Chapter 35

Sparks lit up the tunnel for a brief instant as the door was ripped off its hinges by the violence of my kick. It exploded into the room beyond, skittering noisily as it scraped against the floor before crashing against the opposite wall. The resulting cloud of debris and dust made for good cover as I jumped through, both knives at the ready.

I found myself squinting against the glare of a solitary fluorescent lamp flickering on the ceiling. Its vague light cast the shadows of several rows of rust-eaten machinery against the mold-infested walls. The dominant color, however, was the red of freshly spilled blood. It was splattered liberally against the walls, rivulets of it slithering down to the floor where several corpses lay carelessly strewn about like ragdolls floating on puddles of crimson.

I heard a low whistle behind me, followed by Dexter’s low mumble.

“Goddamn bloodbath,” he wheezed. “Ugh, I think I’m gonna be sick.”

“This was no amateur job,” Victoria said, stepping over the shredded remains of the shelf that had concealed the tunnel entrance. Her voice was cold and methodical as she broke down the situation. “Single entrance with no indications of breached entry, no signs of a fight or even a struggle, not even shell casings-”

“They didn’t even get to fire their guns. Poor bastards never even saw it coming,” Dexter chimed in.

“Standard military-grade gear and weapons, high-tech encryption comm devices, even their boots are standard issue - these aren’t just mercs. If anything, I’d suspect they’re from a government agency except..”

“Except what?” I asked when Victoria trailed off mid-sentence.

“Except we’ve never heard of any special ops teams authorized to deploy this kind of hardware inside our own borders without any identifying badges,” Dexter supplied.

“Not even during martial law?”

“Not even through the ass end of the end of the world, except maybe by an executive order, approved by congress and ratified by-” Dexter stopped when he spotted the blank look on my face. “What I mean is that this is deep cover shit. Damn, maybe we’ve finally found them. Maybe they’re the FB-”

“Don’t jump to conclusions yet, Agent Kelly,” Victoria said, cutting him off firmly. Dexter looked like he wanted to say something else, but she forestalled him with a nod towards the blood-soaked corpses on the floor. “Search them first. I count five victims-”

“Six,” I mumbled absently, still staring at the mutilated corpses.

“What?”

“Six. There’s another body in that unlit corner of the room, behind that big machine with the green cover.”

“Six bodies,” Victoria continued evenly. “Standard search, I’ll secure the room, then we’re moving out.”

“Sure, sure,” Dexter grumbled, his voice still shaky. “I always get the gross job.”

“You didn’t seem to mind the zombies down at the sewers so much and their rotten flesh was practically melting off their bones,” I pointed out.

“Yeah, but those were zombies. Real honest-to-god zombies! Like, straight out of the pages of the Walking Dead! Like in volume 34, when the whole town of-”

Oh god, what have I brought upon myself?

“Agent Kelly, keep your voice down.”

Thank god for Victoria.

“Kai, come take a look at this.”

When I sidled up to her and looked down to where she was pointing her finger, I couldn’t help the gasp that escaped my lips.

“Isn’t that a bullet-proof vest?”

Victoria nodded without a word.

“Fuck me..”

The corpse we were examining was lying face-up on the floor, the abnormally calm expression on his face almost convincing me that the hideous gash bisecting his torso from shoulder to hip was a simple trick of the light. Not even a single organ had spilled out, almost as though the killer had carefully arranged his corpse to produce exactly this kind of grisly display.

“Could you inflict such a wound with a sharp enough weapon?”

“Through a regular person, yeah, probably,” I said slowly, then we both looked down at the vest the poor devil had been wearing. Much good it had done him, I couldn’t even see a snag on the fabric. It was all a single, smooth cut that ran all the way around the man’s torso.

“This was done by a single slash. Just one cut and it went through what looks like..” I gestured in the direction of the vest.

“Level III kevlar body armor with hard ceramic plate reinforcement,” Victoria supplied helpfully, her tone steady even as my own heart sank. Her next words only made it worse. “They’re supposed to stop up to six shots from standard large-caliber ammunition.”

“There’s no sword in the world that can get through all of that,” I hissed, shaking my head in disbelief. “I mean, those plates, they’re not even broken. They’ve been sliced clean through, all in one slash. That’s impossible.”

Just who had done this? More importantly, where are they now? Hopefully, far, far away by now.

“Just what I thought,” Victoria said, her expression calm and thoughtful as she slowly stretched her neck, producing a couple of loud pops. “We had better make haste or else.”

“Or else?” I didn’t like the look in her eyes one bit.

“Or else the culprit might escape. At least these wounds are fresh so we should be right on the perp’s trail.”

“Uh, yeah, I don’t know about that.”

Victoria fixed me with an unkind stare, but then her lips twitched for a second.

“What?”

“Nothing, I guess we could establish a more secure perimeter before evacuating.”

I enthusiastically nodded my head. Until I heard her next words, that is.

“It’s too bad. We’ve found corpses with similar wounds in several investigation sites related to Alexia Fox. This is a great opportunity to pursue a lead, but if you insist..”

“Let’s fucking go,” I growled, immediately making for the only exit out of this room.

The fleeting shadow of a smile swooped past her lips, but maybe it was just a trick of the light. I grumbled under my breath while pacing toward the door.

“Dexter, you done yet?”

“If you have time to play with those toothpicks of yours, you might as well give me a hand.”

I looked down and was startled to find that I’d begun twirling my knives again before I knew it. Giving them one last whirl, I turned toward Dexter, only to see him standing up while wiping his hands off on a brightly colored scarf. That wasn’t silk, was it?

“I’m kidding - I’m already done,” he said with a big grin that was only besmirched by the greenish tinge to his skin.

“Then let’s go, no talking beyond the door,” Victoria said, stepping in front of me. When I opened my mouth to protest, she shut me up with a frosty glare. “I take point, you’re my spotter. You see or smell anything, you tap me on the shoulder. Left or right depending on what direction, twice if we need to stop. Dexter will cover our six.”

I nodded as I processed all of her instructions.

“You know, I can blend pretty well in the darkness,” I began, but she glanced up at the lamp above our heads.

“I can also move really fast,” I tried once more, but she pointedly glanced down at her MP-5 submachine gun, then raised her eyebrow at me.

Fine, point taken.

“Don’t take any foolish risks.” I was about to protest but the intense light in her eyes shut me up.

“Please, for your girlfriend if nothing else,” she asked, looking me in the eyes. “Now, ready?”

I nodded, tightening the grip on my knives and feeling the handles digging into my flesh. It was reassuring, this tingling that indicated that even if I wasn’t strictly alive, at least I wasn’t wholly dead either. At least, not yet.

She didn’t even glance toward Dexter before turning around. She just placed her hand on the handle and pushed the door open with deliberate speed. As soon as there was enough space, she was through, Dexter stepping up right behind her. Both rifles were drawn and covering opposite sides of the corridor beyond, perfectly synchronized, as though I were watching a ballet. Then they paused.

I belatedly realized that they were waiting for me. Stepping up, I took position right behind Victoria, searching the shadows ahead of us while I took in the scents around us. More blood, but this time mixed with the acrid smell of burnt gunpowder. Also, a trail of a familiar scent that I just couldn’t place. There was a flash of memories hidden in the recesses of my mind but unfortunately, I had no time to fish it out. As soon as she felt me behind her shoulder, Victoria began to move.

A ballet described it almost perfectly. There was a peculiar cadence to Victoria’s movements, pausing briefly with the barrel of her gun staying silky smooth and rock steady as she cleared each corner before advancing once again. She barely made any noise and I had to resist the temptation to glance over my shoulder to see just how someone with Dexter’s large frame could remain so silent while moving with an assault rifle drawn and ready to fire.

Fortunately, the dimly lit corridors were vacant save for more corpses. They wore similar garb to the men we’d found in the room. What truly chilled my blood were the few wounds I could spot on them. Clean cuts - almost surgical, easily bisecting man after man until they lay strewn along the floor like so many insects. Only these insects lay surrounded by mountains of spent bullet casings and their expressions were far from the placid look on the corpse I’d first examined.

These men, their skin was stretched taut in a perpetual rictus of fear that edged on raw despair.

This was no way to die, trapped like an animal willing to gnaw its own leg off just for an inch of daylight - only there was none. Only a flash of steel, then blood and death, each swiftly following the other.

Then we finally heard them.

At first it was the sporadic bursts of gunfire, still in the distance but carried by the echo of the walls closing in around us. As we approached closer, I could even spot flashes from what must be discharged weapons. Then eventually, we heard the screams.

I once had occasion to step into a pig butching facility. The scene that stuck to me to this day wasn’t the blood or the gore. It was the hideous noise that permanently haunted my memories. Nothing could drown out those hideous squeals as pig after pig was led to the trough where they were being butchered. They went from being nervous and skittish, to downright panicked, and then finally, the horrible squealing as though their souls were being ripped out their throats.

This was the first time I discovered men could make such a sound. It was almost identical to the squeals of the slaughtered pigs, disturbingly so.

In the cacophony of human screams and gunfire, I could make out a few words.

“Retreat, retreat!”

“Where is it? Where is the monster?”

“Where are the reinforcements?”

“Bravo team, come in. Bravo team?”

“There! It’s there, fire, fire!”

“We require immediate assistance. Charlie team needs assis- no, no, someone help, help!”

It was like a whole army was down here, only they were being cut down and slaughtered like sheep. Hell, they weren’t in any sort of shape to be minding us, so we simply slipped past many of them. Worse yet, I had an idea of what sort of monster could produce such unchecked carnage.

“The trials.”

Victoria stopped abruptly and slapped her hand on my arm, squeezing urgently. Only then did I realize I’d spoken out loud. It was a fraction louder than a whisper, but it was enough to produce a barely perceptible gasp in the distance that only my superhuman hearing could catch.

Gritting my teeth at my own stupidity, I quickly tapped Victoria on her left shoulder - twice.

Her response was immediate and deadly. She smoothly swiveled from right to left and didn’t hesitate at all. I heard a couple of loud clicks from her gun, quickly followed by two distinct grunts and corresponding splatters of blood from behind a barrier of crates - almost 100 feet from where we were standing.

I breathed out a sigh of relief, suppressing my guilt with a wince.

Not that Victoria cared. As soon as she saw her targets go down, she only glanced briefly in my direction before resuming her advance. I felt Dexter gently nudging my back before I remembered to continue forward.

Our progress was swift. At intervals, I paused to tap Victoria on the shoulder. With uncanny precision, she could single out the target according to the direction I pointed at. Fortunately, the further we advanced, the more the men seemed to fall into a state of utter panic, a few even openly fleeing in our direction. I briefly entertained the idea of raising my hand to try to talk to one of them, but he raised his gun in my direction and would have happily blown my head off if Victoria didn’t beat him to the act.

That ended that, and thank god we were still maintaining silence. Otherwise, from the dark glower Victoria sent my way, I knew I would be getting an earful.

The rapport of guns and the horrible screaming grew more sporadic the closer we drew. I glanced at Victoria’s back and seeing the irritable twitch of her shoulders, began to wonder if she could tell that I was starting to reconsider the wisdom of our present course.

Then, the gunfire abruptly died down. A few final screams could be heard in the distance, then absolute silence descended like an invisible veil that swept over the gloomy corridors and sent chills down my back.

For the first time, Victoria seemed to hesitate. It was only a momentary pause, but then she veered off the corridor and entered a side room. As soon as we cleared it, she noiselessly slid it shut, then squared off with a grim line on her lips.

“We need to discuss our next steps,” she said, looking first at me, then at Dexter.

“Well, the good news is, the soldiers have all been routed or killed,” Dexter said with a sickly grin.

“Which leaves us to face whatever did all the killing,” I said with a visible wince.

“Any clue about what we’re up against?” Victoria asked me.

I began to shake my head, but then that scent came back to me. “I- I don’t know. There seemed to be something peculiar that stood out. It was almost-”

I struggled for a moment, trying to find a better word but unable to. Finally, I just said it.

“Almost familiar to me.”

Two conflicting emotions clearly battled for supremacy behind Dexter’s face at my words, his skin taking on a ghastly paleness while his eyes began to burn with almost feverish excitement.

Victoria was expressionless except for her lips, which drew a flat line that grew bleaker by the second as she looked to me for an answer.

“Alexia Fox?”

I shook my head slowly.

“I don’t know. Could be. It’s maddening, almost at the tip of my fingers but I just can’t remember.”

“Hopefully you remember before we all get chopped into halves like these poor bastards,” Dexter chirped in, his tone light though there was a definite tremor to it.

“Whatever it is, we try to capture it. If not, then we eliminate it.”

“Fuck me, you sure we can’t just move to the second option right away?” Dexter moaned loudly.

Victoria shook her head, but I was surprised to hear my words forestall hers.

“No, we need whatever intel it can give us.” I heard a calm in the words that was miles from the turmoil rocking my heart in waves.

“Well, I hope it sits there nicely while we ask it where in the hell we can find Alexia Fox, oh and don’t chop us into tiny bite-sized pieces, pretty please,” Dexter said, dripping with sarcasm.

I began to roll my eyes when suddenly, a new voice joined in.

“Oh, that’s easy. She’s dead.”

The room exploded into motion, Victoria and Dexter bringing up their guns while I immediately spun around, my fingers trembling as they squeezed the handles of my knives in a white-knuckled grip.

“Who’s th-” Victoria began, but the guttural snarl that rose up from my throat cut her off.

“WHAT DID YOU SAY?”

“Alexia Fox. You asked where she is, no?” came a woman’s words in a low purr that nonetheless echoed in the room and lingered in my ears. It was a low and throaty sound, rich like fine wine but doubtlessly with a deadly afterbite. “You asked so nicely, in fact, that I just had to answer. Be rude, otherwise.”

“I SAID-”

“Dead. I should know,” the voice continued, as though she hadn’t heard me or the molten fury threatening to burst past my lips. “After all, I was the one that killed her.”

You have activated the skill [Dash]

You have activated the skill [Critical Strike - Melee]

Enough words. It was time to kill.