Sins of the Flesh (5 page)

The man peered into the darkness toward Mick, searching for him in the shadows. His face was flush with embarrassment—or maybe from the red of the sign—and gleaming with sweat.

From a chase? Mick wondered.

“Identify yourself,” Mick said, but then shifted farther back behind the protection of the locker and closer to the wall so that the shooter couldn’t place him based on the sound of his voice.

“This is none of your business. Stay out of it,” the man called out and moved as if to shift away from the light, but Mick shouted out a warning.

“Move another step and you’re dead.”

At that command, the man finally did as he was told, remaining in place, but still ready to fire.

“Shaw is my capture,” the other man threatened while peering into the dark for any sign of Mick.

The big metal locker provided great cover, and Mick took advantage of that. Reaching down, he picked up a heavy metal hook wrapped with rope. With his free hand, he tossed the hook up ahead of him and toward the wall opposite both him and the shooter. The hook landed with a noisy clatter against a pile of lighting equipment.

The other man turned and shot in the direction of the sound, exposing his gun hand as he did so.

Mick fired, the reverberation of the gunshot loud as it echoed along the hallway.

The shooter grunted in pain and dropped his weapon, but he was already reaching for it with his uninjured hand when Mick charged him. With a strong shove of his shoulder into the man’s thickening midsection, Mick sent him careening into the far wall where he collapsed to the ground in a heap.

While keeping his gun trained on the shooter, Mick bent and retrieved the other man’s dropped weapon, tucking it into his waistband at the small of his back.

“Who sent you?” Mick asked.

“Like I would tell you,” the gunman said as he cradled his bleeding forearm against his chest.

“Get on your stomach.” He urged the man on with a wave of his gun. When the man complied, he placed his knee in the middle of his back.

Working quickly, he grabbed some cable ties from his jacket pocket, pulled the man’s arms back one at a time and trussed them together with the ties. When he was done, he stood and nudged the man with his foot.

The man rolled over and there was no mistaking his anger.

Mick bent and grabbed the front of the shooter’s drab olive military jacket, lifting him off the ground a bit. Not an easy thing to do, since the man had a good bit of bulk in his physique. He gave him a rough shake.

“You’re too stupid to be working on your own. Who sent you?” To stress his point, he brought his weapon to the man’s temple and repeated his earlier question.

“Franklin Pierce,” the man finally replied, unable to hide the quiver of fear on his lips. His eyes jumped back and forth from Mick’s face to the gun pointed at his head.

Franklin Pierce, Mick’s ex-Ranger buddy who now ran his own private security firm. It had been years since he had talked to his old friend. He would definitely have to pay Franklin a visit and find out what was up, but first…

“Tell Franklin that I don’t appreciate him sending in the second string. That he needs to stay out of this.”

The flush along the man’s face deepened and he stuttered with indignation as he tried to sit up. “You d-d-didn’t have t-t-to shoot me, man.”

Mick had no doubt that if the situation had been reversed, the gunman wouldn’t have hesitated to kill him. He seemed like the kind to shoot first to avoid asking questions later, which was why he had made sure to tie him up. Wanting the man to have no doubt about his earlier warning, he pointed his gun at the man’s groin.

“If there is a next time, I’ll shoot something you’ll really regret losing.”

For good measure, he once again grabbed hold of the man’s jacket and shoved him away forcefully. The other man rebounded against the wall with a thud, and then lay there, moaning but relatively uninjured.

Mick raced in the direction in which he thought the gunman had been shooting.

Nothing but empty hallway greeted him.

He hoped that the time spent interrogating Franklin’s goon hadn’t allowed his target to escape.

Gun drawn, he crept along the edges of the hall, the narrow beam of his compact flashlight sweeping the area in front of him and along the walls as he searched.

Just the shadows and equipment.

He advanced, continuing his hunt, and suddenly something gleamed back at him from the ground before him.

He trained the flashlight on the floor.

Bright droplets of yellow-green phosphoresced into luminous life. Bending, he inspected them for a moment.

Memories came speeding back of hot summer days and the twinkling of hundreds of lightning bugs in the woods behind his home. His cousin Ramon used to trap dozens of the flashing bugs in a rusty-topped Mason jar. When Ramon tired of watching the insects crawling around the inside of the jar, their asses shining light against the glass, he would spill out some of the insects and squish them against the sidewalk.

The drops on the ground reminded him of those squashed bugs, their guts glistening in the night.

He removed his glove and stuck his index finger into one small glob. The phosphorescent yellow-green liquid was warm and grew sticky on his finger as it slowly dried. Bringing his finger up to his nose, he inhaled.

Shock filled him as he smelled blood.

Human blood.

He rose slowly, examining the area around him. Flashing the light more closely into the equipment to try and find what had left such blood behind.

The shadows were devoid of life.

With one eye on the ground and what he now realized was a trail of blood, he kept on the lookout for his buddy Franklin or any other unwelcome visitors and proceeded down the hall, constantly swinging the beam of light and the muzzle of his weapon along the hall, ready to fire.

The trail of blood droplets brought him to a stairway
leading to the areas beneath the trapdoor in the stage. On the jamb by the stairs a bigger splotch of lightning bug color gleamed as he shone his light on it.

Had Franklin’s man hit something?

Make that
someone
, he thought as he neared and realized the splotch looked like a partial human palm print.

Too weird
, Mick thought as he headed to the lower level. Much like the floor above, scattered bits of equipment lined the hall. Gun ready, he examined the floor for any telltale signs. A few steps from the stairs, the iridescent droplet trail stopped.

Mick paused, his movements cautious as he considered what he might find at the end of the trail. The words from Caterina’s medical report flashed through his brain, suddenly becoming more urgent.

Full expression of the gene.

Could that be the weird-looking blood? He wondered as he slowly panned the flashlight along one wall, finding nothing.

Seizures, he recalled a second after something fell behind him and landed with a faint thud.

Rage. Rage.
Rage
, he warned himself as he swung the beam of the flashlight to the opposite wall and trained his gun on the space.

An even bigger blotch of firefly green caught his eye. The bright radiant color stained a large area on a commonplace grey T-shirt. What wasn’t routine was how the shirt seemed to be suspended against the wall and above a pair of jeans.

A jolt of adrenaline raced through him. What he was seeing was illogical. Something beyond belief was staring him in the face.

Steadying the flashlight and gun on the glowing green, he took a step closer.

Sneakers peeked from the legs of the jeans, which possessed too much shape and bulk to be empty.

A body
? Mick thought; except, as he trained the flashlight above the neckline of the shirt, he saw nothing but the duller grey-painted brick of the basement walls until…

A pair of startlingly blue eyes popped open suddenly and glared back at him in the midst of all that dim, deceiving grey.

Human eyes.

Caterina Shaw’s eyes.

Just the sight of them made him catch his breath, and he jumped back before reason returned.

This wasn’t possible, he thought.

With a hand that now had a bit of a waver, he targeted a spot smack between those amazingly human, but haunting, eyes.

“Don’t move,” he said and kneeled beside one of the legs of the jeans. Laid his hand on the denim to confirm that what he was seeing was actually real.

Beneath his fingers came the feel of a human body, but he was still having trouble believing his eyes when a hand of that indeterminate grey stained with yellow-green covered his.

A woman’s hand beneath the inhuman skin.

A warm soft hand that squeezed his gently as the thing that he believed to be Caterina Shaw finally spoke.

“Help me.”

E
ven in the murky light, Caterina perceived the battle of emotions on his face: confusion, disbelief, disgust. But she had to try to reach him.

The blood on her palm and fingers had grown tacky as she moved them over the top of his hand and gently squeezed. A shudder shimmied across his body before he pulled his hand away.

He wasn’t going to help her, but would he send her back?

She surged to her feet, knowing now she needed to get away from him, but a wave of wooziness weakened her knees, forcing her to lean against the rough brick wall.

“Easy,” he said, holding up his left hand the way a cop might while directing traffic as he kept his gun trained on her.

“Can’t go back,” she warned, but then he urged calm with a slow dip of his hand and said, “I know you can’t go back.”

Did he know
? she wondered, battling for purchase against the wall as her knees wobbled. She dug the tips of her fingers into the soft brick wall and stabilized herself.

His gun snapped up at her action and he muttered, “Holy shit.”

He didn’t understand.

How could he when she didn’t understand?

She had to do something to make things right with him. She had to focus. As she had more than once before that night, she began her mantra,
focus, focus, focus
. She fixed her gaze on the barrel of his gun and experienced relief a moment later when he finally lowered it.

“You’re Caterina Shaw,” he said.

She raised her gaze to meet his. His earlier emotions lingered there, along with a new one: pity.

Steely determination strengthened her knees. She didn’t want him feeling sorry for her. She had never wanted anyone’s pity, she remembered, along with another word, “Cat.”

He took a step forward as he said, “Your friend Elizabeth calls you Cat.”

An image flashed through her brain of bright blond hair, icy blue eyes, and a smile that came quickly and honestly.

“I’m Cat,” she repeated, but gasped with fear as he took another step toward her.

He recognized her distress and paused with his approach.

“You’re hurt. I want to help you, Cat.”

I’m hurt
, she repeated in her brain and finally permitted herself to recognize the agony in her shoulder. A deep burn combined with a pulling pain whenever she moved. Wooziness when she tried to walk.

“He shot me,” she said, dragging the words from untrustworthy memory.

“Yes, you’ve been shot, Cat,” he said, the tones of his voice surprisingly kindhearted as he took another half-step toward her. “I
will
help you,” he added with a conviction that penetrated the last remnants of her fear.

“Okay.”

Though Mick heard the word come from Caterina’s lips, the only features that seemed arguably human were her intense blue eyes and her hesitant voice. It was as if she was a young child searching for the right words to say, unaware of who she was.

What
she was, he thought and heard her whisper, “Focus.”

Focus
? he wondered, but immediately realized what she was attempting to do and joined in.

“That’s it, Cat. Focus,” he said, using her nickname to try and build trust.

Her head dipped down in what he suspected to be a nod and then in gradual stages, all the remaining bits of indistinct grey faded and were replaced by the pale tones of human skin.

He controlled his reaction to jump away at the unbelievable change, taking a moment to examine her. He had no doubt she was Caterina Shaw although she was paler and thinner than the photo he had been given. Her hair was the same deep ebony, but tangled, with bits of leaves and dirt caught in the thick curls. A purpling bruise marred one cheekbone, as if she had been recently struck.

Someone had hurt her, but that was not of his concern, he thought, remembering why he was here. He had an assignment to complete. He had to return her to Wardwell’s labs.

But then she pulled her fingers out of the brick wall and held out her bloodstained hand to him once again. She repeated her earlier plea. “Help me.”

Mick almost wished she had attacked him instead; gone into one of those rages warned about in her medical
history. Violence, he could deal with. He considered himself a master in how to respond and protect himself and his men.