My mind put everything in vampire speed.
The knuckles on Hennison’s index finger turned white as he squeezed the trigger. The hammer cocked and the cylinder rotated. I heard the mechanism click, the spring compress and release. The firing pin struck the back of the cartridge. The primer cap exploded, detonating the propellant in the cartridge and pushing the bullet down the barrel.
The bullet spiraled toward me, my mind so focused on the slug that I could pick out the grooves carved into the brass jacket from the barrel rifling.
Despite that, it happened quick. The trigger pull. The bullet flying out the barrel.
The bullet striking my right leg.
Time reverted back to normal speed. Pain tore up my leg through my spinal column to my head, a thunderbolt of misery that blanked out every other sensation. I couldn’t do anything but cry out to relieve the agony.
Blood gushed from the ragged hole, a well of red liquid that turned into a swirl of brown flakes.
Hennison lowered the revolver and admired what he’d done. The zombies went, “Ghaw. Ghaw.”
He dropped the gun into a pocket of his lab coat. He went to the workbench and returned with a wooden tongue depressor. He scooped through the dried flakes and they floated light as ash. “Interesting.”
I couldn’t escape. I accepted the inevitable. The Araneum was sending help-Jolie-and with me captured, that meant the destruction of everything and everyone in this house. Felix Gomez included.
I should’ve waited for Jolie before starting this assignment.
This was what I was reduced to, wishing for relief by annihilation at the hands of a friend and ex-lover.
Hennison pulled the leg of my sweatpants down to cover the wound. “Don’t want you to get an infection.”
He told Sonia to go downstairs. He instructed Reginald to put out guards. Kimberly pawed my crotch and gave an abbreviated zombie smile: I’ll be back, sweetie.
“I’ve got another project demanding my time,” Hennison said. “Who would’ve thought that the life of an evil genius would be so busy?” Hennison twisted the foot of my shattered leg.
The pain crushed me to unconsciousness. I came to a moment later.
He said, “I trust you won’t insult my hospitality by trying to escape? Tomorrow you’ve got a date with Mr. Morning Sun.”
Hennison turned to cowboy zombie and put the revenant’s hand on the electrical switch. “Watch him. If he tries to escape, close the switch. Shall we give it a test?”
“That’s not necessary,” I replied.
Hennison hopped up and down. “He’s trying to escape.”
Cowboy zombie pushed the switch closed.
The hot blast of pain ricocheted inside my body. My muscles locked up and my vision went from blurry to black.
The pain stopped. My arched back rested flat on the table. I tasted charred flesh and belched smoke.
“Excellent.” Hennison patted cowboy zombie on the shoulder. “I’m trusting you.”
Hennison wagged his finger in my face. “As for you, vampire, play nice.”
He walked to the left and turned down the stairs.
The situation couldn’t seem more hopeless. The electrical pain was gone but I still felt the throb from my shredded right shin bone. I was locked against a wooden table and wired to a generator.
I relaxed against the table, grateful at least for the respite from Hennison’s bestial attentions.
If I lay undisturbed, my leg might heal by morning. Fresh human blood would do wonders for the wound and my attitude. The blood transfusion machine click-clacked at the far side of the room.
The blood sloshed back and forth. I imagined the heavy copper taste warming my tongue. Those thoughts brought relief, like huddling against a candle during an icy blizzard.
Cowboy zombie kept his cold undead eyes fixed on me.
I strained my wrists to test the security of the steel bands. The bands held firm. At the moment I was too weak to rip free, but give me a few hours. How to break loose and not get blasted by electricity?
I lay still and willed my life force to where I needed it most, my shattered leg and my kundalini noir. A chill started at my extremities and worked inward through my arms and my left leg. My fingers and the toes of my left foot went numb.
Twin pools of warmth settled in me, one in my body core and the other along my right shin. My kundalini noir turned slowly, rotating like an egg incubating under a heat lamp. The pain of my right shin dulled to a cramp as the cells repaired themselves in a growing frenzy.
Thirst rasped my throat. Hunger gnawed at my belly. My chances of escape were thinner than slim. Despair filled my mind like water flooding the hull of a sinking ship.
What buoyed me was the song of hope click-clacking from the transfusion machine.