Smoke & Fire - Adult Paranormal Romance Series, Book #1

by Michele Wesley

  Corkscrew in hand, Sori stayed low as she advanced her target. The man made the mistake of spinning around and raising his weapon, but he was a second too slow. She jammed the corkscrew into his neck twice with lightning -fast speed. The ripping of his skin made a sound that she knew well. She recognized the squish of tendons and the crunch of bone as the corkscrew unknowingly help siphon the life from its unintended victim. One stab had disabled his ability to call out and another to the back of his neck had stopped most of his motor functions. The man’s legs folded as the rest of his body followed. Bleeding out, he was left a shivering mass of meat trying desperately to cling to a spark of life that was nearly out.

  Sori accepted the gifts the man offered, a .45 with a silencer attached, two clips of extra ammunition, a backup 9 millimeter in his waist, and two small knives he had up his sleeves. These were definitely assassins sent to finish the job their buddies had started on the ship.

  Mycale stood next to Sori, armed and ready to fight. He spoke with a certainty in his voice, “They sent the Calvary this time. There are at least twenty of them.” Sori didn’t know how he knew this, but she believed him. He continued, “If we don’t make it, it truly was nice knowing you. I wish I could have known you better.”

  She clicked the safety off the second weapon, .45 in one hand and the 9 millimeter in the other. “Nice knowing you too, but I don’t plan on dying here tonight.”

  They could hear random gunfire sporadically and surmised it was the Gonzaleses’ security force making an attempt to protect the house. But that ship had sailed; the enemy had stormed the gates, and they were probably using guerrilla war tactics to take out every living thing on the property. If the property and its people still had a chance, the assassins wouldn’t have been in the house.

  Certain the assassins were going around killing everything that had a pulse, Sori prepared for battle. She hoped the Gonzaleses had the good sense to barricade themselves in the safe room, but at this point, there were no certainties about anything.

  Leaning over to Mycale, she asked, “How do you want to play this?”

  Already knowing what she had in mind, he said, “I’ll sweep north and west wings and you east and south, we meet up at the centerpiece, the staircase, and try to find the Gonzaleses.”

  She could have kissed him at that moment; instead, she inclined her head and walked out the door in full battle mode. Her adrenaline had her feeling like she was floating instead of running. The lights were out, and no one but death was waiting, gladly waiting to receive his guest. Focused, Sori shut her mind down so tight she was ready to kill anyone or anything that tested her.

  Her sensory perception had never felt so on point; before she turned down a second hall, she knew someone would be there. She took a quick peek, aimed, and fired two quick shots, one center mass and another through the left eye. The man dropped before she rounded the corner. A noise from behind drew her gaze letting her see two of his buddies coming up her rear. Seeing them take aim, she didn’t stick around for fire.

  Rounding the hall, she ran as if being chased by wild dogs. She did a jump-tuck-and-roll move that helped her avoid bullets as they flew by her like fast-moving balls of fire. She unwound her body from the tuck, and it landed her just on the inside of a half-opened door. Her hand landed on a still warm body behind the door, probably one of the Gonzaleses’ workers.

  She didn’t have time to check for a pulse because the men were rapidly approaching, their boots beating up the floor as their bullets ate at the wall that half-protected her. Their moving target, she ran toward the bathroom and did a swan dive into the huge tub as bullets whizzed by her like angry wasps. The huge raised platform bathtub provided her temporary protection, but she had to find a way out. She was in the last place she wanted to be, pinned—down.

  Sliding her body flat in the bottom of tub, she laid there on her back trying to catch her breath. She unconsciously kissed both guns as her brain tried to come up with a plan. Both men were standing just within the bathroom now, laughing, but not crazy enough to walk too close to the tub. One spoke, “Lady, you’re outnumbered, just give up and we’ll kill you fast. We promise.”

  One of the men sprayed the tub and wall with his automatic weapon. Sori could feel bullets slamming into the side of the tub, trying to make their way through and into her body. The bullets hit loud and angry. She closed her eyes as chunks of ceramic tile and plaster rained down on top of her. The bullets were chipping away at the tub and wall like an ice pick through ice.

  Although in the mist of sudden death, she remained calm. Always deadly calm in the midst of danger, it was a part of herself she desperately wanted to understand. She knew that if the men kept shooting, bullets would eventually eat their way through the tub.

  She took a breath, preparing to purposely antagonize the men. “If I must die, I’ll welcome my death while fighting. Thanks for the offer of a quick death, but I prefer to die with some honor. So fuck you!” She heard laughter.

  “Lady, you got balls, I gotta give it to you. If you climb out of that tub, I’ll give you all the honor you want. And then I’ll fuck you.”

  Sori could clearly see the men’s shadows cast on the wall. She smiled. She always managed to find hope in the shadows of darkness. Just as one of the men left himself vulnerable and let out another chuckle, she raised her right hand at an odd angle. She took the chance of getting her hand shot off as she let the .45 rock back and slide fast-moving death toward the area she had hopefully calculated from his cast shadow to have been his head.

  She used his own arrogance against him, and in the split second that he let his guard down, laughed, and didn’t pay attention, she had raised her hand and snuffed out his life. His shadow showed a spray from his head, like water shooting out of a busted pipe, but reality showed bits of the man’s brains and meaty chunks of his head splattering the wall behind him.

  When his buddy’s shadow turned to process what happened, Sori sat up and gave the 9 millimeter a chance to prove its point. The man never knew what hit him as his body went stiff and fell straight back.

  His head hit the floor so hard that blood and brain matter shot out of the large exit hole in the side. As Sori walked over his body, his dead open eyes were looking up and seemed to be watching her, like the eyes of an ominous painting.

  Sori moved out of the area as fast as she could, sure the automatic weapons’ fire had been heard by the rest of the Calvary. As she rushed for a secure area to post up, she briefly wondered how Mycale was doing but thought better of it. She had studied Mycale’s file, and although she had a lot more practice than him, she knew that he could handle himself. He had asked her to teach him how to turn off his feelings, not realizing that he already knew how. She had seen him flip his kill switch so quickly and smoothly when he had killed the man on the ship that it was like watching someone flip a channel.

  * * *

  Mycale was on the opposite end of the estate. By his last count, he had killed nine men, eleven if he counted the men from the cruise ship. He realized he had killed more men in two weeks working with Sori than he had killed in his entire career. He thought that his attraction to her would throw off his abilities, but his defensive tactics were sharper than ever before. He also found a new way to release his rage, a secret he wasn’t ready to share with her, but one that cemented the fact that he was not normal.

  He had no idea how, but he felt Sori’s presence just as strongly as his own, and knowing she was still alive gave him strength and kept him going.

  The fact that he felt so calm in the midst of so much death and mayhem scared him a bit. Now, he understood, this was what Sori wanted to shield him from. She didn’t want him to become numb to the things that made him human.

  * * *

  When the hairs on the back of Sori’s neck stood like the hackles on a rooster, she knew an intruder lurked nearby. But this one felt differen
t, more deadly, almost had a sinister feel to him. Out of nowhere came his right fist as it connected to the left side of her face. Instantly thrown off guard and tasting blood, the force from the blow slammed her body into the wall.

  Sori shook off the pain, recovered quickly, lifting the .45 and the 9 millimeter only to have them both knocked from her hands. The man moved so fast she could hardly keep up with him. This was unusual for her because she prided herself on her speed and alertness as it was usually her advantage.

  Three more blows came out of nowhere in a combination of kicks that connected with her back and side. Her mind swallowed as much pain as it could, but it didn’t stop her body from crying out. He had broken a rib, maybe two or three. Not only had she heard the crunch, she felt the vibration of her bones as they snapped. Pain registered, but she couldn’t be bothered with it right now; staying alive and finding a way to kill this bastard were her only objectives.

  The man was kicking her ass, plain and simple, and he seemed to enjoy hand-to-hand combat over weaponry. He blocked every move and strike she attempted and hit her with counterstrikes that were coming faster than she could react. He was fast, almost inhumanly fast. The study didn’t provide much in the way of weapons of opportunity, so she was at a loss. She feigned calmness, hoping that paying attention to his movements would give her a chance to catch him slipping.

  No damn luck.

  The next blow hit the side of her head so hard the momentum spun her body around twice before she hit the floor. She had never had her ass kicked this bad. She hugged the floor, breathing hard, coughing, and spitting out blood. Sounds were funneling into her ear like ghostly echoes as she struggled to regain her equilibrium.

  She heard it before it connected with the top of her head—the back of his foot. In the split second she had to react, she took one of the knives from her waist and plunged it through the back of the man’s shoe and into his heel.

  Unfortunately, her small victory hadn’t slowed the man’s relentless attack. He hadn’t even acknowledged pain. She risked a quick glance, finding that the bastard hadn’t even flinched. He looked like a beast straight out of hell. At least seven feet tall and built of pure muscle. He had a neck as wide as his head and shoulders as wide as a Peterbilt truck. His skin was unnatural, like plastic, shiny and pale white.

  He spun, with the blade sticking out of the back of his heel, intent upon using the handle of the knife to inflict more damage to her face and head.

  Sori rolled out of the way in time to see his foot hit the floor. The knife connected with enough force that it sliced the rest of its way through the back of the man’s foot and flew a few feet into the air.

  What in the hell is this guy? A fucking android?

  She summoned enough force to throw the second knife exactly where she wanted it, deep into his neck. Hopefully, it had severed the carotid artery. The knife only seemed to piss him off. He jerked it out of his neck as if it were a splinter. Watching, she saw blood squirt from the area like water from a sprinkler.

  Sliding across the floor on her ass, she didn’t stop until her back hit a wall of books. She used the wall to slide herself up to her feet. Founding the 9 millimeter while sliding backward across the floor, she shot the thing twice in the chest, but he/it was unmoved. Kevlar was the only logical explanation for why he hadn’t gone down yet. Now, she was sorry she hadn’t used the last two bullets on his big ass head.

  Staring at her like a lion stalking its prey, she could see him thinking of his next move. At the snap of her finger, he ran over to and, of all things, picked up a desk. The desk wasn’t one of the particleboard variety, it was a well-built large hardwood heavy hitter. The desk came at her so fast Sori didn’t have time to think, react, or move. It was one of those moments when you freeze at the sight of death as it rushes towards you.

  Her body felt like it had disintegrated into a billion molecules as the desk soured past the area she’d occupied and crashed into the wall behind her. She saw it all from a strange angle she couldn’t explain, thinking she must have been dead as her soul watched from a view in the ceiling. He had thrown the desk so hard that parts of it shattered and impaled the wall as hundreds of other pieces splintered and flew all over the room.

  At least she didn’t have time to feel any pain. When she saw him, her thoughts were cut short as she felt herself being hurled through the air, like someone had picked her up and threw her. She had no control as her body went flying toward the man, but her mind was clear enough that she thought to inflict damage on him whether he felt it or not.

  The beast of a man cocked his head after a frozen moment. The look on his face projected sheer horror, a look Sori never expected to see coming from those beastly eyes. She wondered what he saw that finally scared him, because it obviously hadn’t been her. She was dead, wasn’t she?

  When her body collided with his, she put her skills to use, using every muscle she had to angle herself up and around his body locking her leg around his neck, using her other leg to lock herself in place. She applied a tight triangle around his neck like a vise grip, and used every bit of her 125 pounds to swing her body around, twisting and pulling his neck down in the process.

  She made her body become a giant hand twisting off the cap of a bottle. She could hear bones and vertebrae snapping and popping as both their bodies hit the floor hard. The wind had been temporarily knocked out of her lungs, but she kept her wits enough to keep her legs locked and gripped around his neck. Her body weight had pulled him down to the floor hard enough that his neck snapped and she felt it separate from the rest of his body.

  She could feel that only skin and ligaments held his head to the rest of his body, but she didn’t release her grip on what was left of his neck until she felt his life seep slowly out of him—like a tire losing its pressure.

  She welcomed the feel of Death as he entered the room to collect his bounty. Maybe she was faster than she thought. She couldn’t figure out how she had survived the desk coming at her, but she’d provided death a body buffet this night, and he was eating very well.

  * * *

  Two hours and six bodies later, tired and sure nothing else lived in her sector, Sori met Mycale at the staircase. He looked like he had been through hell, but she imagined she did also. His clothes were in shambles, like he had been set on fire and put out with a fire extinguisher. His skin was laced with smears of soot and dirt. He had blood coming out of his nose, mouth, and gashes and lacerations all over his body.

  Sori felt like she had been on the run from acid spitting hell-hounds and was almost certain the beastly big man she had fought was one of death’s descendants. Her body begged her to show a little mercy, feeling the effects of the battery of ass-kickings she’d taken. She had to ignore her pain a bit longer and try to make heads or tails of the situation.

  Mycale spoke the first words, “The Gonzaleses are dead. Looks like they were headed down to the panic room. Both were double tapped in the back of the head, professional hit.”

  Sori took a glance around, noticing that the house looked like the Taliban had been let loose, dispelling their version of a house party.

  Glancing back at Mycale, she knew he would know the answer. She asked, “Did anyone survive?”

  He shook his head and said, “We are it. The guest house is burnt nearly to the ground. We took out everything with a pulse, and the assassins took out everything but us.”

  Cursing, she said, “Fucking shit! I was hoping we could have at least gotten more information out of them. What in the hell kind of Cartel is this? They are becoming more and more untouchable because they don’t mind killing any and everything that could lead to the identity of their infamous leader.”

  Finally noticing, she saw blood seeping from Mycale’s shoulder. “Shit, you’re shot!”

  Touching the area, he winced, “He got me, but I got him better. It’s a through and through,
hurts like hell, but I’ll live.”

  She stared at him a bit too long, her emotions on overload all of a sudden. She said, “I need to find the satellite phone and call my brothers. They are going to have to jet over a big-ass cleanup crew for this one. And they are going to think this shit is all my fault. They are always saying that bodies drop no matter where I go.”

  Mycale’s face broke into a brilliant smile. Crossing her arms over her chest, she asked “What?”

  His lips twitched as he tried to contain his laughter. “Your brothers told me about some of your jobs, and it does seem that a lot of people die when and wherever you’re working.”

  Her body slumped in defeat. “Don’t tell me my brothers have you thinking I love killing people just for the hell of it?”

  Scratching his head as a different method of hiding his laughter, he said, “No, not at all. The way I see it, it’s justified. Especially this. But”—he stared around the war zone they were standing in and fanned aside flying debris as he spoke—“I just killed twelve people in the few weeks that I have been with you. That’s more than I have had to kill in my entire career, including the military.”

  Throwing up her hands and head in defeat, she walked off. “I am going to look for the got-damn phone.” She talked low, but Mycale could still hear her. “Now they are going to think that I have corrupted him, their poor little innocent and quiet Mycale.”

  Mycale laughed. He called after her, “It’s not like that, Sori. We had to do what we had to do or we’d be dead too.”

  He followed her in search of the phone but kept a safe distance until he could control his laughter. He had no doubt that when Drake and Damon saw how much death and destruction he and Sori were leaving behind, the brothers would label them death’s new disciples. Mycale was convinced, if Sori didn’t track down Padre, and soon, she was determined to kill everyone in his Cartel until she did.