walker saga 07 - earth (12 page)

I heard a thump; Lucy had totally whacked him in the side. She would refrain from ripping his arms off, though; she liked them too much. Even if he could grow them back.

I was still out in front of the others, and was closing the distance quickly. I knew Brace was right behind me, but I was going to get there first. I focused my furious attention on the scum scattered around the dock. There were gangers everywhere. At least twenty or thirty of them. And –
what the heck?
They were all from different gangs, tattoos of all kinds semi-visible in the half-light. I’d never seen them work together before. What had we stumbled into?

I started to slow then, even though my anger was still tinting my sight in shades of red. I couldn’t just attack, not until I was sure if there were innocents with them. Since the golden cord was leading me straight into the center of the scumbuckets, I had to assume that either my female was a ganger, which was highly unlikely, or they held her captive.

Finally, as the distance lessened even more, and the gang members shifted around to stare my way, I noticed two slender forms right in the center of the scum. Females. And they were trapped in a sort of gate or cage.

I ground to a complete halt as a familiar face came into view. I knew the female with the tall muscular form and brown curls.

“Is that … Chrissie?” Lucy was right beside me.

Both of us focused on the two caged females. The pair stood back-to-back in fighter-protection mode, and there was no way I wouldn’t recognize that strong stance. I’d been on the receiving end of Chrissie’s fight-style too many times not to remember it well.

“Yes,” I said, a tinge of sorrow lacing my words.

I hadn’t forgotten our last meeting. Her friend had died, and Chrissie had laid the blame at my feet. She had good reasons to be mad with me. It had been because of me that Olden was at the Compound. That she’d been in a position to target the females and access Walker energy.

“She looks different,” Lucy said.

As the boys completed our foursome, the gangers started to advance toward us, grouping together to form a single line of defense.

Chrissie and the other female – who stood a little taller than my old friend – were forgotten for the moment.

As the men cleared the space and headed in our direction, I noticed more females huddled near the other side of the fenced area. Probably waiting for their turn to perform for the gangers. Was it like a sales yard or something? Did the girls have to fight and the winner would achieve the awesome goal of being worthy of the smugglers? Was this a sort of fight-ring? What the freaking heck?

My eyes were drawn to Chrissie again. Lucy was right: she did look different.

“Yes, she’s changed,” I said.

She looked older, harder around the edges. When I had left Earth, Chrissie had been close to sixteen, but with the way Earth’s time ran differently, she was probably the same age as us now.

“Do you think she’s my half-Walker?” It didn’t sit right with me, but there was no denying that the golden cord was leading right into that cage.

I suppose it could explain the reason she’d been in our compound. Like Lucy, she might have been placed there, or drawn to my energy. Still … it just didn’t seem right.

A flash of golden hair caught my attention and I shifted my gaze to the other chick, who was standing protectively at Chrissie’s back. She was in a clear line of sight now, and I could see she held a particularly lethal-looking sword in her right hand. The blade was large, the length of my arm at least, and even in the half-light I could see it was red. Was that blood coating the blade, or was its natural color red? Either way, this female looked utterly badass.

Chrissie was a really pretty girl, but the blonde was stunningly beautiful. Her golden hair was pulled off her face, and secured high on her head in a ponytail. My Walker sight was enough that I could see the way her eyes glowed as they locked in on me, golden with hints of brown and yellow threading them. She had full lips, which were pressed into an angry line. Defiance and rage glowed in every facet of her stance. She was captivating, and had the distinct beauty of a Walker. But then, so did Chrissie. One of these two was my half-Walker; the golden cord left me no doubt of that.

Brace shifted at my side, and the taller blonde’s golden-brown eyes flicked across. The moment she registered the sheer size and masculine potency of my mate, some of the hardness in her features softened.
Uh, okay.
Clearly she liked what she saw. Which was all good, as long as she didn’t touch.

Until this point Chrissie hadn’t noticed us. She’d been distracted by the gangers and then the girls slumped on the ground, but blondie must have said something, because Chrissie’s head whipped around. A myriad of emotions crawled across her face, and I didn’t have to wonder if she’d forgiven me; her features were hard, anger flaring to life in her narrowed eyes.

Okay, she hadn’t quite reached forgiveness in the seven-step program.

All of a sudden my attention was off the females and back on the gangers. Every single one of them had just pulled forth weapons and were advancing in our direction. I even saw a few guns. This was definitely a big deal. Those rare weapons were reserved for ganger leaders.

“They have guns,” I said, needing to warn my friends.

This has to be the leaders of the people-smuggling ring in this area,
I said to Brace.

Sounds like the sort of humans who won’t be missed.
His reply was flat.

“Who are you?” One of the males stepped forward. His features were Hispanic and he was well dressed, better than most gangers, and had no visible tattoos. Which was odd. “We have business to attend to here, so if you’d like to keep your lives, we’ll give you one chance to walk away.”

He was lying. They would never let us walk away. We had seen too much, and it was much easier just to kill us now and throw our bodies into the water.

I had slowly started to piece together how this entire operation worked. That initial room with the dead bodies was the observation deck. The humans – ones with too much money and not enough soul – who liked to buy people, would sit on the other side of the glass and pick out the females they wanted from the ones in the room. Any that did not find a buyer would be slaughtered. If they weren’t purchasable, then they were worthless.

Then the soulless humans would take their purchases out onto these docks and either leave with them, or battle them with other females. I would guess they placed bets, and lots of money or goods changed hands.

Then when they were done, they would leave on one of the many boats I had noticed glittering out in the distance. It was the perfect escape route.

Assholes.

These disgusting, vile creatures would simply use and kill the females before sailing off into the night. Back to whatever place they liked to call home. Well, I was pretty sure less of them would be sailing away this fine night.

The well-dressed male was still waiting for us to speak. He wasn’t ganger, but he was powerful. Powerful enough to be able to stand in front of that ragtag group and trust he wasn’t about to get a knife in the ribs. He must be one of the buyers, a very rich one, I would guess.

My anger was reaching epic levels, and words spilled from my mouth before I could stop them. “I don’t have time for this crap today. You know, places to go and ancient energy-suckers to kill. Let’s do this the easy way: if you all surrender, I’ll make sure your deaths are quick.”

A variety of expressions flitted across the weathered, mostly tattooed faces. Amusement and anger was prevalent. But there was some semblance of fear in the eyes of those who recognized us for the true threats we were.

“Hmm,” I said, “no takers today.”

Lucy chortled. “Gangers always have to do things the hard way.”

The well-dressed male lifted his hands and flipped his arms forward. I recognized the signal: he was giving the gangers free run.

The four of us hauled butt.

Moving targets were harder to hit with a bullet, even though history told me they’d save that weapon for last. Especially in this crush of people. More than likely they’d be wasting precious bullets on hitting their own kind.

I dropped the final tether in my mind. I knew one of the females was the half, and I needed all my concentration. Using my energy, I traced a sword from Josian’s weapons’ room on Angelisian. I’d done this type of trace before, on Crais, so it was much easier and faster this time. I did have to borrow from the dwindling filing-cabinet power again, but within seconds the large blade was in my hands. When I had more time later I’d find a moment to be grateful for the fact that the energy inside that cabinet did not seem to be affected by Earth’s magic dead zone.

Two gangers came straight at me. One held a switchblade, which was nice and rusty. You know, just for the extra boost of tetanus. The other twirled a mallet of some type, one with a large square block on top, perfect for the crushing of hopes, dreams and kneecaps. I swung my moderately weighted blade around once, getting the feel for it, letting the weapon settle into my hand.

The two of them attacked as one, and – it was as if they were moving in slow motion.
Holy shit!
Once upon a time, when I ran these streets, I was vulnerable to these creeps. But the development of my Walker side had changed everything about me. Now I was a weapon. I was stronger than any of the humans here.

I side-stepped the first and, with a crisscrossing slice of my razor-sharp blade, he managed to lose not only his pants and dignity, but also the contents of his stomach. The blade bit into soft skin and, without any resistance, sliced him from belly button up to sternum. All that red stuff which was supposed to be on the inside was now on the out. The ganger did not look happy about it either. Actually, he looked a little dead.

I didn’t have time to dwell on the fact that I’d just taken a life, although it was unconfirmed at this stage if scumbags like these gangers could actually be counted as human.

The second attacked. Swinging the mallet with power and skill, aiming straight for the temple area on my skull. Had he connected, I’d have had a very large hole in the side of my face. I realized then that this weapon had probably been the one to take out a lot of the girls back in that glass-walled room. They had injuries just the shape of this heavy-topped mallet. Not to mention I could always tell the gangers who enjoyed killing. This Brutal ganger loved it. The spark of excitement was on his face, and black eyes glittered as he attacked.

I dodged that first swing, and then the second as he followed back around in a smooth motion. I didn’t waste time or words on him, pivoting as he came at me and sliding myself slightly to the right so he grazed along the side of me. As I moved I sliced the blade around and up.

The tip entered his side, between the ribcage, and exited from his chest. He let out a single gasp of air, and then as I wrenched my weapon back out, his knees hit the deck and he pitched forward.

A quick glance was all I needed to see that Brace and Colton had taken out the vast majority of the males on the dock. Lucy was with them, and I had no doubt more than one victim was from her.

There were still a dozen of the smugglers and gangers left. Including that initial well-dressed dickbag.

The females remained huddled in their little area. None of them had stood and none of them had tried to escape. They had to be drugged. It would explain their lethargy. All except for Chrissie and Golden Girl – those two were alert and prowling within their barrier. Although they remained relatively close to the girls on the ground, sticking around to protect them.

It was time to finish this.

Of course, as I had that thought, the remaining males realized that they were in an ass-ton of trouble, and took off. They didn’t even waste any bullets on us, so they were either going for backup, or had another plan to be put into motion. There was only one way for them to run – to the water; they ended up squished into a medium-sized speed boat.

The moment its engine gunned to life, they were gone in a splash of water and whitewash. At a guess, there were more of the gangers and buyers out on all of those fancy yachts and vessels.

They’d be back soon. We had to get the females to safety.

I returned the sword to its home. Then, with Brace on one side and Lucy on the other, we crossed to the females. I wasn’t really looking forward to speaking with Chrissie. I wanted to make amends, but I knew it wasn’t going to be as easy as throwing out an “I’m sorry”. Those two words didn’t bring Chandra back. And that was all Chrissie really wanted.

Large dark eyes flashed at me as I closed the distance between us. I still hoped she might have let go of some of her anger, but it didn’t look like it.

The area she was being held in with Golden Girl had a barrier which stood around mid-chest in height. I halted opposite her, about to extend a hand to help her jump over. She didn’t take my offered palm, instead taking three steps back and running forward to vault over the fenced area.

I held my ground as she stalked up to me, a darkening of anger cresting across her features like the wash of a violent storm. I prepared myself for the abuse. But instead of opening her mouth, Chrissie swung her arm – closed fist – right into my face.

Truth be told, I probably could have avoided the hit. My reflexes were much faster than hers and I had enough time to see it coming, but I decided to let her have this one. As her knuckles crashed into my left cheek, a dull thud echoed across the space. This was followed by a flare of heat and jagged spikes of pain. The force knocked me back. I stumbled but managed to keep my footing.

Shit. The girl could punch. She’d definitely had training since we were in the compound together. I didn’t remember her hits feeling like sledgehammers in our old sparring days.

A low, thunderous growl filtered through the area, and I knew it was Brace. I could feel his simmering anger, and right then Chrissie was lucky that she was both human – well, possibly – and also female. Shaking my head and trying to ignore the blaze of pain which still spiked along my cheek, I crossed over and placed both hands on my mate’s chest.