Weir Codex 1: The Cestus Concern Read Free

blow met with increasingly wet sounds, and less and less resistance.
    With a final blow that cracked the floor beneath his feet, Mal stopped his assault, breathing heavily from the exertion, rivulets of sweat stinging each of the multitude of tiny wounds left behind by the IVs and monitor wires being wrenched from his skin. For a long moment he stared down at the crimson and black mess before him, unable to comprehend what was once the head and torso of the middle-aged doctor, but was now an unrecognizable mess of shredded flesh, broken bone and spent life.
    Realization dawned on Mal as his senses now told him there were only three heartbeats registering in immediate proximity to him. Holding up his hands, Mal stared at them, dumbstruck. His fingers, now covered in dripping red gore, had elongated into terrifying looking claws, and the armor along his arms was now covered in one and two inch spikes.
    All the better to kill you with, he thought grimly, rising to his feet unsteadily. Mal couldn’t believe what had just happened. He’d never killed anyone before. Not once during his time as a ranger and never ever in cold blood.
    “What have I done?” he whispered to the bloodstained weapons that had taken the place of his own hands.
    Mal was a killer now. A murderer. He needed to find someone in charge to get things sorted out and turned over to the authorities, decided the soldier.
    Before he could move toward the door, Mal’s new senses screamed at him. Six heavily armed hostiles were swiftly approaching his location. Something from the base of his skull commanded him to flee the area or prepare for aggression, but Mal ignored the voice and stood still, his nude, muscular frame still half-coated in blood that was rapidly drying under the room’s ever-present air-conditioning.
    Mal turned to face the only entrance to the room as he waited to turn himself in, his head tilting up as he heard a group of people stop just outside.
    “Rogue unit, Designate Cestus, located,” said the muffled voice of either a military or law-enforcement officer.
    That’s really starting to get on my nerves, thought Mal at the newcomer’s words.
    The electric buzzing in Mal’s metallic arms spiked in intensity, warning him once more of his imminent danger. “Target locked.”
    “Fire!”
    Even as his mind was still registering what was happening, Malcolm Weir’s body took over on instinct and reflex alone, diving wildly to his right as the door and wall in front of him disappeared in a torrent of gunfire. Whatever they had done to him, whoever “they” were, they had given the ranger a speed that defied imagination.
    Faster than a speeding bullet, was what crossed Mal’s mind. Unfortunately, that illusion was quickly dispelled as a second hail of gunfire tore into him, his new body armor absorbing all but a single shot, which lodged itself in the thick muscles of his upper thigh, and spun him across the now debris-laden floor.
    Mal grunted with the impact as his mind analyzed his situation. Wounded, nude and trapped in a room with only two available exits, Mal was already leaping over the surgical table he had been strapped to even as his newfound senses worked through the problem.
    Mal ducked down low behind the hydraulic and metal table in hopes it would shield him from more gunfire, grabbing the starched white sheet still draped across it to cover himself. Hazarding a look back towards the door, Mal tried to figure a way out while tearing a strip of cloth off to use as a tourniquet for the bullet wound in his leg.
    Reaching down to try and remove the bullet with his fingers, Mal was surprised to see the projectile push itself free when his hand approached, as if by magic. The words “initiating repairs” sounded silently in his head. Mouth open in stunned amazement, Mal watched as the hole in his leg stopped bleeding and began to slowly knit itself closed. Further inspection revealed the array of nicks from the numerous