"What's wrong?" he sneered. "You seemed like you had a lot to say to me before, cunt. Worried your little jazzercize class might not get you out of the mess your mouth got you into? Well, you should be worried, bitch...”
He lunged right after he spoke, moving faster than I would have credited him, especially given what I'd just done to his knee.
When I moved back and sideways, trying to get out of his way, he caught me in a roundhouse punch to the temple that I only just managed to duck. I still caught the tail end of it, but most of the force of the blow missed. Still, the contact alone was enough to jar me, which was enough for him to get in a second punch to my sternum.
That one hurt.
It hurt enough that my instincts kicked in, maybe outside of my better judgment. I kicked out without thought, aiming for his knee again, but that time he moved faster, blocking my kick with his forearm, the same one attached to the fist that just sort-of got me in the temple.
Yeah. Shit. This guy could fight.
Maybe not Oscar De La Hoya fight, but definitely a good cut above most of the jerkoffs I got stuck sparring with down at that ratty boxing gym I lived in on most of my spare afternoons and weekends. My head had already started falling into that more serious, fight-for-your-life kind of place, even as it occurred to me again that I might be in for a real smack-down type situation.
But before I could make a decision about what to do next, something else happened.
Something pretty weird.
2
NEW GUY
I HAVE NO idea where the guy came from.
He appeared out of nowhere, and then he was just standing right next to me.
I literally glanced to my right elbow, feeling a shift in the air, and there the guy was.
He didn't look at me, either, not even when I stared right at him. Instead, he continued to focus straight ahead, his eyes completely taken with the Bundy guy in the thousand-dollar suit. The new guy seemed to study him from head to foot very carefully, pausing on his baby blue eyes, hurt knee, bleeding lip and that “I'm gonna kill you” look on his face.
Then, he took in the length of him again.
The new guy, who didn’t look like he wanted to kill anyone in particular, stood about two inches taller than the stockbroker-slash-date-rapist, but he didn’t have anywhere near the other guy’s bulk. Possibly because he seemed to lack a survival instinct altogether, he didn't look afraid, even though my wannabe Bundy probably weighed two of him and looked ready to kill a mountain cat with his bare hands.
The new guy looked at the mark like he was taking his measurements, instead.
If anything, his dark eyes bordered on puzzled.
As for me, I couldn’t take my eyes off the new guy’s face.
It wasn’t because he was particularly handsome or hot or whatever.
If anything, his looks struck me as pretty weird, almost unnervingly precise from the top of his head down to his boot-clad feet. He looked like he might have been part robot, or some kind of animated mannequin. His features structured his face with an odd symmetry matched only by his body, too perfect in some way I couldn’t define to myself, even though I tried pretty danged hard in those few seconds.
Just as strangely, that oddly-symmetrical face worked for him, too... meaning, it suited him, and seemed to really belong to him, if that makes sense.
I really couldn’t figure out what was wrong with his face, though, so I kept going back and forth between that and his body, trying to decide what it was about both that bugged me so much. When I tried to pin it down, I kept going back to the thought that he looked borderline artificial, like he wasn’t entirely real.
Whatever his deal was, it distracted me for longer than it should have, given the circumstances. If the stockbroker hadn’t been staring at him, too, he could have taken me down in that two or three-second gap.
The new guy seemed oblivious to both of our stares, however.
Whoever he was, he continued to look at the man with the bleeding lip, but without acknowledging the other’s reactions to him. He didn’t so much as blink, from what I could tell, for what must have been a good ten seconds of uninterrupted staring.
Then he turned, facing me.
"I heard a scream," he said.
His words came out stilted, mechanical-sounding, but strangely matter-of-fact.
When I only blinked at him, still holding my fists up towards the douche bag in the suit, the new guy reached out tentatively, touching my arm. Something in the touch was strangely intimate, as if he’d just read my pulse, temperature, feelings and intent through the trashy vinyl jacket I wore over the see-through lace top with the plunging neckline. The new guy with the dark eyes, who wore a weird, black body-suit thing I only then noticed, and who had weirdly straight black hair around that oddly put-together face, tilted his head to one side, almost like a bird.
"I heard a scream," he repeated.
Neither the stockbroker nor I said a word. Neither of us probably breathed.
The new guy continued to stare down at me alone, his eyes holding an added scrutiny.
"Did you scream?" he said.
Clearing my throat, I found myself answering him.
"No," I said. "That was him." I motioned towards the blue-eyed suit-wearing sociopath with my head, without lowering either of my hands. “...He screamed."
“Is that true?” the new guy said, looking up at the larger man. “Did you scream?”
The monster in the thousand dollar suit didn’t answer. He only repositioned his fists in the air, a blank look on his face, as if he wasn’t sure which of us he wanted to hit first.
The new guy looked back at me.
"Are you attacking him?" he asked me.
"What?" I said. "No, man. Are you blind? This guy wants to kill me...” I glanced up at the alley's camera in reflex. How the hell was this scene going to play to the cops now? There was no way I'd be able to pin much on the mark, not unless this guy got on board. "No... I'm not attacking him. I'm defending myself. Didn’t you see him chasing me... ?”
There was a long-seeming pause.
“No,” the new guy said. “No, I did not.” He looked around himself, as if suddenly unsure where he was. “I’m not sure why I came here. It’s not safe.”
“You’re damn straight it’s not safe!” I blurted. “Are you going to help me, man? Call the cops or something?"
The man with the symmetrical face only blinked at me.
"I heard a scream," he repeated, his voice the same as before. “...I was nearby. I thought I should look. I wouldn't usually look. I am new here. Too new."
I felt my fists clench tighter in front of me.
New? What did he mean, new? Was this guy a tourist?
That would explain a lot, although I couldn’t hear any kind of accent in his words, despite his strange manner of speaking. I watched as he glanced behind himself again, almost as if he expected someone to be chasing him, too. When he looked back at me, though, his expression held only that oddly blank puzzlement.
"I shouldn't be here," he said again. "I wouldn't. Not usually."
But this was more than the stockbroker could take, apparently.
"Who is this fucking guy?" the man in the suit burst out, aiming his words at me. "Is this some kind of set up? Are you punking me, you crazy skank?"
Before I could think of a good response... to either of the freaks, really... the stockbroker stepped forward, swinging at the tall guy in the black bodysuit.
Turns out, that was another big mistake.
For the stockbroker, that is.
I didn't even see the new guy move. He must have, though, because the ex-linebacker with the serious personality disorder flew backwards so fast that simply watching it happen nearly gave me whiplash. Whatever Bundy junior tried to do to the weirdo with the dark hair and the Batman outfit, it nearly got him killed.
Before I knew what happened, his muscular body slammed into that green dumpster hard enoug
h to leave a three-foot dent. The impact must have knocked the wind out of him, because the blond stockbroker made a sound like an airbag deflating all at once before he collapsed on the pavement, groaning.
I stared down at the guy where he lay, panting.
Maybe I was even in a little bit of shock.
It’d been a really long time since I’d seen someone go down like that. I don’t think I’d ever seen someone throw a pissed off giant, twice their size, that far before, not even at one of my demo meets in Chinatown.
Just then, a siren blared from directly behind where I stood.
Pretty much the worst timing ever, as far as the job was concerned.
My mind went into overdrive. Before I’d fully processed the ramifications of our little gathering, I’d already grabbed the sleeve of the guy in the black bodysuit, jerking him towards the other end of the alley.
By then, I could already picture the view of our little threesome through the windshield of that cop car. Me and catsuit-superhero-guy, staring down at my beat up mark in a dark alley. Him lying there with his mouth bleeding, slumped against that dumpster, likely his knee out of joint, maybe his back broken from what Batman-boy just did to him. This didn't look like an attempted rape... it looked like I'd set up Bundy to roll him.
I definitely wasn't going to get paid.
Hell, I'd be lucky to avoid jail time.
"Come on!" I yelled. I yanked on the arm of the weirdo who caused this whole mess, trying to get him moving. "We have to get out of here!"
Luckily, the new guy didn't fight me.
He let me tug him along by the spongy material of his catsuit. When I looked up, I distinctly saw fear in those strangely round, dark-brown irises, too. He stared at the revolving lights on the black and whites, and I saw his chest heaving in what had to be some kind of emotional reaction even as his pupils dilated, making him look like a cornered animal, or maybe like someone going into shock.
"I shouldn't have come here," he muttered, following me to the end of the brick alley.
He didn't slow down to say it, but I found myself glaring up at him anyway.
"You're damned right you shouldn't," I snapped.
I found my anger deflating when I looked up at my new friend's strangely-symmetrical face. He really did look shit-scared... and I hadn't missed the part about how he'd only come because he thought I was in danger. There weren't a lot of guys who put their necks out for strangers these days. Maybe I shouldn't be discouraging that.
No way he could have known I did jobs like this for a living... luring rich sociopaths into dark alleys after they got off scot-free for raping and half-killing someone.
This guy wouldn’t know that. He hadn't done anything wrong.
He'd been acting the nice guy, the good Samaritan who actually does something, instead of looking the other way.
Vowing I'd tell him that, as soon as we avoided the whole jail-time thing, I kicked in the wooden covering over the door at the end of the alley, even as the siren gave another warning blare. I glanced back in time to see the cops hurriedly getting out of their car. One had his sidearm already drawn, and aimed in our direction.
I’m not big on having guns aimed at me, even when the person holding it has more or less good intentions.
"Stop!" the guy yelled, even as his partner approached my mark where he lay, half-broken against the green dumpster. "Stop right now! Police!"
Well, duh, I thought.
I kicked at the door again, harder that time. I was banking on him not shooting me, which was maybe generous, given everything.
He didn’t fire, thank goodness, but that first cop, the one who yelled, starting running towards us both, once he realized what I was doing. They both must have assumed me and my weird friend were trapped and grasping at straws with the whole door-kicking thing.
But the truth is, I’m not big on blind alleys, either.
Anyway, I'd learned a long time ago to always leave a back door open, even if it wasn't a particularly sexy one.
Kicking in the last of the particle-board covering I'd erected that morning to hide my emergency exit for this particular gig, I shoved scuba suit guy through the opening in front of me, then disappeared into the dark hole in the brick building behind him.
Behind us, the cop yelled again.
I barely heard him.
Still gripping catsuit guy, I ran down the narrow corridor of the vacant office building, dragging scuba suit guy with me as the sounds faded. The owner of the building started doing renovations on this place a few months ago, then stopped halfway through, probably because the money dried up, or maybe because they lost a prospective tenant. Either way, the place was a weird mish-mash of structural skeletons, bare wiring, sawdust and new paint.
My friend started running on his own, once he got the basic gist of my plan, and I let go of him so I could run faster. I was relieved when he had no problem keeping up. He ran silently behind me on the wooden planks... so quietly, in fact, that I had to suppress the impulse to look over my shoulder and see if he still ran behind me at all.
That time, he didn’t try to talk.
When I finally did glance back, I only glimpsed his face long enough to see the determined look living there. He ran with a strange precision that matched his face and body, his hands and arms held at stiff, jerking angles.
Turning back to focus on where I was going, I let it go.
I had other things on my mind at that point, besides who this guy really was.
If we managed to get out of here in anything other than a police cruiser, I’d be sure and ask him.
3
MORE WEIRD THINGS
I DIDN’T REALLY plan on taking him with me.
On the other hand, I never really told him to go away.
Stranger still, he didn't seem to be in a big hurry to leave my side, despite how nervous I seemed to make him, or the fact that running into me definitely hadn’t improved his life any. He seemed to trust me to get him out of this mess, whatever his exact reasoning.
For some reason, I let that become my responsibility, too.
He continued to run in that eerily quiet way behind me, following my route through the empty office building without missing a step. After busting through the staircase I’d also partly blocked the day before, I got the two of us up to the second floor. I knew from me and Irene’s mapping out the building and surrounding environs earlier that day, that we now ran roughly southeast, which meant towards the side of the building that faced the next street over from the alley.
I didn’t pay a ton of attention to my companion, despite him glueing himself to my side. I was pretty bent on getting us both out of there in one piece, so didn’t spend a lot of that time on creative thinking in general, or much in the way of sight-seeing.
I couldn't help noticing a few things, though.
For one, he was nimble as hell. I saw that even on the stairs, which were water-damaged and broken in a few places.
His agility grew even more obvious when we found the second half of my planned escape route. I tripped and stumbled and balanced with my hands and body against the mold-damp wall when I climbed up to the window leading onto Second Avenue. He, on the other hand, followed me without so much as breaking stride, moving up the wall as if the crate-ladder’s presence was primarily incidental. He climbed that stack of wooden crates like some kind of spider monkey or lizard... as if his feet knew precisely where to go, without him having to look.
He reached my side in what felt like a heartbeat and helped force up the window before it occurred to me to wonder if the crates would support us both. I didn’t notice him being out of breath any, either. His facial expression never appeared to flicker, not even when he forced up, one handed, the water-soaked window frame.
The same window frame I’d been struggling to budge with both of my hands and arms a few seconds before, and not having much luck.
I should have checked the window better that morning, really, espe
cially given who the mark was, and what I knew him to be capable of, given the photos I’d seen. But really, I hadn't planned on needing the escape route at all.
Irene stacked the wooden packing crates and boxes the day before so I wouldn't have to do that part in the dark. Clearly, she hadn't checked the window, either, though.
Turns out, it was pretty much welded shut from the damp and winter rains. Mold had even grown over the cracks between the wall and the frame.
By then, I was really feeling the time pressure, too.
We’d already heard the cops break through the same opening on the ground floor. Me and my scuba-suit wearing pal were up and running on the second floor by then, but the surrounding building was so quiet, I couldn’t help but hear the racket. Whatever those cops decided or figured out about us or where we'd gone, I didn’t hear them on the blocked staircase until me and my pal were already at the window.
Still, it felt close. Really close.
They might even have back-up around the building by then, too. That meant me and scuba suit guy could be dropping right into a trap.
Then there was the guy's crazy super-human strength with the welded-shut window... and a few seconds later, I found myself hanging over Second Street.
I watched in a kind of stupefied awe as he pulled another liquid-fast maneuver where he seemed to glide through the open window like a shadow, despite how small the opening was and how high-up... not to mention the width and length of his broad-shouldered frame. He disappeared through that rectangular opening before I knew he planned to go for it.
Then, once he stood on the fire escape on the other side, he faced me again, his dark eyes reflecting light.
But wait. His eyes weren’t dark now.
Now they looked almost blue-green.
Maybe I hadn’t noticed before, because of the crappy lighting of the alley?
He motioned towards me impatiently with a hand.
Pushing the random thoughts about eye-color out of my head, I let him grab hold of my arms to the elbows. He yanked me up smoothly and immediately once he’d tightened his hold, again without breaking a sweat.
The Morph (Gate Shifter Book One) Page 2