Penumbra (Spook Squad 3)

The blue beam arced across the night and hit him in the left shoulder. He flung his arms wide and went down with a thump. She waited, laser still raised and at the ready, for several seconds. When he didn’t move, she rose and cautiously approached. Her shot might have caught him in the shoulder, might have torn through flesh as easily as it had his clothes, but that didn’t mean he was down for the count. Far from it.

Her gaze went briefly to the wound. At least with lasers there was no bleeding and little chance of infection. The laser beam cauterized the wound in an instant—not that it made it any less painful.

The shifter himself was hooded and dressed in black from head to toe, his body solid but smudged around the edges, as if he were a drawing that wasn’t quite compl

ete. Odd, to say the least. There was still no movement, no sign of breathing. Warily, she nudged his foot. No response. She tried a little harder and got the same result. Maybe he was unconscious, because he couldn’t be dead. Not from a shoulder wound.

Cautiously, she knelt and reached for his wrist to feel for a pulse. In that instant, he came to life, twisting around to throw a punch. She dodged, but not fast enough. His fist hit her cheek, the force of the blow reverberating through her skull and throwing her backward. Her head smacked back against the rooftop, sending a shock wave of pain through the rest of her body. For a moment, stars crowded her vision.

Air stirred, accompanied by sound. The scrape of a heel against the roof. A grunt of effort.

She blinked back tears and tried to concentrate. She felt a force of air coming from her left and rolled right. A booted foot landed inches away, the sheer power behind the kick seeming to shudder through the entire roof. If that blow had landed, he would have crushed her face.

He laughed. Laughed.

Then he tried stomping her with the other foot.

“Bastard,” she muttered, firing the laser even as she dodged.

The bright beam of light speared into his chest. Skin and bone were seared into blackened bits that scattered on the wind even as his body dropped lifelessly to the ground. The smell of burned flesh was fiercer than before because of her proximity.

She closed her eyes and took several deep breaths. She hadn’t meant to kill him, but her instincts had taken over. Yet worse than the knowledge that she’d killed was the sensation that something felt very wrong.

With the speed that shifter had, he should have been able to dodge the laser. He didn’t even try. Why not?

Did he want to die?

She sniffed, then winced as pain slithered across her face. A light probe with her fingers revealed a rapidly swelling cheek as well as a warm stickiness that could only be blood oozing toward her chin. The cut was a good inch long. The creep must have been wearing a ring of some kind when he’d hit her. The inside of her mouth was just as tender, and at least two teeth seemed horribly loose.

She spat out a mouthful of blood and slowly climbed to her feet. For an instant, the night swam and her stomach rose. Then she swallowed and rubbed the back of her head where an egg the size of a football was forming.

Great. Showing up looking like a boxer who’d taken one too many punches was just what she needed to impress Wetherton.

Sam grimaced and walked across to the body. Tendrils of smoke were rising from the wound. Maybe it was steam from his still-warm body.

Or maybe it was something else entirely.

What that something else could be she didn’t want to know—though her imagination was certainly firing up some fantastical ideas, such as maybe it was his soul rising.

As if anyone could see something like that.

Ignoring the goose bumps running rampant across her skin, she picked up his hand and studied the ring on his finger. It was a thick gold band with a square front. The symbol carved into it looked like a flame wrapped in barbed wire. Odd.

She let his hand drop, then leaned forward and pulled off the mask covering his face. He had red-gold hair and gray-green eyes that were wide with shock. So this wasn’t any ordinary assassin, but a product of Hopeworth.

But if Hopeworth was the birthplace of the Wetherton clone, why would it send an assassin after him?

And why send one after her, if they wanted to find out more about her?

It didn’t make any sense.

But then, when had anything in her life ever made sense? It was frustrating, to say the least.

She rose to her feet and walked across to the edge of the building. The fire had been controlled and SIU officers were headed her way. She crossed her arms and waited for them. Right now, there was nothing else she could do.

—

The phone rang loudly. Gabriel reached out, making several empty grabs before he hit the vid-phone’s receive button.