She shook her head. “I don’t think so. It was huge, it would have made more of a mess and left larger wounds. These wounds are smaller, more precise.”
Avril moved forward with shaky steps, but her chin was up. She touched her ear. “Agent Ryant. Recovery Team One is dead. I repeat, Team One is dead. I need you back here.” She took a deep breath and looked at the two agents who’d accompanied them. “Cover the room. No one in or out until we know what the hell did this.”
The two grim-faced agents nodded and moved to the door.
“They left the artifacts,” Avril noted.
Nik looked, and took a second to admire the amazing clear crystal skull and the gold jewelry partly nestled into boxes. “I don’t think they were after the artifacts.”
Avril frowned. “No?”
Nera turned. “Whatever killed them, it fed on the bodies. It drank their blood and ate some of their flesh.”
If it was possible, Avril’s already-pale face turned a shade whiter and she pressed a fist to her mouth. She looked at the closest body briefly before glancing away. “How do you know it drank their blood?”
“Because there isn’t a huge pool on the floor, despite the massive wounds,” Nera answered.
Avril gave a jerky nod. “Right. What would do that?”
“I’m sure we’ll be lucky enough to find out.”
Nik knew Nera was right. Whatever had attacked these people, it would be back. Hungry for more.
Suddenly, one of the security agents shouted. They all spun.
The man was standing beside one of the bodies. He was kicking his leg, trying to get free…of the hand of the dead body grasping at his ankle.
What the fuck?Nik took a second to process. As he watched, the dead body—this one a woman—rolled onto its stomach, hands grasping at the security agent. She let out a low, drawn-out wail.
“Jesus.” Nik lifted his pistol and started forward.
The security agent aimed his own shaking laser pistol at the woman. The skin on her face had changed; it was now covered in mottled shades of brown, like she was badly bruised. She made another sound, this one more like a growl. The agent shot her in the face.
Even as a wound opened up on her face, the woman didn’t stop. She didn’t even flinch. She was tearing at the man’s boots,her nails ripping until his boot came loose. She sank her nails into the man’s ankle. He yelled and shot her again.
Nik quickened his pace. He fired at the woman, and kept firing until she let the guard go. She dragged herself along the floor, leaving a smear of blood, and hissed at Nik. Her eyes were entirely black, with no white visible. He fired again, and finally the woman’s body slumped to the floor.
The security agent, his chest heaving, staggered away from the woman. Frantically, he eyed the other bodies, but they were all still. Their small group converged, pulling in close together.
“We need assistance,” Avril yelled into her earpiece. “And Agent Datarr needs a medic. Hurry!” Avril urged Datarr to sit down. “Just take it easy. Agent Ryant and the others are coming.”
The man swallowed. “Damn, it hurts. What the hell happened to them? How could she…come back to life?”
“I don’t think she was alive.” Nera was watching the other bodies with a hawk’s gaze.
“It must be some sort of infection,” Nik pondered.
The thud of running footsteps sounded and Galen and his team, as well as Gunn and Solomon, poured into the room.
“Holy shit,” Gunn muttered.
One uniformed woman hustled over and knelt by Datarr. She had a green cross on her sleeve and a med-kit on her back. She cut the remnants of his boot off and got to work.
Galen studied his dead team members with a grim face. If he felt anything, he didn’t let it show. “What the hell happened?”
“Agent Lambert…came back to life and attacked Datarr.”
“We need to destroy the bodies,” Nera said.
