A faintpop,pop… and then three Magnums, identically dressed, stood where five seconds ago there’d only been one.
Then those three Magnums all began to oscillate in an identical way.
Layla asked into our private thread.
He had to be lying about our guns not hurting him. I’d killed him before, hadn’t I?
I didn’t bother answering Layla.
I racked the slide, gripped the gun in both hands, aimed at the center of his chest, exhaled steadily… and began shooting.
26
A Damnable Frenzy of Magnums, and a Fading Pulse, a Weakening Heartbeat
My righteous anger thumped through my head, nearly as thunderous as the reverberations from my pistol as I shot at all three Magnums. Unnervingly, the identical men merely stood there, allowing me to target them point-blank while looking concerningly smug.
As they continued to vibrate, preparing—apparent-fucking-lly—to duplicate again, I shot them in the chest—thrice each for good measure—before the three Magnums burst into nine.
Fuck. Me.
Every handful of seconds, each one had the potential to transform into three more like him. As if a single one of them wasn’t threat enough…
My bullets didn’t do a damn thing to stop any of them, instead spearing straight through their bodies as if they were as insubstantial as smoke, leaving holes in their clothing but not in their flesh. The bullets embedded in the wall behind the Magnums with small puffs of plaster.
Immediately, each of the nine Magnums began to oscillate anew.
My friends opened fire as well, the booms of our revolvers stunningly loud in the space, which had before felt unreasonably cavernous for an office, and now was rapidly becoming snug with each addition to our nemeses’ ranks.
I unloaded the entirety of my magazine into them—a full twenty bullets. In addition to the chest, I also hit them in the face, abdomen, groin, kneecaps, anywhere capable of severely incapacitating them.
The result was always the same: intact Magnums; shot-to-shit clothing and surroundings.
The reading nook no longer was welcoming; the sexy low-slung chair was battered.
The Magnums were at a twenty-seven count, and without so much as a single drop of blood shed between all of them.
There seemed little point to reloading. When my crew ran out of bullets, we switched out our magazines but allowed silence to settle, buzzing noticeably after so much racket.
“I don’t understand,” Layla murmured. “Joss killed you before.”
Yes, I had. With a knife, not a gun!
I slid a blade from my back pocket and launched it at a Magnum. I repeated the action over and over and over.
My four knives pierced the wall, a book, and the stalk of a ficus. Four of the Magnums’ fancy sweaters sported fresh slashes.
Brady muttered into our bond, sounding as disturbed as I felt.
I suggested.
Despair trawled its icy tentacles up my hands and feet, spreading to my arms and legs. But hell, there had to be a way to kill him, there just had to!
The twenty-seven Magnums occupied so much space that some of them lined up in front of the window wall close to thelarge desk. They grinned, revealing bright, straight, attractive teeth I instantly wanted to bash in with the butt of the gun I gripped at my side. Seemed to be no reason to aim it.
“You can’t kill us,” the Magnums said, all together, all at once, in perfect synchrony.
A full-body shudder swept along the length of me.
