Basilisk (The Korsak Brothers #2)(66)
“You know that if we park here and live to tell the tale of how we cured a horde of psychotic murdering kids, we’ll have to walk home. The SUV will be gone the instant we’re out of sight,” Saul said.
“That won’t be a problem.” I handed him one of the oversized tranquilizer guns and Stefan the other as he steered with one hand.
“No?” Saul questioned skeptically. “Why is that?”
“People know. Normal people too. They’re in that building up there.” I pointed at the windshield toward the corner ahead of us where a two-level pueblo-style building squatted in a precarious heap at the intersection of two streets. “And everyone in that building is dead. The people around here might not smell them yet or maybe they do, but either way, anyone who was in there is dead. The most oblivious person in the world couldn’t walk past it and not know. They’ll cross the street to avoid it. Instinct. It’s left over from a time when instinct was the only thing that kept early man from being eaten by a giant Canis dirus. No one will come near the building or bother the car.”
“A Canis what?” That would be Saul. Again.
“A dire wolf. A big-ass Pleistocene wolf. A three-hundred-pound people-eating puppy. Woof, woof.” I took a gun of my own out of the case and then closed it.
“Smart-ass.” Saul shifted the tranq gun to one hand while pulling his own gun with the other, once again prepared for any situation. “Why are we trying so hard to save these kids? They killed an entire building full of people. They kill and they love it. If they were normal people, we’d wait until they were old enough, slap ’em on death row, and give them their last booster shot. Jesus, Stefan, Michael, they’re too dangerous to let live. They’re too dangerous to try to cure. That Wendy kid killed the possibly salvageable ones; you said yourself. Why are we risking our lives for murderers without an ounce of remorse?”
“Because they weren’t just born that way. It wasn’t an accident of nature that produced a rare sociopath. Someone made them this way, through genetics and training and brainwashing. They’re monsters, but that’s because a monster mirrored his own ego in them. They deserve a chance, even if it’s not much of one or the monster wins. Jericho wins and that’s not acceptable.” I put my hand out, ready to open the car door. “Let me go first. It’s Wendy’s chip. If she’s there with them, Stefan, you need to stay outside until you hear me yell for you. Saul, you go around back in case a few try to escape.” I doubted sincerely that would happen, but I had to plan for all eventualities. Because of Wendy, I needed to go in first.
Wendy was a new kind of monster. We were all chimeras, a name from the creature of mythology—twoin-one—but Wendy was something else. Wendy was a chimera with a f*cking cherry on top. She was another creature of legend.
Basilisk.
Mythology said if one saw you, you died. One look and your life was over. Wendy was that myth, born to reality and walking the earth for the first time.
“What makes you think you’re immune? You said it yourself; Wendy is the only chimera who can hurt other chimeras.” Stefan, like Saul, had his gun backing up the tranq one. He parked the SUV on the street two buildings down from our target. He and I got out and headed for the front of the squat box of a building while Saul headed around the back.
“Peter is running the show and Peter wants something from me. He won’t let Wendy kill me. And,” I muttered low and fast, “I’ve been practicing.”
“Practicing? What do you mean you’ve been—”
The door to what had once been a pawnshop, but was most likely a meth lab now, slammed shut behind me. I’d been quick, because I was that much quicker now—quicker than any human. The door cut off Stefan’s voice and I concentrated. Inside it was quiet. The walls and floor were covered with years of dust and grime. There were bars on the windows, the glass itself covered with newspaper to hide the interior from prying eyes. There were cots all over the one big room. The bodies of several Hispanic men lay dead on them—not because they died peacefully in their sleep, but because there was so little space between them they couldn’t fall to the floor. There were some exceptions where a few cots had been turned or tipped over by death convulsions. Most had guns or knives in their hands or laying by them. They had all, to a man, gone the Basement way. Not one had died easily.
The one closest to me had gray rubbery streamers of flesh spilling out of his gaping mouth—part of his lungs. You couldn’t cough up both of them at once, or just one, but you could cough up pieces of them until you choked and asphyxiated or died from another lack of oxygen: lungs blown to tatters. Either/or. Another man lay on his back, his brain matter having spilled out his ears, nose, and mouth. Someone had crushed his skull.
The next victim was shirtless and curled on the floor, his abdomen split neatly from breast bone to below his baggy jeans somewhere. His arms were curled around the large pile of intestines that had poured free, as if he could push them back inside and hold himself together. The man closest to him had shot himself in the head with his own gun to escape his torment, but first he’d ripped off his pants. His penis and testicles. . . .
I stopped cataloging the carnage. It was nothing I hadn’t seen before—nothing new under the sun that could be done outside the Institute that hadn’t been done inside. The one difference was this wasn’t a reward for excelling; this was freedom.