Warrior Page 2

  “Dammit, you can’t run a tab with Billy Dean. He’d kill you over a two-hundred-dollar debt as soon as spit.” If only to send a warning to all his other crack-addict customers.

  “Yeah, I know, it was stupid, but—I needed it bad.”

  “You always ‘need it bad.’ Why in the hell did he give you that much rock to begin with?”

  Bruised eyes flickered. “He didn’t exactly give it to me. I was over at his place last night. You know. Partying. He got real drunk. . . .”

  “And you smoked all his crack when he passed out.” Jessica swore in a long, ripe roll. “You’re lucky he didn’t kill you when he came to.”

  Ruby gave her a sickly smile. “I wasn’t exactly there when he came to.”

  “Shit.” Her stomach slid into an anxious tumble. Ruby was right. If her sister didn’t have the money by the time Billy Dean tracked her down, he really would beat her to death.

  Jessica stalked across the living room to her purse and dug for her billfold with paint-stained fingers. She pulled out the roll of tips she’d carefully hoarded over the past week from her job at the restaurant. She’d have to find some other way to make up the difference in her half of the rent.

  Maybe that gallery dealer would buy a painting. . . .

  Galar stood wrapped in darkness and tension as he watched the house. He relaxed only slightly as Ruby pushed open the front door, clattered down the brick steps, and jumped back into her battered car. Tires slung gravel as she sped away.

  She’d later tell the cops she’d gone off to visit her drug dealer.

  Time?

  2100 hours.

  Nine p.m. He grunted. According to the police report he’d seen, the attack would come sometime around 2300, or eleven o’clock. That estimate could be off by a couple of hours either way, which was why Galar and his team had arrived so early to stake out the scene. If they meant to save Jessica Kelly’s life, they had to be ready for anything, anytime.

  The blood the police would find splashed all over the living room tomorrow would be identified as Jessica’s, and the coroner would report that the woman couldn’t have survived. She would never be seen again. Everyone from law enforcement to art historians would believe she’d ended up in an unmarked grave.

  Galar’s team was the only hope she had of survival— assuming the would-be murderer was indeed a time traveler. If sensors indicated the killer was a native of 2008, there would be nothing they could do. They’d be forbidden to interfere.

  Actually, had police already found Jessica’s body, Galar and his partners would have been forbidden even to make the attempt to save her. And if they had tried, they’d have failed. You couldn’t change history.

  Still, he thought there was a chance. When he’d run across the police report while scanning the Outpost’s historical records, his gut had told him this was a temporal crime. A twenty-third-century collector would pay a great deal of money for historically unknown Jessica Kelly originals. Which was one hell of a motive for a time-Jumping art thief with a taste for murder. Goddess knew there were plenty of them out there—ruthless men and women, skilled in the use of the primitive weapons that were all you could take on a Jump. The tachyon blazers of the twenty-third century had an ugly habit of exploding if you attempted a temporal leap with one. That left blades, projectile weapons, or fists.

  It was Galar’s duty to catch such criminals. Whether or not their crimes were part of history, you couldn’t just let time travelers Jump around preying on helpless natives. If there was any possibility a victim could be saved, agents of Temporal Enforcement were honor-bound to make the attempt.

  If Galar’s team succeeded, Jessica would be given a new life in the future.

  If.

  Jessica stood in front of the canvas, the brush limp in her hand. All the boiling creative energy she’d enjoyed earlier had been drained away by her sister’s visit. Now there was nothing left but helpless worry and angry frustration.

  “Think you were suckered?”

  She looked around to find her housemate leaning a shoulder against the frame of her bedroom door, watching her with sympathy in those big green eyes. Charlotte Holt was a petite woman, her build lush rather than leanly muscled. Her hair was a tumble of red curls that irritated her with its tendency to frizz in the Georgia humidity. She wore a skirt and a silky black top, as if ready for a night on the town.

  Jessica turned back to her canvas. “I’ll still pay my chunk of the rent, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  “Don’t be insulting.” Charlotte moved closer and slipped an arm around her waist in a half hug. “Of course you had to give her the money. You couldn’t let your sister get killed. Even if she is an idiot.”

  Jessica snorted and hugged her back. “What I really need to do is drop a dime on Billy Dean. Unfortunately, whenever the police bust him, he never seems to have any drugs. Ruby says he’s got dirty cops in his pocket.”

  “Maybe.” Charlotte tilted her head, considering the painting. “That girl truly is a moron. This is good. Amazing, in fact.”

  “You really think so?”

  Charlotte met her gaze, her own steady. “This is the kind of painting you’ll find answers in, when you’re ready to look for them.”

  Jessica blinked. “Wow. And here I thought it was a picture of a naked lady.”

  Her friend snorted. “Twit. You know, you’ve got the least ego of any genius I’ve ever met.”

  “Genius, my ass.” Uncomfortable, she stepped away from her friend and started capping the tubes of paint. “Anyway, if I’d ever even thought about developing an ego, my mother beat it out of me years ago. She and Ruby never understood my stuff.” Jessica reached for the jar of turpentine and started cleaning her brushes. “Mom’s idea of art was Elvis on black velvet. You know, I gave her one of those when I was ten. I think it was the only thing I ever painted that she actually liked.”

  “Just because your mother didn’t get it, that doesn’t mean nobody else will.” Charlotte moved to the couch to open the portfolio Jessica had put there in preparation for the upcoming interview. Her clever fingers flipped through the canvasses, pausing now and again. Skillful swirls of paint depicted a dirty child with hollow eyes, looking up warily from a mud puddle. Next a prostitute, standing hipshot and defiant in a sweatshirt and ripped jeans, face hard and hungry. A homeless drunk, his face weathered from decades of cheap booze. And in between, the nude studies Jessica did to lighten her mood, long-limbed and clean, surging with energy. “Anything this gorgeous is going to get attention. ”

  “I don’t know about that.” Jessica stirred her brush in the turpentine, watching red paint swirl from the bristles like blood. She pulled the brush out of the jar and wiped it on a clean rag, then set it aside on the taboret. “Nobody has yet.”

  “That’s because real art isn’t always comfortable or pretty,” her friend told her quietly. “It’s not the kind of thing you pick out because it matches your couch.”

  Jessica sighed and screwed the cap back on the jar of turpentine. “Trouble is, it’s not the kind of thing that pays the rent either.”

  Any sign of the killer? Riane asked Frieka on their private frequency. She scanned the woods, then turned her sensors on the house for the twentieth time in the past three hours.

  Nope. The wolf’s paws whispered through the leaves. Then again, the soft rustle might have been the wind. Thanks to the genetic engineering that had extended his life, Frieka had almost thirty years of combat experience, much of it with her father. He could be silent as a ghost when he wanted to be.

  “You think the Master Enforcer’s right—that the killer will turn out to be a time traveler?”

  “Probably. The man may be a dickhole, but he’s got a good reputation.”

  Riane snorted. “Except for the part about him being a killer.”

  “We’re all killers, Riane.”

  “Yeah, but they say she was his lover.”

  “They say all kinds of cra
p. You can’t believe half of it.”

  Riane wasn’t worried about being overheard; they were using the private com code they’d employed since she was a two-year-old and Frieka was her furry nursemaid. Even her father hadn’t managed to crack it, and Baran Arvid was damned good. Neither had a succession of commanders in both the Vardonese Military and Galactic Union Temporal Enforcement.

  Riane gave the house another scan. Still nothing. “You think it’s true—that the traitor really was his lover?”

  “You mean up until she tried to blow a beamer hole in my chest?”

  Galar’s icy question made Riane’s cheeks flood with burning blood. “Master Enforcer! I didn’t mean . . .”

  "...To be overheard? Yeah, I gathered that. I’m very good at cracking code. You may want to keep that in mind.”

  The woman who called herself Charlotte Holt sat in the darkness of the living room, listening to her roommate’s breathing settle into sleep. She’d enjoyed the past six months, getting to know Jessica Kelly, with her blazing, unrecognized talent, dark family past, and driven insecurities. Too, the respite from the chase had been welcome.

  But the Xeran assassin would make his attack in half an hour. She had to be gone before that, and there was much to do in the meantime.

  Restlessly, Charlotte rose and moved to the window to push aside the lace curtains. Though there was nothing visible beyond darkness and moonlit trees, her special senses detected the Temporal Enforcement agents waiting with varying degrees of patience around the house.

  Good. The pieces were in place, just as she’d foreseen.

  Pivoting with military precision, she walked into the tiny kitchen where she’d shared so many meals with Jessica. Charlotte knew the room would have been pitch black to her friend, but she could see the butcher block knife rack clearly.

  She drew the blade she wanted with a soft, metallic hiss, then walked to her roommate’s door and pushed it quietly open.

  2

  Jessica lay deeply asleep, curled in a cotton sleep shirt under a sheet covered with tiny roses. Her dark hair spilled across her pillow, shining softly in the moonlight.

  Charlotte paused in the doorway and closed her eyes, feeling alien forces gather deep inside her with a hot electric tingle. Blowing out a breath, she sent the wave of energy rolling over Jessica.

  There. She’d sleep through this now.

  Silent as an assassin, Charlotte moved to stand over the girl, raised her left hand, and swiftly ran the razored blade across the pad of her own index finger. She didn’t even flinch at the pain. Tilting her hand, she watched fat drops of blood fall on her roommate’s forehead.

  As she watched, the drops pooled there for a moment, then slowly disappeared, sinking into Jessica’s skin. Dark brows drew down as if in discomfort, and the girl moaned in her sleep.

  “I’m sorry,” Charlotte told her softly. “I just don’t have a choice.”

  Turning away, she strode from the room, moving fast now, leaving her former roommate alone, asleep. And changing.

  In the living room, Charlotte stopped to snatch up the leather purse she kept packed in case she had to make an emergency Jump. She paused and glanced out the window. Though she couldn’t see him, she could sense the leader of the Enforcers waiting right outside, patient as a sentinel, invisible in the dark.

  She frowned. He was a little too close, he and his partners. If she tried to Jump now, they’d realize she was far more than a temporal native. On the other hand, if she attempted to simply leave and find another place to Jump, one of them might follow her. She couldn’t take the chance.

  And she was running out of time. The assassin would be here soon.

  Closing her eyes, Charlotte reached for the three minds around the house—the man, the woman’s, and the wolf’s. She let her power gather, sent it rolling toward them. . . .

  And all three dropped, stunned unconscious, to the ground.

  Charlotte sagged against the window a moment, then shook off the momentary weakness and made for the door. She clattered down the stairs, strode past the male agent’s unconscious body, and started across the yard. She’d Jump as soon as she was far enough away not to leave suspicious energy traces for the agents to detect.

  She hadn’t quite reached the road when she sensed the roiling field of a temporal Jump spilling from the house. Charlotte spun around in horror.

  A blue blaze of light lit up Jessica’s window. Charlotte’s mouth shaped a silent curse. The Xeran assassin had arrived.

  She shot a desperate glance at the TE agents, but knew she didn’t dare wake them yet. She had to put some distance between herself and the house before she could let them go. “God, Jess, I’m sorry!”

  Whirling, Charlotte broke into a hard, pounding run.

  Jessica’ll survive, she told herself desperately. Jessica will make it. Just a little farther, and then I’ll let them save her.

  A little farther . . .

  “Get up!” A huge hand locked in Jess’s hair and jerked her off her bed, white-hot agony flaring through her scalp. Jarred violently awake, she yelped and grabbed at the fist tangled in her long mane. Through tears of shock and confusion, she saw a man looming over her, the silhouette of immense shoulders blocking the dim light from the window. Teeth flashed in a snarl. “Where is she? Where’s the heretic?”

  He flung her against the wall so hard, she felt the Sheet-rock crack. Stars exploded behind her eyes as her head snapped back against the wall. “What?” Jess yelled. “Who the hell are—”

  “Shut up!” Hot breath flooded against her skin as a face shoved inches from her own. Something cold pricked her throat as a massive body pinned her. Whatever he was wearing felt oddly slick and scaly, more like snakeskin than fabric. “Where is she?”

  “Who?” She swung at him with all the ferocity her trailer park childhood had taught her.

  Light flared behind her eyes again. She tasted blood, heard a metallic ringing. He’d punched her. “Your roommate! Where did she go?”

  Like she’d tell him a damn thing. “Get off me!”

  The sting of cold pain intensified against her throat. “Do you want to die?” He bared his teeth in her face. “Do you want me to slit your throat? Because unless you tell me everything you know about Charlotte Holt, you’re dead!”

  Knife. He had a knife. The cold prick she felt against her neck was a blade. Jess grabbed for his wrist with both hands, tried to force his hand back. She might as well have been pushing a forklift. “I don’t know anything! She left! She’s not here!” She had no idea whether Charlotte was still home or not—for all she knew, her roommate was hiding in a closet—but if this bastard didn’t know where she was, Jessica wasn’t going to give her away.

  Galar snapped to consciousness with his computer howling a warning in his skull. Victim under assault! He shot up off the leafy ground even as Frieka and Riane rolled to their feet.

  The Warfem was white-faced, the wolf snarling. “What the Seven Hells . . .”

  “He’s got her!” Galar plunged toward the front door. “Go, go, go!”

  “What happened? How the hell did he knock us out without us seeing him?” Riane demanded as they ran.

  Galar didn’t bother with an answer as he cleared the steps in one leap. Give me riaat! he snapped to his computer implant.

  Fire flooded his veins in a wave of euphoria as the comp pumped biochemicals from reservoirs throughout his body, increasing his already considerable strength by a factor of ten even as it made him almost impervious to pain.

  One thrust of his foot shattered both the wooden door and the metal and glass storm door beyond it. He ignored the broken fragments, though they raked at his T-suit as he bulled through them.

  Where? he snapped at his computer.

  Back bedroom. Down the hall to the right.

  Lips peeling back from his teeth, he charged through the living room and down the short corridor.

  Sweet Goddess, let us be in time. . . .

&n
bsp; Jessica struggled fruitlessly as the thug thrust his face closer. She recoiled. His breath smelled strange. Some weird metallic taint she couldn’t identify. And what were those glinting shapes protruding from his shaved head? Horns?

  He sniffed at her like a bear. “Blood—I can smell her blood on you.” Was that fear in his eyes? “She’s made you one of them!”

  The man drew back the knife from her throat, lowered his aim. He meant to plunge it into her belly. Jess screamed, bucking helplessly against his hold. . . .

  Wood broke with a thunderous crash in the next room. Voices roared something incomprehensible. The cops! Relief washed through her like a sun-warmed tide. Maybe she’d make it out of this after—

  Her captor snarled words she didn’t understand and shoved her violently away. She reeled sideways, hit the bed, and fell across it as he reached for his waist.

  Shadowed figures burst into the room to slam into her attacker, driving him back into the wall. Voices bellowed in a language she didn’t understand.

  Okay, this new bunch sure weren’t cops.

  Out. She had to get out of here. Jessica tried to roll off the bed, but her knees gave under her. She crashed to the floor as pain detonated in her guts.

  She looked down.

  Oh, fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

  His knife was buried in her belly.

  Get it out! The words screamed in her head. She wrapped her hand around the hilt as a wave of cold nausea rolled through her. The knife slid free from her flesh, slowly, obscenely. Blood flooded hot down her belly. She fell back against the side of the bed and slid down until her butt hit the floor.

  Her attacker was exchanging hammer blows with two others. And—a dog? She could hear snarls, see shadowed shapes writhing on the ground, a tangle of kicking legs and swinging arms.

  An ambulance. Help. She had to get help. Phone in the kitchen. Call 911.

  Crawling seemed safest. She rolled onto her hands and knees and headed for the doorway. Somebody’s foot slammed into her calf, and she bit her lip against a yelp.

  Don’t attract attention. Get away.

  Weak. So weak . . . Dying.