Disclaimer: The characters in this story may bear some resemblance to certain characters owned by Renaissance-MCA-Universal. While this resemblance is wholly deliberate, no disrespect is intended.
This story is intended for mature readers only (which in no way precludes the immaturity of the writer) and contains violence.

Waiting

by Lela Kaunitz

Her fingers drummed on the table top, the only sign of her impatience. Otherwise, that lean-muscled frame wore pure relaxation, bonelessly languid in the wooden chair.

A glass sat just out of reach, ice cubes melting into the last drops of bourbon. The ice cubes were feeling the heat. The woman, it seemed, was not.

The bartender, sweating in the lifeless air the ceiling fans could not stir, admired this. Or perhaps his admiration was reserved for the contours defined by her white tank top. Or perhaps for the sleekness of her flat stomach where the tank top had ridden up above her jeans. Certainly these were things worth admiring. There wasn't a bead of sweat marring her honeyed skin.

"You waiting for someone?" His voice broke the silence, and her eyes opened. Barely an acknowledgment of his presence - her gem-hard gaze flitted corner to corner across the room, found nothing noteworthy.

She pulled the glass across the table towards her, swigged the dregs of the bourbon. Swallowed slowly, as if it were an effort. Her voice, when she spoke, had a bluesmoke huskiness.

"Someone was supposed to be waiting for me."

There was no irritation in her tone. The only thing that saved it from neutrality was a hint of resignation.

"They stood you up?"

Her eyes shimmered, unreadable. "That wouldn't be smart."

She shifted in her chair, languor exposed as coiled savagery. As muscles stirred from sleekness to hard lines of definition, her stillness became a snapshot of motion.

She still wasn't sweating, he noticed, as he approached the table to retrieve the empty glass. The veins jutted in the backs of her hands where they rested lightly on the arms of her chair. Nothing relaxed about her now. It was as though the act of speaking had triggered something.

His skin prickled unpleasantly as those lizard eyes flicked to his face. "Did you want another drink?"

The right corner of her mouth curled, slicing an unexpected dimple in the smoothness of her cheek. "While I wait?"

Despite the smile, her eyes weren't human.

He moved behind the bar, found the bourbon, discovered while he was pouring that his hands were shaking.

The predator in the wooden chair sank back into lithe repose, still waiting.

*

Dusk was stretching long shadows across the floorboards.

The bartender set a longneck beer on the counter for one of the men, accepted a crumpled bill in return.

"Who's the lady?" The man in the check shirt wrapped thick fingers around the bottle's neck, gestured with a jerk of his thumb. Lady was slightly more respectful than some words he might have chosen, but there was something about her lazy, menacing grace which gave him pause.

The bartender shook his head, dug for change in the till. "Been here since we opened. She's waiting for someone."

Check Shirt paused, beer halfway to his mouth. "I think someone just arrived."

With her mane of jet black hair, she verged on six feet in height. Ghost thin, ghost pale, the length of her body accentuated by the lines of her long black coat. The hemline brushed her calves, the collar of the midnight blue shirt beneath left a white v bare at her throat.

Blue eyes caught, then discarded, each man one by one. The bartender, the man in the check shirt, the players at the pool table.

Then, at last, she turned to face the woman at the table by the window.

"You're late." The woman's voice was a throaty growl, and the bloodied sunset cast flares of amber through the cat-green brilliance of her eyes.

"There were some things I couldn't avoid." The dark-haired stranger offered explanation without apology. Lean hands sank deep into the pockets of the long coat.

The predator's nostrils flared. Five measured steps paced a slow circle around the taller woman. In motion, muscles rippled beneath denim like a second skin. Bare feet were soundless on the wooden floor. "I've been waiting most of the day."

Quiet dignity behind the pale eyes. "I came as soon as I could." The light voice never rose above a whisper. Where the other woman was scarcely controlled ferocity, here was utter calm.

"You promised." Hurt. As though the anger which seethed beneath the tanned skin was beginning to blister.

"I did, and I'm sorry." She lifted one spider-lean hand from her pocket, brushed pale fingertips the length of the predator's jaw.

The hazel eyes slid closed, and a slow breath eased from her lungs. This was a study in restraint. Every muscle, every nerve, was on edge. The feather-light touch broke a sweat, something the day's heat had not done.

"I'm sorry, love," said the tall woman, her hand still resting on the other woman's cheek.

There was a sound of glass shattering. Unexpected. Neither woman jumped, but the watchers did. One of the men at the pool table dropped his cue, and it clattered noisily to the ground.

There was blood ticking against the floor. A small sound, hardly anything at all. Blood. It ran from the red-haired woman's fingertips, from the gash the broken glass had opened in her palm.

"You promised," the husky voice repeated.

The tall, pale woman sank slowly into the wooden chair, her long fingers pressed flat against the tabletop. Her grey eyes betrayed nothing.

The predator's bloodied hand tightened into a fist, and her jaw clenched. Pain, heart-breaking pain, drew lines at the corners of her eyes, at the corners of her mouth. She turned, walked away, four steps down to the street, then out into the gathering darkness beyond.

The pale woman sat motionless, head bowed beneath the black mane of her hair. It was not until the bartender stepped over to begin sweeping up the shards of broken glass that he realised.

Her throat had been cut. She was dead.