As the Wares pulled their leader’s body off of Livi’s legs, she saw it, but didn’t feel it. The arms that supported her in a seated position buckled, and she clunked back on the street. Her head hit hard enough to make bright lights shine and she thought she’d black out.
Fate was not in a compassionate mood; she stayed conscious. In horror, unable to move except to blink, she watched her enemies surround her.
Just like nyotaimori, but I’m not naked and there’s no sushi but me.
She couldn’t feel the drops of saliva that fell to her face and chest or the wounds in either shoulder, so she probably wouldn’t feel them ripping her flesh from her bones.
The night was simultaneously a cruel and merciful lover.
She closed her eyes, blocking out the scene and praying that the repulsive smells and sounds would fade soon. Ironically, her muscles which would not respond to her commands, began to tremble and twitch of their own accord. It wouldn’t be long until seizures started in full, followed by coma and death.
Livi closed her eyes, preferring darkness to the truth of the scene.
Five years on Hollow Island, living life under her own terms. Yes, she’d hurt some people, but they were trying to hurt her first, with the exception of a few Wares, who didn’t deserve to live anyway. She had no idea how much she’d donated to the various orphanages over the years, only that it was a significant amount. And judging by the huge ratings she’d earned—as high as anyone she knew of—she’d entertained millions upon millions on the outside.
If only it wasn’t Wares finishing her, she’d feel contented. At least she’d taken two of them down with her.
The Wares continued to talk, one voice rising above the others, but Livi’s head was buzzing too much to make out the words. No, not buzzing, rattling on the asphalt. It sounded like one of them was shouting at someone down the street. She relaxed her eyelids to see what she could see and they slid open.
The Wares in Livi’s field of vision watched their new leader, who she couldn’t see. Leaving her twitching on the ground, they hunched forward and edged toward the voice down the street.
As if in final tribute to a powerful huntress, a single drum beat rose into the night, sharper and more forceful than any she’d ever heard. And closer. It came from the direction the Wares were looking, but she couldn’t roll her head enough to see what was going on.
The tremors reached her head in earnest, sending dizzying vibrations through her sight, and Livi wondered if the vision of the route howling and running into the night was a hallucination.
Her eyes twitched.
Her head bounced on the asphalt like a soccer ball.
The merciful universe accepted her into its black embrace.
9
A Fair Fight
<< Bounties are available to anyone who brings in a wanted man or woman. Rangers and bounty hunters collect the lion’s share simply because they are the only ones with access to the notices.
- Yesenia Gutierrez, Ranger Channel commentator>>
Nash put the final plate on the dry rack and wiped his pruney hands on a dish towel. He’d been at it since before sunrise, and the sun had retired at least a couple hours ago. Earning enough to feed his demanding stomach had filled all of his daytime hours for three days now.
At the door of the kitchen, Smee held out a wooden container, a wide-mouthed flask with a huge cork stopper in the top. “Coming back tomorrow?” he asked in his Egyptian accent.
“Planning on it,” said Nash. He took the container and could feel the warmth of the hot stew inside. The meaty aroma made his stomach growl. He wanted to chug it right there, but he’d learned from a burnt tongue two days ago that it took a while to cool enough to eat. After seeing the back end of the food preparation procedures in Smee’s kitchen, Nash was glad he served it practically boiling.
Smee grunted. “And no room tonight?”
The thought of a bed was tempting, especially after working a fifteen-hour day with only short breaks to eat. He’d heard of fourthmeal before, but the stew was sixthmeal for him today. Eating like that for three days, he was finally starting to feel like he was catching up to his appetite.
“No room tonight,” Nash said. At some point he needed to build up some funds or he’d be stuck washing dishes, bussing, and doing whatever else Smee required for the rest of his life. The two cents he’d save was a start. “See you tomorrow probably.”
“See you if I see you,” said Smee. He handed over two copper cents.
The job had worked out so far, since Nash hadn’t starved to death, even with his vast appetite. He had no idea if the long hours he was trading for large quantities of food was a fair wage or not. A few nights after tonight of not paying for a room, and he’d have a bit of a cushion to go look around to see what else was out there.
Nash pushed the glass front door open and stepped out into the sounds of the drums and coquís. And he was alone with half a moon.
For a guy without a ton of friends back in the outside world, he craved a connection with any sort of human. The only person that had said more than two words to him since John Wayne was Smee. What he wouldn’t give now for a buddy with a couch to crash on.
Picking a direction at random, Nash turned left, keeping his eyes above the roofline, watching for one of the giant mango trees to crash under. Since Immigration House wasn’t an option, it was the next best thing. Not the tree by the market, though. That one wasn’t an option; nowhere in that neighborhood was an option, not if he had any choice.
Sleeping outside on the ground. “You’ve come so far, Nash,” he told himself.
His eyes dropped to walls along the street. In the weak torchlight, he couldn’t make out a single lens, but he knew they were there. Maybe his best friend Army had found him and was watching him now.
Bet you’re proud of me now. Bet you’re telling everyone what a badass I am now.
If people were watching him—though he was the last Ranger on the island anyone should be watching—he might earn some ratings. A little bit of money would go a long way right now.
The one thing he had done besides work, eat, and sleep was ask around until someone pointed him to the Ranger armory. When he walked in, not only did they not give him any more ammo, since he couldn’t pay, a Ranger there called him Pinky, and told the clerk to hand over the white cowboy hat John Wayne had left for him. Nash had left with empty pockets and even less faith in Rangers than before.
He hadn’t even checked the depo since that first day with John Wayne. Too many people he didn’t want to see in that area, as well as small chance there were any coins waiting for him. Working every daylight hour to earn enough to buy food made it difficult too.
Was the depo even open this late? He was too hungry and tired to go check. His first day off he’d go see. Maybe the Wizard and Snake fight, the confrontation with John Wayne, and what had happened with Gembel would earn him something.
Washing dishes wouldn’t. It wasn’t teaching him anything either, and it wasn’t helping anyone, unless preventing food poisoning through superior dish cleanliness qualified him as a hero.
The moon disappeared, startling Nash until he realized it had just gone behind a tree. He’d come upon what looked like a small park with a mango tree dropping fruit right in front of him. There didn’t seem to be anyone else around and Nash was relieved he’d found somewhere so fast he could put this stew to cooling.
He parted the branches of the tree, and heard someone approach from a dark street behind him.
“Hey,” said a woman, coming closer. “Have you seen a … Ranger?” It was Chiel, the leather merchant, and her voice went starkly flat on the last word. “Oh. It’s you.”
“What’s wrong?” asked Nash.
Her dark eyes changed from worried to suspicious as she glared at him. Under her breath she muttered, “Just my luck.”
“Do you need help?” asked Nash.
“Why?” demanded Chiel. “Do you know a Ra
nger who’s worth a damn?”
The comment stung, but Nash tried not to show it. “If you don’t want my help, just say so.”
“I just wish you could help. Your helping doesn’t ever seem to help anyone. You’d just make it worse. Again.”
He wanted a chance at redemption, but he could only offer so many times. “Your loss,” said Nash, reaching for the tree branch.
Chiel grunted in frustration. “I think there’s someone watching my house. My husband, Viktor, saw a man in a black cloak and I felt a weird feeling of being watched when I came home. We just … You know what? Never mind. I’ll find someone else.”
“I’ll come take a look,” offered Nash, though what he really wanted to do was get some food in his belly.
“No.” Chiel shook her head. “No, I don’t have a lot of faith in you. We’ll find another Ranger tomorrow.” She started walking away.
“No, really,” said Nash. “Can’t hurt for me to go see.”
She paused and looked him up and down. “Thanks but no thanks. It’s better if you stay away.” With determination this time, Chiel spun and walked away.
Nash’s first thought was for his stomach, which would finally get what it wanted. Almost immediately, the thought fled in favor of his desire to make right a mistake. Chiel couldn’t stop him from walking down the street where she lived and looking around. Yeah, unwanted help had gotten him in trouble with the Wizard and Snake, but he wasn’t going to let that failure keep him from ever trying to help someone again. When Chiel turned a corner half a block away, Nash started after her … and flashing red letters appeared in his lower right field of vision.
BOUNTY ALERT: 50 kilos. Wanted for murder. Old city San Juan. PROCEED WITH ALL HASTE!
It made him jump. He’d never ever heard of a dispatch like that, as impossible to ignore as an incoming call.
PROCEED WITH ALL HASTE!
For half a second, he considered his options. Go where he was needed with haste, or butt into someone else’s problems? There was really no way he could justify tailing Chiel and ignoring the urgent summons.
An arrow appeared next to the flashing word, pointing to the left. It seemed like all intersections led left for him lately, and since he didn’t even know where to start looking for old city San Juan, he tucked the stew under one arm and took off at a run. The arrow shifted so that it pointed straight ahead. For fifty kilos, he’d follow that arrow halfway across the island.
A million questions raced through his mind as he raced through the semi-dark streets of San Juan. How many other Rangers would show up? Would they split the bounty or would it go to a single Ranger? Was Nash even eligible to get a bounty since he hadn’t done his two weeks of training yet? That would be the ultimate kick in the nuts if John Wayne earned a bounty for something Nash did.
Nash doubted he would have gotten the alert if he wasn’t eligible to collect the bounty. And it was fifty kilos! Even with a tenth of that, he could take time off and travel to a new city for a new start. He could take Ranger classes if they had such a thing here. Shoot, he could even hire a Ranger to teach him the job.
The arrow flashed right and he turned at a house where a group was having a late-night party. The smell of roasting pig tempted him to detour from the bounty and crash the party. Fifty kilos, though.
That was the first thing he would do with the money: find out if there were any all you can eat buffets on the island and treat himself. If he couldn’t find one, he’d buy an entire roast pig that smelled as savory as the one he just passed and eat the entire thing himself. With his newfound hunger, probably brought on by his body’s craving for nutrients to replenish what it had used to heal itself, he felt like he could compete with the professional speed eaters in their hot dog eating contests.
Money had never been his motivating factor in life, and he had the empty pockets to prove it. Tonight, though, he’d do anything that wasn’t immoral or illegal to snag that bounty. And since he didn’t really know the laws here, he wasn’t too concerned about the illegal half of the equation.
With no way to know how far he still had to go, he didn’t know if he’d be the first Ranger there first or not. He tucked the stew flask under his arm like a football and increased his speed. The buildings flew by, growing taller as he approached the skyscrapers of the abandoned part of town. Old city San Juan, it made sense now. Anything over a few stories high was impractical or undesirable with no elevators. The glass windows with no vents would suffocate you in the heat, as well. So the outskirts of the city attracted settlers.
Nash realized his mind was clear, even though he was pushing his speed. What surprised him more, his lungs weren’t burning.
Faster, faster, a full out sprint, and finally he thought he might have reached the top limit of his body. He wasn’t any faster than he had been before, but instead of keeping this up for maybe a hundred meters, he could probably do a full kilometer like this.
The arrow blinked left, but the turn was too sharp. Nash didn’t even try to make the curve, just slid to a stop on the rough asphalt then looped around, and made the turn. There were no lamps or torches on the walls in this abandoned part of the city, and Nash started to wonder what kind of monsters he could meet on the dark streets of this city.
Ninjas? Wizards and Snake men? Vamps, Titans?
Rangers?
Right about now, Nash would take anyone as a partner, even that scumbag John Wayne. It would even be worth splitting the bounty to have some back up.
What was he talking about? He didn’t want some back up, he wanted some leadership on this mission. Someone who knew what they were doing.
The arrow blinked left again. Nash wasn’t up to full speed, and made the turn without having to stop this time. At the next intersection, the arrow blinked left again and he complied, even though it didn’t make sense.
Two wrongs don’t make a right, Army used to say, but three lefts do.
So why hadn’t they just given him a shorter route to follow? Maybe the perp was on the move. Or a street was blocked the other direction? Or whoever was directing him wanted him to approach from this direction? Or—
The arrow disappeared, someone in the road ahead howled, and Nash slowed to a stop again. In the middle of the street less than 50 meters away was a group of people, and they appeared to be standing around someone on the ground. This was no family barbecue. About six men were there, all in an aggressive posture, standing around a couple of bodies on the ground.
Thanks to his clumsy approach, Nash had drawn the attention of the whole group.
They stared each other down for a few seconds, giving Nash time to scan the closest of the group, a tall, blondish Ware.
Vallin Beardsley, formerly Maoilios Gökhan from Turkey. Ware —
The bio disappeared as Nash startled and his gaze went to the rest of the group. All stocky with sideburns and he thought he saw claws at the ends of their hands.
Half a dozen Wares, and look at that, they were all looking right at him.
Nash pulled his gun.
He had no idea what to do with it. The dispatch hadn’t said who he was after, and from what he’d seen of the first Ware’s bio, there was no bounty on him. But they did seem to be up to something nefarious here.
Nefarious? Really? Cut the vocab lesson and think about something useful, dummy! Better yet, DO SOMETHING!
Nash raised his gun above his head and fired into the air. The street illuminated briefly under the muzzle flash, and the concussion of the shot rolled over the night, covering the beating of the Druids’ drums.
He didn’t really know what he’d been trying to accomplish with the shot, but it did get the Wares’ attention. All of them started walking toward him, rather than away from him as he’d expect sane people to do.
This was Hollow Island after all. Expectations of sanity should qualify someone as insane here.
A couple more Wares came around a corner, and at least one or two stepped out of shadows. He wa
sn’t facing six Wares; there were at least ten now.
Without realizing what he was doing, Nash took a step back.
What did he think, that this would be an easy bounty for fifty kilos? He’d taken a hell of a beating for much less. Two pinkies lost, with one measly brass mil to show for it.
It wasn’t worth a million kilos if these Wares killed him. After the warning shot, he had nine bullets left in his gun, plus six rounds of Holy Barbs. Without any other weapon, he didn’t think he could fight these things hand-to-hand. It would take some fast, accurate shooting to win this one. John Wayne could probably pull it off, but Nash had very little experience shooting in conditions like that.
He took another step backward.
The Wares took two steps forward.
Was there even anything he could do here? Not for those dead bodies on the ground. He took a step backward, and finally the Wares stopped. Nash let out a long breath of relief. It appeared they didn’t want any trouble with him.
There were two bodies on the ground, no three. Two were dressed in shorts and tank tops like the other Wares, but one was in all black. He let his eyes rest on that body.
Livi Barbosa, BOUNTY 50 kilos. Formerly Bianna Lopes, a mortgage broker from Brasília, Brazil. Vamp. 5 years on Hollow Island.
“Fig me,” muttered Nash. Facing ten Wares to save a Vamp? Nash knew who she was, the most famous Vamp on Hollow Island. At least he knew now that she was the bounty, and he knew exactly what he had to do to get to her.
Unfortunately, he also knew she wasn’t dead yet or the bio would have told him. Did it really change things? If there was a bounty out on her, that meant she was a criminal of some sort, and according to the original dispatch, wanted for murder. That made sense for a Vamp, and she was not the type of person, or creature, he wanted to risk his life for, no matter how much money was in it for him.
Nash took another step backward.
A Route of Wares: An Urban Fantasy Action Adventure: Hollow Island Book One Page 11