The words had barely whispered in her ear when she heard the sound of glass shattering. A heartbeat later, the screaming began. Sickening visions swam through her mind—bloodied images of the street bum she’d found three months ago, his body a mass of raw, weeping muscle stripped of skin.
She swallowed heavily and pounded up the stairs. “Negative. It’s attacking. I’m in pursuit.”
“Damn it, you’re not equipped to deal—”
“Just get backup here quickly.” She pressed the earphone, cutting him off again. She didn’t need to hear what she could and couldn’t do. Not when a man’s life was at stake.
Two flights … three. She leapt over the banister and up the remaining stairs. People milled in their doorways, their eyes wide and fearful. Not one of them appeared willing to investigate what was happening to their neighbor. City living, she thought, sucked. But then, would neighbors in suburban areas be any more willing to risk investigating screams as horrifying as the ones currently shattering the silence? She suspected not.
She slithered to a stop outside the apartment door and glanced back at the pajama-clad crowd. “SIU, folks. Go back inside and lock your doors.”
The crowd melted away. With her laser held at the ready, she stepped back and kicked the door. Wood shuddered, splintering. She booted it a second time and the door flung open, crashing back on its hinges.
The kite was in the middle of the living room, its sheetlike form covering all but the stranger’s slippers. His screams suddenly choked off, and all she heard was an odd sucking noise. Blood seeped past the flaccid, winglike sections of the creature’s arms, forming pools that seemed to glisten black in the darkness.
She raised the stun rifle and fired at the creature. The blue-white energy bit through the darkness, flaring against the kite’s leatherlike skin. If it had any effect, she couldn’t see it.
She switched her aim to the creature’s oddly shaped head and fired again. The kite snarled and looked up. It had no mouth, she saw suddenly. It was sucking the stranger’s flesh and blood in through pores on its skin.
She shuddered and fired again, this time at its eyes. The creature snarled again, the sound high-pitched and almost batlike. Then it shook its head and jerked upright. Bloodied strips of half-consumed flesh slid down its body and puddled at its feet. Her stomach churned, but she held her ground and kept on firing at the creature’s eyes. It obviously wasn’t stunning the kite, but it was doing something, because the kite’s movements were becoming increasingly agitated.
It screamed again, then turned and stumbled toward the window. She edged into the apartment. The kite smacked into the wall, then flung out an arm, feeling for the window frame. It was almost as if it had lost all sonar capabilities. So maybe the weapon had addled its keen senses.
It grasped the window frame, felt for the other side to position itself, then dove through the shattered glass. Sam ran over to the window and leaned out. The kite was floating back to the street, its arms out wide, loose skin stretched taut to catch the light breeze. She pressed the earphone again.
“Gabriel, the kite is now on Macelan Street, heading west.”
“Do not go after it. I repeat, do not go after it. Stay in the apartment.”
Her smile was grim. If the tone of his voice was anything to go by, he was madder than hell. He had a right to be, she supposed, but what else could she have done? Let the kite devour the stranger?
Not that her intervention had saved him. She turned away from the window and dug out the marble-sized crime-scene monitor—the latest gadget from the SIU labs. She hit the Activate button, then tossed the CSM into the air. It hovered for several seconds, then the light flickered from red to green, indicating that it was now recording. She ordered it to do a sweep of the premises for record purposes. The monitor obeyed, panning around the room, taking in the doorway she’d kicked open, the window, and the body. Then it returned, hovering several feet away from her.
“The kite smashed through the living room window and attacked the victim at three fifteen A.M. I—SIU Officer Ryan—intervened and drove the kite back through the window.” She showed the monitor her badge, then walked across the room to squat beside the body. “The victim is male, probably mid-sixties.”
The CSM dropped closer to the body, capturing the bloody details of the murder. What remained of the victim’s flesh hung in strips, almost indistinguishable from the remnants of his red-and-white-striped pajamas. His eyes were wide, his mouth locked in a scream—a look of astonished horror that was now permanently etched into his features.
Why this man? Why not the two men talking in the apartment below, or the woman who’d just joined her partner in bed? She glanced up and studied the room.
The kite had come straight to t
his apartment, so it had obviously wanted this man specifically. What they now had to find out was why.
Sam rose and walked over to the shelving unit. The CSM followed her, a small limpet that recorded her every move, protecting her from future accusations of mistakes. Or possibly damning her if she did screw up. Mentally shrugging, she dug a set of gloves out of her pocket and put them on. Then she turned off the radio and ordered the CSM to pan across the photos lining the shelf.
Each photo contained the same four men, either fishing, drinking or standing around a barbecue. All of them looked to be at least fifty or sixty. She glanced again at the body. The victim was bald, save for a few scraggly wisps of white near either ear. He wasn’t in any of these photos, then. Maybe he’d been the one taking them?
She picked up one framed photograph, then turned at the sound of footsteps. Gabriel entered, his gaze sweeping the room until he found her.
“I could put you on report for your behavior tonight,” he said, stopping just inside the doorway.
Though his face was impassive, his hazel eyes were stormy with anger and, surprisingly, a touch of fear. She debated ordering the CSM to stop recording, then shrugged and let it continue. Procedures stated that any and all activity at a crime scene had to be recorded. If that included being told off, then so be it.
“Do it. Maybe then you’ll get your wish and be rid of me.” She hesitated. What was the point of arguing about it here? There were far more important matters at stake—like why the kite attacked this man. “Do you know who our victim is?”
For an instant, it looked as if he might continue with his reprimand. Then he shoved his hands in his pockets and walked across to the body. “Male, in his mid-sixties, obviously.” He glanced around the apartment. “And fairly well off. Those paintings are by Kyle Parker.”
She glanced across to the stylized landscapes. To her admittedly untrained eye, a three-year-old could have done a better job. And yet Parker’s paintings sold for millions.