X's for Eyes Read Online Free

The snarl emanated from a cavern in a canyon on a planet far from known stars and rippled outward, blackening and corrupting dust and gas and ice and everything it touched. Not a howl, a blast from a god’s horn—
    “Wake up, damn your eyes!” Berrien grabbed Mac by his pajama collar and shook hard. “What the devil have you little churls gotten into this time?”
    “I hope that’s rhetorical.” Mac tried to focus his blurry vision.
    “A Nazi storm trooper is loitering in the kitchen. Mr. Blankenship is beside himself. Presumably there is an explanation.” Berrien and the reformed Nazi had a long, violent past. No one other than the principals were privy to the details.
    “Indeed.”
    “Pray to whatever gods you worship in the Mountain Leopard Temple that I find it satisfactory. Fair warning—it seems exceedingly dubious anything can justify Herr Kasper’s presence here, alive and not leaking vital fluids.”
    “Frankly, I share your pessimism,” Mac said. “Which is why I’m not going to explain anything.” He slithered free of the butler’s grasp and high-tailed it across the manor’s expansive halls for the kitchen. He shouted over his shoulder, “Dred, beat feet! Berry’s on the warpath!” Maybe his brother would awaken in time to avoid getting nabbed, maybe not.
    Kasper, clad now in a black trenchcoat, leather pants, and nicely polished combat boots, set aside a cup of tea one of the serving girls had poured him, and stood at attention. “Herr Tooms. To the barn, quickly. Herr Navarro is in distress.”
    Overwhelmed by a premonition of disaster, Mac tore open the kitchen door and sprinted. He arrived on the scene as Arthur, stripped to the waist and splattered in blood, drove his thumbs through Ronaldo’s eyes and deep into his brain. The young scientist’s face remained immobile as a wooden mask while he murdered his baby brother. Gerard’s corpse lay nearby. Pieces of equipment were smashed. Sparks cascaded across the floor. A toneless mechanical voice issued from the computer terminal: Abort process. Arthur Navarro, please abort process. Reboot in thirty seconds.
    “Mien Gott,” Kasper muttered in horrified admiration. “I didn’t realize—”
    “Shoot him, Kasper,” Mac said. “Kneecap him, for heaven’s sake.”
    Kasper drew his Glock and strode forward, coldly aimed, and fired. He managed three shots before Arthur bounded the gap between them and shattered his arm with a slap, swinging the ex-soldier, as the SS were so fond of treating infants, by his wrist into the wall. Kasper’s body rebounded from the metal bulkhead with a hollow gong and his insides burst from every available orifice and splashed to the floor.
    Barefoot in pajamas and unarmed, Mac didn’t especially rate his own chances of survival in a hand-to-hand encounter with his berserk friend. Nimble as a circus acrobat (thanks to years of abuse by Sifu Kung Fan), he leaped aside, caught a descending girder, and flipped ten or twelve feet upward as Arthur lunged for his ankle. The rafters seemed a safe vantage to wait it out until Arthur ripped a workbench free of its mooring bolts and chucked it. Mac brachiated to another roost as the missile whooshed past and shattered against the girder.
    Berrien rushed in with his 10 gauge double-barreled shotgun. Arthur glared at him, then slowly keeled over. Blood trickled from bullet holes in a tight group in his gut. Apparently the German hadn’t fooled around when it came to shooting.
    “Oh, Arthur.” Mac dropped to the ground. He knelt beside his friend and pressed his fists against the wounds. “Hang in there, pal. We’ll get you patched.”
    “Those are bad,” Berrien said, laying his hand on Mac’s shoulder. “The lad’s a goner.”
    “Berry, your bedside manner could use refinement. Fetch a kit. Arthur, it’s going to be fine.”
    Arthur’s eyes fluttered. The whites were stained blue as ice. For an instant, his pupils slithered, deforming into lopsided