Free Catwalk: Messiah by Nick Kelly Page A

all, he had to thank Delambre, or rather, his daughter, for the design of the composite armor. Without it, he’d have been punctured like balsa wood in a hailstorm, left to bleed alone in the desert outside of Nitro City. Second, someone had just sent a squad after him. Midas was the obvious candidate, since Cat had converted the pimp’s sidekick from Original to Extra Crispy. If Midas had shown a willingness to kill him, it meant either an escalation in his enemies’ talent level or the pimp’s tenacity. Sooner or later, Cat was going to need to eliminate the power broker. It was a scenario he’d wished to sidestep, but one he knew was coming when he offed the crippled pederast.
    Third, there was the matter of Delilah. The simple thought of her brought a scent to his nose and a taste to his lips. He wanted to protect her, if only for the absolute selfishness of having her skin pressed against him. He wanted her mouth at his mercy, her body his to conduct like an orchestra. He could certainly overlook the fact that she was married, since her dinosaur husband had been declared missing Off-World for well over ten months.  
    He’d love the chance to tap into her brain and to see if she was willing to put her morals on hold. Cat was thirty years closer to her own age than the fashion tycoon, Raul Dupree. The old stiff might as well be dead, and Delilah should be on the back of the motorcycle, nervous arms wrapped around her new rescuer, or better, legs wrapped around his waist. At the moment, she was just plain gone. She’d fled his presence as quickly as that of the vampires. There was some rebuilding to perform with her.
    If he was lucky, he’d find the chance.
    If he was a lottery winner, she’d find him first.

    The scientist struck the keyboard again and again, sending letters into the air like rain. He screamed a torrent of syllables, if not complete sentences. Trailing a stream of vandalism in the air, he gritted his teeth. He could not allow the symbiotic relationship of the pimp and the hitman to come to pass. Midas had made an uncharacteristic switch in his plans. Instead of doubling his forces to kill Catwalk, he planned on offering the yellow-eyed ex-cop a job. The thought of Midas and Catwalk working together drove the scientist to a point beyond reason, causing fire around his temples, blindness in his eyes, and lightning in his brain. The two simply would not be allowed to align against him.
    When the pulsating brightness against his temples subsided, he leveled his gaze. The anticipating eyes of his finest subject met his own.  
    “Ah, my dearest Angelyka,” he stated, as a trickle of blood dribbled from his lips, “ the time has come, at last, for you to do away with our former ally. At last we shall claim power for our own, and Nitro City, the embodiment of Sin it has become, shall taste the wrath of its new Messiah.”
    “Go. Make me proud.”
    A smile crossed Angelyka’s black lips. “I will fulfill your desire, Master.”
    The deep crack of leathery wings split the night sky as his Dark Angel left the lab, heading skyward. As her humanoid form lifted into the darkness, the scientist sneered. The cybernetic enhancements that made her something far beyond human would serve as an alert to anyone close enough to bear witness. With Midas and Catwalk brushed aside, he would continue to develop the next generation of MetaHumans. Though his creations had been imperfect in the past, Angelyka was different. She symbolized the new dawn in human cyber-genetic evolution, and her superiority over his enemies would prove that.
    He pictured her dark claws ripping Midas’ heart from his body, and he began to laugh. The scientist thought of his enemies’ death, careful to depict every satisfying detail. Soon, but not soon enough, he would eliminate the few obstacles that had dared to obstruct his path to glory.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

    “He’s a reckless, careless idiot.”
    “That is quite enough!”