No, no chimera could, and Peter couldn’t know I had nothing to do with Jericho’s death. Even that monster I couldn’t kill. There had been failures before me—chimeras who weren’t genetically perfect, not strong enough to kill. I had been the only one strong enough, but I had refused.
“We have things to do, Michael. Many things. Entertaining things. We can’t wait forever on you, but I’m not writing you off, brother. If you’re worthy, you’ll find us. Don’t forget you are one of us.”
The voice mail disconnected in my ear. Peter’s voice disappeared.
It wasn’t true. I wasn’t like them, not in the ways that counted.
And they were not my family.
“Are you all right?” Stefan’s elbow nudged me again. “I heard the voice. It was that kid Peter. What did the son of a bitch say?”
“That he wants me to find him, but I’m just not trying hard enough.” I wanted to throw the phone against the wall. I didn’t. When you could kill with the touch of a hand, when you were taught to want it and do it exceptionally well, you were also trained to not lose your temper. No one wanted to buy an assassin who got pissed off that he was served fish instead of chicken and would exterminate you instead of your enemies. Obedience was a must. The Institute had failed there with me and failed with Peter too. Peter’s disobedience had been more catastrophic than mine. I wondered how his temper training had taken.
“There’s something in the backyard.” Saul joined us. Like Stefan, he had a tranq gun in one hand and a real one in the other. He peered in the mug at the bits of metal encrusted with dried blood. “Yum. There’s a new way to get your daily iron. Chug it in your coffee.”
“What’s out there?” Stefan headed for the window over the cracked and stained sink.
“Looks like a body.” Saul shrugged. It was the kind you saw in ex-military people: been there, killed that. “Smells like a body. I cracked a window for a whiff. Someone had to own this mansion before the kiddies moved in.”
“Shit.” Stefan stared out the window. “Another one bites the dust. Could be worse. I just hope it’s not another Zombie Bob. I’ll go check it out. You two look around and see if you can find something, anything that points to where they’re going next.”
“I already have that. I’ll explain later.” I slipped the cheap phone into my jacket pocket. “So we can all check out the body. I can tell how long they were here by the decomposition rate.” The helium in the balloons gave me an estimate as to how long they’d been gone. The bright balls, though still floating, were beginning to dip. They’d left three to five days ago.
“Looking at dead bodies doesn’t bother you, Mikey?” Saul asked with a bemused note that thrummed under the words.
You didn’t have to be ex-military for that to be true. I shoved the tranquilizer gun into the back waistband of my jeans. “I’ve dissected dead bodies; I’ve been surrounded by dead bodies; I’ve made dead bodies,” I said flatly. “I wish they did bother me. You bother me, though. One more ‘Mikey’ and every time you see a woman, you’ll piss your pants, then vomit, and maybe, just maybe, lose control of your bowels. Good luck finding a thong lover who’s willing to take you on then.”
Stefan, who’d also put away his tranq gun but kept his Steyr, grabbed a handful of my shirt and ushered me toward the back door. “Enough. No more jealousy. It’s not becoming to a genius. Now, get your ass in gear.”
As he hustled me with enough annoyance to let me know I was somehow screwing up, I sputtered internally. Jealous of Saul? Why in the world would I be jealous of Saul? Because Stefan had a friend who was here and now when, for the past three years, Stefan and I had been each other’s sole support system, unable to trust our neighbors and fellow employees? That Stefan was family, my family, my brother, my friend, and the only person who had ever been any of those things to me? And that I didn’t want to share him because there had to be people out there less . . . challenging than I was—the little brother Frankenstein experiment, and he might realize that if given the chance?
All right, that was completely psychologically healthy. Not fucked-up in the slightest. Stefan gave me encouraging pushes toward other people, and I yanked him back with my background checks and my occasional infliction of gastric reflux on his rare dates. I was a genius and an idiot wrapped into one, but most of all . . . I was a dick. And unlike other things in my life, there was nothing theoretical about that.
“Sorry, Saul,” I grumbled. “I won’t turn your body and its ability to process Viagra against you.” At his elderly fortysomething, he was bound to require it. “Just, seriously, don’t call me Mikey, all right?”
A hard smack hit my back and Saul’s gloating grin didn’t have to be seen—only imagined, clear as a bell. “Sure thing . . . Mikey.”