All the King's Men Read online

  Mentioning Danika, even without using her name, grated on his nerves. “Fuck off.”

  “Ooh, what if she finds out you and I used to have a little fun back in the day? I mean college really is the best time of your life.” She giggled.

  Charlie’s brow pulled together in confusion, and he shook his head. “I remember a lot from my college days and I’d never met you until you tried to kill me, one of King’s slaves, right?”

  “Your father.” One of her dark eyebrows arched.

  Charlie growled. “Stop acting like you know me.”

  “Oh, we’ve known each other for a long time, Charles. How about I help you remember?” Tabitha ran at him at full speed, her claws fully extended to their cat form.

  He deflected and successfully blocked each punch as it was thrown. Two jabs, a hook, elbow and an attempt to punch him in the gut. Charlie pulled from side to side, dodging until he sensed the need to jump back and out of the way. Her speed was impressive. Unleashing a wave of kicks, Charlie pushed her backward toward the opposite wall. She effectively ducked out of the way.

  The fight was almost like a dance, a pas de deux, a give and take. The offense was matched with such good defense, footing changed, and stances swapped. Charlie was so focused on their movement, Tabitha seized the opportunity to wind up for a roundhouse kick that struck him square in the jaw. The hit sent him to the floor, and a sprinkle of blood hit the floor beside him, having fallen from his mouth and chin. His tremulous hands reached up and smeared the blood on his face, and he grunted as he pushed himself off the ground.

  “Aww, do you remember now?” Tabitha taunted him, “Here. How about this?” She reached down and pulled a thick, golden rod from its secure spot on her belt. The spine-chilling shhing! was the cry of her weapon as it emerged from its shell. It was the polearm from day one. She twirled it in both hands and positioned it to jab at him, watching as the spearhead hungrily bit through his leg, slicing his flesh. Blood sprayed from the tear and Charlie screamed in pain, pleasing Tabitha as she pulled back with a ravenous smile.

  Even now, everything he felt was intense. Charlie could feel the entire length of his skin being ripped open, with every nerve pulsing, surging, electrified with the pain. “Ahh!” he screamed through gritted teeth. The pain coursed through his entire body and he felt like he’d been flayed, scratched a hundred times over. He seethed as he stumbled back, hitting the wall as he tried to gain some distance from his attacker.

  “I know you remember. It’s all in there. Just think back…” She drew closer, erasing the space between them. Her heels hit the tile floor, each step like thunder as his hearing started to amplify out of nowhere. Charlie shook his head, trying to get the sound back to normal as it was throwing him off, making his senses go haywire. Her intentions were to confuse him, fluster him, and make him feel pain, but even the use of her weapon didn’t stop him.

  “No.” Charlie used the wall to help propel him forward and he swung with a heavy right hook to her face.

  The cat hissed as he struck her jaw, then again as he spun and kicked her in the stomach. She should have known better than to leave her mid-section unguarded. Her claws extended again; thick, black nails swiping at him. He dodged as quickly as he could, anticipating her moves as she made them. The more she clawed, the more he dodged, and he could hear her frustration with each failed swipe. Finally, Tabitha landed one long scratch across his chest, and she dragged downward from his chest to his bellybutton. The flesh gave way to her attack, the sound just as beautiful to her as the spear making its mark.

  “Still a non-believer then, are we?” She mused, taking a moment to catch her breath as she stood over him.

  Charlie grunted and panted, as he fell to a knee and braced his hand against the floor. “I hhave never…ssseen you before… in my l-life.” Lines…shapes…everything was blurring into one. Charlie cast his eyes to the floor and she laughed.

  “Christophe!” Tabitha called over her shoulder, toward the entranceway. From the door, two guards emerged, dressed in black suits, taller than the doorway. They were identical, in every possible way—haircut, sunglasses, suit, their brawn and wingspan. He recognized them from Danika’s apartment, they were the two brutes who accompanied the right hand of King. “Then maybe this will help.”

  A man in a blue suit stepped out of the shadows, behind the furniture draped in dusty sheets and old plastic. Charlie’s sight was beyond perfect, especially in his run-down state, but there were shadows cast like a mysterious veil over the man’s face. He recognized the watch, the tie and even the way the man’s hair was done. It was Christophe Dmitri. He stepped into the light with his arm held out in front of him, and his open palm facing Charlie. Christophe effortlessly raised Charlie from the ground and pinned him to the wall, applying pressure against the wound on his chest with what looked to be a smirk on his face, without any remorse.

  Charlie let out another loud cry. His back had been slashed open, his leg torn up, his chest had been cut, and now he was being crushed by Christophe’s intense and heavy hand. He likened it to what had happened before when Danika threatened him at the base, but this was different… Dmitri’s intent was far darker than Danika’s.

  “No!” Tabitha exclaimed, putting her clawed hand on Christophe’s forearm. She was careful not to tear the fabric of his jacket, but the intensity in her eyes bolstered her plea. “Don’t hurt him.”

  A brilliant purple glow shimmered over his off-hand, growing brighter with each step he made towards his target. “I won’t.” Christophe said, before hurtling the purple orb towards Charlie.

  Charlie screamed, bracing himself for the strike, as he’d been hit with this once before. At first contact, he felt like he’d been electrified; the surge of Dmitri’s projectile pulsed through him until everything went black. However, Charlie was still wide-awake, though there were muffled noises. He felt numb, almost empty. The faint hint of the floral bouquet in her perfume neared. Was it Tabitha?

  No. Tabitha was gone, but there was someone wearing a similar outfit standing in front of him when he opened his eyes. Brilliant grey-green eyes stared at him. Her pale face framed with a crown of dark brown tresses…even her perfume changed.

  Charlie gasped. Was that all an illusion? Or is this?

  “Oh…there you are! We’re going to have so much fun together, aren’t we, Charles?” The woman grinned, tracing her fingers thin, bony fingers along his unshaven face.

  *

  “Here!”

  Danika called out to Erik who was just down the hall. They’d breached the area of the facility that was locked down, leaving a trail of incapacitated guards in their wake, and found the area where ten children had been held captive in a dark and concrete cell with no windows. They had on what looked like dark blue scrubs, all barefoot, corralled into one room. When she spotted Irene Mosley across the room, with her blond hair pulled in front of her face as she sat in the corner in fear, Danika knew they were in the right spot.

  “Stand back!” She warned them, using the Gale to blast the lock. It took two tries and Erik’s rush to deflect two inbound guards, but the door was ripped from the concrete and pulled backward, as not to crush anyone inside.

  “Are you here to save us?” A little girl asked from just inside the door.

  Danika turned and in that instant, her heart broke. She looked no older than seven, with white eyes that were a stark contrast against her dark skin. She had such a small voice, and it resonated louder than anything Danika had ever heard. The disgust she felt for King grew by the second as she looked over the children, and then up at Erik with a glare that wasn’t meant for him. She felt a tug on her hand.

  “Can we go home now? You don’t have to be afraid anymore.” A young boy looked beyond her with blank, green eyes, an action she’d recognized from Doc. It was like he was seeing her without sight.

  Danika gulped, biting her tongue to stop her voice from raising with all the vulgar insults in the book for Alton Ki
ng. “Yeah, we’re here to bring you home. Are there any more of you here?”

  The children shrugged and shook their heads at her question. Maybe it was the truth, or maybe they were all confused by it—but she figured with Sloane on the grounds as well, they would have this place scoured as much as possible, just in case.

  “Thank you…” The soft voice came from one of the teenage girls with fiery hair and orange eyes, tucked away in the opposite corner as Irene.

  She nodded slowly, as the boy who grabbed onto her hand latched onto her hip with a hug. Danika was never good with children, but that nurturing instinct kicked in and she placed her hand on his back, patting it softly. She wanted to smile and tell him he was going to be okay, but she wasn’t one to make any empty promises. The hard part lay ahead of them now, as they still had to escape. “Everyone, this is Erik, he’s going to escort you out to safety, alright?”

  “Okay, I’m going to lead you outside, to our…” Erik’s started to explain the escape to the children who’d all stood up and gathered near the doorway.

  Danika released the boy who’d held onto her until now, and made her way over to the corner where Irene was still sitting, curled up in herself, behind the curtain of her blond hair. “Hey…”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Irene, right?”

  Her pale grey eyes looked up at Danika as soon as she said her name, her face full of sorrow.

  “We’re not with these ass—these people.” Danika diverted her language from rated R to PG on a dime. “You can trust us, okay? Don’t you want to go home?”

  The girl didn’t answer at first but eventually shook her head, her blond hair brushing out of her face.

  Danika nodded and curled her hair behind her ear. She met her blue eyes with whatever warmth she could muster and gently rested her hand on the girl’s shoulder. “Hey. I know what it must be like for you. I met your parents, I visited your house a while back.”

  Irene frowned.

  “When we get you home safe, don’t worry. Red and I…we’ll have your back. Okay?”

  It seemed like a flimsy promise at best, but Danika needed the girl to get moving since they were running out of time. She didn’t intend on abandoning Irene, especially given her rotten home life with her ass-backwards parents with their anti-Powered beliefs. Danika would earmark this one as something she’d revisit later.

  The girl nodded.

  “Alright, come on. Let’s join up with the others, and I’ll see you soon…” She gave the girl a light smile and offered a hand for her to stand.

  Irene placed her hand in Danika’s and rose to her feet, squeezing tightly to affirm that she would remember her words. It made Danika curious to what the young one’s powers were, but she would do that later. Irene hesitated before she released Danika’s hand, turning back to look at her when she was grouped up with the rest of the kids.

  “It’s going to be okay.”

  His brow furrowed at Danika, “You not coming with?”

  She shook her head. “Still have one more floor to clear, in case we missed any stragglers. Go. I’ll meet you at rendezvous up top…and if I’m not out at the extraction—”

  “You will be.” He interjected.

  She nodded. “Right.”

  Erik nodded. “Alright hero.”

  “Shove it.”

  “Just be careful out there.”

  They went their separate ways. Erik’s voice, one of confidence and careful guidance for the children, trailed off in the distance behind her as she made her way through the hall around the corner into the stairwell that lead to her destination. It didn’t help that the facility was built like a maze. There were endless rows of rooms and confusing hallways, making it almost impossible to get through. Once she was on the second floor, she noticed that with King gone, there were only a few guards sprinkled throughout the area. As she saw them, they were simply fodder, set in place to foil their operation.

  Danika made easy work of the two that had been right outside of the main office, using her batons to take out their legs. She had to work fast now, as she was running out of time to find anything of importance left here, and more importantly, she hadn’t found Charlie.

  “Red, what’s your situation?” Danika called out on her comm as she entered the office, looking for anything of importance.

  “Successfully gotten the kids on evac, I’ll be circling around for pickup in—” Erik was abruptly cut off by ear-piercing static.

  Shit. She tapped her ear, “Erik? Erik—yo, Red, are you there?”

  A series of monitors caught her eye, and she saw movement on one of them, and what looked like… a swimming pool?

  A man was being held against the wall by some force.

  Recognition dawned on her.

  “Charlie?” She gasped. “What the f—”

  Another man entered the field of view. Dmitri. Danika could do nothing but watch as Charlie was hit with the ball of energy, and he fell to the ground. “No. Charlie.” She choked.

  A woman—Tabitha—stepped forward and leaned over Charlie. The two goons she identified from her apartment approached and one of them picked him up. He was like a ragdoll over the big man’s shoulder. She could only hope he wasn’t as dead as he looked. Then they were gone, out of view of the camera, and Danika. From there, she took off running, not as fast as Red but fast enough as she’d used the Gale to propel herself down the open hallway. She took a couple flight of stairs, ascending to the level where she hoped to find the pool area. Finally, after a few wrong turns, she found the swimming pool and kicked the door open, rushing to the far end of the room where there was a doorway leading outside. She pushed through it and stood on the patio.

  There was some dumb hope that she’d see him out here, with that goofy grin so big it reached those kind, dark eyes. Danika would go to him. She’d hug him to be sure she was really seeing him alive.

  She had to find him.

  Unfortunately, all hope was dashed by the sound of the hammer of a gun being pulled back, and the cold barrel placed right at the base of her skull. Her shoulders squared and she tried to lean forward, but the barrel pressed even harder against her head. Her stalker had her point blank, and there was no way out of this.

  “Going somewhere?”

  Dangerous Game

  “Drop it. All of it.” The stalker pushed her toward the barrier ahead.

  Danika sighed, and could already hear the Morgan nagging her about being sloppy. This was her fault for not keeping her eyes up and on the prize. She was cursing at herself inside as she slowly reached for the weapons on her belt. First were her batons, cast out to the side, and a bit of her spirit sank as she heard them hit the concrete with a loud clang. Then the blades, and shortly after that, her gun.

  The man chuckled as he forced the cold barrel into the back of her head. “So. You’re alive and well, I see. I knew you had it in you. You should be pleased with yourself, not many of my marks could say the same.”

  “Fuck off, Franco.”

  “Oooh, heh heh. Such fire. I knew I liked you.” He chuckled as he spun her around to face him. Franco’s face was gaunt, further enhanced by the contour of black paint and ash accenting his cheeks. He had dark, beady black eyes, sunken in with black circles beneath them, a sign of sleeplessness and stress. There were fine lines across his face, his forehead, around his mouth as he smiled, crow’s feet starting to form at the corners of his aged and war-worn eyes. The mark of what was once a tear in his flesh looked shiny and raised, stretching from his right temple, downward and diagonally across his nose to the point of his left cheekbone.

  “How about you kill me now and spare me the fucking small talk?” Danika growled.

  A sadistic grin stretched over his face, under bruises and blood. Under all that grit, he might have appeared to be a nice guy, but for all intents and purposes, there was no shred of that left in the soldier standing before her. “You know me. I know you do. You read up on me, right? Isn’
t that what you people do?”

  “You people. Like you’re not one of us.” She growled, keeping her hands up and her neck back to keep him in her sights. “Franco Serra. Former soldier, current douchebag.”

  He laughed again, something sinister. His voice was low and gravelly, like rocks in a blender.

  “Nothing more in the damn registry—like your pal Dmitri, right?” Danika took a careful step back, but he stepped forward to match. “What happened? Expert marksman like you—everyone telling me you shoot to kill, but here I am. What’s the matter, Frankie, lost your edge?”

  Taunting the Rook would be the last thing on the list of things to do for most people, but Danika wanted to find the right buttons to press and stomp the hell out of them.

  Franco shrugged at her, seemingly moved by her speech. “I dunno. Mercy.”

  “…the fuck it was mercy!” Danika spit at him,

  “Sure, why not?” He nodded, still beaming with that sick, psychotic grin. “Trust me sweetheart, that bullet did exactly what it was supposed to.”

  “News flash: if you shoot to kill then your aim is shit. You failed.”

  “Temper, temper. Jesus. You always this lippy?” Franco narrowed his eyes. “Actually, it gave me some insight. I was told to find the niece of Major Carlisle and see if she could recover. If so, it would confirm everything I wanted to know about you.”

  The hell is he on about? She narrowed her eyes, her forehead pinched tight. “That bullshit was all a test? Maybe next time make it multiple choice so I could choose to kick your teeth in instead.”

  “Wow, I swear, with the fighting words! You’re such a big strong hero!”

  “I’m not a fucking hero!”

  “Sure! You’ve got The Gale, right? Augusta’s proud daughter…You just heal up. You live to see another day—survive and recover from a shot like that. That means that the powers-that-be have their eye on you something fierce—or you have some really shitty guardian angels who wanna keep you in this purgatory with the rest of us for a little longer. It just shows you’re a worthy opponent, which are rare commodities if you ask me, and I’ve been doing this a long time, sweetheart.”