“You’re real good with that shuriken,” Lexine said, complimenting him.
He retrieved his scabbard and carefully slid the sword inside.
“I’ve never seen a sword like yours either,” Lexine commented.
The man hefted his weapon. “This is my katana. It was constructed centuries ago by a master metalsmith in Japan.”
“Where’s Japan?” Lexine inquired.
The man in black studied her.
“What did you say your name was again?” Lexine probed when he continued to scrutinize her. His examination made her feel uncomfortable; she entertained the ridiculous notion he could see into her inner being.
“I am Rikki-Tikki-Tavi,” he stated.
Lexine chuckled. “That’s a weird name. Where’d your parents ever get a name like that?”
“My parents did not bestow it on me,” Rikki said. “I selected it at my Naming.”
“Let me get this straight,” Lexine remarked. “You picked your own name?”
Rikki nodded. “It is a common practice where I come from. The man responsible for starting our Family wanted us to go through our vast library and select whatever name we liked for our own.”
“Why?”
Rikki glanced at the four bodies. “We can discuss this in depth later. I must report this incident immediately. You are welcome to come with me if you desire.”
Lexine gazed at Mira. “Don’t mind if I do. Nothing’s holding me here.”
“Do you want your friend buried?” Rikki queried her.
Lexine frowned and shook her head. “Nope. Let the buzzards have her.
We’d best make tracks.”
“What is your name?” Rikki asked.
Lexine tore her eyes from Mira. “Oh. I didn’t tell you, did I? I’m Lexine.
But all my friends call me Lex.”
“Tell me, Lexine—” Rikki began.
“It’s Lex,” she quickly corrected him.
The corners of his thin lips twisted upward. “Tell me, Lex, will the one who escaped return with others?”
Lex looked at the hill to the east. “Most likely. Terza will want your hide after what you did to three of her Knights. And they want me for trying to skip.”
Rikki pointed to the west. “Are you up to some running?”
“Try me,” Lex said gamely.
They began jogging westward down the middle of the highway, side by side. Lex found herself surreptitiously admiring Rikki’s firm features and his lithe, easy stride.
“Are we far from St. Louis?” he unexpectedly asked her.
“Nope,” Lex responded. “St. Louis is about seven miles to the east.
That’s where I came from.”
“Why were you leaving?”
Lex glowered. “I want to live my own life. There has to be something better than the Leather Knights.”
“What are the Leather Knights?”
Lex glanced down at him. “You sure aren’t from around these parts.
Everybody knows about the Leather Knights. They run St. Louis.”
“You mean they control the city?” Rikki asked.
“They own the turf,” she clarified for him.
“Are you a Leather Knight?”
“I was,” Lex admitted. “But not any more. Now I’m just a traitor to them. They’ll waste me if they get their paws on me again.”
Rikki looked up into her green eyes. She was at least ten inches taller than him. “We’ll have to see to it they don’t.”
Lex, for one of the few times in her life, blushed, a pink tinge capping her rounded cheeks.
“Tell me about these Leather Knights,” Rikki urged her.
“What’s to tell?” Lex replied. “There’s about four hundred Leather Knights. And there’s about two hundred studs. That—”
“Studs?” Rikki interrupted.
“Yeah. The auxiliaries. Each one takes the oath before they get their bike, same as the regular Leather Knights, but of course they don’t have the same privileges.”
“You take an oath?”
“Of course. That’s why my life is on the line. We take an oath, a blood oath, to always obey the code of the Leather Knights.” Lex sighed. “Anyone who betrays it is automatically sentenced to death.”
“They won’t even permit you to leave?” Rikki inquired.
Lex shook her head, her red hair flying. “Not on your life. When you take the Leather Knight oath, you’re a Knight forever.”
“And every Leather Knight receives a motorcycle?”
“Yep. They…” Lex abruptly stopped. “Damn! What an idiot I am!”
Rikki halted and faced her. “What’s the matter?”
Lex pointed at the bodies and the three abandoned bikes, now 50 yards distant. “Why didn’t we take one of their bikes?” she demanded.
Rikki shrugged. “It never occurred to me. I don’t know how to drive one.”
“Well I do!” Lex exclaimed, annoyed at her stupidity. Why hadn’t she thought of it? Probably because she was too busy thinking of him.
Rikki gazed westward. “I have some friends about a mile down the road. Perhaps we should use one of those cycles. We would reach them faster.”
“The faster, the better,” Lex agreed.
They started running back toward the cycles.
“You say you’ve never ridden a bike before?” Lex asked.
“No. I’ve seen photographs of them in books in the Family library, but I’ve never ridden one,” Rikki stated.
“Then you’re in for a treat,” Lex said. “Riding a bike is the second best feeling I know.”
“What’s the first?” Rikki innocently queried.
Lex shot him a puzzled look. “You’re putting me on, right?”
Now it was Rikki’s turn to appear perplexed. “No,” he assured her.
Lex laughed. “You really are weird, aren’t you?”
They ran in silence for several moments.
“Did you hear that?” Rikki asked.
“Hear what?”
“That.”
From the east, from the other side of the hill, rose an eerie howling.
“Son of a bitch!” Lex blurted.
“What is it?”
“The dogs,” Lex answered anxiously. “The three you wasted and the dummy who got away were probably the advance riders from a hunting party. That dummy, Cardew, must have reached them and they’ve sicced the dogs on us!”
The howling grew in volume and intensity.
“There must be at least a dozen,” Rikki speculated.
“They’ll tear us apart,” Lex said.
“Not if I can help it,” Rikki vowed.
They were 20 yards from the bikes when the dog pack appeared on the hill to the east. At the sight of the two people below, their intended quarry, the pack burst into a refrain of baying and barking. Galvanized by the sight of their prey, the dogs loped down the hill and raced toward the man and woman.
Rikki counted 16 dogs, all of them large and mean, the pack consisting mainly of German shepherds and Dobermans.
Lexine, her long legs flying toward the cycles, was mentally berating herself for her dumb behavior. Not only had she completely overlooked the possibility of using one of the bikes, but she’d also neglected to retrieve the Charter Arms Bulldog from the biker Rikki had killed with the shuriken.
She had to get a grip on her emotions. Sure, she found the little guy exceptionally attractive, but that didn’t excuse her mistakes, not when those mistakes could wind up costing her life.
The dogs were covering the ground in a feral rush. Two of them, a dusky shepherd and an ebony Doberman, were 15 feet in front of the pack and closing at an astonishing clip.
We’ll never make it! Lexine told herself. She reached the first cycle and grabbed the handlebars even as Rikki swept past her, his katana drawn and held in his right hand, his scabbard in his left.
The dogs never hesitated. The German shepherd and the Doberman ignored the bodies on the road and bounded toward the man in black.