Kissing Sin (35 page)

Heat touched my mind, a needle-sharp probe that got no further than surface thoughts. It snapped away quickly, moving on, searching the night. A second later, air ran past my nose, filled with the scent of pine, underlain with the richness of sage.

It was Jared, one of the newer recruits to guardian ranks.

He moved on, running for the end of the trees. Nose to the ground, I padded along after him.

Another muffled report bit across the wind. The patch of deeper darkness veered sharply, and the metallic smell of blood tainted the air. The shooter had to have infrared sights—or was a vampire himself—if he was able to see Jared. A third report came, followed by a grunt that was abruptly, chillingly, cut off. The shadows concealing Jared fell away and he slumped to the ground, what was left of his thin features showing surprise.

A growl rumbled up my throat before I could stop it. I halted, hackles raised, trying to act like an everyday dog when every instinct in my wolf soul begged me to run, to bring down the quarry, to tear his flesh and his life from his body. My lips drew back into a snarl, my whole body vibrating with the force of it.

The trees moved, and a man stepped out. He was as black as the night itself, and almost as invisible as a vampire. Yet he wore no shadows, nor did he wear clothes. He was little more than an outline, a figure who had a basic shape but no distinct features.

Just like the man—the creature—who’d attacked me in the hotel room in the Blue Mountains.

Misha had once suggested that a man who harnessed the secrets of genetics to make the perfect killing machine could rule the world—or make a fortune creating purpose-built assassins for those who wanted the power to take out the opposition swiftly and easily. Maybe that nightmare wasn’t as far off as we’d all thought.

I didn’t move, watching the specter of a man, watching the gun he held. He moved to Jared’s body, kneeling carefully and feeling for a pulse. Why he bothered I had no idea—not even a vampire could survive having half his brain shot away. As he checked, he kept an eye on me, but not in a suspicious sort of way. His behavior was more that of a man who simply didn’t trust—or didn’t like—dogs. And the rifle—one of the new runt rifles, which had the power and the range of a rifle but were only a little bigger than a handgun—was pointed more at the ground than me.

I stuck my nose to the dirt again, sniffing around as I checked who else was in the area. In the restaurant, people were beginning to realize something was wrong. A waiter approaching the corner table stopped abruptly, and even from where I stood, I could see the dawning horror on his face.

A sharp, almost barked, laugh bit through the night, and a rumble of anger rose up my throat again. The shooter rose, his amusement evident in the brief flash of teeth—teeth that were gray rather than white. His gaze met mine, and, for an instant, death stood before me, deciding whether I was worth killing or not. Then the stranger blinked, and the moment was gone.

The relief I felt was almost frightening. As much as my wolf spirit might want to tear this man from limb to limb, the biggest foe I’d tackled with the intention of bring down was the occasional rabbit or fox in the “back to nature” sessions Rhoan and Liander liked to drag me along to. But killing a wild animal
as
an animal was far different from hunting—and killing—a humanoid. That was a milestone I never wanted to reach—and the major reason for my reluctance to join the guardian ranks.

Then I remembered Genoveve. I’d maimed there, more than once, and could so easily have killed. I knew it, even if I hadn’t admitted it at the time.

The shooter took the small pack from his back, broke the runt rifle into several pieces, and shoved them inside. Then he slung the pack back over his shoulder and walked away. Just another man out for a Monday night stroll.

Only this man was a shadow most wouldn’t see.

I padded along after him. The urge to do more than simply haunt his steps still vibrated through my muscles, but attacking him here, on a main street, simply wasn’t an option. The cops had undoubtedly been called by the restaurant, and the last thing I needed was interference from them. This killer was mine to question.

He headed toward the crowded, street-café–rife environment that was Fitzroy Street, but thankfully didn’t turn into it—probably because there was no place for shadows in that brightly lit place. He headed for the gardens instead, avoiding the streetlights and paralleling Beaconsfield Parade. I looked past him, studying the layout. Up ahead was a rotunda—the perfect place for an ambush. Better yet, there didn’t seem to be anyone close, a fact backed up by the lack of human scents on the wind. But the wail of sirens could now be heard. I was running out of time to do this before the cops got here and started searching the area for evidence.

I shifted shape and wrapped the shadows around me, hiding my form and my nakedness. The stranger glanced over his shoulder and frowned. Maybe he was a sensitive, and able to feel the caress of magic. Or maybe he was simply ensuring that he wasn’t being followed.

When he neared the rotunda, I ran at him. Though I made no sound, he somehow sensed my approach, because suddenly he was facing me with a knife in his hand. His growl would have made any wolf proud, and the blade cut through the night so fast it was little more than a blur. I slid to a halt and sucked in my stomach. The tip of the knife burned through flesh. Only one metal had that effect on wolves. The blade was made of silver.

I dropped and pivoted, sweeping with one foot, trying to knock him off his feet. He was every bit as fast, leaping over my leg then launching himself at me. He could see me, I realized then, even though I was wrapped in shadows. I rolled under his leap, and cast the cover from me, unable to see the point of wasting energy when it wasn’t helping. I lashed out again, and this time he wasn’t fast enough, the blow taking him high in the thigh. He grunted, but slashed with the knife. The blade nicked my knee. I swore softly, heard his chuckle of amusement. Obviously, his makers had failed to explain that laughing at a wolf in this type of situation was
never
a good idea. Anger rose in a red rage, and I threw myself at him.

The move caught him by surprise, and we went down in a tangle of arms and legs. He hit the ground first, cushioning my fall, his wheeze of breath whispering dead things and sour milk past my nose. I caught the wrist holding the knife with one hand, forcing the blade well away from my body as I tried to catch his other hand. His almost featureless face stared into mine, his eyes and mouth little more than thin slashes through which only gray was evident. There was no forehead bump, no cheek definition, and no nose. Only two holes that sat in the flat of his face.

His fist thumped into my side, and breath exploded from my body. But I ignored the haze of rising pain, bringing my knee up hard and fast. Like most men, he didn’t appreciate a blow to the balls, and that brief moment of utter pain was long enough to hit him unhindered—and as hard as I could—across the jaw to knock him out.

I wrenched the knife from his nerveless fingers, and threw it as far as I could from the both of us. Then I rolled off him, and maneuvered him about until I got the pack off. Inside were the various rifle bits. I reassembled it, loaded the chamber, then sat on his chest, my knees pinning his arms as I held the gun at his throat. If he knew who I was, then he’d know I was with the Directorate and more than capable of firing a weapon. And if he didn’t know, then the mere fact that I’d assembled the weapon should warn him I knew how to use it.

What he wouldn’t know was the fact that I had no real desire to
actually
use it.

He stirred. I pressed my free hand against his chin, forcing it back, thrusting the point of the rifle harder into the soft flesh of his neck.

He groaned, and the thin, almost lizardlike coverings over his eyes flickered open.

“Don’t move,” I warned, jabbing with the weapon.

Death was back in his gray gaze. “I can’t tell you anything.”

I raised an eyebrow. “And I’m so believing that.”

“I want a lawyer.”

“Do I look like a cop to you? Do I actually look like someone who really cares what you do or don’t want?”

He didn’t answer. Just glared.

“Why did you kill that woman in the restaurant?”

No response.

“Who paid you to kill the woman in the restaurant?”

Again with the silence. The wail of sirens had stopped, and though I was upwind of the restaurant, I could still hear the babble of voices, the rush of confusion. I didn’t have all that much time to question this man.

I moved the rifle barrel down, and dug it into his Adam’s apple. His grunt came out gargled.

“Tell me, or we do it the hard way.”

“I know nothing.”

Spittle sprayed my face as he spoke. I didn’t have a free hand to wipe it away, and the small droplets stung. They also stunk…or was it him? For a man who had no odor, there sure was a God-awful stink coming from his body. And I doubted he’d shit himself. He was a professional, for heaven’s sake, and despite what my brother said about my appearance in the mornings, I wasn’t
that
scary at other times.

“Do your worst,” he said.

I thrust the rifle point hard enough to break skin and draw blood. “You think I won’t?”

“I think that soon it won’t matter.”

The amusement underlying his words sent chills down my spine. He was up to something, I was sure of it. But what?

Frowning, unease growing, I lowered a shield and psychically reached out. His mind was surprisingly unguarded, but maybe whoever had sent him here hadn’t expected he’d be caught. I thrust deeper, capturing his thoughts, freezing both them
and
him.

He was telling the truth in one respect—he didn’t know who’d sent him to kill the woman. He’d received his orders via phone, like he always did, the voice on the other end the same as it always was—deep and lacking inflections, as if the person behind it was somehow less than human, more a machine. The orders were simple. Kill the two women at table sixteen.

So why hadn’t he waited for Roberta to arrive before he’d taken a shot?

The smell was growing stronger, becoming one more of boiling decay than shit. I wrinkled my nose, trying to ignore it, trying to disregard the fear itching at my skin.

The answers I had weren’t enough, so I thrust further into his memory. Saw a large house surrounded by lush gardens. Here there were more creatures like him—black ghosts, waiting for orders to kill. And locked behind stout cages, there were others as well. Blue things with rainbow wings. Men and women who had the faces of gryphons and the claws of demons. Mermaids and mermen and God knows what else.

There wasn’t an army of them—not even a unit—but there were more than enough to suggest that in a few years there could be.

The labs behind these creatures had obviously found the secret behind successful crossbreeding of nonhuman races. And it didn’t matter if their success rate was high or low. They were in the process of creating an army of abominations, beings nature had no intention of bringing into existence, and they were being developed for one reason only—to kill.

I tried to delve further, get more information, but the air was so thick and rich with the reek of rot that I was gagging, and couldn’t concentrate.

I withdrew my thoughts, and met his gaze. Death roamed in his eyes, and it approached fast. It was then I realized his face looked gaunter, as if in the last few minutes he’d lost a huge amount of weight. The press of his skin against my shins and butt felt like the touch of fire.

Then it clicked, and the look of death in his eyes made sense.

Misha had once asked me to imagine the super soldier that could be built if the secrets of vampires, wolves, and other nonhumans could be unlocked. There’d be little you could do to stop such a force, he’d said. What he’d forgotten to mention was the added improvements—that if they did get caught, they could kill themselves, and therefore stop any efforts of getting information.

This man was growing hotter because he was about to spontaneously combust. Only there wasn’t anything spontaneous about it.

I rolled away from him, the gun held at the ready should he try and move. He didn’t. Couldn’t.

His gray eyes were wide, and the death I’d seen earlier was all-consuming. Only this time it was his death I saw, not mine, and the realization of it had wiped away the faint amusement so evident only moments before. His thin lips were open, as if he were screaming, but no sound came out, only a gush of bloody liquid. Water was beginning to pool under his entire body and steam rose from both legs. He was melting, disintegrating, from the inside out. What a God-awful way to die.

I couldn’t sit here and watch it. Couldn’t sit here and just let it happen with such agonizing slowness. This wasn’t death. This was torture, and no one—not even a lab-developed freak—deserved this sort of ending.

I touched his arm, flinching a little at the heat. His flesh rolled under my touch, as if it were molten fluid barely contained by skin. “Do you wish a quick ending?”

His gaze found mine. “It shouldn’t be like this.” His words came out hoarse, interspersed with shudders of pain. “They said it wouldn’t be like this.”

So they’d lied to their creations. No surprise there, really. The people behind all this had shown little in the way of morals so far, and lying was undoubtedly the least of their sins.