Villainous (18 page)

It wasn’t moving. The steam blurred its image, but that was the back of its head, the hair just starting to grow back over a painful-looking horizontal scar. We were behind it. Good. I pointed it out to Eddy and Julio then continued forward carefully. The wet grass beneath my boots was soft, at least, but it hid puddles that would splash noisily if stepped in. The pace I set was so slow that a snail would have mocked it, and sweat dripped down the back of my neck. Every second, I feared the No-Man would turn around, but we reached the side of the front porch undetected.

We couldn’t go up the front steps. There was the blurry shape of another No-Man stationed right in front of them, so close that we’d have to pass within inches of it, and I didn’t trust the cover of the steam that much. Fortunately, the railing around the porch was as dilapidated as Mary remembered. There was a spot where two posts were missing and a third was snapped in half. We could climb up there. I lifted my right leg and set my foot down softly on the wooden boards. The old wood looked ready to creak at the slightest provocation, so I’d have to be careful. Eddy offered me a hand, which I took and climbed up.

The No-Man still hadn’t turned around and spotted us. How much longer would our luck hold? I tried to peer inside the house’s dirty window, but the steam had fogged it up. The heat made it hard for me to catch my breath and gave me an unpleasant reminder of Mary’s attempt to burn me alive. But there was no time to think of that now. Julio and I helped Eddy up, and he made his way to the front door as I gave Julio a hand. It was a screen door, allowing Eddy to look inside, and he motioned that it was safe to come forward.

Everything we did was frustratingly but necessarily slow. Eddy took half a minute to carefully open the door to ensure the hinges wouldn’t creak, and it took Julio and me longer than that to tiptoe across the front porch. When we slipped inside, it should have been cause for celebration, but it only meant the true test of stealth was about to begin. I hoped Eddy and Julio were shielding their minds. (Okay, mostly I was worried about Julio.) All the silence in the world wouldn’t matter if Mary sensed their thoughts, but it was too late to warn them now.

The first thing I noticed was the smell. Something in the house was rotting, though the odor was subtle enough that it probably hadn’t been here long. The hallway had enough light to see by without the goggles, so I tugged them down so that they hung around my neck. The interior was as decrepit as the outside of the building, the walls’ plaster cracked and completely gone in some places, revealing the wood underneath. Old newspapers littered the entryway, making a small obstacle course. The hallway extended straight ahead of us toward a staircase, four open doorways in view, and lights were coming from inside two of them. The humming of an air-conditioner trying admirably but failing to banish the heat warred with the sound of rain hitting the roof, and somewhere underneath those sounds, I could hear Dave’s voice ahead.

I extended my telepathy out of instinct but still got an infuriating amount of nothing. Submachine gun in hand, I forced myself to creep slowly down the hall and not run toward the sound of my husband’s voice like I was longing to do.

“—going to regret this,” he was saying. No, that was Mary. The voice was his, but the tone was all hers. “We have a good arrangement. I’m selling psyc faster than you can make it. Why cut yourself off from that kind of profit?”

“We did have a good arrangement—until you let the Prophet King destroy your inventory, lost my last production lot to the DSA, and then barged in here in White Knight’s body to threaten me. So don’t try to shift the blame for this onto me.”

The voice that responded to her nearly made me drop my gun in shock. I couldn’t be hearing what I thought I was. My brain must be in worse shape than I’d thought, because an auditory hallucination was the only explanation.

Dr. Sweet was locked up in the Inferno over two-thousand miles away. How in hell’s name had he gotten
here
?

Chapter 17

“Anyway, I’m afraid I’m just not that interested in psyc,” Dr. Sweet went on. “It’s a failed experiment, technically. Oh, the cash it brings in is nice, but that’s just a side project. I’m working on something much more significant.”

I hadn’t moved since I’d first heard his voice, and I had to force my foot to lift from the floor and take another step. He must have broken out of the Inferno some time after I’d visited him. Simple explanation. It wasn’t a big deal. Well, yes, it was, because no one had ever broken out of the Inferno, but I couldn’t waste time dwelling on the implications of that now.
Think positive, Val. Him being here now is fate giving you an opportunity to shoot him in the face.

“When my father finds out you did this, you’re dead,” Mary said, making me wince. There were few faster ways to make yourself look pathetic than to threaten someone with your more powerful parent. It just made you look completely ineffectual in comparison.

“But he won’t find out,” Dr. Sweet replied, “Because you didn’t tell him you were coming, did you? If you had, he would have stopped you. He’ll find your comatose body eventually and figure out that something went wrong when you were possessing someone, but he’ll never know what happened.”

I stopped at the doorjamb, staying out of sight, content to listen in for now. Mary had gotten Dr. Sweet monologuing, so that should buy us plenty of time.

“I’ll kill you for this,” Mary growled in Dave’s deep voice.

“Doubtful. But don’t take this the wrong way. I’m not angry at you. I’m actually quite grateful. You’ve given me White Knight all wrapped up in a bow, practically begging for me to kill him. It’s made my day.”

“Then kill him. Just let me get out of his body first.”

The light from inside the room spilled into the hallway, and Dr. Sweet’s shadow moved across the floor. I tensed, but he didn’t leave the room. He was just pacing.

“Mmm…no,” he said. “I don’t think so.”

“Fine, then.”

“Fine?”

“Fine. You’re right. I can’t kill you from here, and my father probably won’t find out about this.” She chuckled. “But my sister? My sister and her friends are outside just waiting to shoot that smug grin off your face.”

Oh, for the love of— So much for buying time.

I leaned around the doorjamb and opened fire, because honestly, what else could I do at that point? I didn’t worry about aiming. There wasn’t time to see where everyone was standing, and if I hit Dave by accident, it would only bruise him. I caught a brief glimpse of the room: Dave’s body held in restraints atop a metal table, several No-Men, Dr. Sweet’s lab coat fluttering as he ducked away. Then I ran out of ammunition and pulled back. Eddy immediately stepped around me and kept up the fire as I reloaded.

The No-Men fired back. A bullet punched through the wall about a foot above my head, and I flinched. This old house wasn’t going to give us any kind of reliable cover. That was why I’d wanted to observe more before making my move—thank you very much,
Mary
.
Julio moved quickly around me and behind Eddy, looking through the door. Ignoring the gun in his right hand, he held out his left, fingers spread.

The sound of the No-Men’s fire stopped. Eddy let out a triumphant “Ha!” then swore and stepped back. A second later, four No-Men charged through the door. I could see why they’d stopped firing now: their right hands were blackened, mangled messes, fingers twisted and flesh burned down to the bone in places. Julio must have melted the guns right out of their grasps.

The first No-Man tackled Eddy to the floor, and the others came for Julio and me. I scrambled back. The angle was all wrong for a shot. If I missed, I risked hitting Julio. The No-Man lunged, and I sidestepped, driving my foot into the back of its knee as it passed. That dropped it to a kneeling position, and I was behind it now. I pressed my gun to the back of its head and pulled the trigger.

Something slammed into me from behind and knocked me face-first to the floor. The weight of a body landed on top of me—another No-Man. It drove its fists mercilessly into my head and back, and when it struck the spot where the shrapnel from the Combuster’s explosion had stabbed me, it was like getting hit by lightning. I couldn’t react. The No-Man’s hands went around my neck and squeezed, and its right one was wet with blood and smelled like burned meat. I twisted and jerked and managed to roll us both over to our sides. The hands around my neck didn’t loosen. No-Men didn’t feel pain; I’d have to cut off its arms or kill it to make it let go.

Gun. Where was my gun? It wasn’t in my hand. Must have been knocked from my grasp when the No-Man tackled me, but I couldn’t see it. I swept my hands blindly around the floor but only felt dust and splinters. My brain was sending panic signals, and my vision started to blur. Crashes and grunts came from behind me. Sounded like Eddy and Julio needed me to get over there and save their asses. I gave up on my first gun and reached for the second holstered on my hip. Which was when the front door burst open, and the three No-Men we’d snuck past outside started shooting.

Dammit. They were shooting over me at Eddy and Julio. I had to move before they lowered their aim. Lungs filled with fire, I pointed my pistol over my shoulder and squeezed the trigger.

And there goes my hearing. Damn, I should have worn earplugs. But the fingers around my neck loosened, and I could breathe again. I shoved the No-Man’s arms off me and dove into the nearest doorway. The lights were off inside the room, and instead of furniture, it held stacks of boxes. Still crouched low to the floor, I leaned around the door frame and returned fire. Miss, headshot, and the first one fell. I aimed at the second and felt a rush of freezing air. I kept firing: chest, another miss, and come on, Julio, it was so cold that my hand was starting to shake. Not helping my aim here. But it wasn’t helping the No-Men, either. Their movements grew stiff and jerky, and after a few moments, they fell over like toys that needed new batteries.

I stood up, but before I could step back into the hallway, Julio swept past me, stepped over the No-Men, and put a bullet in each of their heads.

“N-Nice,” I said.

He gave me a smile, and the biting cold relented. I looked back down the hall to check on Eddy—and felt as if I’d been punched in the gut. Eddy was sitting on the floor with his hand clutched to his side, grimacing. I rushed up to him, but he waved me off.

“I’m fine.” To my ears, his voice sounded as if it was on the other end of a bad cell phone connection. “Vest took the hit. It just hurts like a mother.” He looked at Julio and jerked a thumb at the fallen No-Men. “How come they just up and stopped?”

“I heated their skulls until their brains melted,” Julio answered.

Eddy raised his eyebrows. “Okay, I’m impressed.”

“Hey!” Mary shouted. “You missed Sweet! He’s getting away!”

I walked to the room she was being held in but stopped at the threshold. She’d be eager to jump into a new body since her current one was strapped to a table. Best not to get too close. Aside from the table holding Mary (Why was there equipment here sturdy enough to hold someone of Dave’s strength? File that under ominous questions.), the room had some surprisingly new-looking electronics, cords running down the old wooden walls like vines.

“He turned right after he went out the door.” She tugged fruitlessly against the metal restraints on Dave’s wrists. “Let me out. I’ll help you.”

Yeah, right. Help me to an early grave, more like. I turned my back on her. Setting her loose would qualify as a suicide attempt, but I couldn’t leave her—leave
Dave
unprotected, either. Not with Dr. Sweet running around.

“Eddy…stay. Julio, w-w-w—” I gave up and motioned with my hand for Julio to follow me.

Eddy heaved himself to his feet as Julio and I continued down the hall. There was a staircase to the second floor and a door leading to a screened-in porch in the back of the house, and Dr. Sweet hadn’t left a trail of footprints to show which way he’d gone. So which would it be, hm? Would he take the door and run away, or take the stairs to grab whatever else he had stashed in this madhouse to fight us with?

“I’ll check outside. You take upstairs,” Julio said, so he must think the doc had run for it. The kid would never take the safe route and leave me to face danger alone. I didn’t have the means to argue, so I started up the steps as he slipped out the door.

The stairs creaked, of course. With the state of the old wood, I’d be grateful if they just creaked and didn’t collapse beneath my weight. The staircase turned at a right angle halfway up, and everything got darker the further I ascended. Not daring to lower my gun, I paused on the steps and struggled to pull my night-vision goggles back up one-handed. Eventually, I managed it, and as I continued up, the smell of decay that I’d noticed when I first entered the house grew stronger.

At the top of the stairs was a straight hallway that mirrored the one on the ground floor. There was no sound to indicate another person’s presence yet, no shuffling or breathing, but that didn’t prove that he wasn’t here somewhere. The sound of rain hitting the roof was louder up here, and without the sounds of a gunfight to cover it up, wind pushing against the house and distant rumbles of thunder were audible, if barely. But my hearing was still recovering from me firing a gun right next to my head, so maybe it was louder than I thought. This was getting ridiculous. My telepathy wasn’t working, I couldn’t speak, and now I’d damaged my hearing. Someone ought to blind me and be done with it.

I went through the first doorway on the left, intending to search each room methodically. This had been a bedroom—no, it was still a bedroom. The metal bed frame looked ancient, but the mattress and sheets atop it were new. Chairs with moldy cushions, a rusted metal space heater, and various debris had been pushed against the wall to clear space. The closet door had broken off, and there were two pale garments that looked like lab coats hanging inside. Was this where he’d been sleeping since breaking out of the Inferno? I shuddered. Didn’t matter. He wasn’t here now. Next room.