He was lying. They would never let us walk away. We had seen too much, and it was much easier just to kill us now and throw our bodies into the water.
I had slowly started to piece together how this entire operation worked. That initial room with the dead bodies was the observation deck. The humans – ones with too much money and not enough soul – who liked to buy people, would sit on the other side of the glass and pick out the females they wanted from the ones in the room. Any that did not find a buyer would be slaughtered. If they weren’t purchasable, then they were worthless.
Then the soulless humans would take their purchases out onto these docks and either leave with them, or battle them with other females. I would guess they placed bets, and lots of money or goods changed hands.
Then when they were done, they would leave on one of the many boats I had noticed glittering out in the distance. It was the perfect escape route.
Assholes.
These disgusting, vile creatures would simply use and kill the females before sailing off into the night. Back to whatever place they liked to call home. Well, I was pretty sure less of them would be sailing away this fine night.
The well-dressed male was still waiting for us to speak. He wasn’t ganger, but he was powerful. Powerful enough to be able to stand in front of that ragtag group and trust he wasn’t about to get a knife in the ribs. He must be one of the buyers, a very rich one, I would guess.
My anger was reaching epic levels, and words spilled from my mouth before I could stop them. “I don’t have time for this crap today. You know, places to go and ancient energy-suckers to kill. Let’s do this the easy way: if you all surrender, I’ll make sure your deaths are quick.”
A variety of expressions flitted across the weathered, mostly tattooed faces. Amusement and anger was prevalent. But there was some semblance of fear in the eyes of those who recognized us for the true threats we were.
“Hmm,” I said, “no takers today.”
Lucy chortled. “Gangers always have to do things the hard way.”
The well-dressed male lifted his hands and flipped his arms forward. I recognized the signal: he was giving the gangers free run.
The four of us hauled butt.
Moving targets were harder to hit with a bullet, even though history told me they’d save that weapon for last. Especially in this crush of people. More than likely they’d be wasting precious bullets on hitting their own kind.
I dropped the final tether in my mind. I knew one of the females was the half, and I needed all my concentration. Using my energy, I traced a sword from Josian’s weapons’ room on Angelisian. I’d done this type of trace before, on Crais, so it was much easier and faster this time. I did have to borrow from the dwindling filing-cabinet power again, but within seconds the large blade was in my hands. When I had more time later I’d find a moment to be grateful for the fact that the energy inside that cabinet did not seem to be affected by Earth’s magic dead zone.
Two gangers came straight at me. One held a switchblade, which was nice and rusty. You know, just for the extra boost of tetanus. The other twirled a mallet of some type, one with a large square block on top, perfect for the crushing of hopes, dreams and kneecaps. I swung my moderately weighted blade around once, getting the feel for it, letting the weapon settle into my hand.
The two of them attacked as one, and – it was as if they were moving in slow motion. Holy shit! Once upon a time, when I ran these streets, I was vulnerable to these creeps. But the development of my Walker side had changed everything about me. Now I was a weapon. I was stronger than any of the humans here.
I side-stepped the first and, with a crisscrossing slice of my razor-sharp blade, he managed to lose not only his pants and dignity, but also the contents of his stomach. The blade bit into soft skin and, without any resistance, sliced him from belly button up to sternum. All that red stuff which was supposed to be on the inside was now on the out. The ganger did not look happy about it either. Actually, he looked a little dead.
I didn’t have time to dwell on the fact that I’d just taken a life, although it was unconfirmed at this stage if scumbags like these gangers could actually be counted as human.
The second attacked. Swinging the mallet with power and skill, aiming straight for the temple area on my skull. Had he connected, I’d have had a very large hole in the side of my face. I realized then that this weapon had probably been the one to take out a lot of the girls back in that glass-walled room. They had injuries just the shape of this heavy-topped mallet. Not to mention I could always tell the gangers who enjoyed killing. This Brutal ganger loved it. The spark of excitement was on his face, and black eyes glittered as he attacked.