Hunters, Matt Rogers [pdf ebook reader .txt] 📗

on long after their bigger, heavier brethren chew through their energy reserves.

This guy was five-nine at most, but built solid as a lumberjack. He shared the same tactical gear as his comrades, minus the combat helmet. He was genetically unfortunate — eyes spaced too far apart, nose upturned, nostrils wide and flared, lips thick and chapped, cheeks riddled with acne scars. Veins pulsed in his forehead. He was very pale.

Slater took in all this detail in the blink of an eye, then moved to spin the CQBR around and send a few rounds through that ugly face.

The guy darted forward and stomped on the protruding magazine as the gun came above Slater, pinning the rifle to his chest with a thick combat boot.

‘Put that down, man,’ he growled, spit flecking in the corners of his mouth. ‘I want you to test me. Come onnnnn—’

His voice was strange, like he put emphasis on all the wrong syllables. As if artificial intelligence had been fed every word in the dictionary and told to figure out tone and diction on its own.

Slater’s head was pounding and the aftereffects of the flashbangs were still front and centre of his mind, so he didn’t waste time arguing. He lifted one shoulder up and thrust it sideways, forcing the guy’s boot off his chest. Then he launched to his feet and brought the rifle up and—

A gloved fist cracked him full in the face.

He went blind for a moment and staggered back, reeling, and the gun was gone from his hands. Dropped or stolen, he didn’t know. He couldn’t see from involuntary tears in his eyes, which could only mean one thing.

His nose was broken.

He could feel the throbbing, thudding, drilling behind his eyes. He took in exactly how hopeless the situation was. His back was to the breached window, so anyone coming in could shoot him in the back of the head, no problem. He was weaponless, the CQBR at his feet. Facing him was this strange man who looked right at home in the midst of a life-or-death situation, which was a rare trait even for seasoned combatants.

It made the guy an outlier, just like Slater, just like King.

Something wasn’t quite right about this.

The guy leered and said, ‘Go on! Pick it up!’

He gestured to the carbine rifle at Slater’s feet.

Slater reached down for it and the guy swung a kick up vertically from floor to ceiling, but Slater’s face wasn’t there to take the impact because the reach had been a fake, and Slater skirted forward and left diagonally, moved around the kick and grabbed the guy by the collar and threw him sideways into the kitchen island. The guy slammed into the edge of the countertop, driving his hip into it, and bounced off. A visible wince came across his face but he suppressed the pain and winged a pair of body shots into Slater’s mid-section.

The left cracked off his ribs.

The right smacked him in the solar plexus.

He felt the wind go out of his sails, an invisible constriction gripping his insides.

Gassed.

Winded.

Compromised.

The man’s eyes lit up as he sensed it. He faked another body shot and Slater fell for it, bringing his hands down, then the guy cracked him in the broken nose with a gloved fist.

Slater went down, his head swimming, his knees giving out. The kitchen suddenly felt alien, cold, like a strange freezer. He knew he was teetering at the edge of consciousness. He’d been here many times before, but the sensation wasn’t something you could acclimatise to. No amount of experience would salvage the disadvantage.

He dropped to his butt and then sprawled onto his back. He tried to bring his arms up to protect his bloodied face but they were like pool noodles, swinging uncontrollably on joints made of rubber.

He was in bad shape.

The ugly man pounced on him, still unhurt, still enraged.

It was then that Slater saw the Heckler & Koch HK45 pistol holstered in a utility belt at the man’s waist.

His blood went cold.

What is this? his scrambled brain managed to think. Why hasn’t he pulled his weapon?

The ugly man seized Slater by the collar of his dress shirt, no longer pristine like it had been at Nobu. Now the material was soaked in sweat and stained with blood.

The man yelled in Slater’s face, his beady eyes wide, flecking him with spittle. ‘See?! You ain’t shit, boy! Tried to put us all outta a job but ya past ya expiration date.’

He raised a fist to drive down into Slater’s mangled nose, which would probably punch the whole mass of bone and cartilage into his brain. It would instantly kill him.

Slater willed his hands up to defend himself, but they didn’t respond.

So this is it.

The ugly man threw the fist from twelve o’clock to six o’clock.

Straight down.

As soon as he threw it his throat exploded, an exit wound bursting forth from the skin as the bullet that entered the back of his neck came out the other side. But that didn’t stop the trajectory of the punch, or the weight of it under the influence of gravity.

Slater mustered all his strength and threw his own head to the side.

The punch glanced off his ear.

It rattled his brain, and his senses faltered.

Anaesthetising darkness closed in.

He didn’t feel the body collapse on top of him.

He was already unconscious.

22

King burst into the kitchen, saw the guy standing over Slater, raised the SIG and fired.

He’d seen a million punches thrown, so he knew the guy got the strike off in time. He’d also seen the effects of too many strikes absorbed over and over and over again, so he knew Slater was compromised. The guy unleashed the punch at the shoulder joint even as the bullet went through his neck, and it came snapping down toward Slater’s hazy, unfocused eyes.

Then Slater summoned energy reserves from some hidden nook and jerked his head aside.

The punch still landed.

It knocked him out.

The hostile’s body went limp and fell on top of Slater, arms and