It was Slifko’s reflection in the computer screen that did him in.
Queen saw a flash of movement as the scientist came at her, his arm upraised. She whirled about and caught his wrist, the needle of a syringe inches from her face. Slifko scarcely had time to cry out before she pressed her gun to the soft flesh below his chin and fired. The silenced round sounded like an explosion in the quiet room, but it was nothing compared to what she was about to do. It was time to burn this place to the ground.
Chapter 12
Andrew cried out in surprise and fell out of his chair when the first explosion tore apart the far end of the corridor. Coated in dust, ears ringing, he staggered to his feet and leaned heavily against his desk. His first thought was there had been an accident, but that couldn’t be. The explosion came from the direction of Slifko’s office. He didn’t conduct experiments in there, and anyway, what did he even have in the labs that could explode?
Then he remembered the woman. She was coming. It had to be her.
He rummaged through the desk drawer and found the 9mm pistol he’d been issued on his first day on the job. His hands were trembling so violently that it took him two tries to get the pistol out of the holster. He checked to make sure it was still loaded. He’d had plenty of training with the weapon, but that had been at the beginning of his employment with Manifold. Now he felt like he’d never seen a gun before.
Another explosion, this one closer, rocked his office and he dropped the gun. It clattered across the tile floor and slid out of sight beneath a rolling cart. He hurried over and retrieved it, all the while saying a prayer of thanks that it had not gone off. The safety must have been on, or did that even matter?
The safety! What was it? What did it look like? In his panic, he found he could remember nothing about the weapon. Hell, he might as well ditch the gun and find somewhere to hide until Darius showed up. If he showed up. Quit being such an idiot, he told himself. You can do this! He found a button on the side and slid it to what appeared to be the firing position. Already he was feeling more confident. Now, should he hold it in two hands like on the cop shows, or hold it sideways in one hand, gang-banger style? He decided on the two-handed grip. It felt steadier. Holding the pistol out in front of him, he stepped around the corner.
A dark figure moved wraithlike through the dust and debris that hung in the air. Instinctively, Andrew pulled the trigger. The gun jerked wildly in his hands, and his shot blew out a light in the ceiling halfway down the hall. The figure moved closer and he recognized the woman they had seen on the security video. She didn’t bat an eye, but slowly leveled her own pistol at him. He cried out, half in challenge, half in fear, and pulled the trigger repeatedly, firing off a rapid barrage. When the last round was expended, he kept pulling the trigger, as if he could squeeze one more round from the empty clip.
And then he heard a loud pop, and thought for a moment that he had, indeed, gotten off another shot, but he was already flying backward. He hit the ground and pain like he never dreamed possible burned through every inch of his body, radiating out from his gut. He screamed until he thought his vocal cords would tear in two.
He sensed, rather than heard, the woman’s approach. He looked up to see her looming over him, her pistol in one hand and a knife in the other, its razor edge gleaming in the artificial light. She was beautiful, with golden hair and eyes of deep indigo. And then he saw the angry skull branded in her forehead. His lips moved, but he could not cry out. With a supreme effort of will, he raised his empty pistol, but she kicked it out of his hand.
“You’re not Darius, are you?” She spoke through gritted teeth that, in his pain and stupor, looked to Andrew like fangs.
He shook his head. “No, I’m Andrew. I just do computers and stuff like that.”
“But you work here, don’t you?”
He sensed he should lie, make up some sort of story that would paint him as an innocent victim, but he found he could not. Her eyes held him mesmerized and her terrible beauty compelled him to tell the truth. “Yes, I do.”
“So you are partly responsible for these experiments on humans. You helped turn them into monsters.”
He nodded. The woman, her expression unchanging, kicked him. Fire erupted between his legs but the pain of the gunshot rendered it negligible. He tried to draw his knees up to his chest but he lacked the strength.