the wound. A swing of the armbone to his head stilled him.

Luca checked the bike, sticking the arm bone through her belt. It took some doing, but she got it righted, and found it would still run. Throttling back up, she took off through the debris, catching up with the rear rank within minutes. The thug with the wrench saw her coming. He wasn’t able to turn fully to get a swing in before she dug the thumb-claw into his back, using the grip to pull back and jerk him out of the saddle before passing his horse.

The next horseman had turned to take a shot, but she gunned the engine and turned on him. The horse reared up as she charged it, throwing its rider. He rolled and came up, firing wildly. While a couple shots came close as she circled, none hit her, and he’d emptied the gun by the time she bore down on him, smashing him across the head with the blunt end of the plaster thumb.

Emily, bound as she was, could just barely manage to get a look back toward Luca. She’d known she would come after her, of course. And that was certainly an innovative means. Emily could hear a little of the bicycle’s steam engine, but that was drowned out by the wild gunfire. Suddenly, there was a painful clang on the copper surrounding her calf, and then a great deal of jarring and scream-whinnies. It took Emily a moment to realize that bullets had grazed both her bracer and the horse she was riding. The gunfire abruptly stopped as the horse slowed.

With no one likely to shoot after her, Luca turned her attention back to the final pair of riders, including the leader. They’d gained a significant lead on her, but for whatever reason, to her surprise, they’d stopped. They were pulling Emily down off the back of the horse, and heading for the giant water tower, abandoning their horses. By the time Luca started closing in, the leader was leading the way into the tower, with the last remaining thug forcing Emily along at gunpoint.

From the top of the tower, they couldn’t get anywhere, unless they had help coming, but with everyone else on foot, if they could stop Luca from chasing them, they might still be able to escape—and the tower provided a great view and limited ways up. She’d be a sitting duck if she tried to follow them up the stairs.

As it was, she was almost too much of a target anyway, as shots fired from a window. She shoved her makeshift weapon into her belt to free both hands. Pushing the bike to full speed again, she got out of immediate line of fire from the window, and headed for one side of the tower. She pulled herself to standing, and then went further, carefully shifting to get her feet onto the bike seat, in a crouch as she neared the tower. She’d done the trick of leaping from a moving horse many times, but this was a different thing, and faster. She managed to keep her balance, leaping off the bike and grabbing onto a maintenance lattice at the side of the tower, managing to avoid splattering herself, and holding on as the bike rolled.

Luca started climbing, taking advantage of stairs and ropes where she could, free-climbing the rest of the time, unsure how long she’d have before the men with guns figured out she wasn’t chasing them up the stairs. Her way was more exhausting, but also provided some cover, and, she hoped, might provide some surprise.

The lattice almost gave way a couple times, but she always found a new handhold, either on the array, or at windows of the building itself. She had to hope that taking the direct route would give her a chance to surprise the people having to go up the spiralling stairs inside, bringing an unwilling hostage with them. She gained some validation for the thought, and confirmation they were still heading for the top, instead of doubling back, when she saw them passing one of the windows just below her. She quickly pulled herself back out of sight from the window, caught her breath for a couple moments, and continued scaling the building.

Exhausted, she pulled herself up onto the roof, pulling herself over the fence and almost collapsing on the other side, staggering to the wall to catch her breath. The view was spectacular, no question, including a perfect view where men with guns would be able to hold off almost anything for a good while.

After the time on the motorcycle, her hearing wasn’t at its best, but she still managed to pick out the clatter of Emily’s braced legs on the steps, rounding the last flight. Taking a couple last, deep breaths to ready herself, Luca drew both bone weapons, and ran for the doorway that let out onto the roof.

While she did have an ambush ready, she hadn’t expected them to have Emily leading. She pulled up short in her swing, then had to dive out of the way when she saw the men behind her doll aiming their guns. Two shots rang out behind her as she rolled to the side.

When the trio exited the door onto the roof, the last of the thugs dragged Emily out of the way and into the open, near the fencing. His boss followed Luca. Rather than ‘predictably’ fleeing or trying to hide, she rounded the corner of the building as soon as he was close and came at him fast. By the time he’d leveled the gun, she was slashing the dinosaur thumb-claw at his arm, the hooked claw digging, the impact knocking his arm down so the shot ricocheted off of concrete.

He lost the gun, but as his arm pulled back, she lost a grip on the bone, leaving it tangled in his jacket. He peeled the jacket off as he stepped away from her, glancing toward the fallen gun. She pulled the arm bone from her belt and lunged. To her surprise, he sidestepped neatly, and snapped a fist to the side of her face. Another lunge with the awkward weapon, and he again shifted, managing a rapid kick to the side of her leg.

She’d seen plenty of people using savate before, even fought a few, but he was quicker than most. Trying to use sword techniques with the dinosaur bone proved tricky, but she did manage to fend off a couple blows, and kept him at reach, but she wasn’t able to connect with more than glancing blows.

“You should just give up now, or I’ll have my man shoot the hostage,” he tried, hitting her in the shoulder with a quick jab as he side-stepped another swing.

“Not if you brought her this far,” Luca countered, trying to figure out how to corner him, either by the wall or the fence. Every time she thought she had him pinned, she’d miss a swing, and he’d get into the relative open again. “Security will figure it out. You’d be stuck up here.”

The man cursed in French, managing to parry aside the bone, landing two quick body blows and a kick that nearly took her feet out from under her, before she managed to connect with an elbow to his sternum. Limping a little, and trying to catch her breath, Luca feinted with the arm bone a couple times, continuing to shift and move with the other fighter. He continued fencing with her, deflecting the light swings as both tried to find an opening.

Gritting her teeth and steeling herself against a counter-offense, she absorbed a couple more jabs, taking the punches in order to try and get in a good swing. While she did catch him slightly off balance, unable to side-step again, he parried the swing of the plaster bone, catching it, and twisting. He was caught off guard when she let herself be disarmed, swinging her off hand instead. She finally connected with a solid blow to the nose.

It was one blow against the several he’d landed, and Luca was wearing down, but it was also the cleanest shot, and the blow set his nose bleeding, and his eyes watering. Shifting from attempts at extremely-primitive swordfighting to a boxing stance, Luca stuck with rapid jabs and feints. With his eyes blurred, he was having trouble fending off the quick attacks, and kept reacting to her feints, opening up more quick blows to the head.