Chapter 75: It Wasn’t Her Breathing

The frame was still trembling when Ethan took a step.

A gray blur blew through the doorway.

He stopped so hard his boots skidded. A Mutant Wolf shot across the hall, wings beating wrong, one side of the feathers matted black-red. It hit the far wall, claws screeching on plaster, and spun back toward the room with its teeth bare.

Ethan went still.

Something else was in there.

A figure stood in the dark past the smashed door. A zombie, but not the rotting kind. Skin green-gray, drawn tight over the skull. Black mist crawled its arms. Two rings of compressed dark sat around its hands, humming, ready.

Sonic Blast.

The wolf and the Evolved Zombie were killing each other. The crash he’d heard on the stairs hadn’t been Elena. It had been this thing putting a window through the wall.

He dropped behind the corner and keyed the walkie-talkie. "Elena?"

Nothing.

"Elena. I’m here. Twentieth floor."

Still nothing. His stomach went tight. Dead radio. Or dead doctor. He couldn’t stand in the hall and find out which.

Sword up. He went through the door.

The room was already losing.

The wolf lunged. Claws raked the zombie’s chest and should have opened it. A sonic ring detonated between them instead.

Boom.

The claws skipped. The wolf twisted in the air, wings hammering, and a gust tore through the apartment hard enough to lift a broken chair and slam it into the kitchen wall. The zombie staggered. Black gathered in its hands. A ring started to form. The wind hit first and broke it before it could leave the fingers.

Furniture went to splinters. Claw marks crossed the floor, deep enough to show the boards. Plaster sifted out of the ceiling and stuck in the blood.

Ethan waited. One opening. That was all he could afford.

The wolf committed. The zombie raised another barrier. For a fraction of a second both of them belonged to each other.

He lifted his hand. "Spatial Cut."

A white line cut the room. It took the wolf at the base of the wing. Blood sprayed the curtain. The creature shrieked, high and ugly, and its head snapped toward him. Jaws opened. It came.

He moved late. Teeth snapped shut an inch from his face. He twisted. The claws still found his shoulder and tore. Pain went white down his arm.

The zombie didn’t care who it hit. A black ring formed at his back. He felt it a heartbeat too late.

Boom.

The blast took him in the spine and the bad shoulder. It felt like a sledgehammer swung by someone who meant it. He left his feet and hit the floor. Vision smeared. Warmth ran under his shirt and kept going.

"Damn it."

He got up because down was death. The wolf was already coming back, wing dragging, hate in the eyes. The zombie’s hands were filling again. Two of them. No wall at his back that wasn’t already broken.

"Fine."

Gravity Control dropped on the wolf. The air thickened. The huge body slammed down.

Thud.

The floor cracked under it. Boards jumped. Ethan locked on the zombie.

"Time Stop."

The room locked. One second. Dust hung. The ring at the zombie’s hands froze half-born. The wolf’s snarl stayed open, blood suspended off the ruined wing.

One second was the whole gift.

Ethan drove in. The sword went up through the wolf’s eye and kept going until the skull took it. The beast convulsed under the blade, a shiver that couldn’t finish. He ripped the steel free and spun as the stop died.

The zombie’s hands were already moving. The black ring was a breath from done.

He stepped into it. "Spatial Cut."

White met black.

Boom.

The sonic ring shattered. Compressed sound burst across the room and rang in his teeth. Before the zombie could build another, he was inside its reach. The sword went into the skull. Once. Twice. The mist stuttered and failed.

He kicked the body off the blade. It folded. The wolf hit the floor a second later, wing bent wrong, the eye a ruin.

Silence came back ugly.

Ethan stood in it, breathing like he’d run the stairs again. His left shoulder was numb, which was worse than pain. Blood ticked off his sleeve onto the boards. A dark stain had taken the side of his shirt. He pressed the wound. The pain arrived late, sharp, deep. His ribs answered too. The Sonic Blast had done more than throw him.

He bared his teeth. "No time."

He crouched, split the wolf’s skull, and caught the green Core when it rolled free. The zombie gave up a dark one. Both vanished into storage.

Then Elena.

"Green closet."

His eyes crossed the wreck. There. A green door near the back wall, open a finger’s width.

He pulled it.

"Elena."

She was curled on the closet floor. Pale. Lips cracked. The white coat filthy, one sleeve torn. The walkie-talkie lay loose in her hand. She didn’t move.

He checked her mouth. A faint breath touched his fingers.

Alive.

Relief hit so hard his knees almost went. "You’re okay."

He reached to lift her. The room tilted. Dark ate the edges of his sight. He caught the closet door and held on until the floor agreed to stay down.

Internal. The blast. Too much ability burned on the way up and in the room. He had pushed past the place where the body sends a warning.

Breath came heavy. Not here. Not with her. Not with two corpses on the floor already calling whatever else lived in the building.

He hauled himself upright, got an arm under her, and pulled her in against his bad side. She was lighter than she should have been. His vision kept narrowing. His legs felt borrowed.

One thing left.

Space Teleportation.

He clenched his jaw. "Come on."

Space twisted. The apartment smeared. Then it was gone ~ the green door, the blood, the wolf, the zombie ~ and the two of them with it.

The room stayed behind, empty except for the bodies and the slow drip from the ceiling.