King's Crusade (Seventeen) (9 page)

She whipped around, shoved Jackson against the crates, and shot the figure creeping up behind them. The dead man hit the ground with a dull sound, gun falling from limp fingers.

Jackson gaped at the body on the floor. Before he could utter a single word, Alexa caught another flash of movement above them. She leapt into a back flip and narrowly avoided the spray of bullets that peppered the ground where she had been standing. She landed solidly on her feet, fired a defensive volley at the men atop the crates, grabbed a stunned Jackson by his arm, and dragged him into the closest aisle.

Loud thuds rose from the roof of the shipping containers that lined the right wall of the passage. Excitement fluttered through her. She smiled grimly. Their invisible assailants were keeping track.

A junction appeared in the gloom ahead. Several figures stepped into view.

Alexa pushed Jackson to the floor, jumped, and high-kicked the closest man in the chest. He stumbled back into a wall of boxes with a grunt, the gun in his hand clattering to the ground. She swept the weapon out of the way with one foot, shot the second man raising his gun to her left, and delivered a hooking knee strike to the thigh of the third man to her right. There was a loud snap as his femur shattered. He screamed and fell. A savage grin flashed across her lips. She stepped up to him and dropped her leg in an axe kick that broke his right wrist. A strangled gurgle escaped his throat, and he curled up in a ball on the floor.

Bullets thudded into the crates next to her head.

Alexa dropped on her back, raised both Sigs, and fired rapidly at the shadows on the top of the containers. Two men landed on the ground with loud, fleshy thumps and lay still. There was a faint noise behind her. She rolled to one knee and leveled a gun at the figure standing above her.

It was Jackson. He inhaled sharply when the tip of the Sig froze an inch from his left eye.

She stood. ‘Don’t do that,’ she said steadily. ‘I could have shot you.’

Jackson opened his mouth to speak. Before he could utter a single word, someone gripped him around the neck in a chokehold. He gasped.

Alexa looked at the figure behind the Harvard professor. It was the man she had kicked in the chest.

Jackson grabbed his assailant’s arm with one hand and elbowed him in the stomach. His aggressor grunted and maintained his hold. The Harvard professor stepped back and stamped down on the man’s foot. The latter groaned and sagged, his arm slipping a fraction from his victim’s neck. Jackson turned and punched him squarely in the jaw.

The man’s eyes rolled back in his head and he dropped to the floor.

Jackson coughed and rubbed his neck while he gazed at his unconscious assailant. ‘Were you having fun watching?’ he said, glancing at her accusingly.

Alexa shrugged. ‘I wanted to see what you could do,’ she said. ‘Your uppercut could do with some tighten—’

A shadow blocked out the light coming from the rear of the warehouse. Jackson stared at something behind her. His eyes widened. Acting on instinct, she dropped to the floor and rolled toward him.

Chapter Six

A
fist the size of a
lead sewer pipe arced through the air where her head had been a second before and smashed into the boxes at the side of the aisle. Wood splintered and shattered. The tower of crates trembled. Alexa rose to her feet and looked at the giant figure filling the width of the alley.

‘Is it me, or does this guy look like the Hulk?’ said Jackson dully at her side.

She silently assessed the man facing them. About six-foot-seven and built like a tank, the stranger moved with deceptive silence for his size. His neck was almost as wide as her thigh, and thick, corded muscles bulged under his tight-fitting sweater and linen trousers. Small, dark eyes were set in a coarse, pockmarked face. He watched them dispassionately from under a pair of thinning eyebrows.

‘Boyko Dragov?’ said Alexa.

The man’s expression did not change. ‘Who wants to know?’

She had spent enough decades in fighting rings to know that the giant was pumped up on steroids. Her gaze dropped to his torso. She raised a Sig and fired four shots in rapid succession. The bullets struck Dragov’s chest with a series of dull thumps. The force of the impacts did not even rock him on his heels. The giant man blinked and looked down curiously at the holes in his sweater.

Alexa holstered the guns and shrugged her jacket off her shoulders. ‘Stay back,’ she told Jackson, her eyes never leaving Dragov. Anticipation of the fight buzzed along her limbs. ‘I want him alive.’

The Harvard professor gazed at her, slack jawed. ‘You just shot him!’

‘He’s wearing body armor,’ she retorted.

Jackson stared at the gray material visible through the tears in the giant’s top. ‘Would it have hurt to ask?’ he said, glancing at her. ‘I mean, look at him. The guy is seriously pissed!’

Dragov’s thick lips parted in a feral smile. Alexa flexed her gloved fingers, bent her arms slightly at the elbows, turned her body sideways, and moved her legs into a fighting stance.

The giant took a step forward and swung his right hand around in a hook punch. She didn’t even attempt to block the attack. Instead, she slipped deftly to the side, twisted, and delivered a powerful back kick with her left foot. Her heel struck the inner side of Dragov’s left knee at the same time that his fist passed a good foot from her head and pulverized a wooden crate.

Dragov looked at her over his shoulder. His smile broadened.

The kick would have incapacitated an ordinary man. Alexa darted back half a dozen steps and scrutinized her opponent. Although Dragov was strong, his size would undoubtedly limit his speed. A shadow above his head caught her eyes.

The giant turned and lumbered steadily in her direction.

Alexa ran toward him, kicked up against a container on her right, pushed off the crate on the opposite side of the aisle to gain more altitude, spun in the air, and aimed a spinning reverse kick at Dragov’s head.

Her right foot connected with his jaw with a loud snap. The impact jarred her ankle and momentarily stopped him in his tracks. As she dropped toward the ground, his hand snaked out with unearthly speed and grabbed her left thigh in an iron grip. He swung her body up and across the alley as if he was swatting a fly.

Alexa saw the approaching pallet of crates, raised her arms to cover up her head, and rotated her body slightly.

Despite her defensive posture, she struck the boxes with enough force to cause her teeth to vibrate in her jaws. A gush of blood slid across her tongue as she inadvertently bit the inside of her cheek.

A savage thrill flooded her senses at the same time that a surge of adrenaline spiked through her body. It had been some time since she had experienced an emotion in battle. She grabbed the edge of the crate above her head, twisted, and grinned fiercely over her shoulder at Dragov.

A glimmer of confusion dawned on the giant’s face.

Alexa knew what he saw in her eyes. It was utter fearlessness overlaid with a brutal determination to win.

There was a sharp cry below them as someone rushed Dragov and hit him on the leg. She looked down. Jackson had found a metal pipe from somewhere. He swung it back to attack the giant again.

Dragov reached down, closed his fingers around Jackson’s throat, and lifted him effortlessly off the ground. The Harvard professor choked. The pipe dropped from his grasp. A look of alarm clouded his face as he pulled and punched in vain at the giant’s arm.

Alexa jabbed her right leg into a straight foot thrust at Dragov’s face and felt his nose give beneath the heel of her boot. His grip momentarily loosened on her thigh.

It was enough for her to pull free. She kicked against the wall of boxes, back-flipped across the alley, and landed against the side of a crate. She climbed nimbly to the top of the tower of containers.

Dragov turned slowly, a trickle of blood oozing out of his left nostril.

Jackson’s face had gone an unhealthy shade of purple in the giant man’s grip. He managed to turn his head and stared at her with a desperate, wide-eyed expression. His mouth formed the word ‘Run’.

An unfamiliar emotion stabbed through Alexa at the look in Jackson’s ice-blue eyes. She took a few steps back, ran to the edge of the container, and jumped. Her body arced through the air and her hands closed around the loop of the iron chain she had seen hanging from the bridge crane. Gravity brought her down on Dragov’s head. She landed on his shoulders, dropped to wrap her thighs around his neck, and twisted the chain under his jaw.

Dragov’s hand opened and he released Jackson. The Harvard professor fell to the ground with a thud. A series of hoarse, rasping coughs left his lips and he audibly sucked in air.

The giant’s fingers closed on Alexa’s thighs. He dug deep into her flesh and tried to throw her off. She ignored the bone crushing pain, smiled viciously, and tightened her hold on the chain. He let out a grunt and stumbled back a step.

Alexa leaned down and brought her lips to his ear. ‘Where are the tombs?’ she demanded coldly.

Dragov’s grip switched to the chain. He pulled at it with all his might. Alexa felt a couple of links slide through her fingers. She increased her grasp on the thick metal.

She was stronger than a human and stronger still than most immortals. It was the first time she had met someone who could prove to be more powerful than her.

There was a bang and a loud thunk next to her head. A splinter from a bullet-damaged crate slashed across her cheek. She looked irritably over her shoulder.

Jackson was already up and moving toward the man he had knocked out earlier, and who now stood with a firearm aimed at her head. The gunman’s finger moved on the trigger a split second after Jackson tackled him to the ground. The bullet whistled through the air, entered the soft flesh of her inner arm, exited through the other side, and slammed into a metal container. Blood dripped onto her hand.

Fleshy thuds and grunts rose from behind as Jackson fought her attacker. Below her, Dragov heaved on the chain once more.

The links slipped an inch through her grasp. She heard air travel down Dragov’s throat.

He groaned, reached up with his right hand, and curled his fingers into the wound on her arm. Alexa gritted her teeth against the stinging pain. The flow of blood from her injury doubled and the links slid through her increasingly wet hands. A hiss of disgust left her lips.

She let go of the chain and dropped off the giant’s back. As she landed lightly on her feet, Alexa caught a glimpse of a tattoo on the back of his neck.

It was a cross with a red rose entwined around it.

Jackson was pushing himself off Dragov’s unconscious accomplice; the man’s face was a bloodied pulp. He retrieved the gun from the floor and threw it toward the top of a container.

Barely eight minutes had elapsed since they entered the warehouse.

Dragov slowly turned to face them. A feral smile flashed on Alexa’s lips as she observed the fresh, red marks around his neck.

The giant swung the chain in his hands. She leaned out of the way and felt the iron links whistle past her face before they struck a crate with enough force to split it. He yanked on the chain. The crate groaned; the metal links were firmly wedged inside the thick wood. Dragov scowled, dropped the chain, and came at her with his fists.

She bobbed and weaved, effortlessly avoiding his punches. Rage darkened the giant man’s eyes. His lips curled back to expose his teeth.

A faint noise suddenly reached her ears. She looked over her shoulder.

A figure stood in the shadows at the end of the aisle behind them. It was holding a long, tubular object to its shoulder. A flash of light and a whoosh erupted from the gaping mouth of the rocket launcher.

Alexa twisted on her heels, grabbed Jackson’s arm, and pulled him into a passage to the right a second before the grenade detonated against the tower of crates next to where they had been standing. A wave of compressed hot air and flames washed over them as debris pelted their backs. Jackson stumbled.

An ominous rumble rose behind them, underpinning the fading roar of the blast. Alexa glanced back and saw the wall of boxes come tumbling down. She pushed Jackson to the ground, dropped on top of him, and braced herself as she wrapped her arms around their heads.

A crushing weight landed on her back, pinning both of them to the floor. Darkness engulfed them. She felt Jackson’s heart race frantically against her chest and his breath wash shallowly over her face. She ground her teeth as more boxes dropped on them.

It was almost ten seconds before the avalanche came to a thunderous close and the final thuds sounded dimly around them. Alexa blinked in the stifling gloom.

‘Are you okay?’ said Jackson in her ear.

She nodded and realized he could not see her. ‘Yes,’ she said steadily.

‘Not that I mind the close intimacy, but how the hell do we get out of here?’ he drawled after a while.

Alexa placed her hands on the floor on either side of his head and heaved up with her body. The crates above them barely shifted. She felt Jackson’s arms rise around her and push at the deadweight. She heaved again.

A moment later, something slipped above them.

Now that her eyes had adjusted to the darkness, she could make out Jackson’s features. He was grinning.

‘What?’ she snapped.

‘This is kinda nice,’ he murmured. His gaze switched to her lips.

She wondered whether the fall had given him a concussion. ‘Two days ago, I was kicking a woman out of your bed,’ she said.

Jackson shrugged. ‘Hey, she knew what she was getting herself into,’ he responded. ‘I don’t do relationships.’

She ignored the disturbing feel of his heated breath on her cheek and murmured, ‘On the count of three.’

It was another half-minute before dim light stabbed through the shadows of the tomb-like space where they lay trapped. Alexa used her elbows and heels in a succession of rapid strikes and kicks to shatter the remaining boxes that held them captive. Once clear, she snatched the Sigs from her body holster, rose, and quickly scanned their surroundings, the guns tracking her line of sight.

They were alone. From the warehouse’s empty feel, Dragov and his accomplices had long left the building.