Page 87 of Natural-Born Cullers
“My music’s not for the likes of you.”
Seth smiled down to his feet. “Because I’ll be dead and all that cliché one-line shit, right?” He gave a sigh. “And here was me thinking I couldn’t be replaced.” He looked back at Dark Eyes, and a puzzled glance came his way, right before—
“Replaced?” Dark Eyes seemed to work through something so bloody fast. “You’rehiskink. You’re—”
“Getting pissed off.” And Seth was. Something in that look of disgust riled him to the core. It called out his art. No, not that, it called out the integritybehindhis art, how it wasn’t entirely his. Someone else owned it, and he’d read it. Maybe they did own it, but it was always done by his hands. Dark Eyes was going to learn that first-hand for that look.
Seth shifted, but with a snarl, Dark Eyes moved a damn sight faster.
A fist hit his face, and Seth hit the floor, face-first, and—“Ugh.” It was all he had. He hadn’t even seen the intent. A block of chef’s knives played on the unit, only now one of the smallest knives pierced his throat, making a pike with his tongue. The knife balanced perfectly on the floor, the base of the handle digging into the dust of the kitchen, and he saw then it had been his fall that had seen it pierce his throat.
All accident to the onlooker, except for how Dark Eyes hit him again, leaving Seth bloodied and drunk as his vision blurred into red.
Easing off, Dark Eyes shoved his guitar case off his shoulder, then took something from his pocket and set it on the table so it looked down at him. A phone?
Seth tried to move, lift his head off the floor, get to the knife and tear it free, but a knee pressed into his back, forcing the knife to pierce his mouth and make him cry out around it as his hands were bound wide.
A knife tip slammed into his back a moment later.
“Fucking Blood Eagle?Let me know how that goes for you—mate.”
Yeah, all that anger off Dark Eyes was back.
For the first time in a long time, Seth cried out for his dad, needing him here, to help, just to stop the pain, because thiswasgoing to hurt. And one thing he couldn’t take was… hurt.
Not his own, not the ownership of him, of having his art… what? Plagiarised…?
The glare of police car lights pulled Gray to a stop on the corner of St John’s Wood Park. The Met had been closer to the address Simon had sent by text, and Gray had put a call through to Brennan to get cars over here. He’d hoped how the street came alive in the night would put Light off. But the line of tape going around the property as he got out of his Merc called out he hadn’t made the call soon enough.
Simon looked at him over his own Merc as Gray pushed out of his, and Simon’s look said it all. Whatever programme he’d put in place to expose the crypto bank addresses of the Red Room and its subscribers had finished at around the time they were all taken down. So that meant Light could have only gained access to the laptop during that blackout period.
Gray headed over to the line of tape and flashed his ID before ducking under it. He’d ordered Raif to stay at the manor for extra security and to help Ray figure out what the fuck had gone on. That left him and Simon, and a soul-tearing need to know who’d survived the blood bath that the white death tents ahead called out.
Gray went into a cull knowing he’d either make it out or he wouldn’t, and it tore him how he was caught between hitting Light for what he’d done, or hitting the policeman who looked set to stop him getting to where he needed to be in order to see if his son had managed to stagger away.
A text came through, and Gray flicked at it as he made his way over to the white tent.
Don’t text back. Doing good here. Martin’s come around, but still pale. Whatever poison hit us didn’t like my flu, nothing more. We’re good. Focus your head.
Fuck. Gray wiped a hand over his face.Doesn’t matter how much you think I need focusing, text if anything changes.
Nothing will. I just wanted to let you know we’resorting it. Bloody focus.
The police officer close to the white tent was stupid enough to step in his way, forcing Gray’s… focus away from his phone.
“Let them through, Hall.” The call came from inside the tent covering the entrance to the detached home, and Simon shifted to the door with a quick glance back at Gray. “Reeves,” he mumbled quickly. “The officer in charge of the memetic agent killing.”
As Reeves came out, Simon shook his hand.
“This is Mr Raoul,” said Simon, “a director of MI5.”
“Sir.”
Gray gave the man a nod, in no mood for introductions. “Victim’s name?” Thatwasvital, in more ways than one.
Reeves pushed open the door to the tent and held it open for Gray as he ducked inside. A few officers looked his way, but Gray knew from the quiet that the death in the home had been violent enough that they were more caught in whatever had gone on behind those walls.
“Four bodies.”
