Dark Arrow Ch. 01-03

"Shit that's bloody brilliant," He muttered. "I've been very careful to stay out of public eye. This is the first time I've ever had to personally stop an attack. Any other time I just warn the cops that an attempt is going to be made, sent a letter to the target about what was being planned, or simply caught the assassin while they're setting up and left them gift wrapped for the police somewhere." He stared at her with something akin to admiration, and chuckled. "You though, I knew you were coming but I didn't know when or where. I had to trail the client constantly, and I still didn't see you until right before you took your shot." She smiled and chuckled quietly as well.

"If it makes you feel any better I didn't see you until you came flying out of that alley and threw him to the ground," She said, sizing him up more fully. She had to admit that even if she had seen him she might very well have discounted him. He didn't look the body guard type. "But as much fun as this conversation has been," She continued, "if they're going to bring a building down to try and take us out I think we should probably get the hell out of here." He nodded in acceptance and spun on his heal, dragging her along by the cuffs. They ran in sync, as she quickly found his rhythm and pace, but he never let go of the cuffs.

They were moving through a part of the city she'd never personally seen before. She'd been near here only once when she went to the lake north of the city to hunt and fish. She came to a sudden halt as he suddenly flattened himself against the wall, just before another intersection, and went deathly still. She froze as she heard a commotion from the street ahead of them. Slowing her breathing, and concentrating on what she could hear, she tried to pinpoint how many people there were waiting for them.

"The boss said they were seen headed this direction after the explosion before they disappeared so we're going to wait here until they show up or we get told to pull back." She started as the man's voice suddenly boomed out just around the corner from their hiding spot. Ren slowly crouched down, tugging her down as well, and cut her a look raising his finger to his lips. She could have snorted if it wouldn't have drawn attention. Avoid alerting the group hunting you where you are? Now there's a novel concept. Still she hunkered down more, and sent up a silent plea to anyone listening that they wouldn't be discovered.

Chapter 2:

The crunch of a booted foot heading in their direction left Erillia holding her breath as her heart rate spiked. Ren however rose to his feet slowly; calm radiating from him as he stood poised. It was like a still life for a few seconds as they waited for the next move. The stillness was shattered as the man who had been speaking rounded the corner into their alley. Ren exploded into action in an instant. The man's eyes barely had time to go wide before Ren had planted a knife in his windpipe. Grabbing him as a shield Ren swung around the corner as he drew a plasma pistol from his waistband.

Erillia fought the urge to close her eyes and cover her ears as screams and shouts punctuated the next few seconds, interspersed with the sharp crack and sizzle of energy weapon fire. Shards of brick and mortar exploded around Ren as he exchanged fire. She hated the sounds of a firefight. She hated the sound and smell of the plasma, and the screams of those hit who didn't die instantly grated on her sensitive ears. She didn't dare close her eyes though, because if Ren went down she was beyond screwed. She might not be able to fight because of the hand cuffs, but she could damn sure run rather than let them kill her where she sat.

But when the screams died, leaving behind the smell of burned flesh and the indescribable tang of plasma fire, Ren was still standing. He spun back to where she couched and snagged her by the cuffs again. Hauling her after him he sprinted out of the alley, pulling her along over the scattered corpses of the six men who had been waiting to ambush them and the debris left from the firefight.

"Move," He growled in her ear when she slowed to gape at the wounds on the bodies. There were no penetrating burn wounds like she was used to seeing from plasma weapons. Rather the skin and cloths were scorched as if they had been hit with a flame thrower rather than a plasma bolt.

"What happened to them!" She gasped as she was drug forward by her wrists. She didn't think he was going to answer at first as he simply drug her on faster towards the edge of town. She could see the trees outside the wall coming up fast, when all of a sudden Ren slowed and stopped about a block from the wall.

"You use a bow because it will penetrate personal shields," he said turning to face her. She nodded though she knew it was barely a question, He'd already deduced her reason for using her weapon. He didn't know she'd happened on this information by accident and that her weapon was a weapon of necessity rather than design at first, but he was right she'd continued to use the bow because it could penetrate the shields. He grunted in acknowledgement of her nod, and paused for a second as if gathering his thoughts.

"I don't know how you happened to figure that out, but in answer to your question I'm what happened to them." He muttered under his breath, looking around them as if expecting another ambush. "I was trained in all types of combat. They spent a great deal of money making sure I knew how to kill in every conceivable situation. Having your enemy show up with a shield would be a real shame if it ruined all that training. So they showed us ways around that. One is to control the speed of the attack, like you do with your bow and arrows. The other is to tune your weapon to a specific frequency. It's an unavoidable flaw in the technology of the shields."

He saw her expression and glowered. "I don't have time for the full physics lesson, and to be honest I barely understood it myself. The gist is that, if a shield is struck with the proper resonance frequency the energy is absorbed but the heat generated by the absorption is so great it can't be dissipated. This causes the wearer to be boiled, essentially, and the cloths and skin often char from the heat." She blinked in astonishment.

"That's a rather serious flaw. If that's true, why would anyone use shields, a simple tuning of a weapon and the shield isn't a defense but a death trap." He chuckled and she fell silent, watching him. If he wanted to elaborate he would, but it was clear he wasn't going to be rushed into it if he didn't. Finally he shook his head.

"Your right, except it's not a simple tuning. You have to alter the containment algorithms in the guns." She thought her eyes would pop out of her head at that. She'd heard the term slack jawed before but until now it hadn't really sunk in how someone's mouth could simply hang open.

"That's suicide!" she exclaimed. He laughed outright at that.

"Yeah that's what they tell you, and they aren't far wrong. Get the alteration sequence even a hair wrong and the gun explodes. Get a speck of dust in the system while you're working and the gun explodes. Get the frequency adjustment to high and the gun turns into a very very big bomb. Get it to low and the containment fails the instant it leaves the barrel and you're the one getting flash fried."

He paused again and his eyes lost focus. Then he shook his head as if to banish some memory that haunted him and sighed. "If you don't make any of the thousands of missteps though you're left with a gun that has very little reduction in range but which will essentially ignore all shields. I'm not surprised no one knows about it though. You watch. This time tomorrow the advocacy agents are going to be all over this. Which means that thanks to your little stunt I have to get out of the city for the foreseeable future, since I'll be one of the first people they look at for this." He fell silent and turned to gaze at the wall.

"All shields?" She hated the quiver in her voice, but she couldn't help it. There was just something about Ren that shook her to her very core. He didn't acknowledge her question at first and when he did it was with a simple nod of the head. She stared at the man before her, and finally her innate curiosity would not be ignored any longer. "Who the hell are you really," She muttered. "More importantly just who the hell trained you. You talk like you were trained to be an assassin, but you're here protecting people. Dangerous modifications of weapons to bypass shields hardly seems like something they'd be teaching bodyguards."

He was silent for a long time, then he turned and faced her.

"You're a smart girl. I've given you enough clues as to who did the training already. If you and I live through this mess and stay out of jail maybe I'll tell you more. As for who I am, I told you the truth about that. My name is Ren. Well actually my name is Renald, but that's just hideously pretentious so I go by Ren. My family name probably wouldn't mean much to you, and it's not like you'll be looking me up in the phone book after all."

She opened her mouth to protest but he held a finger to her lips. She felt a strange heat as he held it there for a second gazing into her eyes with his. She shuddered at the intensity of that stare. There were depths to those dark green eyes that made her scared to even imagine what lurked in them. She looked away, but he gently took her chin in his hand and turned her to look into his eyes again. "I've gone to a great deal of trouble, and a good deal of expense to keep you alive this far little one. Now I need to you listen very carefully to what I'm about to tell you."

He paused, searching her face and eyes. She realized he was waiting for her to indicate her acceptance, so she nodded. "Good girl." A thrill shot through her as he cracked a small smile and murmured those words. "Now I'm going to undo your cuffs." Her eyes shot open in shock and he chuckled. "That's right I'm going to give your freedom back. It's not like I have a choice though. I can't carry you up the wall, so you're going to have to climb yourself."

"What's to stop me simply running away," She muttered, "Or attacking you?" He shifted the bag on his back and opened it. Fishing inside for a moment he held up something which made her breath catch in her throat. "My quiver!" She gasped in shock.

"Complete with your bow. I must admit I was impressed with the way it disassembles. It makes storing it and sneaking it into areas where they're watching for weapons much easier I'd imagine, but from the design and the decorations you put on it I'd hazard a guess that this was made for hunting game not people." She held her breath as his gaze swept over her again before locking with hers again. She muttered a curse as she looked away, embarrassed that she was the first to break the stare again, but unable to hold his gaze any longer.

"Now I said I'd free your hands, but if you want this back," he shook the quiver to emphasize his meaning, "You'll have to follow me over that wall." He arched an eye at her as he reached out and unlocked the handcuffs. She briefly considered making a grab for her quiver and running for it, but in the end there was little point. She couldn't go back through town. Not with the amount of attention she'd have on her after the murder, the explosion in the warehouse, and the firefight they had just been in. She'd never make it through the police search cordon now, so she'd have to scale the wall and try and skirt around the town back to her place. It was a good 50 miles if she played it safe and kept a mile or so outside the walls where there was cover.

So if she was going to go over the wall anyway it might as well be on Ren's good side at least until they were there. Assuming of course this man had a good side. She was still alive, so that spoke well for him, but she had also witness him incinerate six men and not bat an eye. She could kill without feeling, but the kind of indifference he showed for the pain of those deaths was beyond even her. Her kills were as quick and painless as possible, not just for her victims but also for herself. She could kill but she couldn't stand to watch anyone or anything suffer. So avoiding angering this man was the best choice for the moment even if letting him keep hold of her weapon. So she met his gaze and nodded her acceptance of what he said as she began rubbing her wrists where the cuffs had slowed the circulation.

"I can't say it doesn't bug me, but you've kept us alive this far so I'll play it your way," She said standing and stretching.

"Good. Now, here's what we're going to do. There's a sewer grate a couple blocks up. The monitors on it are broken and they've never gotten around to fixing it. We're going to ground for the rest of the day." He stared at him in shock, but he held of a hand to forestall questions. "I know, I know but we're almost a half mile from where that firefight happened and it will take them a good three hours to come up here and start searching. Sundown is just four hours away so we're going to hole up and wait for dark. Then we're going over the wall."

She nodded as he continued speaking. "Most people are scared of the outside world. They know there's poisonous snakes and all manner of creatures out there that they don't know how to deal with so they wouldn't dream of actually escaping the city that way. That's one of the reasons murder is so hard to get away with these days. People aren't running their hiding. If you hide eventually you will be found, but we're not hiding, we're running the hell away. But the wall does have monitoring devices at certain points and while they probably wouldn't notice us now I can guarantee they won't notice us in the dark so we're taking the risk of waiting for dark." She nodded once more as he finished layin out the plan.

"And after dark," She asked after a moments silence.

"Then we come out quick and quite. Move carefully to the wall and then sprint up and over and then keep running until we're under cover. Have you ever rappelled?" She nodded her head. When she was young and just starting to hunt with her father her arms hadn't had the strength to safely climb down the entire way. Fearing that she would fall and get hurt her father had shown her how to rappel and the two continued to rope down and up together even after she had developed the strength to freeclimb the wall. She hadn't used a rope since he'd died five years ago. It just hadn't seemed right, because every time she looked at the rope she remembered their tradition of climbing together and racing each other down. He'd always let her win.

Even when using a rope would have helped when she was weighed down with a fresh kill she hadn't had the heart to rope up without him. She took a ragged breath. Even know after five years, three of them spent killing other people for a living, thinking about her father still brought the tears dangerously close to the surface. She shook it off only to find Ren staring at her with a penetrating gaze. She shuddered as that stare seemed to bore right through her. It was like she was a book and he was reading every bit of her. As if he could, just by looking at her, know what she was thinking and worst of all feeling. She felt a rush of heat, which she would have attributed to anger at his prying gaze if not for the fact that it settled firmly between her legs rather than in her chest.

God if she didn't know better she'd think she was starting to get turned on by his commanding attitude and the way he seemed to see right through her defenses. She shook her head, and felt another rush of heat. This one definitely of anger, though she wasn't sure if she was angry at Ren or at herself. She would never admit it, but she hadn't gotten where she was by denying the obvious. She could feel herself getting wet when he stared at her that way. That first rush had been arousal pure and unadulterated. Her mind might rebel at the thought, but her body seemed to have no qualms about what it wanted. For the first time in 25 years she wanted the closeness and intimacy of a man.

She had been curious once before and had gotten burned for that curiosity, but having now truly experienced desire she knew that first time had paled to insignificance compared to what she felt now. It had been simply mental curiosity about things she didn't know about. Her mind of course kicked in reminding her of what had happened the last time she got curious and let a man get close to her. It seemed that her body didn't care about the past, or about the timing, or really about anything but the here and now. If he had shoved her up against the wall and taken her right there she almost thought she would have screamed for joy and helped him rather than trying to fight him off.

She had always scoffed at those silly girls who talked about being caught up in lust and doing unspeakable things in the heat of the moment. The idea of burning with lust had always made her laugh, but now she was beginning to think she was the foolish one. Lust it seemed was very real, and right now if Ren wanted to set a match to her she would quite happily burn. Only he didn't move to ignite the flames that were smoldering in her. His hands and face twitched, and she sucked in a breath, certain he was about to ravage her and set off the inferno she could feel building in her, but he didn't. Instead he turned and motioned her to follow him.

He moved with quick, practiced movements as he quietly moved from alley to alley, tracking diagonally to the wall for another four blocks before stopping. She stopped a few paces behind him but he motioned her to come forward. She crept up next to him, and he jerked his finger for her to look around the corner. She knelt and slowly leaned around the corner as he made way for her. The road was clear, but up ahead was the familiar orange and black cap of a sewer entry. As he had said she could see that the lock was ajar and that the electronic access pad was dead. The smell almost made her gag, and she wondered how safe it would be to be breathing the fumes from those tunnels.

Turning to ask Ren about the air she was startled to find him right behind her with a respirator held out to her. It had taken her but a few seconds time to observe the road and sewer entrance, but in that time he had opened his gear pack, retrieved two respirators, and already donned his. Wordlessly she took the mask and quickly slid the strap over her head. A few seconds of adjustment later she had it firmly in place. Ren cocked and eyebrow at her and held out his hand with a thumbs up signal. She nodded and returned the thumbs up. He quickly rummaged in his pack again and came up with a spray bottle. Surprising her he brought the bottle up right next to her face and released a burst of the aerosol spray into her mask.

She jerked back out instinctively before realization donned. She almost laughed at her reaction, and she could see the laughter in his eyes as well. Of course if this area was toxic and he was serious about keeping her alive then he would have been a fool not to do a fit test. The spray would have made her cough, or vomit if the mask hadn't been properly fit, but thankfully she had adjusted it appropriately. She held out a thumbs up again, and he nodded. Returning the spray to the bag he brought out a pair of gloves and goggles which he passed to her before retrieving another set for himself. Moving next to her he pulled his mask down enough to whisper in her ear.

"I'll go first. Give me a hard thirty count once I go down the hatch then follow me. Close the lid after you and go down the ladder. I'll meet you at the bottom. Once you step off the ladder do not move until you see me. One wrong step down there is almost certain to kill you." She nodded her head, and took a deep breath getting accustomed to the slight plastic scent that came from the respirator. He stepped back and reaffixed his mask before donning his gloves and goggles. He gave her one last thumbs up, which she returned then stepped forward and glanced both ways before quietly slipping from the alley and rushing to the sewer lid.