Death Row: The Hunter Read online

  Xavier O’Conner was roughly the same age as Kerick, thirty-eight to be exact. When Xavier had been captured by the Hierarchy and sent to Kong to work as a slave laborer for Federated Earth until his execution, Kerick had already been imprisoned for five years and their mutual friend Elijah for one year.

  He had never expected to see either Xavier or Elijah again. When Kerick had first arrived at Correctional Sector 12 he had fully expected to be executed within a fortnight of arriving—when he learned he had been sentenced to fifteen years of slave labor before being put to death in the pit…well, that was when his plans for escape had begun to formulate.

  Being reunited with his trusted friends had been both a solace and a sorrow. A solace because he was again surrounded by men he could trust, men he vowed to escape with. A sorrow because he knew there was no longer anyone on the Outside trained enough to continue the systematic assassinations of the Hierarchy leaders that the three of them had begun so many years back.

  But they were free again. A fact every Hierarchy leader of Federated Earth was surely aware of by now. A fact that would cause every Hierarchy leader from Altun Ha to Dublin to exist in a constant state of paranoid wariness, inducing them to double their guard and tighten the security within their sectors.

  As if that mattered. As if Kerick Riley, known as “The Grim Reaper” amongst his enemies, hadn’t considered the fact that they would do that very thing. Stupid, the lot of them.

  “I’ve got news, old friend,” Xavier said on a grin.

  Kerick grunted, then followed him to where they could converse in private. Growing up, Margaret Riley had often teased the boys that their personalities were like yin and yang, light and dark. Where her son Kerick was brooding and intense, his friend Xavier was easily humored and laid back. Elijah Carter had been somewhere in the middle, neither dark nor light of mood and expression.

  Margaret, his mother, had often referred to them as her three babies, her prides and joys…her little killing machines, Kerick thought with a small, nostalgic half-grin. Ah—the wonders of boyhood.

  “What the kong are you smiling about?” Xavier grumbled, now frowning. In truth, he only frowned when Kerick smiled—probably because the gesture mightily confused him.

  Kerick shook his head slightly, snapping back to normal. “Nothing,” he muttered. “I was just thinking back on when we were boys.”

  Xavier nodded. By mutual, silent understanding they never spoke of Dr. Margaret Riley aloud. And especially not to Elijah. Where Kerick and Xavier missed her as sons missed a mother, Elijah missed her as a lover who’d had his soulmate cruelly snatched from him.

  Elijah and Margaret had never consummated their relationship, both Kerick and Xavier knew. The ebony giant had been deeply in love with Kerick’s mother, a short, pale woman twice his age, but he had honored her desire not to be mastered when she could go out of remission at any time and turn on the only man she had ever known love of the heart with.

  If Elijah regretted having given Margaret Riley the choice to gainsay him, he’d never said as much aloud. But then Kerick and Xavier were thoughtful enough not to question him. The memory of Margaret Riley was a sacred one to Elijah, one he’d allow no man to cheapen.

  Indeed, when Margaret Riley had been lost to them a final time, it had been Elijah, not Kerick, who had dealt the deathblow to Kieran’s father, the man directly responsible for his mother’s devolution. Kerick had managed to track down and exterminate all of the Hierarchy leaders responsible for Margaret’s demise save Maxim Malifé, Malifé having gone into hiding and thwarted him. By the time Elijah had hunted the sadistic man down and done away with him Kerick had already been captured and imprisoned within Kong for four years. Elijah had joined him not long thereafter.

  “You said you had news.” Kerick motioned toward an empty stone table away from the throng of Outlaws. “Get on with it.”

  Xavier grinned, taking the cold slab of a seat beside him. “It’s amazing what one can learn at the Pussy Parlours, amigo.”

  Kerick grunted but said nothing. It was by now a bit of a running joke amongst Xavier, Elijah, and Kerick that Kerick was the only one of the three of them that hadn’t been inside of a cunt since their escape. Elijah had the wench he’d stolen to release himself into—a wench who bore a strikingly eerie resemblance to a young Margaret Riley—and Xavier had become a connoisseur of droid Pussy Parlours.

  But Kerick didn’t want to empty his seed into an emotionless droid. He was saving everything he had, not to mention every bit of stored up anger, pent up jealousy, and prolonged frustration, for Dr. Nellie Kan.

  He knew the intensity would be hedonistic for him and frightening for her. But a certain level of fright was needed to successfully master her in a short period of time. It would cause her woman’s heart to appreciate the gentleness he’d show her towards the end of the mastering, cling to it and thereby to him.

  “Here’s the bones of it, amigo,” Xavier said in low tones, breaking Kerick from his thoughts. “Two Outlaws claim to have run into a redheaded woman and a droid out in the jungle a few days back.”

  Kerick stilled, his jaw clenching. “Run into her?”

  Xavier sighed. “They didn’t fuck her if that’s what you’re thinkin’.” He grinned. “Seems the doctor and her droid made short work of them. She knocked them out with makeshift weaponry when they tried to claim her, but apparently she couldn’t bring herself to kill ‘em since they’re alive to talk about their humiliation. Sweet Cyrus, how embarrassing!”

  Kerick snorted at that. “I’m surprised they spoke of it with you,” he rumbled out. His eyes twinkled with an odd sense of pride upon hearing of Nellie’s escape.

  Xavier’s easy grin faded. “Not willingly they didn’t, amigo.”

  Kerick nodded, the silent implication that Xavier had tortured the information out of them not a surprise. It was the way of the Underground, a place where only the strongest survived. In a bleak, desolate world where the majority of men grew old and died without having ever thrust inside of a real woman’s flesh let alone impregnated one, shedding the catacombs of one or two more males was hardly frowned upon. In fact, just the opposite.

  “Did they give you coordinates?”

  Xavier frowned, scratching his chin thoughtfully. “Yes.”

  Kerick absently flicked a hand toward him. “So why the frown then?”

  “Because the coordinates were near the Crossroads.” He sighed. “If that redhead and her companion truly are Nellie Kan and her droid, they could be anywhere, old friend.”

  Kerick agreed, yet he felt his hope rekindle despite the news, felt the familiar adrenaline surging through his veins. The Crossroads was an area within the belly of the earth where seven Underground passages converged, allowing Outlaws to choose from seven disparate routes that all led to far reaching points of the biospheres within this part of Federated Earth.

  It was true that Nellie could have taken any of those routes, but it was also true that she was still alive. She had to be, Kerick thought with mingled impatience and possessiveness. Redheads were a rare breed of female. That the two Outlaws had spotted one was a good sign of her survival.

  But what was she doing on the Outside? Kerick uneasily asked himself. Surely the wench would have headed back to the Altun Ha biosphere…

  The droid was with her, he remembered, his body stilling. She had returned to the biosphere. Which meant someone or something had forced her hand into fleeing from the perimeter of protection.

  She knows something. Find her before the Hierarchy does…

  Kerick rose from the slab of stone, impatiently shooting up to his feet. He waved off Xavier’s assistance when his friend prepared to stand up. “I hunt alone. You need to remain behind to watch the others.” He turned his head, his gaze narrowing at his sister-in-law. “Keep your eye on that one,” he rumbled out.

  Xavier followed his line of vision. “All right. But why?”

  Kerick’s answer was slow in coming, t
houghtful. “I don’t trust her. She’s going to try to escape or…something.” He didn’t know what, only that his instincts always seemed to be on full alert whenever he was occupying the same chamber as her. “Just watch her,” he muttered.

  Xavier nodded. His gaze strayed to where his sister Madra was seated naked on the lap of her eldest husband. He absently watched his sister groan as a second husband sat on his knees before her outspread thighs, lapping at her cunt. The eldest husband rubbed her ripe belly, then massaged her stiff nipples as she shuddered and climaxed.

  “Consider her watched,” Xavier promised, his gaze flicking back to Karen. “I won’t let the wench out of my sight.”

  Kerick nodded, satisfied. Xavier was always as good as his word. “Tell Elijah where I’ve gone,” he threw out from over his shoulder as he strode away. “When I return, we will resume our planning.”

  As he made his way deep into the belly of the earth, Kerick half wondered if one of the reasons he was so desperate to find Nellie was out of the primitive desire to insure that his bloodline carried on when he died. The final battle with the Hierarchy would most likely be the final battle he ever fought in the mortal realm. Getting Nellie ripe with his child before the onslaught would at least allow him to rest in peace, knowing as he would that a fundamental part of him had managed to survive and would flourish.

  Nellie might have been biosphere-bred, but she was capable, cunning, and strong. Any child he put in her womb would live to see old age.

  Of this Kerick was certain.

  Chapter 20

  “Happy 14th birthday, Nellie,” Nicoletta Kan murmured. She turned to Nellie’s mother, then gently squeezed her hand. “She’s beautiful and brilliant, Sinead, as are you.”

  Sinead Kan smiled proudly, tears that would never fall making her eyes glisten. She squeezed Nicoletta’s hand back. “Promise me you will always care for her. Promise me…”

  Nellie’s smile faded as she listened to her mother’s troubled voice. She had tried to forget for a moment—just for a moment—that her mother’s devolution was growing worse, that Sinead would soon be lost to her, and to Nicoletta, for all time.

  Nicoletta. Her father’s second wife. It was illegal within Federated Earth for a male to possess more than one wife, yet the Hierarchy always overlooked the law where wealthy, powerful males were concerned. Nellie’s father had proven to be no exception for he owned a grand total of five.

  “Of course, bella,” Nicoletta whispered in her throaty Italian accent. Her eyes softened, grew worried. “Do not think upon what has yet to transpire, my friend.”

  Nellie drew in a deep breath and shakily expelled it. She was thankful indeed for the friendship Nicoletta had gifted her mother with. She supposed the two women, “rivals” for Master Kan’s affection, should have hated one another. But they didn’t. They adored each other.

  Perhaps because Nicoletta hated Master Kan with as much venom as Sinead did.

  The Master’s other three wives, all of them shallow and vain wenches, worshipped their husband. But then they were more interested in the elevated status marriage to him had brought them than in concerning themselves over trifles…such as the fact that they were wed to a demon wearing human skin.

  “I know,” Sinead answered, trying to hide her pain behind a smile. She forced a chuckle. “I need to quit sounding so morbid and so…” Sweat broke out onto her forehead. She closed her eyes tightly and expelled a raspy breath. Nicoletta instinctively shot up to her feet, her hand reaching for the flash-stick she had made a habit of carrying.

  Nellie’s breathing grew labored as she slept. Her head thrashed back and forth, violently ramming against Cyrus 12’s silver breasts. “Oh no, mommy. No, please don’t…”

  “Oh God!” Sinead cried out, pain lancing through her. “Help me God!”

  Nellie’s piece of birthday cake fell from her plate, forgotten. She paid no attention as the honey-cake plopped onto the floor of the auto-kitchen, the thick sugary frosting sticking to the expensive tiles. She was too busy crying, too busy softly weeping as she watched her mother turn into…a monster.

  “Sweet Cyrus!” Sinead screamed as she shot up to her feet. Nellie’s hand flew up to cover her own mouth as she watched blood spurt from the puncture wounds her mother’s jutting fangs caused. “Why would your father leave you here with me?” she cried out in a tortured voice. “He knows what I am!”

  He made you what you are, mommy, Nellie thought. She said nothing, just watched as she prayed to Cyrus that her beloved mother might be spared.

  “Fight it!” Nicoletta pleaded, even as she grabbed Nellie by the arm and backed up a few steps. “For the love of the ancient saints, Sinead, fight it!”

  Sinead screamed, clawing at her face with the dagger-like nails that shot up from her fingers. “I cannot!” she wailed. Her voice turned deep, demon-like. It reverberated throughout the chamber. “For the love of my daughter, Nicoletta, kill me!”

  Nellie shook her head back and forth. Oh no—please no!

  “Do not do this to me!” Nicoletta screeched. “Fight it, Sinead! Fight it!”

  But there was no more battle to be fought, Nellie realized on a sob, as she watched her beloved mother turn on the woman who had been Sinead’s best friend.

  Sinead picked Nicoletta up off of the ground like a doll, her hand wrapped around the other woman’s throat. Nicoletta’s face swelled up and turned purple, her throat issuing hellish gurgling sounds as she was slowly strangled to death. The flash-stick dropped from her hand, clanging on the hand-painted tiles…

  Nellie’s gaze darted toward the weapon.

  “I told you,” Sinead said to Nicoletta in the darkest, deepest voice Nellie had ever heard, “to kill me.” Her mouth twisted into a cruel smile, her unblinking eyes glowed a blood-stained crimson. “But now I’m hungry.”

  Her breathing labored, her young breasts heaving up and down, Nellie watched in horror as her mother’s mouth slowly opened, revealing two rows of serrated teeth. Oh no. Sweet Cyrus, please—

  Nicoletta’s brown eyes widened in terror as the suffocating woman watched her best friend reel her into the awaiting mouth. She tried to scream, Nellie could tell, tried to call out for help, but she was being strangled…

  Nellie scrambled to the floor. She reached for the flash-stick.

  Sinead pulled Nicoletta closer. And closer…

  Nellie’s heart rate shot up. Perspiration dotted her brow.

  “Mommy, no!” Nellie called out in anguish as she jumped up from the tile floor and pointed the flash-stick at Sinead. “Let her go! For the love of the woman you once were, I beg you not to make me do this!”

  But it was like bargaining with an animal—a predator whose instincts were telling them that they needed to feed.

  Or a demon being demanded by its master to kill.

  The gurgling sounds Nicoletta made grew raspier, more tortured. Sinead’s mouth opened wider, her claws digging into Nicoletta’s neck and puncturing the skin…

  “Noooo!” Nellie screamed as she raised the trembling hand holding the flash-stick. “Noooo!”

  Nicoletta fell to the floor like a broken doll, forgotten. Sinead turned on Nellie, her mouth twisting into a lunatic’s smile, a low hissing sound issuing from the depths of her throat. There was no Sinead left. There was only a monster.

  “Forgive me, mommy,” Nellie murmured, a single tear tracking down her cheek. She aimed the flash-stick directly at Sinead’s heart. “I will love you forever.”

  Closing her eyes, unable to watch as she murdered her own mother, Nellie detonated the weapon. A beam of energy pulsed out from the flash-stick, killing Sinead Kan instantaneously, charring her flesh until it fell from the bone.

  Nellie stood there, in shock, for what felt like an hour. She couldn’t seem to move, couldn’t seem to speak, couldn’t even cry.

  A murderer. She was a murderer.

  Her beloved mother was dead.

  “She loves you,” a soft, raspy
voice whispered as a gentle hand came to rest on her shoulder. “Sinead will always love you, bella Nellie.”

  The tears came all at once, making Nellie gasp for breath. “Nicoletta,” she sobbed as she turned into the other woman’s embrace. “Oh Nicoletta…”

  Nellie cried out as she shot up into a sitting position, waking up in a cold sweat. Her breathing was labored, perspiration dotted her brow.

  Her mother was dead. She’d killed her own mother…

  Her nostrils flared in anger. In hatred. You are the murderer, father. Not me. How could you do that to your own wife? To your own daughter?

  Nellie fell back onto the animal furs, breathing deeply to steady herself. She gazed up into the night sky, unblinking.

  She would end it. She had always known it was her destiny to end it.

  “Let’s resume trekking,” Nellie murmured to Cyrus 12. She swallowed over the lump in her throat. “We must chance venturing into the Underground again,” she whispered. “We must find the Xibalba.”

  Chapter 21

  January 22, 2250 A.D.

  The Crossroads

  Kerick followed the tracks of two sets of foot impressions—one left behind by what had to be a droid, the other left behind by what was no doubt, at least in his mind, a human wench.

  The foot impressions could belong to none other than Nellie and her machine companion, he told himself, his sharp gray eyes flicking about the cavern. Underground dwellers could not afford to own a droid. And even if they could afford to, they had no legal means for purchasing one.

  Kerick came to a halt when he reached the large Underground portal of the Crossroads. Outsiders carrying torches trekked by foot all around him, some of them accompanied by a communal wife, but most of them traveling alone.

  His gaze flicked about, considering the seven different routes she could have taken. Tracking foot impressions would be impossible from this juncture forward, he realized, for too many travelers were even now leaving behind their own marks, unwittingly covering up the tracks Nellie Kan and her droid had left behind.