The Huntress (2 page)

Then the fighting began in earnest. About eight of the twenty or so patrons had converged on her location. She was quite busy for the next few minutes, breaking a face here, cracking a few ribs there, and generally spreading pain and destruction evenly about her. When they threatened her with weapons, she removed them, not using any of her own. She was careful to keep her blows nonfatal. Warren would have a fit if she killed anyone—he was already grumbling in her ear.

A fierce grin still pulled at her mouth when it was over. Reveling in the controlled violence thrumming through her muscles, she stretched and chuckled, “God, I love my job.” Stepping over a prone form, she pulled her hair back and clipped it as she bore down on her target.

“Any casualties?” Warren sounded disapproving.

“Not yet,” she answered and heard him snort. A motion caught her attention and she tensed. “Hold on.”

A man rose from a pile of bodies, a knife in each hand. He threw one, going for a chest shot. Quick as a cat, she twisted out of the way, catching the blade and flinging it back at him in one smooth motion. It hit him in the throat, but didn’t penetrate all the way. The second knife clattered to the floor harmlessly as he staggered toward her, hands held up to his gushing throat. She buried the knife with a kick to the hilt, and he dropped to the floor to finish dying.

She frowned down at the cut on her hand from the blade. “Sloppy.”

“What happened?”

“One casualty.” Mea ignored his muffled swearing, shaking the blood off her hand and approaching her target. The bar was quiet except for a few groans and the agonal gurgles of her kill. Terrik and the girl were silent in the shadows.

Her target had fallen on his face, and she flipped him over with a ruthless boot.

“What the hell did you do to me, you bitch!” His speech was slurred and slobber slicked his chin.

She sank to a crouch over his chest, resting arms on knees and gazing down at him with a gentle smile. “You’re paralyzed. You can’t move, but you will feel everything I do to you.” She paused to let that sink in, watching his eyes widen and his mouth quiver. “But I don’t really have time for torture, so I’ll make you a deal.”

“What d’you want? I’ll give you anything! Anything!”

Mea rocked forward on the balls of her feet to loom over him and stopped smiling. “Give me your boss.”

Understanding and fear warred on his face. “No. No, I can’t! He’ll kill me!”

She leaned back with a sigh. “Well, that’s unfortunate. This means I’ll have to track him down, which gives him a window to bolt. Puts me on a bit of a time crunch, so…” She rose as if to leave then paused. “Oh, by the way—” She sank back into a crouch, lifting her bloody hand and drawing a slow red line down his forehead to the end of his nose while she spoke. “The stuff I gave you wears off in about four days. Can you imagine what will happen to you here in four days? What they will do to you, what they will make you do…” She shuddered delicately. “It doesn’t bear thinking about.”

He started to blubber.

“Oh, now. Don’t fuss. You might actually live through it.”

He began pleading incoherently.

Mea pulled a tiny vial from her belt and waved it in front of his tearful eyes. “On the other hand, I do have an antidote. You should recover in a couple of minutes.” She leaned forward again, gripping his face tightly with her bloody hand. “If you give me your boss.”

He gave up the man’s location, though she had to make him repeat it three times to understand it through his tears and slurred speech. She gave him the antidote but spared him no sympathy, leaving him sprawled on the grimy floor as she headed for the door. She studiously ignored the two forms in the shadows, promising herself that she would get back to them very soon. The girl’s trust made it clear that Terrik hadn’t hurt her yet, and Mea had just made selling the child difficult for him—he’d have a hard time finding a buyer now that a number of the criminal element knew she was stalking the moonbase. That news would spread like wildfire, which meant she had a small window in which to find her quarry and take him down. There would be time afterward to deal with Terrik and the child.

“Warren, immediate extraction.”

“I'm already there.”

Mea was gratified to hear the hum of the transport when she stepped outside.

*******

Terrik could feel the kid trembling against his arm, but he wasn’t sure if it was fear or excitement. Half the time she reacted the exact opposite of what he expected. He didn’t know if prison had messed him up that bad or if Regan was just plain strange. Then again, he’d never met anyone like that woman either. There must have been a whole lot of changes since he’d been in the world. He’d stayed in the bar out of fascination and sheer, morbid curiosity, but when her playful sensuality changed to deadly grace in a violent heartbeat, he became exquisitely aware that he wasn’t the only dangerous animal on this rock. That only doubled his curiosity—and his fascination.

He watched her walk out, still holding the girl back in the safety of the shadows. He had to admit that leading Regan here wasn’t one of his brightest ideas. He’d hoped to scare her into not following him anymore while he was out searching for a way off this rock, but the events of the last few rabid minutes proved that strategy too dangerous.

Scanning the bar until he was satisfied that there was no hidden danger, he eased out of the shadows and strode over to the man on the ground. The kid followed him, as usual.

The man rolled wet eyes and watched Terrik crouch down next to him, spit gathering at the corners of his quivering lips. “Please. Please don’t hurt me.”

Terrik eyed the bloody line down his forehead with reluctant interest. “Who is she?”

“I-I got credit. I can get you anything you want—”

“I want to know who she is.”

When Terrik did nothing but stare down at him, the man seemed to gain a little courage. “She’s the goddamned Huntress!”

“Huntress?”

“Yeah. Feck and fire, man, you never heard of the Huntress? Where you been?”

“Prison.”

“Oh.” The man gave a weak, uncertain laugh but gave it up in the face of Terrik’s stoic silence. Clearing his throat, he explained, “She’s part of the Hunting Corp, best one they got. They’re bounty hunters with a license to kill—the Coalition’s top enforcers. They get a list of people to bring in, and they go out and hunt ‘em down.”

Not real good news. With a thoughtful grunt, Terrik rose and moved toward the exit.

“Hey! How ‘bout some help here? Could ya drag me to a corner at least…?”

Terrik ignored him.

Regan scurried to stay by his side and looked up at him with solemn dark eyes. “She wasn’t afraid of you.”

Terrik ignored her, too.

Chapter 2

Mea gnawed meditatively on a dried protein stick, watching the child. The girl was sitting on the steps outside of a maze of living quarters, slumped over bent knees and deep in thought. So deep, she probably wouldn’t notice if anyone crept up on her. No sense of self-preservation. But Mea wasn’t the only one watching over her.

“Odd time for a snack,” Warren muttered in her ear.

Dusting off her fingers and sucking the meaty flavor out of the last bite, she ignored him in favor of the enigma across the street.

After nabbing her other quarry in record time, she’d followed Terrik’s genetic trace from the bar. She’d meant to finish off this night by hunting down the escapee, but now she was feeling a certain disturbing reluctance. Mea had known that the child was attached to Terrik from her expression in the bar when she’d called him
father.
He had protected the girl in the bar, and now he was in the doorway to one of those quarters watching over her. There was a bond here that she hadn’t expected from a murderer who had done extremely hard time in the worst holes with the worst kind of people. Curiosity restrained her.

That and he knew she was there. She had done some research on Terrik and understood the goggles now. In his last prison, Malthat, they’d had a hard-line view of their wards. They had no cells, no separation, and no light. They all resided in a vast, lightless cavern and were left to do with each other what they willed. It was the system’s cheap way of executing the worst of the worst. Terrik had been in that hole so long that his eyes were extremely sensitive to light. Even moderate light would be painful, but this also meant his night vision was that much more acute.

So he would see Mea standing in the shadow of the building across the street from them. He wasn’t visible to her, but the genetic tracer outlined his position in deep darkness. He hadn’t moved since she’d appeared.

With a sigh, Mea straightened. She would approach the child and get their story. If he attacked her and forced her to take him as a target, than so be it. She would leave it in his hands.

“Warren, I’m going offline.”

“Do you think that’s such a good idea?”

“Probably not,” she murmured then shut off the transceiver before he could protest.

Moving from shadow to the dimly lit street, Mea strode toward the child without stealth, deliberately taking her time. The girl didn’t see her until she was almost upon her, but then she responded as though shot. Scrambling to her feet, she stepped back and almost fell on the stairs.

Mea halted abruptly. “Gently! Be careful. I didn’t mean to frighten you.” Her mild tone didn’t seem to soothe the girl. Judging by the fear on her face, Mea guessed that they’d discovered her identity. She didn’t know the girl’s status, but as a fugitive, Terrik wouldn’t be happy to learn that she was a hunter. So why weren’t they gone yet? Her curiosity tripled. “Why are you outside by yourself?”

“I was—I was just getting some air.”

Mea raised an eyebrow. The living quarters had better filters than the dingy dome enclosing the moonbase. The air was fresher inside.

The girl shifted in place, eyes flickering away. “How did you find us?”

“Luck. I was in the neighborhood.” While speaking, Mea took a slow step forward. The girl didn’t run. “It’s dangerous out here, child. Especially for you.”

The girl sank into a crouch on the stairs, looking as defeated as before. “I know. I just—I just wanted to think is all.”

Another step and Mea had reached the stairs, several feet from the child. Still no motion from the shadows. “About what?”

She shrugged and then studied Mea. Something lit her eyes and quirked her lips, making her look older than her years. “You got a nice voice.”

Mea smiled and sank down on the steps next to her, leaving a comfortable space between them. “Thanks. You shouldn’t have been there to see that, though.” She got another shrug. “Singing was what I was going to do before I became a hunter.” May as well get her profession out in the open.

The girl looked down and plucked at her pants, a faint frown creasing her brow, but her voice was calm. “How come you didn’t?”

For some reason, instead of a glib answer, the very private truth of her past slipped out when she opened her mouth. “My parents were killed by very bad men in a very bad way, right in front of me when I was about your age.” Those big eyes turned up to her, a deep darkness within them, and Mea felt her chest tighten with an unfamiliar empathy. “I wanted to pay them back.”

“Did you?”

“A hunter did. The same one who found me after my parents were killed.”

It had been a long time since she’d even thought about her past let alone spoke of it. Strange, that it didn’t cause as much pain as she’d expected. She watched the child hug her knees. “Where are your parents, honey?”

A quick look from the girl reminded her that Terrik was supposed to be her father. “Well, my mother died when I was two and my sister Kate raised me.” She looked down at her knees and her knuckles went white. “But Katie died on the ship.”

And here it is.
Mea could tell by the tension in those narrow shoulders and the roughness of her voice that the story was at hand. Her hunting instincts tingled. “What ship?” she asked softly and refrained from glancing into the darkness behind her.

The girl was not so disciplined and looked into the shadows before shooting a quick, nervous glance at Mea. “Um…”

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

She tugged on her earlobe then shrugged. “Well, it’s not that I don’t want to. It’s just hard.”

Which was the truth, but not the whole truth. Mea tried to suppress a smile while she watched the girl sort through what she should divulge and what she shouldn’t, thoughts flowing in picture-book clarity across her young face.

“My name’s Reggie, by the way.”

“Mea Brin. Nice to meet you. Is that short for Regina?” She couldn’t stop her grin this time at the disgusted look she got from the girl.

“Short for Regan. How’d you know I wasn’t a boy?”

Using her own tactics against her, Mea just shrugged. “It won’t help you here, though. Boy or girl, you’re just as tasty to these freaks.”

Regan scowled down at her feet but said nothing to that. Mea waited. After a quiet moment, her patience paid off.

“We were on a transport ship going to New Amber. My sister is—was a Zenobiologist. She was part of the terraforming team.” Her voice was rough again and Mea could see tears on her long lashes. “Some guy—I don’t know what his problem was. Maybe space sickness. He started killing off everybody in their cryotubes. The ship woke up the crew, but by then most of the passengers were dead. And they couldn’t stop him. He had guns and he was just…” She paused with a shudder, eyes squeezing shut. “He changed course so we were headed into a star then killed the ship so it couldn’t stop. The crew tried to change course, but he started hunting us down. Kate and—and my father tried to give them time, tried to lead him away, chase him down, stop him. But they got cornered. Katie took the shot that would have killed my father. Then he killed the guy. We got away in an escape pod, but we saw the ship go into the sun.”

The bleak tone and the tears streaming down her face made Mea’s chest hurt and her breath hitch. She didn’t understand why the girl’s pain should cut at her so, but she couldn’t just leave it—she had to try and ease her suffering. Without thought, she touched a soothing hand to the girl’s back. “Honey, I’m so sorry—” and was yanked to her feet by a fist knotted in her hair, a knife pressing against her throat. The pain in her scalp negated any thrill she felt at not having sensed Terrik’s approach again.