Outlanders 27 - Awakening by James Axler

Author:James Axler
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

"HI," A VOICE SAID.

Domi whirled. A figure sat on a rock at the verge of the wide spot in the stream.

She stooped, then straightened. A hunting knife sprouted suddenly from one white fist, starlight jittering up and down its serrated nine-inch blade.

The figure hopped down from the rock and strode toward her—not rapidly but purposefully. To her astonishment it resolved itself into the handsome young man with the mustache who had chilled so many Mags and mercies today.

The one whose life she had saved.

Without apparent haste he reached out and plucked the knife from her hand. "Don't wave that around," he said calmly. "You'll hurt somebody. You don't need it anyway. I'm not going to hurt you."

"You say!" she flared. But even she knew her anger was just a cover for chagrin—and mortal fear at having been caught, well, bare-ass naked.

She knew he meant her no harm. If he had, the encounter would have already gone way down a different road entirely.

At the same time it registered on her, a beat belatedly, that he had simply taken the knife from her without any fuss. That meant he was very good. Grant might have done something like that. Or Kane. Just about anybody else, and she'd be dining on his liver right this moment. He shrugged, flipped the knife in an arc, caught it by the tip. Then he laid it across his other forearm toward her, hilt first.

"You can have it back, fair lady, if it'll make you feel any better. Just don't brandish it, please. It makes me nervous. I'm a sensitive type."

She made herself retrieve the weapon with dignity. "Who you? What you? What you doing?"

"I'm Sean. Sean Reichert. I used to be a sergeant in the Special Forces, but that's ancient history now—literally. I'm part of something called Team Phoenix now."

"You chilled Mags," she declared.

He frowned at her quizzically. Then a light dawned. "You watched our little fandango out there on the prairie today, didn't you?"

"More than watched. I save your life!"

He glanced over to where her little gray rifle was propped against another rock. "So that was you. Well, thanks. I didn't catch your name."

"Domi."

"Domi. That's a nice name. Thanks, Domi." "What happen’s now?"

"That's a good question. Domi. My friends and I, we're...not from around here. And so far nobody we've run into has exactly been willing to talk to us. We need information. So what I'd like to do is ask you please to come back and talk to my friends. You might put on some clothes first. Or, well, not."

"And if I don't come with you?"

"We go our separate ways. I'm not exactly afraid you'll rat as off to the friends of the boys we...chilled... this afternoon. Mags, you called them? Short for 'maggots,' maybe?"

"Magistrates. Special police from baronies. Scum!" She spit on the grass.

"Yeah. Well. After the way you popped that militia dude who had me dead to rights, I'm willing to accept you won't sell as out."

"Never sold anyone to Mags! Not even in Tartarus Pits!"

"Of course not.

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