She moved like a glitch in a video file.
One second, she was standing on the window ledge. The next, she was mid-air.
Her body flickered. A strobe-light effect. Here. Gone. Here.
I calculated her trajectory.
Velocity: 8 meters per second. Angle of attack: 30 degrees. Target: My carotid artery.
I didn't panic. My heart rate stayed at a steady 60 beats per minute.
I raised my arm to block.
But I was too slow.
Not physically slow. My muscles fired instantly. But my brain... my brain was processing too much data. I was analyzing the dust motes in the air. The stitching on her rags. The rust on her knife.
Input lag.
The blade was six inches from my throat.
Then the room froze.
Literally.
A blur of motion shot past me.
It wasn't running. It was sliding.
Charles hit the floor. He didn't have friction. He moved like a puck on ice.
He slid under my arm. He intercepted the woman.
He didn't punch her. He touched her.
His hand brushed her calf.
CRACK.
It sounded like a gunshot.
The woman screamed.
It wasn't a scream of pain. It was shock.
Her pants leg shattered. The fabric, frozen instantly to absolute zero, disintegrated into dust.
She crashed into the far wall. She hit hard, tumbling over a frost-covered chair.
She rolled to her feet.
She looked at her leg.
The skin was black. Frostbite. Instant necrosis.
She looked at Charles.
"Thermodynamic vampire," she hissed.
Charles stood up.
He was panting. His breath plumed in the cold air.
His eyes were glowing dull gold. He looked hungry.
"More," Charles whispered.
He lunged.
He didn't have technique. He had hunger. He threw himself at her like a starving animal.
The woman sidestepped. She was a professional. She moved with fluid, practiced grace.
She raised the pneumatic tube.
PFFT.
The dart flew.
It was aimed at Charles's chest.
I moved.
My input lag cleared. Priority: Protect the Asset.
I stepped in front of the boy.
I caught the dart.
I didn't snatch it. I intercepted it. My hand closed around the brass casing a millimeter before it hit my chest.
HISSS.
The liquid inside was boiling. Blue Drop concentrate.
My palm sizzled. The brass grew hot.
I squeezed.
The metal crumpled like paper. The glass vial inside shattered.
Blue liquid dripped through my fingers. It hit the floor and ate through the rug.
"Acid?" I asked.
"Entropy," the woman said. She was smiling. A broken, jagged smile. "Concentrated time."
She dropped the empty tube. She pulled a second knife from her boot.
"You're fast, Accountant," she said. "But you're running hot. I can see the steam."
She was right.
I was overheating. My skin felt tight. My blood was boiling.
And Charles... Charles was freezing.
He was shivering again. The energy he had stolen from her leg wasn't enough.
We were broken halves of a whole.
I looked at the woman. She was winding up for a strike.
"Charles," I said.
My voice was calm. Mechanical.
"Heat sink."
Charles looked at me. He understood.
We didn't need to communicate. We were variables in the same equation.
I charged.
I didn't use finesse. I used mass. I used the fact that I was a six-foot-tall man with bones made of density.
The woman slashed at me.
The knife cut my coat. It sliced my forearm.
I didn't feel it.
I grabbed her wrist.
CONTACT.
My hand was 104 degrees. Burning hot.
I poured energy into her. I visualized a furnace door opening.
She screamed.
My grip crushed her radius. The heat blistered her skin instantly.
"Now!" I roared.
Charles hit her from the other side.
He grabbed her ribs.
CONTACT.
He was -40 degrees. A void.
He drained the heat I was pumping into her.
The thermal shock was catastrophic.
Her body tried to expand and contract at the same time. Physics broke.
SNAP. SNAP. SNAP.
Her ribs shattered. Not from force. From stress.
Her clothes disintegrated. One side burned. The other side froze.
She convulsed.
A sound tore from her throat. A garbled, digital noise. Like a corrupted audio file.
KZZZRT.
She collapsed.
She didn't fall like a person. She crumbled.
Her skin turned grey. Then blue. Then dust.
She dissolved.
It wasn't death. It was deletion.
A pile of blue ash settled on the rug.
Silence.
I stood there, heaving breaths of steam.
Charles stood opposite me, shivering.
We looked at the pile of dust.
In the center of it, something glinted.
A watch.
And a syringe.
I picked up the watch.
It was digital. Casio. Cheap plastic.
The screen was cracked.
The numbers were running backward.
12:00:00... 11:59:59...
"She's gone," Charles whispered.
I looked at him.
His lips were blue again. The brief meal of energy was gone.
He swayed.
"Father..." he gasped.
He fell.
I caught him.
He was freezing. My hands, still burning from the fight, sizzled against his skin.
"I need..." Charles wheezed. "I need..."
He looked at me.
His eyes were desperate. Not with love. With hunger.
He looked at my throat. At the pulse of hot blood in my carotid.
I realized the horror of what I had done.
I hadn't just saved him. I had addicted him.
He was a vampire. But instead of blood, he drank thermodynamics.
"Take it," I said.
I rolled up my sleeve.
I offered my arm.
"Feed, Charles."
He hesitated. A flicker of the old boy remained.
"I'll hurt you," he whimpered.
"I have surplus," I said. "Balance the books."
He grabbed my arm.
HISSS.
The pain was blinding. It felt like sticking my arm into liquid nitrogen.
My skin blackened. Frostbite spread up my forearm.
I gritted my teeth.
I watched the color return to his cheeks. I watched his eyes brighten.
I held him until he stopped shivering. Until he sighed and let go.
He slumped against me, sated.
I looked at my arm.
It was a ruin. Dead tissue. Black and blue.
But even as I watched...
Smoke rose from it.
The skin began to peel. Pink, fresh flesh knitted together underneath.
Regeneration.
I was healing. Fast.
But Charles... Charles wasn't healing. He was just surviving.
He looked up at me.
"Who was she?" he asked.
I looked at the pile of blue dust. At the backward-running watch.
"A warning," I said.
I crushed the watch in my hand.
"Rothschild knows," I said. "He knows we're awake."
I stood up, pulling Charles with me.
"Get dressed," I ordered. "Pack a bag."
"Where are we going?" Charles asked.
"To the roof," I said. "We need to send a signal."
"A signal? To who?"
I looked at the empty syringe in the dust.
"To everyone," I said. "If Rothschild wants a war of monsters... I'll give him one."
I walked to the door.
My arm was still smoking.
I didn't look back at the dust.
I only looked forward.
To the audit.