17
It wasn’t long before Mason Drekker reached her. Travis had scrambled away, making himself scarce long before the tall and athletic android slid through the mangled containment doorway. Drekker’s gaze shifted somewhat uneasily throughout the room until he spotted Ethan’s dormant body. Then his assuredness went into full effect.
“Ah, Daveigh Little, we meet again,” he said in a voice filled with charm and warmth. His mouth turned down into a pout, but his speech remained lighthearted. “You and Ethan treated me so terribly during our last encounter. I trusted you. I kept my end of the bargain and stopped tormenting your little brother as asked. In return, you betrayed me.”
“So, you came here and killed a bunch of people who had nothing to do with that?”
“They woke me up, and I was angry. Ethan wasn’t readily available to displace my wrath and you weren’t here either. So…” He bared his teeth in a smile colored darkly by malice. “I improvised,” he finished.
“You’re sick,” Davey spat.
“Maybe so.” Still wearing that sickening smile, Drekker looked down at the floor for a long moment before meeting her glare again. “Would you like to know a secret, Davey? I really hope you do, because I feel like sharing one with you.”
“I’d rather you just kill me and get it over with.”
“Oh, but it wouldn’t be wise to kill a child of David Savage. You’re far too valuable to me alive. We must first explore those gifts of yours.”
“You already have what you want, Drekker. Of what further use could I be to you?” Davey asked, mentally warning herself to be careful not to oversell it.
His eyes glittered. “You really should stop calling me Drekker.”
Despite herself, Davey found her curiosity was piqued. “Why is that?”
“Because I’m not Mason Drekker.”
“Then who are you?”
“Someone with a very specific skill set…perhaps not the one Global Cures bargained for when they floundered around like idiots and botched my initial transmutation. I’m from a world quite different than this one. To some I was their liberator—a freedom fighter. Others regarded me as a murderer—a monster.” That unsettling smile slashed across his lips once more, and Davey swallowed.
“What should I call you then?”
“Belial,” he said, folding at the waist in a gracious bow.
“Well, Belial, you can take your special skills and go fuck yourself. I want nothing to do with you.”
“You seem to be intent on making me cross, girl. I’m willing to spare your life, but you must learn your place.”
“If you spare me, know now I will kill you—permanently.”
Seemingly unaffected by Davey’s threat, Belial watched her with an impassive expression. Then he exploded into a storm of motion, lunging sideways to grab a steel table and rip it off the three-inch bolts securing it to the wall. Lifting the table overhead, he then flung it at Davey. Though her heart dropped to her feet, she didn’t move—didn’t flinch when she felt the wind against her face as the table sailed past her head in a well-calculated miss.
Her left cheek began to burn, and Davey brought her hand to her face in exploratory fashion. The pain flashed brighter at her touch, and she winced. Blood covered her fingertips. More of it trickled from the wound on her face, moving glacially slow across the landscape of her skin. She dropped her hand, ignored the pain. If things went as planned, there might be much more to endure before the night was over. And if they didn’t go as planned…
Well, then I’m dead.
Drekker—Belial—regained composure as quickly as he had lost it. Smoothing his hair—though it was still quite perfect—he moved toward her.
Davey smiled. “Impressive tantrum. Is it my turn now?”
Belial clearly didn’t appreciate the snark and in the next outburst, took his frustration out on Ethan. Yanking the rod free of Ethan’s chest cavity, he plunged it into the back of his neck, and Ethan’s body rocked beneath the ferocious violence. His neck snapped sideways, pressing his head awkwardly against one shoulder.
Biting her tongue to keep from screaming, Davey silently called down fires of damnation upon Belial’s head. His soul hadn’t been harvested from some peaceful other realm. He was a demon, straight from hell.
Without uttering a word, she strode to a nearby console, still cursing the fiend as her fingers deftly worked to enter the code to bring the computer systems back to a wakeful state. “There’s no way you could have known I would come here, so why did you hurt Ethan and leave him to suffer like that? Why not just finish him?”
“Because I hate him. He doesn’t deserve the great gift bestowed upon him, but he deserves to suffer. Before this night is over, I will see to it that his soul is ripped from that magnificent body and expunged from this earth forever.”
“That’s funny,” she replied absently, inputting a series of commands using the keyboard. “I was going to say the same thing about you.”
“What are you doing?” he asked in a dubious tone.
“Erasing all data related to The Alchemy Initiative. After I kill you, I need to be sure Global Cures can never bring you back.”
“Stop it, girl. I loathe to end your life, but I will if necessary.”
Davey continued to work as if she hadn’t heard him. Once the primary data was gone, she started deleting the backups while wondering how the hell she had been able find a backdoor within the security protocols so quickly—or even at all. As a scientist, it hurt to think of how decades of research and trials could be destroyed within minutes. This was someone’s life’s work.
Actually, come to think of it, Davey amended ruefully, this is my father’s. All of this is because of him.
“This is your final warning, Davey. After I eliminate you, I will find Hogan and enslave him.”
“No.” Davey shook her head emphatically. The last of the data was gone, but she hovered over the console, wishing she knew how to upload a virus into the damned thing and really put Global Cures out of the transmutation business for good. Then a grey and white skull appeared on screen as a desktop icon. The skull winked and smiled, dimming and brightening rhythmically. It may have been inexplicable, but Davey was drawn to it. Barely giving it a second guess, she double-clicked the icon. A countdown appeared onscreen, rolling backward from five-zero-zero.
“I’ll die before I let you hurt my brother.”
Already twisted into a grim and crooked line, Belial’s mouth twitched. He moved too quickly for her eyes to follow, but Davey felt the wind as he crossed the room. Then the air left her lungs as he collided into her, but her gasp for breath was cut short by Belial’s hand when his fingers wrapped around her neck and squeezed. “Or you’ll just die,” he whispered.
Speaking was almost impossible—even trying hurt her throat. But Davey dared to anyway. “Do it,” she rasped.
Though Belial seethed with cold fury, there was also hesitation in his eyes. He’s not going to, she realized. Fueled by desperation, she lashed out, striking at his face with her fists. He swatted her hands away as if she were but a troublesome insect, and the pressure exerted by his fingers increased incrementally.
“Are you stupid, girl? Do you wish for death?”
“Only yours,” she said, and tried to hit him again.
Instead of blocking the blow, Belial allowed her fist to plow into his cheek. Davey may as well have punched a brick wall. Radiating from her hand and into her arm, the pain split her very nerve endings, traveling into her shoulder and across her jaw. She bit her lip to keep from crying out, shocked that anything could hurt so much. Faint, she wondered how many bones she had just broken. Belial raised his hand to strike her—and possibly break a few more—but then a thick metal rod stabbed through his arm, stalling the motion as it rammed through his flesh with the same violence that had disfigured Ethan’s neck. The steel rod didn’t stop after impaling the arm, but plowed onward to penetrate his cheek, splintering apart as it hit the titanium and carbon fiber composition of the android skeleton. The surprise brandished from Belial’s ruined face mirrored Davey’s own astonishment.
How could it be, she thought as her gaze searched for the impossible.
And there he was. Ethan.
“Okay,” Belial said and spit shards of steel out from his mouth and onto the floor. Releasing Davey, he wiped the blood from his face and stared down as his hand, wearing an odd sort of smile. “So, maybe you are as remarkable as they say. No matter,” he added, turning his attention back to Ethan and his miraculous recovery. “I must destroy you anyway.”
Oh god no.
No matter how incredible it seemed that Ethan had regained consciousness without a power source, there was no way he could have enough fight left in him to defeat an opponent such as Belial. Davey had to stop this.
“Ethan, don’t,” she said.
But it was too late. Belial was already rushing toward him, and a second later, the two had clashed like titans. Despite his weakened state, Ethan somehow managed to hold his own, matching Belial blow for blow as they viciously clobbered one another without restraint. And then Ethan was sailing through the air like a missile, his body obliterating one of the primary consoles as he crashed into it. But as Davey took a step toward him, Ethan was up and charging at his opponent once more. Belial deflected Ethan’s first enraged attack, but proved unlucky against the second. Then it was his body that flew limply across the room, breaking halfway through a concrete and reinforced steel wall before stopping. Slow to get up, Belial stalled as he considered his next move.
“Fuck you, Remington,” he snarled.
Faster than the human eye could follow, he was on top of Davey and crushing off the air from her windpipe without mercy. “You will watch this little bitch die first.”
Ethan bellowed with fury, but then his scream became a muffled resonance in Davey’s ears. Her vision darkened, and somewhere beneath the haze, she registered a muted snap of bone. Was it hers? And then her cheek was pressed against the floor’s surface, so cold it stung her cheek. Suddenly, Belial dropped next to her. His face was only inches from her own, allowing her to witness the strange onset of convulsions that racked his body. His eyes lost their human appearance, turning as black as two liquid obsidian pools. And then his eyes were liquid, the blackness draining from them to ooze onto his skin and puddle on the floor until his irises were clear and colorless.
The symbol on his chest burned beneath his clothing, shining through in a blinding blue radiance. Then the light turned black—just as his eyes had—and literally began searing through the fabric of his shirt until it was eaten away, leaving behind the singed negative of a transmutation circle. The symbol collapsed inward, caving Belial’s chest. A strange gurgling sound eased from his lips. The rest of his flesh slipped from the carbon tethers of his bones, sliding about like melted plastic.
Davey closed her eyes. Belial had been stopped, and that was enough. It felt like she was dying, and the disintegration of his body only served as a grim reminder of the finality of her own mortal state. She didn’t need to see anymore. Letting go of the pain, she gave into the abyss and began to drift into a peaceful sea of darkness. But then firm hands took hold of Davey. Anchoring her descent, they pulled her from the void and forced her back into the land of the living.
“Oh no you don’t,” Ethan whispered.
Something sharp pierced her neck and Davey only flinched, too weak to cry out. Her arms and legs began moving of their accord, but she lacked the strength to stop them. Then the darkness began to rapidly recede. Sound roared back to her ears. Her sight followed, and Ethan’s steely eyes were there to greet her.
“Stay with me, Davey,” he whispered.