Page 37 of Gluttony
“You called the cops?” he asked.
But Bailey had a horrified expression on her face. She must have seen the melted weapons. Her eyes smartened. “What the hell is going on, Lazarus?”
Damn. This wasn’t going to plan. He’d wanted to tell her in his own way. He glanced over the Cadillac to see the teens filter out of the house again, crowding onto the stoop to watch. A few had their cell phones out, recording on their cameras. Shit. Hopefully most of his damning action had been hidden in the car.
He swallowed. “I-uh… I told you we need to talk.”
“Hell yeah, we need to talk.” She eyed his hands, and for a moment he thought they were going blue again, but nothing. Didn’t matter. She grit her teeth, jaw flexing. “But first, we have to sort this out. How the hell am I going to explain that the city’s favorite film star single-handedly took down a gang of armed and dangerous men during a drive by? I’m supposed to be your bodyguard. Some of that stuff you did was insane.” She gaped and waved at the roof of the car. “You flew across the—Godammit, Tony!”
“Hey, hey. It’s all good.” He tried a comforting grin. “They’ll just think I’m a method actor or some shit.”
“That was reckless and stupid. This isn’t a movie set. For Christ’s sake, these are real people. Those are real kids.”
Seeing the group gather on the porch stoop, Tony flinched. They must have all come out of the house. Hopefully none had seen him in action. But Bailey had. And she was furious.
“Don’t forget I served,” he offered.
She cocked her hip. “Real life action hero, huh?”
“Something like that.”
For a moment, she just stared at him, jaw clenched. “That was pretty impressive. And I mean,impressive.” She didn’t look impressed. She looked pissed. “You just took down three armed men, inside a vehicle, with nothing but your bare hands.”
Shit. He’d have a hell of a time explaining this.
Then she said something he never expected. “Is this some kind of joke? Are you making fun of me?”
“Wh-what?”
“You have all these… skills, and yet you hired me to be your bodyguard. And then you let me school you in self-defense moves!” Her face went beet red. “Well, screw you, Lazarus. I know when I’m being made a fool of.”
“That’s not it. I swear.” He reached for her, but she shirked away.
“Do me a favor, Rambo.” She jerked the rifle toward the street, in the direction of the distant sirens. “When the cops get here, maybe try telling the truth for once.”
He opened his mouth but shut it. Maybe now wasn’t a good time to tell her everything.
Police sirens got louder. Bailey pinned him with her big brown eyes. “Don’t you dare run off. We are definitely having that chat.”
He wasn’t so sure. She already thought he was a philandering addict. Back at his trailer, she’d accused him of having an affair, and that was why someone stalked him. What would she say when she discovered he was prone to random explosions of blue light that burned like fire? And she was his mate. And he’d been lying to her.
The whoop of a siren, and the flash of red and blue against the house’s gate made many of the kids disappear inside. Bailey jogged over to meet the cop car as it arrived. Tony used the commotion to slip away.
Twelve
Before settingout on a hunt beneath the sewers of Cardinal City, Wayne Bosch and the enforcer had gathered their intel and pooled their resources. Or, perhaps he should call her Despair. It had only taken him a moment or two to connect the dots. She could sense the sin. She was the same age as the Deadly Seven. They were original Syndicate experiments. For all Wayne knew, there were plenty of others like her out there.
Between the two of them, they’d collected evidence of random suspicious activity matching their parameters across state lines, moving west from the black site, and toward the coast where Cardinal City lay.
From random bodies of water being drained to farm animals going missing, only to turn up with their corpses as dried out desiccated husks. When Wayne and Despair had gone to investigate, they’d recognized the same striations on the husks that had been clear on the corpses in the lab. It looked liked indents from vines. From the lack of actual plant-monster sightings, they also believed their prey to be traveling by night, or perfectly camouflaging itself amongst other foliage. The creature was smart.
But one thing was certain, it was getting a taste for living meat, and it wasn’t sated. It was hungry.
Despair crouched at the opening of a manhole and heaved the sewer grate open. “After you.”
Wayne peered down into the dark unknown, flinched at the smell, and then glanced around their surrounds. They were in the middle of a street on the outskirts of the city, nestled between an old abandoned warehouse and an industrial factory. Since it was the weekend, traffic was quiet. The only moving person he’d spotted was a homeless lady pushing a shopping trolley filled with a hodgepodge of belongings. He shifted his gaze up and noted the fading light. The temperature was dropping, which meant it would be cold underground, and his flimsy houndstooth-patterned suit would do little to protect him from the elements. They had maybe an hour or two of light left until nightfall. But none of that mattered down there where it was dark twenty-four-seven.
Despite knowing this, he couldn’t help asking her, “Are you sure this is a safe time to go down? Shouldn’t we wait until morning?”
