Two figures moved to stand, blocking Margo’s line of sight.
“Yes, well, I asked Miro to maim you and it looks as though he aimed perfectly, despite your vest.” The lights from the courtyard glistened off his wet face. Margo shifted her stare from Slider to the doctor and realized for the first time, that something horrible had happened to him. There seemed to be no skin on his face, just tendons and muscles exposed—juicy and sick in the moonlight.
Her glassy eyes locked onto Slider’s. She watched him for a moment before trying to speak.
“Slider?” she gasped, pleading with her eyes at the vacant expression on the boy’s face. Seeing the void blackness there, her heart broke on even deeper levels.
“Oh, please allow me to introduce my Monarch Slave,” Dr. Williams scoffed. “This is Miro Reznikov.” He waved at the young man gallantly.
Slider/Miro didn’t move. He didn’t even seem to breathe as he stood, jaw-clenched, weapon pointed directly at the fallen woman.
“What do you plan to do with us?” she croaked. Her voice was much weaker than she anticipated.
Oh, God. Did he hit my spinal cord? She grimaced internally.
“Well now, I’m not going to worry too much about you, my dear. I have soldiers en route to handle you. As for the children, well…we all know children need a firm hand from time to time.” He chuckled again.
That’s when she saw it.
The blackness draped across the ground behind Dr. Williams seemed to shift.
Margo tried to blink away the waves of dizziness she felt creeping over her and see more clearly.
She watched the evil doctor’s shadow morphing, growing—defying physics.
It grew appendages on either side. They stretched wide.
That’s when Margo knew with every cell in her body what she was seeing was Williams’ true shape.
His huge silhouette hung menacingly behind him, prancing anxiously. Margo knew what he was now.
Williams was pure evil—his shadow was that of a winged demon.
She watched with horror as the shape stretched its bat-like wings wide, shook its dragon-like head, and growled unmistakably.
The human form of Williams was watching Margo watch his shadow. When she tore her eyes away from the sickeningly black shape to look at him, she saw he was smiling a toothless, bloody smile.
He knew what he was doing.
He showed me who he is and wants me to fear him.
Even as she laid face first on the cold flagstone walkway, blood pooling in the small of her back, she felt a surge of righteous fury.
Bloody fissures erupted where cheeks used to be when he smiled showing off his toothless and bloody drool-filled mouth.
Margo’s body was shaking, but she couldn’t discern whether it was from the abject anger she felt toward the demonic monster that had hunted her family for years, or if her body was going into shock from her gunshot wounds.
“You will lose, demon.” Margo shuddered.
Williams’ laughter echoed through the courtyard, trying to worm its way into Margo’s soul.
She yelled a soldier’s battle cry, reached into her boot and quickly withdrew the Glock hidden there.
With no time to aim, Margo moved to pull the trigger when she felt the gun explode in her hand.
Miro stood stalk still, gun still aimed directly at Margo’s hands, smoke wisps spilling from the tip of his 9mm.
Casually, Williams reached into the breast pocket of his three-pieced suit and retrieved a red handkerchief. He dabbed his bloody weeping eyes nonchalantly, as though he just had a little dust in it. “Well done, Miro. You’re worth your weight in gold, dear boy.”
“As for you, wretched human, as you can see, you cannot touch me.”
Even as he finished his sentence, a wide-eyed Margo heard boots running toward them.
“You’ll have to forgive their tardiness,” Williams continued calmly as though he hadn’t just been seconds away from sporting a bullet between the eyes.
“You see, tonight was a special Moonlight Retribution Match on the other side of the compound. Most of my metasoldiers were in attendance as this was a much anticipated battle between two of my Perfico Rez.” He sighed lovingly. “I had to leave my new second-in-command, Dr. Chaunders, to handle the proceedings, though I would have loved to have attended myself. Alas, Miro warned me at the last minute I was to have some unexpected guests.” He nodded toward the Research Hospital.
“It looks as though someone has been playing with the electrical power over there.” His bloody lips made a wet tsking noise that sounded sickening to Margo’s traumatized senses. She was fighting the waves of unconsciousness that crowded her line of sight, but the fight was becoming futile.