Under the Skin Read online

  As the vehicle rocked, Pierce finally managed to grab the handle and throw the door open. Gravity tried to slam it shut in her face, but she shoved her way out and dropped down outside, narrowly escaping being crushed against the fence as the van wheels bounced down after her.

  “Leo, come on!” She shoved a hand back through the closing door to help him. He let out a gasping curse as he shouldered his way out, his left leg dragging behind him, maybe clawed up, maybe broken.

  There was no time to treat the injury gently. She hauled him with her through the tight space between the vans and the fence. Yet more rusty metal fencing, like the bars at some long-neglected zoo—except the prize exhibit was loose, and they were the ones trapped in the enclosure.

  As they ran towards the dark cluster of brick buildings ahead, Pierce stumbled over something soft and yielding. She cursed in startled disgust as she realised that it was another body. Too little light and time to register the cause of death, or even confirm that the man was dead. If any of Maitland’s team had survived the chimaera’s attack, she was in no position to help them right now.

  Just keeping her and Leo alive seemed like a lot to ask. Behind them, the chimaera pulled free of the van with a groan of stressed metal. It gave a strangled, howling roar that didn’t sound like any natural creature Pierce had ever heard. Christ knew what kind of jumbled mess of internal organs might exist under that patchwork pelt. It was amazing that the thing was even capable of moving.

  And yet it didn’t seem to have any trouble persuading its disparate parts to focus on its objective. Kill. It scrambled after them at an alarming speed, despite its mismatched limbs.

  Beside her, Leo let out ragged gasps with every limping step, but he still fumbled to draw his gun and aim. “Take the torch!” he yelled to her. “I need a clear shot!”

  “What, and you think I can help?” At the rate they and the beast were running, she’d be lucky to even find it with the torch beam, let alone hold a steady light on the thing. All the same, she reached for the torch on his vest and struggled to unclip it, turning their already staggering run into a three-legged race. As they reached the corner of the buildings she finally wrenched it free, and turned about to shine it on the beast.

  It was barely the length of a lorry away, and crossing the distance fast. In the glow of the torch she glimpsed the thing’s eyes, shockingly human amid alien features that blended bear and lion with the curved horns of an ox. The bark of the gun from beside her made her jump. It was followed by a second gunshot, then a third. She flinched, expecting more, but Leo yanked on her arm instead.

  “Come on!” he bellowed, the words only half-heard through the ringing echoes in her ears. “Got to get behind cover!”

  “Did you get it?” she shouted, and looked back to check for herself. The thing was lurching along now, halfway dragging itself, but it wasn’t down, and it hadn’t reverted to human. Chimaera skin, shit—it must have more runes, too many layered enchantments for one silver bullet, or even several, to destroy. What would it take to bring it down?

  They rounded the edge of the building, hustling as fast as Leo’s injured leg would take him. He was stumbling now, relying on the wall and her shoving him from behind to keep him upright as pain began to drown out the panic boost of adrenaline.

  Pierce wasn’t sure how much more running she could take herself. She was battered, exhausted, and far too old for this. Her breath was rasping in her chest like sandpaper.

  She stole another look over her shoulder. Wounded or not, the chimaera still chased. Its back end dragged, no longer fully under its command, but a human mind was still calling the shots; they couldn’t rely on it being scared off or convinced to slink away and lick its wounds. It might not be moving too well, but then neither were they, and those jaws and claws and vicious-looking horns could more than compensate if it caught up.

  She turned back, and the torch beam swung across a steel door a short distance ahead of her. “Leo!” The door had a security keypad, but it looked as if it had been left ajar. The work of Maitland’s people, or maybe left that way in a hasty evacuation.

  Deserted or not, the building was their only hope now. She ran ahead of Leo and shoved the door open. Inside, stark fluorescent strip lights lit empty corridors with the institutional look of an old-fashioned school or office.

  Not quite empty. A body lay collapsed on the floor in a doorway ahead of them, one slack hand outstretched as if someone had unfurled the fingers to take something from them. Pierce ran forward, crouching over the man to take a pulse, but the glazed eyes and blood-stained mess of his shirt told the story before her fingers could confirm it.

  Behind her, Leo leaned against the wall just inside the door, clutching his thigh as he shouted directions into his radio. “Get every Firearms unit in the region that’s available. Silver-point rounds if they’ve got them. Contact Sergeant Mistry at the RCU—get Oxford RCU on the line as well. We might need them to consult. We have no idea how big this—”

  The metal door slammed open, crushing him back against the wall as the chimaera burst in. It was almost too big to make it through the door, the doorframe splintering around it as it forced its way through.

  “Leo!” Pierce yelled as she heard him cry out in pain. He sagged to the ground as the heavy door rebounded, falling back against the wall. The chimaera snarled and turned on him, clumsily dragging its back legs behind it. She could see that the bearskin that made up the back half of the pelt was splitting, coming apart where Leo’s bullet had taken it in the flank. A bloody mess of flesh and muscle oozed out from between the fraying joins.

  The beast was wounded, maybe dying—but not nearly fast enough.

  “Leo!” she yelled again, unable to see past the bulk of the thing to tell if he was moving. Was he still conscious? Still alive? She cast around for something, anything, that might work as a weapon, but what could even hurt a shapeshifter that big? She didn’t have her silver cuffs or malodorant spray, not even something heavy she could throw. She yanked the corpse beside her closer, searching for a gun or knife.

  No weapons. She cursed in desperation.

  Pinned in the corner, Leo shifted weakly, trying to rise. The barrier of the door gave him a little protection, but the beast was fishing behind it with its feline front paws. He gasped in pain, and it let out a strangled snorting snarl.

  Pierce ran forward, not sure what she could do to help, but determined to try. She lunged to grab the creature’s stubby bear’s tail, yanking back on it with all her strength. No sound of pain from the beast; this part of the pelt was dead, and it felt like dragging on a heavy fur coat. Stitches tore, the seams never meant to take the strain of joining lifeless fur to animated flesh. Shapeless entrails and tangled, twitching muscles spilled out from the rips, caught in some twisted state halfway between man and beast.

  Pierce doubted that she’d hurt it—how would it even recognise a pain signal in that state?—but she’d sure as hell succeeded in getting its attention. The chimaera roared and tried to turn in the tight space, hampered by its unresponsive back legs. She ducked away from the thing’s horns; they should look ludicrous on a crossbreed of bear and lion, but the points were too damn lethal to appreciate the joke. Even a sidelong blow could crack her head open.

  She was too busy watching the horns to pay attention to the claws. The paw that whipped out to rake her hit with enough force to slap her across the hallway as it sliced her arm open.

  “Shit!” She clutched the wound. Not deep, or if it was, the shock was still too fresh to feel it, but the pain was sharp enough to leave her stunned and gasping for breath. She staggered back, leaning against the wall.

  No time to rest. Another deadly paw slashed out towards her. She ducked, but not in time to avoid a cuff to the head. Her skull, already ringing with echoes of the gunshots, felt like it was about to break apart. She pressed a hand to her head, struggling to think, unable to plan anything more than a blind retreat. She scrambled back—and tr
ipped over the body in her path.

  She caught herself, but her sliced arm buckled beneath her. She hit the ground with a grunt, no breath left for witty last words or even to swear. The chimaera reared over her, its fanged jaws opened wide—

  A shot rang out, followed in quick succession by three more. The thing’s head jerked backwards, and it toppled like a felled tree. Pierce rolled out of the way just in time as it hit the ground like a sack full of entrails. Inside the loose wrapping of the pelt, the shifter’s innards had disintegrated into a shapeless, twisted mass of disconnected organs, meat and bones. There was no way to tell if it was human, animal, or both.

  Pierce gave the thing a sharp prod with her shoe as she got up, but it was obvious that it was going nowhere until someone scraped the mess up with a shovel.

  That jumble of unidentifiable body parts must have been a human being once. Could the shifter have survived the transformation back if the chimaera pelt hadn’t been damaged? No way to know. Messing with untested rituals was never risk free.

  Right now she had no pity to spare for the killer who’d worn the chimaera skin. She skirted round the ruins of the corpse and ran across to Leo.

  He’d set the gun down on the tiles by his side, the effort of reholstering it obviously too much. His eyes were closed, and his head had fallen back to rest against the bricks. Only his laboured breathing confirmed he was still in there.

  Pierce leaned over him uncertainly. “Leo, you all right?” she asked. A bloody stupid question. His slumped position concealed broken bones at least. There was no way that it would be safe to move him.

  “Great,” he rasped, opening his eyes to narrow slits. “Mind if I... rest here for a while?”

  “Long as you’re not planning on resting in peace.” There were too many people dead already, thanks to this case.

  Pierce scrutinised him with concern. She didn’t want to leave him, but the building wasn’t secured, and there was still a chance the skinbinder was here. “Backup’s on its way?” she asked.

  Leo made an attempt at a nod that ended with a gasp and grimace. Broken ribs, more than likely. Fuck. Not much she could do about it here and now. He licked his lips and took a long, painful pause before he spoke. “Baker’s... on his way here,” he said with a wheeze, “and I told him to call for...”

  “Okay.” She cut him off, not wanting to force him through more strained words. “You’ve got your radio. Just... try to hold it together until help gets here.” She patted his arm very lightly, trying not to jar anything that hurt.

  He raised his chin as she stood, clearly fighting to say something. He tipped his head towards the pistol by his side. “Still one... silver-point round. You should take it.”

  She balked, shaking her head. “Leo, I don’t have your training,” she reminded him. Never mind the regulations—and the laws—it would be breaking; they were far enough off the reservation by now that one more rule breach wouldn’t make much difference.

  Leo shifted his leg as if to push himself further upright before thinking better of it. He focused on her in a squint. “But you’ve had some?” he said, halfway between statement and question. “Nightstalker Initiative, right?”

  “Christ, Leo, that was decades ago!” she said. But he was right; she’d been with the RCU back in the less regulated days when the team still had its own firearms in the office safe. Too many questionable shootings had seen regs tightened up before she’d even been issued a weapon, never mind had to use one in action—thank God—but she’d had the training nonetheless. Such as it was.

  Back in those days, wasting expensive ammunition had been a much bigger concern than whether the trainees could hit the broad side of a barn. The old revolver that she’d learned to shoot with didn’t much resemble Leo’s modern semi-automatic, and her reflexes and eyesight sure as hell weren’t the same as they’d been in her twenties. She knew enough not to take her own foot off, but that was about as much as could be said.

  Besides, if there was another shifter around, she wasn’t the one who was most defenceless right now. “You should keep it,” she said.

  Leo shook his head, a weak wobble from side to side. “I’m in no state to have a gun in my hand. Just... keep your finger outside the trigger guard unless you want somebody dead.” He breathed out in a sigh and held her gaze. “Don’t let them get away.”

  For Henderson’s sake, and for Tim’s, and for who knew how many other innocents. Pierce took a deep breath of her own and nodded slowly before bending down to take the gun. She hoped to hell she didn’t have to use it—but one way or another, she had to bring Sebastian down tonight. Too many people had been hurt to let him walk free from his crimes.

  “Stay safe,” she said, and turned to go, hoping that this wouldn’t be the last time she saw Leo alive.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  THE SILENT HALLWAYS of the building were deserted, but signs of the recent struggle were everywhere. Pierce passed three more dead bodies, two of them members of Maitland’s team, the third still dressed up in a bullet-riddled wolfskin. Apparently Maitland’s people had brought their own supply of silver bullets.

  No sound of distant shooting reached her ears; there was no sound at all, beyond the click of her shoes on the floor tiles. If backup was coming, it was still too far away for her to hear the sirens. Without her radio, she couldn’t listen out for reassurance, or even check Leo was still alive.

  She could have been entirely alone. Maybe she was. But the quiet only wound her nerves still tighter. She checked each doorway as she passed, the gun a deceptively light weight in her hands, almost as threatening as the brooding stillness around her. She had to fight her instincts every time not to let her finger slip towards the trigger, not to point the thing ahead of her with no idea yet what she might be facing.

  She should never have agreed to take the thing; she wasn’t trained for it, and she was almost more afraid of putting a hole through an innocent than she was of what might leap out from the shadows. Almost. Her hands sweated on the grip.

  The rooms she passed looked like workrooms and labs: books, files and computers everywhere. A field day for the Arcane Documents team, assuming they had the chance to secure the site and seize all this as evidence. Through one door she glimpsed a large storage room, suspicious trophies bagged and tagged and organised on shelves. Pierce itched to get in there and catalogue the artefacts, but now wasn’t the time.

  As she turned the next corner, the faint murmur caught her ear. Even before she could make out the words, she recognised Maitland’s calm voice. She should have known he would have found a way to sidestep the slaughter. But was he her ally or her enemy right now?

  That might just depend on who he was talking to.

  She crept closer to the voices, straining her ears to pick up the words.

  “How far do you think you’ll get if you run?” That was Maitland talking, still sounding relaxed. “Your allies have packed up and fled by now, and they won’t risk themselves by coming back for you. You’ve run out of shapeshifters to defend you.”

  “I can make more.” The second voice was low and rough, with an arrogant edge.

  “Can you?” Maitland was just as self-assured. “You might have the skills, but you don’t have resources. Where do you plan on getting the animals to make pelts? This is England. Missing wolves and tigers draw lots of attention.”

  “I can do better than wolves and tigers,” the other man said, and Pierce’s fingers tightened around the gun. This was their man. But what was Maitland playing at? She edged closer to the corner to try and see. The harsh fluorescent lights and bare corridors left few shadows to conceal her movements.

  “Maybe,” Maitland said matter-of-factly. “But too many missing people will bring even more trouble than wolves. You won’t last long without a patron to protect you. Turn yourself in.”

  “Or what, you’re going to make me?” The skinbinder snorted. “You and what army? The one my monsters ripped to pieces?”
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  Smug youthful bravado, but he had ability to back it up. Pierce stole a cautious look around the corner.

  The short corridor beyond led to an emergency exit that must come out at the rear of the building. It had a push bar that would set off an alarm when it was opened, probably the only reason Sebastian had hesitated long enough to cause this standoff. Maybe he wasn’t as sure as he’d claimed that Maitland’s team were all dead, but so far as she’d seen, he was probably right.

  Did Maitland know that?

  Right now he was standing a safe distance from the skinbinder, hands slightly raised to signify that he wasn’t a threat. Sebastian had his eagle wings strapped to his back again, and he was closer to the door. He could take his chance with the alarm and flee; what was he waiting for?

  “I can see you’re not the kind to be intimidated by threats,” Maitland said. “You’re too smart for that—and you’re smart enough to realise we can be useful to each other.” He held the young man’s gaze. “You have abilities we want, and we’re prepared to bargain with you for their use. We can help you just as much as you’d help us.”

  “Oh, yeah?” The skinbinder lifted an eyebrow, the bird wings shifting with his shoulders as he shrugged. “Like how?”

  “Amnesty for all your crimes,” Maitland said. “A facility—better than this one—with other skinbinders to work as your assistants. The freedom to conduct your experiments without censure or risk of punishment, in return for doing certain jobs for us.”

  Sebastian cocked his head, smirkingly noncommittal. “That all?”

  Maybe he wanted Maitland to offer him more, but Pierce had heard more than enough. She stepped out from the corner, gun in hand.

  “How about a counteroffer?” she said. “No bargains, no amnesty: you’re under arrest.” She swept her eyes coldly over Maitland, standing unruffled in his immaculate suit, untouched and undisturbed by the life and death struggle that had left at least four of his team dead. “Both of you.”