Veil of Justice, Shadows of Justice Book 3 (6 page)

To his credit the leader didn’t flinch,
though his second whipped around to check the clock. The two at the
door, lowered their weapons, muttering about the stupidity of
drills.

"This ain’t no drill," the leader barked. "I
schedule them."

"Well, you’re out of the loop on this one."
Kelly shook her head, easing her hands down. "They send me in every
once in awhile to keep everyone sharp. Sorry, but this has to go on
report."

She started forward, but he jerked his weapon
and she stopped with a loud sigh, hands drifting up once more.

"Call for confirmation," he barked over his
shoulder to his second, who immediately reached for his radio.

She didn’t have time to waste. Kristoff could
be hauling Nathan anywhere while these oafs chased their tails. "No
one in your chain of command can confirm." She poured all the snide
she could into her voice. "I’m on an independent contract."

The man behind the leader paused. The guards
behind him rolled their eyes and grumbled again.

It was the opening she needed. She dropped to
the floor, swung her leg around to take the leader off his feet and
ripped her dirk from its place at her ankle.

The next closest guard aimed at her, but she
rolled clear as the stunner shot bounced uselessly off the steel
desk and into the supply cabinet.

She popped to her feet putting the second
between her and the guards at the door. With her short knife to
their comrade’s throat, they hesitated to advance. Unfortunately
the leader wasn’t so indecisive. He’d regained his feet and now her
attention was split between both threats.

"Let him –"

Her knife hand thrummed, wanting to strike,
she quashed the urge by tripping her hostage into the guards at the
door and pitching the blade back into the leader’s leg. Scrambling
through the tangle, she dashed through the door and back into the
quiet infirmary.

An alarm sounded, ringing off the concrete
block, rendering coherent thought impossible.

"This way." The nurse grabbed her arm,
tugging her into a glass cube that overlooked the ward. "Stay
down."

Kelly obeyed, hoping she hadn’t made a fatal
error when she heard the hum and
thudding
of locks securing
the doors.

Boots thudded by, paused, and kept moving.
Above her the nurse explained, "Standard protocol in cases of riot
or escape attempts. Non-combative personnel lock themselves away
until it’s over." She sounded like a computer voice-over during a
training vid.

Kelly heard her, but she was thinking about
the next move, forgetting the errors of her immediate past.

"You're hurt," the nurse observed, kneeling
beside her.

Kelly glanced down at the wet sheen spreading
across her calf. She hadn’t felt the hit. More interesting than the
injury was the realization that someone, probably the leader, had
carried a weapon loaded with old-fashioned lead ammo. Thank
goodness her compression under-layer had nixed the blood trail.

The nurse’s hands were on her leg. "My name’s
Mira. Looks like the shot went straight through."

"Thanks for the diagnosis. I’ll tape it up
later. How can I get out of here?"

"I’ll show you in a minute. Just relax."

Kelly was about to point out her need to
leave
now
, when an odd sensation wrapped around her injured
leg. It wasn’t hot or cold, just a warm, soothing tingle. She
looked down, bewildered by the indescribable cushion of light
between her leg and Mira’s hands.

"What –"

"Shh."

She’d met a true healer only once before,
when she was too young for school, but old enough for trouble. Her
mother had rushed her to a neighboring town, alternately lecturing
and praying while an elder used a similar light to mend a deep gash
in her arm. She stared at Mira, wondering what attracted a woman of
such special power to a prison.

"Better?" Mira gazed at her so intently Kelly
couldn’t bring herself to voice any of her questions.

She tugged the torn clothing to see her leg
whole and healthy. "Wow. Yes, much better. Thanks."

Mira’s answering smile was a gift in itself.
"Good. Let’s get you out of here." She pressed on one corner of a
floor tile and the adjacent tile lifted. Swiveling the raised tile
to the side, a weak light bathed a narrow stairwell. Kelly swung
her legs into the opening and hustled down.

"Good luck, Calisto," Mira whispered after
her.

Kelly shivered at the sound of the stranger
speaking her real name. An engine came to life somewhere below her
creating a welcome distraction from the puzzle that was Mira. The
nurse was a mystery that would wait until Nathan was safe.

Hooking her feet and forearms around the
rails, Kelly slid down the stairs special-ops style. Landing
silently in a crouch, she paused to get her bearings and then she
ran. Forward was her only option for about twenty yards. Then the
tunnel forked, one path heading back under the prison, two more
bearing away. She listened, her decision made when she caught
voices and a creak of doors.

The engine revved and she double-timed it,
playing out possible scenarios in her mind. Her tunnel opened up
into a vehicle bay, one she hadn’t seen on any blueprints or camera
arrays. She watched a uniformed prison guard shoving a loaded
gurney toward the open doors of an aged ambulance. Kristoff
followed, eliminating any doubt that this body was Nathan. In her
gut she knew Kristoff had orchestrated the whole scene. Having a
known fugitive, the Dr. Frankenstein of the century, stealing Nate
worried her more than a little. What she’d found while researching
Kristoff for her former boss was nothing less than creepy.

She peeked around the corner again as the
ambulance, lights and siren off, rolled toward the end of the
tunnel and out into the Kansas night.

Luck smiled on her again when she found
herself alone in the vehicle bay. She raced after the ambulance,
desperate to escape this broken down break-out. Closing in on the
vehicle, she suppressed the burst of paranoia that she was being
watched. This area wasn’t on the camera circuits, wasn’t being
patrolled.

The loaded ambulance lumbered up the walled
drive and she ran, pushing herself as it accelerated, until she
could swing her legs up onto the bumper and enjoy the ride.

Wherever Kristoff was taking Nathan, he
wouldn't be alone anymore.

* * *

In another time or place, Kristoff would’ve
loosed a long, hearty laugh. In present company, however paralyzed,
he stifled it.

The woman hiding on the back of the ambulance
was an unexpected bonus. He’d anticipated long months of searching
before anyone found her. What a pleasant surprise that she’d come
to him. It meant his timetable could be moved up. Fortune did
indeed favor the bold.

The recent fiasco with Petra had caused him
an undue amount of doubt. But the experience couldn’t be catalogued
as a total loss. Though momentarily set back after trying to
control Petra’s astral flights, he’d withdrawn from the failure
with an additional perception that he’d put to the best possible
use in recent months.

Between this new, stolen perception and the
recent task the goddess had assigned, Kristoff recognized the small
woman on the back of his ambulance as the last Guardian.

"Hope does spring eternal," he muttered with
a smile.

It would help to know more about her, but he
was smart enough to deduce her immediate goal and her significance
in accomplishing his own.

Interesting that the supplements he’d added
to Nathan’s food to subvert his telepathy hadn’t prevented the
telepath from reaching beyond the prison walls to find her. Now he
understood precisely how Nathan had lasted so long in a facility
designed to drive him mad. The man’s strength had always been the
unknown variable. Kristoff no longer summarily discounted the
x-factor of any of his genetically engineered children.

In a weakened mental state, the Paracuron
should've had a better effect. No matter. With two doses on board,
Nathan would be completely malleable. Where he’d failed with Petra,
Kristoff anticipated much greater success with her brother.

Kristoff twisted in the passenger seat to
speak to Simon, who was studying Nathan with unrelenting focus.
"Simon," he waited for eye contact. "There’s someone hanging on
outside whom I think you’ll enjoy. Go and play now."

The young man smiled eagerly and Kristoff
returned his attention to the dark road and the plans ahead. Simon,
ever-loyal and thoroughly depraved, would give the girl a proper
assassin's welcome.

* * *

Furious, Nathan refused to surrender to the
oppressive weakness. He’d given up on making his body obey, but
surely he could bypass whatever was paralyzing his telepathy.
Hearing Kristoff give the order, he didn't understand the impact.
The name Simon hadn't been mentioned anywhere in the thick dossier
the office maintained on Kristoff.

Ignoring what he couldn't address, he pushed
at the walls surrounding his mind, looking for the weak spot. There
had to be a weak spot. Breaking though would tell him more about
the drug Kristoff used than any lengthy warning label on a
prescription bottle. Later he would put together the hows and whys.
Right now he needed a solution. He needed to warn Kelly she was a
target.

* * *

Kelly didn't need Nathan's warning. She had a
perfect view of the disturbed eyes gleaming through the small
window on the back door. The door latch wiggled against her belly.
If she let go, the van would get away. If she hung on, she was an
easy mark. The man with the strange eyes solved her dilemma by
smashing the window and grabbing for her throat.

Ducking, Kelly wrenched the door handle. Soon
they were both tumbling down the packed dirt road, the ambulance
door flapping like a broken hand waving good bye.

The man with the scary eyes giggled as he
rolled to his feet. The strange sound emphasized the unexpected
quiet of the prison behind them. Briefly, she wondered why there
weren't sirens and search parties in pursuit, and then she zeroed
in on the crazed man circling her and the rippled blade in his
hand.

"Wow," she said, catching her breath. "Is
that a
Keris
?"

He stopped, staring at his hand as if he'd
just noticed the wicked blade. "Yes."

"It's beautiful." She shifted, and he
mirrored, until Simon was between her and the prison. "Where'd you
get it?"

He blinked. "I've always had it."

"I bet Kristoff gave it to you." Kelly
reached for her dirk. "See this? He gave this to me a long time
ago," she lied.

"It's short," he said. He straightened and
took a step, absorbed with the discussion. "You'd have to get in
very close."

His eager, breathless tone spooked her. She
swallowed her fear and spoke carefully, "Sometimes a disadvantage
becomes the advantage."

His gaze lifted from the knife to her, his
head tipped in a sweet sort of confusion. The effect was
unsettling.

"So, what brings you out tonight?" she
asked.

"Dr. Leo said I could hunt." Something in his
eyes told her time was up. He wouldn't be distracted any longer.
"He said I could hunt...you."

"We could make it a game," she said. "More
fun for you that way. What's your name?"

"Simon."

"Well it's good to meet you, Simon." She had
to finish this fast, or lose Nathan and the ambulance entirely.

Before Simon could back up, or attack, she
gave the dirk a spin. His eyes, locked onto the blade's movement,
missed the incoming kick to his groin. She put everything she had
behind the move, envisioning his balls lodging somewhere up around
his stomach. He collapsed in a heap at her feet.

Kelly fished another packet of sleeping
powder from her pocket. Using more than was strictly required, she
blew it into his nose. Then, tucking that terrible blade into the
front of his scuffed boot, she said a prayer. If God, or even her
father, was listening, Simon might sever a tendon when he woke
up.

"Sweet dreams." Tossing him a salute, she
jogged after the ambulance.

* * *

Feeling the ambulance rock beneath him,
Nathan willed his muscles to respond, to act, but failed to
accomplish anything. The exertion was pointless. If he couldn’t
force his heart and lungs to engage beyond the absolute minimum, he
certainly wasn't going to regain voluntary muscle control.

An insistent, arrhythmic banging continued
near his feet, making it impossible to pick out other sounds around
him. It had to be the door. If Simon was still here, he'd close the
damn thing so Nathan had to assume Simon gone, happy to obey
Kristoff's order.

If he could only see he could work with his
telekinetic skills. No drug was foolproof – especially when no
chemist in all of recorded history had found a way to factor in a
patient's willpower.

Willpower. Well, duh. His time in the hole
had dulled him more than he realized.
Let's hope it's not
permanent
. The abuse had reduced him to thinking like a
cornered animal. Something Kristoff was surely counting on.

Nathan relaxed completely as a plan formed in
his mind. This wasn’t his first time in an ambulance. Most of them
followed the same basic design and layout. Carefully, he brought a
memory into focus. He used it to visualize the placement of
equipment. Getting comfortable with the image, he pictured the
equipment moving.

Hearing a clatter, followed by a curse,
Nathan gave himself a mental high five. He’d found the weak spot in
the drug and learned he wasn't alone back here. Next, he thought of
the doors, the handle configuration, and the way the latches moved
and interacted.