The Annihilation Score Read Online Free PDF Page B

doorway to the living room and draw back a quavering, screeching, utterly non-euphonious note of challenge.
    All of which takes a
lot
longer to write—or to read—than to do; I can release and raise my instrument in the time it takes you to drawand aim a pistol. And I’m trained for this. No, seriously.
My instrument kills demons.
And there’s one in my sights right now, sprawled halfway through the living room doorway, bone-thin arms raised towards me and fangs bared.
    ***Yesss!!!*** Lecter snarls triumphantly as I draw back the bow and channel my attention into the sigil carved on the osseous scrollwork at the top of his neck. My fingertips burn as if I’ve rubbed chili oil into them, and the strings fluoresce, glowing first green, then shining blue as I strike up a note, and another note, and begin to search for the right chord to draw the soul out through the ears and eyes of the half-dressed blonde bitch baring her oversized canines at me.
    She’s young and sharp-featured and hungry for blood, filled with an appetite that suggests a natural chord in the key of Lecter—oh yes, he knows what to do with her—with
Mhari
, that’s her name, isn’t it? Bob’s bunny-boiler ex from hell, long since banished, latterly returned triumphant to the organization with an MBA and a little coterie of blood-sucking merchant banker IT minions.
    I put it all together in a single instant, and it’s enough to make my skull pop with rage even as my heart freezes over. Code Red, Bob damaged, and I get home to find this manipulative bitch in my home, half-dressed—bare feet, black mini-dress, disheveled as if she’s just
don’t go there
—I adjust my grip, tense my fingers, summoning up the killing rage as I prepare to let Lecter off his leash.
    â€œStand down!”
    It’s Bob. As I stare at Mhari I experience a strange shift in perspective, as if I’m staring at a Rubin vase: the meaning of what I’m seeing inverts. She crouches before me on her knees, looking up at me like a puppy that’s just shit its owner’s bed and doesn’t know what to do. Her face is a snarl—no, a
smile
—of terror. I’m older than she is, and since becoming a PHANG she looks younger than her years, barely out of her teens: she’s baring her teeth ingratiatingly, the way pretty girls are trained to. As if you can talk your way out of any situation, however bad, with a pretty smile and a simper.
    The wards are intact.
Bob must have invited her in.
    I am so stricken by the implicit betrayal that I stand frozen, pointing Lecter at her like a dummy until Bob throws himself across my line of fire. He’s wearing his threadbare dressing gown and his hair is tousled. He gasps out nonsense phrases that don’t signify anything: “We had an internal threat! I told her she could stay here! The threat situation was resolved about three hours ago at the New Annex! She’s about to leave.”
    â€œIt’s true,” she whines, panic driving her words at me: “there was an elder inside the Laundry—he was sending a vampire hunter to murder all the PHANGs—Bob said he must have access to the personnel records—this would be the last place a vampire hunter would look for me—I’ve been sleeping in the living room—I’ll just get my stuff and be going—”
    She’s contemptible. But there’s someone else here, isn’t there? I make eye contact with Bob. “Is. This. True?”
Did you really bring her back here? Is this really what it looks like?
    Bob seems to make his mind up about something. “Yes,” he says crisply.
    I stare at him, trying to understand what’s happened. The bitch scrambles backwards, into the living room and out of sight: I ignore her. She’s a vampire and she could be gearing up to re-plumb my jugular for all I know, but I find that I simply don’t give a fuck. The