Hot Contract (22 page)

Jen reached out. A trickle of blood ran from
under Kate’s coal-dark hair. “Aunt Ka—?”

Kate’s long silver gun jammed up under Jen’s
chin, tipping her head back. Jen closed her eyes. Fear strangled
her, a world of regrets. I’m sorry, Keegan.
So sorry.

“You’ve been quite the inconvenience,
Jenny-dear. Any last words?”

Jen opened her eyes, only to wish she hadn’t.
It was a long fall into that kind of madness.

She stuttered out the one question that had
bothered her for years. “Does D-dad know about the insanity in our
family?”

“It doesn’t breed true,” said her aunt. She
brushed at a smear of blood on her knuckles and a tiny line formed
between her brows as she thought. For a second, Jen got a glimpse
of the woman she had known all her life, but the second passed, and
Kate slid to another subject, horribly similar to the first.

“He did kill her, you know. With a meat
mallet, or was it a hammer? I can’t remember, it was so long ago.
Lance told me. Stupid, I told him. The boy escaped. Tris is rotten
get. I told him, he should have killed the boy first. The woman
wouldn’t have been able to leave with the boy gone. It scared him,
you know. Rainey leaving. He wanted to keep her forever. She was
going to leave us. No one leaves us.”

Jen swallowed. “I like Tris.”

Kate nodded thoughtfully. “You would.”

The gun clicked.

Jen rolled her head, surprised to find it
still attached to her body. “Omigod, the fall damaged your
gun.”

“Be dead already!” shrieked Kate.

Jen pushed to her feet. “It isn’t so easy
when I’m not taped up, is it?”

“You care for that young man, don’t you?”
Kate followed her up. “You and that blonde girl have caused me no
end of trouble. I’m sure killing your men will hurt more than your
own deaths.”

For the first time, Jen was grateful for her
emotional training. She pulled on it, smoothing her nerves down
into an air-tight box. “Aunt Kate?”

“Guinevere?”

The façade of normality startled her. She
wasn’t the only one with training.

“Kill me and leave Keegan alone,” she
blurted.

Moonlight striped Kate with long black
shadows. For a second Jen thought she’d gotten through, but
something in Kate’s eyes changed, a quick sideways shift.

“Sorry, but that won’t do anymore.” Kate
fluffed her hair and started away, working the slide on her
gun.

****

Keegan pulled his sister down into the
shelter of the overturned altar. “Fallon?”

A fusillade of bullets pinged off the stone
slabs, chips flying like shrapnel. Fallon slapped at his arm and
swore. “What?”

“It needs to end here,” said Keegan. “How
fast can you reload?”

Silence. “Fifteen seconds.”

Keegan pointed to Kimo's position. “White
phosphorus—is he in range?”

“No.”

“Corlis, lay down cover.”

“On a ten-count!” she shouted. “One—”

Fallon sprinted into place, brought the
grenade launcher up to his shoulder and took careful aim. Columns
of flame shot up, turning the bleak Volcano night into a roaring
inferno. “Fall back!” he yelled.

Corlis ran to him, dropped to one knee and
swung around, gun punching out bullets meant to keep him safe.
“C’mon, Keegan! Get a move on.”

Someone flung a chunk of C-4 over the wall
where it hit the altar and stuck like a wad of wet toilet paper.
Keegan froze, heart choking the air out of his lungs. It was only a
matter of time before someone remembered the fuses.

They had to get Jen out. He turned…and went
ballistic.

“—Keegan!”

“She’s missing, Liss!”

Corlis grabbed his collar and hauled him down
off his feet so hard his teeth clicked. “Is she still on the
platform? Goddamn it, calm down!”

“Jesus—I don’t fucking know! I told her not
to move.”

Lack of cover meant no one could get close,
but it also meant DalCon couldn’t leave. If Jen had left of her own
free will, she’d left before the firefight had turned into a
conflagration. Corlis pulled a corner of her shirt up over her
nose, breathing in through the fabric.

“Fallon? Hear that?”

“Yeah,” growled her partner.

The distant thwap! of choppers grew louder.
Big, black helicopters came over the horizon, blades churning the
night into a madhouse of panicked shouts. They formed into a neat
line and landed, one by one.

****

“Guinevere?” Someone lifted Jen straight up
and off of Kate, her arms and legs dangling like a spider.

She thrashed wildly, fists swinging. There
was hair was in her eyes, snarled like her emotions. “Let me go!
She’s going to kill him!”

Percy dropped her onto her feet, and pulled
her into his arms. “Stand still. She’s not going anywhere, she’s
not even moving. Can’t you see I’m trying to hug you? What did you
do to her?”

“I don’t know. I tackled her, and then…I
don’t know.”

The Aina were in retreat and StallingCo
Security spread out. Josh ran past, shouting directives into a
headset. Someone lifted Kate and carried her away as a flash of
green polo shirts separated Jen from the aunt she’d somehow
wrestled into...what? Death?

Jen burst into hiccups and sniffled, fists
knotted in her brother’s shirt. “Oh, God...P-Percy...”

His arms tightened. “That was too close,” he
whispered. “I lost Mom. I won’t lose you, too.”

“It’s not fear,” said Jen, desperate for him
to understand. “I normally don’t…don't cry. It’s relief—”

“I know about relief,” said her brother.

She wiped her nose on the back of her arm.
“How did you get here?”

He turned her in the direction of the parking
lot. A tight formation of black Sikorsky Pave Hawks, with the
stylized slash of StallingCo Security picked out on the tail,
filled the narrow access road, one after the other. Searchlights
threw the temple into harsh relief and slanted over Deacon’s
crumpled form, all alone in the smoke-filled courtyard.

“You didn’t hear us land?”

“I hear that one,” she yelled, over the
whup-whup of a smaller, British-built Lynx.

The sleek military helicopter hovered three
feet above the parking lot, kicking up a swirl of dust. The hatch
slid back and a large black duffle dropped down to the gravel.

Tris dropped after it and waited a bare
second for Rafe to fall into place beside him before waving the
chopper off and grabbing his bag. Despite Tris being part of the
Security Triumvirate, Percy’s men hesitated to approach him. Tris
had the cold, flat eyes of a killer.

He stalked into the courtyard with two
headsets and flung one to Percy. “Toggle off,” he said. “You’re
live.”

Tris’s resemblance to the rest of the family
was more a matter of coloring than facial characteristics. He had
the same black hair and dark eyes, but his hair was long and hung
to his shoulders and his eyes were black, flecked with brown.
Dressed all in black, he wore heavy combat boots, ripped jeans and
a long sleeved black t-shirt pushed up to his elbows. A Heckler and
Koch G3 assault rifle hung at his side in a swivel sling.

“Tris!” Jen ran into his unwilling embrace
and hugged him tight. It was like hugging a statue, hard and
utterly cold.

His assault rifle bumped up between them.

“My G3 is set for light pressure,” he said in
a low growl, his voice tinged by just the faintest trace of a
foreign accent.

“I’m happy to see you too,” said Jen. She
kissed his cheek and he un-bent just enough to let a faint smile
touch his thin lips.

Kate lurched past them, her words denigrating
into a garble of spittle-clotted shrieks.

Tris stepped back and eyed their aunt with
undisguised contempt. “Good evening, Aunt Katherine.”

Kate struggled against her guards, arms
waving. “Unclean! Don’t talk—make him stop!”

Percy sighed and rubbed a hand over his face.
“All right,” he said, almost to himself. “Tris?”

Tris went to the nearest Pave Hawk and
brought back a straitjacket. “Gag, too?”

“No,” said Percy. “Leave her some dignity.
She
is
our aunt.”

“...with a meat mallet, until she was dead!”
screamed Kate.

"Gag her," said Percy. He pulled Jen aside,
searching her face.

For what, Jen wondered. Her sanity, maybe? “I
should have called,” she said. “Gone into hiding like you
wanted—”

“No,” said her brother. “You did what you had
to do, and I can respect that. Aunt Kate was a total wildcard. If
those DalCon operatives hadn’t called, I’d have never known. Of all
people...Aunt Kate. Makena must have been going insane. I wish he’d
talked to me. I thought it was—” A whisper of sound came from his
headset. He turned. “You copy that, Tris?”

Tris tapped his ear. “Yeah.”

A shot rang out, sharp and clear over the
deafening noise. Jen stretched up on her toes. She couldn’t see
what was happening on the platform.

Percy followed her look. “We got most of
them.”

She tried to pull her fears back into her.
Not to mention her heart, up there on that platform with Keegan.
“Kimo laughed when I said you’d find him.”

Percy tipped his head back, a cruel light in
his Stalling-black eyes. “There is no hole deep enough. He can run,
but I’ll find him and when I do—”

“Keegan?”

Her brother saw right through her. But then,
he always had. “The bodyguard, Guinevere?” His mouth flattened.
“They’re coming down now.” He shot some directives into his
headset.

Jen jiggled from foot to foot. Keegan had to
be safe.

Percy toggled through the settings on his
headset and half-turned away, speaking into the mouthpiece.
“Guinevere? I know you’re my sister, but you’re distracting as all
hell. Please don’t bounce. And where the hell is your bra? Josh?
Now. My sister. Clothes in the chopper.”

Josh hurried toward them, a bag tucked under
his arm. “Ms. Stalling? If you’ll come this way? I’ll make sure you
aren’t disturbed.”

“Keegan!” she demanded.

“Guinevere!” Percy shot her an irritated
look. “I’m carrying over thirty highly trained operatives, and the
last thing I want in my reports is the fact that you aren’t wearing
any underwear!” He glanced at the group coming down off the heiau.
“I won’t kill him for messing with my little sister, and I won’t
delegate it. He’s safe for now, so please? You’re making me
dizzy.”

****

Keegan stumbled off the steps and found
himself staring down the wrong end of an assault rifle held by a
hard-faced man in corporate khakis.

“Mr. Dalfrey?”

At Keegan’s nod, the barrel fell, although in
his opinion—not far enough.

The man turned. “Follow me.”

The outer courtyard was full of noise and
choppers. It felt like Star Wars, but instead of armor, the
storm-troopers wore hunter green polo shirts.

Keegan recognized a face. “Caravaggio!”

Rafe changed direction, his black leather
trench flaring out behind him. “Twice in one week, trying for some
kind of record?”

“Have you seen Jen?”

“No,” said Rafe. “Not that I’d tell you if I
had. My boss is mad at me, I’m trying to keep my job, and you show
up with Makena’s mother in tow. Per Dio, most people avoid Tris.”
Rafe started away and half-turned, still walking, backwards now.
“It’s been an exciting couple of days. Don’t make it a habit.”

Keegan’s guard directed him to a group of
men. The one in the center looked enough like Kualani to be his
brother. He stared Keegan up and down, and lifted one elegant brow,
obviously not impressed.

“Where is she?” demanded Keegan.

Percival Stalling all but rolled his eyes and
sighed. “My sister is changing.”

He gestured the remainder of his team back
toward their transports and waited until they left before saying,
“You’ve slept with her.”

“Don’t jerk my chain, Stalling.”

“Then don’t mistake my meaning, Mr. Dalfrey.
Jen has free will, just like everyone else in this family. But, if
you want to hide your activities, please take into
consideration…there is a certain smell.” Jen lived in the shape of
his arrogant nose, but there was little of her in Stalling's cool,
saturnine expression. “What does she see in you, I wonder?”

“Why don’t you ask?”

“I don’t think I want to know.” The head of
StallingCo Security shook his head. “Why are you still here? You’ve
fulfilled your contract with us.”

A cluster of men wrestled with Jen’s crazy
aunt kicking and twitching in a long white jacket. Her arms were
tied behind her and there was a gag in her mouth, but she was still
audible, eyes bulging and red-rimmed.

“I hope there’s a lock wherever you’re taking
her,” Keegan said.

“Yes,” said Percy. “Whatever our faults, we
take care of our own. We’ll hold her until she gets better. Or
simply hold her. Her choice.”

Percy tipped his head to the side, his eyes
going distant as he listened to something coming over his headset.
“My father wants to talk to you,” he said. He toggled through the
channels. “Tris?”

Tris emerged from the tangle of men with a
chip on his shoulder so large it was a wonder he could walk. He had
to be a Stalling. The resemblance was too strong. Shoulder-length
black hair and a cropped black goatee made him look almost as
sinister as he probably was. His function was obvious. Keegan had
seen warmer eyes on a corpse.

Percy waved vaguely, already drawn away by
something coming over his headset. “Tris will set up the link, and
make sure you aren’t disturbed.”

Tris jerked his head. “This way.”

A cordon of men stood around the nearest
chopper, rigidly at attention, eyes moving—tracking everything.
Keegan started for it.

Tris blocked his way. “Art, first.”

“Jen’s in there.”

“Yeah,” said Tris. He had some kind of
strange accent that Keegan couldn’t place. “But the guy who signs
your paycheck is waiting to talk to you in there.” He pointed to a
plain black chopper with no markings. “Tell me your
priorities.”