longer slack with superiority, gaped in failed efforts to bring air down into lungs which were clearly starting to burn already.
Then again, fear had a way of demanding a dance from hypoxia, no matter how much of a wallflower oxygen deprivation was in the normal course of things.
“I am here to see somebody,” Syn said softly. “And if you are lucky, it is not you.”
Lowering the man such that those feet found purchase, Syn released pressure enough to allow for verbalization. But it was not because he wanted words. No, a response of that nature was a flimsy meal.
He wanted a proper scream to ring in his ears.
Syn unsheathed one of his steel daggers. As he brought the silver blade up, the man transferred his clawing grip from what was locked on his neck to the wrist and forearm controlling the weapon. The accompanying protest was like that of a child, of less consequence and constriction than the sleeve of Syn’s leather jacket.
The tip of the dagger went into the man’s left ear, and as the fist nick cut into the skin of the canal, Syn breathed deep.
Blood. Fear. Sweat.
He pressed his lower body into the man’s. Syn’s erection was not about sex, although given the way those watery, dark brown eyes flared, the man misinterpreted the response.
Closing his lids, Syn felt a surge of power in his body, the dominance, the aggression, the need to kill using pain taking him over. In the back of his mind, he warned himself that he should stop now. This was not the plan, but more than that, this would be over too soon and then cleanup would be inconvenient—and he was not referring to the blood that would spill and splash, speckle and soak.
“Fight me,” he whispered. “Do it. Fight me—give me an excuse to drain your fucking brain out of the hole I drill into your skull.”
“I got kids,” the man stammered. “I got kids—”
Syn eased back a little. “You do?”
The man nodded like his life depended on the number of dependents he had. “Yeah, I got a boy and a girl, and—”
“Did you drive to work tonight?”
The man blinked like he couldn’t understand Syn’s thick, Old World accent. “Ah, yeah.”
“So you’ve got your driver’s license with you, right. Because you’re such a law-abiding criminal.”
“I—I, ah, yeah, I got my wallet. Take the money—”
“Good.” Syn leaned down again, placing his right eye directly in front of his victim’s right eye, getting so close that every time the man blinked, his lashes stroked Syn’s own. “After I’m done with you, I am going to break into your house and kill them in their beds. And then your wife? You’ll hear her scream from your grave.”
Pure terror came out of every pore of the man, the sharp, tangy smell of it like cocaine to Syn’s system. Racing heart, racing breath, racing blood—
A hidden door swung wide.
The fat, older man who pushed it open had a bulbous nose and acne scars that made his face look like the surface of the moon. His eyes were anything but pudgy and slow.
“Jesus Christ, guess you are the man I want. Come in—and don’t kill him, will ya? He’s my wife’s cousin’s husband and it’ll make Easter a fuckin’ nightmare.”
For a split second, Syn’s body did not listen to the release command—and not the one the human issued. His own brain was doing the ordering around, yet his hands refused to let go. Ah, but if he delayed gratification, he could kill another that would offer better sport. This was not the end. This was the beginning.
Like a tiger distracted off one carcass by the appearance of fresher meat, his fingers retracted, claws called home, and he stepped back. The almost-victim began coughing in earnest, slumping forward as if he intended to sweep the stoop with his face.
“Come through here,” the older man said. “Better that nobody sees you.”
Syn nearly bent in half to fit through the camouflaged doorway, and the narrow hall brushed the muscles of his shoulders and the older man’s padding as they went along. Through the wall on the left, he heard men talking and shouting over cards, and he smelled the cigar smoke, the weed, the cigarettes. The alcohol. The cologne.
At the end of the corridor, there was another door, and on the far side of the flimsy panel, there was a cramped office. A desk littered with papers. An ashtray with a smoldering cigar nub. A worn swivel chair with raw