I run to the metal door and pull it open. Five seconds and I’m up the stairs, not caring if Raguel and Oliver are following me.
I go through another door that takes me to the parking garage, and more stairs until I reach the first floor. A man is standing with his back to me. I hook my bow on my shoulder and slide out the knife. My hand covers his mouth as the blade cuts his throat. I watch the skin part, blood dripping out before I silently lower him to the floor and keep moving.
“Gabriel, three men behind the door,” Uriel says. “Ezra, two on your left.”
I get one in the head and the other in the eye with my arrows. The tips are soaked in a poison Sari created. It kills in seconds, inflicting excruciating pain, so I just need to hit the targets anywhere on the body, the poison will do the rest—same goes for all the knives and bullets we are using.
“Uriel, where’s Sully?” I ask, pulling the arrows out of the corpses.
“He is on the second floor, last door on the right.”
I hear gunshots on my left as one of Nine’s men starts to blindly use his gun. Oliver takes care of him with his spiked bat andshield. I can see Gabriel sending his knives flying while Lori is skillfully using an umbrella with a sharp blade at the end against two men.
I keep advancing. It has been so long since I’ve let really loose. I aim and fire, aim and fire, moving with a liquid grace, rage in each quick and precise shot.
Uriel keeps warning us as I hear him shoot his rifle all the way from the adjacent building.
I kick a door so hard it falls on the man standing behind it. A sudden light blinds me for a moment, and I feel the abrupt sting of a bullet grazing my side. I take the pain for what it is and toss my knife toward the brightness. Fucking cellphones. I crush it under my boot before pulling the blade out of a guy’s stomach.
I alternate upward knife slices with slashes, stabs, and downward chops as more men come my way. One shitbag is brandishing a sword, and I deflect it before it hits my chest and stab the fucker with an arrow repeatedly in the neck. Then I swiftly spin around and grip another one around his neck, twirl him as if he were a dance partner, and drive him back into the wall so hard I can clearly see his eyes crossing when the back of his skull makes contact with the unforgiving surface.
A screaming dude charges at me. I let one of my arrows bounce off the ground and hit him right in his torso. He stumbles backward before dropping to his knees with a bleeding stain forming on his stomach. A knife would have been better, but I can’t be picky.
The fuckers keep multiplying like a virus and attacking us. Linda’s tip was right, then. My blood pumps, and sweat pours asI give into more chaos. For every hit I take, I give it back twice as good.
Raguel is on my left. He swings his arms, they cut through the air with an audible whoosh, and his fists hit two men, making crunching noises. Blood flows and splatters over his face and clothes as he growls—is this the red haze? Hunter and Raphael are using their guns to cover him—since he doesn’t seem to care if he gets hurt—while Oliver stays close.
Glass suddenly starts falling over me from the skylight as at least forty men descend thick ropes from the ceiling inside the lobby, led by Linda. The lights suddenly come back on.
I quickly turn off the night vision as four men attack me at once, not giving me room to think about anything but fighting. I push a button on my bow, and two sharp blades come out on the metal extremities. I spear one guy in the cheek, another in the dick, the third has his hand slashed off, and the fourth his belly split open. They are dead in seconds. This poison is extremely effective.
Linda’s men are definitely professional, perhaps some of them even mercenaries. The way they fight is proof enough. I don’t give a fuck, provided they are here on our side. Linda is killing like a born predator, creating a road of corpses using her opponents’ weapons. It’s the first time I’ve witnessed her fighting abilities. Now I know why the team is this good. I still want to twist her neck, though.
I’ve finally reached the bottom of the stairs when I hear Uriel yell inside my ear, “Let’s move things up a bit. Get down all. Now!”
“Get down! Get Down!” Linda screams.
I growl angrily as I flatten myself on the floor just in time before Uriel starts using his railgun. A violent whip-like boom coversany other sound. Like in slow motion, I see bodies shaking backward while getting hit repeatedly by flying bullets. Skin torn apart, blood arching through the air, the persistent sound of wailing and pain. More dark blood splatters against the walls, over the floor, hitting me in a wave. It’s a slaughter. And I watch with satisfaction as each motherfucker hits the floor.
When silence comes back, my ears are ringing, I’m aching and bleeding in more than one place, but I need to get to Sully. I jump up and turn once again to the stairs. More men appear blocking the way. At this rate, I’ll never reach him.
I start to deflect and block the attacks, fury is shoving me forward, but it’s Sully’s sweet grin that is giving me the strength to keep going.
“Ezra needs a clear path to the second floor,” Oliver suddenly says.
Raguel materializes to my right, grabbing two guys by their collars. He lifts them and shoves their faces into a wooden table. Their heads go through the wood with a harsh thud. Oliver comes to my left, he throws wall plaster at two men’s faces before getting them in the balls with his foot and hitting their faces with his spiked bat.
Raphael is behind me, slashing, slitting, scalping men right and left with his axe, a crazy smile at the sight of blood. Ramiel and Hunter get in the mix, fighting tooth and nail; their perfectly synced combat moves are impressive.
“Go!” Lori suddenly yells at me, jumping on top of a man.
I nod at him and start to climb the stairs, holding my bow in one hand, two arrows ready.
“Ezra! Stay on the right!” I suddenly hear Sully’s voice from the second floor, and I follow his instruction, only now noticing the holes on the left side of the staircase steps.
I’m almost at the top when I see Sully running toward me. There’s blood on the corner of his mouth, and his clothes look dirty, but he looks fine. A man comes out of one of the rooms. He sees Sully and grabs him by the hair. A snarl rips out of my throat, and I lift my bow, ready to shoot. But something stops me. I see fear followed by fire blazing in my little chick’s eyes, before he sinks his nails in the hand holding his hair and elbows the attacker in the guts. Then he spins around and knees the prick in the balls. Noodle comes out of his hoodie and scratches the guy’s face before jumping back on Sully’s shoulder.
I’m fucking smirking at the scene even when I sense some movement on my left. A fist flies through the air, and I barely manage to get out of the way in time. A knife comes at me, driving me back and cutting my already bleeding side. Shit! The guy is massive, like a damn tank. He suddenly levels his gun at me, but before he can pull the trigger, a perfect hole forms on his left temple as blood spatters and he collapses in a heap. I turn to see Uriel on the first floor in the hotel lobby, smiling up at me. Behind him, Lori and Michael are fighting off two men.
