For the first time, Nohar willingly invited The Beast into his soul.
The Beast came out and sniffed the air. Blood, it smelled human blood from at least five different people. It smelled die discharge of someone's gun. It smelled an excited canine. It smelled blood from a morey—
From Manny.
Nohar would have roared, but he was stalking now. Hassan didn't know he was here. The canine had passed by the changing area and the room had looked empty, the disinfectant had covered Nohar's smell. Nohar closed on the lab. It formed a T-intersection at the end of the hall. Ahead were a pair of fire doors, an agent crumpled against them, one arm hooked through one of the crash bars. To Nohar's right was the lounge. An agent was sprawled across the table.
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To Nohar's left were the swinging doors to the genetic lab. He could hear someone moving in there. He coutd smell Manny's blood.
Things slowed down as the adrenaline kicked in. One of the doors was half open. And this time Nohar recognized the smell of gasoline-He crept up on the open door and listened, smelled the air. Hassan was in the rear of the room, to his right-He burst through the door. Hassan turned, very quickly. Not quickly enough. Nohar's first shot hit him. Hassan's right shoulder exploded into a shower of blood. The canine dropped the package he was carrying and spun off to the left. Nohar, still moving toward the rear of the room, followed with another shot. That one missed and hit a large piece of equipment— probably the chemical analyzer—the impact exploded a picture tube and caused the body of a dead tech to roll off it and hit the floor.
The third shot followed Hassan, missed again, and slammed into a stainless steel sink. Water shot up in a mini-geyser.
Nohar was moving slowly, dreamlike. Hassan took cover behind a large, stainless steel object, an oven or an autoclave. Hassan was drawing a gun. Apparently the need for the stealth of a razor was over. Hassan took too long to aim, and Nohar's fourth shot hit his cover. A white jet of steam blew from the side of the machine, hitting his gun arm. Hassan's wild shot hit the ceiling, taking out a light fixture, and his gun sailed into the middle of the room.
The gun slid and came to rest next to the corpse of another FBI agent, sprawled facedown in a pool of blood in the center of the room. Nohar looked up and Hassan was hidden behind something—a cabinet, the chromed oven, or the other lab-tech, who was slumped over a cart, giving some cover. Nohar covered the door and backed toward the cor-FORESTS OF THE NIGHT
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ner where Hassan had started. His foot stepped on something soft—
Manny.
Manny was facedown on the ground. The slashing wounds on his throat were multiple, violent.
Nohar roared. He screamed rage as he advanced on Hassan's cover—
"Cat—"
Where did that voice come from? Behind the lab cart?
Nohar pumped four shots at Hassan, through the corpse of the lab-tech. Blood sprayed the white lab coat and the cart rolled across the floor with the impact, bottles rattling. There was scrambling, perhaps the smell of canine blood.
Nohar walked up and kicked over the cart. The tech thudded on the ground and the glass bottles shattered. The smell of alcohol filled the room. Hassan had moved behind a counter, closer to the exit. "Cat, thirty seconds and the place goes up. We both go. Still time to leave."
Nohar replied by pumping a shot into the base of the counter. Cabinet doors under the sink splintered.
The canine bolted for the door. Nohar bolted after him, firing. He missed and hit the light switch. The fluorescents winked out as a few anemic sparks leapt from the wall. Next shot was an almost. He could see the shell slam into Hassan's back, pushing him through the door— But the bastard wore a vest. The third shot slammed into the door, blowing a perfectly circular hole in it. Nohar slammed through the door after the canine. Hassan was still picking himself up from the impact in his back. He had rolled into the lounge. Three shots in rapid succession—
Hassan would be dead if the gun wasn't empty.
Hassan stood up and backed toward a window. He started to open it. "Ten seconds, cat. You can make it down the hall—"
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Hassan warded off Nohar with a blood-soaked straight razor in his left hand. His right was trying to rumble open the window in time . . .
The Beast didn't give up that easily, and Nohar wasn't going to stop it this time.
Nohar shifted the weight off his bad knee and leapt at Hassan, claws extended, roaring. Hassan cocked back with the razor to slash at Nohar's neck, but he was wounded, using his off-hand, and he was trying to do too many things at once. In peak condition, he might have hit Nohar. Instead, his forearm hit ineffectively against Nohar's right shoulder. Nohar grabbed Hassan's neck with his teeth as the window gave way before his weight.
Hassan's blood was the sweetest thing he had ever tasted.
The lab exploded.
CHAPTER 24
The window was blown apart by the explosion. They fell onto the top floor of the adjoining parking garage.
Hassan's back slammed into a car below them. The fiberglass underneath them gave and Nohar felt his knee sink into Hassan's chest. Something inside it broke. The canine coughed up blood.
Hassan cocked back with the razor again. Nohar responded with a backhand slash. The fully-extended claws of his right hand hit Hassan's left arm, slicing open Hassan's wrist. The razor went tumbling into the darkness.
Nohar's teeth were still buried in the flesh of Hassan's neck and canine blood spilled into his mouth.
Hassan jerked underneath him. The canine's flesh ripped out of his mouth, and Nohar heard a collarbone snap. Hassan spilled out on the concrete drive and backed away, toward the other end of the garage.
Somewhere a pink screamed.
Debris from above began to rain down on them.
"... cat." Hassan spat a gob of bloody phlegm at the pavement. He seemed to be laboring to breathe and his voice had a breathy, bubbling quality to it. Nohar thought a rib must have punctured a lung. "Too bad, you didn't go ..."
Hassan paused to get his breath as Nohar jumped from the car and advanced, ' 'To Geauga with everyone else ... "
Nohar was barely a meter from the canine and Has-
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san actually smiled. How—no, he couldn't have. There wasn't enough time.
But where had the Zipheads been when Smith got hit at Lakeview? Where were they now?
Hassan had backed all the way to the railing. Behind him was only space. Nohar—The Beast—roared and swung his right hand. He aimed at the soft part of the skin under Has-san's lower jaw. The claws, and his fingers, dug in through the skin under Hassan's muzzle. Nohar's claws pierced the skin and crushed Hassan's tongue against the inside of the jaw. Hassan's eyes went wide with shock. Warm blood streamed out of the wound, soaking Nohar's arm.
Nohar put his whole body into the follow-through. He grabbed hold of Hassan's jaw from inside the mouth and his arm continued the swing. Hassan's weight barely slowed it. The swing carried the canine out over the edge of the roof. He was actually thrown upward before he started falling. Hassan slid off of Nohar's hand and followed a near-perfect ballistic arc to the ground.
Hassan crashed into an ambulance that was in the process of pulling out of the driveway below. The roof caved in with his weight, and the siren and flashers— for some reason—kicked in. The ambulance slowed to a stop and a pair of medics piled out to see what the hell had happened.
The Beast retreated but didn't leave. Nohar was shaking as he ran through Metro General's parking garage. No one stopped him as he made his way down, even though his arm and his face were streaked with Hassan's blood—or perhaps because of it. Good thing. Nohar was in a dangerous state of mind. Even an innocent bystander who got in his way would find himself in trouble.