Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Colletion_ Books 11-15 - Laurell K. Hamilton [1027]
Cisco tried to get him to stand up and move away from the body. I think Cisco was worried about how Peter would react when the shock wore off. It made me think better of Cisco. Then a lot of things happened at once. I couldn’t hear it, but I must have seen movement out of the corner of my eye, because I turned to see Edward and company come barreling down the hallway, guns drawn. The door to Richard’s room was open, and he was leaning in it. His beautiful chest was a mass of scars on one side. He was pale as death, and looked as if the only thing keeping him upright was the doorway. The scars showed where the bullets had taken a chunk out of all that nice muscled flesh. Sometimes silver scars. He mouthed something, but I still couldn’t hear anything but the ringing silence in my own head. Gunshot too close to the ear. I’d be lucky if my hearing wasn’t permanently damaged.
I felt movement nearer to me, and turned, but I was slow. I think Peter wasn’t the only one in shock. Cisco was pulling Peter to his feet by the collar of his jacket. Cisco was shouting something. I couldn’t see what the problem was—there was nothing but Soledad’s body. Then I looked at the body and realized that she was still in tiger form. Her body hadn’t reverted to human form. Dead shapeshifters always revert to human form. I raised my gun and had it aimed, when the “body” sprang up and threw itself at Peter and Cisco.
32
CISCO FOULED PETER’S shot by throwing his body in the way of the claws. I got off two shots before the faceless body brought them to the floor. And I was suddenly having the same problem they’d just had, trying to find a place to fire into that fur that wouldn’t hit the two boys underneath it. They had saved my life and I still thought, Boys.
Claudia and Remus got there first, because you just can’t outrun a shapeshifter. Edward and Olaf were close behind, but they didn’t get there first. It was Claudia and Remus who joined me around the struggling pile. A gun fired up through the tiger’s chest. Claudia actually pushed me out of the way hard enough that I fell against the wall. Too many guns in too small a space; friendly fire was as dangerous to us as Soledad.
Whoever was shooting was trying to make a hole through her chest. Her body jerked and jumped with the power of it. She staggered to her feet. I swear that I could see the hallway through the hole in her lower chest. But even as I watched, the muscle began to flow like water, healing. Shit. It was Peter who had shot a hole through her. Cisco was trying to breathe through a throat that wasn’t there anymore.
Edward and Olaf were beside each other, firing into Soledad’s body like they were on a shooting range. So cool, so professional, so accurate. It was a little hard to miss her at this range.
Some of the guards had gone to their knees around Edward, Olaf, Remus, and Claudia, some standing, some kneeling so they wouldn’t get in each other’s way, a very organized slaughter. The tiger’s body jumped and danced with the bullets like some sort of spasming puppet. But she didn’t go down. I fired from the wall where Claudia had thrown me. I emptied my clip into Soledad and watched her body and fur flow over the wounds. It was fucking silver and she was treating it like it was ordinary bullets. I’d never seen a shapeshifter able to do that. Even fairies, once you opened a hole in them that big, didn’t heal like this. I emptied my clip and did almost exactly what Peter had done earlier, except that my extra clip was attached to my belt. She wasn’t acting like a wereanything. She was acting like a rotting