Shapeshifter Ch. 07

He had to have hit a nerve with his words, because Mike flinched, then tensed as if to attack Noom, and finally deflated like a balloon.

"I could organize earpieces, but Kel is right," he finally grumbled, rubbing his forehead. "If they catch him, and we're kind of expecting them to do that, they'll know something is wrong right away."

The heavy atmosphere lifted instantly, like underhanded peace offerings between friends are wont to. Noom nodded with an exasperated sigh and shrugged. "Well then. No talky talky for us. But we still need that lady gun for Kel; he can't go in unarmed."

"I might have just the thing for that," Mike said and smiled.

~*~

Almost eight hours later, I was walking through the harsh, moist, late-night breeze, haunted by the whisper of rustling branches and the echoes of cars passing by on the distant interstate road. My father lived in an exclusive part of the Evergreen Isles district, a group of small islands only connected to the mainland by a series of road and train bridges with their own traffic checkpoints and a police force that bordered on Sci-Fi levels of technology. Neither Noom nor Mike would have been able to pass through the road blocks on their own, but with me by their side, the policemen hadn't batted an eye as they had waved us through. It was the first time I actually understood what 'social gap' really meant, and after that, I felt a diffuse kind of shame for my birth right.

We had split up further down the hill, closer to the sea, almost half an hour ago. If my father was listening in on the police surveillance monitors, he already knew I was back and on my way to him, but I didn't expect it. After all, he either thought I was already dead, or he reckoned I was still on the run; neither possibility involved me actually walking up to his home and through the front door.

I prayed he would be surprised, I really did. Big parts of our plan hinged on his ignorance and the resulting surprise and confusion. But just to be sure, Noom had formulated three plans, each one preparing us for contingencies that might present themselves on the go. My heart did a little hop-skip at the thought of my mercenary and the way his eyes had bored into mine when we had made our silent, awkward good-byes. I could recall his scent, the way his skin felt beneath my fingers, from memory, vivid enough to have my body tingle and my diaphragm shiver with anticipation. One thought of Noom touching me was enough to wipe away any and all trace of hesitation, and it was what had kept me going up this park-covered hill for the last thirty minutes.

Most of that time, I had spent walking along the perimeter fence of my father's estate. God knew why he had decided to build the house and the main entrance on the far side of his plot, but I guessed it had something to do with his criminal activities and the paranoia those kinds of operations usually triggered. At least all the roads here— even the dead end ones that only lead to one house— had street lights. Not only could everyone see me coming, I was able to see them, too.

I was still a good hundred feet away from the main gate, but someone was already waiting for me there. It was a man, judging by the broad shoulders and the small hips, but he wore dress slacks and a tailored, form-fitting jacket that made it impossible to hide weapons. Not that he had to, the gun holster was very visible at his right side.

I kept my eyes on him, even as the wind threw strands of hair into my eyes, and I tried to walk upright and confident, like I belonged there. Luckily, the guard didn't have my super-sensitive hearing— my heart was beating like an Irish drum and my breath rate wasn't that far off either. I felt like a thespian on his first stage event, but rather than boos, my bad critique would be a bullet to the head. Talk about pressure to perform.

He calmly waited for me to reach him, shifting subtly when I was about to take that last step into his personal space and stopping me in my tracks. I had gotten so much better at reading body language since I had met Noom, I was actually proud of myself.

"What is a bum like you doing here?" the guard asked. He was a calm guy, had to be around forty, with a mellow voice and sharp, brown eyes. The street light above us shone at the back of his head and into my face, almost blinding me and giving him a good view of my shoddy attire.

I shrugged, licking my lips. "Can't a son visit his father once in a while?" I asked, giving my best to sound annoyed instead of panicky. My voice did sound a little breathless, but then I had just climbed up a hill that would have made any skate boarder green with envy.

Much to my surprise, the guard's demeanor didn't change. "Didn't know Mr. DeLargo had a son," he said suspiciously, then shrugged and waved me closer as he walked backwards. I knew there were cameras at the main gate and that he was luring me in front of the lens, but this was what we wanted. A grand entry to throw them off-kilter and force them to make mistakes.

I turned to look at the camera, giving it my best dumb, lost stare. I didn't have to fake the touch of fear in my eyes, that was real enough.

The guard— a blond guy, not white-haired as I initially had thought— turned slightly when his ear piece crackled to life, but the voice on the other end was too muffled for me to understand. The main gate whirring open was a much clearer sign, and I clasped my fingers around the seam of my sleeve to keep myself from touching my hip, where my secret weapon was hidden.

"You can go in. You know the way to the house, right?" the guard said, giving me another once-over. He was right to, I did look like a bum, or a hooker with a streak of bad luck.

I nodded. "Up and right," I said and stepped through the gate. Darkness swallowed me almost instantly. The driveway was sparingly lit, with just enough lamps to keep a car on track but not enough to disturb the night. My father called it 'the need for darkness', explaining that humans needed to know when it was time to rest and that the modern lighting in cities was the reason so many people got depressed.

Gravel crunched beneath my boots as I followed the sloped path farther uphill. Darkness was also a good camouflage for crime, but this was the first time I actually saw my father's antics through a stranger's eyes. I had never thought he'd be able to commit any crime, what with him being so worried about his public image that he kept me a dirty secret best hidden in a wine cellar. Now I knew that it fit exactly. My father needed his public image to be squeaky clean, simply to discourage his enemies from going to the police.

The old red oak trees lining the gravel driveway creaked and groaned in the breeze, making me sniff for the scent of blooming elderberry bushes instinctively. I couldn't make them out in the darkness, but I knew they were there, cowering beneath the giant oaks, waiting for warmer weather to fill the garden with their fragrance. Behind them, there were paths for walking, dad's shooting rink, and the family graveyard, where mother was buried.

Why was I trying so hard to remember what my old home was like, when in truth I was here to kill my father?

As I came closer to the house, a well-lit behemoth at the top of a hill smack dab in the middle of the estate, I heard the soft rustling of grass on both sides. My father's goons were circling, keeping an eye on me and trying to stay hidden. He probably hadn't bothered telling them I had superhuman senses, and why should he? As far as he was concerned, I never used them and tried to be as human as possible. Which was just the way I liked it- and needed it to stay right now.

As I reached the front steps, the art nouveau door swung open and spit out two security guards who all but ran me over in their haste to grab me. I had seen that coming, but even if I hadn't, they would have surprised me enough to catch me before I could do anything. They also didn't bother to say anything, they just patted me down like a common criminal, fumbled through the pockets of my sweater and even checked my boots before dragging me inside like a sack of potatoes. They didn't find my weapon, just like Noom had predicted.

"What are you doing? Do you know who I am?" I squeaked, trying my best to sound as indignant as possible. I knew, of course, where they were most likely taking me, but I had to sell my role and that meant struggling. I had a lifetime of experience with helpless struggling, so I knew there was a trick to it when possessing superhuman strength. I didn't want to really break free, which would have been an easy thing to accomplish, so I tried becoming boneless in their grip, snaking my arms out of their hands and even shucking my sweater, faking my attempts to shake them off. They didn't give up that easily, but when they finally had me up the stairs and on the second-floor-landing, they were sweating profusely and swearing through clenched teeth.

My dad hadn't changed anything about the layout of the house since I'd moved out, except for my room. As I was dragged by, I saw a not-so-new plaque on the door, marked with a twirly 'library' on the brass. It had probably been there since the day I had removed my last box of stuff. He hadn't waited to delete me from his memory. It figured. At least, with all the rooms being where they had been last I had visited, the map I had drawn for Noom and Mike was still accurate. Now, I just had to keep up my side of the plan. Noom had been so hopeful, I hadn't had the heart to tell him I had my own intentions on how this finale would go down, but on the other hand, I still wasn't sure if I could do it. If I could kill my father with my own hands.

The goons dragged me to the end of the hallway, knocked at my father's office door and kept an iron grip on my arms, even after his sharp "come in," echoed through the wooden door. The left one opened the door, the right one stumbled after a bit, distracted by the crackling of his ear piece, but we all made it inside my father's kingdom. I fought not to make a face at the bits and pieces of the radio transmission that I actually heard, but it wasn't that hard.

Not when I was facing the man who wanted to kill me.

"Hello, Dad."

My father hated being fatherly, thinking it made him look like an old fart. Or worse, like a man who might be interested in breeding more children. Sitting behind his big, chrome-and-glass desk, he looked as disgusted and regal as ever, if a bit older than I remembered. "You know I don't like being called 'dad', Kelly. Call me Theo," he said, frowning at my clothes. "Although I'm considering denying I know you right now. You look like a transient."

I somehow had expected him to be different, now that I knew he wanted me dead. I had expected him to do one of those creepy switches and show his real, evil face, spill his plan and maybe laugh darkly, but he was acting like always. Like his usual, civil self, all clean and calm and icy, just like every other rich businessman in existence. Like nothing was wrong, like he expected me to be too stupid to understand what was going on. It... hurt down to my bones. It made everything easier.

I swallowed and licked my lips, still hanging between the security guards like so much dead weight. "Da- Theo, I need your help. Someone is trying to kill me, and I don't know what to do anymore. Please, you need to help me," I begged, ignoring the taste of vomit that came with the lie. I didn't like lying in general, but I was pretty good when I wanted to be and it wasn't Noom I was trying to hornswoggle. The key to a good lie was building on it, throwing in just enough of the truth to get the victim riled up, and then really stick it to them with something frivolous they wouldn't have believed without the truth part up front.

My dad did react a little to the killing part, cocking an eyebrow and leaning forward with that predatory look in his eyes, but he kept his countenance. "Is that so?"

"Yes! Please, I'm not lying! He's been hunting me for days, and he's found me wherever I tried to hide. I think he's trying to kidnap me," I pleaded, wiggling a bit in the guards' grip. I hadn't tried lying to my father for quite some time, and the next part was crucial. I looked left and right, pulled my confused guards closer to the desk and added, "I think he followed me here, dad. He's crazy!"

Okay, maybe pulling two grown men who each had a good hundred pounds on my measly body wasn't that great of an idea, but it was necessary to get myself into view of the big landscape window behind my father's desk. After all, the show I was putting on wasn't for him alone, and for the plan to work, Mike had to see me give him the nod.

My dad was too surprised to react to my approach, but when a bullet hit the security window behind him, cob-webbing it with cracks all through the length of glass, he did find his footing and bodily dove over the table. He was surprisingly limber for a man in his early fifties, but what else other than sports would a rich, single man do in his spare time?

The bullet wasn't enough to actually penetrate the thick glass, but it was enough to scare Theodore out of his office. The goon duo dragged me after him in a fast trot, both nervously mumbling into the microphones on their shirt collars. My show of physical strength was already forgotten, and I did my best not to remind them of it as they manhandled me down the stairs, following the white-shirted back of my father.

The whole thing was surreal and experiencing it felt like a dream, but up to this point, everything was going according to plan. In between the chatter, I could hear another alarm go off somewhere in the house, but it was almost drowned out by so many people trying to report in at the same time. "Shots fired, shots fired," someone bleated into the com system, loud enough for me to understand it clearly. One of my goons let go of me to have a proper conversation with his ear piece, the other all but let me go as he tried to keep up with my father. I wouldn't have wanted to be in his position, because what do you do when you have to keep your boss alive, but he orders you to hold on to a struggling boy?

Was this the right moment to reach for my weapon? Would I be able to surprise them enough to murder my father, and if so, would they still try to kill me for it, or would they remember that it made me the one with the money?

"Donovan is dead; the sniper took him out. Grover is hurt and immobile, and we have lost contact to our perimeter on the west side of the park," goon number two informed us, hurrying to meet our speed and grabbing my arm again. My chance to act was gone.

My father marched us into the cold room next to the garage, one of the rooms with the least windows. I had hoped he would drag us into the living room or kitchen, but as long as we were on the ground floor, it didn't really matter. My time to act was running out, but our plan was coming along just peachy. Damn it.

An explosion shattered the nervous chaos, swallowing all sounds except for the thunder of bursting windows. It was close enough that the pressure wave made the door behind me rattle. Fire alarms went off a second later, screaming everywhere in the house like newborn babies. My goons were finally pushed over their personal limit and they let me go, storming towards the door in their haste to see to their fallen comrades.

A cloud of smoke washed over me as the door opened and fell shut again. I watched my father's back as he pulled himself off the floor, and I smiled. It wasn't a good smile, but it was mine and he deserved it.

"We're alone, dad."

Theodore turned around with an expression of profound confusion, his eyes searching the now empty spaces where the two security guards had been before. I could see him rebuild his facade in front of my eyes, each bit and piece falling into place until he was himself again, ready to continue playing his game. I was fed up with his game.

"I know you're behind the assassination attempts. I know about the pre-nup. I know about mom's family in France. They know about me."

I dropped each bomb with surgical precision, watching his face so closely I forgot to blink in my quest to shock him. I wanted him to hurt, to feel bad, to understand what he really was doing, but failing that, I at least wanted to make him afraid of me, of what I would do.

"Do you, now?" he sneered. The tendrils of smoke reached his pants legs, curling around the thousand dollar cloth like a cat.

It was time. I pulled my weapon out of the elastic sheath hidden inside the waistband of my pants. It was an ultra-thin karambit knife, curved like a tiger's claw and black like my pants, and I had fallen in love with it as soon as Mike had put it on the table.

My father didn't realize I had a weapon at first. He came at me with three long steps, one hand extended to grab me by the neck, sneer still on his cold face. I knew that gesture all too well and squeaked with shock, slashing at his arm on instinct as I stumbled back and out of his reach. The sound of pain he made was music to my ears.

"What the hell? You cut me, you little bastard!" he yelled, clutching his bleeding arm.

Another explosion rocked the house, followed by gunshots and shouts outside. The smoke was getting thick enough to make me cough, but I didn't want to stumble outside and miss my chance to end this. And my father wasn't stupid enough to think all of this was my doing. He wouldn't go outside until my accomplices were caught, which was the reason I was supposed to drive him outside.

"You cut me," he repeated, but this time there was such anger and hatred in his voice, I stumbled back a step. Then he pulled a gun, a real gun, and pointed it at me. The look on his face made me spin and run before the first shot rang out.

I didn't just open the door to the inside of the house, I burst through it, as a bullet grazed my hip and burrowed into the cheap wood. Splinters and bits and pieces of the door frame showered around me, as I stumbled into the smoke-filled front hall. The house really was on fire, and it weren't just a few flames here and there. The stairwell was gone with fire licking at the archway leading to it, and the kitchen was destroyed, with a large, gaping hole where the patio glass door had been before.

I stumbled into the inferno all but blinded by the smoke, struggling to breathe and with no sense of direction. My father followed, trying to aim through fits of coughing as blood dripped from his cut arm. Another shot hit my leg and I stumbled, turned and limped towards the hole in the kitchen wall, towards the night behind it. There was no pain yet, just a deep, all-encompassing shock and the knowledge I had to get away before he managed to hit my head. So much for me taking a stand and ending his life.

I was almost at the explosion site, almost out, when the security guard I had met at the front door stepped into the opening and turned, throwing me a surprised look.

"Shoot him!" my father yelled from behind, stumbling after me through smoke so thick even I couldn't see him anymore. Somewhere in the back of the house, something collapsed, and a gust of sparks illuminated the burning husk of the front hall, my father barely a silhouette in the distance.

The guard obediently pointed his gun at me and I ducked, but not quick enough.

I didn't hear the first shot; I was hit before the sound could reach me and it went straight through my chest. Time slowed and the small slice of outside that I could still see got blurry, but I could still hear the second shot. It hit the guard through the head.

Then Noom was suddenly there, pointing his big-ass gun, smiling that cold, fearsome smile, wide-eyed, wild, happiest in the middle of carnage. He pulled the trigger, still grinning. I didn't hear the shot, this time, and the last thing I saw were Noom's boots as he picked me up.