Day Of Atonement

He stumbled back, stubbornly trying to fire again.

Annja shook her head. The blade, moving faster than the eye could possibly follow as more than a silver shimmer in the air, slapped against his gun hand, springing his fingers apart in a cry of pain.

The gun went flying, another shot drilling harmlessly into the ground.

She looked down at it, then up at the mountain, knowing he was nursing a couple of broken fingers. He wouldn’t be firing a gun again in a hurry. At least, not with his right hand. He followed the direction of her gaze, looking down between his legs in time to see Annja’s foot come up. He buckled as she made contact, doubling him up. It didn’t matter how big a man was, how many steroids he pumped into his veins or how many reps he did in the gym. He couldn’t strengthen that one very frail human weakness no matter how hard he tried. Her adversary fell to his knees howling with pain. Annja launched herself into a vicious roundhouse that connected with the side of his head and stepped back to watch as the mountain’s face plowed into the dirt at her feet.

He was out cold.

“Stay right there,” the driver said. He looked ruefully at his unconscious comrade, obviously glad he wasn’t in his shoes. He had his own gun aimed squarely at the center of Annja’s mass, but wasn’t in a hurry to fire. He’d just seen what she was capable of. Why would he think his bullets had a better chance of finding their mark than the mountain’s?

Annja held her sword in front of her, balanced lightly in her grasp, moving forward onto her toes. He was close enough she could hurl the blade at him, cleaving his head from his shoulders before he could get down behind the safety of the car. But killing him wouldn’t give her any answers. And it wasn’t her style.

“There was no need for that,” he said, doing his best to sound reasonable. “We just want to talk to you.”

“Of course you do,” she said. “People always come up to me wanting to have a nice little chat with a gun in their hands.”

“Look, I’m sorry. It wasn’t meant to go down like this. If you’d just come with us, we could have done everything nice and calmly.”

“And why on earth would I want to go with you? I think you better start talking fast.”

“Why? Because we were asking nicely.”

She shook her head. “You didn’t ask at all. Your brute tried to strong-arm me. I’d hate to see what you call nasty. So, what do you want to talk to me about? I’m sure you’ve noticed that you have my undivided attention right now.”

“Not me. I was only asked to pick you up.”

“I’m already fed up with the way you answer questions. Who asked you to pick me up?”

“It doesn’t matter who.” He shrugged. “Not to me. I’m just doing my job.”

“Ah, the good old staple. ‘I’m just following orders,’ is that it? I think I’ve heard that before somewhere.”

“Look, there’s no need to get hostile about this. I don’t want anyone else to get hurt, especially me, okay? So why don’t you just drop that thing and get into the car. We can just do what we’ve got to do and everyone can be happy.”

“Happy? You seriously think I’m about to get into a car with you? What kind of happy pills have you been popping? Give me some answers and I’ll consider following you in my car,” she said, with no intention of following him. But if he believed her, maybe she’d get a few details.

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