Perfect Strangers

by Barbara J. Hancock

  “I am leaving you, Davis. There is nothing I can do for you here and I have to make sure that you stay safe so that you can heal. I’m not sure if you were conscious when they did this to you. I’m not sure if you know now that I was telling you the truth. If you had seen the Enforcer, you would know. I never lied to you. For some reason, I trusted you from the start. You are a good man.” Silk eased her hand out to brush damp curls from Rule’s forehead. The whisper feel of those dark strands against her fingers made her gut clench. She would never do this for him again. Should she survive her encounter with Kale, should she find a lead to Ronin, she would be leaving Earth and Rule very soon.

  “You were a fine partner, Davis Rule. Any JR would have been proud to have you by their side.”

  Silk leaned down to brush a kiss across the bit of skin exposed over one of Rule’s bandaged cheeks. Then she rose and left the room without a backward glance.

  If she had looked back, she might have seen the flutter of eyelashes as Davis Rule opened his eyes.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Silk wore a black wig and a nondescript gray business suit. The slacks were loose and frumpy. The jacket was oversized and easily hid the laser she had borrowed from Harry. Its familiar shape was pressed comfortingly against the small of her back. The materials it was constructed of were too foreign to the building’s weapon scanner to be detected. The flat shoes on her feet couldn’t disguise her height, but at least they didn’t add to it. She curled her shoulders down and hoped for the best.

  With her attention trained onto a hand-held computer, she pretended to jot down notes with the stylus and used the deceptive business to avoid eye contact with the few people she passed.

  It was evening and apparently not unusual to see a harried assistant of some sort bustling about when most others had gone home.

  Rule’s doctored credentials had gotten her this far. She would have to do the rest. She was lucky. Davis Rule worked in the part of the building with the lowest need for security measures. At least, someone high up thought so. They had no idea.

  Silk traversed the length of a west-facing corridor. She knew where to find Kale’s office. Harry was more resourceful than any human had a right to be. She just didn’t know what she’d find when she got there.

  Window coverings to her left allowed glimpses of waning sunlight to dapple the carpet under her feet as she made her way quickly and quietly to her destination. The office suite was deserted when she came to it. Shadowed cubicles were empty in silent clusters of maze-like walls awaiting the coming night.

  Silk eased through this outer area. Briefly, she wondered which desk was Rule’s. She couldn’t picture the big man in any of the tiny work stations. He wasn’t built for the office. The image of his injured face flashed in front of her eyes and she blinked against it. No time for the emotional response the image invoked.

  A light was on in the main office that filled one far corner of the room. It was a selfish placement taking up more than half of the windows along the wall, leaving the underlings in cubicles to spend each day in half-light. She found it laughable that only the superior warranted light and walls.

  All the time, she eased closer. From under the door, a light lit the floor in a lopsided rectangle of brightness. Silk froze as a shadow of movement crossed over this illuminated area. Someone had passed through the beam a lamp was casting, revealing their presence. They were either unafraid or unprepared. She couldn’t guess which, but she hoped for the later.

  Silk drew the Mahberg. The grip wasn’t custom fitted to her hand, but it felt good there. Familiar.

  The door opened before she could kick it down. So much for her hopes.

  “I’ve been expecting you. Please, come in.”

  A middle-aged man stood outlined by the light. He was tall with broad sloping shoulders and a solid build. Something about the way he stood with his feet planted lightly on their heels and his hands barely resting on his hips caused Silk to pause. Did she know him?

  He turned and the light fell fully on his face. The odd idea that he was familiar left her as his features were revealed. She had never seen him before, but he matched the description she had of William Kale.

  “That suit is a bit much. I assure you the women who work here dress better than that.”

  He motioned her into the office and Silk saw no reason not to comply. For some reason, she was struck by the movement of his hands. Or rather, by the way he seemed to watch them move as if something about his own fingers fascinated him.

  “You took longer than I expected. I’m surprised, Silk. Bedside vigil? That is not your style.”

  The way he said her name caused the fine hairs on the back of her neck to rise under the netting of her wig. So far he hadn’t seemed to notice the laser in her hands. Silk used her pinky finger to key the charge. The slight whir of activation drew his attention away from his hands to hers.

  “I’m surprised at that too. How many times have I heard you say that you prefer hand-to-hand?”

  The whir of the weapon in her hand seemed to get louder until it filled Silk’s ears. It almost blocked out the tone of his voice until only the words remained. The words, the inflection, the way he spoke if not the actual sound of his voice set off that dull throb of familiarity again. She fought the odd sensation that she somehow knew this man she’d never met, afraid that such a distraction might get her killed.

  “I know you, Silk. You don’t want to blast William Kale. You want to kick his ass. At least, you think it’s his ass you want to kick.”

  “You aren’t William Kale?”

  The man matching Kale’s description, standing in Kale’s office smiled.

  “Somehow I don’t think that question means you’ve had the revelation it implies.”

  He moved to take off his blazer as he spoke, revealing a slight paunch. He tossed the coat onto the back of a nearby chair and began to roll up his sleeves. Silk flexed her fingers around the laser’s grip.

  The arms he revealed were strange to her, but the way he moved those arms were not. She swallowed and fought the dizziness of déjà vu. His movements were not those of a middle-aged man who was a management type. They were smooth, fluid and dangerous.

  And, somehow, familiar.

  He threw the first punch, knocking the laser to the floor in a move so fast it negated the middle-aged spread evident beneath the thin cotton of his crisp white shirt.

  She dropped back slightly, bending her knees and meeting the next blow smoothly with a counter strike of her own. He met it with effortless ease. In fact, they practically danced for the next few moments as the fight turned automatic, both expecting the moves of the other. One-two-three. One-two-three. Silk almost heard the music in her head.

  As she side stepped a kick she knew was coming as sure as she had known each and every move before it, she knocked into a small pedestal holding a vase of flowers.

  The man who wasn’t Kale stopped his attack as she froze to watch the flowers scatter all around their feet. She could have sworn she heard the impact of each and every blossom on the carpet in spite of the thud the vase made against the wall. Every fiber of her being was concentrated on the impossible presence of D’nison flowers in this place at this time.

  “Call me sentimental, Siilc. I missed you.”

  She wasn’t prepared for the sudden push that propelled her body up against the wall with an impact only slightly less hollow than the vase’s. His form was strange to her. She’d never felt the slightly soft, but heavy chest that crushed her breasts or the hands that reached up to cup her face. So why was her blood singing through her veins as if it knew something she didn’t?

  “I missed your scent. I missed sparring with you. I missed this.”

  Before her numb mind and body could react, he pressed his lips to hers. And finally without a doubt, she knew. Miilos wasn’t dead. He wasn’t dead at all.

  Her blood responded to the kiss. After all, they had been bred for each other, and for
a long intoxicating second she was lost to everything but that elemental fact. His lips, his face were not shaped like those she had known and loved, but they were his nonetheless. She could taste the truth of it as his tongue slid along hers. Familiar. Intoxicating. Miilos.

  For long seconds as her blood betrayed her reasoning, she almost forgot Davis Rule. Almost. But then, in the end, blood wasn’t enough.

  Silk brought both hands down in a sudden chopping movement on either side of Miilos’ neck. He fell back gagging and choking and finally surprised by something she had done.

  “Why?”

  She should take him out while he was at a disadvantage, but she couldn’t. She had to know. Her blood still sang, but the passion, the pull was being replaced with anger and betrayal. Her gut clenched around the nausea in her stomach as she tried to fathom the scope of her discovery.

  “Don’t you ever get sick of it, Siilc? Bred to this. Meant for that. I wanted to be my own man. I wanted to be free. Ronin gave me the chance.”

  “You only traded one form of service for another. Ronin doesn’t give. He takes. He’s using you.”

  “I’ve been used since the day I was born. So have you. We had no choice. Deciding to work with Ronin was a choice. One I made years ago.”

  Silk shuddered in place as if she was standing against a blast of arctic wind. Her skin was brittle and icy. Each word from Miilos’ strange lips threatened to shatter her into nothing but crackling shards.

  Her partner. Her life mate. Her love. It had all been a lie.

  “So, I was the first Justice Representative who ever wanted something more. Ronin helped me disappear. It was painful. You don’t breeze through getting your face blown off. It took months of surgery to construct this new face and body. And it isn’t the one I wanted. You chose this for me.”

  Miilos rolled his shoulders as if straining against an ill-fitting suit.

  “I chose?”

  “You didn’t fall apart the way other partners had.”

  It was true. No JR in history had survived the death of a partner. So, in “killing” himself and abandoning her, Miilos had made the decision to kill her too.

  But she hadn’t given up. She hadn’t died.

  “By the way, that wasn’t so great for my ego. You should have wound up a sniveling basket case. Instead, you held up through a trial, and sentencing and relocation.”

  He stood straight and arched his neck to stretch it. The unfamiliar brown of his eyes didn’t disguise his anger.

  “It was embarrassing, but Ronin knew what to do. He knew you’d be sent to Earth. He knew about this place. It was just a matter of infiltrating and using these resources to our advantage.”

  “You killed William Kale and took his place.”

  “And now, I’m going to kill you and everyone who helped you. No one can know I’m still alive. They would hunt a rogue JR to the ends of this Earth and a thousand other worlds as well. I didn’t go through hell for my freedom just to lose it because of you.”

  He looked too calm. Too controlled. He was still a man with secrets in spite of all he’d just revealed. Fear skittered unfamiliar cold fingers down Silk’s spine. Where was Ronin? Where were the agents they had been using like mindless automatons?

  Miilos enjoyed the look on her face. He grinned. The lips of his new mouth were stiffer than they should have been. It made the expression almost a grimace. Or maybe it was just the fact the William Kale hadn’t been one for smiles.

  “You’re finally getting a sense of what you’re up against. Ronin has his fingers on the pulse of the universe. There’s nobody immune to that kind of power. Even your new champion.”

  Something in his eyes gave his emotion away.

  “You’re jealous.”

  “Maybe I was, but I’ve finally realized it’s stupid to be jealous over a dead woman.”

  “You can’t kill me, Miilos.”

  The weapon in his hand didn’t waver. A thick brow quirked over one of his borrowed eyes.

  “You think not?”

  “Oh, I don’t mean you can’t bring yourself to kill me. I mean, you can’t. You’ve already tried once and you didn’t succeed.”

  “Yes, that’s true. But this time I plan to use the direct approach.”

  The laser discharged once, twice, three times. Silk wasn’t surprised when he missed. Miilos had never been the best shot when it came to a moving target. She flipped back and over the large desk and sent it toward him as the zing of the laser flamed the opposite wall. The desk was solid wood. The force of it rammed into his surgically enhanced gut, knocking him backward onto the floor.

  She jumped up onto the desk and over it, landing with her heel against Miilos’ windpipe.

  “You can’t kill me, Silk,” he choked out as his larynx was painfully compressed.

  She looked into the strange-familiar eyes of her former lover. She remembered the love and laughter they had shared for twenty years. She remembered the grief that had rocked her when she had seen him die. It had all been a lie. Worst of all, in spite of his evil betrayal, she knew she would grieve again.

  “You’re already dead to me.”

  His eyes widened. She saw him realize the truth. She saw him realize that she was going to kill him.

  “Ronin—”

  “Will be next.”

  Silk leaned over to pick up Miilos’ laser.

  And almost lost her hand when a blast from another source caused a crater in the floor where the laser had been.

  “No one to watch your back?”

  Silk turned toward the voice, knowing who she would find. Miilos hadn’t been gasping out a final confession. He’d been begging for help from his new master.

  Ronin D’Ja-nar stood in the doorway. He was a small man, deceptively non-descript. Brown wavy hair and mild eyes. He wore a two-piece casual outfit called a jogging suit. The casual look was one he cultivated. You had to know him to fear him.

  Silk was afraid.

  “Your friends are all dead. Killing Miilos won’t bring them back.”

  “She wasn’t going to kill me.”

  “I think perhaps I have a better view of the expression in her eyes from this angle, my friend.”

  Ronin motioned with the laser and Silk eased her foot off Miilos’ neck. She turned her body slowly and flexed her empty hands at her sides. Ronin’s eyes narrowed at the movement of her fingers.

  Miilos got slowly to his feet.

  There was no way out of the situation. Ronin knew how to use the weapon in his hands. Miilos would recover quickly. Her only option was suicidal, but she had to take it.

  “He’s right. I was going to kill you.” Silk said it calmly, but Miilos still winced as if he’d been slapped. Ronin had been right about her intentions, but he might be wrong about one thing.

  There might still be time.

  If her former lover and partner had known her better, he might have read her new intentions in her eyes. Thankfully, he didn’t.

  Silk took a searing laser blast in the hip as she dropped, rolled and came up with her own borrowed Mahberg from halfway across the room. Even borrowed, the familiar weapon seemed to jump into her grasping fingers. She discharged it twice. Once into Ronin and again at the window of the office. The laser wound was the least of her worries as the window glass erupted, showering down three stories to the landscaping below. It was the least of her worries, because Silk threw herself out the jagged opening and followed the glass down.

  She didn’t have time to feel a shard of glass rip into her right side as she brushed against the sides of the broken window. She didn’t have time to worry about the laser fire that connected once more with one shoulder as she rolled to fall in the best way possible.

  Thankfully, Kale’s office didn’t face the parking lot. Silk landed with her face to the sky, cushioned by a row of hedges that scratched and poked painfully into her skin in dozens of places, but still managed to save her life. She rolled off the ruined greenery and ran as
if more than her life depended on it.

  As if she might still have time to save the lives of others.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  It took too long to get back. But even if she could have been there instantly, by the time she’d learned of their plans it would have been too late.

  There was a lot of blood.

  No bodies, but a lot of blood. She thought it might have been better if she could have seen the bodies. As it was, her mind kept trying to trick her. It kept trying to offer up the hope that this much blood didn’t mean that all her friends were dead. It didn’t mean that Davis was dead. She walked quietly from room to room, breathing in the metallic smell and forcing herself to face the truth.

  They were all dead. Harry, Sol, Piper Jo…Davis Rule. Dead because of her.

  By the looks of things, they had put up a fight. The bed where she had left Rule was overturned. It took a lot to overturn a hospital bed of that size. The equipment that had kept Rule alive was smashed. She wondered if he could breathe without it. Then she knew it didn’t matter. There was blood on the bed. Blood on the floor. He didn’t need the machine anymore.

  She knew without being told that a cleanup crew would come and scour the place until it sparkled. She knew without a doubt that she had to make it to Las Vegas without being stopped.

  Ronin couldn’t be allowed to gain this kind of foothold on Earth. All his power and all his connections would be unstoppable if he actually had a base of operations. His lack of roots had been their saving grace for years. Ronin with an address was unthinkable.

  Silk didn’t touch the bed. She left the room. She pushed her emotions down until they only throbbed deep within her where they couldn’t distract her from what had to be done.

  After she reached Las Vegas, after she was able to warn the League about Ronin’s presence and growing power on Earth, then she would grieve. For now, she pretended the tears slipping down her cheeks weren’t there. She pretended her heart wasn’t crying out for someone she’d only met a few days ago.