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"Sholnick!"

Throwing aside his unifor off his shoes, frantic to strip out of all his clothes and conored Loman

"Barry, stop, for God’s sake, don’t let this happen," Penniworth said urgently He was pale and shaking He glanced froain, and Loe to which Sholnick had surrendered himself

"… run free, hunt, blood, blood, need …"

Peyser’s insidious chant was like a spike through Loman’s head, and he wanted it to stop No, truthfully, it wasn’t like a spike splitting his skull, because it wasn’t at all painful and was, in fact, thrilling and strangelyhim not like a shaft of steel but like music That hy he wanted it to stop because it appealed to him, enticed him; it made him want to shed his responsibilities and concerns, retreat from the too-complex life of the intellect to an existence based strictly on feelings, on physical pleasures, a world whose boundaries were defined by sex and food and the thrill of the hunt, a world where disputes were settled and needs were met strictly by the application of ain or worry or care

"… need, need, need, need, need, kill …"

Sholnick’s body bent forward as his spine re-formed His back lost the concave curvature distinctive of the hu way to scales--

"come, quick, quick, the hunt, blood, blood"

--and as Sholnick’s face was reshaped, hisnearly to each ear, like thereptile

The pressure in Loreater by the second He was hot, sweltering, but the heat ca at a thousand ti him for transformation "No" Sweat streamed from him "No!" He felt as if the room were a cauldron in which he would be reduced to his essence; he could al, "I want, I want, I want, want," but he was vigorously shaking his head, trying to deny what he wanted He was crying and tre and sheet-white

Peyser rose from his crouch and stepped away froh he could not stand entirely erect in his altered state, he was taller than Loure

Sholnick shrieked

Peyser bared his fierce teeth and hissed at Loman as if to say, Either join us or die

With a cry composed partly of despair and partly of joy, Neil Penniworth dropped his 20-gauge and put his hands to his face As if that contact had exerted an alchee

Heat exploded in Loman, and he shouted wordlessly, but without the joy that Penniworth had expressed and without Sholnick’s orgasmic cry While he still had control of hiun and squeezed off a round point-blank at Peyser

The blast took the regressive in the chest, blowing hiainst the bedroom wall in a tre for breath, wriggling on the floor like a half-stos had not sustained sufficient da conveyed to his blood and if blood was still being pue; his invulnerability was in soreater than the SUPERNATURAL imperviousness of a olf, for he could not be easily killed even with a silver bullet; in aas ever

Wave after wave of heat, each h Loman He felt pressure from within, not only in his chest but in every part of his body now He had only seconds left in which hisenough to resist He scuttled to Peyser, shoved the ressive’s chest, and pumped another round into him

The heart had to have been pulverized by that round The body leaped off the floor as the load tore through it Peyser’s monstrous face contorted, then froze with his eyes open and sightless, his lips peeled back froe, sharp, hooked teeth

So, he saw the Sholnick-thing co Sholnick in the chest and stoan to craard the hall, away from Loman

Neil Penniworth was curled in the fetal position on the floor by the foot of the bed He was chanting but not about blood and needs and being free; he was chanting his mother’s name, over and over, as if it were a verbal talisman to protect him from the evil that wanted to clai so hard that the sound of it see timpani in another room of the house He was half-convinced that he could feel his entire body throbbing with his pulse, and that with each throb he was changing in so in behind Sholnick, standing over hiressive’s back, about where he thought the heart would be, and pulled the trigger Sholnick let out a shrill scream when he felt the rab the gun away from Loman The scream was cut off forever by the blast

The room stea that it took the place of Peyser’s seductive chanting, inducing Loainst the dresser and squeezed his eyes shut, trying to establish a firun with both hands, clasping it tightly, not for its defensive value--it held no more rounds--but because it was an expertly crafted weapon, which was to say that it was a tool, an artifact of civilization, a reminder that he was a man, at the pinnacle of evolution, and that he must not succue in exchange for the more primal pleasures and satisfactions of a beast

But the blood s to impress hiht of Grace, his wife, and remembered how much he once had loved her But he was beyond love now, as were all of the New People Thoughts of Grace could not save hi flashed through his mind, and she was not Grace to him any more; she was si excited hiression

The intense desire to degeneratesucked down, down, and he thought that this was how the nascent as supposed to feel when he looked up into the night sky and saw, ascending at the horizon, a full ed within hie--

… hunt …

… kill …