Chimera (19 page)

Zoe added, "If you get bored, you can try on Ruby's clothes."

None of them looked happy as they went in, but they went. We shoved the dresser against the closet door, then I peeked into the hall. Arthur stood at the far end with his gun out. I called, "Stay back, Arthur. The goon squad blew it."

"I've got more people outside, Max. You're trapped."

"Really? The neighbors might call the cops when they hear this." I shot three times down the hall. As Arthur dove for cover, I yelled, "Next time, I'll be aiming for you."

Zoe opened the bedroom window and sniffed. "The orca's out there. Maybe with company."

"Damn." I tossed her clothes to her, then pulled on my pants.

Arthur called, "Max!" I peered out. Arthur crouched at the end of the hall. "Mr. Kay wants to talk!"

"He wants us. We don't want him. That's not much of a conversation."

Holding his empty hands high, a slender man with brown and white hair stepped into the hall. His suit looked like molten gold. His voice was calm, educated, with what sounded like a Scotsman's burr. "I don't want you or the catwoman, Mr. Maxwell. All I want is Gold's earring. Give it to me, and I'll let you go."

"You're asking for a lot of trust."

"Do you see an alternative?"

"Yeah." I fired into the hall, and Django Kay leaped back. "I shoot anyone who comes toward this door, and the cat shoots anyone who comes near the window. How's that for an alternative?"

Django said, "The police are busy tonight. We have some time to discuss this."

"Great. Maybe my marksmanship will improve."

"Oh, I don't doubt that you'd shoot me or any of my people. But there are other possibilities. Arthur?"

The wolfwoman and the weasel bartender stumbled into the hall with their hands cuffed behind them. Before I could decide what to make of that, Arthur pointed a medical injector at their necks and fired two nearly silent puffs of air. Ruby and Nate jerked as if they'd been slapped.

Waggling a pistol at the chimeras, Django told them, "You've got ten seconds to get in that bedroom before I start shooting."

That made them look even more frightened. Neither protested. They just started running toward me, I hesitated, wondering what Django thought he was doing. He and Arthur stayed where they were, making no attempt to use the chimeras as shields. Django said, "Five seconds, Mr. Maxwell, before we shoot them."

I opened the door wide enough to yank the chimeras inside. "What did he inject you with?"

Nate said, "I don't know." Ruby shook her head.

Django called, "Mr. Maxwell!" I looked out and saw him at the end of the hall. "If you and Ms. Domingo come out unarmed, we won't shoot anyone. But if either of those two come into the hall again, we'll shoot them down in front of you."

"No one's leaving this room until the cops arrive."

"Really? Here's something most people don't know. Half of all critters have a defective gene. In the presence of a certain enzyme, they werewolf. Guess what I injected those two with?"

Zoe, Ruby, Nate, and I looked at each other.

Ruby said, "Oh, God."

Zoe said, "He's bluffing. Isn't he?"

I couldn't answer. So far as I knew, no one knew what caused werewolfing. I wanted to think Django was trying a desperate trick to get us out of the bedroom. But he knew we had no reason to trust him not to kill us if we came out. Our only choice was to wait and see if what he said was true.

He called, "The house bets that one or both of them werewolfs within forty-five seconds. Do the math, Mr. Maxwell. The odds are always with the house."

Ruby said, "He's trying to panic us."

Nate said, "He's doing a hell of a job."

I said, "Even if he's telling the truth, there's a twenty-five per cent chance that you're both fine."

Zoe added, "People beat worse odds than that every night."

But far more people lose; that's the house advantage at work. Nate twitched suddenly and said, "It itches." We all stepped back from him. The SIG in my hand felt very heavy.

Django called, "Werewolves attack anything that moves. Any reaction yet? I wouldn't waste time in your place."

Zoe said, "Maybe it's the power of suggestion."

Nate scratched at his arms and chest. "It itches all over. Please. Don't let me—"

Django called, "Toss out the earring and you can leave the room. We'll kill whoever's werewolfed. No one else has to die."

Nate clutched his belly and groaned. "Make it stop!"

Zoe looked outside, then at me. I shook my head. If we dove through the window and ran, the orca and his back-up might miss us, but the odds didn't appeal to me. Part of me wanted to shoot Nate now, but another part knew that Django could still be lying.

I said, "Maybe he injected you with something to make you itch—"

Nate screamed, spun in a circle, screamed, and snapped his handcuffs like a strand of dental floss. He stepped toward the wolfwoman, but before I could raise the SIG, he halted. His eyes looked sane. "Ruby. I wouldn't hurt you—"

She said, "Nate. Hang on. You got to."

His eyes went wide in shock, then narrowed as sanity left him. Howling in agony and fear, he lashed at Ruby, slicing her cheek with his nails.

I brought the SIG up. Ruby was in my way. Cursing myself for waiting too long, I scrambled onto the bed in the hope of finding a clear shot.

Zoe tackled Nate from behind. He stumbled, then spun around and threw himself backward as if to pin her against the wall. They crashed through the window and tumbled outside.

I ran to look out. Zoe lay motionless on the ground. Nate, crouched above her, sniffed the air. A human gunman stepped from behind a tree with a rifle raised. Before I could decide who to shoot, Nate rose screaming and rushed the gunman. Zoe still didn't move. In the darkness, I couldn't tell how badly she was hurt.

Ruby ran up beside me and called, "Nate!" He didn't turn away from the gunman.

I thrust the pistol I'd taken from one of the thugs into Ruby's hands and said, "Watch the hall!" I suspected Django and Arthur would stay back until they knew how the fight came out, but they might follow when they heard that the fight had moved outdoors.

The gunman fired at Nate three times. Whether all his shots hit or none did, the enraged weaselman didn't slow down. The gunman screamed as Nate savaged him. I hated hearing it. There's nothing comforting about having a monster fight for you. I lifted the SIG and waited for Nate to turn back toward us.

The orca, Rashid, stepped around the house and shot Nate repeatedly in the back. Nate snarled and fell onto the man he had killed.

I shot Rashid four times in the chest, then jumped out the window to land by Zoe. She still hadn't moved. Before I could crouch to examine her, I heard movement in the yard and looked for its source.

Nate stood above the human gunman's body. As he turned toward me, his face was twisted with rage and terror. He wiped blood from his hands onto his shirt, then realized what he was doing, and shuddered. Our eyes met. He said, "Cousin. Kill me."

Before I could answer, he charged me, covering ground impossibly fast. A shot in each kneecap might've immobilized him, but I was far more likely to miss, and my fondness for gambling had hit a record low. Even if I succeeded, the weaselman would just drag himself toward his prey, and in that state, he might still kill someone.

"I'm sorry, Nate." I shot him three times in the head. He took four more steps toward me, reached out blindly, and fell dead at my feet. I realized that my armpits were slick with sweat, and my limbs had begun to shake. I jerked myself back from Nate's body, then looked for Zoe.

She sat up behind me. "Is he—"

"Yeah. I thought you—"

"Playing dead."

The wolfwoman jumped from the window and crouched by the weaselman. She said, "Nate. My god—" I glanced back at the window to see if anyone was following, then caught Ruby by the shoulders. "Get to a neighbor. Call the cops." She nodded and ran into the back yard of the house next door.

I led Zoe to the front of Ruby's house, hesitated, then stepped past the corner and brought my gun around—too slowly. Arthur waited by the wall. His pistol barrel seemed large and impossibly long as I stared into its depths. He said, "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't kill you now, you son of a bitch."

Zoe stepped out and put one of Django's gunmen's pistols against the side of Arthur's head. "Because you don't want your brains all over my dress?"

His face went pale in the moonlight. I suppose mine wasn't all that ruddy. His datacle fell from his eye, and sweat beaded his upper lip. You never appreciate your skull so much as when someone offers you a chance to see pieces of it fly away.

For a long, long moment, we three were the whole of the world. Arthur blinked, I swallowed. Zoe simply waited with her pistol unwavering. I said, "You know what's a bitch?"

Arthur said, "What?"

"If you shoot first, I won't be able to see your head explode."

Our moment of intimacy ended when Django Kay said, "But if I shoot first, you'll learn the color of a chimera's brains." He stood on the front porch with his pistol aimed at Zoe. She, Arthur, and I remained frozen like a deadly game of statues.

Django said, "Doesn't that sound educational?" He walked to me and put his hand on my SIG. I let him take it from my fingers. "Good choice. There's no need for things to get messy."

He pocketed the SIG and reached for Zoe's pistol. As his hand closed on her gun barrel, she sniffed loudly.

Django said, "Let go."

Zoe kept her gun at Arthur's head. "Does your skin pal know you're passing?"

"I said—"

Zoe sniffed again. "Wolverine. What's a crooked plastic surgeon cost these days, Cousin?"

Arthur glanced at Django.

Django told Zoe, "Let go of the gun!"

She smiled. "Must be a kick, giving orders to skins."

Django jerked his head at me. "We don't need both of you. Arthur, shoot him."

Zoe said, "Do it, Arthur. Then I shoot you, Django's secret is safe, and he and I can work out a trade."

Arthur said, "Django—"

Django bared his teeth, a frightening sight whether he was human or wolverine. "She's lying! Shoot him!"

Zoe told Django, "You don't know if you need both of us. Question is, do you need Arthur?"

Django shoved her head with his gun barrel. "Shut up!"

Zoe kept her grin. "What do you think, Arthur? Think this critter will let you die to get what he wants?"

Django said, "Don't listen to her."

Zoe told him, "C'mon. You shoot that skin, I shoot this one. Then it's down to us critters—"

The next part went like dominoes: Arthur swung his pistol from me to Django, Django turned his pistol on Arthur, and I opened the Infinite Pocket. The SIG ripped Django's coat pocket as it flew to my hand. I said, "Simon says freeze!"

I liked this round of statues much better than the previous one: Django and Arthur aimed at each other, Zoe covered Arthur, I covered Django.

I said, "Put your guns on the ground." When Django and Arthur hesitated, I added, "Oops. Simon says put your guns on the ground."

They obeyed. Django said, "You can't get away with this."

I said, "Do you think anyone, anywhere, heard that and said, 'You're right, I give up'?"

Zoe said, "Maybe he was hoping we'd be the first."

I said, "Who wants us, Django?"

He smiled at me, and I could see the wolverine looking through perfectly human eyes. "Who doesn't?"

A siren sounded in the distance. Maybe the wolfwoman had convinced the police to come. Maybe the riot was moving toward us. We couldn't stick around in either case. I said, "C'mon."

Zoe glared at Kay. He was smart enough to stay quiet. She said, "He knows something. The werewolf enzyme proves that."

"Kay's a public man. We can always find him."

"But—"

I scooped up Django and Arthur's guns and backed toward the truck. "There'll be copbots with the police. You could be killed resisting arrest. C'mon!"

Zoe snarled and followed. Two dark sedans were parked in front of Ruby's house. As I got in the truck and leaned under the dash, Zoe shot a tire on each of the sedans.

She jumped into the passenger side and said with some urgency, "Max—"

Bruno, Blondie, and the black woman ran into the front yard from the side of the house. We hadn't bothered to pick up the guns belonging to the orca or his partner. Bruno and the black woman had.

The truck started. "Got it." I sat up and stomped the pedal.

Their first shot must have missed. The second shattered the truck's front and rear windows as we roared away. I said, "I hate bad losers." Then something hit my back. I thought that the back of the seat had exploded. When I looked down, I saw an exit wound in line with my liver.

"Max!" Zoe said.

Her concern was vaguely touching, but time and space were distorting then. I had to get the truck around the next block and out of the line of fire. Nothing else mattered. Not the shot that ripped through the seat an inch from Zoe's ear as she huddled beside me. Not the shot that smashed into my right shoulder, which made me sideswipe two parked cars before I regained control. And certainly not the shot that tore through the right ventricle of my heart and killed me.

Chapter Twelve

Death is great, but dying's a bitch, so I don't recommend it. You hurt in ways and to degrees you wouldn't have thought possible as the damaged parts of you beg you to do anything to fix them. Then, when you don't, they start dying before you do: Goodbye, liver. Goodbye, kidneys. Goodbye, lungs. Goodbye, heart. Then the pain fades along with the rest of the world as God turns off the lights in the auditorium of your life.

When the brain is deprived of oxygen, the mind hallucinates. There's no mystery to that. People's hallucinations fit certain broad patterns depending on their education. There's no mystery to that, either. Drifting toward a white light can mean a lot of things. Maybe I saw the face of God. Maybe I just experienced the ultimate high. I remember a sense of great contentment, understanding, and acceptance. Any number of intoxicants inspired similar feelings when I was younger. The main difference between dying and getting blind drunk is that dying results in less of a hangover—at least, if you do it the way I did.