Chapter 36

My feet dug into the packed concrete floor before I threw myself forward in a headlong rush toward a vacant corner of the room. My eyes couldn’t spot the intruder but that was not a problem. I simply had to follow the heady, almost fruity scent that had been assaulting my nostrils to its source. I had her dead to rights and this close, not even an orb-powered assassin like Susan had been able to dodge my dash attack.

“Nice try,” came a female voice, dripping with sarcasm.

I was trying to puzzle out the meaning of those words when a burst of purple smoke flared out practically right under my nose, then I was through the haze with my knives hitting nothing but air. I could only imagine the stupid look on my face as I frantically tried to slow down. Then I ran out of room and rammed my shoulder against a rusty old filing cabinet, sending a flurry of papers sailing into the air.

“Not that you’ll get another chance.”

I would have growled at that but I was too busy trying to suck in all the breath that had been forcibly expelled from my lungs in the crash just now. It was all I could do to try to pick myself up. Fortunately, there seemed to be nothing broken except for my bruised ego. I suppose I had my orb-strengthened constitution to thank for that. Something squealed under my foot and glancing down, I could see that the metal file cabinet now resembled a tattered accordion. Then I saw a blurry figure reflected on the metal surface, a naked blade in its hand.

Just before it could bring the strike down, I heard the rapid succession of metallic pops I’d come to associate with Victoria’s silenced MP-5 machine gun and the figure behind my back was gone. With all this smoke, I don’t know what Victoria was aiming for but I had full confidence in her abilities. Something clanged noisily just a few inches above my head and only then did I realize that my body didn’t share my confidence and I’d ducked behind the file cabinet’s remains before I knew it. I mean, some of those bullets struck really, really close to where I stood, after all. That’s when I realized Victoria was likely shooting blind.

“Three feet to the right, on the ceiling!” I’d like to think my voice was commanding and authoritative, but the truth is I barely managed to gasp out the words with what little air I’d managed to pump back into my lungs. At least it was enough to track our attacker’s scent.

“Well, that’s kind of annoying,” came the plaintive complaint. “You first, then.”

I heard a new puff of smoke go off just as Victoria’s next burst of fire followed my directions. That’s when I had to pause to do a double-take. Suddenly, the source of the scent I’d been tracking was gone. Just where had she gone? Then I picked up her scent trail once more and my blood ran cold as I shouted a warning that surely would be too late.

“Victoria!”

Almost before I had completed the words, Victoria repeated the same maneuver I’d seen her perform down in the sewers time after time. She leapt forward and rolled on the floor, neatly dodging the gleaming blade that slashed through the space her head had just vacated.

“Nice try.”

The words were the same, but this time the speaker was different. It was Dexter and there was nothing casual about his tone. It was charged with thunder and fury instead.

That’s when I spotted Dexter swinging out from behind a pillar, his automatic shotgun braced against his shoulder as the barrel spit out wave after wave of hot lead.

Incredibly, the figure he was shooting at seemed to defy gravity as it recovered from the missed strike without missing a beat, leaping and twisting in the air at impossible angles until it finally somersaulted over a metal shelf and out of sight.

“Hit?” Victoria called out, cautiously flanking to the opposite side of the room while holding her aim steady on the shelf.

“At least two solid hits, maybe three. Little to no blood so the target may be equipped with class 3 armor,” Dexter replied, leaning against the pillar while reloading his shotgun.

Eyes still on the shelf, Victoria shoved a desk over its side with her foot, then crouched behind it. She held up three fingers, made a fist, then held up another two fingers and nodded in Dexter’s direction. When Dexter returned her nod, she retrieved a grenade from her belt and pulled the pin, cooking it for a couple of seconds before throwing it over her shoulder.

Dexter was nearly swinging out already by the time the grenade went off with a roaring explosion that rocked the room and sent shrapnel whizzing all over the air. Advancing briskly, he took cover at the corner where the shelf was, taking the opportunity to fire a couple of shots around the bend. Then strangely, he pulled back and crouched down, shielding his eyes.

That’s when I glanced in Victoria’s direction and saw her quickly drawing her hand back. Looking up, I saw another grenade flying over the shelf, striking the wall and tumbling down before falling out of sight. Not a moment later, an ear-splitting explosion concussed my ears and filled the room with a blinding flash of light.

“Target’s gone,” were the first words I heard when the screeching whine in my ears finally settled down.

Inhaling deeply, I could almost taste the burnt gunpowder and the smoke of several small fires left behind after the explosion. There was also the tense sweat that trickled down Dexter’s skin and the composed breathing that faintly smelled of Victoria in a way I couldn’t quite place.

And then, there was the other scent.

Her scent.

Rich and sweet, almost overpowering as it lingered in the air, wafting out from right from above Dexter’s current position.

My hand tightening its grip on the mangled remains of the file cabinet was the only warning before I leapt into action, heaving the entire thing into the air with all the strength I could muster.

“Shit!” came the figure's frustrated snarl.

The file cabinet hit the ceiling so hard that it actually bounced against the floor, then nearly reached the ceiling again before finally crashing against a far wall. Along the way, it shattered most of the lights and dragged the remaining few down in a shower of sparks that suddenly plunged the room into darkness. The thin sliver of light trickling in through the gap under the door leading to the main corridor provided the only means of illumination.

“Well, that works for me,” came the voice.

Would you look at that? That bitch, she stole my line.

You have activated the skill [Cloak of Shadows]

Darkness gathered from all around me to coil just above my shoulders, smothering my figure until it vanished from the room. It was as though I’d ceased to exist. When a breeze stirred in the sudden stillness of the room, that was me drawing my knives and hunting down my prey’s scent.

At the end of the trail, I found a shadowy figure dangling from one of the pillars, suspended nearly seven feet in the air. That’s when I finally got a decent look at my enemy. She was garbed in a torn denim jacket with what looked like dozens of colorful patches on it, each one different and unique. They stood in stark contrast to the plain, tight-fitting clothes she wore underneath. A full hooded cowl hid her features but at the moment, her gaze was centered on Victoria’s back while one of her hands remained on the hilt of the blade resting on her back.

I debated only for a moment before I sheathed the karambit knife on my left hand and drew one of my throwing knives instead. Then I reconsidered and swapped hands since I’ve never been able to fix a habit of underthrowing with my left. After taking one final breath, I drew my hand back in a motion I’ve repeated thousands of times and flung the sliver of metal forward in one smooth, graceful motion.

The throwing knife was a streak of silver that flashed across the room in the blink of an eye. Impossibly, the woman seemed to detect the danger and turned around at the last possible moment, shielding her body behind her arm. Instead of the sound of torn flesh, I heard the sharp twang of metal striking metal, followed by a muffled grunt as the woman was forcibly flung off the pillar. The sheer violence of the blow flipped her body at least twice before she finally crashed against a row of shelves lined up against a nearby wall. They all came crashing down with a thunderous series of clangs, burying her under a colossal pile of broken crates and bent metal.

Holy crap, that might have been my best knife throw ever.

Now, time to make her talk or die.

“Kai?” came Victoria’s question.

“I’m fine. I finally nailed her.”

“Dead?” she asked.

“Uh, I don’t know. At least hurt, probably incapacitated,” I said, squinting in the direction of the boxes.

“We better make sure then,” Victoria said in a matter-of-fact tone.

I saw her reaching for her grenades again and quickly stepped up beside her, laying my hand on her shoulder.

“Uh, we still need that information.”

Victoria seemed to struggle internally, but only for a moment before nodding briskly.

“Agent Kelly, if you see any movement, standard safety protocol.”

“You got it.”

“Standard safety protocol?” I asked, watching Victoria open the door and bring light flooding back into the room.

“Shoot first, ask questions later,” Dexter supplied helpfully, shotgun at the ready. “You really nailed her, huh.”

“Guess I did,” I said, scratching my head ruefully.

“How?”

“Throwing knife,” I said.

Even in the darkness, I could see the disbelief painted across Dexter’s face.

“Huh. I ripped into her at point-blank range with a fully automatic shotgun and barely got a papercut, then you flick a knife at her and she croaks, just like that?”

I laid a consoling hand upon his shoulder. “It was quite a nice throw, actually.”

“Yeah, sure,” Dexter said, glancing down at his shotgun with a glum expression.

“Alright, I can’t detect any movement outside but let’s not get careless. We capture the hostile if possible, but remember that safety comes first.”

I was about to mention the need for intel again, but then I spotted a thin line of blood running along the back of Victoria’s neck. Damn, I guess that evasive roll had cut it a lot closer than I’d thought. Too close for comfort.

So instead I just nodded and stepped forward. I saw Victoria open her mouth to protest but I lifted the knives in my hands and shrugged in her direction.

“Just cover me, alright?”

“Fine, but be careful.”

She didn’t have to tell me twice. I kicked one of the fallen shelves away, then reached down and shoved a giant metal box aside. As I continued to work on clearing the debris, I was surprised by the lack of fear within me. It only took a moment for me to realize that there was simply no room for fear. The fury had swallowed it all. In fact, I was surprised to find I’d begun to mutter to myself while digging through the mess.

“Kill my girlfriend, did you? With a loser like you, fat chance! Then you have the nerve to try to cut my friends down? Nice try my ass. Why don’t you nice try this?”

I was still grumbling when I kicked a wooden crate aside and finally spotted a foot protruding from underneath all the rubble. I heard someone shifting behind me, probably Dexter. Or hell, maybe it was me. I had a bad feeling about this. It was Dexter who articulated the problem.

“Why is it so small?”

Exactly. Buried under a mountain of debris, trapped under all that weight, the dainty foot that had escaped all that was simply too small to belong to an adult.

“Careful, Kai,” Victoria said. “It could be a trick.”

I nodded as I continued to dig. Eventually, the rest of the body was revealed. Without the oppressing darkness and the deadly sword at her side, she was a petite girl who couldn’t have measured an inch over five feet.

“It’s a kid,” Dexter breathed. “A goddamned kid.”

“Unless there’s someone else down here with us, this kid was the one who slaughtered dozens of armed men,” Victoria said, her tone flat.

“She nearly got you, too,” I pointed out.

Victoria shrugged, looking at me as though it had all been coldly calculated on her part.

“I don’t see any obvious wounds or crushed bones, which is suspicious under the circumstances. We have to confirm her status,” she said.

“She’s not dead. Her breathing is shallow but regular,” I muttered.

Both Victoria and Dexter looked at me strangely at that, but I just shrugged it away.

While they were still covering me, I carefully flipped the girl’s body around and tied her hands using some zip ties that Dexter had handed me. After I did the same with her feet, I looked up to see Victoria inspecting her body.

“No obvious injuries on her body. I can’t find any weapons either. Just who is this girl?”

That’s when I saw the glimmer of light reflecting on an object half-buried underneath all the dust, not far from the girl’s body.

I bent down and almost let out a gasp as I saw a familiar-looking hilt.

“Is that..” Victoria began, then trailed off when I nodded.

“Yeah. This is it. This is the knife Allie was wearing on that footage we saw earlier.”

Under my burning gaze, my fingers slowly traced the exquisite pattern engraved on the hilt.

That’s when something else clicked as well.

This scent that had been bothering me for a while now, I can suddenly remember it.

Because when I’d woken up, months after being dead or god knows what else, I could clearly remember this same scent.

Sweet, almost fruity. Heady, nearly overwhelming. Yet familiar, somehow.

That’s when it hit me.

I know this girl.

So did Allie.

I was still gazing down at the blade in my hands when I heard the girl’s breath suddenly accelerate along with the furious thumping of her heart.

Her eyes suddenly popped open and her whole body twisted at an unnatural angle as she flung Dexter’s restraining hands away and stomped on the ground hard, flipping her body into the air as though it were weightless.

“No!” I cried out, flinging my hand forward and pulling Victoria back just as she was about to fire her gun.

By the time the girl had landed, her hands were suddenly in front of her. With an effortless pull, she snapped the zip ties from her wrists. Another flourish, and there was suddenly a round object in her hand that looked suspiciously like a bomb.

“Wait, it’s me!” I cried out, holding my arms to the sides, praying that she wouldn’t decide to just blow me up or whatever it is she was planning to do, which I assumed would be equally deadly.

The girl’s eyes narrowed as she studied me and a flicker of recognition flashed in her eyes.

“Yeah, it’s me. The fucking amateur! We met outside Old Grim’s, remember?”

Finally, my words seemed to get through to her and she slowly lowered her hands. Then her eyes took on a wry look as she shook her head.

“Damn, the amateur. Kaizer freaking Lee himself, in the flesh,” she said, but then twisted her head and looked away as her voice shook with raw emotion that for some reason I had never thought she was capable of.

“Maybe, just maybe,” she said with slow finality, gazing back at me with reddened eyes, “you should have stayed dead.”