Perfect Strangers

by Barbara J. Hancock

  She ignored the pain.

  Putting all her weight behind a foot to his jaw bought her enough time to whirl and rip a large metal arm with a plastic hood from the back of a nearby chair. She used this strange object as a club. The plastic shattered as she made several rapid successive hits against the IL-Bah’s head.

  He wasn’t deterred.

  The monster reached for her make-shift club and jerked it so hard and so fast that she was carried along for the ride. She and her club were hurled over a counter to crash against a wall of bottles.

  Silk gasped for air as the impact forced oxygen from her lungs. Her hitches for breath sent pain exploding through her chest. Broken ribs, she thought. She struggled to detach herself from the pain.

  The IL-Bah was coming.

  Silk looked for a weapon and focused upon the bottles under her body. Chemicals and substances Earth women used to color and curl their hair. She wrenched the lid off of a bottle and threw the contents in the face that appeared over the counter. The IL-Bah was undeterred. He lifted her from the floor and threw her again.

  She landed on the opposite side of the room with the bottle still in her hand. A sniff told her that her weapon had been nothing but colored water, a prop for a prop.

  Then, through an archway into a backroom, she saw a row of sinks. Lined up to pair with the sinks were heavy padded, reclining chairs, each one sitting on metal runners for legs.

  Silk ran for the nearest chair, hoping it wasn’t bolted to the floor. She skidded into it and was thrilled when the IL-Bah stalked her slowly as if he had all the time in the universe to play with her. The chair moved. It wasn’t bolted down. Her impact slid it a foot before she and it came to a stop.

  The IL-Bah was unconcerned. He had no idea what she planned.

  Biting down on her lip against the pain in her chest and finger, Silk hoisted the heavy chair and used it to knock the IL-Bah’s feet out from under him. In one smooth move, she jammed a runner against the fallen assassin’s neck and threw herself into the chair.

  Her weight combined with the weight of the chair pressed down on the IL-Bah’s vulnerable larynx. Cartilage was crushed beneath his tough skin.

  Silk steeled herself against the movements beneath her as the monster suffocated. In moments, the silver glow of his eyes had dimmed in death.

  She had killed an IL-Bah. Without a laser, without a partner or even a stun stick at her disposal, she had fought an IL-Bah and won.

  Silk eased off the chair. Her body barely claimed the victory. Her breath came shallow beneath damaged ribs. Her wrist ached and her middle finger on one hand was nothing but a crooked throb.

  Her shirt stuck to her in great damp patches. She knew it wasn’t only from exertion. The shards of glass and razor wire had taken their toll. She was losing blood. Too much blood. There was nothing she could do but proceed.

  Silk exited the faux beauty salon to edge her way to the next building. She would be weaker during the next confrontation. And the heavy taste of danger in the air told her there would be another.

  He couldn’t believe his eyes. A hidden ceiling camera had given him a hazy view of the proceedings, but there was no doubt that Silk had triumphed single-handedly over an IL-Bah. It was impossible, but the proof lay motionless on the screen.

  He didn’t despair. It wasn’t in his nature. He focused on the positive. The sexy Justice Representative was injured and alone. He knew her. He knew her hot-headed temperament. She would become desperate and act foolishly, especially when she got a look at Davis Rule. Larkin could probably take her. He was glad; however, that his whole plan didn’t rest on Larkin’s shoulders.

  Three IL-Bah. Harry had only seen three IL-Bah coming through the portal in New York. None from Las Vegas. Silk went quickly from building to building, increasing the speed of her search. His process wasn’t perfect. His technology archaic. She knew she couldn’t count on its accuracy. There may be more.

  She was trying to cope with the surprise of it, trying to understand how William Kale tied in with the IL-Bah, when she finally came upon Davis Rule.

  In the dim light of the room she entered she saw Rule slumped in a chair on the opposite side. It was obvious that only the ropes at his waist and his bound arms wrapped around the back of the chair held him in place. There was a pool of blood at his feet.

  Silk couldn’t stop the protest that rose up from her chest to push past her lips.

  She didn’t rush to his side. The metallic odor of blood wasn’t the only odor in the room. She also smelled Larkin’s heavy cologne.

  “I can’t believe you made it this far. That dude is a freakin’ animal,” Larkin said as he stepped from a darkened hallway at her right. His gun was trained on her chest.

  “Was,” Silk corrected. “Was a freakin’ animal.”

  “Shit.” Larkin gripped the gun with his other hand as well. He yelled at the ceiling over their heads. “You hear that, Kale? She killed the bastard. What do you think I’m supposed to do with her?”

  “Distract her, of course, Mr. Larkin. Distract her.”

  The voice coming from a speaker set within the plastered walls was detached and fuzzy.

  Silk didn’t have more time than that to analyze it. A tremendous weight barreled into her, driving her body to the floor. Her knees skidded on carpet and she pressed her hands forward to keep her face from skidding there as well.

  “Holy…” Larkin backed up several paces and then he turned and ran. It wasn’t an indication that she had less to fear when he took his gun with him.

  “Siilc Aman-shi, I have waited for my turn with you.” The deep voice in her ear was not familiar, but as the weight lifted from her and she was lifted in the air by two huge hands around her wrists, her heart fell. This wasn’t IL-Bah or FBI. The man that held her was seven feet tall. His arms were the size of small trees and his fists were as big as her head. He was an Enforcer. She couldn’t understand it. She couldn’t believe it. Enforcers, like JRs, were raised from infancy to uphold the law. Encountering one like this was impossible.

  “Meet my secret weapon, Silk. He’s been inactive for a while, drugged in a cargo crate, I’m sure you understand. You’ll have to forgive him if he gets a little enthusiastic with you.”

  The man holding Silk shook her, using her arms like the strings of a marionette. She used the movement to shake off the shock that had paralyzed her. He was huge, but he wasn’t bred to kill like the IL-Bah. He was a man. A human. And she would win this day.

  His play brought her too close to his face. Silk used the proximity to bring the top of her head forward to slam against his nose. She heard the crunch and was rewarded by the sudden release of her arms.

  Enforcers were used to guard Secure Holds for a reason. They were big, but they were not fast or particularly smart. They were intimidating guards, but were useless for much else. Silk was not trapped behind force-field bars. A guard couldn’t stop her.

  The giant covered his nose with his hands. Silk used his surprise to her advantage. She couldn’t knock him off his feet, so she aimed at one huge knee. Both of her shoes connected with their target and she was rewarded again by a crunch as her flying kick busted his knee cap.

  He swiped out with one club of a fist and Silk was sent backward to land in a skidding heap on her rear. The wall stopped her movement with a solid thwack. She bit her lip at the impact, but stood quickly fighting dizziness.

  Rule hadn’t moved.

  The Enforcer did. He came for her, dragging his busted leg behind him. She knew she didn’t have time to look for signs of life from the chair in the corner. She had to take out the Enforcer before the man behind the speaker decided to show his face.

  Larkin’s gun was in the hallway. He had dropped it after all. Silk rolled away from the wall and managed to grasp the weapon in her fingers just as the Enforcer grasped her by one ankle and lifted her in the air.

  She pulled off five shots right in his stomach.

  The man went down and
Silk went down with him. For several long panicky moments, she thought she would be trapped beneath the body when the man behind the speaker arrived. She didn’t want William Kale, if it was Kale, to find her helpless.

  Finally, she was able to slip from beneath the giant carcass.

  Even the firing of the gun hadn’t brought Davis Rule to consciousness.

  Silk limped toward the man in the chair. His curly hair was matted and wet across his forehead. The moisture wasn’t sweat. His broad shoulders were slumped forward over a chest smeared with blood. With trembling fingers, Silk lifted Rule’s face up. She almost dropped it again in horror. Cuts and contusions marred his handsome features. He was almost unrecognizable.

  Forgetting Larkin, forgetting Kale, Silk dropped to her knees and pressed her cheek against Rule’s chest. It took several panicked minutes for her to feel a shallow rise and fall. He was alive. She had to keep him that way.

  Silk knew it was a long hike back to the fence. She knew she had lost blood and her injuries were no longer ignorable. She also knew that it didn’t matter. Rule was in much worse shape and she was their only hope.

  It took too long to undo the ropes. His wrists were destroyed by the tight bonds around them. He had struggled. He would have. He would have fought until they had taken all the fight from him.

  Finally, he was free. He fell forward and she had to move quickly to catch him. He was lighter than the Enforcer had been, but just barely. She hoisted him over one shoulder and made for the door.

  She had seen enough to know that should Larkin or Kale confront her before she made it out of the compound they would die for what they had done to her partner.

  He rose quickly. The game was not over. It was far from over. But he wouldn’t face even an injured Silk alone. He had seen her kill the IL-Bah. He still couldn’t believe that she had killed the Enforcer as well. He had brought the guard with him from Secure Hold after his brain had been fried with a stunner. It had been amusing having the big man act like a large puppy, doing whatever he was told.

  Now even that pleasure was taken from him. He tried to maintain his optimism. The night was not a total loss.

  She would be hampered by Rule and it was entirely probable that her lover would die.

  Once he had replenished his resources, he would find her again and then he would finish her for good.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Silk stopped beside the same building she had crouched near earlier in the night as she waited for darkness to fall. She lowered Rule gently to the ground.

  The church steeple still called to her, but she couldn’t heed that call. Rule needed more help than she could give him. He needed medical attention. She couldn’t leave him here to investigate the church. In truth, she was in no shape to investigate anything.

  She couldn’t believe they had made it this far. Larkin must have kept running. She wondered where the agent would end up. He was obviously no further threat. Kale was the wild card. She wondered if she could expect him to swoop down and open fire while she tried to get Rule through the fence.

  Silk almost welcomed the confrontation. Almost. She left Rule long enough to run to the fence and make a hole she hoped was big enough for Rule’s body to slip through.

  She used her hands to pull the fence up from the bottom. It only gave so much. She didn’t want to have to search for a cutting implement. And she didn’t want to head for the main gate. It would have to do.

  Rule didn’t protest when she pushed him through the dirt and under the fence. He was limp, a dead weight. The thought made her shudder. She took a moment to press her face close to his lips once they were on the other side.

  She couldn’t detect a breath because the night breeze was stronger than his breathing. She pushed one hand under his shirt, aching as she felt the moist injuries there. He was still warm and his heart still beat weakly under her fingers.

  Taking a deep breath, Silk hoisted Rule back on her shoulders. She faced a hike of about a mile to reach the van. She only hoped Harry knew what to do once she was there.

  Chapter Twenty

  Rule was hooked to medical equipment she didn’t recognize. One machine, called a respirator, helped him to breathe. Another monitored his heartbeat. Not for the first time since she’d come to this world, Silk longed for resources from home. A modern Med lab was what a man in Rule’s condition needed. Still, Harry seemed confident. He had called many friends in the medical profession in a frenzy of what he labeled paybacks. She couldn’t imagine what favors he had done for the people who responded. Or the risks they had taken to stabilize Rule and move him to a secluded mountain chalet. She knew the ambulance and equipment were borrowed.

  She only hoped they knew what they were doing. She was out of her element. She had no training in the healing arts. She was uncomfortable in her role as companion to the unconscious man.

  The frequent shifts in her seat and the agitated flexing of her fingers went unnoticed. Rule had not stirred. Even when they had carefully set his broken bones. Even when his breathing tube had been inserted. His form was motionless.

  Silk’s own breath was caught in her chest. This strange world was suddenly more off-kilter than before. Her image of Rule was set in her mind. Big, powerful and indomitable. An adversary so admired that he’d became almost a friend…a lover when he couldn’t be that. It was wrong for him to be broken and helpless. Wrong for him to be hurt in this way because of her.

  Silk spent the time running the night’s events over and over again in her brain. Her analysis was disjointed, punctuated occasionally by unbidden notice of Rule’s injuries. She wondered how William Kale had become involved with Ronin. The presence of the IL-Bah and the Enforcer at the compound could mean nothing else.

  His cheeks are so puffy how will I even know if he tries to open his eyes.

  She wondered why she had been allowed to leave with Rule.

  The bandage on his chest is soaked through.

  She wondered how she would fight the ever-widening band of enemies she faced.

  Stitches. So many stitches.

  Finally, it was Harry who rolled into the room to pull her away from Rule’s side. She had not slept in over twenty-four hours. She had not bathed since the bloody fight with the IL-Bah and the Enforcer. She had been so focused on Rule that she hadn’t even realized that much of the blood he had lost was dried on her clothes.

  “You need a shower and sleep, Silk. It’s gonna be a while before we know anything. If looks could heal, he would be doing the tango right now. As it is, there’s nothin’ you can do here. And you’re scaring some of the nurses.”

  Silk didn’t smile. Surely, Harry didn’t expect her to. He bustled her out of the room with a hand on her hip. It was a testament to his concern that he didn’t slide it around to cup her behind.

  “Nothing I can do.”

  “That’s right. You can’t do anything for him. You need to get some rest and let my friends do their work.”

  Nothing?

  Silk wasn’t so sure.

  Siilc Aman-shi wasn’t a nurse. She wasn’t a doctor or a med-lab scientist. She couldn’t hold Rule’s bandaged hands and offer him comfort. It wasn’t in her nature. She could do one thing. She could bring the man responsible to his knees.

  Ronin D’Ja-nar had long been her primary obsession. Now Silk refocused her energy. Perhaps Kale would lead her to Ronin. Based on the presence of the Enforcer and the IL-Bah, that wasn’t an illogical assumption. But in the end, it didn’t matter. Now Kale came first. She couldn’t help Rule in a medical or even a nurturing way, but she could make certain that the same man wasn’t capable of hurting him again.

  “Sweets, you can not storm FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C., I mean, you’re awesome in action, but that would not be the smart thing to do.”

  “You can use Rule’s credentials to get her past security, Harry.” Solstice Meadows was on her side. She had woken from a brief rest to find him and Piper Jo at the chalet. She didn�
��t know if having his support was a good thing. Piper was looking at her gray-haired friend as if he was on a rampage and Harry rolled his eyes.

  “Just because you can do a thing doesn’t mean you should do a thing, Sol. This is serious. We aren’t talking commando here. We’re talkin’ government crackdown. We make the wrong move now and we’ll all be looking at four little white walls for the rest of our lives.”

  “This is serious, Harry. And it’s what we’ve been leadin’ up to with all our little hobbies. We can’t back out now.”

  “I do not want any of you to put yourself at further risk. Alter Rule’s credentials, and then I proceed alone.”

  Solstice looked betrayed. He also slumped slightly in his chair as if the wind had been sucked from his sails. Piper thumped him on the back.

  “Cheer up, Sol. Maybe they’ll send a team of Army Rangers to invade our little party here and you’ll see some action too.”

  Her friend rolled his eyes, but he perked up a bit as if the suggestion wasn’t entirely unappealing.

  “I’ll do it. But only if you promise to be discreet and careful.”

  Silk stood beside Harry’s chair. She didn’t understand why Piper burst into laughter.

  “Discreet? That’s a good one, Harry. Every blonde Amazon inch of her. Discreet.”

  Piper continued to giggle. Silk smiled. She would alter her appearance. Kale would be caught by surprise. And, after dealing with him, she would continue on to Ronin.

  She couldn’t undo what had been done to Miilos. She couldn’t undo what had been done to Rule. But she could do something. And that something was what she did best.

  It took until evening to gather her supplies. It would be a four-hour drive to Washington, D.C. Silk spent a few moments by Davis Rule’s side. A chubby little nurse had told her that he had flinched when she changed his last IV. It was a good sign. He was a very strong man. The Enforcer had not been gentle or kind. It was amazing that Rule had lived.