Jonathan Maberry - Assassin's code

“The what?”

“The Tariqa,” he bellowed. “The Saracen! Where it is? Where is the flash drive?”

“I shoved it up your ass-why don’t you go look for it.”

He kicked me in the side and I barely managed to tuck my elbow against my side to save my ribs. Even so, the kick knocked me against the wall and the impact ignited more starbursts in my head.

“Who are you working for?” he said. His anger made his eyes seem to catch fire. “Are you Rasouli’s dog or are you working for that whore?”

“No,” I groaned as I fought to get to my knees, “your mother hasn’t called me.”

He tried for another kick, but I was ready and I rolled away from it and got shakily to my feet.

“It’s her, isn’t it?” he said, his voice heavy with contempt. He spat out another word, loading it with bile. “Arklight!”

I had no idea who or what that was, and now didn’t seem like a good time to ask. Running seemed like the best option, but my legs were rubbery and the room was doing a tilt-a-whirl around me.

Ski mask snarled at me. “Tell me or I will cut off your balls.”

“What the fuck is it with you guys?” I demanded. “How come every psycho in the Middle East has a grudge against my nutsack?”

I think he actually smiled, though all I could see was the crinkle around his crimson eyes. Then he rushed at me so fast that his body seemed to blur, hands reaching to grab. I tried to parry him, but he slapped my hands away, clamped his fingers around my throat and picked me up. And I mean all the way up so that I hung suspended with my feet inches from the floor.

Again, for a guy his size and a guy my size, this simply was not possible.

He bent close so that those unnatural eyes were inches from mine. His hands were as cold as ice.

“Last chance,” he sneered. “Where is the flash drive?”

“Fuck you. Where are the nukes?”

He paused for a moment, and I could see that I’d both hit a nerve and said the wrong thing.

“You know…” he breathed. Then his red eyes flared with rage that was ten times hotter than before. “Listen to me, you piece of shit-you have no idea what you are interfering with here. Give me the flash drive, tell me exactly who you’ve told, and I will end this quickly for you.”

“Or,” I choked out, “you could go piss up a rope.”

His eyes grew hotter still. “I am doing God’s work, and if you don’t tell me what I want to know I will rip your throat out and drink your life.”

Okay, I never heard that one before.

Not in real life.

I had a couple of witty comebacks for him. Stuff about his mother and livestock. But I thought that I was losing my audience. So instead I kneed him in the nuts as hard as I could. I put all of my pain and rage and fear into it. The impact canted him sharply forward, so I grabbed his head and clamped my teeth on his nose and tried my absolute best to bite it off. Blood exploded through the fabric of his mask, splashing against my face as cartilage collapsed between my teeth.

He screamed-so high and shrill that it hurt my ears. Then he started thrashing and tried to pull his head back from my teeth, but I wasn’t about to let go. I growled at him, clenched harder, and whipped my head back and forth like a dog. Hot blood gushed into my mouth.

His screams hit the ultrasonic. He flung me away from him and staggered back, pawing at his ruined face with both hands. I slammed into the wall again and dropped hard to the floorboards on knees and palms. The blood in my mouth was hot and tasted of salt. I gagged and spat it out. Part of his nose and the lower half of his mask flopped onto the floor.

Screw fair play. Screw the rules.

The man reeled and thrashed, slamming into one wall and then the other, keening in a high-pitched wail of inarticulate agony. His mask hung in dripping shreds. Most of his nose was gone. His mouth and chin were slick with dark blood.

I got shakily to my feet, sick and dazed. I figured I had him now if I could manage one more really good hit. Maybe break his neck, or crush his hyoid bone.

Then the son of a bitch wheeled toward me and hissed. His lips peeled back as he bared his teeth.

Suddenly the whole world froze and in that fragment of time I stared at his mouth.

At his teeth.

Good God.

His teeth were all filed to razor-sharp points. Like the teeth of a shark. But the canines-something was wrong with them. Really goddamn wrong. They weren’t just sharp, they were too long. Way too fucking long. Like the fangs of a dog. Or a wolf.

Or-

No. My mind refused to make that connection. It was insane and the day was already out of control.

And then the sharp-toothed, no-nose freakazoid son of a bitch pulled us right back into the real world.

He reached into a pocket and produced a gun.

Nothing weird or alien. Totally ordinary.

He had me and we both knew it.

So I let out a scream that was louder than his and I drove into him at full speed and force. It was a big, meaty impact that knocked blood from his face so hard it spattered the walls and ceiling. The gun went flying over my shoulder. Even then he tried to step out of it, but I had him and together we crashed through the glass door and all the way to the wrought-iron balcony. We hit the railing five flights above the empty street. There was glass and curtains and broken pieces of wood-framing everywhere, and even with all that we kept jabbing and punching at each other. Those jagged teeth bit the air, snapping at my face, my throat.

I shoved him back and then smashed him across the mouth with my elbow, exploding half his teeth over the rail and down into the street five stories below.

And still he fought.

Despite all of the injuries, the torn face, he spun me around and started bending me backward over the rail. I could feel my spine bending too far and too fast even while I wailed on him, smashing ribs and eyebrows and knocking more teeth out of his mouth.

Then suddenly his head jerked away from me like he’d been pulled by a rope. I heard a crack as his neck snapped, and saw a geyser of blood and brain matter splash against the shattered window frame, painting the floor and overturned mattress.

His body spun away back into the room, and he collapsed down onto the ruined bed like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

I never heard the shot that killed him. But I threw myself into the room and dove behind the bed.

Had the shooter been aiming for him?

Or had they tried to shoot me and missed?

Golden Oasis Hotel

Tehran, Iran

June 15, 9:46 a.m.

I lay there, panting like a marathon runner five feet from the finish line. Everything hurt, every inch of skin, every muscle, every nerve. I was drenched in sweat and blood, but I remained motionless, trying to hear an echo from a distant shooter.

But there was nothing. No sound except my own labored breaths.

The dead goon’s pistol lay on the box spring, but it was in direct line of sight from the window. I had no gun, no weapons in the hotel room. Why should I? After all, I was a tourist on vacation here in Tehran. All of my tactical gear was slag on the street outside the police station.

I tried to melt into the floorboards, waiting for the next shot, for the next round to punch a hole through the wall and through my body.

My attacker lay in a twisted sprawl. The shot had taken him in the left temple and the exit wound had blown most of his head off. A big damn bullet, traveling at three thousand feet per second.

I waited.

Nothing.

I waited some more.

More nothing.

Across the room, Ghost chuffed and twitched. His ribs rose and fell as he fought to swim back to consciousness.