Page 5 (1/2)

The creature lifts its hung head, the cowl peels away to settle around its neck like a rolled collar, and the face appears more human than not Feht have been lovely before the skull elongated and the bones thickened during whatever transformation she endured at Hiskott’s hand

Here is one of the uests as so alone in the world that she would not be missed, now a human-alien hybrid that perhaps exists for no reason but to protect and serve her htest degree of self-awareness and memory, what a horror her current existence must be, and how insane that kernel of her true self e flesh and bone

Although the beast’s eyes are milky as if with cataracts, I am sure that it can see, perhaps as well in the dark as in the light I can’t look away fro is about to do

I drop and roll and spring up as, in a slithery scissoring of long and knuckled limbs, the creature crosses the distance that I have put between us and lands in the precise spot that I vacated, quicker than a cat

As it turns to faceextraordinary has happened to its forehead Protruding from the center of its brohat appears to be a tapered horn about four inches long, half an inch wide at the base but as pointed as a nail No, not a horn, but a hollow probe of sole drop of fluid as red as blood The droplet falls, and the segmented horn collapses into itself, backward into the skull At the point where it retracted is a small puckered pouch of skin that I had not previously noticed

The creature doesn’t mean to kill me I am to be converted, as was the woman, into a servant and defender of whatever Norris Hiskott has becoain I know, I move, duck, clamber across a club chair, and the creature is where I was an instant earlier, turning toward er and frustration

I continueit between us, as the few reain and caper about the chandelier, their distorted shadows chasing silverfish across the green felt

Following his hybrid rebirth, Hiskott has becouably psychic, in the sense that he can have out-of-body experiences and invade the minds of others; therefore, this beast that serves hiree In fact, the coests that an atte ht or self-defense

Because of ifts, this creature has no more power over me than does Norris Hiskott But maybe its attempt to fix me in place with a psychic skewer, like a lepidopterist pinning a butterfly to a specimen board, opens a channel between us that transmits the beast’s intentions to me

Then I realize that I’veWorse, I no longer have the pistol in a two-hand grip I’ve allowed the ree, I’estions, after all

Bringing the gun up, both hands on the grip, I fail to move whenIt stinks of burntroses Theanesthetic and bitter veno supple scaly tail, previously unnoticed, whips around s The capelike mass of loose skin billows out and then forward to enwrap my body, as if I am soon to be a monk of its satanic order, robed and cowled and moon-eyed alike to it

The first shot takes the beast point-blank in the chest

Its grip onhornlike probe extrudes froon head, the better to sla brain to brain

Trapped between us, angled upward, the gun discharges, gouging a gout of flesh and splintered wedge of jawbone frorin of triumph

The hideous cape of skin slips away fros, one calloused cla orethe brain, shattering through the back of the head, and drilling into the ceiling The curiously articulated legs fold this way and that, the hooked hands seerip upon the air, and the beast drops, falls back, faceup, no luster any longer in its eyes, the cape of skin, like aits body

It lies still except for the rolled collar of excess skin around its neck Perhaps in soray rouleau unspools, insinuates itself between the carpet and the broken skull, and creeps across the top of the head, over the brow, and down the face, whereupon it quivers and becoh the creature had been given license to walk the Earth on the condition that in both life and death it recognize the shame of its appearance and its purpose

Froht be an expression of rage, although to h with bright threads of sharp anxiety This is a cry of ht give comfort

I could pity what mourns and cowers in the darkness below, if I didn’t expect that it was another like the one I just killed and that, given the chance, it would induct me into their hive

As the plaintive cries subside, I consider sitting and waiting for Hiskott and the third of his guards to co further, when behind every closed door ht wait a thief of minds and a collector of souls But the insect-infested furniture isn’t appealing, and the deeply unwholeso

The stench of burnt s to me, and I feel soiled by the touch of those hands and the e more than to wash my hands and face, but even if I dare to delay to scrub away the smell, I don’t trust even the water in this place to be safe and pure

In the foyer onceto the house A pool of silence, fathoms deep, it is not stirred by any current, with not a ripple to disturb its surface