Cannonball Kisses
Cannonball Kisses
(Author’s note: this story is part of SHADOW OF THE THIN
MAN, which you findfind at fanfiction.net/~nightspore)
The shoe is on the other foot
himself as a mad scientist.
was no lab coat stained with blood and other, less savory fluids. No wild white
hair, no crazed expression, no flamboyant hand gestures and strident
declarations that he would show them,
show them all! Call me mad, will you?
his picture on file, he would likely be cast as a high school English teacher.
He was a youthful thirty nine except for the premature grey grizzling his dark
brown, neatly cut hair. He dressed casually, in dull, comfortable clothes that
always seemed to hang on his spare frame. Behind thick glasses correcting
myopia and a severe astigmatism, his washed-out blue eyes were grave and rarely
rose to meet the gaze of others. He was in fact almost cripplingly shy, a trait
clearly broadcast by his skittish mannerisms and the way his faint, brittle
voice faded into inaudibility when he was obliged to interact with people.
castle perched high on a cliff. His home was a nice two story Coloniala
ta
three acre lot, screened off from his neighbors by thick pine trees. There was
a heated pool in the backyard which he kept open until late Octobswimswimming
laps every morning and evening. There was no dungeon filled with torture
devices in his finished basement, unless his weight training set counted. He
rarely used it even though he kept meaning to start a regimen, because, you
know, he wasn't getting any younger. The electricity in his house only burst
into showers of blue sparks when he plugged in the older of his two vacuum
cleaners and blew a fuse. He did not have a hunchbacked, dwarfish assistant
lurching around the place but he did own five cats, all named after characters
in musicals, three of which were sitting on the counter right now watching him
prepare salmon and rice pilaf. The original London cast recording of
playing on his sound system. He sang along in a but but tolerable lyrical
tenor and utterly without realization of the irony.
suddenly stood up, sniffed the air, then arced his back and hissed.
greedyguts." Mayhew turned over the fillet and discovered a piece of grey
skin he'd missed. He plucked it off, grimacing fastidiously, and dropped it on
the floor.
counter and landed with an ankle-snapping thud, followed a bit more gracefully
by slim Siamese Koko and little Audrey. They disappeared into the pantry,
ignoring the treat. Mayhew blinked at them, astonished. Normally the cats would
cheerfully smack down their own mothers for a bit of raw salmon.
three blue and one green, watched him unblinkingly from the crack in the pantry
door.
into you guys?" He picked the skin scrap off the floor and tossed it in
one of the hand painted ceramic bowls lined up beside the fridge.
door.
simmer, wiped his greasy hands on an embroidered towel, and snapped off the CD
player. It was nine thirty at night. Too late to be a salesperson. He didn't
know anyone else who would call on him at this hour. He had few acquaintances
here in Maryland, certainly no close friends. His parents were too elderly to
travel and his older sister lived in Florida with her three kids.
it might be. His stomach clenched in giddy anticipation.
probably not even him," he muttered, running a hand through his hair. He
hadn't seen John McCadden in over two months. Not since his plans had gone into
high gear.
egomaniacal, possibly an borderline sociopath, and so hellbent on avenging his
father's death that he was willing to spend any amount of money, go to any
length to track down the man responsible. McCadden was also a terrible tease,
knowing exactly which of Mayhew's big, shiny red buttons to push to keep him
quiet and subservient, even though this sort of blatant coaxing was totally
unnecessary, a fact he was blind to. Adrian acknowledged and accepted these
flaws. They didn't make the slightest dent in the love he felt for the man.
opened the front door, a wide, somewhat ridiculous smile stretched across his
face.
last person to call himself a mad scientist.
facility funded by a dangerously eccentric billionaire. Although officially he
was working with nonembryonic human stem cells in an attempt to grow organs for
transplant from scratch - a noble ambition - in truth Project Lone Wolf had
achieved quite a different goal.
was tall, thin, strikingly handsome, dressed rather theatrically in a
pinstriped suit cut in an elegant 30's style, complete with a slim black
walking stick.
He, or rather, it, was not human.
owed to Adrian Mayhew, its creator. In part, its father, and in a way also its
brother.
well,"Adrian stuttered. He craned his head to look over the other man's
shoulder. There was no one else on the porch or waiting in the car. It was very
unusual for the Loner to travel on its own. Ever since John had moved it into a
little house on his own property, Mayhew had hardly seen it at all.
want something to eat? I haven't cooked the fish yet." The Loner preferred
its food raw.
inside, surveying the place with undisguised interest. It had never been to his
home before.
finished growing, matching his height exactly but seemingly taller, as it did
not share his habitually sloped shoulders. It had filled out admirably, and
moved with a ghostly sort of grace totally unlike his shambling, loose-limbed
gait.
<'>
contrast between the Loner's noiseless footfalls and his own. It made him more
than slightly nervous. As it had matured, he'd been forced to keep the Loner in
restraints for its own and its handler's safety. It was simply too strong, its
temper too unpredictable, its reactions too feral for it to be allowed freedom.
enough to let it off the leash,so to speak, he had too many bad memories of
what the Loner was capable of to feel comfortable with it in his home. It
wandered into the kitchen, tapping the silver tf itf its cane on the tiles.
nothing wrong, is there?"
palm down, and tilted it back and forth in a sort of gesture it must have picked up from John.
once again that John had forbidden him to teach it American Sign Language. He
was sure it had the ability to learn. Its fine motor skills were superb, its
comprehension was equal to any young child's at the time, it was a skillful
mimic, and besides, even apes had been taught to use sign. He was a expert
signer himself, as his sister had gone deaf at age two after an illness and his
parents insisted the rest of the family learn ASL so she wouldn't be isolated.
But John had vehemently protested when, early on, he caught Mayhew using ASL.
He said he didn't want his assassin to be "flipping his hands around like
a damned lunatic" every time it wanted to communicate.
Adrian nodded slowly, not sure what it meant.
cane apart with a hiss of well oiled steel-on-steel, revealing a blade with the
cane's handle as its haft. Despite its thinness, it was a true sword, not a
rapier, sharp along both ends. The Loner held the sword up, its gaunt,
predatory face composed into perfect blankness.
gasping in shock. He bolted for the front staircase, tripping and falling
halfway up. He bumped and slid down the stairs, digging his nails frantically
into the carpet to stop his tumble. He couldn't move fast enough. It felt like
he were trapped in a slowly setting block of Lucite. The Loner's footsteps
whispered behind him. Somehow he got his shaking limbs back under control and
ran up the steps, taking them two at a time.
paused. To the left, across the catwalk, were his office, a half-bath and a
storage closet. To the right was the master bedroom and two smaller bedrooms he
mainly used as a library and a solarium for his plants. It had been foolish to
go upstairs. Now he was trapped. He might survive a leap from the second story
window, but he would be in no shape to further his escape. He still had a
chance, though. He went right and headed down the back set of stairs. If he could
double back he would be able to make it out the front door.
to what had happened.
him. It imprinted on John, just as it was supposed to. Other people were merely
furniture to it, occasionally annoying but no more significant than that.
Adrian liked to think it had come to tolerate him over the years, and that was
no doubt the best he could ever hope for from it. He doubted it had any real
comprehension of what it owed him or how it was related to him.
want to kill him. Unless John ordered it to . . .
thought on the back burner.
staircase, too afraid to flick on a light and possibly alert the assassin. The
house was cold, and his sweating skin fogged up his glasses. He wiped them off
on his shirttail and put them back on. The way seemed clear. The Loner must
still be behind him.
into the atrium and peered out the window. The Loner's car, something black,
sleek and sporty-looking, was parked behind his own silver Dodge Shadow,
blocking the long, narrow drive. Even if he drove across the lawn to escape it,
no doubt the Loner's car would be able to catch up with him easily. He'd seen
the man drive. To provoke a chase would be to invite certain death.
room, trying desperately to think. Looking out through the porch, he remembered
the pool. Yes! He had closed it for the winter, of course, but perhaps if he
dove in and swam to the middle he would be safe. The Loner enjoyed showers but
it detested being immersed in water, and frigid water reeking of chlorine would
offend it even more. The water temperature was about forty five degrees. He was
a strong swimmer, and he should be able to stand that for up to an hour. The
Loner was hotheaded, temperamental. Perhaps it would grow tired of waiting for
him to emerge and leave.
handle when a faint squeak of shoe leather on polished wood alerted him.
the first of John McCadden's many generous paychecks, he'd been attracted to
the soaring twenty-five foot ceiling of the livinom. om. To achieve that
architectural flourish, the second floor of the house was divided into north
and south wings connected by a catwalk, a suspended hallway.
catwalk's railing like a gargoyle, its arms crossed casually over its knees,
watching him.
Loner leaped down, landing lightly as a raindrop beside him. He scrambled out
of its reach on his hands and knees. The Loner stood there, its head tilted to
one side. A strand of dark hair had fallen loose across its face. It licked its
fingers and slicked the stray lock back.
darted into the kitchen and began frantically pulling open drawers, searching
for a knife, shears, some sort of weapon. The Loner followed him, moving with
solemn nonchalance. He flung up his hands as if it had called out,
against the kitchen table, then looked up at Mayhew and grinned.
rare thing. He remembered the first time he'd seen it smile, when it was still
a neonate, to all appearances a small boy. John had brought it a stuffed
animal, a pink and green teddy bear almost as big as it was. The Loner screamed
when he pulled it from the huge F.A.O. Schwartz shopping bag. John laughed
hysterically as the boy scampered away on all fours and hid behind Mayhew's
desk.
scaring the poor little thing, but John had leaned against him, propping his
elbow on Mw'sw's bony shoulder - something the shorter man could only do
because Adrian was seated at the time. He relaxed, enjoying John's uncaring
closeness, the familiar scent of his Freedom cologne, savoring the uninhibited
joy in his laughter, for once without a trace of the usual sneering or
meanspiritedness.
cautiously around the edge of the desk. The young Loner was high strung but not
fearful. It stalked the teddy bear, chirring a deadly serious falsetto growl,
and Mayhew was unable to help laughing at it, too. After reaching towards the
bear and jerking its hand back several times, the Loner finally worked up the
nerve to pounce. It rolled over and over, kicking and biting the toy and
gagging on the long tufts of silky fake fur. John absolutely howled with
laughter, tears squeezing from his eyes, and collapsed, shaking, onto Adrian.
vanquished bear triumphantly and grinned at the two men, for once looking as
sweetly innocent as any child.
one of the last good ones he had before John began training the Loner to become
an assassin, a 'pit bull in pinstripes' as he liked to phrase it.
here to kill him.
sides and gave the creature an uncertain smile. "You - you scared me. Did
you just want to show me your new toy?"
But all it did was touch his throat, stroking its cool fingertips along his
sternomastoid muscle, down to the little gap in the center of his collarbone,
where a tight drumhead of skin stretched across the bone's join and the
erieeries, unprotected by bone or muscle, beat very close to the surface.
noise in the back of its mouth and pressed its fingertips down as if measuring
his heart rate. Its eyes locked with his own. The pupils were hugely dilated,
much more so than was necessary even for the dimly lit kitchen. It was in the
grips of some extreme emotion, but he couldn't tell which one. Its vulpine face
was otherwise as still and blank as a wax sculpture. This close, he could
appreciate the eerily flawless, unpigmented skin untouched by years of burning
UV light or the stretching of facial expressions, the subtle shifts in bone
structure that differentiated its face from the one he saw staring back at him
from the mirror. They resembled each other like two sketches of the per person
by different artists . . . identical but recognizably individual, Adrian's
aristocratic features worked in gentle shading, light and shadow, the Loner
drawn in rapid, acutely jagged slashes, pure contrast with no hint of softness.
turned its dagger-edged grin on them and expelled air in a sharp hiss. The
pantry door rattled and the cats exploded out, scattering to the four winds.
The Loner threw back its sleek head and let out a throaty, gulping laugh.
cats." Mayhew laughed, feeling his larynx bob under the Loner's
fingertips. "You probably smell like a bigger cat to them, you know, and a
bit like me, and they're confused."
too. Even the scent of its flesh was inhuman, a hot, spicy, nose-searing scent
like raw ginger. Hechedched up to gently remove its hand from his throat. The
touch was making him uncomfortable.
grin evaporated, replaced by its normal calm indifference. A totally deceptive
expression. The Loner in truth was keenly alert and sensitive to its
surroundings, far more than an ordinary person. It caught his wrist and brought
his hand up to its lips, and repeated that strange little musical noise.
not like this. Something was very wrong.
as the Loner moved his hand up further, making him stroke its cheek. His hand
began to tingle and go numb.
were quivering. "What do you want?"
Although it was capable of producing sound, and indeed was quite vocal when
angered or upset, the Loner had never shown the slightest ability for rational
speech. But although it was mute, it was not stupid. In its own way, it could
make its intentions clear enough when it cared to.
Mayhew up against the wall. The back of his head hit the Cats of Shakespeare calendar and knocked it down.
side, its eyelids fluttering closed. Mayhew shivered, suddenly unable to move,
frozen by horrified anticipation. It pressed its mouth down hard on his and
thrust its tongue past his teeth, deep into his mouth.
the few visibly abnormal parts of its anatomy. It was too bright a shade of
pink, a bit flatter and thinner than it should be, definitely too long, the tip
slightly pointed. But it was also covered with thousands of tiny hooks that
roughened it enough to rasp meat from bone. The Loner's tongue swept over his
own, scraping it raw, filling his mouth. It forced his jaws open and he winced
as the delicate skin at the corners of his mouth tore. The tongue thrust back
further, making him choke as its hot, squirming length cut off his air. Its
saliva tasted of smoke.
torso, crushing him to the wall. He could feel its slow heartbeat increasing in
tempo, and . . .
thinking of the Loner as a child. It hadn't even looked very human for the
first year, not until it was developmentally advanced as a nine or ten year old
boy. Soon after he had ecteected it to the forced growth process which had
almost tripled its maturation rate. Although it appeared to be a man in his
late twenties or early thirties, it was chronologically only six years old,
five years advanced from when it was decanted. But that meant it was roughly
equivalent to a human fifteen year old. It was a teenager. The mongrel thing,
pulled several ways by its mosaic of mismatched cells, shaped into the
premature appearance of adulthood by the forced growth process, had finally
somehow hit adolescence.
cloth, he could clearly feel it had an erection.
licking the traces of Adrian's spit and blood from its lips with every sign of
satisfaction. There was a splash of high color on its jutting cheekbones and
its eyes glittered greedily.
don't do this." He cringed at the futile whine in his own voice. He of all
people ought to know that there was no mercy in it. John had trained that out
of his pet assassin.
shirt and held him against the wall, while its other hand strayed down to the
front of his khaki trousers. He felt lucklucking at his zipper. A draft, and
the Loner's hand slipped inside his pants, burrowing eagerly inside the thin cloth
of his boxers.
The muscles in its biceps knotted under his touch, and the Loner smacked his
hands aside. Mayhew and the Loner were both very thin men, but where it was
tightly corded with sinewy muscle, he was merely scrawny. He was feeble as a
kitten, twisting in the Loner's implacable grip.
as its slim hand wrapped around Adrian's cock, pulling him free of the
trousers. It looked down at its prize and inhaled deeply, the rims of its nostrils
turning white with the strain. Then it let go, letting him fall limp. He could
feel the imprint of its dry, smooth-skinned palm lingering on his damp flesh.
It swiftly unbuttoned its own pants. They dropped to the floor, and the Loner's
exposed erection reared up like an albino cobra.
since it was a child.
jutting yin and his passive yang. The two men possessed the same slender length
curving slightly to the left, the bas relief pattern of veins throbbing on the
surface exactly reproduced. And yet there was somehow something refined, almost
childlike in its delicacy, the vanishingly pale flush, the light dusting of
fine hairs sheening the Loner's flanks. He couldn't look away from it.
Adrian chanted, in his terror regressing to the first word he'd ever spoken.
of A Streetcar Named Desire, he
snatched up an empty glass and smashed it on the counter top, intending to use
the jagged edge as a weapon. But it was made from lighter stuff than bottle
glass, and disintegrated. Mayhew cried out and dropped the handful of bloody
glass shards.
slapped him. Its fingernails, perfectly shaped but slightly too long, laid his
cheek open. The four long parallel gouges began to bleed immediately. He stared
at his lacerated hand, then looked up at the Loner. It was panting now, its
lips stretched back tight over its teeth, eyes glazed and darkened. The
overwhelming blood-scent was only working to excite it even more.
to dissuade it. All male cats approached their mates with caution, applied
force to wrestle them into submission. The more he struggled, the more
enthusiastic the Loner became. Its instincts told it, this is exactly what is supposed to happen.
couldn't help struggling when it grabbed him by the wrists and dragged him down
to the cold tile floor with it.
sounds, it fumbled with his belt, too excited to concentrate on working it
properly. The buckle snapped and it yanked his pants down to his ankles. Its
erection was already so pumped full of blood it jerked with every beat of the
Loner's heart. A clear dewdrop of fluid quivered on the tip, oozing down in a
thick, sticky string like honey.
occupied, Adrian took the opportunity to squirm free of its grip and flip over.
He scrabbled frantically at the tiles, hauling himself forward by his arms
alone, hobbled by his pants. The Loner clawed his back, surging forwards to
trap him again.
hair at the back of his head and what it did next no longer exists Mayhew's
awareness. His forehead hit the tile so hard his brain literally ricocheted
inside his skull, the coup-contracoup injury he sustained causing a retrograde
amnesia that wiped out the memory of the actual impact and the next few minutes
afterward.
onto his back, pushing up his shirt and letting its nails scrape over his
stomach warningly. He sobbed, striking out at the Loner's face. It turned its
head aside, then raised its hand in an elegant, sweeping gesture as if it meant
to slap him again.
hands together, folding his arms up to his chest as if praying.
teasing or fondling, no gentle nips or stroking hands or kisor cor coaxing
words. There was nothing but the Loner's own driving need and the availability
of Adrian's helplessly imprisoned body.
knees up to his chest. The position made it nearly impossible to breathe.
Sucking as much air as he could into his squeezed-off lungs, he thrashed
wildly, driving one knee up into the Loner's hard-muscled belly. It grunted in
surprise, then sunk its fingers into the meat of his thighs and forced his legs
apart, leaving him cruelly exposed.
weight to pin him. He could feel more than hear the rumble of a growl shaking
its trim, tense body. The Loner shifted and pivoted, straddling his hips. Its
cock prodded him, the muscles of its thighs rippling under the sleek skin as it
squatted, bracing its hands on his shoulders.
breath and screamed in abysmal horror as the Loner thrust itself into him.
and it screamed, too, a terrible, whistling shriek.
himself as tightly as possible. But the Loner was too strong to resist. It bore
down even harder and he could feel his insides tearing like wet tissue paper,
the scalding blood gushing out. As it drew back the dry skin of its cock
abraded him, literally flaying him, peeling away his skin and leaving the moist
subdermal flesh quivering and exposed.
of blood provided a bit of lubrication.
frustration, it plunged into him again, deeper this time, the head of its cock
prying him open by sheer force. Adrian's mouth gaped in a silent scream. Now
the pain truly began as his wounds were torn open again and again with each
invading thrust. Its fingers, hard as talons, ripped open his shirt and left
deep scratches in the skin of his chest. Its bony knees pressed into his vulnerable
belly, each jerk of its hips mashing his intestines, its legs forcing his apart
so far he practically felt the bones of his pelvis separating.
a rhythm, quick, regular lunges, almost businesslike in its vigorous brutality.
Although it was no larger than himself, average in size, it felt like he was
being gutted with a baseball bat. With each thrust his head slammed into the
wall, his body lifted off the floor and smacked back down in the growing puddle
of sticky blood beneath him.
was the pleasure. Something inside him flared at the Loner's savage attentions,
something locked away inside. He tried to push it away, but he couldn't deny
that the deeper the Loner stabbed into him, the brighter that spark of warmth
grew, like a candle flame being blown on. A hot flush spread over his face and
chest, the tingling, creeping ecstasy lancing down his thighs, up into his
belly. He moaned and writhed li wor worm speared on a hook, mortified but unable
to deny his body's instinctive reaction. The Loner's strong fingers gripped and
released, gripped and released, kneading on his shoulders. His own cock was
trapped between them, smashed between their stomachs. The heat consumed him,
burned his resistance into crumbling ash.
took the Loner's face in his hands. Looked up into his own face, wolf-proud,
hawk-fierce, only younger, more sharply chiseled, beautiful. He fought his way
up onto his elbows, gulping like a fish thrown onto land and suddenly obliged
to learn how to breath air, and fast. He watched his own startlingly blue eyes
widen in surprise, his own thin lips part, swollen, the slick pearly pink of an
conch shell's interior, a string of saliva slipping out. He admired in the
curious charm of his own exaggerated features, the sharp chin, the angular
planes of the face, the eagle's beak of a nose. The miserable lump of pain in
his guts was gone, sublimating like dry ice into a obscuring fog of euphoria.
chest and rocked him, still buried deep inside. Trembling, he clenched his
fists and convulsed as if in the grips of an epileptic fit, wrapping his legs
around the Loner, holding itse.
threw back its head, its expression rabid. It roared.
body and echoed in his brain. The Loner's metabolism ran at a faster pace than
a man's - its basal temperature was a scorching 101.2 degrees Fahrenheit. When
it came, its semen filled him like molten lead, and the ruptured skin burned as
he was bathed in it.
Loner continued pounding its hips into him for a few minutes, running on
automatic pilot. Finally it took a deep
breath and pulled out. The tip of its cock caught in him for a moment, and it
yanked loose with an irritated snarl.
like a banana peel, useless, discarded, and turned its attention to itself.
free. The relief was like the change in air pressure after a summer
thunderstorm finally breaks.
automatically moving down to cover himself. He kept his eyes screwed tightly
shut. Hot, creamy fluid was slowly leaking out of him, gumming his skin, making
it stick together, stick to the floor. He put his hand down there to wipe it
away, but it was like touching a raw nerve. rossrossed his arms, tucking his
hands into his armpits to stop himself from doing it again. His nostrils were
clogged, but he could still taste the pungently metallic smell of blood and
human sweat, the chemical, yolky smell of semen, the Loners own ginger-sharp
scent thick in the room.
rustling, gentle lapping sounds, tongue on flesh. A whispering, humming noise
the Loner only made when it was very content.
Loner was on all fours, an arm\engtength away. It had cleaned itself off and was
buttoned up as tightly as before, another lesson John had pounded into it. It
let out a gusty sigh and looked up at him.
dropped one shoulder to the floor and half-rolled, so it was staring at him
upside down. For a moment he did not recognize the gesture performed by this
grave, neatly dressed man. It had been such a long time . . . not since the
Loner was very small. After it had finished eating, or after a bath, it would
ask to play like this, crawling up to him, twisting its torso around and
looking at him upside down, its lithe little body expressing emotion its face
could not. It had never done this after John started training it. After the
beatings began, it would refuse to play, drawing back with a sullen snarl when
he tried to start a game of tag, turning its head away imperiously when he
would roll a ball across the floor for it to chase.
had finished with him, it wanted to play.
bear it. The Loner was ignorant of what it had done. It was an animal, purely
concerned with its own selfish pleasure, unable to comprehend why he wouldn't
be happily satisfied, too. After a moment, he felt a light tapping on his
cheek. The Loner was stretched out on its side, batting at his face with
uncharacteristic gentleness, trying to provoke him into some kind of reaction.
As soon as it saw him open his eyes again, it rolled back onto all fours and
crawled up close, cuddling alongside him. It lay its head on his, cheek to
cheek, and rubbed its face against his. It skin was cool to the touch, very
soft, nace ace of stubble. Still a child, really.
Loner drew back at the first touch of wetness.
thigh and let out a small, wordless cry, drawing away. But the Loner gripped
his knees and pried his legs apart like it was making a wish. Its sandpapery
tongue rasped along the inside of his thighs, busily scouring off the dried
blood and semen. Then it tugged his pants up, zipped them closed, and patted
him. There was nothing it could do about the belt. It had broken the buckle
beyond repair.
again, hands braced on his chest to hold him still, and groomed his face clean,
lingering swipes of that ground-glass tongue leaving clean but painfully raw
skin behind. The long fingers raked through his hair, teasing it off his face.
He opened his eyes once it stopped. It had picked his glasses off the floor and
was looking at them consideringly. Apparently it was human enough to feel the
same urge any other perfectly sighted person felt when confronted with glasses.
It slipped them on.
hair stilshevsheveled and blinking its pale eyes behind the thick lens, it
could have been his mirror image. Then it scowled and took them off and the
half-snarl, baring its sharp teeth, was pure Loner.
despite his complete limpness easily hauled him up into a sitting position. It
fussed with him for a moment more, straightening his shirt and buttoning it
closed, putting his glasses back on, arranging his arms and legs into a natural
pose, exhaling a short, blood-scented breath in his face to blow the long bangs
out of his eyes. Mayhew lay unresisting as a rag doll. He didn't care anymore.
watched with obvious vexation as more spilled out, blotted them with its cuff,
then huffed in irritation when it became clear he could not stop them.
tangled in his hair. With a sharp tug it tore a lock free. Adrian didn't even
twitch. One more little pain was nothing. He watched dully as the Loner held
the trophy up to its parted lips and inhaled. It drew the hair over its k
ak
and exhaled in a deep, satisfied sigh. Then it tucked the lock of Adrian's hair
into thsideside pocket of its suit jacket.
cane off the floor. It looked dapper, dignified, utterly human.
slice through his flesh. The Loner regarded him silently, the blue of its eyes
luminous beneath half-closed lids.
blade, leaned over, and patted Mayhew with courteous condescension on his
undamaged cheet snt snatched the raw salmon from the dish and swallowed it
whole. Then it dabbed the sweet juice from its lips and turned away. Its nearly
inaudible tread faded down the hallway. The front door opened and closed. A
moment later, Adrian could faintly hear the revving of a powerful V-10 engine.
there in a slowly drying pool of his own blood. Tiny, weeping sound escaped
him, and he rammed his fingers into his mouth to cut them off. He drew his
knees up to his chin and wrapped his arms around his legs, huddling into a
compact ball.
the Loner's scent faded, overpowered by the scorched smell of the rice, which
had boiled down and begun to burn. They circled Mayhew, their fur puffed up
with unease, tails lashing. Sweeney Todd licked his wrist where the Loner had
bruised it, and he shuddered at the touch of the animal's rough tongue.
and forth, whining and sucking on his fingers like some severely retarded
inmate of an institution. Shame overwhelmed him.
coughed, choking off his sad, involuntary littlies.ies. He forced himself to
uncurl and stand up.
grey static threatened to wash out his vision. He gingerly probed his forehead.
There was a huge swelling where the Loner had driven him headfirst into the
floor, and his bangs were matted with caked blood and sweat. The house was
cold, and his briny flesh was studded with goose bumps. The salt of his tears
had stiffened his face into a mask.
felt as if something deep inside him broke free and crumbled away. There was a
gush of warmth on his leg. He glanced down. A brownish stain was slowly
spreading, ruining the khakis. He tugged the pants leg up. Blood trickled down
his leg and his sock was bright crimson and sopping wet.
and completely inexperienced. It had known nothing about lubrication, simply
pounded him, tearing him open. Already he was dizzy and confused from the blow
to his head. Blood loss would only make it worse. He needed help.
stiff-legged as a newly raised zombie. It was very hard to walk. The muscles of
his inner thighs were sore from the strain of the unaccustomed position, and
his guts felt like they had been filled with lye.
uninjured hand hovering over the speed dial button.
this? What exactly did he expect John to do?
for the smallest failings. Mayhew couldn't imagine what he would do to it for
something like this. He didn't want to imagine.
not really the Loner's fault. Even ordinary human men had problems controlling
their sexual urges sometimes. And the Loner's brain was only half-human.
Although the more highly developed areas were human, they sat atop instincts
and drives derived from its inhuman ancestry. And it couldn't even be said to
have had an upbringing that would have taught it to control those urges. John
was not exactly a role model in that sense. Most of its mannerisms were
mimicry, compiled from the old movies Mayhew piped into its cell. He had wanted
to show it restrained, gentlemanly behavior. But now that he thought about it,
how many of his beloved old movies concluded with the hero taking the heroine
into a reluctant, forceful embrace?
fault. It did not have the capacity or education to control itself. He should
have foreseen what adolescence would do to it. It didn't deserve to be
punished.
might laugh.
dropping away, his whole arm wilting with reluctance.
and often cruel. He might very well get great amusement out of the idea Adrian
had been beaten and raped - and played with - by his own creation.
and immediately wished he hadn't. It made the contusion on his head throb with
agony.
in a warm tub and then crawl into bed, he tapped in 911 and waited for the
dispatcher to pick up. Already his shrewd intelligence had kicked back online,
the gears whirring away in some frosty, untouchable crevasse in his brain,
concocting a story. He'd been beaten by an intruder. That was no problem. They
would perhaps ask to use a rape kit. He would refuse. If the cops cared enough
to try and pursue the case, which he sincerely doubted, the DNA evidence they
would find would be entirely confusing. There would be his own, of course, and
perhaps John's, and that of several species, mostly Panthera pardus. Nothing surprising, considering these were animals
used in Mayhew's work, and nothing helpful. Nothing that would allow the Loner
to be traced.
cradle, another possibility occurred to him. What if John really did send it to
kill him?
to one side in a habitual nervous gesture. He rubbed his sweaty palms together,
then wiped them off on his ruined trousers.
was in such a good mood afterwards that it decided to spare him.
punish it fot dot doing its job. But Mayhew didn't think he would be bothered
enough to send the Loner or any other assassin after him. He knew he was a very
small cog in the machine of John McCadden's revenge.
very old man. He'd told the ambulance not to hurry. Even at their fastest, it
would be a good forty minutes before they reached him. He opened the front door
and was surprised to see the sun was starting to come up, cloaking the yard in
a filmy golden light. Apparently he'd lain there longer than he thought. The
air was cold, autumnally sweet as a fresh-picked crispin apple, and dew
sparkled on the grass. He could hear the neighbor's young children already awake
and playing next door, their cries filtered into unintelligibly by distance and
the pine trees. Much clearer was the sound of bird song and the rustle of the
dry leaves on the willow tree by his door. He shuffled over to the porch swing
and sat down to await the ambulance, his mouth tightening into a thin line as
he bent over. There was a paperback book on the swing. He'd forgotten it
outside and the cheap pulp of its pages was swollen and discolored. It was
since childhood. He'd even tried reading it aloud to the Loner when it was a
neonate. He always found the story thrilling and comforting, but now he let it
lay unopened on his lap, resting his lacerated hand on the cover. He couldn't
focus on it.
thrill of anticipation, as if something amazing were about to happen to him.
humiliation . . . none of it mattered, suddenly. All he wanted to do was sit in
stillness and experience the inexplicable bliss suffusing him at that moment.
rescue had been all over the news for the past few days. It would only be a
short time more before McCadden maneuvered the agents he'd hired into linking
him in with Corwin's communications system. He would find Charles Townsend and
the Loner would fulfill the purpose it was created for - to slowly rip Townsend
to shreds while John enjoyed the show. No doubt he would reserve the killing
blow for himself.
his own reflection at that moment he likely would have screamed. His
tooth-baring, feral grin was pure Loner.
free of the hatred that had poisoned him most of his life.
here waiting for him with open, ng ang arms.
cry - Somebody might be lost
cry - I thought I'd go and see
cry - Somebody might be me