Nice move, if I were human. I swatted the grenade back through the door and slid it closed.
The voices on the other side yelped in terror.
Anticipating the explosion, I braced myself against the jamb of the door and rode out the blast.
The plan had been to get Clayborn first and then come back to this floor and free Carmen from the cylinder. But the guards knew about me and that I was after Carmen. I had to see if she was okay.
I slid the door open and sprang inside. Acrid smoke from the explosion billowed around me. Peltier and Krandall stumbled about, their faces ashen, and dust settled on their black SWAT garb. Surprise and pain rippled through their auras.
I snatched Krandall’s submachine gun from his hands. I squeezed a burst into his neck and torso. He flopped onto his back. I fired two shots into Peltier and she fell. Krandall had no psychic cloud around his supine body. Peltier’s aura quivered like the flame of a pilot light struggling to stay lit. These two got off lucky, compared to what I could’ve done vampire-style.
A third man wearing SWAT gear stumbled backward from me. He clutched his throat and coughed. I knew the man.
Goodman. He was as good as dead.
The overhead lights flickered, then went dim. The sudden darkness worked in my favor. I had the advantage of night vision, and the loss of power would have also disabled the security system. A couple of seconds later, an electronic hum reverberated through the annex and the lights flicked on again. A generator must have switched on. So much for that advantage.
The humming stopped and the lights went out again. Excellent. Jolie had disabled the annex’s power.
The emergency lights above the door flickered on. I aimed the submachine gun and blasted the lights. Let’s keep it dark.
Goodman stumbled like a drunk. His aura sizzled with confusion and pain. Blood dotted his face. He crashed against a desk and knocked a stack of notebooks to the floor.
Peltier’s aura brightened as she rallied against her wounds. She fumbled for the submachine gun that lay by her side. She lifted her head toward me and struggled to aim the weapon. The laser pointer illuminated and the thin red light slashed through the smoke.
Stubborn, murdering bitch. Taunt the bull and expect the horns. I leveled my submachine gun and squeezed the trigger. The bullets tore the fabric of Peltier’s chest armor and then chewed her pretty face apart.
Goodman’s head jerked from left to right in confusion. Blood clotted his eyes.
The magazine empty, I tossed the submachine gun aside. “In case you’re wondering, your matched set of killers is dead.”
His expression darkened when he recognized my voice. He snatched a Glock pistol from his thigh holster. “You again.”
“Expecting someone else?”
His aura signaled surprise but not fear. Goodman remained cold as steel.
He panned the Glock in my direction.
“Don’t bother,” I said.
Goodman fired anyway. Blinded, he was only wasting ammunition. The bullet punched into the wall.
I crept toward him, moving as silently as a shadow.
Goodman’s breath escaped from his mouth in ragged gasps. His pistol trembled. He wiped the blood from his eyes and squinted at where I’d been.
I smiled at the futility of his efforts. “I’m right here.”
Goodman swung the pistol at me, fired, and missed again.
I slapped the Glock from his hand. My talons sliced his fingers, and the pistol clattered across the floor.
Goodman retracted his wounded hand, cradling it against his chest, and slid against the desk away from me.
I stared into his eyes, the irises gray and dull, the whites bloodshot. They registered nothing.
Blinded, Goodman posed no threat. I would finish him later. My priority was to rescue Carmen from the cylinder.
The computer monitors presented their blank faces. Without power, the machines lay dormant.
The twenty capsules were still here, sixteen on the floor and four on the pedestal. But I didn’t see any auras. My kundalini noir stiffened in alarm. I rushed to the closest capsule and looked inside. The padding showed the form where a human would be. It was empty.
I dashed down the rows. All were empty. I bounded onto the pedestal and checked out the rest of the cylinders. They were all empty. I pressed my face to the glass and looked up and down, as if there was another place in the capsule to hide a body.
Despairing and then enraged, I grabbed the sides of the capsule. It remained fixed in place. I might as well have tried shaking a mountain.
I turned toward Goodman and shouted: “Where is she?”
Goodman’s aura brightened with defiance. “You mean your friend, the other freak?”
“Where is she?” I grabbed a desk and flung it at Goodman. The desk whirled through the air, the drawers opening and spilling pens and papers. The desk crashed against the wall beside Goodman.
His aura flashed with fright. He jumped, lost his balance on the floor debris, and staggered back to his feet. His aura dimmed to a fearful glow. Good, the bastard needed to be afraid of me.
His face searched for me. “Clayborn took her. And the others.”
“Where?”
“Away from here.”
“Goodman, I’m way beyond pissed off. Give me a straight answer. Now.”
“Clayborn sent the women up there.” He pointed to the sky with his thumb.
“You mean outer space?” The hairs stood on my arms. I didn’t want to know the answer.
Goodman replied, “Of course.”
The aliens. This had grown worse beyond belief. “When?”
“Yesterday. Right after you got away from us.”
“How?”
“Using more of that alien hocus-pocus.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means, you stupid fucking bastard, that I don’t know and I don’t care. Clayborn doesn’t share everything with us. I don’t trust him but that’s not my job. I only follow orders, like I’ve done my entire life.”
“How do I get Carmen back?”
“My guess is that you hitch a ride to Pluto and start there.” Goodman straightened and squared his shoulders. He chuckled. “In other words, Felix, go back to your home planet and fuck yourself.”
I stepped in front of Goodman. I grasped his upper arms and held him tight. He squirmed to escape but my grip was like iron.
“Goodman, listen to me. I got news for you. I am on my home planet.” I stared into his eyes, the whites now gray and marred with clots of red. His irises dilated in the effort to focus on me. I gave him an ultra dose of hypnosis, and still nothing.
“I’m no alien. In fact, I’m a veteran and every month I collect a disability check for what happened to me in Iraq.”
He squirmed again.
“Goodman, do you believe in the supernatural? You should.”
“What the hell do you want from me?”
“I want you to die knowing the truth. I am a vampire.”
Goodman shook and howled. His spit splattered on my face. “Vampire. Alien. I don’t give a shit.”
I wrapped my arms around him and nudged his head aside with mine. He smelled of burned ammunition and explosive, sweat, and my favorite, raw fear. My fangs rasped against the nubby beard growing from his throat.
I sank my fangs into his flesh. His blood spurted into my mouth, a delicious male nectar flavored with testosterone and adrenaline from his terror.
I pumped enzymes to hasten the healing process and hide my marks. Then I stopped the other enzymes that deadened pain. I’d kill him the way Carmen would have, al dente.
Goodman howled in agony. He wrestled to get free. His face and neck became livid and red. The tendons pressed against the inside of his throat. His hands clutched my side and his boots thumped against my shins.
I let him go and he crumbled to the floor, grasping his throat. He retched and convulsed. Drool seeped between his teeth, over his lower lip, and down his chin. Pain surged through his aura, the penumbra becoming as turbulent as waves in a storm.
He dropped to his side, still retching. His eyes bugged out from their sockets, big as peeled eggs. Blood dribbled from his ears and tear ducts. His legs kicked and his back arched. His aura flashed and dimmed, fading until it disappeared. His corpse lay with his limbs splayed in a death dance.
Goodman was dead, yet I felt empty, unsatisfied. Another death on my slate and what had I accomplished? My friend Carmen was still on her way to another solar system.
I grabbed a desk and hurled it against the computers.
“Where is she?” I screamed at no one. I seized another desk and continued my rampage through the lab, wrecking as much as I could to vent my fury.