Codename: UnSub (The Last Survivors Book 2) Read online

  Mandy’s eyes narrowed, and she seriously considered ripping this girl’s head off and using it as a basketball.

  Then she felt something tap against her helmet. And again. “Command,” she whispered, “look left.”

  A picture within a picture appeared on the HUD, and gave an image of Mandy’s immediate left. There was a pretty little thing with red-blonde hair, and she was throwing beer nuts to get Mandy’s attention. The HUD display said it was Kimberly “Lotus” Hollyfeld, Jana’s sister.

  “Can I help you, Kim?” Mandy asked.

  Kimberly rolled her eyes, sighed, and tapped on the tablet on the bar. Mandy’s picture-in-picture HUD had a scrolling text list appear. The list title was “Possible targets.” It included people she didn’t care about, people she wouldn’t mind seeing dead, people she knew were on lock down, and…

  Oh crap.

  A map appeared on her HUD, with a guide directly to his possible location.

  Kimberly looked at her and just said, “Save him.”

  Chapter 35: Death of an Exile

  Without warning, Emmanuel lunged across the rooftop so fast, Kevin almost didn’t have time to drop to the roof and roll under him. Emmanuel landed gracefully, pivoted and pushed off after Kevin again without a pause, and Kevin was ready. The spy rolled forward and bounced up, ramming his shoulder into the killer in mid-arc. He wrapped his arm around Emmanuel’s waist and threw down, slamming his back into the roof. The serial killer rolled to his feet before Kevin landed.

  They both slid into a stance and paused a moment, each waiting for the other to strike. They stood there for a count of ten seconds before either moved.

  Emmanuel moved first, launching a right hammerblow at Kevin’s face, followed by a lower left hook, meant catch the spy’s face if he ducked, or his chest if the first blow connected.

  Kevin ducked and pivoted at the same time, barely missing both hits, delivering a left hammerblow to Emmanuel’s kidney. He was about to follow up with blow to the back of his head, but the rabbit punch hardly slowed his adversary. Emmanuel lashed out with a right backfist, which Kevin caught, and a left jab to the ribs, which he didn’t. The serial killer reversed the grip on his right hand and threw Kevin almost across the rooftop single-handedly.

  Emmanuel stood, smiling and complacent as Anderson came to his feet. Kevin slowly righted himself and carefully and precisely slid back into first position again.

  Emmanuel led with a left jab for Kevin’s face. Kevin bent his upper torso to one side to duck it and fired a kick at the killer’s side. Emmanuel swung his left arm down like a pendulum to block it, and tried to grab it, but the spy had pivoted back too quickly. Continuing the pivot, he fired a left hook, and merely grazed Emmanuel’s jaw as the killer leaned back. Emmanuel tried to take advantage of being close a jab for his ribs, but Kevin had completed the pivot by hurling himself away. Kevin spun in midair, landing on the toe of one foot, like a ballet dancer.

  Emmanuel lunged, and unexpectedly met Kevin in a mid-air collision as the spy tried for a crash tackle. Kevin latched onto his shoulders in a death grip, head butted him, and kneed him in the groin. Emmanuel pulled his head back for a lethal face smashing blow, Kevin did the best he could to avoid it—by jutting forward and biting him in the neck.

  Emmanuel roared and hurled Kevin off of him.

  Kevin straightened. This bastard was good so far, blocking half of his blows. Without his training sessions with Kyle, Kevin probably would have been toast by now.

  Unfortunately, Emmanuel whirled on him and wasn’t even slowing down.

  They closed on each other. Kevin’s opponent moved in with impressive speed, and he charged in to meet him. Emmanuel opened with a quick elbow-hammerblow combination. The spy ducked the first and blocked the second, countering with a knee to his stomach, and Anderson hit solid muscle. The killer wrapped his left arm under Kevin’s knee and lifted, sending him into the air.

  The Exile landed on his feet. Kevin leading with a simple, probing punch. Emmanuel caught it in a double-block, grabbed his wrist, pivoted, and hurled him over his shoulder. The ex-Kevin landed on his feet, latching onto Emmanuel’s wrist before he could let go, and twisted on his left foot, pulling the serial killer off his feet and towards Kevin. Kevin swept his feet out from under Emmanuel, and drove his elbow down into the hacker’s kidney, driving Emmanuel down into the gravel roof. Emmanuel slapped his hands on the roof and turned his fall into a gymnast’s tumble. He came to his feet, pivoted in place and leapt from a crouch.

  The spy sidestepped the leap with ease, only his opponent turned it into a feint. He planted one foot into the roof to stop in mid-arc and pivoted, slammed his left fist back into his upper chest, planted his other foot and repeated it with his right.

  Luckily, Kevin was only briefly caught off guard by the first strike, and the second one was blocked. Kevin followed up with a knee to the kidney and an elbow to the nerve bundle just behind the ear—which normally would have dropped someone.

  Emmanuel snapped his head back, ramming it into Kevin’s face. He pivoted with a rear horizontal elbow strike, and Kevin blocked it with a double block, using the fleshy part of his forearms to absorb the blow. However even that impact shook him, and Kevin used the backwards momentum of his upper body and used it as a segue into a left knee to the serial killer’s side, below the ribs.

  Unfortunately, that didn’t help when Emmanuel reversed his pivot and used his other arm in a perpendicular elbow strike deep into Kevin’s stomach, and then straightened his hand, slamming him in the groin with a palm. Emmanuel was about to follow it up with an over-the-top elbow to slam his prone opponent down…

  Emmanuel’s palm had slammed into, and broke, a piece of plastic. He turned to face the spy with a knee to the face.

  Kevin, still doubled over with the elbow to the gut, blocked the knee with his right forearm. The speed and the power of the blow rattled Kevin’s arm, and cracked one of the bones. This time, there was an over-the-top elbow, and Anderson blocked it with his left arm, but the impact still drove him to the roof.

  Emmanuel came down on Kevin with an ax-kick for the chest, but Anderson rolled out of the way, coming to his feet two meters away.

  Kevin led with a left jab to the face, and the opponent swept it aside with his right hand and then elbowed him with the same arm, shattering Kevin’s nose. He had gone with the blow, which was the only reason his nose wasn’t driven into his brain.

  Emmanuel lunged forward, throwing a right fist. Kevin weaved to his left and jabbed a palm into the serial killer’s side. His elbow automatically shot out again, this time impacting the fracture in Kevin’s right arm.

  Emmanuel pivoted, driving a body blow into Kevin’s right kidney.

  Kevin fell to the ground, his body racked with pain.

  Emmanuel smiled and stepped back. This was more like it.

  “You’re a good workout, Kevin, too bad it has to end.”

  Kevin, nose broken, right arm close to breaking, and his lower back feeling like it was on fire, looked up and smiled. “I was hurt worse falling off the monkey bars in kindergarten.”

  And then, slowly, carefully, he rose to his feet.

  Emmanuel nodded admiringly. “Nice. But you have to admit, if you lived through this, you would have been pissing blood for days.”

  Kevin smiled. He had a secret from this nanotech-enhanced monster. Kevin knew that if he were visibly incapacitated with pain, Emmanuel would draw back. His first victim, had been allowed to get up even after he had been put down.

  Kevin needed the temporary lull to get his wind back, so he had faked the pain of a rabbit punch.

  Emmanuel just didn’t know that Kevin only had one kidney.

  Kevin fired a right hook, and Emmanuel ducked, slugging him in the stomach, hitting solid abs. He came up under Kevin’s initial swing and pounded him once in the face. Kevin whirled around with the force of the blow and elbowed him in the face, turning the elbow into a hammerblow with his f
ist. Kevin followed up with a right hook before he could recover, using it to segue into an elbow to the face. `

  The four-blow combination knocked Emmanuel back a little, but he barely staggered.

  And the last blow Kevin threw had finally turned his cracked arm into a hairline fracture. In his head, Kevin was screaming, and he fell to a knee and his other hand.

  “Like I said,” Emmanuel told him, “it’s been fun. I’m tempted to leave you alive so we can play again someday. But playing with my food can be so tiresome.” He took another step towards Kevin, and stopped, as though he heard something.

  He looked off to the right end of the roof. He took another look at Kevin, and dismissed him as not going anywhere. He walked over to the edge of the roof, and looked down.

  Suddenly, a dark shape shot out from the alley like a cork from a champagne bottle, knocking him off of his feet, and on his back. Emmanuel rolled with it, and threw the dark shape off of him like a dog with a cat on its back. The shape went with the throw, and came up on two legs, then went back at him like a rubber ball, grabbing him around the neck, trying to choke him. Emmanuel kept throwing it off, and it kept coming back. It grabbed him around the neck with its legs, and he slammed down on the roof, breaking its hold. He rolled, and came up with a leg in one hand. The shape rolled with him, the other leg swinging up and kicking his wrist with a loud slap.

  Emmanuel cursed and stepped back, shaking his hand as though a broken wrist was akin to a paper cut. The shape kicked its legs up into the air, the inertia bringing it up, onto its feet, and throwing itself after Emmanuel once again.

  Unfortunately, this time, he caught it by the throat. It scratched and clawed, but there was no use this time. Emmanuel smiled, held it at arm’s length, and simply squeezed.

  Then it reached for the sleeve, and pressed a button on its control panel, and he felt a million volts shoot through him.

  Emmanuel grimaced, but held on, refusing to let go.

  Then a rock smacked him in the head.

  Emmanuel dropped the black shape and staggered back, and had a follow up kick to the head.

  Kevin was once again on his feet, slightly hunched over, favoring one side, but he was up. The black shape ran to his side, turning off the taser built into the suit. “Are you all right?”

  Kevin looked and blinked. The shape was a little blurry until his eyes cleared. It was short and lithe, and clad in black commando armor, with matching helmet and visor. “You’re here?”

  “You’re slow.”

  Kevin blinked. “Been a rough couple of…months, really. Is that an EM-hook?”

  “Something I picked up at the office.”

  “You brought a friend, Anderson?” Emmanuel asked, amused and curious. “That’s cheating.”

  The newcomer squared with him. “Stay away from him, you son of a bitch, or I’m going to put you in a pine box.”

  Emmanuel smiled, amused. “Oh? And who are you?”

  There was a little smile barely visible under the bottom edge of the visor. “I’m Amanda Esmeralda Rohaz. My friends call me Mandy. You can call me Lieutenant.”

  He shrugged. “Oh well. The more the merrier.”

  Mandy looked to Kevin, and saw just how bad he was. There was nothing that could kill him, and nothing he even needed a hospital for, really. But Mandy already felt herself slowing down, and this guy wasn’t even breathing hard yet.

  I think we might be screwed.

  And then, Kevin backed up, straightened, and he smiled.

  It was a big, toothsome, happy smile.

  ***

  Emmanuel, like Kyle, merely looked at it, and grew annoyed. The other ones, in their arrogance, had fought back, defiant until they were being casualty broken at his luxury. This man wasn’t attacking. He was smug, he was arrogant and…

  He was laughing at him.

  Laughing.

  At.

  Him.

  This would be ended now. He channeled his rage somewhere else, then moved forward, quickly but not hurriedly. He wound up for what was his patented chest crusher. All attempts to stop it in the past had only resulted in broken arms. This was the blow most people only reserved for crushing cinderblocks.

  And he lunged, his hand jutting forward…

  And Emmanuel dropped forward, his hand outstretched in what had been a killing stroke. He felt weak and shaky all over. His hands could move, weakly, and they tremored slightly.

  Emmanuel Wellering felt himself being turned over. The face of Kevin Anderson came into view, at first upside down, then Mandy. Kevin grabbed him under a shoulder and hefted, putting one arm over his neck. Emmanuel tried to twist his head off, but it wouldn’t work. Kevin half carried, half dragged him over to the roof’s edge, lowering him so that his back was propped up against the wall and his legs were laid out in front of him. He put the serial killer’s hands in his lap.

  Emmanuel looked to Kevin with questioning eyes. “What did you do to me?”

  ***

  Kevin crouched by his side. “Your nanites. We reprogrammed them.” He smiled wryly, not at all amused.

  “My mother?”

  Kevin shook his head. He could at least give this dumb son of a bitch that much. “I have a device. I needed to be within a certain distance from you for a few minutes. You gave me that time. You let me talk, you boasted, you played with me, as I knew you would. Had you just killed me, I would be in your position right now. But even if you won, and killed me as you did your other victims, the time you took would still lead to this.”

  He leaned forward and whispered into his ear, “You tried to mess with me, you little troll. Had you done only that, we wouldn’t be having this problem. But you messed with my partner in crime. You tried to destroy the only things I have left in this world. And that, my friend, is a big no-no. For that, you had to pay. I’ve only been in this city for a few months, and everyone seems to think that I’m not all that scary. Next to Kyle, I’m not that impressive. That is about to change, and you’re going to help me change it.”

  Kevin stood and stretched, and walked around Emmanuel, not leaving his side, least the man’s attention wander. Kevin could already feel his own nanites begin to stitch together his injuries—it would take five or six days, but it would heal. His nose would take a little longer, but he wasn’t worried.

  Kevin’s voice went cold, and his eyes flat and dead. “You see, I didn’t just shut you down. The nanites that once kept you alive are the ones that will kill you. Even as we speak, they are being turned into a type of hemorrhagic virus that will literally eat you on a cellular level. Have you ever heard of Ebola? Flesh eating bacteria? By the time the nanites are done with you, your insides will look like gumbo, and not even the lowliest, hungriest rats in the city will think you look edible.

  “And the best part of all, your pain threshold will shortly bottom out and all of your nerve endings will feel like they’re on fire. And that’s just a preview of the next week. If I can, I’ll get you some fluids so you’ll live even longer.”

  Kevin stared at him a moment longer. Mandy reached out and touched Kevin’s arm, and he quickly relaxed. He more slumped over than calmed down. Once again, he had taken his rage and used it to keep himself together, despite everything that had happened.

  “Not here,” he whispered under his breath, suddenly sounding tired. He looked past the edge of the roof, and nodded at the Hacker’s Union building. Mandy nodded at him. The roof probably was wired. He cleared his throat, and his voice sounded stronger – a performance for the microphones. “Mandy, Meet Emmanuel Wellering. Spawn of Kaye, bitch-goddess of San Francisco. A monster in human form. Someone so self-absorbed and obsessed with power, he orgasms each and every time he makes a kill. Given the length of time he takes to inflict pain and suffering, he’s probably multi-orgasmic. Nice to see that, at the end of the day, with all her power, and all her abilities, she’s exactly like everyone else in town. Not even her children matter to her, a basic maternal instinct
shunted down the drain that even animals possess. Let’s get out of here.”

  ***

  They made it two blocks when Kevin finally leaned against a wall, and slid down to the sidewalk. Mandy, concerned, lowered herself to one knee next to him.

  Kevin stared out at space for a long moment, and then looked up at her, giving a weak, tired smile. “Hi.”

  She flashed him a grin. “Hi.”

  “Just in the neighborhood?”

  She shrugged it off. “Hey, you invited me over. How could I say no?”

  “Good timing,” he said.

  Mandy gave him a sly little smile. “A friend of yours suggested that I get here in a hurry.”

  “Um. Okay.” Kevin looked her over. “You always dress like that on vacation?”

  “My frilly pink dress is at the cleaners,” she said dryly. “If I had known it was going to be like old times, I would have made certain to have unpacked all of my guns before I rushed over here. But then again, I’m not sure you would have survived the wait.”

  “Probably not.” His eyes drifted again, then focused on something past her shoulder. He lifted his hand and said, “Hey.”

  Mandy followed his gaze. Kyle stood six feet away, just watching. “Mr. Anderson.”

  “Kyle, meet Mandy…oh, wait, you already know each other. Sorry, I forgot.” He tried to straighten up a little, but couldn’t. “Kyle, could you flag down the next troop of darkspawn and get them to the roof across from the front of the Hacker’s Union building? I have some garbage I need disposed of in a special way, and I’m not feeling my best right now.”

  Kyle nodded, looked over to a dark alley, and nodded. “You heard him.”

  Three Children of Thanatos in dark shapes emerged from the shadows. One of them went to Kevin’s side and knelt down, looking like she was about to touch him, but thought better of it. “Angel-Servant?”

  Kevin blinked, and looked under the hood. “Ah, Sister Morta. I think I found your Brother Pale Horse. Could you take some of your people and string him up to the entrance of Chinatown on Grant Street? That would be great. He needs to be held up as a warning to what happens when you fuck with me. ”