The Eighth Day

Chapter 43

Emma Tyler unsnapped her holster. Its leather creaked. Echo-7 leapt at the Alpha, and Dodd's gun discharged into the floor with a crack of wood. Jensen fired at them and missed. The Alpha kicked Echo-7 and sent him flying across the room. Echo-7 hit the wall, and it imploded with a crash.

Jensen fired again. And again. But each time he pulled the trigger, the Alpha twisted his upper body to the side. He bared his teeth in a humorless rictus, a parody of a grin.

He was dodging the bullets.

Emma drew her pistol and pointed it at the side of the Alpha's head at point-blank range. But before she could squeeze the trigger, his arm lashed out, and he closed his hand over the top of the gun. His thumb flicked the slide stop, and the slide separated from the weapon's frame. He swung the steel in a backhand. It caught her on the jaw and knocked her sideways. A nova of white light exploded in her head. She fell onto her hands and knees, her hair hanging in her face.

Jensen squared off at the Alpha, pistol held in both hands, and squeezed off a volley of shots. The Alpha advanced toward him, dodging left and right with each pull of the trigger.

The restaurant's patrons continued to surge toward the exit, a swell of bodies all shoving and fighting to get through the doorway at once. A few stayed, huddled beneath the maelstrom of disarrayed tables and chairs, unwilling to brave the hail of bullets overhead. Music and bass reverberated through the ceiling, where muffled revelry continued to echo from the nightclub, oblivious to the menace below.

Dodd pushed himself into an awkward sitting position, his pants soggy with the blood that spread around him in a black pool. He'd removed his belt and struggled to loop it over the ragged stump of his wrist in a crude tourniquet. With one hand, he had a hell of a time with it.

Emma crawled toward him. Dodd guided the belt into the buckle, clamped the free end between his teeth, and cinched the leather around his forearm. He waved her off as she approached.

"Find the bracelet." He gritted the words through his clenched jaw. "We have to stop him."

Emma nodded and searched the floor, peering through the forest of chairs and table legs. She spotted it seven or eight feet away, opposite Dodd. It lay in a spatter of red.

Jensen continued to pull the trigger until the hammer fell on an empty chamber with a dull click. He tossed it aside and swung a fist at the Alpha. The Alpha slipped past the blow easily, jammed the barrel of his gun into Jensen's belly, and fired twice.

Jensen grunted, and his legs buckled beneath him. But the Alpha grabbed the larger man by the neck and held him on his feet. Jensen gagged and his eyes bulged. One hand clutched at his gut, and the other fought futilely to peel the Alpha's hand away.

"Look at me," the Alpha said. "I wanna watch you die. I wanna see what you see."

He leaned forward and pressed the barrel of the pistol against the side of Jensen's head and pulled the trigger. Brains and gore sprayed outward. Jensen collapsed, a lifeless tangle of limbs.

Emma scrabbled around Dodd. The reflections of the overhead lights and chandeliers shimmered in his pooled blood. She reached for the bracelet.

The Alpha stomped on her hand. The bones crunched like glass.

She gasped in pain. A heartbeat ago, he'd stood over Jensen. Now, he leered at her from behind the barrel of his gun and waggled a finger at her. "Tsk-tsk-tsk." He ground his heel into the back of her hand. She screamed and writhed on the floor. He bent, seized the bracelet, and tossed it across the room. He aimed and fired. The bracelet exploded in a twist of rubber and circuitry and clattered to the ground in pieces.

Dodd glared at the Alpha. "You think that matters? They can activate your necklace from anywhere, anytime. When they figure out you went rogue, you're dead."

"But I didn't go rogue," the Alpha said. "I carried out my orders, completed my mission, and reported back to Roman Biogenics. Too bad Echo-7 killed all of you first." He shrugged. "That made me sad."

"No one's gonna believe you."

"Sure they will. Hey, I can even say I gave you a hand." The Alpha plucked Dodd's severed hand off the table and tossed it at him. It bounced off his face, and Dodd jerked back in revulsion. The hand skidded across the floor and rolled to a stop palm up, fingers curled.

Dodd stared at it. "I'll see you in hell," he said.

"It's a date." The Alpha smiled and squeezed the trigger.

The silenced shot snapped the air. Dodd went limp and toppled backward. His head thumped against the floor, his unblinking eyes fixed on the ceiling. His severed stump slipped free of its tourniquet and leaked a weak stream of scarlet.

The Alpha's weight eased off Emma's hand. She pulled it free and crawled toward Harrington's limp form. His pistol lay beside him and glittered in the pale light like an absolution. She focused her resolve on reaching the gun and pushed the pain of her shattered hand into a dark corner of her mind.

"Where're you going?" The Alpha grabbed her by the ankle and hauled her back. She flailed for purchase with her good hand as she slid across the floor. When he released her, Emma crawled toward the pistol again. He stepped forward and kicked her in the ribs. She cried out and curled in on herself, but he shoved his foot into her shoulder and forced her onto her back.

She withered before the black and gaping maw of the pistol's barrel, and her heart stuttered in her throat. She squeezed her eyes shut and waited for the end.