Lady of Blades Read online

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  Wings ePress, Inc

  www.wings-press.com

  Copyright ©2007 by Michael S. Williams

  First published in 2007, 2007

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  NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines or imprisonment.

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  Lady Of Blades

  She stepped out into the hallway, whistling, when something caused her to spin. Too late. A man dressed in darkness fired a pistol at her and she felt a sharp pain in the side of her neck. Snarling silently, she started to take a step toward him when her knees buckled. She clawed at the wall to keep herself upright but found, to her surprise, she couldn't even do that much.

  She collapsed, fully aware, but completely unable to move. She lay there on the floor, nose pressed against the dirty blue carpet runner, breathing through the sides of her mouth. She felt herself lifted bodily from the floor and caught a glimpse of her captor as she was thrown over a broad, gorilla-like shoulder.

  A howling sound came as a black fog filled the hallway. Then she felt a momentary disorientation before being thrown back to the floor with a thud. This time she found herself nose first on a white marble floor, finding it oddly warm against her cheek.

  "Here's the one, mistress. I told you I'd find her,” a deep, gravelly voice pronounced.

  "Turn her over. Let me have a look at her.” The voice was soft, high, and almost sickeningly sweet. Before she knew it someone grasped her arm and pulled her over onto her back. She found herself staring up at a thickset, heavy browed man with huge, sloping shoulders. He stepped out of range and another figure, this one obviously female, though thin to the point of obscenity, wrapped in a form-fitting black dress, stepped into view.

  Wings

  Lady Of Blades

  by

  Saje Williams

  A Wings ePress, Inc.

  Urban Fantasy Novel

  Wings ePress, Inc.

  Edited by: Leslie Hodges

  Copy Edited by: Elizabeth Struble

  Senior Editor: Dianne Hamilton

  Managing Editor: Leslie Hodges

  Executive Editor: Lorraine Stephens

  Cover Artist: Richard Stroud

  All rights reserved

  Names, characters and incidents depicted in this book are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author or the publisher.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Wings ePress Books

  www.wings-press.com

  Copyright © 2007 by Michael S. Williams

  ISBN 978-1-59705-183-5

  Published In the United States Of America

  November 2007

  Wings ePress Inc.

  403 Wallace Court

  Richmond, KY 40475

  Dedication

  Dedicated to all those people who strive to make a difference, in whatever way they can.

  One

  Tacoma, WA

  April 20th, 2017

  9:00 AM Pacific

  His eyes blazed out of the darkness like tiny twin suns as he watched her.

  The woman was beautiful—supermodel beautiful—or perhaps even that would be an understatement. She was tall, lean, and well muscled, her magnificence perhaps all the more engaging because it required no artifice to sustain it. Her dusky skin needed no cosmetic enhancement and her windblown hair, the color of liquid midnight, billowed around her shoulders as likely to be managed by a distracted sweep of her long fingers as to see a brush or comb.

  She wore a pair of black jeans and a matching black sweater, sleeves rolled up around her elbows. A pair of black high tops and a black leather motorcycle jacket completed the ensemble. She wore no jewelry but a pair of metallic bands, one on each wrist.

  She was magnificent, a primal feline soul trapped within a sea of humanity. Just to observe her feral gaze slicing across the crowd was enough to bring a rush of heat to his groin. The impact felt a lot like a punch to his lower abdomen.

  He leaned farther over the railing and watched her glide through the mall until she disappeared from sight. Once she had gone he heaved a deep sigh and ran his hand over the top rail, imagining for just a second he was touching her naked flesh.

  He wanted her. Would his mistress want her as much as he did? He thought so, but he couldn't know for sure. Calling the mistress capricious was an understatement. There were times he thought her just a touch insane. But when you ruled your own universe, you could afford to be a little mad.

  * * * *

  The soft spring sunlight fell upon her shoulders like a warm blanket. Jaz leaned against the brick façade and folded her arms over her chest. Sixth Avenue was bustling, but, then again, it always was around this time of day.

  She hated the crowds. She'd have much rather been sprawled out atop her favorite vantage point, watching the city writhe below her from the roof of St. Joseph's hospital, than be in the thick of it like this. But one did not capture a criminal by lounging around hundreds of feet above the city streets.

  At least not a gutter worm like this guy. She'd been following him for six hours and hadn't seen him do anything out of the ordinary, but she knew it was simply a matter of time. The sick bastard couldn't help himself.

  Having a peeping tom who could phase through walls was bad enough, but this guy had quickly graduated to flashing. Jaz had to chuckle at that. Imagine walking into your living room to find a stranger wagging his wienie at you.

  And by all reports, it was a little wienie.

  She wanted to get this guy. His favorite target was teenage girls—anywhere from barely pubescent to about sixteen years old. Sick bastard.

  The Sex Crimes Division of the PAC family was new, and Jasmine Tashae its only operative. Paranormal sex crimes were still something of a rarity. Thank God. She'd almost turned down the post when it was first offered, but Athena had put it to her in the best way she could have. "There's no such thing as a consensual sex crime as far as we're concerned. What we're dealing with are metahumans victimizing people who have no way to defend themselves."

  Good enough for Jaz. She, if anyone, knew exactly how that felt. As long as I don't have to chase hookers and johns, I can live with the assignment. She had no intention of wasting her time trying to enforce other peoples’ moral judgments. She thought the laws against prostitution were as stupid as any laws ever written.

  She glanced over at just the right time. There he was, striding out of the video store with a package tucked under one arm. Doesn't this asshole have a job, she wondered. This was the third day she'd spent trailing him, and he'd yet to do anything suspicious. Unless one considered almost daily trips to the porno shop to be suspicious.

  A bit distasteful, perhaps, but certainly not illegal.

  He was a scrawny fellow, with a long, rat-like face and lank, greasy looking hair. He wore a pair of gray slacks and white sneakers, and a blue windbreaker that had seen better days sometime last century. He scurried through the crowd as she moved to follow.

  Going home to spank the monkey, or do you have a couple more stops in mind for the day?

  She'd already dredged everything they knew about the fellow fr
om their database. Thirty two years old, lived alone, and apparently survived with the help of some trust fund set up by his parents before they shuffled off to ‘God's Waiting Room.’ It looked like they were no more interested in socializing with their offspring than the rest of the world appeared to be. It can't be any fun being Danny Stark, she thought with a rueful shake of her head. Not that his pathetic condition garnered any real sympathy on her part. “There's no excuse for being an asshole,” she murmured, drawing a shocked look from one of the passers-by. “What—you've never heard someone talking to themselves before?” she growled at the woman.

  She received a glare and a haughty sniff before the elderly creature trundled on her way again, holding her purse tightly against her side as if expecting it to be snatched away at any moment. Yeah, and screw you too, lady.

  * * * *

  The warning klaxons snapped Chaz's head around. His eyes flicked to the display screen. Lab three had gone to condition yellow. He surged to his feet and rushed for the door. He dashed down the long corridor and hit the door at the end, throwing it open and vaulting down the steel stairs three at a time until he reached the bottom and the lab's main door.

  The LED display at the side of the door was still flashing yellow—good news, if anything was. If it had gone to red the lab would have been sealed and they might as well have written off the technicians inside.

  What the hell could have gone wrong? He'd run the initial tests himself and the damned device had shown no signs of going haywire then. It had sprang to life and generated the ‘gate field just as it was supposed to do. A small ‘gate field, assuredly, but large enough to verify it was running properly.

  According to their calculations, they should have been able to mount it on a vehicle and use the vehicle itself as a mode of transport between universes. Such was the theory.

  They had a stable gateway already constructed but Shea wanted something new the Centians wouldn't be expecting. A gate-capable vehicle would be a godsend. Especially if they could mount it on a fleet of Apache Longbows or something similar. It would give the prospective invaders a few nasty shocks.

  He hit the palm plate beneath the blinking yellow light and swore as it cycled through its database to clear him. Shit. C'mon!

  The door slid open. Finally. He burst through and into the clean room beyond, seeing the place filling up with black fog and tiny bolts of electricity. Holy shit. The ‘gate's gone rogue!

  It hadn't stabilized with two access points—here and somewhere else. Instead, it was skipping from universe to universe. The energy flux of the small gateway sent beams of coherent light skittering across the lab, searing the walls and other equipment as they passed.

  "Is everyone all right?” he called out, dropping to crawl rapidly across the cold cement floor as laser light sizzled over his head.

  "We're fine!” one of the techs called back. He nearly collapsed with relief.

  "What happened?"

  "It started up okay, but went berserk after about thirty seconds! We tried to shut it down but it's drawing power from somewhere else."

  "It's drawing power from the other side of the ‘gate,” he called out, “or from the web of worlds itself."

  "What?"

  "It's pulling in energy from the universal forces themselves—the underlying matrix that ties all the worlds together.” He scrambled forward, throwing himself around a cabinet and finding himself face to face with his terrified Asian-American tech, Teddy Huang.

  "What the hell are we supposed to do now?” Huang asked face twisted with panic.

  "Give me a minute, will you?” Chaz growled. He flung himself back against the cabinet and pressed the heels of his hands against his suddenly burning eyes. “I can't think of anything! Shit!"

  He felt Huang's hand on his shoulder. “If anyone can fix this, it's you, Chaz. You're the artist here."

  Hah! He has more faith in me than I do myself, the engineer thought. That's just wrong on so many levels.

  Despite the heat of the situation he found himself suppressing a laugh. Okay, whiz-kid. You should be churning out potentials like a Vulcan mini spews out slugs. But for some reason his mind had gone suddenly blank.

  There has to be a way to interrupt the field. Somehow. I have to figure out how to break the circuit. Then it hit him. He leapt to his feet, wincing as a laser beam narrowly missed his left ear. A mana strand came to hand and he sent it hurtling at the ‘gate device.

  One end of the thread opened and swallowed the whole ‘gating module. He sealed both ends securely and vanished the thing back into the ether. “Well, that's several million dollars down the drain,” he muttered irritably. “Okay, folks. Emergency's over."

  Christ. Sixteen million dollars, to be exact. Deryk's going to have kittens.

  * * * *

  She followed Stark to his apartment, a renovated house recently remodeled to contain several small apartments. His neighbors must love him, she thought facetiously. Just following the little creep gave her the willies. Knowing he lived in the same building would be like torture.

  She noticed a security intercom next to the main door and blinked in surprise. That was an unusual setup in this part of town. Most landlords didn't bother in places like these. Then again, the front door seemed to be the primary access for all the apartments, and that in itself was unusual in these sorts of buildings.

  She thumbed her wrist Personal Communication Device on-line and did a quick tax roll check on the property and wasn't too surprised to find that Daniel Stark owned the place. Huh. Now that's a surprise. And not a pleasant one. There was no telling what kind of nasty little shocks he'd built into the building's security.

  She wrapped herself in a thread to render herself invisible and remained in position across the street for an hour or more. Eventually Stark emerged, carrying something in his arms. She nearly swallowed her tongue when he taped up an APARTMENT FOR RENT sign on the door. Oh, how perfect is this? she asked herself.

  She waited until he'd gone in, stayed in place for another fifteen minutes, then grounded the thread and walked boldly across the street and rang the buzzer labeled MANAGER.

  * * * *

  Deryk Shea regarded Chaz placidly. Far too placidly, as far as the engineer was concerned. He'd expected an explosion. “I assume we have a backup prototype."

  Chaz gave a swift nod. “You know me too well, Deryk."

  Shea responded with a chilly smile. “You're an engineer, Chaz. I'd expect nothing less."

  Chaz flushed. “Good to know. I can have the backup running within a week, I think."

  "That quickly? Excellent. Well, don't waste any more time telling me about it. Make it happen."

  "Will do.” Chaz turned and practically ran from Shea's office. As he reached the outer offices his wrist PCD chimed. He skidded to a halt and jammed a finger on the answer tab, noting the ID readout displayed on the small screen. “Jaz? What's up?"

  "I need your help."

  He found himself frowning down at the PCD. “I'm really busy. Is it important?"

  "Moderately,” came her dry response. “I'm trying to put a cap on a pervert. I'm renting an apartment from him and I'll bet dollars to donuts he's got the place wired."

  "His own private peep show, eh? Huh. Where are you?"

  She rattled off the address, which he quickly coded into his PCD. Brilliant he might be, but his memory was erratic at best. “Give me twenty minutes. You're easily in transit range up there. I've got a little something to take care of in the lab, but I'll be up as soon as I'm done with that."

  "That'll work. Don't get distracted. If you're not here in twenty I'll buzz you again."

  "Of course. See you then.” He cut the connection. He ran a stained, calloused hand over his bald head and grinned. Jaz on the sex crimes detail. I wonder what brain trust came up with that idea. It's like setting an oversized Pomeranian loose in a den of rats. Not really a bad idea, if you don't care how many rats survive.

  He jumped on
the elevator and rode it down to the basement lab complex, all the while working calculations on his PCD. Going to have to design a failsafe to keep that from happening again. And maybe some sort of shielding. It wouldn't surprise me if the whole thing went nuts because stray mana invited itself to the party.

  That was half the problem with magic. Sometimes it seemed to have a mind of its own. It was annoying as hell sometimes. The elevator reached the basement and the door whooshed open. He stepped out into the hall, stopped by his office for a second, then headed back down to the lab.

  Huang was supervising a cleanup detail, leaning against one of the few relatively undamaged consoles, dark eyes following every move they made. “Be careful with that,” he warned one of the tech assistants. The young woman flushed and nodded, lifting the slender glass tube as if it were made of ... glass.

  "What do you want me to do with it?” she asked him.

  "Package it securely and label it, then place it in the storage room. Once we get a forklift down here we'll have the other one brought out of storage."

  "Forklift?” Chaz shook his head at the notion. “Forget that. Since they're not hooked up or drawing any power, just use a transit tube. I can't see how a mana strand is going to cause any problems at this point."

  He gave his tech a quick rundown on what he thought had gone wrong. Huang nodded after a moment. “It makes sense—” he said then laughed, “—as much sense as magic ever really does."

  "Good point. We're playing with some powerful forces here. Trying to play catch-up with a species as advanced as the Centians is going to lend itself to all sorts of disasters. At least no one got hurt."

  Huang frowned. “I thought the Centians didn't use magic. Why don't they have the same problem from not shielding their equipment from magical interference?"

  "Who says they don't?” He lifted his hand to forestall an answer. “No, that's not quite right. We're doing something they don't do, at least by all reports. They use stationary ‘gates—mostly. It was Deryk's people who first developed the means to ‘gate vehicles. That was one of the advances that got their planet wiped out when the Centians realized what they were up against. Scared the shit out of them."