Dark Goddess

“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.

Chapter 5

With an arm, Kane swept Brigid to one side and flattened himself against the opposite wall beside the door just as it was pulled open from the outside. The light pouring into the small building was blinding, and they averted their eyes. Billy-boy Porpoise’s voice had a peculiar, petulant quality to it.

“Come out to where we can see you. Both of you!”

Kane did not stir, gazing across the open doorway toward Brigid and touching a finger to his lips. From outside came a mutter of orders. Kane recognized Orchid’s icy voice, but everyone was too wary to step in through the doorway.

“We’re not going to hurt you anymore, Kane,” Porpoise said in a wheedling tone. “We proved our point. Just come on out.”

When neither he nor Brigid responded, Porpoise commanded, “Goddammit, get your asses out here!”

“It’s nice and shady in here,” Kane said mockingly. “Why don’t you join us?”

Billy-boy Porpoise said nothing for a long tick of time. Then, in a low, quavering tone, he demanded, “Who are they, Kane?”

“Who be who, B.B.?”

“My sentries have spotted armed men in the landside perimeter. They’re yours, right?”

“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.

Porpoise’s body jiggled and he half turned toward Kane, eyes widening in reproachful amazement. He opened his mouth as if to speak, and Kane shot him again, this time through the center of the chest. He coughed blood, and the pressure around Brigid’s neck fell away.

Slowly, Billy-boy Porpoise sank beneath the surface, crimson strings stretching out from various parts of his body.

Massaging her throat, Brigid stared at Kane and demanded, “What kept you?”

Kane shrugged, gesturing with the revolver toward a Manta skimming low over the burning roof of the house. “Luck. The good kind.”

KANE STOOD on the beach, smoking a self-congratulatory cigar. The Gulf of Mexico stretched away, as calm as a mirror, until the heat haze on the horizon melded it with the cloudless blue sky. He stared at the flotsam littering the sea and washing up on the shoreline. A few bodies floated amid the wreckage of the marina.

The Manta piloted by Edwards had virtually pulverized the fleet of Billy-boy Porpoise. The only seaworthy craft left were a couple of dinghies. He watched the gulls winging over the floating debris, diving down to pick up whatever offal caught their eye. Behind him, smoke boiled from many of the buildings in the compound.

Carefully, Kane rolled his shoulders, wincing at the scrape of the raw abrasions against his T-shirt. The analgesics he had taken from the medical kit blunted the sharp edges of the pain, even that in his head.

Although he had subdued Blister McQuade, he hadn’t killed him. So far, the man hadn’t been identified among those of Porpoise’s staff who had been rounded up. Kane wasn’t particularly concerned about Blister being on the loose—he had plenty of enemies on the hoof, and compared to most of them, McQuade barely rated as a nuisance, much less a genuine threat.

At the sound of feet crunching on the sand, he turned quickly, reaching for the revolver tucked into the waistband of his pants. Grant, Domi, Brigid and Edwards approached him. A patch of liquid bandage shone dully on Brigid’s right cheek, covering the abrasion inflicted by Porpoise’s rings.

“All of this before lunch,” Grant rumbled, gesturing expansively toward the smoke rising into the sky. “What do we do before supper?”

“Go home,” Brigid said curtly. She was attired in jeans, a military-gray T-shirt and low-heeled boots. “I’ve about had my fill of the Sunshine State.”

Kane touched the lump on the top of his head and winced. “Me, too. Kind of a shame about how everything turned out. I know you had hopes of cutting a deal, Baptiste.”

“Billy-boy should’ve believed you,” Domi stated. “Fat bastard brought this on himself.”

“What about the people here?” Edwards asked. “What should we do with them?”

Domi cast the big shaved-headed ex-Mag a cold stare. “Let ’em go. Not their fault Porpoise was an asshole.”

“True,” Grant agreed. “But they’re not exactly victims, either. They benefited from Porpoise’s marauding.”

Edwards nodded, wiping at the sweat pebbling his brow. “We can’t leave them to pick up the pieces themselves. They’ll just try to take over Coral Cove.”

Kane exhaled a stream of smoke. “Then we’ll post CAT Alpha here, under your command, for a couple of days. Just to make sure everybody behaves.”

Edwards looked as if he were on the verge of voicing an objection, then nodded. “Yes, sir.”

Brigid sighed, running fingers through her tangled mane of hair. “Why is it that so many of the deals we broker are ultimately decided at the barrel of a gun?”

Grant shrugged the wide yoke of his shoulders. “That’s the purest form of diplomacy, isn’t it?”

Taking a final puff of the cigar, Kane flipped the butt out into the breakers. “Let’s get to the Mantas. The sooner we launch, the sooner we’re back in the cool mountain breezes of Montana.”

Dourly, Grant said, “Not exactly.”

Both Kane and Brigid eyed him challengingly. “Not what exactly?” Brigid wanted to know.

Grant hooked a thumb in the general direction of the Mantas. “I received a comm. call from Lakesh a few minutes ago. There’s a situation he wants us to check out on the way back to Cerberus.”

“What kind of situation?” Domi asked suspiciously, ruby eyes slitted.

“Possible overlord activity.”

Kane frowned. “Where?”

Slowly, almost reluctantly, Grant intoned, “Tennessee…the former barony of Beausoleil.”

Chapter 6

Alarm Klaxons warbled with a nerve-scratching rhythm, echoing through the redoubt. Personnel ran through the corridors in apparent panic, but in actuality they were racing to preappointed emergency stations as per the red-alert drills.

Farrell’s voice blared from the public-address system. “Intruder alert! Sealing exterior sec door! Intruder alert!”

Mohandas Lakesh Singh dodged adroitly as he rushed to the operations center. “Coming through!” he shouted in order to be heard over the alarm.

He heard his order repeated on his left by Brewster Philboyd. Lakesh glanced toward the tall man and nodded in acknowledgment. One of the three-score refugees from the Manitius Moon colony, Philboyd was an astrophysicist. In his mid-forties, Philboyd was tall, thin and lanky, and his pale blond hair was swept back from a receding hairline that made his already high forehead seem exceptionally high. He wore black-rimmed eyeglasses, and his cheeks bore the pitted scars associated with chronic teenage acne.