C.P. stepped out of the bathroom—
“Shit! Again?” she barked.
Gus was over by the bar, pouring himself a Coke, not a tequila. And as she shut the door quickly, he turned around and toasted her with the Real Thing. “He’s going to do it!”
Shaking her head to try to focus, she tugged the sleeve of her tailored jacket down. And smoothed her skirt on a just-in-case. “I’m sorry, what—wait, Daniel? Is going to—”
“Yes!” Gus came forward. “And I didn’t talk him into Vita. He chose freely. He said he wasn’t going to leave Lydia, and that was why. So please, don’t sell right now. Give… me…”
As Gus’s words ran out of gas, his eyes shifted off to the side—and then he walked around her and ripped open the bathroom door.
“Okay,” she heard him say. “My bad.”
Cursing under her breath, she crossed her arms over her chest and prayed that the guard had gotten the bottom half of his black uniform back where it should have stayed—and yup, as the blond emerged, he had not only covered himself properly, he didn’t say a word. He just nodded at her, like they’d had a business meeting between her sink and toilet, and walked out of the study with his head level. There was even a click as he closed the door behind his departure. As if he knew she was going to appreciate a little privacy.
Gus lifted an eyebrow.
“It’s not what it looks like,” she said briskly.
“You’re going to tell me he’s changing a light bulb in there?”
C.P. went around her desk and sat down. “Something like that.”
“With his pants off?” Gus put the full glass down on the bar. “Never mind. It’s not my business. And hey, tonight your study door was closed and I did barge in. Now I know why and I know better.”
For some stupid reason, she noted that he was wearing a Talking Heads t-shirt. Which seemed a little too recent for his normal tastes. When had “Burning Down the House” come out? Certainly not during the decade of peace and love.
“Were you about to say something?” he murmured. “ ’Cuz by all means, I’m dying to hear it.”
Closing her eyes, she exhaled. “Gus—”
“Actually, better that you spare us both.” He headed for the exit. “Daniel doesn’t want to wait. We’re going to do a checkup on him tomorrow and start administering Vita as early as the afternoon. I’ll keep you posted—and ask you again to hold until we see what we’ve got in vivo—”
“I never said I was selling,” she cut in sharply.
“You’re going to want to wait.” He glanced back at her. “If the results are shit, you can bury them and still make a profit. But if our baby does what I think she will? You’re going to make a boatload more cash, and we know how happy that’ll get you. You can buy a hundred of those blond fuckboys—”
“He is a fully trained militia soldier.”
“Is that what they’re calling them now? I’m so behind the times.” Gus tipped his head as if he were wearing a formal hat. “My bad.”
And justlikethat, he was gone.
There was no click behind him, though.
She did learn that he had, in fact, closed the door, however, when she left about ten minutes later.
He’d just managed to shut her out in silence.
EIGHT
Tuttle, Pennsylvania
NO, I’M GOING to kill you.”
As Blade, half-bred symphath, full-blown psychopath, spoke the words to the human, he drawled them out because all parts of this experience were to be enjoyed. By him. Then he briefly closed his eyes and breathed in. Talk about an aftershave. The bouquet of terror-sweat was laced with Arrid Extra Dry, Bounce fabric softener, and—was it Paul Mitchell shampoo?
Fancy for a scientist.
“W-w-w-why are you—”
He put the forefinger of his free hand on the male’s lips as a rush of arousal thickened his cock. “Shhhhh.”
The other side of all his ambidextrous was locked on the hilt of a solid-gold knife that he had fashioned himself from a bar that was 10K—so the deadly length was good and hard. Pure gold, like an innocent soul, was far too soft to be of any use as a weapon.
And the tip of his proverbial spear was resting right on the belly button of the human. To the point where a little red spot had bloomed at the contact, the stain spreading through the fibers of the blue scrubs like an infection on skin.
Blade and his next kill were standing in a stark hallway that was located thirty-five feet below a cornfield, ten miles away from the nearest town, fifty miles away from the nearest city, and a hundred and fifty million light-years away from the likes of Philadelphia. Above them, a vent was blowing warm air, and stretching down the corridor, fluorescent ceiling lights glowed like little cloud banks that were tethered in place.
Off in the distance, voices were in volley, the back-and-forths dimmed by closed portals, the exchange of syllables the kind of thing that humans couldn’t track. As a symphath, though, he heard everything. And he saw things, too.
The pasty little groundhog of a man in front of him was north of forty—going by the receding hairline and the paunch—but not by a lot, and his emotional grid was lit up like a Christmas tree: Thanks to Blade’s bad side, he could burrow into the secret, private places of almost anybody, visualizing both their nitty and their gritty. And because of what he was, he never failed to draw off the negative emotions, the upset, the paranoia, the fear, all of which were represented to him in a three-dimensional, CAD-drawing-like effect.
Like the balloon in a comic strip, bobbing over their head.
As a mewing sound burbled up between them, Blade catalogued his prey. The scientist in the white coat had sweat running down his bloated face and bubbling over his upper lip, and his heart wasn’t so much beating as flickering, the pulse at the carotid artery a tremble that was oh-so-close to the very thin skin of the throat. The features of the face didn’t register very clearly; then again, there were other details that were a tastier meal for his mind.
“H-h-how did you get in here,” the man stammered.
Blade smiled and did nothing to hide his fangs. And what do you know, his victim’s wide stare locked on them.
“You have bigger problems than my entry.” Blade inhaled again, and leaned in so close, they were practically kissing. “And speaking of penetration, pity I don’t have more time. I’d enjoy getting to know you. Inside and out.”
Whimpering now, the sound high-pitched and repetitive. Like the squeaky toy of a dog.
“Unfortunately, time’s ticking,” Blade continued. “Oh, and don’t be complimented, by the way. I have very low standards. I’m positively indiscriminate about who I’ll fuck.”
Moaning. A weaving on the man’s feet, as if the hyperventilating and the inefficient pump of his cardiac muscle were causing him to pass out. “Where did you come from…?”
Blade stared into the black holes of the man’s pupils. “Hell.”
With a jab of his fist, he gored into the abdominal cavity with his gold knife, feeling the organs give way like fabric, the energy created by the contraction of his shoulder and arm muscles transferring down the hilt, through the blade, and into the loose bundles of the digestive system.