Gray Night (31 page)

 Child’s laughter filled the room and I couldn’t help but join in. The man standing in the doorway cocked his head at me before stepping aside for a smaller shadow.

 With a grunt, the small shadow was shoved inside and the door slammed shut.

 Without thinking, I jumped at the small shadow curled on the floor, and howled in rage when my fingers fell inches short of reaching it. I strained against the manacles until my wrists bled. The smell of fresh blood excited me, but it also showed me images of more blood, a lifetime of blood. I saw enemies, and friends, an old man in an alley, a pile of discarded parts, fields and fields of them.

 The pile of little shadow beneath my grasp slithered back along the wall, putting as much distance between us as it could. It sat pulling its knees to its chest and pushing its hair out of its eyes. It was a girl. I knew her. The girl I had been looking for. Ruby.

 I thought about what I had wanted to do to her. To rip her open. And in that instance remembered seeing a girl like that once before. In Ruby’s place was the torn, mangled body of a thirteen-year-old girl lying on a riverbank. I watched in horror as I had done so many times before, picturing her ripped apart, but this time…this time the hands that tore into her body were mine. I looked down into the last eyes that had ever loved me as I felt her flesh give way beneath my hands and I screamed.

 I screamed, and screamed, and screamed, and choked on my own vomit before starting again. I clawed at my face, at my eyes. The image would not stop. I screamed in wounded rage, in panic and fear. Ruby stared at me. No longer my sister, but Ruby Jordan. She looked confused. Blank. If I could reach her, she wouldn’t even put up a fight.

 I screamed again and threw myself backwards as hard as I could—which was harder than I should have been able to—and crashed to floor in the darkened corner. I twisted myself around and around, rolling on the floor, wrapping the slack in the chain around me until it was taut. When my will could no longer hold back the flood of rage building inside me, I twisted hard, tightening the chains around me, to the point I wondered which would break first.

 I cried when it abated. And, when I cried, I had plenty of company to cry with me.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

 Hours passed. I remembered little of it. I was chained in a small room. I didn’t know why. On reflex, I tightened the chains around me until my mind whited out in pain every time my thoughts coalesced. It was the only way to stop myself.

 There was blood on the floor—mine—but it didn’t matter. New pains erupted from time to time when the door opened. I was beaten. That didn’t matter either.

 Thinking hurt. Not simply more than, but beyond, the physical pain. The excruciating pain forced my mind to retreat. It sent the room swirling. My mind tried to twist into a vision of something else. Something not real.

 I slammed the side of my head into the floor, driving it away. That was longest moment of lucidity I’d had, ever as far as I knew, and I wasn’t going to lose it. I forced myself to have another thought, any thought, anything real. I’d practiced keeping my sanity for years. Practiced focusing on nailing down the bits of reality I could recall when I lost control. This was no different. The pain, the fear, the rage, all combined to drive away my conscious mind and let the bloodthirsty demon growing inside take over. It would be so easy. So simple.

 That way was always so. Screw that. If some new demon was fucking around inside my head, it picked the wrong mind. Pain, fear, rage. Those were not weapons to be used against me. They were old friends.

 So many thoughts. My head resonated with the pain of each image, each word. But that was all it was, all it could do. Ha! It was powerless against me. All it could do was hurt me. I stopped fighting the pain and, with nothing more to resist against, it fled. The fog over my mind rolled away.

 The door opened and the bright light from the hall hurt to look at. I couldn’t focus my eyes, but I saw three figures.

 “He still hasn’t gone for the girl. Should we beat him again?”

 “No time. It’s about to start.”

 “But how is he resisting?”

 “I’m not certain he is. He raved for over an hour. I was sure his mind broke before he curled up like that. I told you too much too soon would break something inside.”

 Was that what happened? Was I broken? My mind shattered? Would I even be able to tell?

 “But if he doesn’t kill the girl—”

 “No matter. You,” one of them said to the largest shadow, “Kill the girl, then hold that man down until Matthews tells you otherwise. Matthews, unchain him and come meet me up top when it’s finished. You’re not going to want to miss this.”

 “So just lock him in there?”

 “No. Don’t lock the door. No telling if he could even manage to open it anyway.”

 “But if he did? If he’s not too far gone and gets out—”

 “Then he’ll blend into the chaos. The Auction is almost over. I’m making the call to begin on the way to meet Vitale.”

 “He’s in for the surprise of his life.”

 “Literally. Make it quick. I have plans when this is done.”

 The door shut and I was able to keep my eyes open now. Two men were in the room. Lightning-web-face-man, and one of his soldiers. They were going to release me. It was the last mistake they would ever make. I would taste their flesh and—

 No! Think, damn you! It no longer hurt to do so, but the demon inside roared with bloodlust, and hunger, and I couldn’t stop it. I could not shut off the voices screaming for violence like an out of control steam locomotive, but I realized something else. I fought a losing battle for control of the engine and that wasn’t right. It was my mind and the train was foreign. My mind was everything else—the sky, the land, the tracks. Maybe I couldn’t stop the train, but I could damn well change where the tracks led.

 The two lifted the girl off the ground and I knew what the thing holding her wanted to indulge in. I resigned a portion of myself to what would happen next. I let go of the struggle, handed control to the drug induced demon, and focused everything I had left on my two targets until I felt the tracks bend to my will.
You may indulge
, I thought to the demon born of Gray Night. And the demonic engineer stopped fighting me for control and roared ahead.

 I spoke to get their attention, coughing instead. There was no time. I twisted my body, unraveling the chains, and they fell to the ground beside me. That got their attention.

 I didn’t know what they thought they were going to do and I didn’t wait to find out. The man with the spider-webbed face looked at me, startled.

 “You won’t die,” he said, walking closer to me. “You won’t turn,” he kicked me in the side. “You’re nothing but bad product!” he hollered and kicked me again. “You!” And again. “Are going!” And again. “To fucking!” And again. “Die!”

 I grabbed his last kick with both hands and pulled harder and faster than ever in my life. So hard his head hit the grated floor before the rest of him.

 “Kill him!” the man gargled out a scream.

 I sat up on my knees and slammed a double hammerfist into his face. His mandible broke beneath my fists. He convulsed, spitting bloody chunks out of his mouth. They were teeth.

 The large man holding Ruby dropped her to face me. He was smart, deliberate in his actions. He lunged to one side, then another, testing my reaction. I mirrored him never breaking eye contact.

 He was big, huge in fact, and that was before the Gray Night enhancements. My adrenaline had gone to a hundred five percent on the reactor and I still didn’t stand a chance of overpowering him. What I did have was years of experience. While my mind wasn’t a sterling example of sanity, especially after nearly being hijacked, most of its experiences were drilled into reflex.

 I went with it. I moved with the distinctive, and often subtle, ebb and flow of the combat rhythm. But that was much too elegant a description.

 His discipline faltered when I denied him the instant gratification of ripping his quarry to shreds. With a screeching bellow, he bull rushed, diving to spear me into the ground.

 I was waiting. At the last second I performed a rare physical feat that had saved my life a hundred times before. I sidestepped. I over-hooked his extended arm, whipping it to the inside between us as I wrapped the slack in my chains around his throat. I used his momentum to pull around behind him.

 I didn’t give him time to realize his mistake as I looped the other chain over his head and around his neck. I leapt into him, driving my knees into his back as I crossed my arms tight as I could, and pulled my entire body violently to the ground.

 I felt each of my wrists slip a chain link or two as my improvised garrote crushed his throat, sending us both crashing to the floor.

 I unraveled the chains and walked to the smaller man with the spider-webbed face, which I now noticed were stitches. I grabbed the key to my shackles, and undid my restraints.

 I tried talking to Ruby, but the process seemed foreign and distant. I grabbed her by the shoulders and lifted her to her feet. She stood with a glazed look.

 Screams and howls and gunfire from the floors above echoed through the ship. It had begun.

 “Stay,” I managed to garble.

 She nodded and I pulled the door partway closed behind me as I stepped into the hall. I ran, only guessing at the way I’d come because I couldn’t remember. The farther I went without seeing a stairway the more furious I became. The fight had sated the demon, but it wouldn’t last.

 I used the gunfire above to guide me until I was somewhere beneath the main floor. I found the T-junction I’d chased ponytail down a minute later and there it was—the way out.

 I thundered up the stairs four at a time, throwing open the door when I reached the top. I stumbled out into a scene I knew instantly I would never forget. And for me that’s saying something.

 Slick streaks of red covered the expanse of metal grating, interrupted with debris and remains of the dead. Light erupted from different areas around the expanse as muzzle flashes fired from their dark corners. Two large soldiers were down in bloody heaps, but another four bounded in and out of the light to stalk and slaughter their prey.

 I estimated maybe a half dozen people were left hidden and firing by the gun blasts. I went deeper into the room, still within the darkness, and looked at the railing above. It was empty except for a large chain wrapped around one of the rails from the balcony Vitale had given his introduction from.

 I followed the chain down. Joe Vitale’s limp corpse hung from the end, dead, betrayed. Hadn’t someone in my cell said Vitale was in for a surprise? I hadn’t seen the man. I couldn’t piece it together.

 “Adrian!” a voice yelled from the dark further down the wall from me.

 One of the large soldiers heard and changed course to go after the source. I moved to intercept him. He ran across the middle of the room and I wasn’t going to get there in time—until bursts of automatic fire illuminated three men behind a barricade of steel beams and wooden tables. The hail of bullets tore into the soldier, slowing him enough to catch.

 “Ceasefire!” Djimon screamed as I ran forward, leapt over the barricade, and tackled the soldier to the ground.

 I held him down, but that wouldn’t last long. Argento wasted no time charging in right behind me. He fired three shots in rapid succession into the man’s head.

 Warm blood sprayed in a fine mist as the crack of Argento’s weapon rang in my ears, but I didn’t slow down.

 One of the others charged before we recovered. I let him come to me, feinted, and palm heel struck him in the throat, halting him where he stood. He grabbed his neck, gasping for air, and gurgled in rage as I brought a thundering sidekick down into his knee. He fell to the ground. I slid my hands tight into his hair and snapped my knee into his jaw at a terrible angle, wrenching the man’s head in horrific directions. Then I did it again, and again, until he stopped moving. Two down, two to go.

 A woman screamed. I turned to the side and saw the green-cloaked woman from earlier. Brazilian, I believe. Her man was down—and missing his throat—while she clicked frantically at the trigger of her pistol several times before realizing it was empty.

 Two bursts of automatic fire got its attention as Jack and Djimon moved around behind me and positioned themselves closer to her. They stepped into the light and kept the fire going. The soldier was wounded, perhaps mortally, but advanced on them nonetheless. I moved toward him when I saw the fourth soldier creeping in the shadows behind Argento who was braced for a shot near the green lady.

 I spun around behind Argento as the fourth soldier charged in. I continued to spin, throwing off his point of attack, and slid forward as I came around again to slam my elbow into his face. Argento’s gun roared. The man’s nose shattered and he crashed into me, knocking us into Argento’s back. We fell in a tumble and Argento screamed as the soldier hammered him in the gut with his fist, striking out at whoever was closest.

 He threw his hips over and grabbed Argento’s throat. I jumped behind him, wrapping my arms and legs around him. I gripped his lower jaw hard. I grabbed the opposite end on the back of his head and whipped my arms apart with a crack, severing his spine.

 I stood to look for the other soldier, the one who attacked the green lady. He was dead on the ground, riddled with bullets, and a neat little hole the size of caliber Argento used right between the eyes.

 Everyone stopped and looked around before settling on me. In the silence, a new background sound replaced the din of battle. Like a soft rainstorm on a tin roof, a thousand droplets of blood formed and dripped from the grated floor to whatever was below.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

 I don’t know if I passed out or if my mind was so overcharged it simply couldn’t hang onto the memories, but I had no idea why I was laying on the hood of my Chevy looking up at the night sky.

 Djimon held me down and I heard the echoes of a loud scream. Mine.