No Hero by Jonathan Wood Read Free Book Online

behind bars for six months. Six months. One hundred and eighty-three days of my life. Rounding up. And now I’m on the same side?
    Except... “She stabbed me.” I say it out loud. I say it to Shaw, but I don’t know if I expect her to answer. It’s not really even a question. I just feel like someone, and really it could be anyone, should apologize. My lung was punctured.
    I see it again. Her stepping out of the cloud of eggs, toward me. Coming toward me faster than I could track. Sword out. White blade. Black night. Red blood. Black vision.
    Stepping out of the cloud of eggs. Something about that seems relevant. Something niggles...
    And then—Shaw’s words. Any eggs that land in a nearby individual’s hindbrain will nestle and hatch there.
    This woman, this murderer, she was in the cloud of eggs. She was hit, infected. She must have been.
    “Progeny,” I say quietly. “Oh fuck. She’s Progeny.”
    I don’t even see Kayla move. She is standing beside Shaw. Then I am suddenly falling, jarring against the ground, Kayla on me, holding me down. She is inches from my face, the blade pressed tight against my skin. I feel her breath as she speaks.
    “You don’t curse in front of my girls.”
    My head is pressed against the ground, cold concrete, light from the pool lamps playing around me. Ephie is holding on to the pool’s edge, staring at me, wide-eyed. A squid nuzzles at her shoulder. Her sister swims to join her.
    “That’s a bad word,” Ephie says.
    “Very bad,” Ophelia agrees.
    And of course you don’t swear in front of kids. Of course. I know that. I’m a policeman. I’m an upstanding member of society. But... But... I mean, aren’t we missing the point?
    “Progeny,” I say again, barely a whisper as Kayla presses the blade harder against my neck.
    “Apologize.” Kayla’s voice is as sharp as a second blade digging in between my ribs.
    “S...” I manage. “S... I’m s...” I don’t know if I can’t say it because I’m so scared or because I really don’t mean it. “I’m sorry,” I manage.
    This time Kayla’s sword precedes her own retreat. The blade is gone, but she remains, still staring, lip slightly curled. Then she steps back so I can actually get up.
    “Please, Detective,” Shaw says, voice still level, patient, as if dealing with irate toddlers. “Kayla is not infected. While you saw her within range for possible contamination, the Progeny have some issues with Kayla’s... particular neurology. Neurology that makes her another vital agent in our attempts to stop the Progeny.
    “You see, there is no cure to infection, Detective,” Shaw says. “The Progeny do not give up a body without killing it. So to stop the Progeny you stop the infected. Kayla is uniquely capable in this. She has dispatched hundreds of the infected. You have been seeing the results of her work in Oxford. She is quite certainly on the side of humanity On our side. And while you work for me, Detective Wallace, I will not have you question her loyalty.”
    But I miss the end of what she says, because hidden in there is, maybe of all the things I’ve heard so far today, the one that blindsides me the most.
    “Work for you?”
    “Have you not been listening, Detective? There is a war on. Our world, our reality is in danger. One of our key assets—humanity’s key assets—in that fight, a young girl, is in danger. And you’re thinking of walking away?”
    “I...” I say. Because... well, I’m sort of in shock that I even have the option to choose. I’ve spent most of the time since I saw the Progeny either doped on morphine or being terrorized by the knowledge that we are most definitely not alone.
    And it is terrifying. It is. Beyond measure. When I was in that room, with that book... It makes me shudder to think about it. And Kayla is terrifying. Utterly. And she kills. Has killed. And the way she moves... How can she really be human? How can she not be... something else? It’s all too much