That cold, repressed demonic part of Darling salivated for retaliatory blood. He gave the assassin an insidious smile as he twirled out of the assassin’s reach. He rolled around the man’s back, then turned and stabbed him in the shoulder.
His attacker screamed out and whirled to lunge at Darling. Smiling, Darling motioned at him with both hands, daring him to come closer. The assassin scowled at the knife Darling had cradled in his palm—the way he held it let the bastard know that he was as proficient with a blade as the assassin was.
Probably more so. Had Darling made a bill-kill attack, his victim would have already been dead and not fighting him.
For the first time, fear darkened the assassin’s gray eyes as he finally realized he was in over his head. He dropped his knife and reached for his blaster.
His mistake.
Not wanting to chance an innocent getting shot and killed by a moron’s incompetence, Darling grabbed the assassin’s arm and twisted until he was at the assassin’s back. Before the assassin could recover, Darling grabbed his chin, lifted it up, and made one hard slash across his throat.
Darling shoved him forward.
Choking, the assassin fell to his knees on the sidewalk. He clutched at the gaping wound, trying to block the blood that flowed between his fingers.
His anger boiling, Darling stood back to watch. The decent part of him wanted to finish the assassin off and end his suffering. But the part of him that was slowly devouring his conscience, enjoyed seeing the paid assassin’s struggle to live.
Let him die in utter agony. It was what he deserved.
Better him than me.
Darling quickly glanced around to make sure there was no other threat coming for him. His gaze met Maris’s and he saw the horror in his friend’s eyes. He thought it was over what he’d done, until Maris stepped forward.
“You’re bleeding really badly on your back. Are you okay?”
Only then did Darling feel the pain again. “Yeah. It hurts like hell, but I’ll live.” He’d had far worse wounds than this. And those given to him by people who supposedly loved him.
The assassin continued to writhe on the ground, begging for mercy in a black jacket that held over three dozen hash marks on its sleeve—a sick accounting that bragged about how many people he’d murdered. And the killer had intended to add another for Darling’s life.
But the marks that truly enraged him were the seven that had dots over them.
Murdered children.
Darling curled his lip at the repugnant bastard as his blind fury took him over.
His handful of friends who ran the Sentella with him had dubbed him “Kere” as a joke. The Caronese god of death and caliginosity who ruled in their version of hell, Kere was said to pull all of his sustenance from the blood of his enemies. The darkest of gods lived to fight and drew vim from those who begged him for clemency. Since Darling was normally even keeled and easygoing, his Sentella partner Hauk had thought it funny to label him that.
But now…
There was no pity or compassion as he stared at the killer who was dying from the vicious wound Darling had given him. In fact, he only felt one thing…
Would you die already, and shut the fuck up while you do it?
Before he even realized what he was doing, Darling grabbed the man’s blaster from his holster and shot him with it.
A single shot through the back of his head.
Darling stood there on the street with the blaster smoking and his hand as steady as it could be. Worst of all, he felt nothing about his actions. No regret. No remorse.
Total emptiness.
He wasn’t sure when it’d happened, but he’d become as callous and numb as any assassin he’d ever known. His emotions were now strangers to him.
There was only one person who could still reach past it and make him feel something other than his own bitter pain and rage.
Please God, help me…
This time, he knew the horror in Maris’s dark eyes was definitely over his actions.
“You’re really beginning to scare me, Dar.”
Yeah… I’m beginning to scare me, too.
1
There’s an intruder here…
Zarya Starska froze in her living room as she felt the subtle shift in the air around her. Most would ignore it, but after she’d spent her entire life on alert for those out to attack or kill her, she instinctively knew whenever someone had invaded her home without an invitation.
Flinging her hand down, she felt the throwing knife she hid in a spring-loaded sheath inside her sleeve slide into her palm. Whoever was in her house was about to learn an important lesson in manners.
Bring it, punk.
Prepared to tear the intruder apart, she tilted her head down and listened carefully.
It was barely a whisper of fabric. But it was enough for her to locate the interloper. With the skills honed from a thousand battles, she lunged at the shadow in the corner.
The moment she did, he sidestepped her and disarmed her so fast, it left her breathless. The knife hit the floor with a sickening thud.
Her intruder pulled her against his chest and held her fast against a body that was rock hard and toned.
A body she knew as well as she knew her own.