Berkley Sensation
(tentative release September 2011)

A wildlife biologist in the old world, Chris serves as an itinerant doctor. Thus begins a long walkabout wherein he pits himself against the wilderness and the monsters; he emerges from this crucible deeply changed from the reserved, intellectual, civilized man he once was. Pirates and road warriors haunt the highways, stealing from those who have anything left worth taking. At last, he discovers a hidden settlement.

The town, whatever it had been before, is now called Valle de Bravo and is run by a woman named Rosa. In the old world, she was an illegal immigrant. Now she’s the undisputed mistress of all she surveys. She orchestrates raids to augment town supplies, oversees the defenses, arbitrates all disputes, and runs the place with an iron fist. She is determined to never again cede her power to a man.

But she’s never before met a man like Chris…

CHAPTER ONE

“We move in ten. Jameson, you run the count.”

The tall, scraggly scarecrow of a man held up the right number of fingers and everyone watched as he curled them down, one by one. Rosa felt the vibrations in the ground. Vehicles were few and far between these days; only the old ones could be coaxed into running, if they didn’t have computer chips or electronic components. It was also tough to find gas. But if things went well today, they’d be set for months.

As Jameson completed the countdown, Rosa circled her hand in the air, giving her men the signal to move out. The roar of bikes cut through the silence like a saw blade. Her driver, Falco, gunned the throttle. The motorcycle jerked into motion. Whooping, the men followed her lead.

In tight formation, they burst out of the scrubby undergrowth and onto the road, then surrounded the truck. It was too big and bulky to have any real speed, nor could the driver afford to waste fuel trying to outrun them. Otherwise he’d never get to his destination. This shipping concern looked a little smarter than the rest. They’d done some custom body work, installing extra plating, iron bars and barbwire across the windshield.

It wouldn’t do any good, of course.

“Hold it steady!” Rosa shouted to Falco, who was edging the bike closer.

He was her best driver—too bad he had delusions about what a great team they’d make in bed. So far, she’d managed to keep him at arm’s length, balancing the Madonna/whore factor that kept her men both longing for her and afraid to touch her.

When the bike swung close enough, she levered up into a crouch, using his shoulders to steady herself. The enormous wheels spun at dizzying speed. With one misstep, she would wind up a pile of bloody meat. Pressing upright on the narrow seat, Rosa grinned.

The muscles in her thighs bunched as she pushed off. For a moment, there was only the air streaming against her face. Flying. Then she hit the side of the truck hard, splitting her lip against corrugated metal, but she found a handhold and pulled herself up. Gunfire cracked over the growl of the engines. One of her men swerved. Later, she’d find out whether he’d been hit, and how bad it was. Right now, she had to focus on the job.

The sun beat down as she climbed, her arms burning with the effort of holding on. Sweat slicked her palms, making it tough, and she ignored the sound of her men returning fire. They knew their roles.

The driver tried evasive action, slinging the truck side to side, but if he wasn’t careful, he’d roll it. Surely he didn’t want to kill himself just to keep the supplies out of their hands. Nobody was that devoted to his work.

With a pained grunt, she hauled herself on top of the vehicle and signaled her men to move on to phase two. The bike engines softened to a low purr as they dropped back. Now that she was in position, there was no point in them remaining as targets. They’d only waste gasoline.

Hot wind and stinging dust whipped her face while Rosa crept along the roof of the truck, light as a cat. When she hit the cab, she slid her weapon from its thigh holster. A gun didn’t need to be big to kill at close range, and anything heavier would make it hard for her to jump and climb.

Small magnets in her boots made her work a little easier. She’d often wondered if the drivers thought she had super powers, that they could never seem to shake her off. Smiling at the thought, she dropped to her belly and set up her safety gear. Then she hooked her feet, dropped upside-down beside the driver’s door, and broke the glass with one blow—brass knuckles wrapped in cloth.

With her other hand, she cocked the gun. “If you don’t want to die right now, you’ll stop the truck.”

The driver gazed at her, wild-eyed, out of his periphery. He wasn’t very old, hardly more than a kid, but this was a brave new world. You did what you had to. She wouldn’t hurt him unless he made her. Rosa knew she could shoot him, disengage from the harness and slide through the window fast enough to save the supplies. After all, she’d done it before.

From his expression, he knew it too.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said on a little moan of fear.

Maybe it wasn’t nice, but given how powerless she’d been before, his reaction was damn near an aphrodisiac. She bared her teeth in a fierce upside-down smile. “Good boy.”

The truck slowed gradually. Doubtless the driver didn’t want to risk having her finger slip on the trigger. Kill or be killed wasn’t just a cliché. But Rosa knew she’d always come out on top in terms of her predatory nature. She’d grown up with that knowledge burnt into her brain. People took advantage of the weak.

When the truck stopped moving, her men roared back into play. She kept her weapon trained on the kid until Falco opened the passenger door and roughly pulled the boy out. She could see he was pissing-scared, but the story would only enhance their rep, so she didn’t rein Falco in. Instead Rosa levered back up, a feat made possible through the abs she’d worked to make rock-hard, and slid out of her safety gear. She quickly stowed her stuff, and then vaulted down with lithe grace.

Her second spoke in a low growl. “On the ground.”

With a small whimper, the kid complied. He dropped face-down and put his hands behind his head without being asked. It looked like word was getting around.

Que padre.

Like a well-oiled machine, her men popped the trailer, making sure there were no hidden guards. But no, it was a good, clean haul: bottled water, toiletries, canned goods, and best of all…pre-shift liquor. No more bathtub-brewed rotgut for a while. It was going to be a wild night in Valle de Bravo.

Once the cargo had been secured, Jameson fastened the doors and added extra security chains. It wouldn’t do for another gang to jack their stolen goods. The bravos—what her men called themselves—ran back to their bikes.

“I’m leaving you a ride,” Rosa told the kid. “If I wanted you dead, you would be. So I’m leaving you a way to get back to civilization.” Such as it is. “And you better tell your people I own these roads. If they want to ship through my territory, then they need to pay the toll. Otherwise, I have this unpleasant seizure policy…” She nudged him with a heavy boot. “Comprende?”

“Yeah,” the kid squeaked.

“I’m leaving a sharpshooter on that ridge over there. If you move before he counts to a thousand, you get a bullet between the eyes. Once you’re sure enough time has elapsed, you can get up, climb on that cycle and go home.”

Apparently too afraid to speak, the boy merely nodded. She couldn’t imagine why they had entrusted the delivery to him, but maybe it was a rite-of-passage thing. Soon the shipping concerns would wise up and start sending armed guards, and she would plan accordingly.

Falco was grinning. “You ready to roll, jefa?”

“Claro. Let’s ride.”

With an ease born of practice, she slid into the passenger side. Falco could drive anything on wheels, and Rosa functioned better as muscle, which had confused a few bigoted sons of bitches at first. But she only needed to beat them down once to teach that particular lesson. The bravos arrayed themselves around the truck as further deterrent to anyone who might mess with them. Still, she didn’t let her guard down until they reached Valle de Bravo.

Falco glanced over at her, one hand on the wheel. “We lighting up the dance hall tonight?”

She considered only for a second. “Yeah. They deserve to cut loose.”

The liquor would make for a hell of a party. They’d have more fun if there were more women waiting, but Rosa liked their unique position of power. With the male to female ratio at such an imbalance, the bravos knew better than to demand monogamy—or they’d wind up with no tail at all. They’d had a little trouble at the start, but she’d only needed to castrate two men before the rest got the message.

No always means no.

“You and me, tonight?”

Rosa glanced over at her second, suppressing a sigh. Falco was a tasty hunk of man, if you went for the rugged, muscular, sun-toughened type. And okay, who didn’t? Brown hair with lighter streaks, nice blue eyes. If she wasn’t so canny, she might even have fallen for his determined pitch.

But she knew his game. He figured if he moved into her bed permanently, he’d take the de facto role of boss man. Not that he was a bad guy, or devious in his intentions. No, he’d made those dead clear from the start.

And she was having none of it.

Rosa flashed a smile to take the sting from her words. “You wish, Falco. You couldn’t handle even half of me.”

She pretended she wasn’t tense, awaiting his response. Deliberately, she stretched her legs out. Tight-rope walking for fun and profit. She’d been careful not to sleep with anyone in over a year. Instead, she was the militant Madonna for whom they’d die. No longer a whore who sold her skin to get by. Or a victim.

“One of these days, I’m gonna make you mine,” he said lightly.

Yep. Right after hell freezes over, cabrón.

When the ramshackle settlement came into view, she relaxed slightly. She’d crawled to this place to die, but to her surprise, she hadn’t. For months, she’d hunted and gathered and killed monsters all by herself, too tough to lay down and die. And from there, she built. And kept building. When survivors had started to trickle in, she’d made it clear that this was her town, a place where only the brave survived.

She didn’t know what it had been called before, only what it was now. Valle de Bravo. The valley of the brave. The valley of her warriors.

The landscape was surprisingly green in comparison with the dry yellow land that surrounded it. An underground river ran square through, filling the wells. That was probably why folks had settled in that spot two hundred years ago, then abandoned it when the mines played out. When Rosa had first arrived, it had been a ghost town, literally, with clapboard buildings and adobe structures standing empty. No tumbleweeds, but it had been close. From the dirty white adobe church to the general store to the dance hall, it had been like stepping into a different world.

Now she took stock of the scene with a practiced eye. Everything looked normal. Good. No raids while they’d been gone. The possibility always concerned her when she took a large number of able-bodied men on a supply run. Any number of enemy factions would love to get a foothold here.

But the perimeter was secure, and the young bravo at the gate stopped them, just as he was supposed to. Rio was hardly old enough to shave, but he had hard, savage eyes. Just two years back, he’d crawled into town from gods only knew where, much like Rosa. He’d been alone, too, as Rosa had been alone. There was no question that she’d find a place for him. Some settlers bitched about her fairly lax immigration policy, but after having suffered the boot of the old world’s Homeland Security on her neck, she couldn’t refuse sanctuary to anyone who showed himself willing to pull his weight and follow her rules.

And as long as they were human.

She smiled at Rio, taking in his too-big khaki pants and the spiked leather wristbands Singer must’ve made for him. He looked fierce enough to tear someone’s throat out with his bare hands—and well, he was. Un cachorro de tigre. But all her bravos had kamikaze souls.

“All clear?”

“Quiet as the grave,” Rio said with a wide, white smile.

He motioned for the gatekeeper to let them in, and the convoy passed through into the town proper. Half the population turned out to see what they’d brought back. A shout went up when they saw the cases of Grey Goose.

Viv, the woman who ran the taverna, took charge of those, ordering them delivered to the dance hall. She was a weathered little woman in her late forties, but hard work had kept her fit. Between her ageless features—maybe Chinese, maybe Pacific Islander—and the skewed ratio meant she had six men offering to help. Attentive faces revealed their anticipation, hoping for her company after the party.

Rosa kept herself above that game. It hadn’t been hard. She’d spent enough hours bound and pinned under a grunting, sweating man to be glad of the change. And apart from Falco, most of the bravos knew her as la jefa, not a woman to be banged in celebration of a successful raid.

They knelt to her before each job and kissed her fingertips, having sworn blood loyalty to Valle de Bravo. Rosa insisted on the ritual because she knew such things strengthened spoken bonds. Now all her bravos had scars on their biceps, marking them as hers. She, who took none as her own, claimed them all.

Wicker, who ran the general store, assumed responsibility for the majority of items. The town ran on a barter system, and since the old man had once managed a convenience store, he was in charge of keeping the books. He had a tendency to fudge things his way, but a quiet conversation with Jameson had convinced him that wasn’t the way to go. While Jameson was thin and quiet, he had a scary affinity for knives.

At the back of the truck, they found a rare cache of booty. Fabric. A soft “ahh” went up from the women present. This meant new clothes. Most of the stores had been ransacked long since, the goods vanished. Rosa couldn’t remember the last time she’d worn anything new, made just for her. Sometimes they traded amongst themselves for variety but it wasn’t the same. This would be hella good for morale.

For a few moments, Rosa watched the work, overwhelmed with a quiet sense of accomplishment. She’d done this, an illegal immigrant who couldn’t get a decent job in the old world, no matter how smart she was. Pride swelled in her chest to almost unbearable dimensions, making each breath hotter and sweeter.

I did this. These are my people.

And then the cry went up from Rio at the gate. “Raiders incoming!”

Rosa cocked her gun and ran.