CHAPTER 16
BULLETS BIT INTO THE COUCH, CHEWING THROUGH the steel and cushions. The world went white in a blinding flash. Thunder slapped my ears, shaking the brain in my skull. All sound faded. Derek jerked, clamping his hands over his ears.
A stun grenade.
Next to me Saiman trembled, hugging the floor.
Steel shutters dropped, covering the floor-to-ceiling windows—Saiman’s defense system kicking into high gear.
The electric lamps on the ceiling shone bright, illuminating us. The couch wouldn’t hold. We had to move.
To the right, the lab door gaped wide open. Twelve feet. If we had a distraction, we could make it. I looked around, trying to find something to throw. Clothes—no, too light—clothes, more clothes . . .
Table. The heavy glass-topped table.
I lunged for it and tried to lift it. Too heavy. I could heave it upright and maybe throw it a couple of feet. Not far enough, and they would cut me down while I struggled to lift it.
The roar of the gunfire penetrated the wall in my ears, soft like the noise of a distant waterfall.
A dark canister rolled into the space to the left of us, between the couch and a bar, and belched a cloud of green gas. Shit. I held my breath. Derek pressed his hand over his nose. Tears streamed from his eyes.
Derek’s shapeshifter senses couldn’t take it. We had to go now.
I grabbed Derek’s shoulder, pointed at the table, and made a throwing motion with my arms.
He nodded.
“Saiman!” My voice was a faint echo. “Saiman!”
He glanced at me and I saw a familiar blank look in his eyes. He would snap any second. I grabbed his arm. “Run or die!”
Crouching, Derek grasped the table and hurled it at the muzzle flashes.
I jerked Saiman to his feet and ran.
Behind me glass shattered in the hail of gunfire. I leaped inside and spun around in time to see Saiman dive through the doorway, with Derek a hair behind. Derek slammed the thick reinforced door shut and stumbled, like a blind man, his eyes wide open, tears streaming down his face. Blood gushed from his leg, staining the jeans inside out.
Slowly, as if underwater, Saiman locked the heavy metal door.
To the right, a decontamination shower loomed in the corner. I pushed Derek into it and pulled the chain. Water drenched him. He shuddered and raised his face to the stream, letting the water run into his eyes.
“How bad are you hit?”
“The bullet went through. It’s nothing.”
Bullets pounded into the door with sharp staccato. It wouldn’t hold them for long.
If I had a lab, I’d have the fuse box nearby in case I had to shut things down in a hurry. I looked around and saw the dark gray rectangle of the fuse box in the wall between two cabinets. Perfect. I pried the cover open and pulled the main fuse.
The apartment went pitch-black. For a second I was blind and then my eyes adjusted, picking up faint light from the digital clock on the wall. Must be battery operated.
Next to me the sound of ripping fabric announced the werewolf shedding his clothes and human skin.
Yellow eyes ignited six and a half feet off the ground, like two moons.
Saiman took a deep, shuddering breath.
“Hide or fight,” I whispered to him. “Just don’t get in my way.”
The rain of bullets halted. Not good. They’d decided they couldn’t shoot their way through the door.
The next step was explosives. I dashed to the left side of the door and pressed myself against the wall in the corner.
Across the room the enormous shaggy monster that was Derek leaped onto the counter. A clawed paw swiped the butane lab lighter and raised it to the sprinkler. A tiny blue flame flared at the end of the lighter. It licked the sprinkler, once, twice, and then water rained down in a stinging spray.
Bye-bye gas.
A high-pitched whine tore through the quiet.
The explosion shook the door, slapping my ears. The metal door screeched and fell into the room. A flashlight beam sliced through the darkness, searching for targets.
I squeezed the hilt of my saber. It felt so comforting, like shaking hands with an old friend. Water soaked my hair.
Derek sank his claws into the paneling, leaped, and crawled across the ceiling with terrifying speed, grasping steel beams for support.
The door burst open. I slid down into a crouch.
The first man edged into the room, his black handgun gripped in both hands in a time-honored shooter stance. The bulletproof vest made him appear almost square. The man spun right, spun left, turning the gun barrel two feet above me, and advanced into the room.
A second man followed, holding his flashlight and gun in a Chapman hold: the gun gripped in the right hand, the flashlight in the left, the hands clenched together. He turned, his flashlight sweeping the length of the room.
Come in, there is nothing to fear. You’re big and strong, and your gun will protect you.
The bright beam glided over lab tables, biting at darkness broken by streams of water. Left, right . . .
The third man stepped into the room, covering the man with the flashlight. Classic.
The beam slid up. A nightmare looked into the light: a huge man towering eight and a half feet high, his colossal muscles bulging in hard ridges on his immense frame. His skin glowed in the light, pure white, as if he were molded out of snow. A blue mane cascaded down his shoulders, framing a cruel face, and on that face two eyes blazed, pure translucent blue, like ice from the deepest part of a glacier.
Looking into them was like staring back in time, at a thing that was alien and ancient and very, very hostile. Saiman had taken his true form.
The men froze for half a second. They expected a man, a woman, and Saiman. They didn’t expect their flashlight to find an enraged ice giant in the darkness and they gaped, just as the ancient Scandinavians had done ages ago, gripped by a paralysis of awe and fear.
I sliced the inside of the closest man’s thigh in a sharp upward thrust, severing muscles and the femoral artery, stabbed him in the heart, pulled the blade out, and sliced the neck of the second man in a fluid easy movement—the blade was so sharp, the cut was almost delicate.
The man with the flashlight fired once. Saiman’s enormous hand slapped the firearm out of his fist.
Massive fingers clenched him and the man vanished into the darkness. A hoarse scream cut through the silence, full of pain and pure terror.
Derek dropped to the floor and bounded over the bodies into the living room. I followed him.
Behind us the man kept howling, no longer desperate, just hurting.