“The signal will be that I’ll be attacking them, too.”
“Perfect.” Milo smiled. Henry wanted to return the smile, set Milo at ease for whatever came next. But he didn’t really feel it. He felt instead the same way Palermo felt on the other side of the door. As though things were coming to a head – that if it wasn’t already a seriously deadly business, it was about to become so in very short order.
I mashed someone to baby food through my freakshow-gigantic fingers, he thought. I think I can handle a couple of guys with knives and guns, or whatever other weapons they have. Unless they’ve got close air support, this should pan out in our favor.
Henry wanted desperately to believe in this voice, but he was still so unsure of his size, the way he moved. Pulping something (or someone) – no matter how vile and repulsive an act – in a state of relative calm was not the same as fighting angry people in close quarters. And although a lot of Henry was metal, there were a lot of undeveloped parts on his body still in the process of changing, hardening. Some that weren’t even hardening to metal, but some other substance. Some kind of rock, he thought. But these many spots were still not even close to impervious.
My Achilles heels. Plural.
The knocking was so insistent now that it would certainly wake the neighbors if they didn’t open up soon.
Henry stepped forward, head scraping the ceiling. Unlocked the door, turned the knob, pulled it open.
Krebosche’s face was level with Henry’s stomach. He stepped back from Palermo, and his eyes traveled upward, met Henry’s gaze.
Henry’s rocks-in-a-grinder voice said, “Who are you?”
Krebosche took a moment to gather himself – or, rather, what he thought constituted gathering himself. He was so astonished that he wasn’t entirely sure what was coming out of his mouth. “Are… are you Kyllo?” he said.
If I’m gonna make a real break for it, now is certainly the time, Palermo thought. But he didn’t. He just stood there with a gun at his back, terrified. And ashamed of that fact. But in all truth, he had never imagined that Henry would have turned into what stood before him now. He was nearly as dumbstruck as Krebosche.
Henry didn’t answer the question. Instead said, “Tell me who you are.”
“William Krebosche. I… need to know what happened to… my girlfriend.” His mind spun. He felt nausea threatening. He didn’t know how to make sense of the figure before him. It was as though his brain was trying to plug in what it thought it should be seeing rather than what it actually saw. He felt control of the situation already slipping.
“Who was your girlfriend?”
“Adelina Palermo,” Krebosche said, running on autopilot.
Everyone just stared. Milo turned his head toward Adelina, who was expressionless.
“She’s… gone, William,” Henry said. “She has moved on. She will not be returning.”
“I know – I guess I’ve always known – it’s just that I…” Krebosche stared at the floor. He was beginning to come apart. Felt his insides burning up, like someone had touched a hot flame to them. Like his guts were being stirred with a hot poker.
Henry saw the hurt in Krebosche’s eyes, and understood it. He also understood that he had a knife or a gun – something – pointing at Palermo’s head.
“Palermo said that… that you’d know where she was. And I thought maybe if I could just see her again, let her know that… See, I just want her to know how much…” Krebosche felt his mind unravelling like a spool. His face had gone pale. He staggered back farther.
* * *
Palermo just stood for a moment, uncertain what to do.
At precisely the same time, Henry was suddenly gripped with ferocious pain. It ripped up one side of his body and down the other. He doubled over in agony, went down to his knees, clutching his stomach with one hand, his head with the other. He let out a roar that not only woke the neighbors, but probably everyone on every floor of the building.
Palermo reeled back against the hallway wall, open-mouthed.
Krebosche pointed the gun at Henry. He knew it would be next to useless against him, but on some instinctual level he still ridiculously believed in its stopping power. When Henry had doubled over, he’d revealed Faye standing behind him. Krebosche saw her, trained his weapon on her instead, said in a sleepy voice, as though waking from a dream, “Hey, who’s that?”
Henry roared again. Krebosche panicked and fired.
Faye went down.