Eve In Utopia

Chapter Seventeen

Bruno Tarkowski was not a happy man. He had joined the Secret Service looking for action and adventure and what did they have him doing? He was standing outside a locker room checking the IDs of the women chosen to be waitresses for the banquet. It wouldn't be so bad, he thought, if he was inside the locker room as the women chosen were all young and good looking, but Bryce Turner had made it quite clear what would happen to his testicles if he even snuck a peek. There were six or seven of them in the room now and he could hear them giggling as they changed into the special outfits for the banquet. Well Bryce hadn't said he couldn't use his imagination and Bruno was using it as he thought about the cute redhead that had just gone into the room when another woman approached him down the hall. This one was even better than the redhead with an athletic, toned body that reminded Bruno of the female surfers he had seen earlier down at the beach.

"Hey dude," said 359 as she stopped directly in front of Bruno and looked him up and down. Bruno decided the woman was clearly inviting a good ogle and there was no way he could get in trouble for doing exactly that. He was still ogling when 359 reached up and nicked his cheek with one of its claws. The paralyzing drug under its claws did its work and Bruno sagged against the Hunter. Holding the agent upright, 359 waved its hand and half a dozen Hunters in their nondescript human guises came around the corner and entered the locker room. A listener would have heard a few shocked gasps, followed by some short lived screams and then the locker room was quiet. 359 hauled Bruno's paralyzed body into the room where he and his dreams of adventure and action died, leaving a small pile of ashes to go with half a dozen more similar piles. A short time later, the locker room door opened and a form that looked like Bruno once more stood on guard. Over the next ten minutes, a few more of the women chosen as waitresses for the banquet straggled in and were also replaced by more Hunters. Bruno's phone buzzed and 359 answered it. It listened carefully for a few seconds, grunted agreement and then rapped on the locker room door. "We are to proceed to the banquet room to commence our duties," it announced to the other Hunters with a smile.

*

When Eve got back to the cluster of rocks where she had confronted Washburn, there was no sign of the man. There was a trail of blood leading off towards the coast, but Eve ignored it. If Washburn had a ship waiting for him there, that was no longer her concern. The authorities would collect him later or not, but his threat to her target was over. Now, Eve needed to get back to the resort and find some way to get into the banquet and stop the Hunters. Eve had just made it back to the hiking path when she heard a sound behind her.

1566 had traced the demon woman's scent throughout the resort and out to this isolated path. It had orders from its squad leader to call for reinforcements if it found the demon, but there was no time as it saw her come back to the path. Clearly the creature had been out to the cave where it and the other Hunters had arrived, but 1566 didn't know why she would have done that. She seemed unaware of its presence as if she was concentrating on something else more than her surroundings. Orders or not, if it struck now and quickly, it might yet kill her, thus removing the threat to their mission and redeeming itself in its own eyes. It would show that it was worthy to be a Hunter. It leapt.

Only her reflexes saved Eve as she dropped flat to the ground and the attacking Hunter passed over her, its claws missing her by less than a centimeter. The Hunter had abandoned its human disguise just before leaping, probably wanting her to know it was a Hunter that killed her and maybe it was the millisecond that affecting the change had taken that had saved her from serious injury. The Hunter landed and rolled, coming up on its haunches ready to leap again only to take a hard kick to the face as Eve closed quickly on it. The Hunter felt its nose break and a couple of teeth go flying as it flew backwards under the impact. It had come so close to taking down the demon, but it had failed and now 1566 felt a chill of fear run through it as it faced the demon all alone. It tried to close the gap between them and use its claws to rend the demon, but she moved too quickly. It had heard about her speed and strength which were well above the normal for humans, but it hadn't really believed them until it saw them in action. She avoided his blows and landed punches and kicks that sent 1566 reeling. Then the creature was behind it with an arm like steel wrapped around its neck and squeezing.