down onto the ground.
Asya’s left leg hooked behind Queen’s, and she was falling to the ground as well. All semblance of art and craft seemed to go out of the fight now, and the two were just feral. Attempting to kill the opponent was the only motivation.
Queen clambered onto Asya and pummeled her in the face repeatedly. The smaller woman squirmed and twisted, and as Rook watched, her legs somehow scissored up around Queen’s left arm and her neck. The tiny, slim legs locked behind Queen’s blowing blonde hair, choking the larger woman.
Rook’s anger grew. He knew Queen could handle herself in a fight with just about anyone except maybe God, but seeing her being hurt set his teeth to grinding. Not that he blamed Asya. He didn’t really want to see her hurt, either. But when he tried to shout out again, he discovered he’d barely caught enough breath to whisper.
Queen spared one hand to attempt to loosen the chokehold on her throat, but continued raining blows down with her other fist. On the next punch, Asya swiped blindly with her left arm and pushed Queen’s pistoning arm to the side, where the fist made contact with the ground instead of Asya’s blood-soaked face. Queen let out a howl of rage, and Asya torqued her hips and legs, driving Queen’s weight to the side and off of her. As Queen’s side hit the snow-covered ground, both women heard an ear-piercingly loud whistle. The sound was shrill and booming at the same time. It was immediately followed by a ferociously loud and growling voice.
“Knock it…the fuck off…now!”
Rook reached down, grabbed both women by the back of their shirts and pulled them violently apart. Neither one resisted. The two bodies deflated and crumpled as both women began to feel their injuries from the fight. Then they slowly began to get to their feet, with Rook standing between them and holding his hands up to each like a traffic cop.
“Not another punch.” Rook tried to appear menacing, but after the beating he had taken at the farm, he wasn’t in much shape to do anything if the women were determined to ignore him and tried again to kill each other.
Queen coughed once and spat out a mouthful of blood. Her nose was gushing crimson as well. Rook glanced to Asya and saw that Queen’s raining punches had split the Russian woman’s lip, and small cuts above both her brows were leaking blood into her eyes, which she simply swiped at with annoyance. He was grateful to notice that both women were breathing heavily and probably neither was in any shape to have another go.
“Normally I’d pay big money to see a fight like that, but we have more important things to deal with today. Asya, Queen is one of my people. She’s here to help.” He turned to Queen and motioned to Asya. “Queen, this is Asya. Long story short, she was held hostage, I freed her, she came back to ask for my help in something, but saved my life instead. She’s on my side.”
“ Your side?” Queen looked ready to slug him again.
“Against the-forget it.” Rook looked to Asya and nodded toward the store. “Why don’t you go see if they have any bandages, and give us a chance to catch up.”
This early in the morning in the sleepy town, Rook was thankful there were no gawking bystanders. Asya nodded her curt Russian nod, and then stalked into the general store, keeping Queen in view with squinted eyes until she passed the threshold into the shop. Queen eyed the woman like prey until she disappeared through the doorway. Then she rounded her glare onto Rook.
“Not a fucking word from you for weeks-we didn’t even know if you were alive-and then you turn up in backwater reindeer country playing pattycakes with that little tramp?” she was shouting. She advanced on him and smacked him across the face, but it lacked power or even emphasis.
He looked her in the eyes and said nothing. She tried to hold his gaze for a moment, but then turned away.
“Things in Siberia were rough, Zel. I needed some time to get my head together.” Rook paused for a moment, then continued. “I’m sorry, I-”
“Knight lost men, too, Rook, but he didn’t run away and put his head in the sand.”
“Put my-” Rook’s face turned a few shades more red.
At that moment, Asya walked out, saw Rook’s face and turned right back around.
Rook rolled his neck, popping vertebrae. “They were slaughtered, Queen. Didn’t stand a fucking chance, and I couldn’t do a damn thing to help.”
“And now you know how I’ve felt since you disappeared,” Queen said.
While their mutual affection had been growing slowly for some time, this was the closest they’d ever been to honest about it. “Which is why I stayed away. If I came back I might have checked out. Those men that died, on any other day, they could have been you. Not sure I could have lived with that.” He waved his hand out toward the store. “Every time she landed a punch, I felt like throwing up.” He paused, suddenly out of words to say and wondering if he should take the next verbal step. But that scared him more than anything he’d faced before. “Zel…”
“Stop calling me that.”
“What?”
“My mother called me Zel. It means something.” Queen leveled her eyes on his. “You haven’t earned it yet.”
Asya returned a second time, carrying a box of band-aids and a small first aid kit that she tossed to Queen. The spell was broken as Queen caught the kit in the air with hardly a glance in its direction.
“So what the hell are you still doing here, Rook?” Queen’s countenance was all business now, any sign of affection disappeared the second Asya returned. For her part, Asya looked just as serious, but Rook was pleased to note that at least some of the tension between the two had dissipated.
“There’s a village north of here. Fenris Kystby. A former Nazi laboratory, strange wolves and now the entire populace of villagers, who only yesterday were thanking me, attacked me this morning like a scene from Night of the Friggin’ Dead. Something definitely wacky is going on in that town. And a friend of mine is dead because of it. I’m going back there, and I’m going to figure out what’s going on. You two can stay here and try to kill each other again, or you can come with me.” Rook climbed into the driver’s seat of the much-abused Volvo. Without a word- and without any haggling over shotgun-Asya slipped into the back seat while Queen took the passenger seat. Both women closed their respective doors at the same time and fastened their seatbelts.
“Alright, that’s what I’m talking about,” Rook said. Then from the backseat, Asya smacked her hand across the back of his head.
“Do not get cocky, Stanislav,” she told him. Queen snickered.
“God help me if you two become friends.”
FOURTEEN
Shanghai, China
Knight burst past the rusted, flaking roof access door to the balcony that ran around the clock tower, and raced to the edge of the tan concrete wall. Far below him and down the street, the energy ball still pulsed. He could feel its electrical hum in his teeth like he was standing too close to high tension power lines. Things were racing out of the globe of light and streaking down the abandoned street. About fifty feet closer to the clock tower, Knight saw that Bishop had taken cover behind an abandoned pale green taxi cab, and had set up his XM312-B across the hood of the vehicle. The big man was firing furiously at the speeding blurs as they shot from the crackling sphere, many of them clearly hit and knocked into the nearby river from the impact of the. 50 caliber rounds.
But just as many of the things were getting past Bishop.
Knight quickly laid his EXACTO sniper rifle along the edge of the wall in front of him and targeted a space behind Bishop’s position. Knight pulled his eye from the scope and looked for the speeding blurs. One was looping back around and heading for Bishop’s back.
Damn, they’re fast.
Knight barely had time to guess at the thing’s speed before he fired the weapon at the empty space behind Bishop’s head, hoping he could hit the racing blur before it struck his friend from behind.
The bullet blasted from the muzzle of the rifle. A cloud of white burst from the far side of the creature’s head.
