Book 2: Chapter 62: Worthy (2/2)
Dan began to coordinate the evacuation as best he could. Every person who exited their motel, he directed away from the fighting. Few took more than a few loud shouts to get moving, as the brawl in the parking lot grew ever more destructive. It felt it had been hours, but mere minutes had passed since Dan had encountered Cannibal.
His phone buzzed in his pocket, and he paused long enough to glance at it. It was a text from a string of numbers that he'd never seen before, but could easily guess the source. The text was simple, a question that made Dan's heart stop: Did you think it would be so easy?
His phone buzzed again, and another line appeared a moment later: Better luck with the next one.
There was no picture, no call, no more words or taunts or contact of any kind. A hollow pit formed in Dan's chest, composed entirely of gnawing guilt. He killed it before it could burrow deeper, feeding it to the Gap. He couldn't afford to feel right now, not when there was work to be done. He let the cold settle in him, and focused on the here and now.
He'd given directions to three more people—Dan thought they might be the last in the complex—before Cannibal grew bored of his fight. Dan watched in horror as the lithe figure danced between Gregoir's strikes, made a blade with his hand, and drove it into the officer's chest. Dan's friend staggered, impaled on Cannibal's limb, before the villain withdrew it in a sharp motion and a spray of crimson fluid.
Dan's mind stuttered to a halt.
Cannibal held a red mass in his blood-soaked hand. He held it up to the moonlight, examining it like a trophy. It was a heart, Dan realized: Gregoir's heart, and Cannibal sank his teeth into it without hesitation. He moaned sensually as dark blood spilled over his lips and down his bare chest. Flecks of meat and gore coated his cheeks and hands. The expression on his face was rapturous as he tore into the heart of his enemy, which made it all the more absurd when Gregoir slammed an uppercut into Cannibal's jaw.
The villain's head rocked back, and he stumbled over a piece of debris. Gregoir took full advantage, driving his knee into Cannibal's chest, before seizing him by the leg and hurling him like a discus. Cannibal tumbled through the air, stunned, and slammed into a tree that overlooked the parking lot. The hole in Gregoir's chest shrank, sealed, and disappeared.
Dan's brain rebooted, as he quickly re-evaluated Gregoir's chances in this fight. The healing wasn't like in the movies that Dan had seen, where regeneration was imagined as a quick regrowth. Gregoir's healing occurred between blinks of an eye, cuts smoothing away as if time was skipping backwards.
Dan heard a sound in the distance, a repeating thump from high above. A spotlight blinked into existence, bright white light shining down from an APD chopper that came screaming down from the sky. It scanned the dark parking lot until it landed on Gregoir, then Cannibal. The light stuttered slightly as it fell on Cannibal, who rose to his feet covered head to toe in Gregoir's blood.
”What does it take to kill you?” Cannibal called across the parking lot in his hoarse, raspy voice.
Gregoir planted his fists against his waist, chest heaving and elbows jutting outwards as he bellowed, ”MY BODY IS BUT A VESSEL FOR MY FIGHTING SPIRIT! AND THAT SPIRIT CANNOT BE EXTINGUISHED BY THE LIKES OF YOU, FOUL VILLAIN!”
Cannibal regarded him with a cocked head, then a smile. He bowed over, the smile turning into laughter, the most genuine noise Dan had heard from the man. Great, gut-wrenching, heaving guffaws echoed across the parking lot, even while the APD helicopter bellowed down commands out of a loudspeaker.
The villain ignored it all, facing Gregoir with a predatory smile.
”At last, worthy prey!” Cannibal cried out in anticipation, and stepped forward once more.