“Yes, I know about that.” Rick seemed to regain some of his strength, pulling himself straight. “Ulbrine gave you a carrot, and you want the entire produce cart.”
“I wouldn’t threaten the stability of our numbers for funding my research,” Kal said, but the anger in his voice was giving him away.
“Why not?” Rick rocked back, blood spotting his collar and cuffs. “Being a scientist doesn’t grant you a golden moral compass, and you are broken, both your compass and your research. But it went wrong, didn’t it,” he accused, and Kal set the dispersal regulator aside, his steps wary as he headed back to the control room. “You didn’t expect it to spread this fast,” Rick said, stumbling slightly as he followed. “Did you. You son of a bitch.”
Kal’s lips pressed as he realized he was going to have to kill him. Rick would tell his superiors. They’d realize Kal was responsible. But if Rick died amid Trisk’s failed crop with his name on the request for the burning protocol, everyone would assume Rick had committed suicide rather than face the accusations of creating a toxic tomato and infecting the world with it.
“Stop right there,” Rick threatened, and Kal spun, pissed that it was falling apart around him. “I know what you did, and you will answer for it.”
Kal stood with his feet firmly on the stained cement walk. “Not today,” he said, pulling on a ley line. The splintered feel of it poured into Kal, giving him courage.
Rick’s eyes were almost swollen shut, but the vampire snarled, his bleeding hands crooked to gouge. “You aren’t leaving here alive,” Rick promised, teeth bared.
“Funny.” Breathless, Kal forced the incoming energy into his palms until they burned with the free force and flammable liquid. “That’s exactly what I was going to say to you.”
With a fierce roar of anger, Rick lunged. Kal fell back, eyes widening at how fast the vampire was. Kal slipped on the black slime, going down in an ungraceful pinwheeling of arms and legs. It probably saved his life as Rick’s lash whispered over Kal’s head.
“Burn, you bastard,” Kal swore, still on the ground as he threw a ball of unfocused energy not at Rick, who was regrouping for another attack, but at the bags of fertilizer behind him.
Rick spun, sprinting to the distant door, but it was too late.
The green-tinted ball of energy hit the bags and exploded.
Kal cowered, his grip on the ley line strengthening. “Cum gladio et sale!” he shouted, gasping in relief as his circle sprang up. It was chancy and weak since the outline of it existed only in his mind, not scribed on the floor. It would do nothing to stop a bullet or demon, but it would hold for the instant needed for the fireball to wash over him.
Ears stunned, Kal looked up to see Rick thrown twenty feet, sliding to a halt in the black muck. Triggered by the blast, the sprinklers hissed on. Kal hunched where he was, jerking when the tissue destroyer, not water, pattered down against his circle, a foot above his head.
“My God,” Kal whispered as he realized what was going to happen. He watched in horror as Rick stumbled to his feet, oblivious to the flammable rain pouring down upon him as he staggered toward Kal.
Kal’s eyes flicked to the bags of burning fertilizer, then the door. He’d never make it if he tried to run. Swallowing hard, Kal scribed a circle in the muck with a shaky finger, a pure white showing against the black of decay. “Cum gladio et sale,” he whispered again, strengthening his circle. But it wasn’t against Rick this time.
With a little flick of flame, the spray caught. Kal watched, horrified, as it sped up and out with a whoosh. Rick screamed when it touched him, and then he became covered in flame, rolling to beat it out. But the ground itself was on fire, and his high-pitched agony rang against the bare walls, over and over as he tried to get to the safety of the office, failing.
Kal looked away, cold and shaking under his bubble, waiting for it to be over. Rick’s voice finally ceased. One by one, the sprinklers ran out of propellant and stopped, little drips of fire falling from them. And still Kal sat, unable to move.
Slowly Kal realized a klaxon was ringing. He stood, his circle falling about him as he touched it. He gazed down, fixated on the disk of black goo he stood in, surrounded by pure, clean ash. Nearby, a lump of burned flesh lay smoking, but he didn’t look at it. Rick wouldn’t be needing that after-death plan anymore.
The air was fresher, and Kal’s head rose as he lurched to the cement path. He left footprints of black decay as he walked away, but they grew fainter and fainter the farther he went, and soon, there was no trace of him at all.
17