Dark Goddess

“I couldn’t say.”

“Well, I can,” Blister McQuade growled hoarsely. “You’re coming out so they can see we have you. We can chuck tear-gas grens in there and give you the same treatment you gave the dogs last night.”

“Yeah,” Orchid said, a note of cruel laughter twisting around her words. “Would you like that? I would.”

Swallowing a profanity-seasoned sigh, Kane exchanged a questioning glance with Brigid. Her face was expressionless, but after a thoughtful few seconds, she nodded curtly.

“All right,” Kane said loudly. “Here we come.”

Kane pushed himself away from the wall, set himself, then bounded through the door, head down. As he half expected, McQuade was ready to greet him. The scarred man’s fists pounded a double pile-driving rhythm into his belly. Letting himself go limp, Kane fell to the ground, covering up.

“That’s enough!” Porpoise squawked. “I need him mobile.”

Blister uttered an animalistic snarl of disappointment and stepped away. Spitting out grit, Kane lifted his head from the sandy soil and saw Orchid pulling Brigid through the doorway, S&W revolver pressed against the side of her head. Her unbound mane glistened like a flow of molten lava in the relentless sunlight.

Porpoise, once more wearing his pink terry-cloth robe, tied shut with a long strip of cloth, prodded Kane with a sandaled foot. “Blister really, really, really wants to kill you, Kane.”

“But you’ll talk him out of it, right?”

“Not for very long. Besides, I really, really, really want you dead, too.”

“Who’ll sign off on your Cerberus wish list, then?” Kane demanded.

Porpoise snorted and reached out to caress Brigid’s sleek thigh. “No reason why she can’t. I’ll keep doll-baby around for a while…I can always cut out her tongue. But for the time being, I need both of you looking healthy.”

Brigid kicked at him. Porpoise immediately swung his left paw and backhanded her across the face. The gaudy, jeweled rings cut red furrows across Brigid’s right cheek.

In a fury, Kane tried to rise, but a foot in the center of his back flattened him against the ground.

“You liked that love pat?” Porpoise asked, grinning at Brigid. “That’s your first lesson as a slave. Kneel at my feet and kiss my dick.”

Brigid didn’t move. Her eyes seethed with loathing, with hatred. “Maybe you should show me where it is first. I left my magnifying glass at home.”

Porpoise lifted his hand again. Kane struggled to his hands and knees, but Blister McQuade’s foot came up and kicked him on the chin, snapping back his head.

Orchid grabbed Brigid’s right arm and bent it behind her, twisting sharply upward. “Kneel and kiss, bitch!”

Three distant crumps came almost together. The air shivered.

Orchid turned her head toward the house. “What was that?”

The lane that led to Porpoise’s compound suddenly spewed columns of flame and smoke. A woman screamed, a sound of fear, not pain. Orchid, Blister McQuade and Porpoise stood in openmouthed, disbelieving shock, staring in the direction of the explosions.

Kane lunged up from the ground, driving his right fist into Blister McQuade’s crotch. The big man roared, throwing out his arms, blunt fingers hooking around Kane’s bare upper arms. For a long moment, the two men grappled, Blister’s fingernails peeling away strips of skin. Orchid leveled her pistol at the back of Kane’s head.

All of them heard a swishing whisper that almost instantly became a steady pressure against their eardrums. Barely twenty yards over their heads, a pattern of light twisted and shifted. Dark, ambient waves shimmered, then revealed the bronze tones of an aircraft’s hull like water sluicing over a pane of dusty glass.

The craft held the general shape and configuration of a manta ray, and at first glance was little more than a flattened wedge with wings. Sheathed in bronze-hued metal, intricate geometric designs covered almost the entire exterior surface, interlocking swirling glyphs, cup and spiral symbols and even elaborate cuneiform markings. The wingspan measured out to twenty yards from tip to tip and the fuselage was fifteen feet long.

Blister stopped struggling, although he didn’t release Kane. Everyone shielded their eyes as fine clouds of sand puffed up all around. Balanced on the balls of her feet, Brigid pivoted at the waist toward Orchid, her forearm slapping the girl’s S&W aside while the edge of her stiffened palm slashed against the base of her delicate throat.

The electric tingling sensation in the socket of Brigid’s armpit told her of the power of her blow. Orchid staggered backward, arms windmilling. She fell without uttering so much as a whimper, arms and legs flung wide. Consciousness went out of her eyes with the swiftness of a candle being blown out.

Bawling in wordless panic, Billy-boy Porpoise lunged for the pistol nestled within Orchid’s slack fingers. The nose cannon of the Manta erupted with a series of stuttering thunderclaps. The short burst of explosive tungsten-carbide shells punched three-foot-high geysers of dirt into the narrow stretch of ground between Porpoise and the girl.

Brigid glanced up and waved as the Manta listed to the left and right, a waggling of the wings to let her know that Grant sat in the cockpit. The hulls of the Mantas were equipped with microcomputers that sensed the color and shade of the background and exactly mirrored the image.

Porpoise whirled and ran, big sandaled feet kicking up gouts of sand. Brigid snatched the pistol from Orchid’s hand and sprinted after him, pausing only long enough to strike Blister McQuade on the back of the neck with the short barrel. She ran on, leaving the man for Kane to finish off. Her objective was Billy-boy Porpoise, and she wasn’t wasting any time on underlings or guests. She knew Kane could take McQuade, even if he lost some skin and blood in the process.

The staccato hammering of subguns and the cracks of small-arms fire from two different directions reverberated against Brigid’s eardrums as she ran. The sounds were punctuated by the heavier crumps of the detonating grenades launched by the H&K XM-29 assault rifles carried by Cerberus Away Team Alpha as they rushed in through breaches blown in the wall.

The dozen members of CAT Alpha wore tricolor desert-camouflage BDUs, helmets and thick-soled jump boots, as well as PASGT vests that provided protection from even .30-caliber rounds. Stuttering roars overlapped as the barrels of their autorifles spit short tongues of flame as the team spread out across the perimeter.

Porpoise’s personal guard put up a disorganized counteroffensive, but they were unprepared and under-armed. CAT Alpha consisted primarily of highly trained former Magistrates, and they ruthlessly overran the defenders’ positions. The high-caliber rounds fired by the XM-29s spun Porpoise’s men like puppets with their strings suddenly cut. Survivors ran for cover, squalling in fear, throwing away their weapons.

Brigid glimpsed the second Manta planing along the shoreline, lancing toward the marina. She guessed Edwards sat in the cockpit. A pair of mini-Sidewinders burst from the pod sheaths under the aircraft’s wings and inscribed short, descending arcs. Although she did not see where they struck, she heard the double explosions, followed instantly by mushrooming fireballs of orange and black that spewed high into the air, mixed with fragments of wood and fiberglass.

Brigid’s lips compressed in a grim smile of satisfaction as Billy-boy’s pirate fleet was thoroughly deep-sixed. Distantly, she heard Domi’s high-pitched, forceful voice issuing orders to the team.

She saw Porpoise squeezing his bulk between a pair of palm trees, heading for the rear of the house. As Brigid followed him, long legs pumping, Shaster stepped into view, snapping up a pistol and squeezing off a hasty shot in her general direction. The bullet fanned cool air on her right cheek.

Raising the S&W, she worked the double-action trigger. The .38-caliber bullet took the man in the left leg, blowing away the kneecap in a welter of crimson and cartilage. Howling, Shaster pitched forward, dropping his pistol so he could claw at his maimed leg.

Brigid leaped over him, aware of explosions blazing orange from all points around the compound. The roof of the house erupted in a column of flame, and debris rained down, splashing into the pool. Thick smoke reeking of chemicals swirled, stung her eyes, burning the soft tissue of her throat and biting at her nostrils. A multitude of voices cried out in pain and terror.

Coughing, half-blinded by the haze, Brigid didn’t see Porpoise until he loomed up behind her. Before she could lift the pistol, she felt herself imprisoned by a pair of arms that hugged her close in an agonizingly tight embrace. Lifting her from her feet, Porpoise shook her savagely from side-to-side and the revolver slipped from her fingers, clattering to the deck.

Billy-boy’s hoarse voice, strained by exertion and smoke inhalation, whispered, “You’re still my hostage, doll-baby. Tell these bastards to hold their fire and call off the attack.”

Brigid lowered her head, then reared back, slamming the crown of her head into Porpoise’s face. He cried out, stumbled backward and slipped off the curb. Still clutching Brigid, he plunged into the pool.

Fighting free of the dazed man’s grasp, Brigid twisted to face the sputtering Porpoise. Blood streamed from his flattened nose and split lips. Baring red-filmed teeth, he lunged for her, thick fingers tangling in her hair.

He shoved her beneath the surface. She struggled frantically and he pulled her to him, tightly pressing her face against his belly, intending to smother her in his flab, as well as drown her in the water.

Brigid fought, fingernails raking across the fabric of the man’s robe. She tore it open and clawed at his flesh. Billy-boy Porpoise’s grip did not relax and with a surge of comingled horror and self-disgust, she realized all the man had to do was stand patiently for a couple of minutes and she would die a humiliating death.

Locking the muscles of her throat, lungs burning, Brigid opened her mouth as wide as she could and sank her teeth deep into a roll of Porpoise’s belly fat. Despite the thunder of her pulse in her ears and the muffling effect of the water, she distinctly heard the man voice a high-pitched squeal much like the sounds emitted by his namesake.

Fingers groping over the juncture of his thighs, Brigid found and seized his testicles while she continued chewing through Porpoise’s lower belly. Releasing his grip on her head, Porpoise kicked and flailed, screaming in pain.

Hovering on the fringes of unconsciousness due to lack of oxygen, Brigid shoved herself away, her head breaking the crimson-tinged surface of the pool. She spit out a mouthful of Porpoise and even over her strangulated gasps, she heard Billy-boy shrieking, “You bitch! You fucking bitch!”

He stroked toward her, water roiling and splashing in his wake, congested face contorted in a mask of homicidal rage. Brigid backed away, drinking in air, dragging her hair out of her eyes. Porpoise looped the robe’s belt over Brigid’s head and cinched it tight around her throat.

She managed to slide a hand between makeshift garrote and her neck, but as she strained against it and felt Porpoise’s strength, she knew she was spent. She swung her free hand, knotted into a fist, against Billy-boy’s chin, rocking his head back on his shoulders. But the pain of the blow was negligible compared to that of the wound she had inflicted on him with her teeth.

Through foggy eyes, Brigid glimpsed a bare-chested and scarlet-streaked Kane appear on the pool’s deck. Face as expressionless as if it were carved from stone, he extended his right arm and squeezed off a single shot with the S&W revolver.