J. Robb - Vengeance in Death

Eve caught herself, blinked in shock, then laughed a little as she ran a hand through her hair. The Catholics were pretty clever, she decided, with their statues. Before you knew it you were talking to them – and it was a hell of a lot like praying.

It isn't prayers that will bring him down, she reminded herself. It was police work, and she'd be more productive at home. A decent meal, a good night's sleep would keep her primed.

She discovered Medavoy's car was gone when she reached the garage, and since there was no memo stuck to her windshield she assumed he had yet to notice the new dent in his passenger-side door.

The garage echoed around her. She heard the whine of an engine starting up, the quick skid of tires on asphalt. Seconds later a unit bulleted by. The sirens hit the air as the car zipped out of the garage and into the night.

She uncoded her locks, reached for the handle. Footsteps sounded behind her. She whirled, her weapon in her hand, her body in a crouch.

The footsteps skidded to a halt, and the man threw up his hands. "Whoa. At least read me my rights."

She recognized the detective from her unit and reholstered her weapon. "Sorry, Baxter."

"Jumpy, aren't we, Dallas?"

"People shouldn't go skulking around garages."

"Hey, I'm just heading to my vehicle." He winked as he uncoded a car two down from hers. "Got myself a hot date with a saucy senorita."

"Ole, Baxter," she muttered and, annoyed with herself, slid behind the wheel. It took three tries for the engine to catch. She decided she would go to maintenance personally in the morning and murder the first mechanic who crossed her path.

The temperature control hummed straight to warm, then shot into roast. Eve ordered it off with a snarl and settled for the late November chill.

She drove two blocks, hit a traffic snarl and sighed. For a time she simply tapped her fingers on the wheel and studied the new animated billboard over Gromley's Theater Complex. A dozen different videos were advertised. She watched an air chase between two sky-cycles over New Los Angeles that ended with a very impressive crash and display of flames. She pondered the beautiful couple who rolled across a spring meadow wearing little but glossy skin. The latest kid-flick was next in line and offered a trio of dancing spiders garbed in top hats and tails.

She inched forward, ignoring the bad-tempered honks and shouted curses of other drivers similarly situated.

A teenage couple riding tandem on an airboard surfed through the snarled traffic in a bright flash of color. The driver beside her resigned herself to a long wait by turning up her music system to an ear-splitting pitch and singing along in a loud, off-key voice.

Overhead an airbus blatted. There was something smug in the sound, Eve thought. Yeah, yeah, she mused, scowling up at it, if more people took advantage of public transpo, we wouldn't be in this fix.

Bored, Eve pulled out her communicator and tagged Peabody.

"You might as well call it a night," Eve told her. "I'm in a vehicle jam here and my ETA is anyone's guess."

"There's this rumor about pizza."

"Okay, enjoy then, but if you're still there when I get in, you're going to have to give me a full report on the day's work."

"For pizza, Lieutenant, I would face much worse."

She watched it happen. It was perfectly choreographed for disaster. Three cars ahead of her, two Rapid Cabs shot into vertical lift at the same time. Their fenders brushed, bumped. The cabs shimmied. Even as Eve was shaking her head over idiocy, the cabs lost their lift and hit the street with resounding thuds.

"Well, damn."

"Problem, Dallas? Thought I heard a crash."

"Yeah, a couple of brain dead cabbies. Oh yeah, that's going to help. Now they're out of their rides and screaming at each other. This'll get traffic moving, all right."

Her eyes narrowed as she saw one of the cabbies reach through his window and pull out a metal bat. "That tears it. Peabody, call for a couple of black-and-white floaters, assault with deadly in progress, Tenth Avenue between Twenty-fifth and -sixth. Tell them to make it fast before we have a riot. Now I'm going to go give these assholes a lesson in driving courtesy."

"Dallas, maybe you ought to wait for backup. I'll have – "

"Forget it. I'm sick of idiots." She slammed her door, took three long-legged strides. And the world erupted.

She felt the hot fist of air punch her in the back, scoop her up like a doll, and fling her forward. Her eardrums sang with the force of the explosion as she flew. Something sharp, twisted, and flaming shot past her head. Someone screamed. She didn't think it was herself, as she couldn't seem to draw in air to breathe.

She bounced headfirst off the hood of a car, dimly saw the shocked, white face of its driver gaping at her, then hit the street hard enough to scrape flesh and rattle bones.

Something's burning, something's burning, she thought, but couldn't quite place it. Flesh, leather, fuel. Oh God. With wobbly effort, she pushed with her hands, managed to lift her head.

Behind her, people abandoned their cars like rats running from doomed ships. Someone stepped on her, but she barely felt it. Overhead, the traffic copters zoomed in to shine security beams and blast out cautions.

But eyes were dazzled by the fierce light, the shooting flames coming from her vehicle.

She wheezed in a breath, let it out. "Son of a bitch." And passed out cold.

Roarke muscled his way through crowds of people, lines of emergency vehicles. Airlifts hovered above, shooting out their streams of lights amid the shriek of sirens. There was a smell of sweat and blood and burning. A child was screaming in long, gulping wails. A woman sat on the ground, surrounded by sparkling, fist-sized diamonds of Duraglass, and wept silently into her hands.

He saw blackened faces, shocked eyes, but he didn't see Eve.

He refused to allow himself to think or to feel or to imagine.

He'd been in Eve's office, tinkering with McNab, when the hail for Peabody had come in. He'd continued to work, amusing himself by listening to Eve's voice, the irritation spiking it, then the disgust when she'd ordered Peabody to call for a floater.

Then the almost female shriek of the explosion had caused the communicator to jump in Peabody's hand. He hadn't waited, not even a heartbeat, but had been out of the room and gone even as Peabody had desperately tried to raise Eve again.

He'd abandoned his car a full block back, but was making good time on foot. Sheer force of will had people scrambling out of his way. Or perhaps it was the cold rage in his eyes as he scanned faces, forms.

Then he saw her vehicle – or what was left of it. The twisted hulk of steel and plastic was hulled out and coated with thick white foam. And his heart stopped.

He'd never know how long he stood there, unable to breathe, his body rocking with shock. Then he broke, started forward, with some wild notion of ripping the ruined car to pieces to find her.

"Goddamn it, I said I'm not going to any hospital. Just patch me up, for Christ's sake, and find me a fucking communicator before I kick your sorry ass over to the East Side."

He whirled, his head whipping up like a wolf's scenting its mate. She was sitting on the running board of a medivan, snarling at a harassed medical technician who was struggling to coat her burns.

She was singed, bleeding, bruised, and furiously alive.

He didn't go to her at once. He needed a moment for his hands to stop shaking, for his heart to stop sputtering and beat normally again. Relief was like a drug, a spiked drink to make him giddy. He gulped it down, then found himself grinning like an idiot as she rammed her elbow into the MT's gut to prevent him from giving her a dose of medication.