She didn’t give a damn what kind of authorisation Maitland thought he had. Once he’d started offering amnesty for the darkest kind of murder, he’d lost his right to claim he was on the side of the angels.
Maitland turned towards her with a wry smile. “DCI Pierce,” he said, with a faint breath that was almost a sigh. “I should have guessed that you’d turn up sooner or later.” He shook his head. “Your resourcefulness does you credit—but I’m afraid you’ve overstepped your bounds. Even if you’ve forgotten the fact that you’re currently off-duty, you don’t have the authority to hold me.” His eyes flicked pointedly towards the gun in her hand. “And you definitely don’t have authorisation to hold that.”
“Looking after it for a friend,” she said, baring her teeth in a smile. “He decided he was in no state to be in charge of a gun, so he sensibly handed it in to the nearest police officer.” She shifted her grip, still pointing the gun at the ground but adjusting her hold as a silent warning. “And I’m pretty sure I have the authority to arrest anyone I believe is breaking the law. Now, both of you—”
The skinbinder made a lunge for the doors, shoving the bar and setting off a head-splitting wail that filled the hallway. Pierce lurched after him with a curse, but her fingers only just grazed the trailing feathers of his wing as he ran out into the night. The ringing in her ears rose to a deafening crescendo as the howl of the alarm sang counterpoint. Maitland shouted something at her, snagging her arm, but Christ only knew what it was he’d said. Pierce shook him off and shouldered the swinging door aside to follow the skinbinder out.
He was running, his head awkwardly hunched forward as he raised his arms—
“Stop right there!” she bellowed after him. “Do not transform, or I will shoot!” She raised the gun, trying to remember how to take up a firing stance. The memories were far too vague for her to be confident of making the shot at anything more than point blank range.
Sebastian paid no attention to her words. Pierce saw his body start to shift, joints stretching and refolding into new, unnatural angles. She should fire—but she hesitated, reluctant to pull the trigger on a suspect who was fleeing rather than fighting. He was a murderer who wouldn’t hesitate to kill again, and once he took to the air there would be no way to chase him, but all the same...
“Don’t shoot!” Maitland ordered from behind her. “We need him alive!”
It was just the push she needed to remind her of the consequences if the skinbinder escaped to sell his talents to the highest bidder. She held her stance, aimed the gun as best she could. Sebastian was in full eagle form now, fighting to clear the fence...
Don’t overthink. Just shoot. She squeezed the trigger.
The recoil jerked her hands up and backwards, the bark of the gun so close making her flinch and stumble. Even if she’d had a second bullet, she wouldn’t have recovered in time to take the shot. The skinbinder was lost against the shadows of the trees beyond the fence as he dropped from the sky—hit, or just stooping to evade further gunshots? She strained in vain to try and make him out.
Maitland grabbed her shoulder, yanking her further off balance. “If he’s dead, I’ll see you thrown off the force!” he shouted in her face.
Pierce swung around, throwing her full momentum into a right hook across his jaw. Maitland staggered back, clutching his mouth and spitting muffled swearwords.
There was no time to stop and bask in the satisfaction of the moment. The skinbinder could be getting away.
She ran towards the fence. There were no streetlights back here, and the light of the moon was just about enough to paint the night in shades of charcoal. She should have brought Leo’s torch, but she hadn’t thought to ask for it while they were still indoors.
She hoped like hell Leo was still all right. If something had gone wrong after she’d left him...
But this wasn’t the time to get distracted second-guessing things she couldn’t change. Sebastian was out there, and he might not be alone. She couldn’t be sure if Maitland’s people had properly swept the grounds before they were killed.
If only that idiot had been willing to work with the RCU and the local police, then maybe tonight’s bloodbath could have been avoided. But Maitland was playing his own game, and she had to secure the skinbinder and turn him over to the real police before the Counter Terror Action Team could get there first.
The fencing was tipped with lethal spearpoints, too dangerous to climb even if her battered body could have done it. She jogged along the boundary as fast as she could manage, looking for signs of movement in the shadows. On the other side, the hill sloped steeply down to a copse of trees.
Where had Sebastian fallen? Had he fallen at all? She couldn’t see a damn thing through the long grass.
She spotted a gate in the fence ahead, and ran towards it at a downhill stagger. As she drew closer, she could see a dirt track, almost concealed by darkness and the grass. The Solomon team must have evacuated this way, and left the gate thrown open when they went. She hadn’t heard a vehicle; with any luck, that meant nobody had stayed behind to wait for the skinbinder.
Of course, if he could still fly, that meant exactly nothing. Pierce scanned the cloudy sky for wings as she passed through the gate; a man-sized eagle should be possible to spot even in the darkness. She’d hear the beating of his wings if he took off from nearby.
So where the hell was he?
She left the dirt track to make her way through the long grass, the gun still held in her hand. Empty now, by Leo’s count, but she carried it as if it wasn’t, a safety precaution and a bluff. Sebastian most likely wouldn’t know how limited a stock they had of silver bullets.
Pierce made her way down the hill, alert to every sound. The knee-length grass tangled around her legs, concealing dips and sudden slopes in the steep hillside. Humps of vegetation made false outlines in the dark. She kicked out at a silhouette that looked like a crouching shape, but it was just a hummock in the grass. The cool night breeze had picked up, and the grass bounced and waved around her.
Except in one place a short way ahead, where it stayed flattened to the ground. Her instincts prickled and her footsteps slowed. A wide furrow had been ploughed through the grass here, as if something large and heavy had been dragged down the slope.
Something there, caught in the weeds: a broken feather, far too large for any native bird. Her chest grew tight as she inched closer. Her eyes could now pick out the dark shape slumped on the ground ahead. Sebastian, lying sprawled out on his stomach where he’d fallen, the false wings still outstretched, though one was bent back at an uncomfortable angle.
The silver bullet must have at least clipped him, enough to make him revert back to human. Shit. Her stomach lurched. She’d shot a man with a gun she wasn’t authorised to carry, and the fact it had seemed the right thing to do at the time wouldn’t help her case much. She couldn’t ask Leo to cover for her and claim he’d made the shot himself, and no one would believe he’d been mobile enough to do it anyway.
She approached Sebastian’s still form with caution. Was he dead? Unconscious? Just winded? She halted a few feet away. “Don’t make any sudden moves,” she said, aware she could be giving the warning to a corpse. “I have a pistol full of silver bullets, and I am prepared to fire if you make a hostile move. Can you stand up?”
No response. Pierce edged a little closer.
“If you’re injured, I will see that you get medical attention. Are you able to speak? If you can make a noise, or move any part of your body, do so now to show me that you’re conscious.”
She held her breath, but all was silent and still except for the sigh of the wind. She thought she might have heard the distant rise and fall of sirens, but it might just be the ringing in her ears.
Sebastian hadn’t so much as twitched. She couldn’t tell if he was even breathing. His head had fallen forward in the grass, the curtain of his hair obscuring any clear look at his face. She transferred the useless gun to her left ha
nd as she inched past the wing stretched out in the grass.
Still no movement. Pierce bent forward to check the pale neck for a pulse. As she did, she noticed that the straps that bound the wings to his back had come untied, leaving one of them draped loosely across his shoulder.
A hand shot out from under the wing and grabbed hold of her wrist. As she jerked back, Sebastian reared up, his other hand darting out from underneath his body, holding a knife. She just had time to see the glint of moonlight off the silver blade before it flashed out towards her heart.
She twisted away, but the knife still bit deep into her shoulder. “Fuck!” She stumbled back, the empty gun dropping from her numb fingers as she clutched at the knife hilt jutting out from the wound. How the hell had he carried the knife in eagle form? Some kind of pouch that protected him from the direct touch of the silver? Her mind stuck on the pointless question, her thoughts hazed by the cold shock of a pain she knew she wasn’t fully feeling yet. Blood soaked out beneath her fingers.
But she still had a prisoner to secure. As the skinbinder scrambled up, shrugging off the discarded wings like an unwanted blanket, Pierce lunged after him, slamming into his back. He might be younger, faster, more athletic, but she still had the skinny bastard beat on bodyweight.
He went down and she followed him, the hill steep enough to send both of them tumbling. Sebastian hit the rough ground with a sharp cry of pain, and she crashed down on top of him, jarring her wounded shoulder even further.
Her eyes screwed shut in agony, and she didn’t see the bony elbow coming as it cracked her across the jaw. Sebastian tried to wriggle away from her, but she caught him by the arm to haul him back. Something in her shoulder felt like it was tearing, and she sobbed with pain, but didn’t let him go.
“Get back here, you little bastard,” she said through gritted teeth, reaching for the handcuffs on her belt. Not silver, but the standard pair that she’d taken from Maitland would still do for this job. She leaned her weight on him as he struggled and spat and swore.
“You do not... have to say anything,” she wheezed, fumbling with the cuffs, “but it may harm your defence”—she snapped the left loop closed around his wrist, strained tears leaking from her eyes—“if you do not mention when questioned.... something which you later rely on in court.” He bucked beneath her, almost throwing her off, but she rolled back to pin him down with her knee. “Anything you do say...”—with a final gasping grunt of pain, she yanked his other arm into position to snap the second cuff in place—“may be given in evidence,” she said, panting for breath. “Understand me?”
He burst into a furious string of swearwords.
“I’m going to... take that as a yes,” Pierce said, and slumped down wearily to sit beside him on the hillside. “Now... stay where you are. You’re under arrest.”
She swallowed as she turned her blurry gaze to the knife hilt still sticking out from her shoulder. The sound of sirens was drawing closer, definitely real this time. All she had to do was stay conscious until backup arrived.
Easier said than done...
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
INJURED AND RUNNING on empty as she was, Pierce had little choice but to turn the skinbinder over to the custody of the local police. She spoke to Deepan, and instructed him to make sure Sebastian turned up where he was sent, no unexpected detours. She also had to break the news about Tim, though she shied away from the full ugly details.
Maitland, it emerged, had disappeared into the night, and taken any of his surviving teammates with him. The police who raided the site found no one else to arrest, just more corpses, some still wearing shapeshifting skins.
Analysing exactly what had happened tonight was going to be a hell of a forensic job, but it was one that Pierce was in no condition to oversee. She was too exhausted and in too much pain to protest being sent away from the scene in an ambulance as soon as she’d spat out the most important explanations. She turned out to be sharing it with Leo, clearly in a bad way even before hospital x-rays could confirm it.
At least he was still alive.
It was hard to celebrate her own survival with enthusiasm once adrenaline and triumph faded. Shoulder surgery, and a long program of rehab to look forward to, plus all the lesser scrapes and bruises she’d picked up along the way. It would be a long, grim and painful recovery, without even the indulgence of self-pity when so many of the people who’d been involved in this mess had come out a whole lot worse.
Few visitors came to see her in hospital. Tim was dead, two good friends were hospitalised themselves, and Deepan was stuck doing everybody’s job including hers. The RCU was undersized and overworked as it was, and now it was down by three quarters of its manpower.
So she was surprised when she received a visit from Superintendent Palmer, who she’d always believed to be attached to his desk by an umbilical cord. She was even more surprised that he didn’t seem to be there to give her a bollocking.
In fact, he was unusually reluctant to get to the point, avoiding her gaze as he adjusted the front of his uniform shirt. “Ah, Claire,” he said, with unaccustomed hesitation. “Shoulder improving?”
“So they tell me,” she said. “I’ll let you know when the painkillers wear off.” At least she was sitting up in the chair instead of lying down; entertaining the boss while still in bed would have been awkward. Pierce really hadn’t anticipated a personal visit from him; an elegantly penned Get Well Soon card was really more his style. “Everything all right back at the office?” she asked.
“Er, yes, yes,” he said with a nod. “Your... sergeant is doing very well. And there will, erm, be an official investigation into the Counter Terror Action Team’s handling of this case. Rest assured that the skinbinder you brought in will be appropriately punished for his crimes.” He grimaced, as if aware she wouldn’t like what he had to say next. “But it will, of course, have to be handled discreetly. You understand that word of this young man’s work can’t be allowed to get out.”
Perhaps he expected an explosion, and if she’d been healthy he might well have got one, but right now she was too weary to give both barrels to the debate. Secret courts were nobody’s friend in her eyes, but politics was what it was, and those kind of decisions took place far above her head. At least she knew she could trust Palmer to be a straight shooter, far more so than Maitland.
And talking of shooting... there had been curiously little mention of her less-than-legal part in bringing the skinbinder down. Was it all being swept under the rug as part of the general cover-up? The thought didn’t sit entirely right with her, but now was hardly the time to go falling on her sword. With Sally in worse shape than she was and Tim dead, the RCU couldn’t afford to lose its DCI in charge as well.
Pierce grimaced at her own thoughts. A convenient excuse why ‘just this once’ the rules had to bend. That was a hell of a slippery slope to start down.
Palmer’s uncomfortable squirming drew her out of her darkening thoughts. “Well, erm, that’s all the news you need to worry about right now,” he said. “I should probably get back to the station.” He made an abortive move to check his watch, lowering his arm rather awkwardly as a flash of bare wrist was revealed. Things must be hectic back at the office if even her immaculately pressed boss was getting ready for work in that much of a hurry.
Or maybe not. Her amusement iced over as she remembered the watch the Superintendent usually worse, the kind of status symbol that immediately marked him out as someone who did his policing from behind a desk. Her own taste in watches ran to the cheap, plastic, and shockproof, but Palmer’s favoured wristwatch was far more ostentatious...
And made of sterling silver.
Her eyes snapped up to study his face, but he was already turning to move away. “I look forward to seeing you back at the office,” he said over his shoulder.
He looked like Palmer, sounded like him. Her doubts had to be no more wild paranoia.
They had to be... but how could she be sure?
His footsteps faded away into the background hubbub. Pierce shivered in her hospital gown, goose pimples crawling over her skin. She was surrounded by the noise and bustle of the busy ward... but right now, she felt very much alone.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
E.E. Richardson has been writing books since she was eleven years old, and had her first novel The Devil’s Footsteps picked up for publication at the age of twenty. Since then she’s had seven more young adult horror novels published by Random House and Barrington Stoke. Under the Skin is her first story aimed at adults.
She also has a BSc. in Cybernetics and Virtual Worlds, which hasn’t been useful for much but does sound impressive.
Five years ago, it all went wrong for Cason Cole. He lost his wife and son, lost everything, and was bound into service to a man who chews up human lives and spits them out, a predator who holds nothing dear and respects no law. Now, as the man he both loves and hates lies dying at his feet, the sounds of the explosion still ringing in his ears, Cason is finally free.
The gods and goddesses are real. A many-headed pantheon—a tangle of divine hierarchies—once kept the world at arm’s length, warring with one another for mankind’s belief and devotion. It was a grim and bloody balance, but a balance just the same. When one god triumphed, driving all other gods out of Heaven, it was back to the bad old days: cults and sycophants, and the terrible retribution the gods visit on those who spite them.
None of which is going to stop Cason from getting back what’s his...
‘If you’re looking for a sassy, hard-boiled thriller with a paranormal slant, Wendig has established himself as the go-to man.’
The Guardian
‘Exactly the kind of spin I was looking for. Bad asses, psychotic cannibals, religious fundamentalists, zombies and insane clowns... Wendig has created a zombie-infested world that you will enjoy spending time in.’
Under the Skin (Ritual Crime Unit) Page 10