With the ground floor clear, Hallie made her way up the wide, shallow stairs. There were four large bedrooms on the upper floor, each with their own bathroom and walk-in wardrobe. The first one she came to was empty, nothing moving in the shadows. The second door - the one to her room - was slightly ajar and her breath hitched. She was sure she’d closed the door when she’d left earlier in the evening. She took a slow, deep breath, tryingto steady her hands, then pressed herself against the wall beside the door, listening hard. She thought she could hear movement, although it wasn’t so much sound, more the feeling that she was no longer alone. She nudged the door open with her foot and then ducked back immediately at the sound of a gun firing. The bullets slammed into the wall opposite the door.
Not giving herself time to think, Hallie ducked and rolled through the open doorway, coming back up to her feet with her gun held ready and firing at once when she saw the dark shadow between her and the window. Glass shattered, oddly loud after the gunshots. There was a scented candle burning in her room, caged in fine metalwork. It was almost at the end, sputtering slightly in the safety of its holder, but still giving a little bit of light. Enough for Hallie to see that the other person was clad head to toe in black, like the ones she’d met downstairs, and was pointing their gun at her. She threw herself sideways, diving across the impressive width of the bed and onto the floor on the other side, rolling again as she met the floor and coming back to her feet closer to her attacker. As her attacker brought their weapon around to aim at her, Hallie charged forwards, leading with her shoulder, hitting their midsection before they were able to fire.
The point of her shoulder hit the unmistakable wall of body armour under the black cloth and she changed tactics, holstering her gun in a smooth move and grabbing hold of the attacker’s wrist, twisting their arm so that they dropped the gun. They made a low, soft sound of pain but didn’t stay still, countering Hallie’s move by snaking their free arm around Hallie’s neck and pulling so that she was pressed back into the body of her attacker. Hallie kicked back, lifting her heel as high as she could, aiming between the attacker’s legs. She was rewarded by another sound of pain and a slight loosening of the grip around her neck. She grabbed hold of the attacker’s forearm with bothhands and pushed out, using the extra strength of herhochlennature, enough to loosen the hold so she could wriggle free. She reached for her gun again, wielding it like a club and aiming for the knitted covering over the attacker’s head and hair. There was no body armour there. The gun hit the cloth with a sickening crunch and the attacker staggered back, tumbling to the floor. Remembering the other weapons that the ones downstairs had carried, Hallie aimed her gun at the fallen figure, waiting for them to regroup and get back to their feet. When they stayed down, she nudged the nearest boot with her foot. The attacker moved, lunging forward, trying to grab Hallie’s leg. She made an undignified squeal of surprise and jumped back, firing into the centre mass. Despite the body armour, she knew a bullet at this range would hurt.
“Stay down,” Hallie ordered, making her voice as firm as she could while her heart thudded in her ears and her lungs were working with short, hard breaths. “I don’t want to kill you. Do you understand me?” A sinking feeling took hold as she asked that. She’d never had to deal with different languages in low city.
The attacker muttered something under their breath and then said something rude about Hallie’s parentage, in accented but understandable common tongue, which told Hallie two things. First, she was dealing with another man and second, he’d understood her, which took care of one potential problem at least. She was still left with the task of containing her attacker so he couldn’t hurt her or, worse, get free and find Girard, who was in no position to defend himself.
“Stay down,” Hallie said again, worry for Girard giving her voice a hard edge. She took one hand off her gun, searching at her back for her flexi-cuffs, only to remember that she’d used them on the living attacker downstairs. Muttering a curse of her own, she cast an eye around the room, looking for something else she could use to tie the man up. Her gaze landed on the tie-backs for the drapes over the window. Flexi-cuffs, or rope, would be better, but the ties were better than nothing.
At her hip thezauberstirred. If the artefact had possessed a throat, it would have cleared it in an almost deferential way.
Can you do something with the ties to make sure he can’t escape?- Hallie asked thezauber. The wordless reply she got was the equivalent of a teenager rolling their eyes as if she’d asked them to do the most mundane and boring task in the world.Fine. Do that.
Hallie grabbed the ties from the curtains and holstered her gun again, approaching the prone figure. She was surprised when he didn’t move, and then felt the current of power emanating from thezauber. It seemed that the artefact had decided to help.Very useful, thank you- Hallie told it.
With thezauber’shelp, it took little time to tie up the attacker. Removing his head covering revealed a mass of blood which made her grimace, along with pale skin and dark blond hair. It seemed that all the attackers were not locals. That was interesting. A quick search of his person and she found another gun and a single knife, stowing them in the small safe in the walk-in wardrobe. The attacker didn’t stir, or even open his eyes as she moved past him. Conscious that she still had two more rooms to go, Hallie left him lying on the floor, in darkness scented with jasmine, as the candle had finally died, and headed out into the corridor again.
To her great relief, the rest of the floor was empty. She came back to the top of the stairs and started down, then remembered that she still had the director connected on her mobile. Shepulled the phone out of her pocket as she reached the ground floor.
“House is clear. Three attackers in total. One dead, two are tied up,” she said into the phone.
There was a long pause, long enough that she wondered if the line had been disconnected, checking the timer running at the top of the screen and seeing that the call was still in progress. The time elapsed gave her a jolt. Not even a quarter of an hour. Not nearly enough for everything she’d been through.
“That’s good news. Well done.” Peredur’s voice echoed at the other end of the line, as though he was on speaker phone as well. “I’m arranging for backup for you. It might be a little while, but you’ll have friendly company as soon as possible.”
“Alright,” Hallie said, hearing the quaver in her voice and unable to do anything about it. The idea of having someone else to keep an eye out for masked and armed attackers was deeply appealing.
“Are you back with Girard?” the director asked, voice brisk.
“Almost,” Hallie said as she came into sight of the dining room doors. Girard was still sitting, propped up by the door jamb. Despite the dressing Hallie had applied, there was more blood soaking his t-shirt and the ground beneath and around him.
“I’ve got Duncan with me. He’s going to talk you through some more medical checks,” Peredur said.
“Good. Do you need video or pictures?” Hallie asked, settling on the floor next to Girard. He was still breathing, but his skin had an unhealthy tint to it, along with a sheen of sweat.
“Good day to you, Miss Talbot.” The voice that came on the phone was familiar. Duncan was one of the tactical team and had some extra medical training. “Can you switch to a video call and show me Investigator Abbott?”
“I’ll do my best. And please, call me Hallie,” she answered, frowning at the phone screen as if she’d never seen the device before.
When she’d managed to get the video turned on and connected, she followed Duncan’s instructions to pan the camera slowly over Girard, and check the rate of his breathing and pulse before Duncan asked her to remove the dressing and clean the wound so he could see the extent of the injuries.
Girard stayed unconscious through the whole process, which was a blessing as far as Hallie was concerned. She did her best to ignore the tremor in her hands as she wiped blood away from his abdomen, exposing a startlingly small hole in his skin with faint lines radiating from the entry point. She managed to push aside her nerves and worry, listening to the professional calm of Duncan’s voice. Even through the phone line, she would have sensed a lie, but he was reassuring and she drew some of that into her as she followed his instructions. Checking Girard’s back exposed a far larger, far messier hole in his skin that made Hallie’s stomach churn. She clamped her jaw shut, narrowing her focus to Duncan’s voice and what he was asking her to do, applying dressings to both wounds and then adding an antibiotic to the painkiller she’d already given Girard. To her surprise, Duncan didn’t want her to move Girard from the doorway, but did suggest finding a cover for him so Hallie made her way into the living room and dragged one of the doubtless expensive crimson throws off a floor cushion, bringing it back to drape over Girard’s unconscious form.
That done, there was nothing more she could do until the backup team arrived, Duncan said. He gave her instructions about checking Girard’s pulse and breathing to monitor if anything changed.
Hallie sank back against the door frame opposite Girard and drew a long, ragged breath which held more than a hint ofsob. Girard was as safe as she could make him right now. The aftermath of the blood and the violence were catching up to her, a tremor running through her whole body. Then Duncan’s face on the screen was replaced by Peredur, wearing a serious expression, the shadows under his eyes more pronounced.
“If you are able to, Miss Talbot, would you be able to show me images of the attackers, or take photos of them?” he asked.
“There’s one right here,” Hallie said, glad to have something practical she could do rather than sit and worry as she listened to Girard breathe. She turned the camera lens onto the dead man’s face.
“I don’t recognise him. Human orveondken, do you think?” the director asked Hallie.
“I’d say they are all human. Judging by the colouring, none of them are local. Too pale. They’ve had some training,” she said, struggling to her feet, ready to go back to the office and the man she’d left in cuffs. “They are wearing body armour on their torsos. The weapons are automatic types,” she added, and panned the camera around to show the discarded weapons on the floor, far out of reach of the dead attacker. “They were all carrying an extra gun and at least one knife.”
“Have they said anything?” he asked.
