Lifel1k3 (Lifelike #1)(72)

“You’d be another special little snowflake, then.”

“Go, brother.” Her eyes were still locked on the Preacher. “Find redemption.”

“Hope, I—”

“GO!” she roared.

Ezekiel threw one last murderous glance at the bounty hunter. Looked up the stairwell to where Ana and the others had already disappeared. He touched Hope’s cheek, gentle as falling leaves. She closed her eyes briefly and smiled. And then Ezekiel was gone, bounding up the stairs four at a time in pursuit of the girls.

The Preacher sniffed, tilted his head until his neck popped.

“Mighty noble of you. But ain’t nowhere they can run I can’t find ’em.”

“I can’t help but notice you don’t seem in a particular hurry to pursue.”

“Naw.” The Preacher smiled. “You do this job long as I have, you git as good at it as I am … well, it gets a mite dull, darlin’. Gotta look for ways to make it a challenge.” The bounty hunter spat at Hope’s feet. “Talkin’ true, I’m startin’ to enjoy myself.”

“Enjoy yourself?” Hope frowned. “This is a house of God. I am his child, and I—”

“His child?” The Preacher shook his head, patting the Goodbook in his breast pocket. “Darlin’, I’ve read this cover to cover more times’n I can count. And in all them times, I don’t recall once seein’ mention of the likes of you.”

“He made man in his image.” Hope stepped into the center of the ministry floor, arms spread. “And we are made in the image of man.”

“Mmmf.” The bounty hunter nodded. “You bleed red, I’ll give you that. And I’d like to know exactly what your boy is capable of before I tussle with him again.”

The Preacher raised his pistols and smiled.

“So. May I have this dance?”

Hope moved. Like a lightning strike. Like a hummingbird’s wings. Sweeping up a metal cot as if it were paper, slinging it with the force of a wrecking ball. The Preacher dove sideways, firing as he went. Gunfire thundered, shell casings falling like rain as the bounty hunter emptied his clips. Hope took a shot to her leg, another to her belly, flinging another cot and sending the Preacher flying backward into a wall.

Both combatants hit the deck, rolled to their feet. The Preacher spat tobacco and blood, unslinging the automatic rifle from his back as Hope spun behind a support column. She flung another cot, which smashed into the wall beside the Preacher’s head and dented the case-hardened steel. The Preacher laid down a hail of fire, Hope’s cover riddled with smoking pockmarks as the hollow-points flew. The little fluffball dog was still poised at the entrance, bristling with impatience. It yapped once, shrill over the gunfire.

“You just hold back, Mary,” the Preacher growled. “Keep an eye out.”

Hope snatched a fire extinguisher while the Preacher reloaded. As he raised his rifle, Hope hurled the extinguisher at his head like a javelin. The bounty hunter ducked, firing, the bullets striking the blood-red casing and popping the pressurized can like a balloon.

White powder filled the air, falling like the long-forgotten snow. The Preacher blinked in the haze, dragged his sleeve across his eyes. Hope careened out of the fog, landing a crushing blow to the side of the bounty hunter’s head. The man flew like a ragdoll, rifle spinning from his grip as he hit the floor. Hope was on his chest in an instant, pinning his arms with her knees, pummeling his face with astonishing ferocity, her own face utterly serene.

WHUMP.

“Forgive me, Father,” she prayed.

THUD.

“For I must sin …”

CRUNCH.

Grasping the Preacher’s head, she pressed her thumbs to his eyes. The man gasped, bending at the waist and swinging his legs up. His spurs punched clean through Hope’s throat as he locked his ankles around the lifelike’s neck. And roaring furiously, he kicked down, slamming Hope’s head into the floor with a bone-shattering thud.

They rolled away from each other, Hope clutching her skull, the Preacher pawing at his eyes. The two were both bloodied, the Preacher’s chin covered in a slick of tobacco red. Hope’s hair had torn loose from her braid, arrayed about her face in a ragged halo as she rose to her feet, beautiful and terrible as a naked flame.

The Preacher scrambled upright, closed in to hand-to-hand range. Hope swung like an anvil, the bounty hunter blocking with his cybernetic arm. The pair collided in a savage dance of brute strength and shocking speed. Each a blurred reflection of the other. Both more than human.

The Preacher cracked seven of Hope’s ribs with a single punch. The lifelike pirouetted, deflecting the bounty hunter’s strike and locking up his arm. She slammed her open palm into his belly, bending him double. Smashing her fist down on the back of his head, finally bringing up her knee and sending him sailing ten feet back into the wall.

The bounty hunter crashed to the floor, blood spraying from split lips. He clawed the deck, trying to regain his feet.

“Well, darlin’.” The Preacher coughed red. “I confess, I am impressed… .”

Hope said nothing, stepping toward the bounty hunter with hands outstretched.

“Mary,” the man muttered. “Execute.”

A split second. The briefest sliver of time. Hope turned, flaming hair glinting in the sunlight. And sitting on the deck right behind her, wagging its tail, was the fluffy white dog. A soft hum spilling from its chest. Its eyes glowing blood red.