The Dark Edge Chronicles - Hardwire

Chapter 41: Retribution

If Katengaur had the same doubts as her companion, she didn't show them as she matched Mordecai's unwavering gaze with a hard stare of her own.

"Not a welcoming committee, Mordecai," the slender lone gunman snarled in reply, "your execution squad." Katengaur smiled tightly. "We knew you'd come skulking back to Calgary eventually. The node is too strong in your blood for even a burnout like you to ignore. It calls us all, its siren song a sultry moan that fills our heads with primal urges and our blood with the battle lust. But with your powers burnt out of your skull by Ravage, you no longer can hear the song, the music that makes us lone gunmen."

The boyish lone gunman stepped close to reach up and lightly tap Mordecai on the chest, completely without fear in her confidence about his lack of power. Every telepathic scan confirmed that information, every psionic sense she had told Katengaur that Mordecai was helpless and unable to defend himself against even the weakest psionic attack.

"Without those powers, you are no longer a lone gunman." Stepping around Mordecai, Katengaur pointedly ignored Jeriko, who had been a number of steps behind the big man in black as they had strode down the corridor. As far as she was concerned, the blonde Swedish hardwire was not only as psionically dead as Mordecai, but physically dead as well. To her, Jeriko was long gone and buried, no threat to anybody!

"And without powers, you can no longer lord it over the rest of us, holding us down and preventing our advancement in the lone gunmen because you consider us a threat to your hold on absolute power!"

Slowing to a halt to let her eyes take in the situation as it unfolded in front of her, Jeriko nearly snorted out loud at the bald lie that Katengaur was attempting to pass off as justification for her behavior. But a subtle gesture from Mordecai signaled the Swedish hardwire that not only did she need to hold her tongue, but her ground as well. So Jeriko bit her tongue and watched silently as Katengaur finished her circuit around the man in black, eyes narrowed as she calculated what it would take to remove Sonja from the picture so Mordecai would only need to deal with Katengaur.

Without warning, Jeriko felt the vampires behind her slowing to a halt as they too took in the situation in a glance, sharp minds quickly whirling into action to determine just exactly what was going on before them.

"What in the name of the Dark Father ...?" Lash began in a low voice, half drawing his Shiva from its hidden shoulder holster.

Only to find Jeriko's strong hand on his wrist, easily preventing him from completing the draw. A half-breathed curse stillborn on his lips, the big vampire looked down at the blonde psionic, fully intending to demand what she was doing and an explanation as to what was going on in front of them.

"They're powerful renegades that Mordecai wants to deal directly with," Jeriko quickly husked, anticipating Lash's demand for information without as much as passing a probe through the big vampire's mind.

"By himself!" she added with a grimace and a jerk of her head for emphasis.

By himself? Lash looked up and away from Jeriko to stare hard at Mordecai and the two female psionics that he now faced. Even through his EMP shielding and neuron armor, he could feel that both females were holding as much psionic energy as they physically could, bringing them both dangerously close to burning themselves out. And that amount of energy was great enough to make his skin crawl with the closeness and power of it.

Would Mordecai's incredible powers, even greater than before, be enough to hold back that power from destroying him? And quite possibly this entire airport, if things got out of hand!

Without moving, Mordecai let his enhanced senses track Katengaur as she finished her impromptu walk around the big man, stepping around his right hand side to once more face him, her smirk unwavering. Despite his casual demeanor, the man in black wasn't about to let Katengaur get in a shot without him having something to say about it!