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.It was wired to the chip in him, but then he remembered that they were too far from even the nearest server, and reception out here stunk.Communication wasn’t an option.He yanked the glove back up and the shirtsleeve back down, shifting from foot to foot.Aside from the lamp affixed to his head, he couldn’t see much in the dark, and he squinted down at the dog, who was trussed up in cabled bonds and making weird noises in its throat.The thing had needed a rest, even though it could move surprisingly jiffy when properly motivated.Cedric smiled.Stamp had told them that they could throw around some payback tonight.The scrubs were territorial, the boss had said, and putting them on warning obviously hadn’t been enough.They needed a stronger lesson in being good neighbors, so the crew had gone to the compound, thinking to lure one of the scrubs out by using a visz lens that the gang had already found.But then a dog had emerged instead of any humans, and Cedric had drugged it before it could bite, then taken what they could get for a captive.“Tym 2 go,” he said to the dog.The critter didn’t move, but Cedric hadn’t expected it to.Lazy-donna was potent stuff.He fired up the power on the jet-propelled speed braces he’d fitted over his boots tonight, then fixed his taserwhip to the creature’s bound muzzle.All set now, he sprang away, hitting the ground running, dragging the dog behind him.His soles skimmed the ground, and they traveled in leaps and bounds, the sound of his running like quick flaring gasps.The FlyShoes elevated him about two feet off the ground and dug into his calves, up to his knees, but they felt like an extension of his legs, too.In the meantime, the dog tumbled behind him, and Cedric toyed with the notion of turning on his whip to give it a good shock.He saw a rock jutting out of the ground ahead and, electing a different mode of giddy-up, dog, he headed straight for it, knowing he could clear it while the canine would get a sharp thunk to the hide.Pushing off with one foot, Cedric sailed up, yanking the dog with him.He landed, expecting to feel the airborne animal wiggling on its whip-leash, then crashing to the ground.But he didn’t feel anything, and he slowed down, then came to a skidding stop.When he jerked at the taserwhip to retrieve it, the lash snicked right back to him, as light as could be.Empty.He stared at it, then ran a hand along its length to the end, where it was frayed.Damn it, he’d havet a new one, and they didn’t come cheap.Grunting, he turned back to where the dog had probably gotten caught on the rock, then took an aggressive leap back toward it.Something came toward him—a thick branch?—and Cedric caught it in the stomach, flipping, head over heels, then smacked the ground face-first.As he lay there, his nose, chin, and cheeks vibrating to numbness, he thought he heard a mumble.A chewing wordy sound.He was barely able to glance up, where the cracked lamp attached to his head showcased the dog, who stood in wobbling, drugged confusion while it moved its whimpering mouth like a drunkard.Its unbound mouth.Cedric absorbed that.Had the rock snagged on the muzzle and stripped it off?But what about the dog’s other bonds? What’d happened to.?He never finished the question, because a grating laugh took its place.It’d come from behind Cedric, and shivers spiked every inch of his flesh.While wincing and semibarking, the scared dog backed away from whatever it was.Then the creature made a seething sound—an awful hiss—and the dog scrambled, fell down, and began crawling off, impeded by the drugs.Cedric stared after the critter, his mind taking a million years to catch up until he heard footsteps behind him.Slish, slish, they went over the dirt.As Cedric foggily watched the canine stumbling even farther away, he felt the thing behind him going through his pockets.It found the silver teeth, then tore off a piece of material from Cedric’s shirt, as if it were reluctant to touch the objects.The teeth jangled, and Cedric let loose with a curse.Fuck these stupid animals out here in the Badlands.When he got up, he was gonna.Then Cedric felt one of those teeth placed against the back of his neck, where it was traced down his spine, creating a batch of chills.But he wasn’t going to be a pussy.“Cut it ot,” Cedric said.His lips didn’t work so well.“Im gonna work u ovr whn I.”He choked on a fragment and realized it was part of his own incisor.The thing removed the silver tooth from Cedric’s spine, and silence followed.More silence.And more.Then, after a few heartbeats, Cedric told himself it was gone.He was just preparing to push off the ground to get back on his feet when something punched into his back and jerked his spine out, surprising him for the last time ever.14GabrielThree Hours LaterAfter Gabriel returned from tracking Chaplin, he found Mariah in the common area, safe and sound, sitting on a crate in a corner, wrapped in an all-encompassing gray thermal blanket and wearing a knit hat that pulled over her ears, as though she wanted to shut everything out.Her neighbors surrouded her, and all of them—including two denizens he’d never met before—looked up at his entrance, sticking close to Mariah, still cocooning her.Their faces were a study in unreadability, though Mariah’s own features practically screeched of the terror that even now dogged her.Gabriel froze under the larger unresponsiveness, because it looked a whole lot like a prelude to group accusation, as if they were thinking that he might’ve brought all this trouble from Stamp down upon them.Or maybe he was imagining it.A guilty, blacked-out, blood-glutted conscience tended to do that when it had no other explanations for those two dead bodies that’d been found before tonight—the reason Stamp had descended on them now.Gabriel endured the scrutiny, until, from behind, Chaplin came stumbling out of the tunnel as best as he could while still under the effect of the drugs that Stamp’s crew had used on him.When everyone saw the dog, the room came alive, the neighbors separating from Mariah as she stood.“Chaplin!” she said as the dog accelerated and then jumped at her, knocking her to the floor so that she was turned away from the rest of them, allowing for a private moment.She opened her blanket to embrace the dog, not even seeming to mind that his coat was damp from the quick shower he’d taken after Gabriel had escorted him back home.Earlier, when Gabriel had found Chaplin, his fur had been matted with dirt, which the canine had coated himself with to distract from the scent of his blood out there in the night.Chaplin had initially warned Gabriel away, telling his temporary master that he was bleeding from being dragged along with a taserwhip, so Gabriel had kept his distance while ushering him back.Then, while Gabriel had checked Mariah’s common-area visz to see that she was secure among her neighbors, Chaplin had used the sensors in the cleaning station to water the blood off him, and Gabriel had lent a hand in toweling the dog dry.All the while, Chaplin had kept fixing a cryptic half-angry, half-regretful look on Gabriel.No telling what that had been about, but it made Gabriel think that something had really changed between him and Chaplin, who was blanking him out yet again.Something bigger than Gabriel was grasping
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Tematy
IndexWarren Adler Wojna państwa Rose 01 Wojna państwa Rose
§ Menzel Iwona W poszukiwaniu zapachu snów 01 W poszukiwaniu zapachu snów
Lachlan M D Synowie boga 01 Synowie boga (2)
Robbins Harold Handlarze snów 01 Handlarze snow
§ Rudnicka Olga (01) Zacisze 13 Zacisze 13
Reynard Sylvain Piekło Gabriela 01 Piekło Gabriela
Kalifornijska noc 01 Kalifornijska noc Adler Elizabeth
Alexandra Bracken Mroczne umysły 01 Mroczne umysły
Karon Jan W moim Mitford Nowa piesn
Christie Agata Zwierciadlo peka w odlamkow sto