Blood and Fire

by McKenna, Shannon

  “Not drawing attention to yourself.” He jerked her coat open, dabbing at the blood on her chest. “Look at your outfit. Every man who looks at you will look again, and then stare. Why the fuck not? You invited him to. And he will remember every last detail of your face and body. I guarantee it. If you don’t want attention, dress down! Go drab!”

  “But I did want you to notice me,” she blurted.

  His hand stilled, and he stared at her with a small, puzzled frown. “Yeah. Ah. About that. We need to talk about—”

  “No, we don’t. It’s not the time or place,” she said hastily. “I shouldn’t have mentioned it. I don’t mean to pick a fight with you.”

  He grunted. “Yeah, right. You’re always on the offensive, Lily. Every damn thing that comes out of your mouth is provocative.”

  She kept her gaze locked on the ragged edge of his T-shirt, staring at the threads dangling over his naked belly. “I guess so,” she said. “I’m just made that way. That’s probably why I’m single.”

  “Ah. Could that have anything to do with all these people who are trying to kill you, by any chance?”

  She jerked away from him, stung. “No! It does not! I may be a mouthy bitch, but those scumbags have never even given me a chance to insult them properly! I have no idea why they’re doing this!”

  “Calm down,” he said. “Don’t yell. We’ll draw attention.”

  She closed her scuffed, bloody coat with a jerk, belting it with numb, trembling hands. “Look, I understand your urge to scold me,” she said. “I get that a lot from guys. But could we do it outside? I’d prefer a drive-by shooting at this point than another noseful of this air.”

  He got out of her way. “It’s not necessary, you know.”

  “What?” She pushed out the door and inhaled the relatively sweet perfume of car exhaust and gasoline gratefully. “What’s not necessary?”

  “Being on the offensive,” he said, following close behind. “You don’t have to be. Not with me. I’m actually a pretty decent guy.”

  “I noticed that,” she said tartly. “Otherwise I wouldn’t have jumped your bones. I do have some standards, you know.”

  He stopped at the pay phone, dug in his pocket. “That’s nice.”

  “It’s just hard for me to switch out of offense mode. So don’t take it personally. In fact, I might never be able to switch out of it again, in this lifetime.” Not that she expected to live that long.

  “That’s a grim estimate,” he said, counting quarters. “Good thing I got some tips tonight. I don’t usually have this much change.”

  Lily charged on. “I’m going to piss you off again, probably soon,” she told him. “So I’ll just apologize in advance, for the next, oh, say, five times. After that, we’ll renegotiate. OK?”

  His mouth twitched, wryly. “You are a piece of work.”

  “That’s why I—”

  “Yeah, yeah. That’s why you’re still alive, and all that doom and gloom shit. Now be quiet, and let me make this call.”

  “What call? To who?” she demanded.

  He rolled his eyes. “Remember what I said about trusting me?”

  “You’re not calling Zia Rosa, are you? Or your employees at the diner? Or your toy business? Or Kev McCloud, or his brothers?”

  Bruno set the receiver back on the hook, his face hardening. “How do you know about the McClouds?”

  She made an impatient sound. “Oh, come on. Don’t be such an ingenue! They’re smeared all over your life. All you have to do is look. And if I looked, you can damn well be sure that they looked. It was all out there, for anyone to see. And I’m not even that good at it!se I wouldan>

  He gave her such a grim look, she started to twitch. “Stop it, Bruno,” she pleaded. “Don’t give me that look.”

  “What else do you know?” he asked. “How’s the ratio of good to bad cholesterol on my last blood work? Do you think my tax deductions last year were justifiable? Did you read my text messages?”

  She sighed. “You haven’t done a damn thing to prevent me.”

  “It never occurred to me that anyone would be interested!”

  “Come on,” Lily pleaded. “You can’t stay mad.”

  “Watch me.” His voice was hard.

  “I already apologized, remember? For five future piss-offs?” she wheedled. “That leaves me four free ones.”

  “No way,” he said sourly. “Spying counts for two. Maybe more.”

  “That’s not fair! I wouldn’t have done it if I hadn’t—”

  He put his finger to her lips. “Shut up. I have to concentrate hard to remember this number without the use of my electronic brain extensions, and I can’t do it when I’m pissed off. So zip it.”

  “That’s sad,” she commented as soon as he lifted his hand. “Brain atrophy, and so young, too. There are things you can do for that, you know. Math problems, crossword puzzles.”

  He turned back to the phone. “You are now down by four. I’m dialing. We’ll find someplace safe to exchange verbal barbs after, OK?”

  Police sirens wailed in the distance, from the direction from which they had come. Bruno looked around, staring toward the sound.

  “Looks like they found our buddies,” he said.

  “We’ve got to get out of here,” she whispered.

  “I’m working on it,” he grumbled. “Stop bugging me.”

  He turned to the phone. His back was so broad, so graceful. She stared at the expanse of fine black leather draped between his big powerful shoulders. Turning his back on her was probably meant to be a snub, but in her current boggled state, it felt like an invitation.

  She leaned against his back. He stiffened at the contact, but he didn’t pull away. It felt good. She breathed in, leaning closer, pressing against his strength. Sucking it in. Vampire girl, glomming on to him.

  A thought took form in her head. She should let it float away. She didn’t have the energy for data processing, particularly emotional stuff. But she followed it, letting it make connections, take on coherence.

  About Bruno. It felt so right, the way they bopped each other around, bitching and snarking. Being with him was almost, well . . . fun.

  How kinky was that. After that attack, the near-death experience, the blood. “Fun” was not a word one would usually associate with that type of adventure. She wondered if it was a conscious strategy, on his part, to keep her from falling to pieces. If he really was that smart, that intuitive, to figure her out so quickly, manage her so smoothly.

  Or if it was just a random coincidence.

  She huddled closer, not even bothering to eavesdrop on his whispered phone conversation. She wouldn’t have made any sense of it anyhow. Not in brainless clinging leech mode.

  She didn’t want an answer to her half-formed question. Any answer would be disturbing, and she was disturbed enough.

  Bruno was not her ally, shoulder to shoulder with her against the powers of darkness. No. He was helping out the poor sad crazy girl because he felt sorry for her. Pity did not an ally make. Neither did sex. Not even awesome, earth-shattering, mindblowing sex.

  She knew that. She really did. But even so. She pressed her nose against his vibrant warmth and inhaled. Mmmm. So nice.

  What the hell. She was obscurely comforted anyway.

  9

  Reggie stared at the corpses. The team he’d sent to intercept Parr and Ranieri lay on the ground amid the garbage. Multiple witnesses milled around, talking excitedly into their cell phones. Cops were on the way, to catalog his error, put it on public record.

  He was fucked. He pushed away the staggering finality of it, used DeepWeave Contingency 5.5.2 to calm and focus him, but the effects were muted. He knew what he was supposed to be doing, but he didn’t move. He just stood there, paralyzed. Staring at the lifeless chunks of meat that had once been Martin, Tom, and Cal.

  Cal had been from his family training pod. Like Nadia. A brother to him. Tom and Martin were younger, but Reggie studied with th
em both, sparred with them, worked with them ever since they’d been initiated as operatives. They were gifted with abilities normal people would take for superpowers. Now they were wasted. Bruno Ranieri had butchered them, and that sneaky little cunt Lily Parr along with him.

  He wished that Nadia had shot them, but he’d told her to bail, rather than risk her dying, too. They hadn’t been prepared for Ranieri’s prowess. Nadia was good, but she would not have prevailed if Tom, Cal, and Martin had all fallen, not unless she’d used a firearm, and King had said explicitly not to kill them yet. Reggie stared at the bodies. So angry he could not control the shaking. Contingency 5.5.2 wasn’t working.

  Police sirens wailed in the distance. They were going to find him here, demand a statement, explanation, identification. He could not stay. Too late for damage control. He should spirit away the bodies, but blood was spattered everywhere, he had no idea whose. What an unspeakable mess. Someone would have to stretch out on the altar of responsibility and watch the knife plunge down. Guess who.

  He had to move. He could not be taken into custody. His programming would not allow it. His own special series pod had undergone an experimental preventative imperative programming sequence. In a scenario like a police interrogation, he would die of convulsions in less than a minute, his body ripped apart from within.

  King had deleted that element from the programming schedule with the subsequent pods, judging it too dangerous, and possibly wasteful. But for Reggie’s pod, the deed was done. There was no undoing DeepWeave once it took.

  He watched the idiots on the scene, wishing he could kill them just for the looks on their faces. Fear and shock foremost, but beneath it, excitement, unholy glee. An older woman indulged in an attack of hysterics. A younger woman tried to calm her. Attention-mongering bitches. Like they cared about his brothers. The hag was emotionally masturbating in public, for the fun of it. Normal people disgusted him. Their lack of discipline. Untrained animals, pissing on the floor. No idea what it meant to be born to serve, dedicated to the highest principle. A honed, deadly instrument in the hands of his god.

  Of course, it was not their fault. They didn’t have the benefit of meticulous selection and decades of DeepWeave programming to unlock their potential. idn’t have the grooming of a great genius. All they had was what grew wild in the weedchoked gardens of their stunted brains. The mental equivalent of dandelions, thistles, and ragweed.

  Kill them all, the little voice whispered. Just kill all the witnesses. Kill, kill, kill. Keep killing as they come. It was the only thing that would give him relief. He’d give that squawking old bitch something real to squeal about, and then make squealing turn into sweet, sweet silence.

  But it was too bright. Too late. There were too many people present. And the sirens were getting louder. Move.

  Still couldn’t. Some glitch in the way DeepWeave interacted with his emotions. Not the fault of King’s programming, of course. Never that. The intrinsic imperfection of human beings was the problem. That was why so few of them survived the culling process. And even the chosen few who did were never perfect. One of King’s great sorrows.

  Shame galvanized him, enough to make his hand move. He stuck it, stiff and shaking, into his pocket. Pulled out a sheet of transdermal emergency patches. Calitran-R35, specifically calibrated for his body to damp down any faulty processing of excess emotions. He peeled one off, stuck it on the inside of his wrist, where the skin was thinnest.

  The relief was immediate. In seconds, the rictus softened. He backed up, gaining coordination with each step. Turned, and took off at a lope back toward the car he’d left parked on the next block.

  Reggie started the car, drove to the house he’d been instructed to use, which was only ten minutes away. He parked the car on a side street, not bothering to lock it. In fact, he left the keys in the ignition. He would not be using the car again. It would not be recovered. It was untraceable, as was the vehicle the team at the diner had used. He should probably call Nadia, he thought, vaguely.

  But why? It was over. Too late to try to take control. He was over the cliff. Falling straight down. He caught a glimpse of himself in the beveled glass panes in the door, surprised to see that he looked much as he always did. Swarthy, good-looking. Curly dark hair, chiseled features, dark eyes, dimples even when not smiling.

  He wasn’t sure what he’d expected to see. A naked skull. A rotting corpse. Nothing at all. Yes, that was it. He was nothing. All his identities forged, all his passports false. Only for King did he exist. Only the name King had given him defined him. And now he was nothing. No one at all.

  Grief gripped him. Cramps were beginning. He rummaged for more Calitran, stuck another patch next to the first. It summed up to a dangerously large dose, but it hardly mattered now.

  He went up to the master bedroom, and slowly, methodically began to take off his clothes. He pulled off garments and folded them with meticulous care until he was entirely naked.

  He folded back the coverlet and sat upon the smooth white sheet, placing his smartphone on one side, his Sig 229 on the other. A small, faraway part of his mind scuttled like a rat in a maze, making and discarding far-fetched plans. Running away, buying a new identity. He spoke fifteen languages fluently. He could go anywhere and sell his abilities to the highest bidder. Live as free as a bird, as rich as a king—

  The King. Everything led back to King. His idol. His god.

  Cramps jerked his abdomen. Tears poured down his face. He couldn’t live without King’s approval. The part of him that hungered for freedom wasn’t strong enough to send an electric impulse to his muscles. It was just a ofy, idle thought. Blasphemous flickers on the edge of his consciousness that made him feel guilty and unclean.

  He tried to clear his mind. To wait, with dignity and serenity, as befitted one of King’s elite operatives. But the grief was agonizing. He doubled over, began to rock. His throat tightened until the moaning coming out of him became a breathless, keening wheeze.

  It felt like hours, but it wasn’t more than four minutes before the phone buzzed, spinning on the sheet next to his thigh. There was no question of not picking it up. Just the mere flash of such a heretical thought through his head sent splinters of agony through his skull.

  Reggie flipped open the delicate, flexible fold-screen, quadrupling the viewing field. King’s benevolent face filled the screen. The sight of him triggered a longing that made Reggie cry out loud.

  Shame followed the outburst. King was displeased by uncontrolled emotion, even devotion. They all struggled to control it.

  “Well, Reginald?” King’s soothing baritone, sparkling with velvety harmonics, stroked Reggie’s nerve endings like silk. Reggie shuddered as emotions ripped through him. He steeled himself to be strong, to face the end with dignity. It was all that he could offer King now.

  Even in failure and despair, one had to hold oneself to standards.

  Reggie opened his dry mouth. “Ranieri and Parr fought off the team I sent to subdue them,” he said. “They’ve escaped.”

  King’s eyes widened. His silence filled Reggie’s mind, widening, spreading with each second, like a pool of blood from an opened artery.

  “And the team?” The sharp tone in King’s voice made Reggie jerk as if he’d been slapped. “Their status?”

  “Martin, Cal, and Tom are dead,” Reggie said. “Nadia is still alive.” There was hardly any point in drawing in more oxygen, but his lungs did it anyway. His body was a dumb machine, grinding stupidly on.

  “The bodies? You recovered them?” King’s eyes glittered.

  Tears ran down Reggie’s face, but his programming did not allow him to blink in King’s presence. His pupils dilated automatically at the sight of his maker. “No,” he began. “There were eight witnesses. Police were arriving momentarily. I heard the sirens. I would have had to—”

  “Do not presume to explain yourself to me.”

  Reggie flinched as if stung by a flail.

  “You know
what happens now, Reggie?” King said. “Your poor decision making has lost us three operatives. Four, including yourself. It has exposed me. This is unacceptable. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.” Reggie’s voice cracked. “I understand.” Tears blinded his eyes. He dashed them away so that he could see that beloved face for the last few moments allowed to him. Even when King’s eyes blazed with disapproval, he could not look away. The cramps were so intense, they were tearing his muscles loose. Crushing his organs.

  “Prepare yourself.” King’s stern voice was unrelenting. “Hold the phone up, so I can see you.”

  Reggie did so. King began to recite. The text was in ancient Greek, a passage from the Iliad. Reggie’s body shook. Tension built with each phrase. The culminating line made something give way inside him.

  He relaxed, thinking of nothing. A blank slate, awaiting orders.

  “Pick up the gun, Reginald. Put it in your mouth.”

  He did so without hesitation.

  “Fire,” King said.

  Reggie kept his eyes fixed on the beloved face as he pulled the trigg—

  Detective Sam Petrie stared at the last of the bodies as the transport company guys hoisted it onto the gurney for its final journey to the medical examiner, and tried not to breathe. The combined effluvia of fermenting garbage and recent death was potent.

  The criminalists were still busy collecting and logging evidence. His friend Trish was one of them. She was organizing for the blood-smeared batons to be taken to a drying locker, and filling out all the form 49’s to get the blood samples analyzed for DNA.

  This was a weird one. Three big guys armed with knives and guns had inexplicably opted to use batons to defend themselves while an unknown assailant or assailants had beaten them to death, apparently using only bare hands. This pending forensic analysis, but Petrie had a feel for it. He was sure.

  Two batons were bloodied. Blood was splattered over the asphalt. One man’s neck was snapped, one’s larynx was crushed and collapsed, and the third’s skull had been bashed in. No witnesses.