by James Hunter
“Good,” it hissed through its mandibles in a voice that no longer resembled my own. “I can taste your fear,” it moaned in delight, “so rich, so full of power. I can’t wait to eat you.”
“Eat this,”—I know it’s terribly cliché, but hey, how often do you get a straight line like that?—I leveled the shotgun and worked the trigger with one hand and the pump with the other, boom-boom-boom-boom. Take that Centi-Me, and take that fear. Sometimes the only way to get over your worst fears is to face them head on and then pump ‘em full of lead with a friggin’ shotgun.
The sound of the shottie was deafening, the muzzle flashes painting the room with short-lived light and flickering shadows. I wasn’t firing buckshot either, these were big slugs, and they tore away great chunks of meat and exoskeleton in their passing. Centi-Me hissed and shrieked, rolling forward with a liquid, insect grace: weaving around fallen junk, surging over a downed chair, legs clicking along the floor.
I backpedaled, feeding more cartridges into the chamber—I managed to get four loaded before my back pressed up against the wall. Centi-Me was almost within striking distance, so I went to town with what I had to work with. I fired my remaining cartridges, and then ditched the shotgun, drawing my K-Bar from the sheath on my belt and fishing out a tiny glass bauble—a little smaller than a tennis ball—from my coat pocket. The orb glowed with a soft light, full of shifting hues—from ruby-red to jade. I guess it kinda looked like a Christmas ornament, the kind that has the lights inside.
It was a premade Vis hand grenade. I’d only had the one in the Camino, a leftover from some past job, but it turned out to be a pretty lucky find considering the circumstances. Stupid Fortuna … One trinket sure wasn’t enough to get her off the hook. I mean, why couldn’t I look in the Camino and suddenly discover I had the Magical Sword of Metus Death—and no, that’s not a real thing. But boy would it be lucky if it were. I had one measly grenade and I only had one chance with it, so I had to make it count, plus I had no illusion that it would actually kill the baddie. Hopefully, though, it’d hurt that son of a bitch something fierce.
Centi-Me raised one of its hands, its previously human fingers replaced by long white claws, similar to its scuttling legs. Though the beastie was still ten feet away, it lashed out, a lightning strike—the blow fell well short, but its spiked fingers detached with a snap and hurtled through the air, five deadly spears of bone aimed at yours truly. I ducked and dove behind a nearby overturned desk. The spikes collided into the wall where I’d been standing, though one of the little things thudded into the desk and drove nearly the whole way through.
I popped my head up, grabbing a peek just in time to see the creature wind up, ready to unleash another wave of finger spears. I didn’t give him a chance. He was close now, maybe five or six feet away—the best damn chance I’d probably ever get to use the Christmas ornament of destruction. I crunched down on it with my hand, sending a wave of spider web cracks along its surface, and then casually pitched the ball at Centi-Me’s exposed belly.
An angry flare of light, like the death of a small star, flashed in the room, a tidal wave of Vis conjured force rippled out in a circle, kicking up a cloud of papers, Styrofoam cups, and office debris. It also kicked me toward the hallway door and nearly ripped Centi-Me in two.
I pushed myself to my feet, K-Bar out and at the ready. Creature-Feature lay fifteen feet away, his fractured and bleeding body draped across a tipped over cubical wall. But it wasn’t dead. The lower half of its body connected to the torso by a hunk of flesh no thicker than my wrist, yet its numerous legs still rustled and twitched—a score of eager arms waving in the air. Even as I watched, Centi-Me pushed himself up into a sitting position, slimy mandibles clacking, while sludgy blue-black tar knitted its body back together. I had no idea how to kill a giant human centipede, but apparently chopping it in two wasn’t the ticket. Which kinda made sense in its way—it takes a helluva lot more damage to kill a regular centipede, too.
I didn’t waste any time—I bolted for the hallway, pulling the door open and running for the interrogation room. A glance over my shoulder revealed that Centi-Me—though still recovering—was already in hot pursuit.
We’d already played this scene out once before, and I could tell this son of a bitch wasn’t content on letting me get behind the safety of a locked door, he was in it to win it—which, in this case, meant eviscerating me. But that was okay, because I wasn’t too keen on letting him get away either. This was end game for one of us.
I tore ass around the corner and sprinted for the interrogation room—the door stood wide open, all nice and inviting. Centi-Me was clicking and clacking his way up the hall, hissing its displeasure, but I paid it no mind—I needed to get inside the room, there simply wasn’t any other option. Get to the room or die. Period.
Five feet away: I put on an extra burst of speed, dropped low on instinct, and ducked right into the room. A few seconds later, I heard the sharp twang of bone-spears colliding with the far wall.
I silently thanked my lucky stars and scooted around to the far side of the room, putting the steel table, bolted to the floor, between the doorway and me. Centi-Me flowed into the room seconds later, a look of smug glee painting his face—mandibles opened wide, little crow’s feet forking at the corner of its eyes. My eyes.
“Nowhere else to run now, little mageling. Powerless, backed against a wall, dead meat in the making.” Its grin widened, its terrible jaws opening wide, wide, wider—ready to tear into all my soft and tender bits.
“I could say the same thing for you, shitheel,” I dove left, coming up just to its side, lashing out with my K-Bar, a thrust to its mid-section, a slice to the inside of its arm. The creature reared back, shrieking as its thousands of legs batted at the air. I moved left, working my way toward the door. The creature must’ve seen the ploy, and scuttled to intercept me.
I reversed the grip on my K-Bar—now the blade ran along the outside of my forearm. I cut right and dashed inside its guard, working the blade back and forth across its plated belly, hacking through parts of limbs here, and tearing great rifts in its belly there. A normal K-Bar might not have done the job, but this one was Vis imbued—sharper than any knife had a right to be.
The creature retreated at my assault, maneuvering to get a little distance, likely so it could try to impale me with more of its deadly finger spears. I seized the instant, seized the day, bounding back toward the door. “Veni, vidi, vici!” I shouted, which is precisely when I tripped backwards and fell right onto my ass.
That’s what showboating will get you.
SEVENTEEN:
Catch a Bullet
I’d fallen just outside the interrogation room and into the connecting hallway, which was a plus, but still, I was sprawled out on my back and Centi-Me had a perfect shot. It didn’t hesitate to take it, not for a moment.
It wound its arm back …
I desperately scrambled to my feet, groping for the door edge, eager to slam the door home and seal Centi-Me away.
I had the door moving on loose hinges, but not quite quick enough—the finger spears tore loose and flew through the air, on a crash course with my chest, neck, and face, my death warrant written all over those puppies and not a damn thing I could do about it either.
I’d like to say that my life flashed before my eyes, that I saw everything in that last blink, and that I was satisfied with what I saw. But that’s bullshit. I didn’t see my life flash before my eyes. I saw Harvey, the slightly dumpy, should’ve-retired cop, flash before my eyes.
One minute I was staring down the business end of a bunch of deadly incoming bone projectiles, the next I saw the back of Harvey’s head as he stepped in front of me, pushed me back with one arm, and slammed the door shut with the other. I’d been so absorbed with Centi-Me that I hadn’t even seen the guy open the door from the connecting observation room.
The metal door clanged shut—on the backside of the door was one of the blue sticky note wards
. The creature thrashed inside, howls of impotent rage only slightly muted by the door. But with the sticky note in place on the door and another one on the one-way mirror, it’d take that creepy son of a bitch a good long while to bust its way clear of the room. Which is exactly what we needed: a little more time.
I pushed myself upright, and crawled over to Harvey, his body crumpled on the floor—Ferraro was already in the hallway hunched over his form, bright streaks of red smearing her blouse and pants. Harvey was alive, but he wouldn’t be for long. Four of the white finger spears protruded from his chest and stomach, the fifth was buried in his throat.
I choked up a little as I crawled to the poor schlub who’d taken a fucking bullet for me. Who’d saved my life.
“Harvey, you crazy son of a bitch.” I leaned over his body, taking one of his clammy hands in mine. Ferraro said nothing, did nothing. This wasn’t a time for words, and Harvey was well beyond saving. “Why?” I asked, since no other words would come.
He briefly glanced at Ferraro, then met my eye. “I’m a …” A gout of blood, frothy and too bright, pumped up from his neck wound. “I’m a cop.” His breathing was so heavy, his eyes already starting to take on the glazed sheen of death, his skin waxy. “It’s what we d—” A last fitful spurt of red, his lips went still, his body limp. Dead. Do. It’s what we do.
Them’s the breaks—the reality is that sometimes the good guys don’t win, sometimes they die. Sometimes, the breaks suck ass.
The creature continued to howl and thrash in the other room. I wanted to do the same, I wanted to howl into the night, wanted to break things, smash furniture, throw rocks through a couple of car windows. I wanted to call up the Vis and make the world shake, wanted to call up a whirlwind of fire and watch the metus burn. I couldn’t do it, of course—for now, I was just another average human. But because of Harvey’s fearless actions, I could still put an end to this, could cap the metus for good, and send it to oblivion.
“You okay?” Ferraro asked after a minute.
“No,” I said, shaking my head before gently laying Harvey’s body on the floor. “No, I’m not. But I can leave that for later. For now … for now, let’s toast this creepy-crawly son of a bitch.”
A few minutes later, everyone remaining stood in the observation room, or rather we all crouched low against the wall beneath the one-way mirror. Everyone except for Officer Adams, who stood tall as a flagpole, staring through the one-way mirror like there was nothing he wanted more in the whole world than to fix the shape shifter in the other room with a nice little toe-tag. He was nearly bristling in anticipation, I could feel his tension, excitement, and fear. Needless to say, everyone left alive felt exactly like Adams: eager as a half-crazy, near-starved badger for a honey-pot full of sweet, tasty revenge.
“Everybody remember the game plan, right?” I asked.
Everyone nodded except Ferraro, who, of course, just had to pipe in. “I know you all have already paid a heavy price—two dead is no easy thing, but that monster in there isn’t dead yet, so let’s keep focused, keep our eyes on the target until this is all over. If we don’t, there’s a good chance that more of us will end up like Harvey, check?”
Again the officers nodded.
“Alright Adams,” I said, “I’m gonna flip the light switch on three—just remember, whatever you see, it can’t get to you, not through the blue sticky note.” Boy would that not have reassured me if I were in his shoes—I mean I knew the sticky notes held enough latent Vis to keep the metus at bay for a little while, but from his perspective? A thin sheet of glass and a Post-It hardly seemed like much of a defense against a giant human centipede.
“One … Two … Three.” I reached up and hit the light switch, the fluorescent light above flickered to life.
Just a quick note about one-way mirrors is in order here. Now, let me start by saying that I don’t really understand all the scientific mumbo-jumbo for why one-way mirrors work the way they do. Sure, I could probably Google it—or hell, I could’ve even asked Ferraro, she’d probably know the how—but I had more important things to do: like kill a shape-shifting cop killer. With that said, I’ve seen the inside of a police station (and no, not always as the suspect) often enough to know that one room—the interrogation room—needs to have the lights on full tilt and the connecting room needs to be dark. Not necessarily black, but pretty close, otherwise the mirror just won’t work.
If you flip on the lights in the connecting room, that one-way mirror becomes regular ol’ two-way glass—you can still look into the interrogation room, but whoever’s in interrogation can look right back. So when I cranked the lights on, it made sense that Centi-Me would stop his thrashing around long enough to get a good long peep into the observation room. And what did he see? Why, Officer Adams standing tall and proud like the mascot at a Notre Dame football game. And Officer Adams was the only thing that son of a bitch in the other room saw, because everyone else was hunkered down against the wall, out of sight and out of mind.
I killed the lights almost as quick as I’d put ‘em on and hazarded a peek into the other room, once more concealed. As expected, Centi-Me was undergoing a terrible transformation. White legs melted away, segmented body bubbled and oozed, a swirling blob of liquid black motion. The metus’s body continued the shift, its limbs stretching and contorting, taking on new dimensions and proportions—course brown-black fur sprouted from slick black skin.
Its nose elongated into a muzzle, mandibles gave way to jagged, tearing teeth, inch-long and stained yellow. Whipping centipede antenna rippled and reformed—a hunk of clay repurposed—into over large wolf ears. Multicolored pom-pom buttons sprouted along the creature’s midsection, strange flowers growing from twisted flesh, while its torso grew silky fabric. Red and yellow patchwork material, just like Adams had said. The whole thing took maybe five seconds—what had once been Centi-Me was now one freaky looking werewolf, decked out in a ridiculous clown suit.
I heard a round of stunned gasps, followed by a whispered, “Holy shit.”
“Told you it was a werewolf dressed like a clown,” Adams muttered a tad smugly.
“That’ll do, kid,” I said, gaining my feet, “you can rub it in later.” I pulled out my massive, monster-murdering pistol, filled with six silver bullets. Well, they weren’t actually solid silver bullets, mind you, these puppies were just regular lead rounds with a dash of finely powdered silver thrown into the mix and infused with fine flows of Vis—much easier to make and just as effective. Now, that probably seems pretty incredible, right? I mean, why would I have silver bullets in my Camino? Simple, I had silver rounds because there are lots and lots of different types of animal shifters out there and they’re all vulnerable to silver.
There’s nothing mystical or magical about it either—for whatever reason, weres of all flavors have a substantial silver allergy. If someone had a shrimp allergy, and you sunk a couple of shrimp laced bullets into their chest, they’d die too … well, admittedly, the actual bullets would probably finish them off first, but—suspend your disbelief for a moment—if the bullets didn’t do the job, the shrimp juice would put that poor sucker into death-inducing anaphylactic shock. Same thing with weres.
I was working off the theory that when the metus transformed they literally became the thing they transformed into—with all their strengths and weaknesses. I didn’t have a clue how to kill a giant human-centipede, but I sure as shit knew how to cap a werewolf—even a goofy one dressed like a circus clown.
“Alright,” I said, “everyone get ready to run. This is only a theory … so if this doesn’t pan out, you all need to be gone. When I shoot, it’ll break the barrier sealing that thing out. It’ll come in here fast and hard. Comprehend, folks?”
I got a bunch of scared stares, but everyone made their way to the hallway. Except for Ferraro—she couldn’t follow an order to save her life. Literally.
“I’m staying,” she said, drawing her sidearm and taking a shooter’s stance near
the door. “If this plan of yours backfires, I can buy the rest of these officers a little time to get away, get safe.”
“Whatever.” I shrugged. “Your funeral—if this is where you want to die, who am I to tell you no?”
I raised my pistol and aimed in. Ten feet away, easy shot and one I was more than glad to take. Payback’s a bitch, and sometimes revenge is exactly what the doctor calls for. For Harvey. I pulled the trigger four-times, pop-pop-pop-pop, the sound oddly quiet. My piece is a special custom job, hand crafted by the Dökkálfar, and acid etched with runes of power. Even has the Vis equivalent of a silencer.
The silver rounds burst through the glass in a cacophony of sound—glass falling in sheets—and tore into the world’s least funny clown like a pack of junkyard dogs. A pair of rounds punched solidly into its chest, another took it in the gut, and the fourth sunk deep into one of its arms. Odd blood, nearly purple and twisted with swirls of black, oozed free of the wounds.
The creature looked hate and daggers at me, its body began to twist and change, to transform back into my fear … but then, distorted flesh snapped back into place. Now rigid and fixed. The silver bullets were working, were killing the son of a bitch, locking its werewolf form in place. More blood splattered free. A swollen tongue—turning from pink to black—emerged from its jaws, its eyes swelled in its head. One claw tipped paw went to its throat, the other reached for me.
Score one for allergies.
The metus was at death’s door and it knew it … with the last of its strength and will, it bolted around the table and hurtled through the remaining glass.
I unleashed my last two rounds—another gut shot, and one that grazed its neck. The creature rocked back from the impact but didn’t stop.
Don’t look at me that way, I know a head shot would’ve been better, but listen, shooting in a stressful situation isn’t easy, okay. And when that stressful situation happens to involve a rampaging werewolf who looks like a member of Cirque du Soleil, multiply that stress factor by about a thousand. Plus, I usually have the Vis running through my system, which allows me to bind with the gun in such a way as to grant me far greater accuracy. Considering the circumstances, I think I did pretty damn good.