Author's Note: No animal was harmed in the creation of this chapter – people, however, are not exempt from injury …
"You?" Hadan appeared puzzled as she studied Hardison, now standing awkwardly at the base of the veranda steps, rain streaming down his face and soaking him to the skin almost instantly. "You killed Rafe? A … a soft creature like you killed one of the best snipers in the world? How?"
She glanced at Eliot, who was struggling now to keep upright. But the hitter had a smirk on his face.
"He may not look dangerous," Eliot grated, "but he stopped me from gettin' my head blown off by your asshole of a boyfriend. He did the job an' he did it quickly … even if he is a geeky idiot," he added under his breath.
Hardison raised an eyebrow at Eliot's words. He honestly didn't know whether to be pleased or insulted, but he realised that in a roundabout way Eliot was telling him that he trusted the hacker with his life, and that made Hardison stand straighter … prouder.
He grinned at Hadan, his teeth white in the gloom of the storm.
"Age of the geek, baby!" he retorted, dark eyes alive with triumph.
Hadan pondered this new piece of information for a few moments, and then she shrugged narrow shoulders.
"So … it just means he dies along with you," she said to Eliot, whose smile widened slightly.
"Yeah? You're a creepy little bitch, aintcha?" he answered lightly, even though he knew that he could no more take on Hadan right now than Hardison could. "I can see why your folks called you 'nobody', 'cause that's what I see sittin' on a horse right now … nobody."
Hadan curled her lip, unsettled more than she felt she should have been at the pointed insult. It rankled, even after all these years. Her people … her family … did not want her.
Looking at Hardison and the people ranged on the veranda behind him … the old pastoralist with the revolver … his wife, the small, slender one who had the toughness and resilience of this strange, shimmering land so unlike her own home. Then there was the dark-haired man and his equally dark-haired, beautiful woman, both of whom studied Hadan with calculating intelligence … and the old, short, fat woman with the skillet in her hand and whose muddy eyes shone with hatred at this threat to her family.
And that, Hadan thought, was the thing … family. The tall young black man was looking at her with derision. He had his family surrounding him, and Eliot Spencer, she knew, would guard them all like one of the great grey wolves that roamed the ancient steppes of Mongolia, the spirit animal of her people that was known as the Assassin, preying as it did on the flocks of sheep that were the livelihood of the tribes.
She had no family. Or rather, her family did not want her. So she had learned that she did not need a family. Family meant weakness and dependence and a cage to hold her … the wild one … the one who was known as 'Nobody'.
Khenbish Hadan sat still and straight, her small frame at ease on the big horse, and her olive eyes turned once more to Nate.
"Chong Bun-Tsui is coming," she said. "He will come to speak to you, old man," she said, indicating Soapy, "and then he will speak to that woman … the one who calls herself Lady Eloise Stanton but who is no such person," she said to Nate, but she glanced at Sophie before returning to her study of him. Her eyes wandered over him minutely, as though she was studying a laboratory rat ripe for vivisection. "I know who you are, though. I know you are Nathan Ford."
Nate raised an eyebrow, but that was all. He still stood, relaxed, arms crossed, with a half-smile on his face.
Hadan continued.
"These are your people. When that fool Rickenbacker described you to me, I knew 'Ellis Stone' was Eliot Spencer. I've spent over twenty years doing what I do, and I hear things … see things … and the things you do, Eliot Spencer, are very distinctive." She shrugged. "I was hired to watch you, harass you … be a thorn in your side. I don't know what Chong wants – I learned long ago never to ask my employers questions. But whatever he does or does not do, I will return and kill your people, Nathan Ford. All of them. Because you," she gestured with her chin at Hardison, "killed the only thing I ever loved."
And Eliot saw her right hand drop from where it rested on her thigh to hang beside her.
"DOWN, HARDISON!" he yelled, and with every bit of his remaining strength he lunged forward, knowing he didn't have time to draw the blade. He hooked the katana around and under Hadan's left knee and yanked upwards, even though the movement caused him untold agony, unbalancing the assassin and levering her from the saddle. But he was a nanosecond too late.
And the world slowed to a crawl, or so it seemed.
Hadan slid sideways on Batu's back as Eliot's sword, still sheathed, unbalanced her. But it didn't stop the small, wickedly sharp throwing knife sliding from her sodden sleeve into her hand, and even as she fell, she grasped the blade and threw it underhand straight at Hardison.
It was the lightning which saved Hardison's life.
The electricity crackled through the roiling sky above, and long, blinding fingers of lightning suddenly arced above them and rippled down to crash into the stand of gum trees beyond the yard. The nearest tree, an old, battered forty-foot monster which had stood at Wapanjara for over a hundred years, exploded at the strike, sending fiery shards of ancient wood flying over the yard, and the crack of the trunk splitting was deafening.
Soapy squeezed the trigger of the old Webley and cursed, even as the recoil from the old revolver bucked into his hand.
He saw the glitter of metal in Hadan's grip, but the brilliant flare from the lightning blinded him for a split second, and he knew in his soul that he had missed Khenbish Hadan.
Hardison heard Eliot's desperate yell and his eyes widened and then flinched with the sudden glaring whiteness of the lightning. Without thinking he twisted sideways, recoiling from the flying splinters, and the knife intended for his heart instead slammed high into his left shoulder.
For a moment or two he felt no pain.
Huh, he thought. Is that it?
And then the sharp, agonizing impact took his breath away, and he stumbled back against the veranda steps and he couldn't do a damn thing, and Jo was yelling and oh God, that hurt, and another gunshot echoed through his mind but it didn't really register.
The next thing Hardison knew was that he was looking up at the black thunder clouds above and the ream of lightning spattering through the sky, his retinas aching with the brightness of it.
"Alec!"
Jo was suddenly beside him, and Hardison, the rain making his eyes sting, managed to look sideways as a pair of hands caught hold of his face and turned his head so he could see a pair of green eyes and a cap of short silver-auburn curls.
"Alec! Look at me!" Jo snapped, trying to keep Hardison from seeing the stubby silver-steel hilt protruding from just beneath his collar bone.
Hardison blinked, surprised. Hell, he thought. I'm gonna friggin' die in goddamn friggin' Australia, an' this is all Eliot's fault!
"Jo?" he whispered, and his right hand came up to his shoulder and he felt slick, warm blood oozing through his fingers. "Jo … she … she stuck me with a frikkin' knife!"
Jo was busy looking for something to press against the wound to try and quell the bleeding, and a hand swam into Hardison's vision.
"Here …" and the hand held a beautiful pashmina. "This should do it," a voice whispered, fear rife in every word.
Sophie.
Hardison felt the pressure and the pain and Sophie's steadying hand on his right arm. And then Jo muttered something nasty, and he passed out.
The explosion of the tree into a gout of flaming splinters broke Gertie's resolve, and her terror finally got the best of her.
Bawling as a burning fragment hit her neck and singed her thick curls, she yanked her head up and jerked free of Eliot's tenuous grip, sending him in an untidy sprawl into a muddy pool of water. He convulsed with the pain of the impact and was unable to control the yell of agony that ripped from his throat.
Confused and frightened, Gertie fixated on the one thing she knew she was responsible for all of this discomfort and upset. Her one eye set itself murderously on Khenbish Hadan as the tiny assassin neatly twisted in the air and landed firmly on her feet.
The tiny woman snarled in fury as she realised her knife had not killed Hardison, and she saw Eliot prone in muddy water, only semi-conscious now but with the katana still held in his left hand.
His sword. She would take the Sword of the Okuri-Inu, and with it she would take Spencer's head and the heads of every one of these people he held dear, and her Rafe would be avenged because there would be nothing left of these people to continue their line. They would become like her … they would become nothing.
She ran forward on light feet and knelt down beside Eliot, reaching for the katana, now held only loosely in Eliot's lax fingers.
But the hitter somehow sensed her presence, only half-conscious as he was, and managed to roll sideways with a grunt of agony. His right fist snapped out and hit Hadan in the shoulder, knocking her back onto her rump and sending an arcing splatter of muddy water over both of them.
Growling, Eliot tried to sit up, but then Gertie was upon them both.
The camel was roaring her fear and anger, and suddenly she was between Eliot and Hadan, and her long, yellow teeth were bared as her head snaked down and she chomped her powerful jaws on Hadan's knee and lifted the woman bodily into the air.
The little assassin yelped in pain and the pressure on the joint was fearsome and agonizing. But gritting her teeth, she managed to bend at the waist, grasp Gertie's bosal and punch the big camel over her blind eye.
More surprised than hurt, Gertie honked and dropped Hadan, who landed with a breath-halting thud on the unforgiving, sodden ground.
Scrambling backwards, she managed to get to her feet, her injured knee buckling under her as she limped again towards Eliot, face fixed in a grimace of lethal menace.
But Gertie's protective streak kicked in and overcame her fear, and dancing clumsily on big, flat feet, she turned her back to Eliot, her huge frame steadfast in her determination to make sure he was safe. Her friend was wounded and sick, and she was not going to let this … this … creature harm a hair on his head.
But Gertie grumbled in surprise as another shot rang out and Hadan was punched sideways with the impact of a bullet on her left arm. It was only a nick, Soapy still half-blind from the lightning flash, but the nasty groove cut into her biceps stopped her deadly move forward, and it was at this moment she decided she would be best served to return later, wounded now as she was. She would treat her injuries and then … then she knew she would have to kill the camel first, because she would not be able to get close to her prey with the crazed animal on guard.
Struggling to her feet, she limped as fast as she could towards the big gelding, and reaching up to the saddle she swiftly eased into the soaked leather seat without even putting her foot in the stirrup.
Turning Batu towards the house, she reined the horse back and stared at the people now trying to take care of the young man lying unconscious in the rain.
Wincing as her injured knee throbbed, she saw the little, round woman, pure hatred engraved on her pudgy face, stump along to the veranda doors. Hadan hitched an eyebrow in surprise as she saw Effie was holding something and now it wasn't a skillet. It was a pump-action shotgun.
"Hurt my boys, would you, you evil little shite!" Effie spat.
And working a cartridge into the chamber, she expertly tucked the stock of the shotgun into her shoulder, took swift aim and fired.
Hadan barely managed to turn Batu towards the road beyond the yards that led up the hill to the stringybarks, before grunting as several pellets of double-ought buckshot hit the back of her shoulder, the impact slamming her forward in the saddle. She only just managed to keep her seat, but she straightened with a groan.
"Got you, you bloody jumbuck! Effie bawled triumphantly. "Go on … get lost! If you come back here, then by crikey I'll knock your bleedin' block off, you doggy loafer, see if I don't!"
Sending Batu in a steady, mile-eating lope along the road and upwards to the stringybarks, Hadan fumed to herself. These people, for all of their quirky oddness, were a force to be reckoned with. Her knee was on fire and she could feel blood trickling down her arm and the back of her shoulder. Without Eades to help, she was going to have a difficult task digging the pellets out.
Reining in at the top of the hill, she turned Batu around and watched as more people emerged from the house … that young aborigine whose wife Rafe had killed, and the slender young woman whose ability to climb almost anything Hadan grudgingly admired.
And there … there were the children, the young ones growing up in a family who loved them and nurtured them unconditionally, guarded fiercely by their human wolf.
She spat at the ground, angry with herself for allowing this family dynamic – so unlike her own – to get under her skin. It was one more reason to end this. Without Eades, she was empty of whatever love she had been capable, and now all that mattered was finishing this nonsense.
Running a hand down Batu's sodden neck, she turned him into the shelter of the stringybarks and melted into the storm-drenched shadows.
"Charlie! Charlie, I need help here!" Jo yelled even as Sophie, ignoring the driving rain, cradled Hardison's head in her lap. Soapy holstered the old Webley and he and Nate thumped down the veranda towards Hardison, although neither could decide who to go to first – the unconscious hacker or Eliot, now lying sprawled unmoving on his back in a morass of watery mud and being nosed by a panicked Gertie.
"Help Eliot!" Sophie snapped firmly, "Jo and I have Hardison!"
"Go get him out of this weather," Jo added, "before the silly sod catches pneumonia!"
Charlie burst through the doorway from the house, followed by Parker and the two children, the little thief now unable to control their need to see the rest of their family once they heard Jo's shout.
"Alec!" Lizzie yelled, eyes round and dark as she tumbled down the steps to sprawl beside her mother. "That's a… that's a knife!" she gasped, horrified, but Hardison didn't respond. Lizzie could tell by the way his head lolled in her mother's hands that he was unconscious, or worse still – "He's not –" she wailed.
"No, no, sweetie …" Jo soothed, still pressing Sophie's pashmina, now soaked with blood, against the wound, careful of the knife still embedded in the young man's shoulder. "He's just unconscious. He'll be better once we get him inside and that knife out. It looks worse than it is, I promise," she added with a tight, grim smile at the little girl. "Now then," she continued. "You've got your coat and hat on, so if I were you I'd go help your dad and Soapy with Eliot. He needs you now, love … your mum and I can deal with Alec."
"Come with me!" Parker joined them alongside Charlie, and held out her hand to Lizzie. "Let's go take care of Eliot. He's already sick, remember? We don't want him to get any worse, now do we?"
Lizzie was fraught with indecision. She gazed at her friend, the man with whom she played video games and who willingly helped her tease Eliot … the kind, gentle, funny soul who helped her with her sums and made learning a discipline for which she really didn't have any aptitude so much fun. She loved Alec Hardison very much indeed.
"H… hey, baby-girl …"
She saw dark, hazy agony-filled eyes slowly open and gaze at her blearily.
"Alec! Alec, don't move and let Mama and Grandma Jo look after you! You'll be okay, I promise!" Lizzie grasped his hand and squeezed.
Hardison, hurting and wet as a haddock, smiled.
"Go, girl … go … go take care of that dumb-ass camel-hugger. I … I'll be fine …"
"Now you sound like Eliot!" Parker said shakily.
Lizzie leaned forward and kissed Hardison on the forehead.
"Be back in a bit," she said. "And listen to Mama and Grandma Jo and Effie, because I'll be angry if you don't!" she warned, and then she was gone, splashing across the yard to take care of Eliot, because, she knew, she was the only one who could make him do as he was told.
Lizzie was a whirlwind of cajoling, fussing, patting and scolding over the next hour. Eliot, soaked and filthy, bleeding and only vaguely aware of everything going on around him, just kept asking if Hadan was gone and if everyone was safe, even when he was repeatedly told she had been sent packing, bleeding and defeated.
Lizzie walked, fussing, alongside her father as Nate and Soapy carried Eliot into the house, Parker behind the injured man so as to hold him steady as he was carefully eased up the wooden steps, through the veranda and into the bathroom.
He was shivering uncontrollably, but it still took Parker three tries to get him to loosen his grip on the katana. When he finally did relinquish his hold, he tried to tell Parker how to place it back on the stand. Parker shoved his hand away and replied that she had to gently clean and dry the wet grip, blade and koshirae before placing it back with its companion.
Eliot, confused and freezing, then began an addled diatribe, concerned that Parker would manage to slice her fingers off in the process, dulling the blade and dripping blood all over the place.
"And you're not dripping?" Parker answered, feeling snarky, and looked at the man sitting on the toilet seat, his clothes nothing but mud-soaked rags and his wet, bare feet raw from the gritty soil. His stetson had fallen off when he hit the ground, and his hair was ropey clay-filled strings.
Unzipping his jacket, Nate and Soapy were dismayed to see the hitter's broad chest and ribcage soaked in watery streaks of blood from his side and shoulder, and the cut on his stomach was also bleeding slightly.
"Oh, for goodness sake!" Parker snapped. "Lizzie? Out you go!"
"What? Why?" Lizzie asked tartly. She didn't take kindly to being removed from her patient's presence.
"Because Eliot's going into the shower!" Parker said, and began to strip off her clothes.
Soapy's eyebrows hit his hairline.
"Um …" he stammered, taken aback.
Nate grinned over Eliot's head as he propped the man upright on the toilet seat.
"You sure you can manage?" he asked the little thief.
"You think I can't?" Parker grouched as she bent over to take off her boots and socks. "Soapy, can I have a stool from the kitchen?"
Soapy, red-faced at this young woman's complete lack of concern over the possibility of her being naked in company, just nodded before escaping from the bathroom as quickly as possible, dragging a protesting Lizzie with him.
"And more towels!" she called after him.
"You need a hand to get him in there?" Nate asked, gesturing at the big walk-in shower.
"Wasshappenin'" Eliot slurred, teeth chattering.
"Eliot, Parker's going to clean you up and get you warm, okay? C'mon … let's get you undressed …"
"Oh no … no you don't …" Eliot feebly struggled as Nate managed to peel the soaked jacket off him and then he tried to bat Parker's hands away as she helped Nate stand him up to remove the sweat pants. He made a grab for his boxers, which after a brief argument, Parker allowed him to retain. Eliot hung on to them as though his life depended on them, scowling to himself.
"You're such a prude sometimes!" Parker scolded, even as she took off her pants, leaving her in shorts, bra and teeshirt. She then dug out some scissors from the bathroom cabinet and snipped off the plethora of bandages wound around bits of Eliot's battered body. He certainly was a sorry sight, she decided.
A knock at the door came and Effie peered in.
"Brought you a stool, Missy. Need any help?"
"Nate's here, but I might need a hand when we've got him clean and dry. His wounds are a mess. Idiot!" she snarked quietly.
Effie grinned despite her worry for the Oklahoman.
"The nipper's going to lose her block when she sees what a mess he's in. Poor bugger," she said, although she didn't have any sympathy in her voice for him, Eliot thought through the fog of cold and confusion in his head.
"M'fine …" he muttered, stubborn to the end.
"Shut up, Eliot!" Parker said testily, and then with Nate and Effie's help managed to haul Eliot carefully into the shower and onto the sturdy stool. But despite her annoyance at Eliot putting himself in such a dangerous situation in his condition, Parker stood behind him and leaned him back against her. "I'm going to turn the water on, Eliot … alright? Tell me if it's too hot or cold." He heard the smile in her voice. "Don't worry … I've got you."
And before Eliot could say anything, he was enveloped in more water, but this time it was hot and the spray was soothing, and Parker was as good as her word as she began the job of gently tending his injuries and washing the mud and blood from his damaged body.
"Is … is it gonna hurt?" Hardison muttered as he lay on Effie's kitchen table, still bleeding a little and soaked to the skin.
"What do you think, you young fool," Jo said as she cut through Hardison's jacket and then his sweatshirt, removing both.
"Oh …" he said. "Um … can I have a painkiller?" he asked hesitantly. "Or … or an injection … or somethin' –"
"It would take too long," Jo explained, and readying a pressure bandage she grasped the short, stumpy grip of the knife and pulled.
Charlie had to push down hard on the hacker's undamaged shoulder as the young man let out a bellow of pure agony as Jo slid the knife from the wound. She immediately pressed the pad against the freely-bleeding injury, and Hardison's body was rigid with tension as he fought to control the pain.
"There now … it's all done, laddie …" Jo crooned, "now all we have to do is get you stitched up and then you can have some painkillers, I promise."
"Oh Geeerrd …" Hardison moaned, "that was friggin' awful …" he babbled. "My arm … tell me I won't lose the use of my arm, Jo … I need my arm … I do, honestly …"
Jo laid a hand on his forehead, cool and soothing.
"You'll be fine," she told him gently. "It's deep but clean, and if you take care to do some physio – which Parker can help you with – you should heal up perfectly," she added.
"Parker?" Hardison whispered. "Oh no … no-no-no … she's a monster, Jo … a monster I tell ya … she's like … like the Spanish Inquisition on double shots of caffeine, only nastier … 'way, 'way nastier … you can't do that to me, Jo … please, anythin' but that –"
Jo burst out laughing, which on the face of it, Hardison thought, was a little uncalled-for.
That evening, with Eliot back in his bed and under orders not to move if he wanted to see the sun rise again and with Lizzie beside him to make sure her instructions were obeyed, everyone else relaxed in the living room with hot chocolate and lamingtons.
Well, everyone but Hardison.
Nate sighed.
"Please remind me to never ever let Hardison have Percocet again, Soph."
The hacker was sprawled in a long, ungainly heap on the couch, arm in a sling and propped up with cushions. He had been talking non-stop for over an hour. Team Leverage was usually quite at home with Hardison's rambling, being the chatty soul he was, but this was different. Very, very different.
Happy and smiling and feeling no pain, Hardison was cheerily telling anybody and everybody who would listen how much he loved them. And, apparently, he loved everyone a lot.
"An' … an' I love you, Effie … I do, 'cause you, you're jus' like my Nana an' I love Nana more than anythin' 'cause she, like, raised me right an' makes the best cathead biscuits in the world an' –"
"Cathead biscuits?" Sophie said faintly, although Kip, sitting beside Hardison on the floor looked up.
"Oooh," he asked, black eyes wide, "they sound great! Is your Nana coming to visit us one day? Would she make them for us?"
"Kip, my boy, my Nana would love to make 'em for ya," he said brightly. "An' jerk chicken, an' –"
"HEY! Tryin' … tryin' to sleep in here!" Eliot yelled weakly from his bedroom. "Somebody shut him up, will ya?" he added plaintively.
"Eliot, m'man!" Hardison bawled back, delighted to hear his best friend was awake and with the living. "Hey El … I love ya, man! I do! I really, really do!"
"Jeez! Don't say things like that, Hardison!" Eliot complained, horrified. "Nate! Tell him to stop sayin' things like that! It … it's just weird –"
"Oh, now," Hardison cajoled, "don't be like that! I took a knife for you, man …"
"No, you frikkin' didn't!" Eliot insisted. "If you hadn't butted in I'd have taken out Hadan in a second –"
Parker snorted from her place beside the fire, curled up in one of the huge old armchairs.
"Yeah, right. You couldn't even stand properly!" she said loudly so Eliot could hear her.
"Parker, I love you, girl! I know you're weird an' somethin's wrong with you, but I love you, honest!" Hardison insisted, all google eyes and soppy grin.
Parker giggled.
"You're funny when you're high," she said.
"He ain't funny!" Eliot retorted feebly. "He's deranged!"
"Will you stop complaining Eliot!" Now it was Lizzie's turn. "You're supposed to be sleeping!"
"'Lizbeth Grace, I'm tryin' to sleep but Hardison –"
"That's my baby-girl! You tell him!" Hardison urged. "I love my Lizzie. She's so clever … she's like you, Nate. Have I told you I love ya, Nate? Friend o' mine?"
Nate dropped his head in his hands. After the day they had had, this was the last thing he needed … a family argument.
And so it went on, and Jo, desperate to finish her crossword and failing, settled deeper into her chair and tried hard not to smile.
And overhead the rain drifted through the sky and drenched the landscape until it could hold no more, and the distant hills were rimmed with silver lightning and the billabongs filled with water, breaking their banks and filling the land with dark, mirrored pools.
To be continued …