Through Glass Darkly Episode 1 by Peter Knyte Page B

flaming bullets would mark the target for the others, even if it stayed invisible, and if I was lucky it might even ignite the creatures carapace armour.
    But the Lamphrey was strong and fast, and by the time we’d rounded the corner it was practically on top of the covered loading bay, so I would only get a single shot at it before it reached the roof.
    Blake, hampered by having to swap the scope to his other hand had barely unholstered his sidearm by the time I’d drawn and fired, hitting the thing squarely in the back, just below its head.
    I must’ve caught it just at the right moment, because the impact caused it to lose its hold on the brickwork, and it fell heavily back onto the roof of the loading bay.
    Instinct and my conditioning from the Expanse kicked in, and before I knew it I’d emptied my other five rounds into its back and tail, while walking down the alleyway to close the distance as I fired. Now as I reloaded, I could see the phosphorus and potassium cores of my bullets begin to flame and burn with a violent white heat, which flared in my lenses, and caused the creature to scream in agony. As it did so it faded from the mid-infrared back into the visible light spectrum, meaning the others should now be able to see it as well. But my bullets weren’t stopping it. For a moment after it screamed it turned straight toward me as though ready to leap upon me from the top of the loading bay, but a heartbeat later it was back up the wall to the warehouse roof dislodging bricks and mortar as it went.
    Without thinking, I went from a walk to a run, as it clambered over the edge of the warehouse roof. This very creature was the one that had defiled the bodies of my friends and crewmates, including Ariel. And now, as I reached the loading bay an anger I didn’t realise I carried filled my veins, and before I knew it I’d followed it up the loading bay scaffold onto the building roof proper.
    I could see the burning bullets in its back as it retreated across the rooftop, and I managed to hit it again before I knew I’d even drawn my gun. It saw me and fled, racing across the rooftops, down onto a lower roof, jumping across a narrow alleyway. But where it went I followed like a vengeful spirit, flaying it with burning bullets as I went.
    The row of industrial buildings was long, but suddenly we came to the end of the warehouses and unable to go further the creature dived off to the side behind a skylight and across the front of the building.
    I was distantly aware of shouting and voices from below as I continued to chase the thing across the night sky, heedless of the fifty foot drop to hard pavement and road beside me. And then I saw my chance, as it leapt from the rooftop we were on, down a few feet to the next building the old slates shattered and gave way beneath the creatures weight sending it sliding toward the edge. I had it and it knew it, but my rage made me thoughtless, and as I fired another bullet and then another into its shoulder and head, I jumped down onto the same roof in order to deliver the kill at point blank range. But the already shattered slates slid out from under me as I landed, sending me spiralling toward the drop that we had been skirting.
    There was no way I could save myself, especially not with one hand still gripping my revolver. But there was a part of me that could not let the creature escape, so even as I slid toward the edge of the building I emptied my gun into its arm and side, hitting it again and again. And then I was over the edge and falling.
    Only at the last moment did my free hand grab onto an old electrical wire that hung down just below the building’s roof, and stopped my fall. I finally dropped my empty gun, and heard it clatter on the street below, but there was nothing else for me to grab hold of or pull myself back up.
    The creature, hung barely six feet from me, over a dozen incendiary rounds smoking and burning it alive, but somehow with a baleful look in its