West Berlin

1986

11:45 p.m.

An acrid smell of ammonia and powerful smelling salts awakened Lyn. Above her, an overwhelming light blinded her, and she shied away. But a hand clenched her jaw line while another pried her eyes open. As her vision cleared, someone manifested before her. His lips formed a thin, twisted smile. Cold green orbs gazed upon her with heavy brows and slicked hair in the likeness of steel. Faust gestured to the man by Lyn to release his grip. She felt lethargic, and fought to keep herself from slumping.

“You — you drugged me…” Lyn said, slurring.

Faust guffawed. “It was a precaution. My guys discovered you in an abandoned store, unconscious.”

He leaned closer and caressed her pasty skin, took a sharp whiff of her. Lyn gritted, looked elsewhere. Rough whiskers from his chin smoothed her neck. Her arms and legs felt heavier than lead, manacled by silver chains and cuffs.

Faust growled. “My, you are quite the catch. So unusual… So exotic from my other girls. I bet you would make me an abundance of money — ”

Lyn blasted him with a ball of saliva; her lips curling to a grin. “I’m taken…”

She observed the darkness bloom on Faust. She braced herself, ready to receive his indignation. Instead, he reached for a handkerchief in his pocket, wiped his glasses. The men standing beside him exchanged a glance, conversing in a foreign language and snickering. Faust neared her and struck her.

Lyn groaned. When she recovered, she saw Faust shaking his fist.

“You hit like a bitch…”

Faust scoffed. “This is nothing compared to what will happen next. I know you didn’t come alone. You have a partner with you, yes? Tell me where they are.”

Defiance blazed in Lyn’s rain-colored eyes. She rotated her wrists but found the silver cuffs too secure to slip out of. Faust knelt before her, pulled a cigarette from his carton, offering one to her.

“Smoke?”

Lyn nodded. The mercenaries behind Faust continued cackling and mocking her. When she riposted in Russian, it left them bemused. Lyn’s words stung as she snapped at them, calling them pigs, insulting their mothers, and the size of their genitalia. Even through the eye holes in their balaclavas, she could see rage festering; their nostrils and faces flaring.

One stepped forward, cracked his knuckles, but was halted by Faust. He scoffed, flipped Lyn off, and shouted other heinous insults. Lyn chuckled as she watched them storm away behind a row of industrial shelves. Faust inched the smoke forward, placed it in her lips; she moaned, inhaling a deep draw and releasing.

“Last chance,” Faust said. “There’s no reason to be uncivilized here.”

Lyn raised a brow. After studying his accent, she deduced it to be Eastern European, the Baltic states or Ukraine. She found him charming, dangerous; a man that people gravitated to of their own volition. Despite his age and weathered face, she saw the handsomeness from his youth.

He gripped her thigh and squeezed. “You know, there’s a lot that an older man can teach you, my sweet. You’re young, beautiful. Don’t throw it all away. I’ll ask you one more time — where is your partner?”

“I told you… I came alone.”

Faust released a heavy sigh. He stood and nodded to the mercenary behind her. The man pulled over a cart that housed a myriad of surgical grade instruments. In his hand, he held pliers and a drill.

He handed them to Faust. “The drill is for your teeth, my dear. If that doesn’t work, then we’ll pull your fingernails out. And if you still won’t talk, we have more tools we can play with.”

“You’re sick…”

Faust powered the drill. “It is simply a means to an end. Don’t take it personal…”

He brought the drill to her mouth as his henchman forced it open. Lyn thrashed and kicked in her chair. The effects of the drugs wore and she would be subjected to the full extent of torture. She sobbed, eyes flushed with tears.

However, before it reached her molars, the glass windows above exploded. The drill ceased and Faust turned his attention to the two assailants rappelling down. Bursts of gunfire echoed in the warehouse as Lyn’s rescuers opened fire on the mercenaries.

Kalen… Chess…

Kalen detached the rope from his belt and sprinted to Lyn. Bullets ricocheted from his body armor as he cut through Faust’s entourage. Chess dashed for cover between the rows of metal shelves as bullets struck and obliterated the boxes and equipment resting on them. A box exploded into a mist of shredded paper. Chess emerged through it and hurled a knife into a mercenary’s head.

Faust racked his pistol, shouted orders to his men, who peeled away to undertake the new threat. “Perhaps another time, Miss Valeska. Dosvedanya…”

Using the ensuing chaos to his advantage, Faust fled; a group of soldiers accompanied his withdrawal. Kalen ripped the man before him to pieces with his claws and, with one mighty pull, broke Lyn’s chains. She fell to her knees, head still spinning.

“Faust — Faust is getting away…” she said, her voice thick.

Kalen nodded. “Stay here.”

Chess, with her cat-like movements pounced on the unfortunate mercenaries in her path, tearing flesh and snapping bones with her talons and ghoulish teeth. A wounded mercenary crawled away, catching Chess’s eye. She grabbed his ankle and pulled, devouring the meaty flesh of his thigh. A comrade came to his aid, shot Chess in the forehead.

The bullet expelled, and her wound closed in an instant. Chess brandished dagger-like teeth and growled; her face and mouth doused in blood. The man fired until his rifle emptied, still squeezing the trigger out of panic. She knocked the rifle from his hand, swatted at his throat.

Ear piercing shrills filled the vast warehouse as Kalen and Chess continued their rampage. Lyn marshaled her inner strength to stand. She took a step and fell. She tried again, managing a few slow, deliberate steps before regaining her balance. After all, she was a ballerina.

They cornered Faust and his lackeys just as they reached a steel door, secured with sophisticated locks and deadbolts. Faust huddled against the door, frozen. His keys fell and clattered on the ground. The mercenaries looked back, color from their faces drained. A bright projectile slammed into the first man, eviscerating him, leaving nothing but a scorching hole in his abdomen. He fell and identical projectiles eliminated the remaining three in a flash.

Faust’s breaths shuddered and his ass plopped to the ground as Lyn approached Styx in her hand. It dispersed into fragments of light, returning to its form as the pearl necklace.

Lyn knelt before him, jeering, a coldness in her voice. “This is nothing compared to what comes next…”

Chess skipped through the layers of corpses and empty brass shells, hopping between pools of blood to avoid sullying her feet. She found a survivor among them choking on his blood, throat croaking.

“Please, we — we were just following orders…”

Chess narrowed her eyes, made a face. “I’ve been at the mercy of men just ‘following’ orders…”

And she consumed his vitality.

Kalen looked back. “Chess, what did I say about playing with your food?”

Lyn shook her head, crossed her arms. “You forgot her serum didn’t you?”

Kalen shrugged. “It’s an unfortunate side effect of being an artificial Shaitan. She inherits it from our progenitor; the urge to hunt and consume…”

“Drake doesn’t eat human flesh,” Lyn replied. “He says it’s too messy, prefers just draining them dry instead. Fear and cortisol season the blood — tenderize the meat…”