Stealing Faces - Michael Prescott [1]
It was not a coyote, of course. It never had been.
It was him.
Some part of her registered this fact. She looked behind her and saw him striding along the bank of the stream, the pistol in his gloved hand.
If she had been Sharon Andrews, she would have known she was finished. Somehow she knew anyway, though her body fought against the knowledge, insisting on survival.
When he reached her, she was clawing feebly at the mud, straining to rise, but she would never rise. The second shot had shattered her hip and damaged the base of her spine, leaving her legs limp and unresponsive even as her upper body thrashed and flailed.
Crouching beside her, he touched the carotid artery at the side of her neck. She moaned.
“Quiet now,” he said. “Quiet.”
Roughly he turned her on her back.
A light snapped on, dim and red, a low-power flashlight with a red filter.
Swimming in the red haze was the blur of his face. He leaned close, studying her, his eyes narrowed and intense.
“Now I see you,” he whispered. “Now I see you as you really are. I see the essence of you.”
She heard words, but they meant nothing, they were only sounds, dull sounds. She was sleepy.
Her eyes were closing when she saw the knife.
He’d slipped it from a sheath at his waist. A long knife with a double-edged blade.
A last reflex of fear stiffened her.
“There, there.” He set down the flashlight. “Be calm. This won’t take long.”
Then he was bending nearer, one hand on her chin, the other holding the knife against the tender hollow of her jaw.
“You wear a mask,” he said. “All your life you’ve worn it.”
His tone soothed her, a steady tone that stroked her in a calm caress.
“But not tonight. Tonight you’ve been unmasked. Tonight you’re pretending no longer. Isn’t it good, not to pretend? Isn’t it right, to be real for once? To be only what you are?”
She didn’t understand, but she knew there was only a little more to go, and she relaxed, waiting for it to be over.
“The process is almost complete. Just this last step, to make it official. The final stage of liberation from your stale disguise.”
The knife point pricked her, but the pain was someone else’s. Past his face, the night was growing darker.
“Are you ready? Ready to remove the mask?”
He knew there would be no answer. But she was indeed ready. He could tell.
And so was he.
The knife moved, slicing the soft flesh under her chin, and before she could resist or even scream, he took the loose skin flap in both hands and in a single practiced motion he peeled off her face.
PART ONE
NIGHT’S BLACK AGENT
1
On a Monday evening in September, five months after he had hunted Sharon Andrews in the southern foothills of the White Mountains, John Cray drove into Tucson in search of a fresh kill.
It was a long drive, one he enjoyed, especially when the sun was westering, its light golden on the hills and desert flats. He headed south on Route 191 toward Interstate 10. The highway was uncrowded. A few pickup trucks shot past in the northbound lane, and far behind him sparkled a glimmer of sun on a chrome fender, but otherwise he was alone.
Solitude suited him. Cray was hemmed in by people throughout the day, even on weekends. The work never stopped, it was frustrating and demoralizing, and there was so rarely any relief.
But he would find relief tonight.
The road passed lightly under him. Ruts and potholes were smoothed away by a precision suspension system, and the engine’s soft hum disappeared behind the controlled violence of Mahler’s Eighth on the CD player. Cray settled deeper into the leather seat and felt care leave him.
He had paid more than $50,000 for these niceties, without regret. The salesman at the Lexus dealership had assured him that the LX 470 was the finest sport-utility vehicle on the market, exceeding even the rival Mercedes model. It was, he’d said, the perfect choice for the driver who would not sacrifice comfort, yet required the capability