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She fumbled with fat fingers for a key to unlock the storage cage but decided just to rip the lock from the latch. The cage was half-filled with white cardboard boxes and a heavy steel box. Leaned against a box were a machete and a chain saw. He saw, too, a cardboard carton stamped with a set of black triangles and octagons labeled with skulls and crossbones and words like “corrosive” and “highly toxic.”
Astrid lifted the hinged lid of the box and Drake saw that it was lined with heavy-gauge plastic. Then she raised the chain saw.
Drake tried more threats. He tried more curses. In his desperation he tried guilt. “If you do this, you’re no better than me, you hypocrite bitch!”
“Yes, it has its moral gray areas, doesn’t it?” Astrid acknowledged. “Then again, you’re a rapist, a torturer, and a murderer so I’m betting I won’t have too many regrets.”
She fired up the chain saw, the metal teeth whirring too fast for the eye to follow.
Drake bolted for the exit, but she blocked the only way out. Then she delivered a backhand slap that knocked him through the air to smash into the concrete wall. She grabbed him by his thigh, held him half-suspended in the air, and said, “Let’s first deal with making sure you can’t run.”
And she lowered the chain saw and held it firm as it buzzed through his leg.
“It’s convenient you not having blood. Imagine the mess otherwise.”
Brittany said, “Gentle Jesus, meek and mild.” Not a barb, just a random blurt.
In all, it took twenty minutes for Astrid to reduce Drake (and Brittany) to bits using first the chain saw and then the machete. All but Drake’s head, which still saw and heard, but could no longer speak. Astrid disassembled him without a quiver of emotion, without a qualm, as calmly as if she was cutting up a chicken for dinner. She tossed each new bit of him into the box, and made sure that he saw his parts lying there, squirming, each with a life of its own, but with no means of escape.
She set his head in a corner where he could watch as she donned a breather mask and poured bottles of hydrofluoric acid into the plastic-lined box, covering his parts.
The acid seethed and bubbled, and noxious fumes rose in the air. And he watched. He could do nothing else. He watched as the powerful acid boiled. Like she was making a stew! Like she might be about to add salt and a bay leaf.
Astrid then knelt before him, peering down at him. As he watched, helpless, she began to change. Her shoulders seemed to deflate. Her massive biceps diminished. And soon she was just a young woman with arms no bigger than baguettes.
“I wanted to do this last part as myself. As me. No morph. No superpowers. Just me.”
With that Astrid lifted him by his hair. He had the sensation of flying, but not far. He came to a stop two feet above the roiling, poisonous pool of acid.
“I want you to recognize that I’m not lowering you slowly so that I can enjoy the look of terror in your eyes. Yes, that look! No, I get no enjoyment from this,” she said, and undercut her statement by laughing. “Actually, now that I think of it, I’d better do it slowly. I don’t want to splash any of that nasty acid on myself.”
Drake no longer experienced pain, but he was not without sensation. He felt the instant his severed neck touched the surface of the acid. It felt like an electric shock. He mouthed a silent curse and then a plea but the acid was lapping at his lips so he was soon unable to mouth anything as it filled his mouth, eating away at his teeth and tongue, burning its way through his gaunt cheeks.
“This is for everyone you ever terrorized, you vile, despicable, evil piece of shit, and most of all, Drake, most of all, for Sam.”
He felt her release his hair.
Felt himself sink . . .
Saw . . .
CHAPTER 27
Lesbokitty Represents
THERE WERE ADVANTAGES to having the mayor and the NYPD on your side. All subways to or from Grand Central had been stopped anyway, but the mechanics of finding the right entry point to the vast subway tunnels was handled for Dekka.
Dekka, Armo, and Simone arrived discreetly at the Fifty-First Street and Lexington subway station by three different cabs, just in case Markovic had eyes on the streets. A single plainclothes transit policewoman waited for them and tried to shoo them straight to the stairs down, but Armo had different priorities. He had spotted a hot-dog stand, still open and operating despite an almost total lack of pedestrian traffic.
“Seriously?” Dekka asked.
Armo shrugged. “I need energy if I’m going to get my berserk on.” To the vendor he said, “Give me two. No, three. With everything.”
Dekka was impatient, but she knew not to push Armo. So as the transit cop led them down the gloomy stairwell, Armo ate the three dogs in a total of six bites.
“Good?” Dekka asked.
“Enh. I prefer them grilled.”
