The move caught him by surprise, and we went down in a tangle of arms and legs. He hit the ground first, cushioning my fall, his wheeze of breath whispering dead things and sour milk past my nose. I caught the wrist holding the knife with one hand, forcing the blade well away from my body as I tried to catch his other hand. His almost featureless face stared into mine, his eyes and mouth little more than thin slashes through which only gray was evident. There was no forehead bump, no cheek definition, and no nose. Only two holes that sat in the flat of his face.
His fist thumped into my side, and breath exploded from my body. But I ignored the haze of rising pain, bringing my knee up hard and fast. Like most men, he didn't appreciate a blow to the balls, and that brief moment of utter pain was long enough to hit him unhindered—and as hard as I could—across the jaw to knock him out.
I wrenched the knife from his nerveless fingers, and threw it as far as I could from the both of us. Then I rolled off him, and maneuvered him about until I got the pack off Inside were the various rifle bits. I reassembled it, loaded the chamber, then sat on his chest, my knees pinning his arms as I held the gun at his throat. If he knew who I was, then he'd know I was with the Directorate and more than capable of firing a weapon. And if he didn't know, then the mere fact that I'd assembled the weapon should warn him I knew how to use it.
What he wouldn't know was the fact that I had no real desire to actually use it.
He stirred. I pressed my free hand against his chin, forcing it back, thrusting the point of the rifle harder into the soft flesh of his neck.
He groined, and the thin, almost lizardlike coverings over his eyes flickered open.
"Don't move," I warned, jabbing with the weapon.
Death was back in his gray gaze. "I can't tell you anything."
I raised an eyebrow. "And I'm so believing that."
"I want a lawyer."
"Do I look like a cop to you? Do I actually look like someone who really cares what you do or don't want?"
He didn't answer Just glared.
"Why did you kill that woman in the restaurant?"
No response.
"Who paid you to kill the woman in the restaurant?"
Again with the silence. The wail of sirens had stopped, and though I was upwind of the restaurant, I could still hear the babble of voices, the rush of confusion. I didn't have all that much time to question this man.
I moved the rifle barrel down, and dug it into his Adam's apple. His grunt came out gargled.
"Tell me, or we do it the hard way."
"I know nothing."
Spittle sprayed my face as he spoke. I didn't have a free hand to wipe it away, and the small droplets stung. They also stunk… or was it him? For a man who had no odor, there sure was a God-awful stink coming from his body. And I doubted he'd shit himself. He was a professional, for heaven's sake, and despite what my brother said about my appearance in the mornings, I wasn't that scary at other times.
"Do your worst," he said.
I thrust the rifle point hard enough to break skin and draw blood. "You think I won't?"
"I think that soon it won't matter."
The amusement underlying his words sent chills down my spine. He was up to something, I was sure of it. But what?
Frowning, unease growing, I lowered a shield and psychically reached out. His mind was surprisingly unguarded, but maybe whoever had sent him here hadn't expected he'd be caught. I thrust deeper, capturing his thoughts, freezing both them and him.
He was telling the truth in one respect—he didn't know who'd sent him to kill the woman. He'd received his orders via phone, like he always did, the voice on the other end the same as it always was—deep and lacking inflections, as if the person behind it was somehow less than human, more a machine. The orders were simple. Kill the two women at table sixteen.
So why hadn't he waited for Roberta to arrive before he'd taken a shot?
The smell was growing stronger, becoming one more of boiling decay than shit. I wrinkled my nose, trying to ignore it, trying to disregard the fear itching at my skin.
The answers I had weren't enough, so I thrust further into his memory. Saw a large house surrounded by lush gardens. Here there more creatures like him—black ghosts, waiting for orders to kill. And locked behind stout cages, there were others as well. Blue things with rainbow wings. Men and women who had the faces of gryphons and the claws of demons. Mermaids and mermen and God knows what else.
There wasn't an army of them—not even a unit—but there was more than enough to suggest that in a few years there could be.
The labs behind these creatures had obviously found the secret behind successful crossbreeding of nonhuman races. And it didn't matter if their success rate was high or low. They were in the process of creating an army of abominations, beings nature had no intention of bringing into existence, and they were being developed for one reason only—to kill.
I tried to delve further, get more information, but the air was so thick and rich with the reek of rot that I was gagging, and couldn't concentrate.
I withdrew my thoughts, and met his gaze. Death roamed in his eyes, and it approached fast. It was then I realized his face looked gaunter, as if in the last few minutes he'd lost a huge amount of weight. The press of his skin against my shins and butt felt like the touch of fire.
Then it clicked, and the look of death in his eyes made sense.
Misha had once asked me to imagine the super soldier that could be built if the secrets of vampires, wolves, and other nonhumans could be unlocked. There'd be little you could do to stop such a force, he'd said. What he'd forgotten to mention was the added improvements—that if they did get caught, they could kill themselves, and therefore stop any efforts of getting information.
This man was growing hotter because he was about to spontaneously combust. Only there wasn't anything spontaneous about it.
I rolled away from him, the gun held at the ready should he try and move. He didn't. Couldn't.
His gray eyes were wide, and the death I'd seen earlier was all-consuming. Only this time it was his death I saw, not mine, and the realization of it had wiped away the faint amusement so evident only moments before. His thin lips were open, as if he were screaming, but no sound came out, only a gush of bloody liquid. Water was beginning to pool under his entire body and steam rose from both legs. He was melting, disintegrating, from the inside out. What a God-awful way to die.
I couldn't sit here and watch it. Couldn't sit here and just let it happen with such agonizing slowness. This wasn't death. This was torture, and no one—not even a lab-developed freak—deserved this sort of ending.
I touched his arm, flinching a little at the heat. His flesh rolled under my touch, as if it were molten fluid barely contained by skin. "Do you wish a quick ending?"
His gaze found mine. "It shouldn't be like this." His words came out hoarse, interspersed with shudders of pain. "They said it wouldn't be like this."
So they'd lied to their creations. No surprise there, really. The people behind all this had shown little in the way of morals so far, and lying was undoubtedly the least of their sins.
And Misha was one of them. I couldn't afford to forget that. Not ever.
The shadow creature's body was beginning to close in on itself, collapsing like a tent in extreme slow motion. Steam was rising from his torso now, and the stench of stewing flesh was thick enough to carve.
"Do you wish a quick death?" I repeated, swallowing bile and barely resisting the urge to run from this man and his death.