Taming the Darkness: Love & Monsters, Book 2

by Devin Harnois

  He had the other alt on the ground. They were still struggling, but it was clear Victor had the upper hand. Still, Claire’s stomach twisted with worry. There was so much blood on both of them she couldn’t tell how badly he was hurt. The alt squirmed around onto his back and slashed with his claws. They sliced neatly through Victor’s sweatshirt and tore into his flesh. Victor’s growl rose in pitch until it was almost a yelp, but he didn’t lose his grip. With his other hand, he reached back and punched through the alt’s chest. A wet crunch echoed off the walls, and Claire’s mouth fell open as she watched Victor yank his hand back full of bright red organs. The alt twitched, making a bubbling, gasping noise. Victor stared down at his opponent until the creature stopped moving, then he let out a victorious howl.

  Claire couldn’t help a little shiver. Am I really okay with what he is? Can I be okay with something like that?

  Victor dropped the organs and turned toward her. One brown eye, one blue. “Nine.”

  She opened her mouth to ask what he meant and then she got it. He was counting down. “Are you okay?” She looked at his bleeding arm and tried to see if he was bleeding anywhere else.

  “Little banged up.” He looked down at his arm like he didn’t quite know what to do with it.

  She fought the urge to check every inch of him to make sure he wasn’t hurt more than he was letting on. He’d healed from the punctures in his side and that was much worse than the slashes he’d just gotten. “If it’s not too bad, the next one just went that way.”

  His jaw crackled as it resumed human shape. “Let’s get him.”

  They followed his trail down the hall and through a collapsed door to another hall. Blood was all over the hall in spots and smears, mingling with the alt’s trail, but the steady line of fresh blood was clear enough for Claire to follow. She’d hurt him bad. The door at the end of that hall had bloody handprints on it. She reached to open it when a voice came over the com. “All personnel, they’ve breached the main floor. I repeat, the experiments have breached the main floor. We are locking the main floor down.”

  “Oh, shit.” Blood drained from her face. “They got to the main floor.” On her first day here she’d wondered if the security was enough. Now she knew it wasn’t. She pictured those things loose in the city and wondered how many people they’d kill before they were stopped.

  “Then we should follow.”

  She frowned at him as she considered it. He was right. Victor understood how they thought and could fight them better than anyone else, and if they got out of the building he could track them. Claire nodded and opened the door.

  They found the alt in the middle of the hall being attacked by a hellhound. For a second, she entertained the idea of saving her ammo and waiting until one of them killed the other. But they were blocking the way to the stairs and she and Victor didn’t have any time to lose. Victor crowded in behind her and she held up a hand. “This one’s mine.”

  Even bleeding from a dozen holes, the alt held his own against the hellhound. She felt a little twinge of guilt for taking a possible victory away from him. She fired on both of them. The alt was closer and caught most of the bullets. He howled, his body twitching with the impacts. The hellhound yelped, broke off the fight and ran away. The alt turned, probably to attack her, but he fell to his knees. She put several bullets in his head, turning it into a pulped mess, and he collapsed.

  Her ears rang. She watched his body to make sure he wasn’t going to move.

  “Eight,” Victor said. If he was confirming the alt was dead, then he was dead. She went past the body, heading for where she hoped the stairs were. She knew there were elevators on this side, if she had the layout right in her head. At least, she remembered them being on this side on the main floor. Through the ringing in her ears, the sounds of battle seemed awful loud. Was there a fight going on around a nearby corner? With a huge thud, something fell out of a doorway and lay writhing on the floor several yards away.

  “Oh shit,” Victor muttered. She could barely hear him over all the noise. “They’re using the elevator shaft.” He ran past her.

  “Hey!” She went after him as she processed what he’d said. The alts were using the elevator shaft, not the stairs. The elevators probably hadn’t been guarded since they were shut off for the lockdown. The soldiers had to have been guarding the stairs, and either the alts had been driven back and forced to find another way up, or—much more frightening—they’d planned to go up the elevator shaft knowing it wouldn’t be guarded. If any of the alts was as smart as Victor, they were in a hell of a lot more trouble than she’d thought.

  Victor fell on the twitching alt and tore his throat open. It was almost a mercy kill. “Seven.” He looked over at another body wedged in a doorway. “Six.”

  The battle continued above them. “How are we going to get up there? If we go charging after the alts, our own people will shoot you. Even if I warn them we’re coming, they might not be able to tell you apart. Or they might not care.” It made her feel sick, but part of her understood. Under different circumstances she might agree with them.

  “Hmm…” Victor itched at his side. “We could find another way up, one they’re not guarding.”

  “And what way would that be? Are we gonna break through the ceiling?” She huffed in frustration.

  “That might work,” he said in a distant, thoughtful voice. He looked around. “Or…I could pass.”

  “What?” She had to have misheard him over the noise.

  He went over to one of the dead guards and pulled off his helmet. “Pass as one of them.”

  She swallowed. “You are one of them. You’re still human. You’re still a soldier.”

  “You know what I mean.” He glanced at her and tugged at the soldier’s armor. “Get the major to give us permission to get to the main floor. We can go back to the other stairway if we have to.”

  That was almost on the other side of the building. “We don’t have much time. We have to get them before they get outside.”

  “I know. I’ll get dressed fast.”

  Chapter Ten

  The uniform felt tight. Victor kept fidgeting as they hurried down the hall. He could use his claws if he needed to, but any more shifting than that would ruin the outfit. Holding a gun felt strange and brought a pang of nostalgia. A nasty skittered across their path and he started to go after it.

  “Victor!”

  He froze mid-stride. Oh yeah, that’s right. He brought his gun up. Claire joined him and they both filled the nasty with bullets. Killing it with bullets instead of his hands. The old way, the human way of fighting nasties. It tugged at things inside him, and for the space of a breath, he thought he might cry. “I want out of these fucking clothes,” he muttered as they hurried on.

  “Soon enough.”

  “I can’t fight them like this.”

  “Putting on those clothes was your idea,” Claire said.

  “It wasn’t a perfect idea.” He rolled his shoulders, making them a little smaller. The guy he’d taken the clothes from wasn’t as big as him.

  “It’ll keep you from getting shot.”

  “I know. We’ll need another plan once we get up there. Gotta take this shit off.” How could they keep panicky soldiers—and even more dangerous, panicky scientists with guns—from shooting him? Alston could order them not to, but in the middle of a fight he looked just like the other alts. If he came around a corner fighting one of them, there was no way for people to tell them apart unless they took the time to look at his eyes. “My eyes, if we can get them to pay attention.”

  “What?”

  “This way.” He turned down the hall that led to the stairway. He knew where they were, almost like he had a map in his head. The map had built up as they wandered the floor, and he knew the shortest way back to the stairs they’d taken. And there was the buckled door and the pile of nasties he’d killed. “If we tell them to look for my eyes, the brown and the blue, I’m the only one with them and
they never change.” He wiggled again. These pants were so uncomfortable.

  “Good idea. Unless they decide to shoot you anyway. Lathell’s people might not care you’re on our side.”

  “Gotta take the risk.” He kicked some of the dead nasties aside and opened the door. “First, they have to let me on the main floor.” Alston had told them to go back to this stairway. There was too much activity going on at the other one. Nasties and alts had poured out of the elevator shaft and that whole end of the building was barely controlled chaos. The nasties were causing enough problems, but the alts were slaughtering the soldiers. One alt had been killed and a big number five kept flashing in Victor’s head. Five more left to kill.

  He and Claire raced up the stairs and she pounded on the door.

  “Who is it?” A muffled voice asked.

  “Scarlotti and Monroe. Let us in.”

  The door opened and the major himself stood there. He spent an extra second looking Victor over and then he let them in. “Looking good, Monroe.”

  “Not for long,” he grumbled. He couldn’t wait to rip this shit off.

  Fear drifted off Claire. “He can’t fight the alts unless he shifts,” she told Alston and the cluster of soldiers surrounding them. “Tell everyone not to shoot the alt with one blue eye.” He listened to her heart thump thump thump and had an urge to pull her into his arms and tell her everything would be all right.

  “That might not stop all of them,” Alston said.

  “I know.” He tugged at his chest armor.

  “All right.” The major half-turned and gave the order.

  “Where’s Patterson?” Victor asked. He was the one that started this, and if there was any organization to the alts’ escape, Patterson was the leader.

  “I can see if anyone—”

  The alarm went off again. Alston went a little pale. Claire grabbed Victor’s arm and said, “They’re out of the building.”

  A few guns, a few more guards and a double electric fence between them and the city. “Which side?” Victor dropped his gun to the floor and yanked at his armor.

  The major had to yell the question twice into his com to get an answer. “East,” he said.

  “East,” Victor repeated. Alston pointed, but he could feel it, the direction the sun came from each morning, the deepest part of night now. He threw his chest and shoulder armor down next to his gun. “Come on,” he told Claire, and ran.

  “Do you think the fence will hold them?” Claire asked, panting as she tried to keep up with him.

  Victor kept slowing down to strip off clothes. Shirt gone, awkward hop to get shoes off. “Not for long.” Pants—extra annoying. He used his claws to rip them apart and kicked off each leg. A door blocked their way. Through the reinforced glass on either side, he saw several soldiers. He skidded to a stop and tried the door. Locked. He pounded on it. “Open up, gotta get through.”

  Claire caught up with him. “Not helping.” She pressed the intercom next to the door. “Let us through. It’s Monroe and Scarlotti. We have to get outside.”

  The guard that opened the door looked wary, especially when he got a look at totally naked Victor. “I know,” Claire said with a sigh. “Just let us through. We have to hurry.” She pushed her way past him and Victor followed. Six other guards stood staring at them. “Move!”

  “What the fuck,” one of them muttered, but they all shuffled aside.

  Claire started running again. At the end of this hall was another door and from the barred windows on each side he knew it was the door out. Also, more guards. Victor loped past Claire and started shifting. The familiar muffled pain flooded through him as he tried to change everything at once. Legs and arms and claws and jaws and shoulders. Almost too many things to think of at once. Ten soldiers guarded the door. They turned and four of them lifted their guns.

  “Oh shit,” Claire said. “It’s Monroe! He’s on our side, don’t shoot,” she screamed. One of them lowered his gun, the other three looked like they had no intention of letting him through.

  “Open the fucking door and let me through,” Victor roared as he lowered his arms to run on all fours. Patterson and the other alts were out there, just a fence and some flimsy defenses between them and the city. One of the guards unlocked the door and one of the gun-pointing ones yelled for her to stop.

  “Stop right there or we’ll shoot,” one of the three ordered.

  He ignored him and kept coming, so they fired. He dodged gracefully to the side to avoid their bullets. He couldn’t dodge them all, especially as he got closer. How many bullets could he take without it killing him? And how much damage was he willing to take before he had to face the alts outside?

  Claire screamed his name. Claire. He skidded to a stop and put his hands up. “Don’t shoot.” He might be able to dodge some of their bullets and even take some without serious damage, but Claire couldn’t. She was right behind him, right in the line of fire. Unfortunately, stopping didn’t stop them from shooting. A bullet sank into his right arm and there was a white-hot flare of pain. Everyone started shouting.

  “Kill him!”

  “Don’t shoot him!”

  “Stop!”

  Other things were lost in the noise of the alarm and the sound of gunfire. Then a voice rose above them. “Cease fire. That’s an order.” The other guards wrestled the weapons away from the shooters. There was more shouting while his wound throbbed in time to the whooping alarm.

  “Shit, are you okay?” Claire ran up to him, hovering her hands over his arm, afraid to touch him.

  “I’ll live.” He flexed his fingers, sending bolts of pain through his arm. It would fade. For now he had to do his best to ignore it.

  Claire turned, bringing up her gun. “I’m gonna fucking kill you.” She stalked toward the guards.

  “Let it go,” he heard himself say. How surreal, trying to calm Claire down. He curled his wounded arm against his chest and went after her on three legs. Limbs, whatever.

  “They fucking shot you.” The three shooters were being restrained by the others.

  “Other things to worry about now.”

  She gave him a fierce look, not directed at him but at anyone who would dare hurt him. I protect my mate and my mate protects me. A flicker of desire went through him. “Fighting first.”

  She clenched her jaw and nodded. “Open the fucking door.”

  This time no one stopped them.

  Floodlights made the perimeter almost as bright as day, and he wished they’d turn them—and the fucking alarm—off. A second later, he got his wish. The lights, the alarm, everything went off, and they were plunged into darkness. Victor’s eyes quickly adjusted, but he stayed where he was because he knew Claire couldn’t see. Light came from the rest of the city, but it wasn’t enough for the humans to see by. He scanned the area, looking for a generator. “If the power’s out, the fence is out.”

  The gunshots and shouting continued. Near them, someone screamed. Half the lights came back on and he blinked as his eyes adjusted.

  “Must be a backup generator,” Claire said.

  “Enough juice for the fence?” he asked. A figure streaked across the grounds and jumped halfway up the fence. Since it kept climbing, there was his answer. Victor ran after it, still on three limbs. He caught the creature’s scent and a growl rumbled in his chest. Patterson. He was almost to the top when Victor launched himself at the fence. He grabbed with both his hands and yelped as pain shot up his wounded arm. Still, he held on and forced himself to climb.

  Patterson looked down at him and snarled, his mouth stretched inhumanly wide and lined with sharp teeth. Victor caught up to him, his wound screaming for him to stop. He lunged and grabbed Patterson, using all his strength to pull him off the fence. Victor twisted in midair like a cat, putting Patterson on the bottom. They hit the ground and he screamed as his right arm came down on Patterson. The other alt let out a gasp as the air was knocked out of him.

  They recovered at almost the sa
me time, Patterson throwing him off as Victor shifted to make an attack. Victor landed on his feet and Patterson whirled to face him. Gunfire chattered around them and Claire screamed at the soldiers to stop. Patterson slashed at him with wicked claws. He dodged and moved inside Patterson’s reach, grabbing his arm.

  Then they were on the ground, wrestling for position. Patterson snapped at him with those wicked teeth and Victor stretched his jaw into a muzzle, snapping back with sharp teeth of his own. They got a few nips on each other, the scent of fresh blood driving their frenzy. They broke away, both gaining their feet. Circling, growling at each other, looking for a weakness.

  Victor tried out a new idea, growing sharp spines along his back like a hellhound. “You could’ve left on patrol. No guns, no sirens, no walls.”

  “Wanted out, wanted to kill.” Patterson’s voice sounded strange coming out of that mouth. “Don’t you feel it? The need.” His eyes half-closed and a little tremor went through him.

  “Need to kill nasties,” Victor agreed. And alts. The satisfaction of the last few kills still sang in him.

  “Not nasties. Humans. Kill them. Kill them all.” Patterson rushed him and Victor turned to block with his shoulder. Patterson’s sharp teeth cut into him, but he brought his head around and nearly got his jaws around the alt’s neck. At the last instant, Patterson moved and Victor bit down on his shoulder instead. Both of them bit down harder, Victor too stubborn to let go despite the burning pain. Patterson broke away first, taking a small chunk of Victor with him. The pain flared through him and he lost his grip.

  He stumbled away to give himself some distance while he tried to shake the injury off. It hurt, it hurt like hell, but he didn’t feel pain the same way he used to. It was more distant since he’d been altered, and he assumed this was how nasties experienced pain. That was why they kept coming no matter how much damage was done to them.