For just a moment, I let myself feel the heaviness of taking a life. Regardless of who they are or the cult they serve, these people likely have families waiting for them to come home.
But I am not the one who recruited them. I am not the one who brought them here, knowing they’d be in danger of becoming sacrificial pawns in this macabre game of chess. Their blood is on Leviathan's hands, not mine.
Still, I whisper a prayer for them to find their way to where they belong.
And then I move on to the next.
Again and again, I reach for the memories I’ve been avoiding for so long to charge the force behind every cold-blooded murder: Mama’s hazel eyes closing far too soon; my father’s hot blood bathing me in death; rabid dogs chasing me and my siblings through eldritch mazes; skinning and stitching to the sound of wretched screams; seeing the woman I love lying in bed as she fought for her life.
I lose count of the bodies I leave in my wake. Behind me, I see only one color.
Red.
I never told her, but Virgil’s fear for me was misplaced. She was there with me and my brother in Sleepy Hollow. She took as long to recover from the trauma as us. But she forgets what happened before that. She forgets that we were trained to be ruthless killing machines.
Murder is in our blood.
Jezebel pounces the next doomed soul as they round the corner of a gargoyle statue. This feline is a force of nature unlike any I’ve ever seen. Silent as tombs, deadlier than any bullet or blade. She goes for the throat, downing them without a single sound aside from a wet gargle and a heavythump.
Scanning my surroundings to ensure we didn’t miss anyone, I murmur, “Secure.”
A moment later, Nikolai tags in. “Secure.”
“Brontë,” Dantë growls in my ear, sounding strained. “I need h—”
He cuts off with a bark of pain, and I’m instantly running with Jezebel at my heels. We skid around a tall trio of weeping angels. Crimson blooms on Dantë’s right thigh as he struggles with fending off two guards at once. I target the one lifting their rifle.
The KA-BAR slingshots from my hand, clanging against the raised gun. The guard whips their head my way, and Dantë sinks his blade into their gut. I switch my focus to the other guard, lifting another knife to throw.
They fall for the bait, latching their attention onto me as Jezebel strikes from behind, ripping and shredding until they die with a whimper.
I clap my twin’s shoulder, jutting my chin toward the slice in his thigh. “All right, Ghostface?”
“Never better.” He grins, his pupils dilated. He’s high on adrenaline.
I shake my head, muttering, “Fuckingcrétin,” under my breath.
“They know you’re there,” Emi warns. “Light it up.Now!”
Dantë lurches, moving fast as if he wasn’t just stabbed in the leg. He slings off his bandolier of grenades, pulls the pin from a single pineapple, and flings it back toward the treeline. The three of us immediately sprint for cover, diving around the back of a gravestone just as the thunderousBOOMshakes the night awake.
Faster than a lick of lightning, the dynamite catches the explosion and erupts like a slumbering volcano disturbed from its peaceful sleep and taking vengeance by ending the world.Flames spear into the sky as the forest ignites in an inferno of hot, hungry fire.
Somewhere in the chaos, I hear a madman's laughter. It takes me a moment to realize it’s coming from my ear, and it sounds like Bax.
Angels above.He really is a pyromaniac.
“Volkov,” I bark. “Tag in.”
No response.
“Emi?”
“Looking!”
“We’re wasting time,” Dantë growls. “He’s probablydead.”
“Putain.Fuck it. Let’s go!”
