It was the woman he’d seen in the dream; he could tell, even though her face was one liquid sheet of dull red. Only the golden flecks in her eyes showed bright, and then her teeth were very white when she licked them clean.
“You are so fucked,” she crooned, and the screen went black.
THE ROAD TO ADRIAN BRÉZÉ’S HOUSE WAS TEN MILES NORTH ON THE I-25 and then east. The empty highway stretched through the night, cool air flowing in through the open windows as the tires hummed. He was going to his death—but maybe he’d learn something. Maybe the world would make sense again.
Since when has it made sense anyway? I’m thirty-two years old, no wife, no kids, and my best friend just died because I couldn’t figure out what was going on. The only thing I’ve ever been any good at was killing people and frightening them. Cesar had twice my brains and now he’s dead and his girl’s dead.
East, and then north again on a dirt road. The Sangres low on the horizon in the light of the three-quarter moon. That and the stars were the only light as the last gas station fell away, and only a few distant earthbound stars marked houses. The road turned, winding in the pitch-dark night, and then a steep drop to his left, a hundred near-vertical feet; this was the edge of the plateau. He forced himself to stop when the wheels skidded and a spray of gravel fanned out and out of sight. He clenched his hands on the wheel.
“Am I trying to kill myself?” he murmured. Then: “No. Not yet. I’ve got to find out what this all means.”
Instead, he got out and walked down the last stretch of road. The night scents were strong, the sweaty leather of chamisos, the strong resin of the bleeding pines. Gravel crunched under his feet—it was nearly six months since Adrian Brézé had vanished, and the housekeeper came in only once a month to clean. The house itself was built right into the edge of the cliff; the final dip in the road left him looking down on its fieldstone walls. The high copper-surfaced door swung open to his touch, and a few soft lights came on under the high metal ceiling.
Yeah, about what I expected, he thought.
The whole of the opposite wall was glass, right at the edge of the cliff. It fell in crags and gullies washed pale by the moon, until the rolling surface of the semidesert stretched eastward to the edge of sight. There were a couple of pictures on the walls, ancient and beautiful.
“Why did I think I could find something here?” he said aloud.
“Maybe a little bird told you.”
The voice seemed to come from behind him. He wheeled. Nothing. Back again . . . and the woman was there. A spurt of dreadful joy filled him. This wasn’t a dream, or pixels. That was an actual person in front of him. There was even an appendix scar.
He raised the Glock in the regulation grip, left hand under right.
Crack. Crack.
The ten-millimeter bullets punched into her belly and she folded backward.
Crack.
Two in the center of mass, one in the head; the last snapped her head around in a whirling of long black hair and a spray of blood and the bullet starred through the glass behind her. He felt his teeth begin to show as he walked toward her. The gold-flecked eyes were already beginning to glaze.
Then her head came up. “Oooooh, that hurt,” she said. “That can be sort of hot, you know? For starters. Then I get to hurt you. You like that, lover?”
Salvador leaped backward, almost fell as he half-sprawled against a malachite-surfaced table of rough-cast glass, then wrenched himself into a crouched firing position.
Crack. Crack. Crack—
Ten shots. Five hit. Five more punched the great window behind, starring it, then collapsing it out in a shatter of milky fragments.
“Ooooo, ooooo, you’re so rough,” the thing laughed as it advanced on him, laughing.
A hand reached out toward his neck. Then jerked back as she hissed:
“We really have to do something about those silver chains. Maybe we could make people think they cause cancer?”
She dabbed at the blood on the side of her head and stuck the fingers in her mouth for a moment, tongue curling around them.
“Mmmmm, tasty! But you want to take that stupid chain off, don’t you . . . that’s right . . .”
The eyes grew, the yellow flecks drawing together like drops of molten gold, running into two lakes of fire. Depth, depth, drawing him into a whirling—
She screamed, pain and rage. The great ten-foot wings beat behind her as the talons slammed home and the hooked beak drove into her neck. The snow-leopard rolled over and over—
—leopard?—
its paws striking in a blur of speed and claws. The eagle dropped out of the air into a huge tawny something and the big cats rolled over and over shrieking and striking and lunging for each other’s throats as furniture smashed and broken glass crunched under their weight. Then the man was standing with his back to Salvador, every muscle in his lean body standing out like static waves as his thumbs dug into her throat. She was making the same bestial snarling sound as she reared back with a knee braced against his chest and her hands driving up between his forearms—
CRACK!
Much louder this time. The double splash of impact and her skull started to deform under the huge kinetic energy, and then a sparkle, and she was gone. Blood fell to the floor, with a sharp, sour, iron-salt smell. The man went to one knee for a second, panting, then rose and turned.
“You’re Adrian Brézé,” he said, trying to make his mind function again.
The gun came up, almost of its own volition. The slim dark man pointed a finger at him.
“Don’t. Just don’t. It’s been a long day.”
He cast a glance over his shoulder; the first paling of the night sky showed that dawn was coming, and he winced a little.
“I’d better go corporeal. Right back, Detective Salvador.”
Salvador looked down at the pistol. Why the hell not? he thought, and began to bring it up toward his mouth. That’s safer. Only amateurs try to shoot themselves in the head . . .
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
“Why don’t you kill me? Why don’t you kill me?” he screamed. “Why don’t you just fucking kill me?”
“That’s why don’t they fucking kill you,” the man said. “I can tell you, if you want to know.”
“You’re one of them.”
Brézé was slight, a bit below medium height, pale olive skin and dark hair and gold-flecked brown eyes . . .
“You’re Adrian Brézé!”
“Yes.”
Salvador drew breath in, held it, let it out. “Okay, I get it: I’m supposed to believe you’re a good monster.”
“Oh, he’s a great monster, believe me. But all mine.”
Salvador jerked at the other voice, looked down at the pistol, then dropped it to the table he was sitting on. A copper box had spilled open, full of slim cigarettes. He took one out and lit it; some distant part of himself was proud of the fact that his hand didn’t shake. The second voice belonged to a woman. Tall, blond, dressed in dark outdoor clothes and boots, with a knit cap over her head and a rifle cradled in her arms—he recognized it, big Brit sniper job, long scope, aircraft-alloy body.
“You’re . . . Ellen Tarnowski.”
“Technically, Ellen Brézé, now. No, I’m not one of them. You don’t catch it from getting bit.”
A sudden charming smile. “And believe me, I know! Not even from getting married to one.”