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Slowly, as if underwater, Saiman locked the heavy metal door.
To the right, a decontamination shower loomed in the corner. I pushed Derek into it and pulled the chain. Water drenched him. He shuddered and raised his face to the stream, letting the water run into his eyes.
"How bad are you hit?"
"The bullet went through. It's nothing."
Bullets pounded into the door with sharp staccato. It wouldn't hold them for long.
If I had a lab, I'd have the fuse box nearby in case I had to shut things down in a hurry. I looked around and saw the dark gray rectangle of the fuse box in the wall between two cabinets. Perfect. I pried the cover open and pulled the main fuse.
The apartment went pitch-black. For a second I was blind and then my eyes adjusted, picking up faint light from the digital clock on the wall. Must be battery operated.
Next to me the sound of ripping fabric announced the werewolf shedding his clothes and human skin. Yellow eyes ignited six and a half feet off the ground, like two moons.
Saiman took a deep, shuddering breath.
"Hide or fight," I whispered to him. "Just don't get in my way."
The rain of bullets halted. Not good. They'd decided they couldn't shoot their way through the door. The next step was explosives. I dashed to the left side of the door and pressed myself against the wall in the corner.
Across the room the enormous shaggy monster that was Derek leaped onto the counter. A clawed paw swiped the butane lab lighter and raised it to the sprinkler. A tiny blue flame flared at the end of the lighter. It licked the sprinkler, once, twice, and then water rained down in a stinging spray.
Bye-bye gas.
A high-pitched whine tore through the quiet.
The explosion shook the door, slapping my ears. The metal door screeched and fell into the room. A flashlight beam sliced through the darkness, searching for targets. I squeezed the hilt of my saber. It felt so comforting, like shaking hands with an old friend. Water soaked my hair.
Derek sank his claws into the paneling, leaped, and crawled across the ceiling with terrifying speed, grasping steel beams for support.
The door burst open. I slid down into a crouch.
The first man edged into the room, his black handgun gripped in both hands in a time-honored shooter stance. The bulletproof vest made him appear almost square. The man spun right, spun left, turning the gun barrel two feet above me, and advanced into the room.
A second man followed, holding his flashlight and gun in a Chapman hold: the gun gripped in the right hand, the flashlight in the left, the hands clenched together. He turned, his flashlight sweeping the length of the room.
Come in, there is nothing to fear. You're big and strong, and your gun will protect you.
The bright beam glided over lab tables, biting at darkness broken by streams of water. Left, right ...
The third man stepped into the room, covering the man with the flashlight. Classic.
The beam slid up. A nightmare looked into the light: a huge man towering eight and a half feet high, his colossal muscles bulging in hard ridges on his immense frame. His skin glowed in the light, pure white, as if he were molded out of snow. A blue mane cascaded down his shoulders, framing a cruel face, and on that face two eyes blazed, pure translucent blue, like ice from the deepest part of a glacier. Looking into them was like staring back in time, at a thing that was alien and ancient and very, very hostile. Saiman had taken his true form.
The men froze for half a second. They expected a man, a woman, and Saiman. They didn't expect their flashlight to find an enraged ice giant in the darkness and they gaped, just as the ancient Scandinavians had done ages ago, gripped by a paralysis of awe and fear.
I sliced the inside of the closest man's thigh in a sharp upward thrust, severing muscles and the femoral artery, stabbed him in the heart, pulled the blade out, and sliced the neck of the second man in a fluid easy movement--the blade was so sharp, the cut was almost delicate.
The man with the flashlight fired once. Saiman's enormous hand slapped the firearm out of his fist. Massive fingers clenched him and the man vanished into the darkness. A hoarse scream cut through the silence, full of pain and pure terror.
Derek dropped to the floor and bounded over the bodies into the living room. I followed him.
Behind us the man kept howling, no longer desperate, just hurting. A gun spat bullets to the right, wood snapping--someone firing blindly in panic. I waited four seconds until he emptied his clip, and then I ran across the room, stepped behind him, and sliced: one cut left to right, the second straight across the spine, just under the bulletproof vest. He went down.
Something moved behind me.
I spun, slicing, the man behind me a mere shadow in the gloom. Slayer crashed against a thicker blade. The man snapped an angle kick to my left side. His shin hammered my ribs in a burst of pain. A Muay Thai fighter. Fine. I spun with the impact, whipped around, and kicked him, heel to solar plexus, putting all of the power of my spin and my thigh into it.
The impact knocked him back. My knee crunched. Ow.
I chased him, leaping over boxes. The fallen man rolled to his feet in time for me to split his stomach open. I tugged Slayer free, sank the blade between the lower ribs of his right side, for good measure, and withdrew.
The screaming stopped.
"Cleearr," Derek's mangled voice said.
"Saiman! Flip the fuse."
A long moment passed. The electric light came on, sudden and harsh, like a sucker punch. Five bodies lay broken and twisted in the living room, their blood ridiculously vivid against the monochromatic backdrop of black floor and white furniture. The massive shaggy beast that was Derek straightened, scarlet dripping from his claws, and dropped a mangled body to the floor. He raised his muzzle. A long wolf howl rolled through the apartment, a song of hunt and blood and murdered prey.
Saiman emerged from the lab, stooping to fold his frame through the doorway. A thing dangled from his hand. It might have been a man at some point, but now it hung, limp and boneless, like a sack of human meat pierced here and there by shards of its bones.
"It's over." I kept my voice soothing. "Put it down."
Saiman shook his victim.
"Put it down. You can do it. Just let go."
Saiman released his victim. The body fell with a sickening wet thud. The ice giant slumped against the wall and slid down to sit on the floor.
I walked past the overturned couch to the man whose stomach I'd cut. He was still breathing, clutching at his wounds, his heavy tactical sword lying next to him. Thick blood wet his fingers in a dark, almost tar-like stain. Yep, hit the liver. A ski mask hid his face. I pulled it off. A familiar brutish face stared at me with pale eyes. Blaine "The Blade" Simmons. Blaine used to work for the Guild. About four years ago he decided the Guild wasn't hardcore enough for him and struck out on his own. Word on the street was, Blaine hired killers and liked wet work. The nastier, the better. Any gig, any target, as long as the money was right. That must've been his crew.
