Читать книгу Dark Goddess - James Axler - Страница 9

Kane’s battle-trained muscles, tested and refined in a hundred situations where a fraction of a second gave him all the edge he needed, exploded in a perfect coordination of mind, reflexes and skill.

Kane jumped for Billy-boy Porpoise. The obese man yelled and tried to fend Kane off with one hand. Kane caught the flailing arm, hooked it at the elbow and wrenched it around ruthlessly in a hammerlock. He muscled Porpoise around in front of him. It was like trying to wrestle with a beached whale.

At the same time, Brigid Baptiste snatched up a short-bladed knife from the buffet table and laid the edge against the side of Porpoise’s throat, right above the scar. Orchid, Shaster and McQuade rocked to halts as Porpoise squawked hoarsely, gesturing with his free hand for them to stop.

Orchid raised her revolver, sighting down its length, training the bore on Brigid. “Want me to kill your know-it-all bitch, Kane?”

Brigid pressed the knife harder against Porpoise’s neck. “Want me to kill Billy-boy? No? Then stand aside or I’ll finish what a throat slitter started a long time ago.”

The woman’s tone was hard, grim and confident. Even Kane knew she wasn’t bluffing, so that meant her loathing of Billy-boy Porpoise was profound.

McQuade’s eyes narrowed. “You kill him, then you’ll die sure as shit.”

“We know that, Blister,” Kane said with a genial smile, bearing down on the hammerlock. “But if we do it our way, nobody has to die and this happenin’ party place will stay standing. If we do it anybody else’s way, then just about everybody here will be dead.”

McQuade scowled, fists clenching. “You’re so full of shit, Kane.”

“Are you one-hundred-percent certain about that?” Brigid asked, a taunting note in her voice. “I don’t think Billy-boy is…are you?”

Porpoise sighed heavily, sounding like a dolphin expelling air from a blowhole. “All right, all right. You two can leave. Neither one of you is worth all of this bullshit—”

To Kane, it felt as if Billy-boy Porpoise suddenly exploded within his grip. He twisted wildly to the left, then hurled himself to the right, kicking backward with both heels. The knife blade in Brigid’s hand dragged along the side of his neck, drawing a thread of blood.

Kane tried to bear down on the hammerlock, to force Porpoise to his knees, but the man exhibited enormous strength. He kicked out with a huge splayed foot, catching Brigid in the stomach and driving her backward.

With his free hand, Porpoise jabbed up and behind him at Kane’s eyes, fingers hooked like claws. Kane lowered his head and saved his vision, but Porpoise secured an agonizingly tight grip on his hair. He heaved with his shoulders, as if performing an expansive shrug, then tore free of his terry-cloth robe, leaving it in Kane’s hands.

Releasing his grip on Kane’s hair, Porpoise heeled around, snatched the hem of the robe and hurled it up and over the taller man’s head. A fist pounded into his stomach, jarring him several feet to the left. As he tried to struggle free of the enveloping robe, a hard object struck the side of his head through it, and what felt like Billy-boy’s forearm pile-drived against his chest, knocking him down.

A rain of blows and kicks fell on him, his ears filled with breathless curses and furious female shrieks. Pain flared all over his body. He heard Brigid’s voice raised in anger.

Two more kicks, landing just below his rib cage, drew a grunt of pain from him. Rolling onto his back, Kane tensed every muscle in his body and performed what gymnasts refer to as a “kip-up,” the easiest and quickest way to go from lying prone to an upright posture. He kicked his legs straight out at a thirty-degree angle, bent his knees swiftly, planted his feet and used the momentum of the kick to spring erect.

The draping folds of the robe fell away and Kane glimpsed a glitter above his head, descending in an eye-blurring arc. Half turning he caught a slender wrist in his right hand and twisted viciously, hearing bones snap like brittle wood. A female voice screamed in pain. Kane caught a fragmented glimpse of Dixie falling to her knees, cradling her broken arm. The knife Brigid had wielded lay at her feet.

Kane snaked his upper body to the right and spun backward with his right fist. The ram’s-head punch impacted solidly with Blister McQuade’s chin. Pivoting on his toes, he shot his elbow into the man’s throat.

McQuade staggered backward, holding his throat in both hands, his tongue protruding from his mouth. He toppled into the pool, raising a great splash that sloshed water on everyone in the vicinity. Kane whirled toward Porpoise.

For all of his bulk, Porpoise launched himself forward nimbly, cannonballing his entire weight into Kane’s torso, forcing him backward, smashing all the wind out of him. Kane crashed over two deck chairs before hitting the concrete deck and skidding several feet.

Fighting off the instinct to curl up, he shambled to his feet, only to be knocked down again by the butt of a gun that came down like a hammer on the top of his head.

The pool became a huge black hole and Kane plunged into it headfirst.

HE BECAME AWARE of a blessedly cool trickle of water on the flushed skin of his face. Kane did not open his eyes or otherwise move, trying to adjust to the fierce throbbing pain in his skull, pulsing in cadence with his heartbeat.

His thought processes were remarkably clear, and he remembered everything up to the point where he had been cold-cocked. Shame made a bitter taste at the back of his throat. He had misjudged the entire situation with Porpoise, but he couldn’t have left Brigid in the man’s custody while he, Grant and the other members of Cerberus Away Team Alpha staged an assault on the compound.

The thought of Brigid motivated him to open his eyes. He saw nothing but patterns of dark gray and pitch black. He tried to sit up but the effort sprayed his brain with needles and he bit back a groan. He lay back down.

“Kane?”

“Baptiste?” His whisper was a hoarse rasp.

“Right here.” He felt the cool, damp touch of cloth against his forehead.

Squinting, Kane could barely make her out, kneeling over him, dabbing at his face with a wet cloth. Gingerly, he touched the crown of his head and felt the moisture, as well as a very tender lump. His scalp wasn’t split, so he assumed the liquid was water. He tried to focus on Brigid again, but his blurred vision prevented him from fixing on single reference points in the darkness.

He got his hands under him and slowly pushed himself into a sitting position, silently enduring a spasm of vertigo and nausea.

“Are you all right?” Brigid asked, voice pitched very low. “That little bitch Orchid really laid one on you.”

Kane started to nod, thought better of it and said, “I really hate being whacked unconscious and then waking up somewhere else.”

Brigid forced a chuckle. “It’s a pretty clichéd transitional device, isn’t it?”

Assuming her question was rhetorical, Kane felt around him. His fingers touched damp sand. “Where are we?”

“Some sort of storage shed, about a hundred yards away from the pool.”

“How long was I out?”

“About half an hour, I think.”

“They didn’t hurt you?”

“Not seriously. Billy-boy made some over-the-top threats about forcing me to be the bottom bitch in an offshore whorehouse. I guess he figured that would scare me into obedience.”

Kane grinned, even though the motion hurt his cheeks. “Billy-boy is one enterprising bastard, isn’t he?”

“He makes me want to puke for a week,” Brigid shot back coldly. “Can you stand up?”

“Let’s find out.” Carefully, Kane heaved himself to his feet. He stumbled and Brigid put out supporting hands. He probed various aches and pains around his body, particularly his ribs. Nothing felt broken.

“What’s the plan?” Brigid asked.

“In about half an hour, maybe less, Grant, Domi and CAT Alpha will come storming in here by land and by sea. I’d prefer to be out of here by then.”

He walked slowly toward an area of gray, noting how threads of yellow light peeped along the lines of a door. As he touched it and rapped on the wood gently, Brigid stated, “It’s locked, of course.”

“Of course.” Kane felt around the doorframe with his hands, touching the metal hinges and the lock.

He stepped to the left, moving slowly around the walls, his body responding sluggishly from the bruises of the beating. He ignored the pain and probed the cinder-block walls with his fingertips, scraping his nails at the mortar. Lifting his right arm, he laid the palm of his hand flat against the ceiling.

“I’d judge the size of our accommodations to be about ten by ten,” he commented.

“More like twelve by twelve,” Brigid corrected.

He continued moving sideways, not finding any furniture or anything of use in the storage shed. As he circled back to the door, he bumped into Brigid. His vision had cleared, adjusting to the gloom, and he could make out her face and figure, seeing a bruise on the left side of her face where someone had struck her. She was also naked to the waist.

“You don’t have a top on,” he said awkwardly.

Crossing her arms over her breasts, she said angrily, “Thanks for the revelation, Kane. You try fighting half a dozen scumbags wearing only a bikini sometime.”

“The parts tend to fall off?”

She nodded grimly. “They do.”

Quickly, Kane stripped out of his T-shirt. “There’s no way you could’ve won. You shouldn’t have mixed it up with them.”

Brigid uttered a deprecating chuckle. “If I hadn’t, Blister and Billy-boy would have stomped you to death, poolside.”

Handing her his shirt, Kane said quietly, “Thanks.”

“My pleasure, but we’ve got to worry about getting out of here…or signaling Grant and Domi to either hold off on the attack or launch it as scheduled.”

Reaching up behind his ear, Kane fingered his Commtact. “It’s not functioning. Got too stomped on, I guess.”

Brigid sighed. “Figures.”

Kane forced a laugh. “Doesn’t it just. Well, we’ve relied on nothing but our fists and wits plenty of times before.”

“Maybe one too many times.”

Disturbed by the uncharacteristic note of resignation in Brigid’s voice, he said, “I think we’ve still got a reservoir of luck to draw on.”

She struggled to pull the shirt over her head. “Over five years of this, Kane. Five years of playing the odds, and when all else fails, placing our faith in luck. There’s got to be a limit to both.”

“It’s not just luck that’s kept us alive,” he said defensively. “Not always, anyway.”

“No, not always,” she agreed with a wry weariness. “Just most of the time. Face it, Kane—we’re fugitives from the law of averages.”

Kane knew Brigid spoke the truth, but he didn’t let her know that. Lakesh had once suggested that the trinity he, Brigid and Grant formed seemed to exert an almost supernatural influence on the scales of chance, usually tipping them in their favor.

The notion had amused Kane, since he was too pragmatic to accept such an esoteric concept, but he couldn’t deny that he and his two friends seemed to lead exceptionally charmed lives, particularly him and Brigid.

Kane shied away from examining the bond he shared with Brigid. On the surface, there was no bond, but they seemed linked to each other and the same destiny. He recalled another name he had for Brigid Baptiste: anam-chara. In the ancient Gaelic tongue it meant “soul friend.”

From the very first time he met her he was affected by the energy Brigid radiated, a force intangible, yet one that triggered a melancholy longing in his soul. That strange, sad longing only deepened after a bout of jump sickness both of them suffered during the mat-trans jump to Russia, several years earlier. The main symptoms of jump sickness were vivid, almost-real hallucinations.

He and Brigid had shared the same hallucination, but both knew on a visceral, primal level it hadn’t been gateway-transit-triggered delirium, but a revelation that they were joined by chains of fate, their destinies linked. The idea that he and Brigid had existed at other times in other lives had seemed preposterous at first. Perhaps it still would have if he hadn’t experienced the same jump dreams as her, which symbolized the chain of fate connecting her soul to his.

It had required nearly a year before the two very different people achieved a synthesis of attitudes and styles where they could function smoothly as colleagues and parts of a team, sharing professional courtesies and respect.

Although they never spoke of it, Kane often wondered if that spiritual bond was the primary reason he had sacrificed everything he had attained as a Magistrate to save her from execution. The possibility confused him, made him feel defensive and insecure. That insecurity was one reason he always addressed her as “Baptiste,” almost never by her first name, so as to maintain a certain formal distance between them. But that distance continued to shrink every day.

“I’m open for suggestions about how to get out of here,” Kane said sarcastically, “even if they do rely primarily on luck.”

Brigid opened her mouth, but whatever she was about to say was interrupted by the sound of footsteps and murmured voices on the other side of the door. A key rattled in the lock.

“How’s that for luck?” he muttered.

“The bad kind,” she retorted in an acerbic whisper.