A broken contract fractu.., p.28
A Broken Contract: Fractured Conclave - Book 2, page 28
One of the fighters ahead of her had the same long, sharp claws that both Winner and Loser had had. All of them were bulky with muscle, and looked eager to fight. They all also wore the kind of electronic collar that had been on Loser. Seen on these veondken, it reminded Hallie more of a collar someone might put on a dangerous animal to keep it in check and her breath caught in her throat, remembering Findo’s comments, wondering just how dangerous these veondken were that their handlers wanted collars on them. She’d faced Findo’s discarded fighters before now, not those in their prime. Their small, glittering eyes swept over Hallie and to the hochlen behind her, then back to her. The three grinned, exposing jagged, yellowing teeth.
“Let the entertainment begin!” Ulf said, and headed out of the arena. The crowd roared in approval and started a chant of Fight fight fight.
In a normal circumstance, with three hochlen and her own scrappy fighting skills, Hallie would not have panicked at the thought of facing three veondken. The elite were trained in combat, after all. But these were not normal circumstances. Every one of the hochlen behind her was injured, and the veondken were quivering with the after-effects of Findo’s cocktail. Hallie wanted to run. It was the only sensible thing to do. But there was no escape. The crowd of onlookers had closed ranks again, and she had no doubt that if she tried to break through the ring of people, she’d either get beaten up or thrown back into the arena. So she didn’t have a choice. She had to stand her ground.
She crouched a little, muscles tense, facing three veondken with no one standing beside her, mouth dry, heart thudding in her ears. She’d been called many things in her life, but entertainment was a new one. Hallie was aware that her mental voice had a half-hysterical edge but couldn’t do anything about it. Every member of the crowd was eager to see her and the three hochlen pulled apart by the fighters. She couldn’t defeat even one of the veondken on her own. The only chance she had, and the only chance the hochlen had, was if they worked together.
She took a few paces back and to the side, careful to stay out of reach of the baying crowd, bringing her into line with the three men. The veondken watched her move with near-identical grins, seemingly content to stay where they were. They probably didn’t even see her as a threat. She needed to find a way to use that to her advantage. Even injured, hochlen could put up resistance to the veondken. If they would work together.
“How badly injured are you?” she asked the man nearest to her. He was the one with the bruising down the side of his face. Oswain Dorsey. The one who she thought might have internal injuries was in the middle, perhaps being flanked by the other two as they realised he was the weakest of them. It suggested that they might care about what happened to each other. Which was something Hallie could work with.
The man turned so he could glare at her with his one open eye. Despite the injury, he still matched the photographs she’d seen of Oswain Dorsey. In the still images, he’d seemed to be one of the leaders of the group and the lift of his chin and hostile stare he gave her suggested that those impressions had been correct.
“Who are you, woman?” he demanded.
“I’ve been working with the Conclave Investigators, trying to find you,” Hallie told him in a low voice.
His lip curled. “You’ve not been doing a good job then, have you?”
Hallie wanted to shake him. He was in an arena facing possible death at the hands of veondken fighters, and he was still being arrogant.
“Do you want to live or not?” Hallie asked him.
He never got a chance to reply. The veondken charged at Hallie and the three men. No, not at all of them, Hallie saw. The three veondken went straight for the middle man - Llew Kennedy - as if knowing he was the weakest of the three. The fighters to either side reached for the man’s arms while the one in the middle aimed a meaty fist at the man’s midsection. The man howled in pain and fear before the fist ever reached him, raising another cheer from the crowd.
Hallie moved, grabbing hold of the middle veondken’s arm before he could land his punch. She put all her weight against the fighter, trying to pull him off-balance, away from the injured man. The veondken growled and turned, lifting her off her feet when she didn’t let go of him and then shaking his arm, throwing her off.
Hallie landed on the floor, the air knocked out of her, and rolled. As she did so, something hard pressed into her ribs. Girard’s gun. She’d forgotten about it again. She wasn’t used to carrying any weapon at all, let alone a gun she didn’t know how to use. She scrambled back to her feet as a pair of the fighters approached her, yellowing teeth exposed, eyes bright as they stared at her.
“Pretty little thing,” one of the fighters said.
“Shame to spoil the face,” the other one agreed.
“What, are you supposed to be comedians now?” Hallie asked, taking a step sideways and away from them. She was almost at the centre of the arena. Behind the pair of veondken who were following her movement, she could see all the hochlen grappling with the remaining fighter. They seemed to be losing, despite there being three of them. As she watched, Oswain climbed up the veondken’s back, trying to get an arm around his neck. That seemed to have some effect.
The two fighters in front of Hallie were still closing in on her. They were each wearing the ragged remnants of t-shirts and knee-length shorts, the fabric covered with dark stains that Hallie thought might be blood. Despite the glitter of their eyes, and the lust for violence Hallie could sense from each of them, they were moving slowly, approaching her with wide grins on their faces that exposed their jagged teeth. Enjoying the hunt, Hallie thought, and couldn’t help wonder just how many other people they had stalked like this over the time that the fighting ring had been operating. Her mouth went dry, pulse loud in her ears. She did not want to be just another victim. The one to her right had the clawed hands and she made sure to keep a close eye on what he was doing.
The fighter on Hallie’s left swiped a long arm towards her and she ducked under it, hand scrabbling to release the zip on her pocket and get to the gun.
The fighter on Hallie’s right kicked out at her, catching her behind her knees, sending her sprawling to the floor again, much to the crowd’s delight. Hallie ignored the baying for her blood and instead got her hand around the butt of the gun and found the trigger. She rolled in the sawdust and dragged the gun out of her pocket as she got to her feet, holding it in front of her with both hands and aiming the muzzle at the nearest fighter’s head. She pulled the trigger. The shot went wide, but the fighter froze in shock, staring at the gun in her hands. She pulled the trigger again and watched in horror as the bullet tore through his face, ripping out the back of his head as it went through him. The fighter fell to the floor, his remaining eye glazing over.
She’d killed him. She went absolutely still in shock, ice crawling over her skin. She hadn’t actually meant to kill him. She hadn’t been aiming at his head, just at the fighter in general. And now he was dead and she could see the inside of his skull. Headshots were the only thing that worked on these veondken. She knew that. Girard had shown her that by killing three of them. But standing next to Girard while he wielded the gun was quite a different thing to pulling the trigger herself.
The howling of the crowd snapped her out of her stillness.
One down, Hallie told herself. She didn’t have time to be sick. She turned the gun on the next fighter just as he charged towards her. She aimed at him, which was difficult to do with her hands shaking and her stomach twisting, and pulled the trigger. A bullet ripped through his shoulder. Before she could adjust her aim, he barrelled into her, tearing her back down to the ground, one hand reaching for the gun. One of Hallie’s hands was ripped free of the weapon, the other slammed against the sawdust-covered concrete floor, the pain of the impact making her cry out. She twisted, somehow keeping her grip on the gun, and aimed a kick at the veondken. By some miracle, her kick connected with something sensitive enough to make the fighter loosen his grip on her enough that she managed to wriggle away.
The hand holding the gun felt numb and white hot with pain at the same time. She came to her knees, cradling the damaged hand with her good one, the finger against the trigger feeling swollen and clumsy as she aimed at the veondken again. She fired, crying out at the pain that coursed through her hand. The bullet struck the fighter’s shoulder again.
“You have a gun?” an unfamiliar voice hissed next to her ear. She risked a glance to one side and found the hochlen with the injured arm next to her. His black hair was stringy and limp, strands of it that had come loose from the knot at the back of his head sticking to his face. A far cry from the glossy and artistically arranged curls she’d seen in photographs, but she still recognised him as Carrado Galloway. He held out his hand, silently demanding the weapon. She stared at him, reluctant to surrender her only advantage. And it wasn’t her gun to hand over, either. He scowled and grabbed hold of the weapon, trying to pull it out of her hands. She whimpered as the rough movement sent waves of pain through her damaged hand. The hochlen didn’t flinch and didn’t stop, ripping the weapon from her fingers and taking aim at the veondken that was now charging towards them both. He fired into the creature, aiming for its head, and kept firing until the veondken was on the ground, a sickening mess where its head had been, and the gun had stopped issuing bullets and instead was making a small clicking sound. Then he flicked a glance down at her. “Magazine,” he said, his tone making it a demand.
“What?” Hallie asked, getting to her feet. She tucked her damaged hand next to her chest. She thought there might be at least one broken bone.
“I need more ammunition,” Carrado said, exaggerating each word as if she was an idiot.
“I don’t have any,” Hallie said.
“What do you mean, you don’t have another magazine?”
“It’s not my gun,” Hallie said.
“Then how are we supposed to get out of here?” he asked, voice rising. The other two hochlen were pressed up against him now, all of them facing the sole remaining veondken.
“Well, I was going to use the gun as leverage to make a path,” Hallie said, her temper spiking, “until you decided you knew better and used all the ammunition we have to kill one veondken.”
The last remaining veondken was stalking towards them, his attention seemingly focused on the hochlen holding the gun.
“How was I supposed to know you were stupid enough to not have any spare magazines?” Carrado demanded.
“You’ve been held captive for several days, and I managed to find you, and you’re calling me stupid?” Hallie asked, hearing the anger in her voice and unable to help it.
“Well, well, well, aren’t we full of surprises?” Findo Trask’s voice cut across whatever the hochlen might have said. He was standing at the back of the crowd, but the people in front of him had moved aside, giving him a clear view of the arena. “Now, where did you get that gun from, Hallie? You know it’s forbidden here.”
Hallie glared at him, not answering. He was right, and that annoyed her almost more than the hochlen ripping the gun away from her. Possession of a firearm was illegal in low city. She flexed her injured hand, testing it. Pain shot up her arm, setting her nerves on fire. But she could move her fingers. Badly injured. But not broken. She could still use her hand if she needed to. That was the first bit of good news she’d had in what felt like forever.
“This is the most incompetent rescue ever,” Oswain hissed from Carrado’s other side. Llew stayed silent. Hallie spared him a sideways glance. He’d grown even paler and was swaying slightly on his feet. He needed urgent medical attention.
But first she had to deal with Findo, the crowd of angry men around her, and the veondken who was staring at her and the three hochlen with open hostility. He’d just seen his two companions killed, after all.
“I agree,” Carrado said. The pair of them were focused on their own hurt and grievance, Hallie realised. They may not even have recognised how badly hurt their friend was.
Before Hallie could reply, to the hochlen or Findo, the air was split by a loud, crackling explosion and smoke billowed into the air. Through the smoke, Hallie could see the bulky shapes of armed men and women, all dressed in black. Hochlen security. Even as Hallie’s knees went weak with relief that help had arrived, a little sour voice in her mind reflected that doubtless this was what the three men standing next to her would consider to be a competent rescue.
In the midst of the heavily armed security agents was a trio of familiar figures. Girard, with a white field dressing on one side of his head, Director Roth, and Melechan Mills. Hallie could easily have done without the director or Mel, but she was happy to see Girard on his feet.
Before she could call out to the investigators, she saw the pair of burly veondken who had been acting as Findo Trask’s bodyguards charging at the nearest group of armed hochlen. Behind them, apparently unseen by the hochlen, Hallie caught sight of a stout shadow slipping away through the smoke. Findo Trask was making another attempt at escape. He’d got away from her once before, and that was once too many as far as she was concerned. She set off after him, her progress hampered a little by the panicked members of the crowd, no longer baying for blood, but now trying to escape the attentions of hochlen security.
Chapter twenty-two
Hallie’s eyes were stinging from the smoke as she made her way back to the corridor she’d first used. She caught sight of a shadow heading towards the door that she’d left propped open and set off at a jog, trying to ignore the waves of pain coursing through her hand.
She reached the door just as Findo was trying to slam it shut. Rather than putting her hand into the gap and risking getting it even more badly damaged, she charged the door, setting her shoulder to it.
The door blew off its hinges, splinters flying into the air, and both the heavy wood and Hallie landed on top of Findo.
With the breath knocked out of her for a second time, Hallie stayed where she was for a moment, trying to breathe, scrabbling to her feet when the door moved underneath her and Findo’s head and shoulders appeared close by. The veondken was furious. He lunged for her and she stumbled away from him, unsteady on her feet, but out of his grasp. She reached for the flexi-cuffs at her belt. She might not have an official warrant out on him, but he was wanted by the local cops, and this was one time she’d take the consequences of a wrongful arrest. If it came to that. Besides, he’d been trying to get her killed, and that definitely gave her a right to detain him, if nothing else.
The noise of heavy machinery and the thump thump thump of helicopter blades made her look up involuntarily, just in time to be blinded by a huge, brilliant white searchlight that flicked on underneath the heavy bulk of what looked like the same helicopter as before.
She flung up a hand, trying to shield her eyes, her vision in negative images as she blinked to try to regain some semblance of normal sight. The light was almost too bright for her to see anything, such as when Findo began moving away again. But Hallie had sharp senses, thanks to her hochlen heritage, and caught the sensation and sound of movement against her skin and in her ears. She moved after him without a second thought and spilled out of the spotlight beam into blessed dark for a moment, catching sight of Findo’s running form. Spitting out a curse, she ran after him. The helicopter followed. The searchlight moved ahead of her, highlighting Findo as he ran into the street and then turned, heading for the nearby open marketplace. He weaved his way through the sparse traffic and people, his progress hindered by the fact that everyone had stopped and turned to stare up at the helicopter low overhead, most people also flinging up their hands against the blinding searchlight.
Her lungs were on fire, the muscles in her legs burning in sympathy. She was having to use her arms to propel her forward in her run, and that meant her hand was being jolted with every step. She couldn’t get enough air. All she could hear was the helicopter overhead and the harsh edge of her own breathing. She couldn’t hear any of the questions shouted at her by the people she ran past. She had no attention to spare for anything apart from Findo Trask’s back as he ran ahead of her. He was faster than she was, even if she hadn’t been injured. She’d only caught him in the scrap yard because he’d fallen into a container. But there were no containers here for him to fall into. Just the expanse of a busy market, with dozens of stalls and upwards of a hundred people milling about, even at this hour. She was falling further behind, despite her best efforts to keep up. She stumbled over some obstacle on the ground, pain jolting up her arm as she righted herself and kept going.
Ahead of her, Findo paused and turned, a smile on his face. He thought he was winning. He was winning. He was far enough away now that it would take something of a miracle for Hallie to catch him. As he turned back to run on, someone bumped into him. Caught by surprise and off-balance, the veondken tumbled sideways into the nearest market stall, which was a food stand selling skewers of cooked vegetables. Findo let out a girlish scream as he fell to the ground, screaming again as he hit the hard floor.
Hallie caught up to him soaked in sweat, breathing hard, and then had to stop and choke on a laugh when she saw what had happened. Findo had managed to impale himself on several of the hot skewers, and had then landed on them more heavily when he fell to the ground. He was wriggling, trying to get hold of the ends of the skewers to pull them out, and cursing as he did so as the skewers were still burning hot. His once-pristine white shirt was now stained with vivid yellow and red from the peppers and tomatoes that were on the skewers, along with dark purple from an imported vegetable that Hallie couldn’t identify.
Not trusting that he wouldn’t manage to get away, despite the row of skewers sticking out of him, Hallie grabbed one of his arms and slid the flexi-cuff over his wrist, managing to get hold of his other hand and repeat the process. It didn’t do anything about his cursing, but it at least meant that he was secure for now. She’d got him. Unlike the last time she’d captured him, he stayed awake and furious, wriggling in his efforts to get free of the skewers and only succeeding in making the mess worse.
