The New Kid (16 page)

“Tell me again what we’re doing here?” asked Rudy.

“Looking for Rage,” answered Will.

“And then what?”

“And then all hell’s going to break loose, maybe.”

“Glad I asked.”

Will scanned the room again.

“It’s not safe for you two here, Rudy. Maybe you and Natalie should split, go home.”

“I’m not leaving,” said Natalie.

“Neither am I,” added Rudy.

Will smiled but then his expression changed abruptly as he looked up and saw Sharon Mitchell two floors up on a mezzanine. She looked distressed, just like she had outside, and again Duncan appeared to be harassing her. Only this time he had Jason DeGenova with him. Will’s nostrils flared as he watched Jason put his hand on Sharon’s shoulders and lay a slobbery kiss on her neck. She either didn’t like him or wasn’t in the mood because she slapped him so hard his head snapped back. He was stunned for a long moment, and then he backhanded her. The blow brought tears to her eyes and blood from her nose. Then Jason made some kind of twirling motion with his hands. Todd Karson appeared and he and Duncan herded Sharon through a nearby doorway. She wasn’t kicking or screaming, but only because they moved so fast she didn’t have time to. She still seemed shocked from Jason’s blow.

Will’s body tensed and he looked quickly to Natalie and Rudy. Natalie looked like she was definitely getting a headache. Will locked eyes with Rudy.

“Stay here. Rudy, you
plant
yourself and watch Natalie!”

“I got it. You go rock and roll!” said Rudy.

Rudy was so amazed that no one had come up and kicked his butt out of the party that he was starting to loosen up. His head was bobbing to the music and a grin was plastered on his face. Will looked at him critically. The poor guy looked so happy to be anywhere but stuck at home in his room that he failed to grasp the precariousness of their position.

But Will had no time to school him. He moved across the dance floor toward the stairs. His path was continually blocked by gyrating dancers: girls grabbing him to dance and guys just plain getting in his way. In short, the whole dance floor was doing everything it could to impede him. So Will faked like he was dancing for a few seconds, which threw them off, and then jumped up and ran along an old unused bar to leap onto the stairs, taking them four at a time
up one level, then two, then to the mezzanine where Sharon had been.

A hallway split off from the balcony and it was almost pitch black dark. Without thinking Will bolted down the corridor. It was an unfortunate choice; had he put some thought into his decision he might have considered scoping the hallway out more efficiently. But he did not, and therefore didn’t see Todd Karson lurking in a vestibule until it was too late to prevent the tall boy from bringing a fire extinguisher down on the back of his head. As Will sank to the floor the dark hallway grew even darker.

W
ill’s head throbbed. That was good news because it meant he was alive. He opened his eyes and the pain was so severe that when he tried to sit up he lost his balance and keeled back over. He lay on the carpeted floor another few seconds, telling himself to breathe, just breathe. The music was blasting and every downbeat felt like another spike being driven into his brain. The vocalist on the song screamed like a burn victim and Will wondered why anyone would think that was a pleasant aural experience.

He heard more screaming and quickly realized that it wasn’t coming from a song; it was coming from a door down the hall. Will got to his feet and ran down the corridor, taking care this time to scope things out with his peripheral vision. The door the screaming was coming from was old and appeared to be solid oak. Will backed up and tried a full-on flying kick but only succeeded in cracking the molding. Reaching into his back pocket he extracted a small metal case and then pressed a button and with a few deft strokes sprayed a thin line of yellow foam along the door’s frame. He pressed another button and the foam crackled to life and burned. Now the door came down with a shove and Will lunged into the room.

The screaming had stopped. Sharon Mitchell was waiting for him. Whoever had caused her to scream was no longer present.
Or maybe it wasn’t a “who” but a “what,”
thought Will as he approached her.

“Are you okay?”

“Now that you’re here I am,” she said, her voice low and breathy.

“You were screaming,” said Will, almost scowling at her as he scanned the room for signs of trouble. There were empty bottles of booze and cigarette butts and some dirty magazines but nothing much else except for battered furniture and tattered drapes. “What made you scream?”

“The thought that you’d never come.” She smiled, licking her lips.

Her hair tousled, mascara thick, lips lush red and wet, eyes full of mischief, Sharon Mitchell suddenly looked nothing like any homecoming queen Will had ever seen. But he’d seen plenty of her new kind of persona. She reached out and grabbed his hand, then held up his palm and put her mouth to it, and her tongue. Will winced. It felt fantastic. He was a guy, after all. But he pulled his hand away. Then he grabbed her wrists and inspected both of her palms. They were sweaty but there were no mouths there.

“They got to you, didn’t they.” It wasn’t a question; it was a statement of fact.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I love the sound of your voice. It’s so . . . hot,” she purred.

“Where’d they go, Sharon?”

“Who are you talking about? Anyway, who cares now that we’re alone? Here, feel my heart, it feels like a little animal trapped in my chest,” she said as she grabbed his hand again and pressed it to her chest.

Will yanked his hand back.

“You’re stoned. Go home and get some sleep.”

He moved past her toward another door and he had almost reached it when he sensed movement. He turned around just in time
to see Sharon’s eyes roll back and her knees buckle out from under her as she let out a feral moan.

“Sharon!” he yelled.

He was at her side in an instant and caught her in his arms. It was either that or watch her skull crack against the black and white checkerboard tile floor.

“Sharon, what’s happening?”

She opened her eyes slowly and with surprising strength wrapped her hands around Will’s neck like a vise. She pulled his lips to hers and forced her tongue into his mouth. He was both repulsed and compelled by her kiss. She tasted of red wine and dirty cherries and the scent of her skin, the feel of her lips and her hips, hit him like a freight train. His whole body was tingling with pleasure while at the same time shuddering with revulsion. He managed to wrench his lips free, barely.

“What’s the matter? Don’t you want to hook up?” she asked innocently. It was time for Will to make a definitive statement. So when she tried to bite his cheek he dropped her and ran. As he darted through the door he heard her head smacking against the tile floor. He hoped she was out cold.

As he moved into the hallway he picked up a scent—potent, acrid, and unmistakable—and he followed it. Like a ghost from the shadows Jason darted across the hallway and through a door he slammed behind him, and Will charged forward, this time unsnapping the Mylar holster holding the Megashocker he’d strapped to his leg. He kicked the door open. Jason was standing in a shifting pool of light way across the room. An older guy was standing next to him. A single light bulb swung back and forth above them. The older guy wore snakeskin pants and boots and a tank top that exposed his sinewy upper body, which was carpeted with pagan and satanic tattoos that crawled all the way to his neck and even onto his face.

It was difficult to see what he really looked like, but Will had an uneasy feeling that he’d met the man before. It was tricky to gauge
how old he was. He could have been twenty-five or thirty-five or maybe even older. But one thing was clear, his presentation was designed to let even the casual observer know one thing and one thing only: He was a badass. He was looking down at what appeared to be a bloody scarf Jason had brought to him, then he slowly raised his eyes and for a brief moment he gazed at Will. There might as well have been an electric current running between Will and this man, so strong was their mutual enmity. This had to be him.
Rage
. Will had just grasped onto that irrefutable thought when Rage reached up and crushed the hanging light bulb in his fist. The light went out.

 

The darkness wrapped around Will like a big gloved hand and Sharon was suddenly right in his face, smashing her lips against his and pressing her body against him. The taste of her mouth coursed through him like hot fire. He felt dizzy, legs suddenly weak, his heart pounding. He managed to shove her away.

“Why fight it, Will?” asked a deep gravelly voice from the darkness.

“Get away from me,” shouted Will to Sharon, who just smiled as she gyrated, playing her part to perfection. Will was about to say something to her—he wasn’t sure what, the words were still forming in his mind—when Todd Karson sprang out of the darkness with catlike quickness and slammed his fist into the side of Will’s head, causing his ears to ring. Wrath swiftly rising inside him, Will dropped to the ground, felt his dermis thickening and his blood heating up as anger surged within him like a gathering storm.

The surprise attack had unleashed the beast inside Will and he spun and kicked Todd’s legs out from under him. As Todd’s face slammed into the floor Will thought he saw Todd’s eyes flashing black with madness. Then Todd rolled over, whipped out a wicked-looking street blade, and chopped down at Will. The razor-sharp tip sank into the wood floor an inch from Will’s ear. Will used his elbow to bash down on Todd’s wrist and thought he heard a bone crack as
Todd howled, spittle flying from his mouth as his teeth enlarged and he squeezed his eyes shut in pain. Will leapt up and kicked the knife out of Todd’s other flailing fist and felt more power surging through him, felt his blood going even hotter, as he straightened his back and then ducked into a combat crouch, his fingers curling:
Bring me all you got, sucker.

“It feels good, doesn’t it, Will. Inflicting pain,” said the harsh voice from the darkness.

Will did get satisfaction from kicking the crap out of his adversaries, especially ones who’d bashed him in the head with fire extinguishers. But he didn’t have time to feel bad about it now. When Todd’s eyes opened this time they were the telltale liquid black. He emitted a throaty growl and the muscles expanded in his body as he jumped up. Even with one possibly broken wrist he was able to pick up a solid oak table and fling it at Will, who bent time and leapt out of the way a millisecond before the table smashed into the wall behind him, so heavy it took out a support beam. The doorway began to collapse, flooding the room with light from the hallway and, momentarily distracted, Will took his eyes off of Todd. Huge mistake, because the guy was on him like a jackal, his fingernails elongating even as he dug his massive paws into Will’s neck. The pain was searing.

Time to kick it up a notch
, thought Will as he reached for the Megashocker. Now it was his turn to do some damage. He activated the weapon and raked it across Todd’s unsuspecting face, creaming him with a thousand volts of raw energy. Braying like a castrated bull elephant, Todd fell backward and slammed into the wood plank floor so hard that the windows shook.

When the dust began to settle Will scanned the room. Jason and Rage were gone. Giving Todd a double blast with the Megashocker to make sure he stayed down, Will ran out into the hallway. They could have gone any of four different directions. Digging into his cargo pants pocket Will whipped out some goggles, slipped them
over his eyes, and activated them. With the goggles on he could catch a faint glimpse of the vapor trail that Rage and Jason had left behind. He followed it.

They were just boarding a service elevator, the mesh doors closing behind them when Will caught up to them. He ran toward them. He was almost there, almost to them, when the outer doors slammed in his face and his prey descended. Using the Megashocker he fired a current that jacked open the outer doors. Foul air from the building’s lower floors swept up into Will’s face as he leapt down, slamming onto the roof of the plummeting elevator car. It picked up speed and Will hoped he hadn’t misjudged by jumping to begin with or he’d break both his ankles on impact. When the elevator car slammed to a halt it was jolting, but Will was in a crouch and absorbed the impact. Every muscle in his legs was screaming, but he’d suffered no breaks or sprains.

He ripped open the access hatch and dropped into the elevator car, then sprang out into the basement, but Rage and Jason were already gone. His eyes found a stairwell and he ran to it. The stairs turned to concrete after one floor and then he moved through a huge rusty portal and found himself in the sewer.
How appropriate for your kind
, he thought. He thought he heard the elevator starting up again but there was no time to investigate because the sewer tunnel he was in came alive with the sound of movement. Lots of movement. He recognized the sound they made before he saw them. Rats. By the sound of it, hundreds, maybe a thousand. He prayed that they were just normal, ordinary, filthy, disgusting plague-infested rats and not the other kind. But as soon as he saw them he knew that they weren’t ordinary rats, they were demonic. Will braced himself.

They poured across the ledges surrounding the sewer river in waves, their small mouths flared, exposing nasty-looking, needle-sharp yellow teeth. Swinging the Megashocker Will dispatched the first line of them, burning their asses and quickly turning them into a smoking, heaving pile of pulp. But they kept coming and Will had
to time-bend and run up the sides of the sewer walls to keep from being swarmed over. He backpedaled ten yards and watched with disgust as the creatures morphed, growing small leather-like wings and taking flight. They looked like locusts and came at him in a swarm. He dialed the Megashocker up to maximum power and sent a beam ricocheting off a pipe so it split and spread, forming a “V.” The flying demon rats took the full force of the blast and were blown sideways and plunged into the sewer river. Leaping down, Will jammed the pulsing Megashocker into the river and the liquid, now charged with thousands of volts, super-heated and wiped out the whole stinking mess of them.