by Michael Todd
The next station was hand-to-hand combat, and though the guy was fast, she was used to that kind of training. With Pandora’s assistance, she whipped the guy. Within minutes she had him pinned beneath her on the mat and steadily increased the pressure of her knees on his back until he tapped out. She laughed and helped him up, patting him on the shoulder. He nodded, impressed. He was after all six two, two hundred and fifty pounds, and she had tossed him around like a fucking ragdoll.
The last area was target practice. Katie used their weapons, moving through the small target course, hitting the bull’s eye every time. A hot young guy with huge muscles walked by the range.
Pandora’s attention was instantly diverted. Hot-ass guy at ten o’clock!
Katie twitched as she fired her weapon and missed the bullseye, hitting the target on the outside range instead.
Dammit! Pandora growled. Motherfucking hot-ass guy grabbed my attention. Ask for a do-over.
Nope, you did it to yourself. Your ego will just have to sting.
Fuck you. It’s your ego, too.
My ego is just fine. From the look of Mason’s face, it looks like I just might have gotten the job.
Chapter Nine
A couple of days later Mason called Katie for her first protection job. She met him at the gym and sat down with him in the back office. The place was much quieter than her first visit, but it was pretty late in the evening.
Mason didn’t look the same as he had when coaching the kids. The coach was gone, replaced by a man in a perfectly pressed black suit. He unbuttoned his jacket, then took a seat behind his desk and looked at Katie, who was dressed to fight. His eyebrow twitched when he spotted the big-ass pistols strapped to her legs.
He’s actually kind of cute for a middle-aged man.
Focus, Pandora. You know what happened last time.
“So, this gig’s gonna require a little finesse, which is why I called you in on it. A little girl has been kidnapped and held for ransom. Your job is to exchange the money for the kid and get her back to her parents.”
“How old is this kid?”
He frowned. “She’s eleven. She’s the daughter of Romero Bonatide, a very affluent…businessman.”
Pandora snickered. Po-tay-to, po-tah-to. You know he means mobster, right?
Yes, Pandora. Now shhh. I need to find out about the job.
“And who are the other guys?”
“We don’t really know. Mr. Bonatide probably has an idea, but it’s not my job to question him, nor is it yours.”
“I understand.”
He laced his hands together on the desk and leaned a little toward her. “I want to make sure you do, Katie. I know what kind of business you are in, and it’s your job in that business to ask questions. I want to make sure you can put all that to the side and just complete the job.”
Katie tilted her chin and looked him in the eyes. “I’m more than capable of that, I assure you.”
Mason met her stare and held it for several moments. He was sure he was doing the right thing. She was capable of big things, and after seeing her performance at the tryouts, he felt she was exactly what he needed. Someone who could go above and beyond to complete the job, who didn’t fear the things that went bump in the night.
Someone with no fear of death.
He slid a file across the desk toward Katie. She opened it and took out a photo of the little girl and a sheet of paper with the address on it. Mason sat back, opened the deep bottom drawer of his desk and took out a suitcase with a combination lock.
He set it down gently on the table and slid it over to her. “The combination is 111, and you need to memorize that address and face.”
Katie looked again at the picture and address and repeated it to Pandora.
Got it, Pandora confirmed.
Katie closed the file and pushed it back to Mason. He picked up his office phone and pressed a speed dial button.
“She’s ready,” he told the person on the other end. He hung up and looked at her. “There will be a car waiting out front. When you get to the destination, you say as little as possible. You show them the funds and wait to see the child before handing the money over. The exchange must go smoothly, and no matter what you get the girl.”
Katie nodded and got up. “Understood.”
Mason shook her hand. “Good luck out there. Call me when you are finished and have been paid. The parents will have the cash for the job when you meet them.”
Katie nodded and picked up the suitcase, wondering how much money was inside. It didn’t really matter. Her only focus was on the girl, and getting her back to her parents in one piece.
She wasn’t sure what to expect. She had never been involved in something like this before. The war between humanity and the demons was pretty cut and dried—see the demon, kill the demon. Simple. However, there was no right side in this situation, especially since she was working on the wrong side of the law. On the one hand, she had a mobster who was probably responsible for the deaths of many people, but on the other was someone willing to kidnap a little girl and endanger her life in exchange for money.
Katie was the only one in the equation with wholly good intentions, and she was just the middleman.
The car was outside waiting for her where Mason had told her it would be. As they drove through the city, Katie sat quietly and went through a mental checklist of her weaponry. She had specifically chosen her regular pistols for her shoulder harness, figuring if the bad guys weren’t demons and she had to take them down then she wouldn’t use up any of her valuable ammunition.
It was just another example of how the world was such a screwed-up place. Even with demons running the streets, there were still some downright bad people lurking in the shadows.
You always knew that, Pandora told her.
Katie sighed. Yeah, you’re right, but I’ve never had the desire to hunt them down. Or work for one of them, either. This little girl is stuck in a world she doesn’t understand; a world where people use innocent children to make a point. What kind of life is that? It’s fucked up, and it makes me sick.
Yeah, well, not everyone has the good fortune to be born into a loving family of sane people. Look at your own life. You grew up with just your mom. It wasn’t ideal, but you learned right from wrong. You were never coddled or told it was okay to fail. You turned out fine, so maybe this kid can too. Of course, being kidnapped by a group of thugs out for revenge on her father isn’t a great way to start.
That’s what I’m saying.
Katie got out of the car when it pulled up outside an old cement factory on the outskirts of the city. She walked over to where half a dozen armed men waited around their parked cars for her. Another man appeared from behind them, dragging the little girl by the arm. She looked younger than eleven, and she’d been blindfolded and her hands were bound behind her back.
Katie’s jaw twitched. She gripped the suitcase tightly and stopped five paces away from them. She opened the suitcase lid and showed the contents to the group. Katie still couldn’t believe she was in the middle of such a fucked-up situation. The cops should be there to arrest the assholes, but instead, Katie faced a half-dozen criminals alone. She closed the lid again and set the suitcase on the ground beside her.
“The girl first,” Katie told them quietly.
The guy smirked. “I don’t think so. There has been a change of plan. You can tell your boss we’ve decided that we enjoy the pain of his family too much to just hand her over. Actually, you won’t get the chance to tell him, but that’s okay. We can pin a note to your body before we deliver it to him. It was pretty stupid of you to come alone.”
Katie balled her fist and narrowed her eyes. The bastards had no intention of letting the little girl go. She should have known the dirtballs would pull something like this.
Well, if that’s not a reason to clear the roaches out of this place, I don’t know what is. Pandora snickered. Ooh, it’s about to suck to be those guys.
> The corner of Katie’s mouth lifted. She reached for her small pistols, but the guy shook his head and pulled the girl in close. She whimpered and cringed away from the gun he pressed against her temple.
That was enough for Katie. “I’m going to give you one chance to let her go.”
The guy sneered at her. “What’s a little bitty thing like you gonna do?”
Katie’s eyed blazed red in the darkness. “Don’t fool yourself into thinking this is something any of you will walk away from. I am fully loaded, and I mean fully. Even without my demon it wouldn’t be a fair fight, not by a long shot.”
The guy laughed dismissively and waved a hand toward Katie. He picked the crying girl up and carried her off to his car as the goon squad advanced on Katie. He threw the child inside and leaned against the side of the car to watch the fight.
The leader of the lackeys stepped forward, flexing his chest muscles. He cracked his neck and glared at Katie. “The smartest thing for you to do, little girl, is to beat feet out of here.”
Katie smirked coldly. “Oh, I’m leaving—with the kid. The question is whether any of you are leaving alive, or if you’ll all leave in body bags?”
Katie raced toward the line of six guards with her guns at the ready. She ducked behind a car for cover and returned their scattered fire, taking two of them out with headshots.
Pandora cheered. Whooo! Those assholes are dropping fast. Keep up the good work!
The leader growled and sprayed the car with his automatic weapon. Katie rolled to the side, jumped to her feet, and fired back at him. The four remaining men stopped to change out their ammo and Katie took the opportunity to dash from the bullet-riddled car and duck behind a crumbling wall nearby.
Her small pistols were almost out of ammo, but she had her big ones in reserve just in case. She had just enough ammo in the small ones to take down all four of the men if she hit them with her first shot.
It’s like a carnival game, only instead of a goldfish, you win the kid’s life. I know you can do it.
I’ve put my hours in at the range, so I’m pretty sure I can do it. I just wish this little girl didn’t have to be here when a man gets his head blown off his shoulders.
Think of it as a character-building moment.
Katie took a deep breath, counted to three and jumped up with her fingers on the triggers. A gentle squeeze produced the result she wanted, and the first guy fell with blood blossoming between his eyes. She shifted her feet without a pause and took out another. They were human, so she didn’t have to worry about making sure they were dead.
Katie was pretty sure a bullet to the heart was enough to take care of them.
She had three bullets left, and three assholes out for her blood. She holstered the empty pistol as she ducked back behind the wall and switched the other to her right hand. She tucked and rolled out from behind the wall, aiming as she came to a crouch and fired. She hit one guy in the face and the other in the neck. Both went down hard in a spray of arterial blood and bone fragments.
The third asshole smirked and pulled the trigger, but his smile vanished when the gun just clicked. He tried again, but another dry click told Katie his weapon was jammed.
Katie laughed and moved toward him. Her moment of badassery was cut short when she stumbled on a piece of buckled asphalt that she failed to notice because she was so focused on the guy. The gun went off in her hand, and the bullet went wide.
“Fuck!” Katie growled and pulled out her knife.
The guy smiled and pulled out an even larger knife. He smirked and pointed it at her, and the two began to circle one another warily. He lunged at her, but she caught his hands and brought her knee up into his gut. As he stumbled backward, she pushed off with one foot and hit him with a front kick straight to the face with the other. He got up and spit blood onto the ground, glaring at her as he cracked his jaw back into place.
They came at each other again, and the guy somehow knocked Katie’s knife from her hand. She grabbed his wrist and twisted, but dropped it when she felt it break and punched him in the face twice for good measure.
Still the guy didn’t stay down. This asshole could take a beating and keep coming, that much she’d give him. He slashed at her with the knife in his good hand. She ducked the knife, then grabbed his broken wrist and used it to force him down to the ground. He kicked her leg out from under her and she fell on top of him, ignoring the scream her firm grip on his wrist wrenched from him.
He still had the knife. Katie released his broken wrist as he tried to bring the point toward her chest. “Not happening, asshole,” she told him. She placed her hands over his and turned his wrist to force the knife around to point at his chest.
His eyes widened as she pounded the pommel of the knife once with her palm. The knife plunged partway into his chest. Katie screwed up her nose when she saw she was a little off her target. He was frozen in shock up until the point she jerked the knife to get it in into position.
Then he screamed and tried to struggle, but she pulled back and slammed her hand down again and the blade slid the rest of the way in.
Pandora giggled. Just like getting the last drop of ketchup out of the bottle.
Katie stood up and folded her arms. She shook her head when he wrapped his hand around the hilt protruding from his chest. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
The thug pulled the knife from his chest and screamed when the blood began to gush out.
Katie shook her head and tapped her watch with a finger. “That knife was strategically placed in your artery. Had you left it there until medical attention reached you, you might have survived. However, as it is you have about twenty seconds before you bleed out.”
The guy let out a frothy gurgle, then his head slumped to the side.
I think you used up his twenty seconds with that monologue. Did you practice that in the mirror? Flawless, sweetie.
Katie wrinkled her nose and shook her head. “He should have listened.”
She heard a car door slam behind her, and she looked up as the mobster put the car in drive. The little girl was still in the back seat. Katie darted over to the car and sprang onto the hood on the driver side.
The kidnapper smirked at her through the window as he jammed his foot down on the gas. He whipped the steering wheel around to put the car in reverse and slammed on the brakes. Katie lurched forward and cracked the windshield with her skull. She touched her forehead and hissed when she saw the blood.
Pandora, give me a boost.
You’ve got it, sister.
She punched straight through the crack she’d made in the windshield and grabbed the guy by the neck. The windshield shattered completely as she yanked him out and held him suspended in the air. The car stopped when it hit the wall behind them.
He clawed impotently at her hand, his final words choked and fragmented. “You…will never…get away with this, you…demon…bitch.”
Katie didn’t waste words on the dangling dead man. She buried her knife in his gut, then tossed the body to the side and jumped off the car. She re-sheathed the knife and went to the back passenger door. She had little time to comfort the terrified little girl, but she wasn’t about to add to her fear.
“It’s okay, I’m not one of the bad guys. I’m going to open the door now.” She reached into the back and scooped the girl up. Once she had her out of the car, she took her blindfold off and undid the cable ties on her tiny wrists. “I’m Katie, a friend of your mom and dad. I’m here to take you home.”
Tears cut tracks down the little girl’s dirty cheeks. She reached up and wrapped her arms around Katie’s neck. Katie carried her over to the car and secured her in the backseat before climbing in beside her.
The driver caught her eye in the rearview mirror and gave her a small nod. He opened his phone. “We’ll need cleanup at the cement factory. The boys opened fire, and our agent took them down. Yes, all by herself. Yes, we have the package.”
He hung up the
phone and looked back at Katie. “They are impressed.”
“Glad someone is,” Katie mumbled.
She looked down at the girl, who had curled up against Katie’s chest. She was beautiful and sad, her long dark hair, clear complexion, and bright blue eyes offset by the fear still etched into her forehead.
This was the first time Katie had the time to really get close to the person she’d saved, and she had mixed emotions about ending her involvement. The whole lifestyle was bad for the girl and she hated it for her, but it wasn’t her job. Her job was to get her back to her family, and that was exactly what she planned on doing.
The driver took them across the city and back out into the suburbs. They pulled up at a large gated property, and when the gate opened, they drove to the front of the house. Katie cradled the girl in her arms and carried her from the car to the porch. The butler answered the door and showed her straight to the sitting room.
The girl’s mother, her face ravaged by grief, jumped to her feet and took the girl from Katie.
“You’re okay!” She wrapped her arms around her daughter, her eyes brimming with tears as she looked at Katie. “Thank you so much.”
Katie nodded. “Of course.”
The father walked over and handed her an envelope. Katie caught a small flash in his eyes. She narrowed her eyes and set down his suitcase on the floor. He looked at it, then at Katie in surprise.
She shrugged. “There was no one left to collect it, so I figured you might want it back.”
“Thank you,” he replied, taking the case to his desk across the room and opening it.
Katie smiled at the girl and her mother. The girl clung to her mother, glad to be safely back at home.
The mother walked over and hugged Katie with the girl still in her arms. She put her mouth to Katie’s ear to whisper. “I fear for us. I fear my husband had something to do with this. He has been acting strangely. The man I love would never have put our daughter in danger.”