Immune (The Rho Agenda #2)(127)

With a grin that became a sneer, the don signaled four of the thugs forward. “Un-cuff her hands and stretch her out here on the floor.”

To Mark’s horror, the men released Heather’s handcuffs, and although she struggled mightily, they pulled her down onto her back, one each pinning her arms while two more spread her legs. Don Espe?osa knelt down between them, reaching forward to rip open Heather’s blouse.

“Ah, such sweet titties.” Don Espe?osa reached down and began fondling Heather’s breasts. “So nice and firm. You probably never even got to touch these, did you, Smythe?”

To Mark, the panting breath of the men, the sound of the racing hearts pumping blood into the bulges in their pants, the smell of their sweat, felt like the rupture of hell’s gate, and from that gate poured a firestorm of rage that scorched his brain.

Mark’s heart pulsed in his chest, sending a massive surge of blood and adrenaline coursing through his arteries.

With a snap loud enough to spin Don Espe?osa’s head in his direction, the metal and plastic of his double handcuffs split apart.





133


“You probably never even got to touch these, did you, Smythe?”

Jorge Espe?osa’s breath panted out in great puffs as he fumbled with his belt, anticipation making his fingers thick and clumsy. He was going to take his time and enjoy this.

CRACK.

What the hell was that? Jorge’s head spun toward the sound, but his mind failed to comprehend what he was seeing. The Smythe boy was loose and moving, a look of rage distorting his face into a werewolf mask of hatred. Then the face blurred as the boy spun toward Carlos, the lone standing bodyguard, his fist moving so fast that the drug lord’s eyes failed to follow it.

Carlos’ head exploded like a melon hit with a sledgehammer, the force of the blow spattering globs of blood, bone, and brain across the five men crouched over Heather McFarland. Then Smythe was on them.

As he reached for his Beretta, Don Espe?osa felt the kick break his arm and cave in his chest, the amazing force of the blow sending his body spinning across the room, where the impact with the wall broke his neck. As he slid to the floor, unable to twitch a finger, his face settled into an angle that provided a view of the carnage raging fifteen feet away.

Even as he hurtled forward, he could hear the wet screams behind him, could smell the coppery odor of blood. Smythe wasn’t just killing the bodyguards, he was ripping them apart, pummeling their heads into a mush that even their nanite-infested bloodstreams had no chance to repair. Impossible. Nobody could move that fast or hit that hard. Nobody.

Don Espe?osa felt his own unnatural healing process restore the broken parts of his body, weaving his torn spinal cord back together, rewarding him with a river of pain. One thing he knew for certain: if the nanites didn’t hurry, the boy demon was going to finish ravaging what remained of the bodyguards and turn his attention to a more entertaining victim, one he had saved for last.

His hand moved, a jerky motion that didn’t accomplish anything, but which gave Jorge hope. And with that hope came panic. Just a few more seconds. That was all he needed to get enough control to reach his shoulder holster and put every bullet in his gun into the Smythe thing. He just hoped bullets would kill it.

As he struggled to move, Jorge’s hand spasmed, but a quick glance toward the center of the room wiped away all hope. Smythe was coming, looking like he’d just finished playing bobbing for apples in a barrel of blood.

And in those eyes…no pity.





134


It was raining, the same bloody rain Heather had seen in her nightmare. Although the vision had ended a minute earlier, it seemed that the nightmare world had merged with the present, leaving her struggling to understand if this was real or just another part of her hallucination. A warm wet blob splattered her face and hair as bodies that had just crouched atop her came apart, sending up great fountains of arterial spray.

Screams bubbled wetly, dying out as the mouths that uttered them lost all shape. And in the very eye of this hurricane of death, Heather stared up at the avenging archangel that Mark had become.

“I know what you are becoming.” The laughing voice of the Rag Man echoed in Heather’s delirious mind.

What Mark had become was what she had made him. She had seen this future, and yet, she had knowingly set it in motion by spitting into Don Espe?osa’s face. It was that or let Mark die.

Heather struggled to sit up in the slick red pool that covered the floor around her, uncaring that her blouse had been torn away, leaving her topless. She felt sick, not just in her stomach, but in her soul. The image of Stephen King’s Carrie stared back at her from the mirrored wall. Except it wasn’t a bucket of pig blood that soaked Heather. And Carrie hadn’t been covered with all these wiggling globs filled with nanites, struggling to repair the irreparable.

Heather’s body retched a single dry heave before she managed to shift her memory to the couch on the Second Ship. But she couldn’t linger in that memory. The rain had stopped and Mark was moving across the room toward the crumpled body of Don Espe?osa.

“Mark, stop!”

Her voice tugged at him like a jockey trying to stop a runaway horse. He slowed but didn’t come to a complete halt.

“Mark! Look at me.”

Mark grabbed the drug lord at the collar, lifting his broken body in one hand, as if it had no more weight than that of a baby. Heather could see Don Espe?osa was healing rapidly, although his arms and legs still only managed short spasmodic jerks.