“How’s the woman?” Mike spat, cutting Genblade off in mid wisecrack.
There was another long pause from Genblade as he slowly closed his mouth, electing not to finish the sentence as he gripped the phone.
Suddenly, Mike’s eyes went wide with mock shock. “Oh! That’s right! She’d dead. But don’t worry, you’ll be seeing her again real soon.”
Genblade’s brow furrowed. “Kid,” he started, taking a deep breath, “I’m gonna tell you the same thing I tell your idiot friend every time he comes in here, looking for trouble: All I know is what Alpha told me. I trust that what he told me was true. You don’t have to.”
Mike smirked. “Heard we had a bit of rain a few weeks ago. It came down and washed the Spider out.”
Genblade merely grunted in response.
It took Mike aback. He wondered he’d actually scored a direct hit on the beast. He hoped so.
“So, you know a weakness and you’ve exploited it, can we move on now?” Genblade said, cutting the tension of what they were both thinking.
Mike’s voice lowered, his eyes narrowed. “Only you would think of love as a weakness.”
There was another long silence as their eyes met, and they stared at one another coldly.
Genblade reached up a hand and wiped blood from the side of his cheek with his index finger. He smudged it against the glass where the image of Mike’s neck was reflected, making it look like he was bleeding from the jugular. “Another time, then,” he said in a soft, musical voice as he got up and started to hang up the phone.
Mike got up, startled. “Wait!”
Genblade’s eyebrows rose. He sat back down and re-lifted the receiver. “There’s more?” he said with sarcastic interest, his tone venomous. “What, think of a new crack to make of my dead wife? By the way, how’s Sara?”
Mike flinched, letting the small twinge of guilt he felt show. Genblade may be deranged, but he wasn’t trying to say that what he and Spider had wasn’t love. He knew better than anyone that you just didn’t do that. Mike sighed, turning away from the phone again and cursing softly to himself. When he looked back, his eyes were softer and larger, pleading with Genblade through the glass. “Cathy was hurt in the attack. Genblade, you’re gonna die anyway, now. I’m begging you, as someone who lost a person they loved, give me something I can use.”
Genblade looked thoughtful. He swallowed hard. “If you’re here, I think you already know what the answer is.”
“Yeah. Had to hear it first,” Mike said, letting his emotions show. He sat a moment, letting that dwell in his mind. “But not from you. You don’t know what I need to, either. That’s why Xander couldn’t get any answers out of you. You don’t have any. You’re just some stupid muscle Engen used to get under Xander’s skin, and now you’re going on about their plans as if you knew any of them. But thanks, I know what I’ve gotta do now.”
“What you’ve gotta do is think good and hard before you turn a blind eye to -”
Mike slammed the phone down. He turned to go, then made his hands into a spider - shape and crawled it across the window.
Genblade jumped up and began pounding against the glass. It shattered again, the cracks spreading out into the shape of a web.
Mike saw it and laughed.
Even though he couldn’t hear it, Genblade stopped what he was doing and watched Mike’s silent chuckle as he left. His pupils shrank and his face stretched out as he watched the boy through the shattered glass, rage slowly building inside him.
Tom Lensherr ran over and restrained Genblade, clasping the killer’s chains and giving them a hard tug. He struggled against the cop, screaming wildly, the echoes travelling throughout the building.
CHAPTER FIVE:
SMOKING GUN
Roxanne Carpenter stared up at Lance Berkshire with a face she hadn’t used in almost ten years. It was devoid of emotion, with no spiteful sneer or pasted-on smile, no quirky tilt of her head. Her skin was pasty and white, all the makeup gone down the drain long ago. It wasn’t until all of the eyeliner and eye-shadow had been washed away that Lance had even noticed that her eyes were green.
Her breasts were small and perfect, but didn’t look at all right as his eyes passed over them. Somehow, breasts looked very different when they weren’t moving the way they should when their owner was breathing. He knew that sounded ridiculous. That the breasts in the magazines he’d spent hours gushing over as a teen hadn’t been moving either... but somehow it was still true.
Her lips and hair had dried out long ago, looking as though she’d been pulled out of the Sahara instead of a ditch. He’d managed to get all of the gunk out of the curly red locks, collecting it into an evidence bag for Detective Andrews. He didn’t think any of it would be helpful, but then that wasn’t his call to make.
For a moment, she looked so lifelike that he almost expected her to get up off the table.
“Coral Beach Precinct Morgue, my name is Harry Ford. I’ll be your mortician for this evening,” Harry said, throwing a grin at his partner as he twiddled his scalpel between his fingers.
“That’s really getting old, Har,” Lance breathed impatiently, barely throwing a glance Harry’s way.
Harry stopped, standing up straight. “Sorry,” he said in a small voice, then clicked on the tape recorder and handing it to his friend. “Your turn, anyway.”
Lance frowned, taking the small, square device away from him and then bringing the mic to his face. “Berkshire, Lance MD. Preliminary autopsy for
