Anthology - Kick Ass Read online

  Two hours later, the stylist, Nadine, said, "You're sure this is what you wanted? To look like you did in this photo?"

  Kira nodded. "Yes, I'm sure, for the tenth time, I'm sure. Can I see? Did you do it?"

  "Oui, it is done." Nadine spun her chair around so she faced the mirror. "Voilà!"

  Kira stared at her reflection. Her eyes slammed closed against the tidal wave that suddenly hit her brain. Images, voices surged. There were people running around her, debris raining down, smoke, blood, screaming, and crying. There was a dead man beside her, a man she ought to know. And there was another man, leaning over her, his eyes stricken as he stared down at her. "Kira? Baby? Are you okay?"

  She stared up at him for just an instant. Her lips moved to form words, but she didn't know what they were. And then she sank into darkness to the sound of his tormented whisper, "God, no."

  "Oh, she hates it," Nadine moaned. "I was afraid of this. I can fix, don't worry—"

  "No." Kira opened her eyes, but she couldn't get the image of those other eyes to leave her alone. They were Marshall's eyes. And they'd been way more intense than she had ever seen them. She focused again on her reflection in the mirror. And then she nodded. "I love it, Nadine. I love it. Don't change a thing."

  * * *

  CH@%!*R 4

  Kira stood in her bedroom, gazing out the window to the back lawn and garden sprawling below. The flashes had kept coming. All morning. Frustrating bits, scraps of a mosaic, with more pieces missing than found. She saw bodies entwined. Hers and Marshall's. She saw their lips mating. She saw laughter and smiles and dark, intense looks filled with hidden meaning passing between them. And she felt a heat in her blood that she didn't remember feeling ever before. Or maybe it was a memory.

  Now, on the back lawn, the chairs were set up. The string quartet was warming up, and people were arriving, mingling, talking. All of them dressed in black or white or both, as per her mother's instructions. Peter was there, already dressed in his tux, talking with men she didn't really know. His best man, his groomsmen. She'd met them, of course. Maybe she'd known them before. She hadn't cared enough to ask. She didn't care now.

  Marshall was down there. He wore a tux as well as a headset and moved around the lawn. Her heart sped up as she watched him. Brisk, efficient, watchful. He had a way of moving that mesmerized her. It was powerful and yet graceful. Why hadn't she noticed before? Or had she?

  Not like this she hadn't. Hell, she had shivers dancing up and down her nape and a shaky unsteady hitch in her breathing. And she didn't need a fully functioning memory to recognize animal attraction for what it was. She wanted Marshall Waters.

  And she was pretty sure she'd had him. What would her mother think if she knew that her daughter was a slut? That she'd been cheating on her own fiancé with a wedding planner? God, what a giant mess this was. Why the hell had Marshall let her mother hire him? He wasn't the one without a memory.

  There was a tap on her bedroom door. She turned, frowning. It wasn't her mother, she was down there milling around in the crowd, playing the perfect hostess. Hell, she wasn't playing it, she was it.

  "It's Anita," a woman called.

  Kira opened the door, not bothering to hide the two outfits hanging side by side from a pair of hooks in the wall. Not from Anita. Anita wouldn't rat her out.

  "They'll be ready for you soon," Anita said, then she blinked, looking Kira up and down. "You're not dressed."

  "Haven't quite decided what I'm going to wear," Kira said. She glanced toward the hooks on the wall.

  Anita followed her gaze and sucked in her breath.

  Kira studied the beautiful bridal gown. It was more Cinderella, than Midsummer Night's Dream, but that was okay. It didn't matter. And if it did, she'd had her payback when her mother had seen her hair. Kira thought the woman was going to pass out.

  Beside it, arranged on another set of hangers, were a pair of black leather pants, a ribbed black tank top, and a leather jacket. On the next hook there were holsters and guns.

  "Did you know about all this, Anita?"

  "All what, Kira? What's going on?" Anita narrowed her eyes and studied her.

  "I don't know. I decided to go through those trunks last night. Anita, what was I doing with all these weapons?"

  "Are you starting to get your memory back? Is that what this is?"

  "Maybe. A little. Bits and pieces. But I don't know what it means." She turned and speared Anita with her eyes. "Has there been—have I been—involved with anyone? Besides Peter?"

  Anita's shock turned to a look of stark disapproval. "You're getting cold feet, aren't you? You're thinking about calling off the wedding."

  Lowering her head, she nodded. "Yeah. I am."

  "You can't do that. Good God, you can't. Just… oh, hell. Wait here."

  Anita turned and hurried from the room.

  Hell, it didn't matter. She had to do what was right for her. She reached for the white dress. She would at least put it on. It would give her more time to decide what was the right thing to do. And if she decided to go through with this thing, she'd be ready.

  She put the dress on. Even added the little glittering tiara and the layers of veils. Then she looked into the mirror. And then she rolled her eyes. "No way. It's just not happening."

  "Marshall, we've got trouble."

  Marshall tilted his head to one side when the voice came through his earphone, moved a few yards away from the crowd, and spoke into the mouthpiece. "What is it?"

  "She's starting to remember. I think she's going to call off the wedding."

  He thought every cell in his body smiled. God, it felt like it, and he was damned if he could keep the relief and joy from showing on his face.

  "We've got to do something, Marshall. We can't make the arrest until the reception. Everything's set up there, not here. We have to stick with the plan. She calls off the wedding, it's going to ruin everything."

  Marshall sucked in a calming breath and nodded. It wasn't as if the license she'd been issued was a real one, after all. The vows wouldn't be valid. But goddamn, it had been killing him to watch her moving forward with all this, and believing it was real.

  Killing him.

  Still, he had to stick with the plan. Peter would be taken into custody after the ceremony, when the rest of his cronies arrived. Some could only attend the reception. Marshall was to gather them up for a group photo, take them off a little way from the rest of the crowd, then give the signal for the troops to move in.

  They wanted them all together.

  Things had to move forward. Just as planned.

  "Wait a minute," the voice on the radio said. "Wait, I think we're okay. She's coming out."

  Marshall frowned. "She's going through with it?"

  "Well, she's wearing the gown."

  He looked back toward the house, and then he saw her. She stepped out the back door and waited there, shifting her feet. Swallowing the rush of disappointment, Marshall turned to face the crowd, signaled the string quartet.

  They began to play, and the guests took their seats and grew quiet. As soon as they did, the quartet changed to the "Wedding March."

  Marshall turned back toward the house.

  Kira stood there, looking as if she were paralyzed. Hell. He was going to have to go back there. Talk her through it. Help her gather enough courage to walk down the aisle… to marry another man.

  He took three steps toward her—and then all hell broke loose.

  Kira didn't know what was happening. She'd run out of time for contemplation and had decided to go out there, as she was, send someone to fetch Peter for her, and then tell him as gently as she could that she didn't want to marry him. That she couldn't marry anyone, not until her memory was fully restored.

  But the second she stepped out of the house, the band struck up, and the next thing she knew everyone was looking at her, and the "Wedding March" was playing. Hell! She just stood there, not sure what to do. If she walked down the aisle
to her beaming groom, would she get caught up in the riptide and end up married? If she turned and ran back into the house, would everyone think she'd lost what little remained of her mind?

  She stood there like a doe in headlights. And then she saw Marshall. He stepped into the aisle and started toward her. And she couldn't wait for him to get to her. She couldn't wait. She had to be near him, to touch him—to talk to him—now.

  She gathered her skirts up and started toward him, but then gunshots rang out. Automatic weapons, her mind told her. And she launched herself at Marshall and knocked him flat on his back, landing on top of him. Her momentum kept them going as she wrapped around him and rolled to the side, out of the open, into the cover of the rose of Sharon hedges.

  "Kira?" he asked.

  "Stay down!" She pushed his chest, reaching to her side for a weapon and only belatedly realizing she had none. And why would she expect to find one there?

  Marshall was easing her off him, setting her on the ground, beside him. She could see between the branches, everyone was on the ground. Men in black suits with blacker rifles fanned through the crowd. One of them gripped Peter by the shoulder.

  "I gotta go, babe," Marshall said harshly. "Stay low. Stay under cover. You're not ready for this."

  "Ready for what?"

  He hesitated, then he yanked her hard against him and took her mouth in a kiss that was like a hurried mating. When he jerked his head back again, he said, "Just stay here."

  She sat back on her heels, as Marshall crept out the opposite side of the bushes and, using them for cover, made his way back toward the wedding party.

  Someone was doing the same on the other side.

  The men were herding Peter away now. But then Marshall sprang from the cover with a gun pointed at them. And from the other side, Anita did the same.

  Anita! Standing there in a crouch with her black uniform and white apron and a big silver gun in her hands. "Freeze!"

  They didn't freeze. Shots rang out again. Anita went down, and the gunmen turned their attention to Marshall. But by that point, Kira was already charging down the aisle, screaming words she couldn't believe were coming from her lips.

  "Drop the fucking guns! Now!"

  Faces turned her way, as she drop-kicked the first guy, then sprang upright again to deliver an elbow to the throat of the second, and then she had his gun in her hands.

  Someone hit her from behind—a big crack to the back of her head, not the least bit cushioned by the veils, no matter how many layers thick there were. Her tiara tilted over her eyes, her head swam, and she went down hard.

  Blinking and sitting up, she saw the men running toward cars that had pulled onto the back lawn. Peter was shoved into the back of one. Marshall into another, a gun to his head. And then they took off, as she struggled to her feet.

  The guy lying facedown on the ground beside her started to get up. She put the barrel of her rifle on his forehead. "Stay down for a sec."

  He frowned at her, so she put her foot between his shoulder blades and slammed him down.

  "It's all right everyone, you can get up." She nodded at the minister. "Hold him a minute?"

  The minister nodded, came forward, and put his foot in the middle of the offender's back. Kira bent low. "Wiggle, and I'll pop you. Got it?"

  "Yeah."

  She kept one eye on the man as she hurried to where Anita lay still on the ground. Kneeling, Kira pressed a palm to her cheek. "You alive?"

  "Yeah." It was a pained and breathless whisper. "You back?"

  "I don't know what the fuck I am. Much less who. Hell, I'm not even sure what my mother's cook is doing with a 9-millimeter Ruger." She closed her eyes. "Or how I know a Ruger from a Glock. Hell."

  "Go after him," Anita said, and Kira knew without asking that she was talking about Marshall. "They'll kill him. We can't wait."

  "I'm going." She put an arm around Anita, helped her sit up, put the rifle in her arms. "You got him?"

  "Yep," Anita said.

  "Great." Kira looked around the lawn. Her mother had fainted, but a dozen relatives surrounded her. She would be fine. "I'll get my gear, Anita. Be two minutes."

  "Make it one."

  Her head was spinning, and she was damned if she knew what was going on. But she raced to her room, stripping off the veils and tiara as she went, kicking free of the shoes, unzipping the dress. She flung it aside and pulled on the other clothes, the ones she'd laid out, because they were the easiest ones to get to.

  The leather pants, tank top. Then the straps and holsters. She didn't think first, she didn't need to. They went on automatically, shoulder strap, thigh strap, hip straps, slip into the boots with the hidden sheath, dagger in place. She checked the guns to be sure they were loaded and slammed them into their holsters. Put on the jacket and shoved spare ammo into her pockets. Then she was racing back down the stairs.

  Her car was at the back door, a sacrilege parked across her mother's perfect lawn. Anita must have had someone bring it out for her. The cook was already shoving the thug into the passenger side. His hands were cuffed behind him. She slammed the door and looked up at Kira.

  Kira eyed the bloody spot on her white apron. "You gonna be all right, Anita?"

  "Cavalry is on the way. Medics, too. I'll be fine. And it's Kelly."

  Kira lifted her brows and wondered what other revelations were awaiting her. But she didn't take time to ask, she just jumped behind the wheel and took off.

  As she spun the tires and shifted the gears, she looked at the man beside her and told herself not to focus on the insane feeling that she didn't know who the hell she was, who this person was who seemed to have taken control of her body. It didn't matter, not now. All that mattered was finding Marshall in time. And Peter, too, she supposed.

  "Now, you're going to tell me where they are, understand?"

  He said something vile, so she cracked him upside the head with the gun. Then managed to shift gears without setting the weapon down. She headed out the driveway and left, the direction she'd seen the others take.

  "Talk. Where are they?"

  There was blood trickling from a small cut on his cheekbone. He thinned his lips. "If you think I won't kill you, you can think again," she said. "I've got nothing to lose."

  He narrowed his eyes on her. "I was told you were harmless. That you'd been as good as lobotomized."

  "Yeah? Well, don't believe everything you hear." She slanted him a look as they came to a crossroads. "Come on, Duke. Which way?"

  She didn't know why she called him by name, she only knew his eyes widened when she said it.

  "You do remember," he whispered.

  "Which way, Duke?"

  He swallowed hard. "Left."

  She didn't move the car. "To where?"

  His eyes shifted downward. "There's a house out in Kentport."

  "Is there?"

  He nodded.

  She didn't move the car. Just revved the engine, letting the clutch up just enough to make the vehicle push itself forward, like a horse tugging at the bit. " 'Cause you know when we get to this house in Kentport, you're coming in with me. And if they're not there, I'll put this gun barrel in your ear and squeeze the trigger."

  She saw him shiver and thought he actually believed her. Apparently, he'd known her in the past. Apparently, he had reason to think she could make good on the threat. Damn, what kind of a woman had she been?

  What kind of a woman was she now?

  "You know I'll do it, don't you, Duke?"

  "Yeah."

  "So you still want me to turn left?"

  His Adam's apple swelled briefly. "Go straight. There's an apartment. Vacant. In the city."

  She nodded, satisfied. "You get me to where they are, Duke, and you can walk. I never saw you. That's a promise."

  He thinned his lips and nodded.

  "You believe me?"

  He met her eyes. "You never break your word. Everybody knows that. I'll get you there."

 
* * *

  CH@%!*R 5

  The apartment building was in a dead neighborhood. It sat below the base of a bridge across the river. Before they put the bridge up, this had been a ferry stop. Houses and shops cropped up around it. But once the bridge went in, the thriving community died. Shops closed. Owners moved and either sold their houses dirt cheap or rented them the same way. Things were let go. Repairs were seldom made. Some of the places ended up vacant, boarded up, and became way stations for the aging homeless, until they were pushed out by the street kids, who were pushed out in turn by the gangs. Now the decrepit buildings that hadn't fallen down, been torn down, or gone to arson, were crack houses, whorehouses, and gang hangouts.

  Kira didn't know how she knew all this, but the knowledge was there, and had been there all along, lying silent and invisible with so many other things, like layers of sediment at the bottom of the sea. Only now, the formerly calm waters were rough and choppy, and the junk at the bottom was getting stirred up.

  The bums holed up on the hill, underneath the bridge for shelter. At night they came down and set fires in the barrels along the waterfront. Mostly the gangs left them alone, unless they were feeling particularly mean. There were other homeless they could roll, farther away. These were sort of their own.

  She pulled the car to a stop behind the brick remnants of a onetime gas station, its upper half long gone, and killed the engine. "Which building?"

  Duke nodded, because he couldn't point. "Farthest one down, right by the water. Red brick, see it?"

  She nodded. And she believed him. So she reached behind his back and pressed the handcuff key into his palm. "Leave the cuffs and the key on the seat and get out of here."

  He nodded.

  She got out of the car and pulled the .44, leaving him to fumble with the key. It would take him a few minutes to maneuver it into the cuff's lock and get himself free with his hands behind him that way. She figured that gave her time—she doubted he'd try to screw her over, but even if he did, it would be ten minutes. Okay, maybe five.