Body Master (17 page)

“I told him it was a crazy-ass plan. Did he listen?
No
.” She hauled herself up and retrieved the disrupter before heading to the cooler to back up her partner. Dempsey owed her a damn fine bottle of wine.

Max chased Skinman through the racks of body parts. The bastard was small but fast. Obviously, he was used to running from a fight. He poofed behind another rack, and Max swore as he tried to keep one eye on the door for Skinman’s guards. Plus if Skinman made it out of the cooler, Max would have a hell of a time tracking him through the maze of tunnels.

To top it all off, Seneca was nowhere to be seen, which meant she’d gone after the quiet guy up front by herself. She was going to be the death of him yet.

A few more minutes of hide and seek, and Max had had it. He raced to the last rack, braced himself against it, and pushed. It rocked, hung for a moment in the air, and then toppled over, taking the next rack with it. The racks crashed, one after another, sending jars, glass, fluid, tissue, and containers falling in a deafening racket. It wasn’t quiet, but it was effective.

There was a scream as the last rack smashed into the far wall. Max made his way around the rubble, following Skinman’s groans. He found him wedged between two racks, pinned by shelves and covered with human remains.

Skinman clawed at the debris, trying to free himself. “You’re him. Dempsey.”

Max pulled one shelf off the stack piled on top of the Shifter so he could get to him. “Yes, and we wouldn’t be here if you weren’t so sloppy. Any other Skinmen in the city?”

“Look, man. I’m just trying to survive, same as you.”

“We aren’t the same,” Max growled. “Are there any others?”

Skinman didn’t answer; he was too busy shifting back to his smaller human form. Probably trying to wriggle out from under the rubble. Fat chance. Max waited until Skinman finished his shift before reaching in to grab Skinman by his skinny human neck.

Skinman gagged, his eyes widening as Max ripped him out of the mangled pile of metal and glass. Blood dripped from the man’s arms, chest, and hands as Max lifted him high in the air. Max squeezed Skinman’s neck, feeling the tendons and bones give under the man’s weight. “Where did you get the bodies? Homeless?”

Skinman choked and tried to nod his head.

“From the tunnels?”

Another nod.

“And you didn’t think anyone would notice?”

A squeak came out of the Skinman.
Moron.

“Did your men trash my place?”

Confusion on his face answered that question. Max pulled Skinman close. “Who did?”

And that was when Max smelled it, with the full range of his Shifter abilities—the faint odor of Ell’s murderer on Skinman’s shirt. For a moment, he froze as old memories washed over him. Ell’s body bathed in blood, the sign she’d drawn, and the grief that left only pure, red rage behind.

His hand tightened around Skinman’s neck, his voice raw with emotion. “Who is he? Who killed my wife?”

Skinman’s hands flailed as he shook his head in terror and confusion. Max forced himself to loosen his grip and shoved Skinman back against the broken leg of a rack. Skinman yelped as Max pushed his spine into the pole.

“Who have you talked today? Besides these guys?”

Skinman looked at him. “No one. Just you.”

Max put a little more pressure on. “You talked to someone. Tell me who he is.”

Then Skinman’s eye widened.
He knew
. “I can’t. He’ll kill me.”

“No,” Max said, his teeth gritted with the effort to control himself. “
I’m
going to kill you. It can be slow and painful or quick and merciful. The choice is yours.”

Skinman started to whimper. “Please.”

Max pressed hard enough for bones to crack. Skinman screamed, “Hager! Name’s Hager!”

Relief flowed through Max, a heavy weight lifted that he hadn’t realized he’d been carrying. He had a name. It might not be the right name, but it was something. He’d given up so much just for that.

Skinman cried, “Don’t kill me.”

“You signed your own death certificate when you murdered all these innocent people,” Max said, and then he heard Seneca.

“Dempsey, look out!”

In the slender beam of her flashlight, everything moved in slow motion, a little like when Riley was killed. The Shifter who’d gotten past her while she was dealing with the others charged Dempsey, jumping onto his back and driving him into Skinman. There was a chorus of screams before Dempsey raised up on his legs, throwing the attacking Shifter off him.

When he turned around, Seneca gasped at the deep, bloody gash in his torso. Behind him, Skinman was impaled on a jagged metal post, staring wide-eyed at the ceiling. Despite the fatal-looking wound, Dempsey moved fast, grappling with the attacker and slamming him against the wall. He attacked again, and blood spattered in every direction with each meaty collision.

Dempsey absorbed several blows to the face and body, and she saw his knees buckle. He couldn’t take much more. She raised the disrupter, studying the attacker’s twists and turns. Time slowed, she could hear her own breathing, and she fired. The payload struck the attacker in the back, and he faltered long enough to give Dempsey the opening he needed. He formed his hand into a blade and drove it into the Shifter’s belly. The attacker crumpled, a low groan filling the room, and he dropped to the floor.

Dempsey staggered on his feet, and Seneca holstered both the gun and the flashlight to help him. Plunged in the dark once again, all six feet of him slumped against her. She wrapped her arm around his back to give him support.

“How bad is it?” she asked him, hoping for the best.

It took a moment for him to answer. When he did, she could hear the agony in his voice. “Had worse.”

“You can’t lie for shit,” she said as her mind began to run through how they were going to get out of there alive. “Is he dead?”

“Yes.”

And Skinman was definitely down for the count. That cleared this room. Now all she had to worry about were the guards standing between them and salvation. “Good. I think our work here is done. Can you walk?”

“Yeah.”

With the disrupter in one hand and her other arm around him, she moved forward with all her might. Dempsey was damned big, and every step was hard work for both of them. What would she do when another Shifter got in their way? How would she fight?

When they made it out of the office and onto the ledge along the canal, she saw the full extent of Dempsey’s injuries in the light. He was trailing a ribbon of blood behind them from the deep belly wound. Worse than that, his shadow, which usually hugged his Primary form tightly, kept wandering from him in random patterns. He was in bad shape.

“Would it be better if you changed to human form?” she asked, trying not to sound as panicky as she was becoming.

He shook his head. “We heal faster in Primary form.”

“That’s good, because I’m going to need your nose and eyes to lead us the hell out of here,” she said as he stumbled, sending them both into the rock wall. She gave an
oomph
and winced at the brunt of his weight. Then he rolled off her and leaned his back against the canal wall to rest. His hand covered the wound, and she was hesitant to move it in case he was somehow stopping the bleeding.

“You need a doctor,” she said.

He shook his head. “No doctor.”

“You can’t fix this,” she said, feeling the helplessness rising in her voice. “You guys have Skinmen, what about doctors?”

Dempsey’s eyes were closed. “Don’t know any.”

She raised her hands in frustration. “You do this job, you risk your life every day, and you don’t have a doctor?”

He opened one eye and looked at her. “So shoot me.”

Hell.
She rubbed her forehead. She was exhausted—mentally and physically—and if he passed out right now, she’d never be able to get him to the surface. “I swear to God, from now on, I do the planning. Your plans suck.”

He gave her a weak smile, and she exhaled. “Come on, hero.”

They stumbled along, forming a strange team as Dempsey gave the directions through the black maze of tunnels and Seneca carried the gun.

After what seemed an eternity, they turned a corner, and Seneca halted. A single Shifter stood dead ahead. Dempsey wasn’t talking much anymore, and she’d figured he was internalizing his pain and unable to battle. Which left her on her own.

She dragged him forward, gun at the ready. The shadow zoomed toward them at alarming speed.

“Stop right there,” she yelled, raising the disrupter. “Or I’ll shoot you where you stand.”

When he didn’t stop, she shoved Dempsey to the side, aimed, and shot the Shifter. He spun backward, but stayed on his feet. The disrupter was fucking useless. She’d have better luck hitting Shifters in the head with it.

“That’s one,” she said, bluffing. “The next one will kill you. I’m in no mood for games. So you let us pass, and I let you live.”

“Or I could shoot you both,” he replied.

These Shifters weren’t all stupid. She opted for a dose of reality. “Well, you
could
but Skinman is dead, and you aren’t getting paid to die anymore.”

“Says you.”

“Just use your nose. Smell anything familiar?”

It only took a few seconds for him to detect Skinman’s heavy scent and blood. “He’s dead?”

“Unless you guys can walk around with a steel rod through your belly. So I can kill you and you die for nothing. Or you let us pass and do something else with your life.”

There was no answer, and the shadow didn’t move. Close enough; she’d already wasted enough time. She shouldered Dempsey again, and he gave a pained groan pain as they squeezed past the Shifter. After they’d passed him, Seneca turned. He was gone.

There was a sliver of light straight ahead, and Seneca saw the glow of the moonlight beyond it. “Almost there, Dempsey.”

He was breathing hard and loud as he pulled her to stop. “Need to shift. Can’t be seen.”

His head was down, his teeth gritted in agony. She asked, “Can you do that in your condition?”

“I’ll try. If not, you have to shift me.”

Sudden panic set in, and she shook her head vehemently. “No way. You’ve seen what happens when I do that. It hurts.”

He raised his face to the ceiling, crazy with pain. “Won’t have a choice.”

“Forget it. Stay in Shifter form.”

“Too risky.”

“Well, I’m not force-shifting you,” she said, and she meant it. He needed all his strength to mend himself. “We just need to get you to the car—”

Dempsey pushed himself away from her and stood unsteadily. Before she could stop him, he shifted, and the tunnel echoed with his anguished growl.

S
eneca wrestled her half-dead partner into the car without anyone seeing them. She slid into the driver’s seat and fought the crippling exhaustion that swept over her. Her night was just beginning. Dempsey had managed to shift to his human form on his own, but just as she feared, it took everything out of him.

His breathing was shallow, his coloring bad, the gaping wound in his gut had already soaked through his clothes, and she was covered in his blood. If he were a normal human, he’d be finished. With shapeshifters, who knew? She laid her throbbing head on the steering wheel to think. She had basic first aid training, but she certainly wasn’t a medic. She bit her lower lip and finally decided she had exactly one option.

She turned the ignition and headed for home. As she drove, she morbidly realized that if Dempsey died, most of her troubles would be over. She would have proven that he was no better at capturing Shifters than human agents were. No report would be filed. The Committee would abandon their prototype Shifter plan.

She stopped in traffic and looked at Dempsey. And if he died, XCEL would be in more trouble than they could handle. And that was the damn truth.