The Huntress Read online

  Chapter 1

  "What a shithole," Mea muttered under her breath, looking around the bar in disgust. She'd seen worse, but not by much. Half of the place had fallen into rubble and the other half wasn't far behind. Someone had thought to brace the ceiling with large metal beams, but that didn't lend much ambiance to the place. The lighting was dim at best and most of it was concentrated over the bar, leaving the rest in sullen shadow. Mea thought that was a blessing—she'd rather not know what was in the corners, cracks, and crevices, let alone what she was standing on at that moment.

  Outside of the bar, the rest of the moonbase was not in any better shape. The atmosphere dome was so dingy, the stars couldn't be seen through it, and the settlement within it was little more than a ghetto. Hunting in this little piece of space was like wading through garbage.

  "Best place to find shit." Warren's voice sounded tiny, but cheerful over the transceiver in her ear. She hummed in agreement as one man staggered from the bar to vomit on one of the steel beams, then meandered back to his seat. No one moved to clean it up—no one even noticed. She wrinkled her nose in disgust as the smell drifted over, but it was just the freshest of the variety of putrid odors in the place.

  "Charming," she sighed and shook an arm out of her cloak, tapping the tracer on her wrist. It lit up like a nova when she turned it to the bar. "Target acquired," she murmured tonelessly.

  "Acknowledged."

  Having come in the back door following the man's genetic trace, she had yet to be noticed by the patrons. A few stragglers were dispersed in the rubble and a couple of people were in booths, but most were huddled at the bar. She made a quick headcount and moved like a living shadow to stand next to a beam in the cover of darkness. There were about twenty men hunched desperately over their alcohol and her target was dead center. As she considered how best to extract her target from the group, the front entrance slid open.

  She looked—and then did a double take. At first glance, the man who stepped into the bar wasn't out of place. Hair buzzed almost to the skin like most spacers and face pale from lack of UV, he was of average height and well muscled, but he was wearing shaded goggles. This particular outpost was on the darkside of a moon and lighting in the dome of the outpost was dim at best. There was no reason for shades. Plus, his muscles moved over his bones with a powerful menace that kept her eyes trained on him, hunter's instincts tingling.

  With only a cursory glance at the bar, he moved into the rubble and the darkness. Mea faded to the back of the beam and watched his shadow. Once he was in the rubble, he stopped and was still as stone. If she hadn't been watching him, he would now be part of the darkness. Another hunter would have ignored him and proceeded with the hunt, but what made her one of the best was that she never ignored her instincts. Eyeing him warily, she waited.

  Not more than two minutes had passed before the door opened again. Mea watched in disbelief as a child of about eleven years stepped through and stopped to stare uncertainly around the bar. Not only was this a bad place for a child, it was dangerous. In the outposts, children became a commodity and a novelty for the sick minded. Every face in the bar turned to the child hungrily. The tableau remained for several heartbeats and then Mea saw the shadow she'd been watching stir.

  Swearing under her breath, she moved forward, breaking cover to place herself between them, back to the man as though she was unaware of him. On close inspection, she realized that this was a girl, but the short brown hair and the clothes made her look like a boy. She was staring at Mea, visibly afraid, but trying not to show it.

  "Child, you will be eaten alive in here." Mea's voice was quiet but stern, and the girl twitched as though prodded.

  "No, she won't."

  The deep rumble came from behind Mea, but she didn't turn, watching the relief wash over the girl's face. The girl knew her shadow man and had probably followed him here. But just because the girl seemed to know and trust him didn't mean Mea should. His behavior earlier made it seem as though he'd been waiting for the child to appear, which meant he'd led her here on purpose. Was he just trying to teach her a lesson or did he have something uglier in mind?

  Mea tilted her head towards him, but kept her eyes on the child.

  "Friend of yours?"

  "He's my father," the girl said with an uptilted chin and shot a defiant glance into the shadows.

  An obvious lie, but the man said nothing.

  "Well, you're father should know better than to lead you to a place like this."

  Mea paused for a couple of heartbeats, but neither responded. The girl shifted uneasily and looked into the shadows again. She would have been cute in a fey sort of way if her she'd had more hair. Girls didn't usually wear it quite so short and it looked like it had been hacked off haphazardly with a knife, sticking out in all directions.

  "Did he make you cut your—" Mea had been raising her hand to the girl's temple as she spoke, but her fingers hovered an inch from the child as a sharp object pressed into her back just about where her right kidney would be. A thrill ran through her.

  "Hands off."

  Slowly letting her hand drop back to her side, Mea grinned with a hunter's delight. She hadn't heard him approach. She'd had her senses tuned to him and still hadn't known when he'd drawn near. It was always interesting to meet a fellow predator and her curiosity about these two doubled.

  His protectiveness was reassuring in a way, but the problem was that they were still the center of attention, and she knew several of the patrons were plotting to grab the girl, her target included. As a hunter, she couldn't ignore the situation, but she also couldn't walk out with the girl and give up her target. She had business with him that was on a timetable.

  Looking into the girl's big dark eyes, she had an idea and her grin widened for a moment. It wasn't the most original of plans, but with this crowd she knew it would get results. Besides, all work and no play was bad for the soul. It was playtime.

  "Down, boy," she murmured, pulling the hood of her cloak off of her head slowly. Turning her head, she looked at him out of the corner of her eye. "Neither one of you is on my menu tonight—" Reaching around behind her, she gently ran a nail down his knife arm and gave him a hungry little smile. "Though you do smell delicious."

  His only response was to press harder with the knife, and she eased away from it with a chuckle. Removing her cloak, she dropped it at his feet and turned to the girl. "Put that on and get the hell out of here."

  Sauntering forward, she smiled to her audience at the bar. "You boys ready for some fun?" At the same time, she placed the nail with her shadow man's skin sample in the tracer and started an identity search.

  Women were also in short supply on this kind of outpost—not a big shocker. Mea knew what she looked like and wasn't surprised when the men started catcalling and making obscene suggestions. With her long dark hair and her armless skintight black body suit, she definitely had their attention. Never mind that she was wearing various hunter accoutrements on her hands, arms, legs and waist—they were too drunk and horny to care or even notice. The tracer beeped as she reached the bar and she looked at the information with a growing sense of glee.

  This was going to be a very productive trip.

  His name was Seth Terrik. He was supposed to be in the hole for murder, eight counts, three of which were done inside. On the record it said he was at Malthat, the Big Bad Ugly. He seemed awfully free for a prisoner.

  Sliding a music chip across the bar to the human bartender, she smiled into his leering face. "How long has it been since you've had real live entertainment?"

  "You don't look much like a stripper."

  Mea swung with casual grace up onto the counter and leaned in close to him, still smiling. His eyes focused predict
ably on her breasts.

  "Just play the music, asshole."

  With a shrug, he turned away. The music began and so did she, using her best throaty, come-get-me voice, breathless in all the right places, and dancing with slow, languid enticement down the counter. With a sense of satisfaction, she noticed that she had the bar's undivided attention. Even the customers in the booths had come forward to the bar, but about a quarter of the way through the song, she realized that her distraction was for nothing.

  Terrik and the child were still there. She gave them more time, but about three-quarters of the way through the song she got sick of being groped for nothing. They still hadn't left. Irritated, she paused for too long in one place and a chubby man grabbed her ass. Enough was enough. She would have to save the child another way. Any excuse to play rough, she thought with a smirk.

  Casually she backhanded the man and he fell off of his stool with the force of her blow. The bar fell silent. He struggled to his feet, roaring through a hand held to his bloody face and grabbing for her again.

  "You bitch! You broke my—"

  She didn't let him finish, anchoring his arm up behind his back and slamming his face into the counter. Settling one knee on the trapped arm, she leaned forward. "Uh-oh, big boy. Your blood is in the water and the sharks are circling."

  Men were stirring throughout the bar and Mea let her gaze sweep over them until she was staring directly into her target's eyes. "Must be feeding time."

  A feral grin stretched her lips as recognition spread over his features.

  "Th-the Huntress!!" His voice was a sputter as he struggled to his feet.

  His words brought instant chaos. Some tried to escape and some tried to attack, none of them sober. This gave her a second to take her target. Thumb against the release in her palm, she made a spread-fingered gesture at him and four darts flew from the rings at the base of her fingers, every dart hitting him. He went down like a stone.

  Then the fighting began in earnest. About eight of the twenty or so patrons had converged on her location. She was kept quite busy for the next few minutes, breaking a face here, cracking a few ribs there, and generally spreading pain and destruction evenly about her. When they threatened her with weapons, she removed them, not using any of her own. She preferred the personal touch, but was careful to keep her blows nonfatal. Warren would have a fit if she killed anyone—he was already grumbling in her ear. She was still grinning fiercely when it was over, reveling in the controlled violence thrumming through her muscles.

  "God, I love my job." Stepping over a prone form, she pulled her hair back and clipped it as she bore down on her target.

  "Any casualties?" Warren sounded disapproving.

  "Not yet," she murmured and heard him snort expressively. A motion caught her attention and she tensed. "Hold on."

  A man rose from the ground and threw a knife, pulling another out of his coat at the same time. Like a cat she twisted out of the way, caught the knife and flung it back at him in one smooth motion. It hit him in the throat, but didn't go in all the way—the second knife clattered to the floor harmlessly. As he staggered toward her, hands held up to his gushing throat, she buried the knife the rest of the way with a kick to the hilt. He dropped to the floor, and she frowned down at the cut on her hand from the blade. "Sloppy."

  "What happened?"

  "One casualty." Mea ignored his muffled swearing, shaking the blood off of her hand and approaching her target. The bar was quiet except for a few groans; Terrik and the girl were silent in the shadows. The man had fallen on his face and she flipped him over with a ruthless boot.

  "What the hell did you do to me, you bitch!" His speech was slurred and he was slobbering a bit.

  She sank to a crouch over his chest, resting her arms on her knees and smiling gently. "You're paralyzed. You can't move, but you will feel everything I do to you." She paused to let that sink in, watching his eyes widen and his mouth quiver. "The thing is, I don't really have time for torture, so I'll make you a deal."

  "What d'you want? I'll give you anything! Anything!"

  Mea rocked forward on the balls of her feet to loom over him and stopped smiling. "Give me your boss."

  There was a long moment while understanding and fear warred on his face. "No. No, I can't! He'll kill me!"

  She leaned back with a sigh.

  "Well, that's unfortunate. If you don't tell me where he is, I'll have to track him down, which gives him time to become aware of the hunt and bolt. Since I don't have time to make you tell me…" She rose as if to leave, then paused. "Oh, by the way—" She sank back into a crouch, lifting her bloody hand and drawing a slow red line down his forehead to the end of his nose as she spoke. "The stuff I gave you wears off in about four days. Can you imagine what will happen to you here in four days? What they will do to you, what they will make you do…" She shuddered delicately. "It doesn't bear thinking about."

  He started to blubber.

  "Oh, now. It shouldn't be that bad. You might actually live through it."

  He began pleading incoherently. Mea pulled a tiny vial from her belt and waved it in front of his tearful eyes.

  "On the other hand, I do have an antidote. You should recover in a couple of minutes" —she leaned forward again, gripping his face tightly with her bloody hand— "if you give me your boss."

  He gave up the man's location, but she had to make him repeat it three times through his tears and slurred speech. She gave him the antidote, but spared him no sympathy, leaving him lying there as she headed towards the door. She studiously ignored the two forms in the shadows, promising herself that she would get back to them as soon as possible. The girl's trust made it clear that Terrik hadn't hurt her yet, and Mea herself had just made selling the child difficult for him—he'd have a hard time finding a buyer now. There would be time to deal with them later.

  "Warren, immediate extraction."

  "I'm already there."

  Mea was gratified to hear the hum of the transport as she stepped outside.

  Terrik could feel the kid trembling against his arm, but he wasn't sure if it was fear or excitement. Sometimes she reacted the exact opposite way from how he thought she should. He didn't know if prison had messed him up that bad or if Regan was just plain strange. Then again, he'd never met anyone like that woman before, either. There must have been a whole lot of changes since he'd been in the world. He'd stayed in the bar out of fascination and sheer morbid curiosity, but when he saw what she could do he was reminded that he wasn't the only dangerous animal on this rock. That only doubled his curiosity—and his fascination.

  He watched her walk out, still holding the girl back in the safety of the shadows. He had to admit that leading Regan in here to scare her into not following him anymore wasn't one of his best ideas. Scanning the bar until he was satisfied that there was no hidden danger, he relaxed and stepped toward the man on the ground. The kid followed him, as usual.

  The man rolled wet eyes toward them in terror and watched Terrik crouch down next to him, spit gathering at the corners of his quivering lips. "Please. Please don't hurt me."

  Terrik eyed the bloody line down his forehead with interest. "Who is she?"

  "I-I got credit. I can get you anything you want—"

  "I want to know who she is."

  When Terrik did nothing but stare down at him, the man gained a little courage. "She's the goddamned Huntress!"

  "Huntress?"

  "Yeah. Feck and fire, man, you never heard of the Huntress? Where you been?"

  "Prison."

  "Oh." The man gave a weak, uncertain laugh, but gave it up in the face of Terrik's stoic silence. Clearing his throat, he became cooperative. "She's part of the Hunting Corp, best one they got. They're bounty hunters with a license to kill—the Coalition's top enforcers. They get a list of people to bring in and they go out and hunt 'em down."

  Not real good news. Terrik rose and moved toward the exit.

  "Hey! How 'bout some help he
re? Could ya drag me to a corner at least…"

  Terrik ignored him.

  Regan matched her stride to his and looked up at him solemnly. "She wasn't afraid of you."

  Terrik ignored her, too.

  Chapter 2

  Mea watched the child, meditatively gnawing on a dried protein stick. The girl was sitting on the steps outside of a warren of living quarters, slumped disconsolately and deep in thought. So deep, she probably wouldn't notice if anyone crept up on her. No sense of self-preservation. She was being watched over, however, and therein lay Mea's dilemma.

  She had followed Terrik's genetic trace after having nabbed her other quarry more easily than expected. She had meant to finish off this night by hunting down the escapee, but now she was reluctant. Mea had known that the child was attached to Terrik from her expression in the bar when he'd spoken and when she'd called him her father. He had protected the girl in the bar, and now he was in the doorway to what Mea assumed was their quarters watching over her. There was a bond here that she hadn't expected from a murderer who had done extremely hard time in the worst holes with the worst kind of people. Not knowing why was what held her back.

  That and he knew she was there. She had done some research on Terrik and understood the goggles now. In Malthat, the last prison he'd been in, they'd had a hard-line view of their wards. There were no cells, no separation, and no light. They were all placed in a vast, lightless cavern and left to do with each other what they willed. It was the system's cheap, easy way of executing the worst of the worst. Terrik had been in that hole so long that his eyes were extremely sensitive to light. Even moderate light would be painful, but this also meant his night vision was that much more acute.

  Mea stood in the shadow of a building across the street from them. The girl would not be able to see her, but Terrik would. The genetic tracer outlined his position exactly, but Mea wasn't able to see him visually since he was also deep in shadow. He hadn't moved since she'd appeared across from them.

  With a sigh, Mea straightened. She would approach the child and hopefully get their story. If he attacked her before she could find out what was going on—and forced her to take him as a target—then so be it. She would leave it in his hands.