King Killer Read online

  “What?” I asked.

  “They are coming after the one I still have in the air. I’m a bit faster, so I’m going to try and lead them back to our apartment building.”

  “Ohhh, smart,” Paula said.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “We have weapons on the building,” Kasta said. “I can use them to shoot down their drones.” The android giggled. “Yep. They are all following me. This is going to be hilarious.”

  “Maybe we can try to go out the back,” I said as I turned to the right and pointed at the far door.

  “I don’t have eyes over there anymore,” Kasta said. “But there were eight heading over there, and the men at the side door are close.”

  “Let’s try,” I said, and my friends followed me toward the door that would lead us deeper into the back part of the building. I was feeling like a caged animal, and the beast in my stomach was screaming to be let loose so he could kill a bunch of the mercenary fucks.

  “Adam, what is your status?” Madalena asked across my transponder.

  “We are surrounded in a building, trying to punch out,” I said. “Then we’ll come to Persephone.”

  “Please give me permission to come to you,” she asked.

  “No. It will take too long, and you need to stay with Persephone.”

  “Yes, my lord,” she growled, and then I heard the transponder beep.

  “I dunno if I should feel bad for her or laugh,” Zea said.

  “Neither will help us get out of here,” Paula panted as we reached the far door.

  “Good point,” Zea agreed.

  I put my hands on the door and glanced at Eve. She nodded, and I pushed them open. This was another storage area, but it looked more frequently used. The crates, cardboard boxes, and shelves were free of dust, and there was a radio in the corner blaring dance music.

  “I feel life that way,” Eve said as she pointed to our ten o’clock. “I believe it is the Black Heart mercenaries. They still have not entered the building, but they will be here in less than a minute.”

  I glanced around the warehouse and weighed my options. If the men were carrying riot guns, I’d have to shift into my tiger-man form if I wanted to get through them. It would be a messy fight though, and I would have to sleep shortly after. It would make the task of trying to help Juliette difficult. Hell, I might not even be able to get back to Persephone in time. It was a good half an hour tube train ride back to our harbor.

  To my right, were almost endless stacks of loaded pallets. Their average height was two-and-a-half meters, but a few went three meters high. We might be able to hide in the spaces between the stacks of boxes, but I guessed the mercenaries would search that area first.

  To my left, toward where the Black Hearts would come, were dozen of inventory shelves. They rose some ten meters into the air, and each level carried an assortment of cardboard and metal crates.

  “We are going to hide up on those shelves,” I said. “As high as you can get. Pull the crates around you so that you can’t be seen on either side. Eve will let us know when they move out of range. Got it?”

  “Uhh, up there?” Zea said as she pointed up over her head to where the top shelf almost touched the distant ceiling.

  “Yeah. Get as high as you can get in twenty seconds and find boxes to hide in.” I gestured for the women to run and they sprinted to different shelves. The levels were like ladder rungs, and I made sure they didn’t have any problems climbing before I pulled myself up one of the shelves.

  I made it up almost to the top level and found an assortment of wood planks laying long-ways along the shelf. There was a bit of an alcove between the board stacks, and I crawled inside. My heart was hammering in my chest, but I knew that our pursuers weren’t going to be able to see me unless they climbed all the way up and glanced downward.

  I just hoped my friends had found equally good hiding spots.

  “Ugh. Dried cat food. Gross.” Kasta whispered across our transponders, and I heard Paula shush her.

  We waited, and I tried to calm my rapidly beating heart with twenty-second long inhales and exhales.

  I believe they have entered the building. They are moving into this room. I sense twelve of them.

  Eve’s update didn’t actually make me feel any better, even though it was like having eyes on the mercenaries.

  They are below us now. I have more time to peer into their minds. They arrived on three starships: Eye for Your Eye, Black Eye, and Dead Eye. All three are docked in Harbor C. None of these men knew who hired them, but they have been told to take you and me without killing us. They had instructions that we would return here and have been watching Juliette’s station. During our last visit, they planned on kidnapping us when we left the station, but you left with weapons, and the orders came to wait for a better time. That never came because of Elaka Nota’s attack, and we left before they could plan a new strategy.

  There was a pause in Eve’s words, and I counted out long breaths while beads of tense sweat dripped down my forehead. I heard voices down below, but my head was pressed down into my arms, and I couldn’t really make out the words from inside my hiding spot.

  They are investigating the pallet stacks. You made a good decision by asking us to hide up here. None of the men are looking up.

  There was another minute of silence, and I felt the tension build in my stomach. The beast wanted to be unleashed. He wanted me to shift, and he wanted to dive into the group so we could rip them asunder with tooth and claw.

  I swallowed, closed, my eyes, and tried to force myself to relax.

  They took over the station last week. They have over eight- hundred operatives working on the station. They are a large operation, and Warren Royzar is their leader here. The fact that he is in charge of this operation is very unusual, but these men believe the task will be easy.

  I wished Eve could speak to my other friends. I was having a hard time hiding, but some of that was because I just wanted to shift so I could slaughter these men. I imagined Zea, Paula, and Kasta were terrified and hiding alone.

  Zea and Paula are strong, my love. They have faith in your leadership. Even if these men see us, they both believe you will still find a way out of this mess.

  I heard voices down below, and I struggled to make out the words.

  The mercenaries have finished searching the pallets. They are moving into the hallway where we were.

  I let out a long sigh and then wondered if Eve had picked up any news of Juliette while searching through the men’s thoughts.

  They are apparently keeping hostages in the jails of each district. It was a bit of a coup since the other districts do not know what has happened. Their intent is to leave as soon as they have captured us, but one of the men heard that another unit is trying to take our ship.

  I forced the beast back down in my stomach and tried to think of our next step. As much as I hated to say it, getting back to Persephone was more important than Juliette. There wasn’t much I could do without my firearms. Especially against eight-hundred mercenaries.

  Getting back to Persephone was going to be a challenge though. I had no doubt these Black Heart fucks were watching the train. We could cut through using District H, but that might put us in a position where we were pinched between mercenary units, and we wouldn’t have any weapons to fire back.

  Juliette’s armory had plenty of weapons.

  It is also where Warren Royzar has set up his base of operations.

  Eve’s words made me smirk a bit. The last thing these fuckers would expect would be me attacking them head-on. It was still all sorts of insane though. Even if I got one of these fucker’s riot weapons, the rest would probably be carrying conventional firearms. I’d need Madalena and her people to help me raid Juliette’s security station. That meant going back for my guns anyway, so I had just come full circle in my logic.

  They have moved into the hallway. Four of them seem to be exploring the route that will take them to the side
door where we originally entered. I believe it is safe for us to come out of hiding and move to the back door.

  I crouched out from behind my wood stack and checked down below us. Eve had been correct, and I didn’t see any of the mercenaries.

  “Clear,” I whispered, and I saw Zea’s head poke out of a large cardboard box. The blonde hacker gave me a wide smile and then wiggled free of her hiding space.

  I saw Paula and Kasta crawl out from behind boxes and descend the levels. Eve was already on the ground, so I joined them there. Then we moved toward the back of the building.

  “What is that?” I asked Kasta as I pointed to the zipped up vinyl satchel she carried over her shoulder.

  “I found it up there.” She gave me a mischievous grin which made me think she didn’t really understand how much danger we were all in. “Also, my security turrets on our apartment building have shot down all their drones. I’ve got mine in the air again.”

  “Finally, some good news,” Zea whispered.

  “Do you have any other weapons in your apartment?” I asked.

  “Actually, yes,” Paula said. “Not a bunch. We have some pistols and a few shotguns. They aren’t the kind of stuff you are used to using. Weapons are a bit hard to get into Queen’s Hat, and we never saw the need for military grade stuff.”

  “We also have some light combat drones,” Kasta said. “Twelve that can go in the air like my scouts, and another four that are ground. They will draw a lot of attention, but I don’t think it matters anymore.”

  “Good. Can we get to your apartment without these mercenaries seeing us?” I asked the twins, but Paula turned to Kasta.

  “All of my drones are in the air, so I should be able to get us around,” the android answered. “We are a few streets over from our home.”

  We reached the back exit door, but it was closed. I looked to Eve, and she held up two fingers. I nodded, and then I gestured for them to wait while I opened it.

  The door opened inward, and I yanked it open a half moment before I swung my stun baton out. Both of these men were loosely holding riot shotguns, and my sudden movement caught them by complete surprise.

  My baton smacked the one on the left in the helmet, and his body shuddered as energy coursed through his muscles. The man on the right spun to point his shotgun at me, but I had shuffled close enough to block the barrel of his weapon with my hip. I checked his thigh with my leg, grabbed the front of his helmet, and flipped him over my side. He let out a short yell as he flew through the air, and my stun baton shocked the shit out of him a half moment after he landed.

  “I’ll take this,” I said as I turned off my baton and grabbed one of the man’s ammo belts. As soon as it was around my waist, I pulled one of the riot shotguns off the second mercenary. Eve wasn’t carrying a baton, so I gestured for her to arm herself with the first man’s riot weapon.

  “There are men coming this way from the side door,” Kasta said as she pointed to the right.

  “Our apartment is that way,” Paula said as she pointed the other way, and we set off as soon as Eve adjusted her belt and picked up the shotgun.

  My lover looked incredibly sexy holding the big weapon, and I had to tear my eyes away from the ammo belt wrapped around her narrow waist so I could focus on our task.

  I led the group to the far end of the back alley behind the department store, and we made a right at the corner after Kasta told us to go that way. Then we all begin to run through the back streets. A few times we had to climb over steel walls, but I was able to lift each of the women up so they could easily grab the edges and pull themselves over, so we didn’t lose a lot of time.

  “We are gaining some distance on our pursuers,” Kasta said after we had been running for about five minutes. “They don’t quite know where we are, and they are starting to spread out through the streets.”

  “Kasta, how soon can we cross Royal Avenue?” Paula asked.

  “I’m moving a drone over a bit so I can get a better angle. These mercenaries are all over the place.”

  “Are they on James Road?” Paula asked. I didn’t know the names of all the streets on Queen’s Hat, but I did know that James Road was the next street over after Royal Avenue.

  “Nope,” Kasta said. “If we make it to Royal, and can get through the alleys, we’ll probably have it easy till our apartment. Let’s get some more distance, and then I think we can cross.”

  We ran for another two minutes. I couldn’t see the path on the main street, but I got the feeling we had to be getting close to the train station. That area was open, and if the mercenaries were anywhere near there, I doubted we would be able to cross.

  “We can go!” Kasta hissed, and I made a hard left at the next alley. The android urged us onward, but I still poked my head out of the alley to make sure that there were no mercenaries in sight before I led my friends across the open street. A few citizens were walking on the cobblestone roads, but they didn’t give us more than a passing glance when we crossed.

  “You would think they would be a little more alarmed by both of your guns,” Zea commented as she pointed to Eve and my weapons.

  “They believe the security at Queen’s Hat is efficient, and anyone with a weapon is approved to have it.” Eve shrugged.

  “Damn. Guess that is good for us.” Zea chuckled.

  “Might also be why no one is really upset about these Black Heart mercenaries,” Paula said.

  “Okay, they didn’t see us.” Kasta sighed as soon as we made it into the alley on the opposite side of the street. “If we make haste to our apartment, we should escape detection. We need to cross the next street and make a left.”

  “Got it,” I said, and my friends followed me to the next alley.

  “We are good, you don’t need to check,” Kasta said.

  “Force of habit,” I said as I still leaned out from behind the alley’s corner to check the next street. It looked clear of black armored mercenaries, so we pushed out into the street.

  “Through the next side streets, then make a left. You’ll see our building on the right.” Kasta ran next to me now, and Eve brought up the rear.

  We made it safely into the next section of alley, and I helped boost my friends over one last wall. Then we were on the street where the twins’ home was, and we quickly moved to the doorway of the familiar apartment building.

  “I see a new set of mercenary drones coming from the direction of the station,” Kasta said. “I’m going to set mine down around our apartment so they don’t see me.”

  “Good thinking,” Paula said as she pressed the buttons on the control panel at the front of her apartment. The door popped open, and we all breathed a long sigh of relief when she closed it behind us.

  “Now what?” Zea said as we walked into the elevator that would take us up to the top floor. “We still can’t get back to Persephone. Even if we could, are we just going to leave Juliette to rot in a cell?”

  “No,” I replied as I thought through the irony of the situation. Juliette had once kept Eve locked in a cell while Zea and I did a bunch of her dirty work, but now we were trying to figure out how to help her out of the same predicament. “I’m going to need a few minutes to think.”

  “We should be somewhat safe here,” Paula said was the elevator doors opened.

  “Somewhat?” Zea asked with a raised eyebrow.

  “Well, they don’t know we are here. If they did, I doubt our security doors and automated guns would keep them at bay for long. Eve said there are hundreds of these fuckers on Queen’s Hat. They are probably all coming into District B now to try to figure out where we disappeared to.”

  “Yes, that is what they will do,” Eve said. “We have limited time to escape.”

  We walked down the hallway from the elevator and entered Paula and Kasta’s apartment. It was exactly how I remembered it: Plush velvet and leather furniture done in the Victorian Era style of design, decorative crown molding around the ceiling, and plenty of space. If w
e wanted to, we could probably all comfortably live here without feeling the least bit claustrophobic.

  “We probably have ten or fifteen minutes before it’s going to be really hard getting out of District B,” I said as soon as we had secured the door and sat down on the couch. “There are three objectives: Save Juliette, get these Black Heart fuckers off Queen’s Hat, and then get back on Persephone.”

  “Uhhh. I’m thinking that we can only do option number three,” Zea said.

  “You’d leave Juliette?” Paula asked.

  “I don’t want to, but let’s be realistic. How the fuck are we going to get back to Persephone? That alone seems impossible. Clearing out some eight hundred mercenaries from the station with just the five of us seems even more impossible. And trying to break into a security station to save Juliette during all that? How?”

  “There aren’t just five of us,” I said as I pointed to my transponder. A plan was starting to form in my head, and I guessed my friends could help me refine it once I gave them the concept.

  “Paula and Kasta, you said you have drone relays all over the station?”

  “Yep,” they both said at the same time while they nodded.

  “And how about that,” I said as I pointed to a terminal station at the far side of their living room.

  “What about it?” Kasta asked as she turned around.

  “Does it work? Does it connect to the station’s systems?”

  “Yeah, but it’s nothing more than a news and information system,” the android explained.

  “But, but, but, but are all the systems on Queen’s Hat connected?” Zea asked. She got where I was going with this, and she couldn’t contain the excitement in her voice.

  “Hmmm,” Kasta said as she turned to her sister.

  “I think it is all connected, but why?”

  “Think you can use it to get into District B’s security?” I asked Zea.

  “If all the shit is connected, I know I can get in Juliette’s station and make the toilet in her cell flush.” Her mouth spread into a grin, and I could see her blue eyes glitter.