by Nick Kelly
“Besides,” she said, leveling her gaze on Cat, “I’d prefer a fresh start. We’re going to be partners after all.”
EPILOGUE
The desert horizon blurred in the heat and velocity as the Honda-Suzuki raced along. For the briefest of moments, it left a shadow on the fallen sign that identified Highway 40. Then it thundered away. Catwalk’s chest was against the tank with Delilah holding on to him tightly.
Her voice invaded his helmet’s speakers. “I thought you said this thing was fast?”
“Oh, niiiiiice. That was almost convincing, except you’re grippin’ on me as if I’m yer parachute.”
“That a complaint, mister?”
“No way on this planet or any other I’m gonna complain about you holdin’ me, Red.”
He eased the bike around the obstacles in the road, swerving a few additional times when the landscape was clear. She had asked earlier why he was moving the bike when he didn’t need to. His response about knowing where the mines were planted invoked almost four minutes of silence.
For now, the odd pairing, the orphaned half-human killer and the glamorous fashion designer, escaped the city. This was the closest thing to Eden that he could imagine. The feel of the motorcycle brought a peace deeper than mediation or drugs. Delilah’s voice woke him from an internal daydream.
“You know every millimeter of this road, huh?”
“Yeah, like I know every millimeter a’ this bike.”
“Anywhere that’s absolutely private?”
He thought for a moment, then answered, “a couple.”
“Good, find the next one.”
“Alright, whatcha got in mind, Red?”
“We need a little time to ourselves,” she tightened her grip on his chest. “I intend to leave marks this time.”
COMING SOON
Stay Tuned for more of the Leon “Catwalk” Caliber Series
Coming Soon
Lineage
Mercy Killing
Obedient
For more information, visit Nick Kelly at:
Www.nickkelly.com
Twitter: @Nick_Kelly
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A SUREFIRE WAY
J.T. Bock’s
An UltraSecurity Novel
PepperLip Press
www.jtbock.com
Available on Amazon.com
Chapter One
Bad guys should never be this hot, Surefire thought before she slipped on the crossbeam hanging high above the warehouse floor.
Her next thought, she vocalized. Repeatedly.
“Shit . . .”
She was running along the rafters, jumping from beam to beam in close pursuit of Raven—the annoyingly hot thief—when her knee gave out. Her outstretched foot missed its landing by inches.
Time stopped. Her stomach lurched and her heart screeched to a halt. For a nanosecond, she seemed to float. But that was only an illusion.
She was falling. Fast. Her heart pumped out a last-ditch beat. She flailed her arms and stretched her upper body, groping for the next beam.
“Oof!” Her chest caught the edge, knocking the breath from her lungs. She wrapped her arms around the beam and hugged it tight to her now throbbing chest.
Surefire looked down at her feet, dangling forty feet above the floor below.
Big mistake.
“Oh, God,” she uttered. I can’t fail now.
“Need help?” Raven called out from a few beams over.
Surefire’s mouth fell open. She must have misheard him.
Raven jumped, as if on springs, from crossbeam to crossbeam back in her direction. He stopped on the beam across from her and stood with his head cocked, waiting, it seemed, for her reply.
Surefire’s gaze trailed up his body from his rock-climbing shoes to his rock-solid abs.
No, she decided, a transhuman baddie needed a bizarre deformity—metal teeth, yellow skin, neon eyes, a joker face—something. Not a second-skin black suit that showed off the body of a Grecian athlete.
It was way too distracting.
Not that she was distracted one bit. She was an UltraAgent—a trained law-enforcement professional. She was always in control and always focused, and she always completed her mission. In this case, capturing the thief directly across from her.
Her falling had nothing to do with being distracted. Her bad knee had buckled. That was all.
His eyes locked on hers from behind the two holes in his Zorro-like mask, and he asked again, “Do you need help?”
Under her own mask, she blinked, registering his question. Did he think she was an idiot?
Surefire repositioned her arms for a better grip. Anger now replaced her fear. “Isn’t this the part when you run away? Or toss me to my death?”
“I can’t and won’t have blood on my hands,” he replied.
“Glad you have some principles. It’ll help you in court.”
He shook his head as if she didn’t get it. “I can give you a hand—”
“Stay where you are.” She emphasized each word so he didn’t mistake her meaning.
Never moving her eyes from his, she hauled herself back onto the beam, inch by painful inch. Swinging her leg over, she pulled herself up onto unsteady feet but remained in a squat for better balance. She took a deep breath then winced as pain sliced through her ribcage.
Just great. A bruised rib.
If Raven noticed she was hurt, he didn’t give any indication. He casually stood on the beam across from her. Over his shoulder, he held the burlap sack containing the statue he had stolen from the museum.
Surefire raised her right arm and aimed the small dart gun attached to her wrist. She concentrated on keeping her hand from trembling as she locked on the masked space between his eyes.
Then she hesitated.
She couldn’t shoot him this high up off the floor. He’d fall, and the priceless artifact he had slung over his shoulder like a bag of dirty gym clothes would crash to the ground.
Surefire lowered her gaze, and the bastard grinned.
“You okay?” he asked, not fazed by the weapon pointed at him.
“I’m fine.”
He snorted as if he didn’t believe her. Her finger tensed on the trigger button hidden in her palm.
“The police and the FBI will be here any minute.” She swallowed to strengthen her voice. “I suggest we climb down and—”
His lips puckered into a kiss before he dropped onto the concrete floor as if it weren’t a forty-foot fall but a leap off a balance beam.
Dammit!
Not hesitating again, she flicked her wrist toward the ground and depressed the trigger.
Click. Click. Nothing.
She inspected the tiny dart gun, shook it, and tried again.
Click. Click. Again, nothing.
Oliver was so dead when she got back to the UltraSecurity office. She hadn’t had time for a weapons check this evening, and Oliver had sworn he had tested her weapons earlier in the day.
“Having a wardrobe malfunction?” Raven called up to her.
Surefire glared down at him. He stood below her with his hands on his hips and his face tilted up at her. Moonlight filtered through the smudged windows lining the top of the building and cast a dim spotlight on his infuriating grin.
She rolled her eyes. He had something up his tight sleeve, or he would have escaped when she slipped.
Then again, maybe he wanted to see what else she’d mess up.
Hands down, he was the most arrogant criminal she’d been assigned. Not that she had encountered many. He was only her fourth assignment since joining UltraSecurity, known as U-Sec, over three years ago. And the first assignment she headed up since her elevation from rookie to full-time agent. The last two agents on the case had been reassigned. Inferno had lost his cool and seared a museum’s storage center trying to stop Raven. They had found the last agent, Tara Kard, tied up on Marie Antoinette’s bed at Versailles, a priceless vase m
issing.
So by now, Raven probably thought UltraAgents were pathetic amateurs, and he had become cocky.
Hence, the not running away part.
Either that or he hoped to win her trust and disable her as he had done to Tara.
Whatever his motive, she’d show him.
Surefire grabbed a metal tube the size and width of her index finger, hidden in a small pouch on her belt. She aimed it at him and depressed the release button on its side. A net shot out but didn’t deploy evenly. It drifted onto the ground next to him, a limp parachute.
He nudged it with his foot. “Cute. Should I throw this over my head?”
“That would be helpful.”
Surefire sighed. Between the weapon malfunctions and her slipping, he deserved to get away, and she deserved to have her U-Sec badge revoked.
“Nah, I’ll let you work for it. I don’t want you to think I’m easy.” He darted away into the shadows of the aisles.
Surefire spun around, straining to hear his fleeing steps in an effort to pinpoint his location. But the building housed metal crates, which bounced sound around like a pinball, making him nearly impossible to track.
“You know . . .” His voice sounded from down below to her left. Or was it from behind? “I don’t think you want to catch me. I’m probably the most excitement you’ve ever had.”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” Surefire yelled, angrier than she intended.
“Then why all the mistakes? Are you trying to screw up?”
She threw down the empty metal tube with a clang.
How long had she been on this case? Three months. And how many times had she almost caught him? Three near misses. And how often had he tried to provoke her? Three times, of course. Three signified the final strike, the final out—the charm. She had begged her bosses for this case. If she wanted to make a name for herself at U-Sec—and if she wanted a raise—then she needed Raven.
Well, she needed to catch him.
She scanned the boxes below for one stacked high enough to jump onto but found none nearby. She was a sure shot and a trained gymnast, but she was only human, well, a transhuman. She hated that label the media used for people with extraordinary abilities. She could hit any target—when her weapons worked. But that was the extent of her talents. Looking down at the long drop to the floor, which Raven had taken with such ease and no broken bones, she wondered whether he was something more than a transhuman.
Most transhumans were gifted with one ability. Very few had two distinct talents. Raven possessed several that U-Sec was aware of. Bullets slowed but never stopped him. He toted off statues weighing three hundred pounds as if they were plastic mannequins. Then, during his previous heist, he had walked through the walls of a sealed vault, adding “phasing out” to his list of talents.
Why he didn’t use that skill now, Surefire couldn’t guess. However, she was grateful. She was close to capturing Raven or at least uncovering his thefts, and failure was not in her family’s genes, as dad loved to remind her.
But first, she needed to find Raven again or at least distract him until her backup arrived. They were late, and Surefire was too focused on her target to question why.
Eyeing the rafter angled just above and to her right, she lifted her left arm, aimed a small compact box secured to her wrist, and shot out a line to the next beam up. The small weighted grappling hook, attached to the end of a cable, spun twice around the beam then latched onto the edge. She tugged on it and the hook held. Her gaze shifted to the floor below, finding the perfect spot to land. The drop didn’t seem so frightening when she wasn’t dangling over it.
Surefire swung down and dropped onto solid concrete.
The hard landing jolted her body. Renewed pain surged along her ribs. She doubled over as she struggled to breathe past the searing sting. She pulled two capsules from a belt pocket and popped them into her mouth, breaking them open with her teeth. Seconds later, a soothing liquid slid like hot Irish coffee down her throat and to her stomach. The sensation branched out to her limbs and dulled the pain but not her senses. For another hour, she wouldn’t feel a thing. These Happy Pills, as the other agents dubbed them, were the best innovation by U-Sec’s lab geeks.
She ejected the thin, strong cable from the box on her wrist then heard the click of another hook and cable loading inside the small contraption as backup. Though she certainly wasn’t in any condition to imitate Tarzan again this night.
Regrouping, she quieted her breathing. Cargo containers loomed above her. Giant Legos stacked in countless rows. She listened for a footstep, a misstep, anything.
And heard nothing.
Surefire slumped against a crate. If Raven were stashing his stolen goods in this warehouse, as she believed, he wouldn’t go far. She considered her options. She’d rather not reveal her position. She’d prefer a sneak attack, but the warehouse was so large the only way to find him was to get him to start talking.
Not the typical protocol, but Raven seemed to enjoy showing off his verbal gymnastics, especially when it came to mocking her. Only one way to find out. Desperate, she straightened up and opened her mouth, when Raven’s voice resounded above her.
“Did you do that?”
“Do what?” she replied, caught off-guard.
“Nothing. It’s probably nothing.”
What the hell was he talking about? Her face cinched in confusion under her mask.
Whatever it was didn’t matter. The hairs on her arms stood on end. He was close. Very close. His voice was loud, clear.
“Maybe if you describe it, I could help,” she offered.
She eased a small stun gun from her utility belt, pressed her back against the cold steel of the crate, bit her lip, held her gun high in the air, and then—
“Doubtful,” his voice echoed loudly.
Surefire jumped back. His voice was too close, like he was speaking next to her ear. She whirled around and looked up. Above and to her right, Raven peered over the edge of the top crate. His lips flashed an oh-too-perfect-smile before he backed away from the edge.
She pulled the trigger to at least graze him. Again, another empty click.
What the—?
She flung the gun down and attempted another tactic—not exactly a typical tactic, but worth a try, since Raven was an atypical criminal.
“Come down here, and I’ll show you how helpful I can be.” She tried to deepen her voice and make it sexy. “Tried” was the operative word.
He laughed a rich, sultry laugh that she was certain he had practiced to get it just so. “You need to work on your bedroom voice. You sound like a man, and I don’t swing that way. Ask Inferno.”
“Inferno?” Surefire frowned. “What do you mean?”
“What do you think?”
She mulled this over for a moment then balked, “No way. He’s an ex-Navy Seal. You’re wrong.”
“That has nothing to do with it. Why do you think he burned down the storage center?”
“He lost control. It happens to the best of us.”
“Hell hath no fury like a queen scorned.” Raven chuckled, and his amusement bothered her more than this conversation, which was supposed to distract him instead of her. He had both men and women bumbling over him. Surefire was certain the same thing had happened to Tara Kard, even if she had never given specifics. Tara had hated turning over the case to Surefire, who assumed it was because she had been embarrassed for having failed. Now Surefire wondered if it were something more.
Egotistical bastard. If sex appeal were another one of his powers, he needed to save it for his cellmate.
Surefire jumped when the crates to her left creaked. She caught sight of Raven landing on another box farther down the aisle before he disappeared. She ran down the aisle and vaulted over the metal rails of a forklift.
Think of something. Anything to annoy him.
“Considering your outfit, no wonder Inferno thought you played for his team,” Surefire shouted before rounding a
corner.
A small crate teetered and swayed above her. She could see Raven’s outline against the filtered light.
“What’s wrong with my outfit?”
Surefire suppressed a laugh. He actually sounded offended. “Looks like something a mime would wear.”
“I’m miming something right now. Too bad you can’t see it.”
“Come down here and show me.”
He coyly changed the subject. “I’m liking your leotard. Doesn’t leave much to the imagination. I assume it’s for distraction?”
Surefire blushed. Ever since she’d moved in with her sister six months ago, Heather’s cat, Prada, saw fit to use Surefire’s uniforms as her own special bed. Tonight, Prada had made Surefire’s only clean uniform into a litter box, and her backup had been lost by the dry cleaners after a previous Prada incident. So Surefire had had to find a new outfit quick—one that allowed ease of movement—and found her old gymnastics leotard. Apparently, her breasts and butt, though mostly her butt, had grown in the past ten years.
“Obviously, it’s not working or you’d be down here taking a closer look.”
“The view’s just as good from up here,” he countered, and Surefire didn’t think her face could flush any hotter. “But where did you get that mask? A luchador yard sale?”
She balled her fists. Ditto with the mask. Prada had used that as a hairball receptacle. Surefire had dug out her Halloween costume from four years ago when she’d dressed as a Mexican wrestler. Not a good look, but it hid her identity.
“At least I’m wearing underwear,” Surefire goaded him again.
“I did that for you.” He skimmed along the windowsills. “Was wondering if you’d noticed.”
Her body tensed in frustration. She needed to get Raven down to the floor now, and not for the reasons his tone suggested. Her mind raced through her portable arsenal. She had another weapon that released a net—if it worked.