Body Master

by C. J. Barry

  Seneca and Skinman walked past the first shelving unit, and the pierced kid followed her with a gunpoint. When she turned the corner, Seneca glanced over her shoulder and gave Max a pointed look.

  That was when he moved on Brownie.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  It took every bit of self- control Seneca had to not kill Skinman on the spot, the sonofabitch. She’d never seen so many remains in one place in her life. There must be hundreds of people in those jars and containers. A leg here, an eye there. It was morbid, but not as morbid as the photos of each dead body stretched out on the floor. And the bastard had the gall to be proud of his slaughter.

  “You’ve got enough DNA here to build an army,” she said, offhandedly.

  He smiled smugly. “I do.”

  He could too, and who would prevent him? Dempsey was right. This had to end now.

  Skinman stopped in front of a shelf with four large containers. Each sported the photo of a young, perfect, twenty-something corpse. “I think this specimen will do.”

  Specimen. Like the dead man had been nothing more than a piece of DNA. A hunk of meat. Her anger grew, but she needed to play nice long enough to give Dempsey a chance to take out the other Shifter.

  “Not bad,” she said, forcing a smile. “Was he healthy? I don’t want someone who’s died of some gross disease.”

  Skinman shook his head. “Perfectly healthy. Pristine, virgin DNA.”

  “Then how did he die?”

  “Gunshot,” Skinman deadpanned.

  And that much was probably true. The victim had been murdered in the prime of his life to fill an inventory slot. “How much does he cost?”

  “For you?” Skinman said, stroking his chin. “Twenty thousand.”

  “Dollars?” she asked, genuinely shocked. “That’s a little steep. What’s to stop me and my fiancé from finding some dead guy on the streets?”

  Skinman squinted at her. “I have a guarantee.”

  It gets better. “What kind of guarantee?”

  He grinned. “If you don’t like the final product, I’ll replace it.”

  Lovely. “I don’t know—”

  “Hey, I like my customers happy. Otherwise, I don’t get more clients.”

  She sighed. “You have a deal.”

  Then his grin turned ugly, and his voice became a snarl. “And if you ever breathe a word of this to anyone, we’ll find you and kill you. And your family, your pets, your neighbors, and I’ll pin your lover for everything.”

  She gasped. “What?”

  He raised his hands. “I’m just protecting my business.”

  And she was really going to enjoy putting him out of business. “I’ll never tell a soul. I promise.”

  He nodded to the kid with the pierced face. “Carry the container.”

  Seneca’s pulse quickened. The kid would have to holster his gun to carry the container. He’d be defenseless, except for the part where he was a Shifter.

  The kid did just that. He led the way with Seneca behind him and Skinman behind her. She calculated the steps, the open space between the rows of shelves, and figured Dempsey had already dealt with the other Shifter and was waiting for them. He could handle the kid. Skinman was hers. She reached into her coat and slid the disrupter out of its hiding place.

  They turned the corner and a big, gray Shifter hand caught the kid in the face, sending him flying into the wall. Seneca swung around and elbowed Skinman in the face as hard as she could. He gave a yell and covered his face, even as he began to shift. He knocked jars and containers out of the way as he quickly morphed into Primary Shifter form.

  By the time she had the disrupter pistol pointed at him, he’d shifted into the smallest, scrawniest Shifter she’d ever seen and had disappeared around a shelving unit before she could get a drop on him.

  She cast a quick glance at Dempsey, who ran past her, massive and solid. He yelled at her, “I’ll take Skinman. Don’t go after the one in the office alone. Wait for me.”

  Seneca watched him turn the corner in disbelief. She hated when he ordered her around, and she headed in the other direction. The kid with all the piercings was slumped on the floor, dead. She found the other Shifter stabbed and lifeless at the entrance of the cooler. Dempsey wasn’t kidding around. He didn’t plan to leave any survivors, and now she understood why. How many more of these coolers were there? She shuddered to think. But maybe if they took this one down, it would send a message to any wannabe Skinmen in this town. Don’t screw with XCEL.

  Then the lights went out.

  Busted, she thought. Did the guy in front kill the lights or someone else? She was taking no chances. She reached for the prototype UVC grenade with her free hand. She hadn’t had a chance to test it. In fact, she wasn’t even authorized to have it without proper training, but that didn’t stop her from stealing it from the XCEL weapons room. She peeked around the cooler doorway into the hall leading to the front office area. It was completely black as well. No shadows, but the Shifter was waiting for them. There was only one way out of here, and he knew it.

  She had a flashlight in her pocket but she couldn’t use it, couldn’t risk it giving her location away. She’d have to rely on her ability to see his shadow. She dragged her shoulder against the wall as she walked the corridor, counting steps. She’d ticked off forty-two on the way in, and right now, they felt like an eternity. At the same time, she kept her gaze and her gun focused on the end of the hallway. When she got to thirty-five steps, she slowed and pressed against the wall. No sounds, no movement in Skinman’s office.

  Just maybe, the Shifter had skipped out and she wouldn’t have to kill anyone. She took a careful look around the corner. The room was illuminated only by a stream of light from the canal. Then she caught a flash in the room, a ghost behind a chair. She flicked open the safety on the grenade and rallied her concentration. All her senses rose, noting every nuance, every sound, every moment. Time slowed. Her body hummed and synchronized.

  In a fluid second, she pressed the grenade trigger, started a mental count, and tossed the grenade into the room. There was a blue flash and she entered the room, disrupter leading the way.

  One.

  Crap, there were a pair of Shifters—one on each side of the room.

  Two.

  She fired at the closest target to her left as his shadow floundered under the effect of the grenade, and hit him in the center of his body mass. He dropped.

  Three.

  She spun right, where the second target was stumbling toward her.

  Four.

  She shot at his torso, but it didn’t seem to slow him down.

  Five.

  His arms flailed at her clumsily, almost blindly, in the aftermath of the UVC blast.

  Six . . . She ducked out of the way of his blows, hopped up on the edge of the desk, and rolled over the top of it.

  Eight.

  The Shifter turned toward her faster, recovering with amazing speed. Damn, they were good.

  Ten.

  She grabbed the chair and flung it over the top of the desk at him. She launched herself after the chair, smashing it into him. He stumbled backward to the floor, the chair landing on top of him. She hit the concrete floor hard beside him, jamming her shoulder. Ignoring the jolt of pain that shot down her arm, she reached out, grabbed a piece of Shifter, and said, “Shift.”

  Energy pulsed through her body and hand. The Shifter let out a shrill yell and took a whack at her. He caught her in the temple, sending pinpricks of light across her eyes. She spun out of reach, and he curled up like a baby. His cries echoed off the walls as she sat back, gathering her senses.

  All the noise was sure to draw more Shifters. She pushed to her feet and reached the first Shifter, who was still disoriented, and force-shifted him before he came to. Then she heard thumping footsteps from the side door just before it opened. Couldn’t be Dempsey; he hadn’t come down the hallway yet, so as soon as the shadow appeared, she fired the disrupter.

 
; The charge struck a Shifter in human form, creating a dark spot on his upper torso, and he staggered slightly as he stopped to stare at her but he didn’t fall.

  “I knew I should have brought the Glocks,” she muttered and ran for the canal, the only lit place she had. He followed, nearly catching her before she rounded the doorway into the water tunnel. She ran for her life, but she had no idea where she was going. The tunnels were out of the question, and she couldn’t see how far the canal walkway ran.

  Then she noticed the break in the concrete and remembered the whirlpool. She stopped and turned to face the Shifter as he lurched toward her, a little woozy from the disrupter. That was when she saw the gun in his hand.

  “I’m unarmed,” she said, tossing the disrupter on the walkway between them.

  “I’m not,” he said, slurring his speech. He leaned against the wall, waving the weapon at her. “Sucks to be you.”

  “A big boy like you afraid of one woman?” she said, truly disgusted. “What a coward.”

  He frowned. “I’d rather be a live coward than a dead human any day.”

  She lifted her chin. “Fight me like a man. Or maybe you aren’t a man. Can never tell with you freaks.”

  “This freak can kill you either way,” he said and shoved his gun in his waistband. He lunged at her, and she ducked low, dropped her shoulder, and took him out at the knees. Her sore shoulder buckled under his weight. One of his feet caught her in the head, nearly knocking her into the rushing water with him.

  She scrambled to the safety of the wall and watched him splash in the water as he was pulled deep into the center of the whirlpool. And then he vanished.

  “Let’s see how fast you can turn in to a fish, asshole,” she said and checked the underground tunnel. Thankfully, she didn’t see any more Shifters around because, frankly, she was beat. Her shoulder hurt like hell, her hands were battered and bleeding, and she had a headache that would kill a horse.

  “I told him it was a crazy-ass plan. Did he listen? No.” She hauled herself up and retrieved the disrupter before heading to the cooler to back up her partner. Dempsey owed her a damn fine bottle of wine.

  Max chased Skinman through the racks of body parts. The bastard was small but fast. Obviously, he was used to running from a fight. He poofed behind another rack, and Max swore as he tried to keep one eye on the door for Skinman’s guards. Plus if Skinman made it out of the cooler, Max would have a hell of a time tracking him through the maze of tunnels.

  To top it all off, Seneca was nowhere to be seen, which meant she’d gone after the quiet guy up front by herself. She was going to be the death of him yet.

  A few more minutes of hide and seek, and Max had had it. He raced to the last rack, braced himself against it, and pushed. It rocked, hung for a moment in the air, and then toppled over, taking the next rack with it. The racks crashed, one after another, sending jars, glass, fluid, tissue, and containers falling in a deafening racket. It wasn’t quiet, but it was effective.

  There was a scream as the last rack smashed into the far wall. Max made his way around the rubble, following Skinman’s groans. He found him wedged between two racks, pinned by shelves and covered with human remains.

  Skinman clawed at the debris, trying to free himself. “You’re him. Dempsey.”

  Max pulled one shelf off the stack piled on top of the Shifter so he could get to him. “Yes, and we wouldn’t be here if you weren’t so sloppy. Any other Skinmen in the city?”

  “Look, man. I’m just trying to survive, same as you.”

  “We aren’t the same,” Max growled. “Are there any others?”

  Skinman didn’t answer; he was too busy shifting back to his smaller human form. Probably trying to wriggle out from under the rubble. Fat chance. Max waited until Skinman finished his shift before reaching in to grab Skinman by his skinny human neck.

  Skinman gagged, his eyes widening as Max ripped him out of the mangled pile of metal and glass. Blood dripped from the man’s arms, chest, and hands as Max lifted him high in the air. Max squeezed Skinman’s neck, feeling the tendons and bones give under the man’s weight. “Where did you get the bodies? Homeless?”

  Skinman choked and tried to nod his head.

  “From the tunnels?”

  Another nod.

  “And you didn’t think anyone would notice?”

  A squeak came out of the Skinman. Moron.

  “Did your men trash my place?”

  Confusion on his face answered that question. Max pulled Skinman close. “Who did?”

  And that was when Max smelled it, with the full range of his Shifter abilities—the faint odor of Ell’s murderer on Skinman’s shirt. For a moment, he froze as old memories washed over him. Ell’s body bathed in blood, the sign she’d drawn, and the grief that left only pure, red rage behind.

  His hand tightened around Skinman’s neck, his voice raw with emotion. “Who is he? Who killed my wife?”

  Skinman’s hands flailed as he shook his head in terror and confusion. Max forced himself to loosen his grip and shoved Skinman back against the broken leg of a rack. Skinman yelped as Max pushed his spine into the pole.

  “Who have you talked today? Besides these guys?”

  Skinman looked at him. “No one. Just you.”

  Max put a little more pressure on. “You talked to someone. Tell me who he is.”

  Then Skinman’s eye widened. He knew. “I can’t. He’ll kill me.”

  “No,” Max said, his teeth gritted with the effort to control himself. “I’m going to kill you. It can be slow and painful or quick and merciful. The choice is yours.”

  Skinman started to whimper. “Please.”

  Max pressed hard enough for bones to crack. Skinman screamed, “Hager! Name’s Hager!”

  Relief flowed through Max, a heavy weight lifted that he hadn’t realized he’d been carrying. He had a name. It might not be the right name, but it was something. He’d given up so much just for that.

  Skinman cried, “Don’t kill me.”

  “You signed your own death certificate when you murdered all these innocent people,” Max said, and then he heard Seneca.

  “Dempsey, look out!”

  In the slender beam of her flashlight, everything moved in slow motion, a little like when Riley was killed. The Shifter who’d gotten past her while she was dealing with the others charged Dempsey, jumping onto his back and driving him into Skinman. There was a chorus of screams before Dempsey raised up on his legs, throwing the attacking Shifter off him.

  When he turned around, Seneca gasped at the deep, bloody gash in his torso. Behind him, Skinman was impaled on a jagged metal post, staring wide-eyed at the ceiling. Despite the fatal-looking wound, Dempsey moved fast, grappling with the attacker and slamming him against the wall. He attacked again, and blood spattered in every direction with each meaty collision.

  Dempsey absorbed several blows to the face and body, and she saw his knees buckle. He couldn’t take much more. She raised the disrupter, studying the attacker’s twists and turns. Time slowed, she could hear her own breathing, and she fired. The payload struck the attacker in the back, and he faltered long enough to give Dempsey the opening he needed. He formed his hand into a blade and drove it into the Shifter’s belly. The attacker crumpled, a low groan filling the room, and he dropped to the floor.

  Dempsey staggered on his feet, and Seneca holstered both the gun and the flashlight to help him. Plunged in the dark once again, all six feet of him slumped against her. She wrapped her arm around his back to give him support.

  “How bad is it?” she asked him, hoping for the best.

  It took a moment for him to answer. When he did, she could hear the agony in his voice. “Had worse.”

  “You can’t lie for shit,” she said as her mind began to run through how they were going to get out of there alive. “Is he dead?”

  “Yes.”

  And Skinman was definitely down for the count. That cleared this room. Now all sh
e had to worry about were the guards standing between them and salvation. “Good. I think our work here is done. Can you walk?”

  “Yeah.”

  With the disrupter in one hand and her other arm around him, she moved forward with all her might. Dempsey was damned big, and every step was hard work for both of them. What would she do when another Shifter got in their way? How would she fight?

  When they made it out of the office and onto the ledge along the canal, she saw the full extent of Dempsey’s injuries in the light. He was trailing a ribbon of blood behind them from the deep belly wound. Worse than that, his shadow, which usually hugged his Primary form tightly, kept wandering from him in random patterns. He was in bad shape.

  “Would it be better if you changed to human form?” she asked, trying not to sound as panicky as she was becoming.

  He shook his head. “We heal faster in Primary form.”

  “That’s good, because I’m going to need your nose and eyes to lead us the hell out of here,” she said as he stumbled, sending them both into the rock wall. She gave an oomph and winced at the brunt of his weight. Then he rolled off her and leaned his back against the canal wall to rest. His hand covered the wound, and she was hesitant to move it in case he was somehow stopping the bleeding.

  “You need a doctor,” she said.

  He shook his head. “No doctor.”

  “You can’t fix this,” she said, feeling the helplessness rising in her voice. “You guys have Skinmen, what about doctors?”

  Dempsey’s eyes were closed. “Don’t know any.”

  She raised her hands in frustration. “You do this job, you risk your life every day, and you don’t have a doctor?”

  He opened one eye and looked at her. “So shoot me.”

  Hell. She rubbed her forehead. She was exhausted—mentally and physically—and if he passed out right now, she’d never be able to get him to the surface. “I swear to God, from now on, I do the planning. Your plans suck.”

  He gave her a weak smile, and she exhaled. “Come on, hero.”