Page 23 of The Undead

“That’s different. I have—”

“Surgeries,” she broke in with a flash of temper. “Yeah. You always do, and nothing gets in your way. I don’t know why you expect my work to be any more forgiving than yours. I’ve got people’s lives and safety depending on me, just like you do. Let me worry about myself, huh?”

She was tight-strung from her encounter with Nick and from something else, something I sensed she didn’t want to share. I kissed her gently and let her go. She attempted another smile. This one was more successful.

“Why don’t you quit shocking the neighbors and go put something on, and I’ll see what I can manage to eat.”

“One-handed? You sure?”

Maggie gave me a severe look and shook her forefinger at me sternly.

“The day I can’t outcook you, one-handed or not, will be a cold day in hell, buddy, so just do what I say and move your ass.”

“Or?” I taunted, staying just out of reach. She made a grab for me, somewhere below the waistline, but I jumped back and ran for the bedroom. It was too bad, but she didn’t follow me. As I yanked on underwear and a robe, I could hear her rattling pots in the kitchen, amid a lot of cursing. Impatient to be in there—mostly to keep her from overdoing it—I turned and whacked my head hard against the edge of the open closet door.

On top of the previous whacks, it was enough to send me reeling backward. Something caught me at the knees, and I sprawled helplessly backward. Luckily, I landed soft—on the bed.

I was seeing stars, but my mind was surprisingly rational. I should rest a minute, I decided. It was probably a wise decision, since I doubted I could have managed getting up, and as I lay there things began to come into a strange sort of focus for me.

I was back in the morgue again.

I leaped over the desk, grabbing for Adam’s throat in a frantic, stupid, suicidal attack that had as much sense behind it as a sheep biting a butcher’s knife. Idiotic. He didn’t seem to move at all, but suddenly I was lying on the floor and he was still sitting in his chair, looking at me. He hadn’t replaced his glasses. His eyes were still mild, still brown, still terrifyingly different.

“Don’t,” he warned me calmly. I was beyond calm. I clawed my way up to my feet and grabbed for something to use as a weapon. The little crystal ball was on the stand on his desk, miraculously intact after my airborne passage; I grabbed it up and threw it as head as I could. If it had connected, it might have cracked bone, but he just reached out with a deceptively lazy movement and plucked it out of the air. I didn’t actually see his arm move. One moment it was lying easily on his knee, and the next it was extended, and the crystal was in his palm.

I scrambled backward in crablike haste. He weighed the crystal absently; his eyes had never left mine, even when he caught it. Without any change of expression whatsoever he tossed the crystal against the far wall of the morgue. It struck the white tiles and exploded into tiny fragments. If he’d thrown it at me at that speed, it wouldn’t have cracked bone, it would have just tunneled in one side of my skull and out through the other like a hollowpoint bullet.

“Don’t screw around with me, Michael. You’re making me angry.”

I stopped, panting for breath, my back against his cubicle wall. He sat and looked at me apparently trying to decide what to do with me and not finding much of an answer. He finally stood up. I didn’t see him walk toward m; he simply crossed the distance in between one instant and the next.

“What are you going to do?” I whispered. He cocked his head a little to the side, and at this distance I could see the gradations in his eyes, the flecks of crimson mixing with chocolate brown like sparks flying up a dark chimney. His expression was distant.

“Kill you, I guess,” he said slowly, as if he were a little surprised I didn’t know. “Messy, but I see you can’t be reasoned with. Damn you, Michael, why did this have to happen? I like you, you know. I really do.”

“Maybe we can work something out. Look, you said yourself, kill m and all hell breaks loose—” I was babbling. I didn’t know what else to do.

“Long walk through the park, Michael.” Adam observed with chilling calm. “Lots of things could happen on the way home. It wouldn’t be any-body’s fault at all, just one of those stupid things. A mugging. Some drugged-out freak who just decides to kill you for fun. And it’s neater than the alternatives.”

“I don’t want to die,” I said, quite reasonably. Adam smiled slightly, still watching m with a kind of remote interest.

“No, none of us do.” He nodded “Now get up.”

“No.”

“Get up, Michael.” There was a shade more menace in his voice, and to my horror I felt myself obey him. “You won’t remember any of this in a moment. You’ll just go home, and on your way—”

“No!” I screamed, and grabbed up the chair next to me. I swung it at him. Adam caught it in one hand; as he did, the sparks in his eyes caught hold and flamed. Bright crimson.

Adam bared his teeth in a snarl. I saw his canines come down from their retractive position; even, extended, they weren’t much longer than a normal human’s. Just sharper. I felt terror rob me of whatever strength I had left, and then his hands were around my neck.

I clawed at them as he started to press, but it was like trying to remove riveted steel. He never bent his head to touch me with those teeth, but I could feel the hunger shooting through him, hot as lust and mixed with his anger in a deadly combination.

But, in the next instant, Adam mastered himself and let me drop. He turned his back on me. I could see his fists clench as he struggled to force his rage back.

“I’m not going to let you kill me, Adam.” I whispered through a suddenly sore throat. “I’ll fight you.”

“Yes, I know.” he answered me, and turned to look at me again. He booked normal again, and a little sad. “Listen to me. You’re going to forget, now. You’re going to go home, and forget what has happened here. You looked at the bodies and you felt faint. you feel faint now.”

---