She forced her attention back to the aircon unit and the man who hid behind it. "I repeat, this is the SIU. I know you're standing behind the aircon unit. Lower your weapon and come out."
Still no response. She stepped onto the rooftop and edged forward. Underneath the sigh of the wind, she could hear the shifter. If the easy rhythm of his breathing was anything to go by, he wasn't worried by her presence.
She fired a warning shot. The blue beam flew across the darkness and hit the edge of the aircon unit. Metal flew into the air, tiny arrowheads that glowed with heat.
Still nothing. He didn't move. Didn't twitch. She frowned and moved closer. She'd almost reached the right edge of the unit when he exploded forward, his body little more than a shadowed blur as he sprinted across the roof.
He was too fast for a shifter—his speed was that of a vampire. He was across the roof almost before she could swear.
She was nowhere near that fast—a tortoise compared to the hare. But she ran after him anyway. If nothing else, she could track him with her senses until someone from the SIU got here to help her.
Speaking of which, where the f**k were they? This was Stephan's baby, his master plan, so why the hell didn't he have backup here already?
Or was this all part of a wider scheme—a scheme she knew nothing about?
Probably. But right now, she had no time to worry about it. The shifter leapt across to the next rooftop and ran on. His body faded in and out of existence as he moved, almost as if he were an image viewed through some badly focused lens.
Weird.
She jumped the small dividing wall, then went down on one knee and sighted the laser. "Last warning. Stop or I'll shoot."
His only response was a fresh burst of speed. As he became little more than shadowed blur, she fired.
The blue beam arced across the night and hit him in the left shoulder. He flung his arms wide and went down with a thump. She waited, laser still raised and at the ready, for several seconds. When he didn't move, she rose and cautiously approached. Her shot might have caught him in the shoulder, might have torn through flesh as easily as it had his clothes, but that didn't mean he was down for the count. Far from it.
Her gaze went briefly to the wound. At least with lasers there was no bleeding and little chance of infection for those who weren't shot in kill points. The laser beam cauterized the wound in an instant—not that that made them any less painful.
The shifter himself was hooded and dressed in black from head to toe, his body solid but smudged around the edges, as if he were a drawing that wasn't quite complete. Odd, to say the least. There was still no movement, no sign of breathing. Warily, she nudged his foot. No response. She tried a little harder and got the same result. Or lack thereof. Maybe he was unconscious. He couldn't be dead. Not from a shoulder wound.
Cautiously, she knelt and reached for his wrist to feel for a pulse. In that instant, he came to life, twisting around to throw a punch. She dodged, but not fast enough. His fist hit her cheek, the force of the blow reverberating through her skull and throwing her backwards. Her head smacked back against the rooftop, sending a shockwave of pain through the rest of her body. For a moment, breath became scarce and stars crowded her vision.
Air stirred, accompanied by sound. The scrape of a heel against the roof. A grunt of effort.
She blinked back tears and tried to concentrate. She felt a force of air coming from her left and rolled right. A booted foot landed inches away, the sheer power behind the kick seeming to shudder through the entire roof. If that blow had landed, he would have crushed her face.
He laughed. Laughed.
Then he tried stomping her with the other foot.
"Bastard," she muttered, firing the laser even as she dodged.
The bright beam of light speared into his chest. Skin and bone were seared into blackened bits that scattered on the wind, even as his body dropped lifelessly to the ground. The smell of burnt flesh was fiercer than before because of her proximity.
She closed her eyes and took several deep breaths. She hadn't meant to kill him, but her instincts had taken over and death was the end result. But worse than the knowledge that she'd killed was the sensation that something about all this felt very wrong.
With the speed that shifter had, he should have been able to dodge the laser. He didn't even try. Why not?
Why did he want to die?
She sniffed, and then winced as pain slithered across her face. A light probe with her fingers revealed a rapidly swelling cheek as well as a warm stickiness that could only be blood oozing towards her chin. The cut was a good inch long. The creep must have been wearing a ring of some kind when he'd hit her. The inside of her mouth was just as tender, and at least two teeth seemed horribly loose.
She spat out a mouthful of blood and slowly climbed to her feet. For an instant, the night swam and her stomach rose. She swallowed and rubbed the back of her head where an egg the size of a football was forming.
Great. Showing up looking like a boxer who'd taken one too many punches was just what she needed to impress Wetherton.
She grimaced and walked across to the body. Tendrils of smoke were rising from the wound. Maybe it was steam from his still warm body.
Or maybe it was something else entirely.