Urban Enemies (Cainsville 4.5)

"What . . . you don't believe in God?"

"No, darling, I don't believe I'll be saved. If you know so much about me, then you know that I'm beyond redemption."

"I thought Jesus was all about cleansing sins."

"Surely there's a limit, and I can say without fear of contradiction that I'm well over the mark."

She studied him, and he saw something flicker in her eyes. It looked like sadness, like the kind of raw emotion he'd seen in her before. But it was there and gone.

"Do you know what I've been doing all this time?" she asked.

"Other than following me? No."

"Oh, I mean what I've been doing my whole life. Since before you even met my sister."

"What . . . ah . . . field of study?"

The sadness in her face shifted, darkened. "I followed in my sister's footsteps."

"Oh, God . . ."

"There's no real name for the field. Amirah was pioneering new ground. She called it 'transformative biology,' but that was for lack of something else to call it." Aayun paused and shrugged. "As good a name as any, I suppose."

She gave the crowbar another fierce pull, and the front of the packing case leaned outward, seemed to pause for a moment, and then fell with a crash.

The case was filled with madness.

7.

Toys had to fight back the scream that rose to his mouth.

Inside the crate was a cylinder of heavy reinforced glass seated in a metal base upon which was a computer control pad. Wires and thick cables snaked up to the lid, and hoses dangled down inside. The lights on the control panel glowed in vibrant shades of red and green. A monitor beeped softly.

The cylinder was filled with liquid, and inside the liquid, standing like a golem from some mad story, was a naked figure. A man.

A man Toys recognized.

His name was--or had been--Abdul Fazir. Like Amirah, he was a scientist, and a good one, specializing in virology and infectious diseases. He had helped Amirah modify Seif al Din to bring its level of communicability to near 100 percent. The last time Toys had seen Fazir was the day he and Sebastian had sabotaged the geothermal vents in Amirah's lab beneath the sands in Iraq. Fazir had already been infected with the latest generation of the pathogen. Not the version that created the mindless and murderous living dead, but the strain that let the victims retain their personalities, even at the cost of their sanity and humanity. It was the strain that Amirah had used on herself and that had given El Mujahid the power to nearly kill Joe Ledger.

And now here Fazir was. Suspended in liquid, but awake. Dead, but not dead. Living dead. Staring with milky eyes through the curved wall of glass at Toys.

"What have you done . . . ?" he whispered.

Aayun bent and rested her forehead against the glass. Fazir's hand moved and touched the inside of the cylinder. His fingers twitched as if caressing her hair. She spoke without looking at Toys. "He's the last of my family," she murmured. "Uncle Abdul . . ."

There must have been some kind of speaker attached to the tube, because when she mentioned his name, the dead man smiled. His teeth were rotted to jagged green stumps, and there was a look of dreadful, bottomless hunger in his eyes. His bloodless lips formed a single word.

Aayun.

He said it to her, but he was looking at Toys. Then his eyes shifted away, and Toys turned to follow his gaze. At least half of the crates were of the same size and shape as the box in which Fazir's cylinder stood. Toys's mouth went dry. There were at least forty of them. Maybe more.

"No . . . ," he breathed.

When he looked back at Fazir, the dead man was grinning at him. A tongue the color of an old mushroom lolled out from between those jagged teeth and licked the rubbery lips with great, slow relish.

"Aayun!" cried Toys. "Aayun, what is all this? Why did you bring them here? Why did you bring me here?"

She pushed off from the cylinder, walked back to him, and stood so close that he could smell dried sweat and sex on her from last night. Aayun caressed his cheek with the backs of her fingers.