Bloodshot - Cherie Priest [20]
As soon as I realized what he was up to, I hit my metaphoric brakes and doubled back to the door. He was trying to zip past me and get out behind me. No way, José. Whoever he was, he wasn’t going anywhere until I’d gotten some answers or some blood. I’d settle for either one, but I’d shoot for both.
I reached the door about half a second before he could. I kicked it shut and whirled on my heels, katana poised, as I faced him.
He did a backward shuffle-hop on the beam and I was certain he was going to fall, but he didn’t. Instead he did a quick gaze-around-the-room, then bolted down a side beam toward a small square window at the far end of the premises.
Never at any point did he appear properly on the verge of panic. And never at any point did I get the impression that the darkness was inhibiting his flight.
I didn’t see any goggles or glasses but he wasn’t missing a step, and that beam wasn’t more than eight inches wide. Great. I had a night-spying ninja on my hands. Was he armed? I couldn’t tell. He wasn’t trying to fight back yet; he was intent on getting away—which was a good move on his part because when I caught him, I intended to hurt him. A lot.
I chased him from the floor level, tagging along underneath him as he bolted for the nearest promising exit, and while we raced, my hopeful guess that he wasn’t a vampire was borne out. I outpaced him easily—skipping up a stack of crates and vaulting up onto the beam between him and the window without even breaking a sweat.
Yes, I know. I already told you that we don’t sweat. But you get the idea.
Now he was nervous. He’d kept his cool nicely until we were eye-to-eye and he was empty-handed against my sword and my terrifically bad attitude.
In the fraction of a moment between me startling him into immobility and his fight-or-flight mechanism kicking in again, I sized him up.
He was taller than me by a fair measure, probably a whole head taller, but it was hard to tell with both of us crouching to keep from knocking our heads on the ceiling. Wearing black from head to toe, he might’ve stood out on any street except for one in downtown Seattle. Even his hat was black, and fitted close against his head. Around his eyes and across his cheeks he’d smudged black greasepaint, which I thought was overkill. How much difference did he think the guyliner would make?
Not enough to save his ass, I could promise him that.
I don’t know what the track used to carry, but it must’ve been heavy, because it didn’t creak at all beneath our weight—not even when I bounced on it just a touch to see how stable it was. I’d never fought anybody Errol-Flynn-style before, up on some high ballast. I wasn’t really looking forward to it, but if I was going to cut the shit out of some guy while trying to hold my balance, I wanted to be sure that the surface would hold us both.
He beat a retreat, backward, not very well this time.
His right foot missed, almost, he slipped, and I’ll be damned—he caught himself, just in time to sling out an arm and snag the beam. He lowered himself in a hasty drop that was impressively smooth and painless.
I jumped down after him, and it was equally smooth and painless. Probably more so, since I’d made my descent on purpose. I was almost disappointed that he hadn’t seen me do it, but he’d turned tail and was running like the wind again, back to the door, betting that I’d only kicked it shut and that I hadn’t broken it. He was willing to give it another shot, since he didn’t have much of a choice.
“Oh no you don’t,” I told him, and before he’d gotten another two steps I was in front of him. He tried another direction, but I was in front of him that way, too. And there it was, the fear, wafting up off his skin. His eyes, too. Smudged with the greasepaint for added invisibility (or something), they were on fire with the realization that he had not been busted by some