Path of the Tiger, стр. 444

Crouching low, with his AK-47 shouldered, he darted around the corner into the open corridor.

There was no reaction, nothing. Neither sound nor motion were present. There was only a pervasive, treacle-like silence. A growing sense of unease was now working its way through Sharaf’s system, like a colony of writhing parasitic worms inching a passage through his innards.

‘What in the fuck is going on here?’ he whispered as he approached the open doors of the conference room.

With his heart in his mouth he stepped through the doorway, out of which a light was shining, and when his eyes fell on the sight within, he could not help but release a gasp of both horror and surprise.

As mutilated and damaged as the bodies were, he had no trouble identifying the corpses of the Huntsmen Board of Directors. He noted that their bodyguards had been executed as well, along with some other unidentified young people who were, curiously, completely nude. The room looked and smelled like the killing floor of a slaughterhouse; whoever had done this had made sure that absolutely every person in this room was dead. But who? Who on earth could have done this? It had certainly not been any of the Rebels, of this Sharaf was sure. But then who else could it have been? And why?

He walked around the room and assessed the extent of the carnage, keeping his rifle shouldered. Both his animal senses and what his human eyes could see told him that there was nothing but death in this room; not the faintest of pulses stirred, nor did any hint of breath from any of the gaping mouths mist up the chilly air. He knew that he had to tell William immediately, but had no idea how to do this now that his equipment was dead.

‘Shit,’ he hissed.

As he took in the scene of carnage before him, his mind awash with both morbid fascination and suspicion-laden confusion, he felt the familiar flurry of goosebumps that announced the presence of another beastwalker. Right away he dropped to his knees behind the antique table with his rifle aimed at the doorway, ready to unleash a storm of heavy bullets.

A silhouette presented itself, cutting a familiar outline against the pulsating red glow.

‘Kimiko,’ Sharaf murmured, the uncertainty in his voice revealing a blend of surprise, relief and confusion, for she was not supposed to be in this part of the building, at least not according to the plan. Still, he thought, perhaps the details of Plan B had dictated that she come here.

‘Sharaf.’

Her tone was strange; something was off about it, but he could not pinpoint what. Still, it was of no consequence; all that mattered was the fact that she was a friend, not a foe. Sharaf lowered his rifle and smiled as he stood up from behind the cover of the table.

‘I don’t know what happened here, but someone’s already done our work for—’

In one swift motion Kimiko raised her bow, pulled the string back and loosed an arrow. The broad-bladed, armour-piercing head sliced through Sharaf’s right Batsuit pauldron, skewering his shoulder and severing a number of tendons, causing him to involuntarily drop his AK-47. Kimiko loosed another arrow, and this one punched through his breastplate, impaling him through his chest. He did not attempt to go for his backup gun; instead he merely stared at the arrow shafts protruding from his torso with a look of complete confusion contorting his handsome features.

Kimiko then fired a third arrow. This one tore through his stomach.

Sharaf stumbled back; his strength was failing in abrupt bursts, like a sputtering machine running unexpectedly out of fuel. Two more of Kimiko’s arrows slammed into his torso, and he dropped to his knees, swaying back and forth as his near-immortal blood, running freely down his front and thighs, began to sink into the thick carpet beneath him, mingling with the young, cold blood of the dead Huntsmen and assassins. He felt more arrows thudding into him, but strangely enough there was no pain, just a gentle impact with each shot to remind him that yet another length of steel and aluminium had pierced his body. There were so many things he wanted to ask Kimiko, so many questions about why she was doing this, what she hoped to achieve, and why she had betrayed her brothers and sisters and turned instead to the darkness.

He knew, on some level, that he should be thinking about the mission, about his friends – but somehow none of that mattered any more. Nothing did, in fact. A curious warmth was spreading throughout him, like hundreds of hands gently transferring their heat to him through fleeting touches; delicate and ethereal caresses brushing his skin.

With a steadily drooping head, his chin eventually came to rest on his chest. His neck had no more strength to hold up his skull, which seemed to have transmogrified from meat and bone to a ponderous weight of cast lead. Through blurry eyes he found himself staring at the crimson carpet, glistening here and there with motes of light dancing on the wetness as it became more and more sodden with blood – his blood.

How much more blood could possibly come out of me? I never knew there was that much of it inside me.

The carpet was changing from crimson to yellow, the texture of moist, matted fibres morphing into powdery desert sand, sand so real that he could almost feel the heat shimmering off the grains. A crude wooden scimitar dropped at his feet, and he saw his hands reaching down to pick it up – although, strangely enough, they were the thin, hairless arms of a young boy, arms he had last seen over a thousand years ago. He then heard a voice that he had last heard well over a millennium ago, a voice he had missed so much.

‘Pick it up Sharaf, pick it up! We’re still playing, you’re not really dead, silly!’

‘Asef,’ he heard himself