Prodigal Son (Orphan X #6) - Gregg Andrew Hurwitz Page 0,136

in their faces.

They collapsed in unison.

An instant of near-perfect silence. And then Evan heard the snick of a pistol being plucked from the floor. Molleken sliced into view around the server racks, a Browning Hi-Power gripped in both hands, and Evan jerked back.

The round hammered the slide of his ARES, ripping it from his hands with enough force that he felt both wrists wrench, the staples straining in his right forearm.

The ARES skipped across a lab bench and disappeared.

Evan ducked back into the ring of desks, rolling across his shoulders and lunging for cover behind a set of cabinets.

He could hear Molleken’s shoes tapping the tile floor. “You’re the one everyone’s so scared of,” he called out. “But you don’t seem like much to me.”

Evan squeezed between two desks and wormed beneath a soldering bench, putting distance between himself and where he was last sighted. He combat-crawled up an aisle between crated supplies, peering around the corner.

Twenty meters off, Molleken was stalking him, facing a half turn away. He led with the pistol, heel-toeing with extreme caution. Perspiration darkened his hair, his eyes shiny and alert, arms and hands shockingly steady. Behind him the dragonflies glowed green-yellow on the slats, a hive biding its time.

Molleken passed from view, and Evan popped soundlessly to his feet, moving swiftly up the aisle. As he eased out behind him, Molleken turned. Evan caught his arm an instant before he fired, the round lasering past Evan’s knee and embedding in the floor.

As Evan knocked the pistol free, Molleken got off a cross that connected fully with his cheek. The blow staggered him, his knees buckling, and he fell against the bleachers, knocking a few dragonflies from their perch.

Fighting away nausea, blinking back to clarity.

Behind him Molleken dove for his handgun.

Evan’s palm closed around a dragonfly.

He wheeled as Molleken turned, hand clutching the Browning.

Evan kicked the pistol free from his hand, lifted the dragonfly to aim its glowing eyes at Molleken’s face, and compressed the wings as he’d seen Molleken do with the robotic bee.

The dragonfly drone made that same camera click, recording Molleken’s facial features.

Evan dropped the drone.

Halfway to the floor, its wings batted to life.

The sound amplified, echoed hundreds of times over.

At Evan’s back the hive rose from the bleachers.

Molleken’s jaw trembled, the flesh beneath his right eye quivering.

The swarm kept unpacking itself from the slats, rising overhead, crowding out the view of the night sky. The rapid oscillation of the wings beat at the air, a nightmare symphony.

Molleken backed away, head cocked to take in the vast array hovering above him. His eyes flared, those double pupils drinking in what was to come.

The swarm tracked him, all those tiny components following each movement. Then it darted at him of a piece, a massive cloud of a mallet, the dagger tips tearing him to shreds. He screamed, a high-pitched note of unadulterated terror that became ragged and wet. For a moment they held his form suspended in the air like a pincushion, and then they retracted and he fell leaking to the white tile of the floor.

They rolled in waves back to the bleachers, reparking themselves on the slats. Their wings stilled, but their yellow-green eyes remained alive, waiting for the next kill order. Some gently fluttered their wings, clearing off the blood.

Evan backed away, keeping his focus on them, though if they elected to attack him, there was nothing he could do to stop them.

He kept easing away until he’d moved out of sight, and then he turned and ran. The emergency stop had held the elevator doors open. Inside, Tanner sat in the corner in precisely the same position Evan had left him in, his hand dangling from the flex cuff by his cheek. The big MP stirred on the floor, eyes trembling open.

Evan stepped in and clicked the button to rise. As the elevator doors slid shut, he realized that his legs were trembling.

He pawed sweat from his forehead, looked at the men. “Thanks for waiting.”

He used the short ride to steady his breathing and jogged out, leaving the MPs behind. As he cleared the building, he jumped over the steps and then sprinted for his Honda Civic. He’d just come around the SUVs when the rolling door of the box truck rattled up.

The sixth contractor stared out at him, eyes huge, clear coil of an earpiece hanging from his left ear. Evan stared back.

The last man, left to guard the convoy. If he hadn’t known who Evan was when