Chapter 26
26
Hudex negotiated the climb down through shafts, corridors and deserted streets, with a few detours to descend using the outside of the scraper when he could. He hated the inside, being underneath the building bulk.
More than hated. He feared.
Here was unnatural. The dark squeezed in on him. The building above crushed.
Already he could feel the subtle sizzle as parts of him were exposed to the utter dark and began to bubble away. The tiniest of holes in the human flesh at the neck join were letting in the putrescent darkness.
Unnatural.
He yearned for the openness of space, to bathe in cosmic rays, for that was where he should be.
Yet she had cut him. Hate vied with fear. Revenge vied with the urge to flee to the outside and the surface.
Hudex persisted, walking onward, climbing. The molecules of flesh that made up this body would shield him long enough to do what must be done. The Lure would be his weapon, as it had always been.
This would be easy.
Up close, the other species had never failed to succumb to the Ghoul Lords.
Except for… Some thoughts strived to remind him of the one exception. Her.
She’d been an anomaly, a rude exception.
Hudex dismissed that thought. Instincts created by thousands upon thousands of years of experience could not be wrong. She would succumb also, submit to him and be removed to the safety of the surface where he would torture the fuck out of her, pulling out her eyeballs, her fingers, all the sundry bits, before he slowly ate her as she whimpered.
The fuck ? He savored those words.
Some human brain cells persisted in the brain cavity since they were held in their living state by his powers, as was all this flesh. Those cells niggled at Hudex with suggestions.
Shhh , he told them.
He came upon the human gathering just as the light outside was waning, just as the abominable night fell. Unavoidable. They were vile creatures and refused to expose themselves to the cleaner light. As a backup before he was truly among them, Hudex sent his thoughts to the half of him that remained on Top. The stray rippers prowling the outside would help relay those thoughts.
His shield prevailed as he strode toward the meeting, and the serried ranks of humans listening to someone up ahead turned and looked at him.
The strange green undergrowth around Hudex blurred as he passed. The eyes on this sort-of corpse were becoming jelly, and were not doing so well.
The people turned and bowed. The crowd parted, leaving a clear avenue for him to advance upon, for he projected the aura and appearance of the one this body’s head portrayed. The brain of this head had spilled its secrets long ago. This human had once known her , she who cut him, Cyn.
This had once been a high-ranking human, a doctor. Now all these creatures saw Hudex as he who once lived. Even though bits of the doctor were threatening to fall off onto the floor.
Superglue , whispered the doctor’s barely functioning neurons.
“What?”
On the neck , it explained.
Glue? This was a new thing. The human creatures had many new things.
“Next body, perhaps.” And why did he bother answering it? He was not doing this twice. What use were those new things now when the Lure could triumph over all their weapons and glue and whatever else?
In space, in the magnificent void between systems, none of the small things mattered.
If he had the time, and if this body wasn’t ready to dissolve into its disgusting constituent molecules, he would take these beasters , as they called themselves, above. For they were food. They were anathema.
She would do. She was his goal.
Even so, the dark made him grimace and his already shambling stride faltered.
“I will not fear,” he muttered moistly, using the dead human’s lips and the badly reconnected windpipe and lungs. “Fear is the killer.”
“I will see only the righteous path.” With these badly focusing jelly eyeballs. He raised a hand and pressed a flap of neck skin back into place.
“The Lure will be my savior and the answer to their evils.”
Each step he took added to a trail of clotted black blood and skin.