Sicarii 3

by Adrienne Wilder

  Ben walked over. “Looks like they’re not finished.”

  As big as they were, Jacob doubted it would make much difference.

  A painfilled cry carried down the elevator shaft. Voices followed, a woman, a man…

  No, men.

  The tones distinctive.

  Ben leaned close enough his whisper brushed Jacob’s cheek. “Do you see a way up?”

  “Probably the stairwell in the garage.”

  “What about the elevator?” Ben nodded at the steel shaft several yards ahead.

  Thick beams of metal crisscrossed the sides and back of the shaft. Jacob stopped at the edge. A pole extended from the center. The skeleton of a cage sat at the next floor. It offered plenty of handholds if they could make it up the side.

  Ben slipped the gun into the waist of his jeans. “You want to go first?”

  Jacob gripped one of the I beams and found a foothold on a cross-section.

  “Don’t do that.” The man held a bag in one hand and a gun in the other.

  Ben reached for his weapon.

  The man clicked his tongue. “I wouldn’t do that either. Now raise your hands.”

  Jacob did.

  Ben hesitated.

  The man cocked the hammer on his gun.

  Ben raised his hands.

  A second man, shorter, but just as well-armed emerged from the shadows and pulled the gun from Ben’s jeans, then smiled at them. “Come, we’ll take you upstairs for a guided tour.”

  The parking deck and unfinished self-storage building seemed like an odd place for Yvette to take Sam.

  But the reasons emerged as Marcel drove past the construction sign. Annanstein Enterprises.

  He knew then she was out for more than revenge against him. She was out for revenge on her family. This was a show of power. Maybe even a start to an internal war.

  A common crossroad among the outside Houses. Especially those where blood ran thicker than truth. There, daughters and sons thought nothing of toppling the empires of their parents as long as they could rebuild on the piles of rubble.

  That forever struggle is what made them so dangerous, so unpredictable, so destructive.

  Marcel parked his car under the streetlamp. The sheaths, with his daggers, dug into his back as he got out.

  If Yvette’s men watched—and he was sure they were—it made no difference.

  Death did not frighten Marcel.

  Pain was no concern.

  Retribution did not exist.

  Marcel was simply there to collect the life gifted to him. Whatever consequences occurred were irrelevant. As long as Yvette did not get in his way or try to keep Ben and Jacob, or kill them, Marcel would leave, and she would be left to her own devices.

  But he knew she wouldn’t be able to resist. Her deep-rooted hate, her natural human instincts, would never allow it.

  He entered through the gap in an unfinished wall and followed the faint footsteps stamped with dust. Two pairs of tennis shoes. One man with a wider step, the other hesitant.

  Marcel slipped down the aisle dividing the equipment. Sawhorses and crates of supplies too large to carry cluttered the space. The prints clustered together at a support pillar: wires, a canister, plastic explosives.

  More bombs occupied other pillars, some finished, more not. They lacked the intricate wiring Yvette’s family was known for or the nearly ornate detonators. But the smooth twist of joining wires, the arrangement across the top of the canister, was an unmistakable signature despite the rushed job.

  While the supplies she used might have been grade B, they were no less deadly.

  Ben and Jacob’s tracks faded as Marcel approached the elevator shaft. Wire clippings behind one of the pillars scattered in the direction of the elevator. A roll of duct tape dangled half-wrapped around a canister.

  The men had probably seen Ben and Jacob enter and waited in the shadows. With the advantage, they wouldn’t need to be well-trained to sneak up on them.

  Marcel tilted his head using his good ear. Distant traffic, the flap of plastic, the trash skipping over the ground outside. White dust drifted from where it had settled on benches, wooden flakes scattered.

  The elevator shaft funneled down voices too far away to form actual words but close enough for the echo to bounce.

  Wires dangled from gaps where bits of light slipped through the subflooring above. A shadow passed over, followed by a soft thump. More muffled voices. The pitch of one higher and smooth.

  The unfinished parking deck walls left open the stairwell to the other levels.

  More bombs, more canisters, more supplies left in piles waiting to be assembled.

  Yes. Yvette would ruin her family’s property to conceal the bodies she planned on leaving behind. But the placements were too far away to implode the building. Selected pillars would collapse, putting too much strain on supports. Then the rest would come down a section at a time.

  Fast had never been Yvette’s style. She would want death to come slow and painful, in the form of boiling flesh and burning bones.

  Movement scuffed the concrete. A white breath puffed from behind a divider wide enough to almost be considered a wall.

  Fabric whispered.

  Marcel pivoted back in the direction of the pillars just as the gunshot rang out. Concrete chips erupted from a fresh crater in the corner of a pillar. The man on the other side of the room came around the wall, his gun out.

  Marcel unsheathed his daggers, the metal making no sound against the leather.

  Voices echoed from the stairwell ahead of the drum of pounding feet. Off to Marcel’s right, the ambient light withered. The man who’d taken the first shot sidestepped a circle around the concrete beam. Marcel slipped to the back. Another shot and the pillar spit out pebbles, pelting the side of Marcel’s face.

  He waited.

  Men moved closer, their steps measured with momentary pauses. The man circling the pillar rounded the edge, his orbit brought him closer, his arrogance made him slow.

  Marcel swept forward, twisting to the side. A bullet grazed his chest and cut a line across the top of his forearm. One of the other men yelled in pain. Marcel made an upswing, and the blade in his left hand slipped through the bones of his attacker’s hand. He used the leverage, pushing the gunman off-balance, sliding behind his back, and guiding the second knife across the man’s throat.

  A cluster of Yvette’s men rushed forward, and Marcel shoved the dead man into their path; one stumbled, another missed. Fire erupted in Marcel’s shoulder, another burning spear struck him in the upper arm.

  His heartbeat remained steady, his breathing even. He barreled through the gap between the two gunmen closest to him. One turned and fired. Bones dipped in scarlet splattered the side of Marcel’s face as another gunman’s jaw disintegrated from the close-range shot from his companion.

  Marcel lunged, catching the other attacker’s arm, pinning the limb to his ribs, holding it in place with his elbow. It overlapped the muzzle of the gun. Heat ran down the kicking barrel. The gunman kept pulling the trigger even though it was useless.

  Shadows and light dripped down the blade in Marcel’s grip. The edge caressed the man’s throat, splitting flesh and esophagus. He crumpled to the ground, and Marcel headed toward the darkened part of the room. A bullet whistled past his head, another tore a hole through the fold in his shirt, cutting close enough to singe his flesh along his side.

  The bits of falling rubble accentuated the pop-pop echoing off the walls.

  They stopped firing, and one man spoke into a walkie talkie. “James, Dillion, Mikeal, they’re all down.”

  Static broke apart Yvette’s reply, in sync with the indistinguishable voice overhead. “There are eight of you, one of him.”

  “At least send Phillipe and Nigel.”

  “Kill him, Bernard, kill him, or you’ll just be another body on the funeral pyre.”

  Marcel kept the pillar at his back, going deeper into the dark. Chains strapped down
crates of tile, metal beams, and tons of plate metal. They were no more than faint shapes perfumed with oil and pine.

  Obstacles in the dark disrupted flow of air following his movements and the soles of his shoe brushing the cement. Marcel adjusted his steps to the barest contact to anything on the floor, maneuvering through the tight spaces left between the building materials.

  Flashlight beams broke through the shadows, and Marcel slid around the back side of the crates.

  He waited.

  Grit and dirt crunched louder. Adrenaline tainted exhales.

  Wool against cotton.

  Small clicks of metal from grips being adjusted holding guns.

  He waited.

  Chains shifted.

  Cologne with the undertone of roses.

  The beam of the flashlight the man held broke past Marcel, illuminating the skeletal frame supporting the outside wall.

  The man on the right passed the edge of the crates first, and Marcel turned, whipping his dagger across his throat. Before the man could fall, Marcel shifted his stance, readying his knife.

  The body thumped.

  “Charles?” The gunman came around the corner. Marcel raised his arm, and the man clothes-lined himself on the edge of Marcel’s dagger. He pivoted on his heel, making a half-circle around the man opposite to his gun hand. The dagger struck bone catching for a millisecond before sliding free. A second body joined the first.

  Marcel pressed himself against the other side of the crates.

  Curses rose up from the position he’d abandoned. One of the men charged around the corner in clear pursuit of prey who didn’t run. Marcel swept his left hand low, driving his blade into the man’s wrist, pinning his gun hand to the other crate.

  Muzzle flashes lit up the small space. Bullets splintered the wood where they gouged out paths.

  At the same time, Marcel swung his right hand upward. Crimson arced over Marcel’s arm, spraying the crates in a wash and catching the man behind his target as he fell.

  Marcel surged forward with wide steps retracing the passage back through the stack of supplies, stopping in the space between the stacks. The barrier brought a second of blindness to his next target.

  But it was all Marcel needed. He swept his arms, crossing the knives at the man’s neck and flaying him open.

  The air shifted, and Marcel turned, using the body as a shield. It was enough to slow down the bullet but not enough to stop it. It ripped through the dead man’s torso, punching a hole in Marcel’s side. The second shattered the femur of the dead man, ricocheting into Marcel’s thigh.

  Agony bit deep, riding up his nerves, threatening to fold Marcel’s knees.

  He inhaled, pulling back the pain, and used the adrenaline rush it caused to shove the corpse he held into the new gunman. He stumbled back, shots lighting up the shadows again. A flashlight beam struck Marcel on his good side. He spun around the corner of the crate back over the dead man. Planks splintered where his head had been.

  Marcel made it to the end of the aisle of crates. Slivers of wood blew from the planks, sticking in his cheek and cutting through the shoulder of his shirt.

  He moved into the shadow, heading down the long row. Stacks of mortar bags offered a small wedge of a shield. He pressed himself against the crates, arms crossed over his chest, all air expelled from his lungs, drawing chest in until his body had less than a few centimeters of clearance from the end of the stack.

  The pool from the flashlight beam darted past him. Shoes slapped the concrete. The man passed, and Marcel followed, matching his footsteps. The gunman came to a stop when he reached the end of the crates and had nowhere to turn.

  Marcel looped his arm around the man’s neck, but instead of tightening his hold, he slipped the blade into his throat.

  Air bubbled from the gunman’s opened trachea, and he stood there staring down at the waterfall of blood, almost black against the light. Marcel plucked the gun from the man’s hand. Horror and fear contorted his features. Marcel lowered him to the ground. Frantic heartbeats expelling streams growing weaker and weaker.

  The gunman’s eyes dilated. His lips moved.

  Flapping plastic filled the quiet. Copper ruled over the scent of wet concrete. Marcel touched the dying man’s cheek.

  But Marcel did not have time to savor the gift.

  He stood.

  Muscles in his thigh rebelled, and the light of the flashlight brightened. He leaned against the crate until the vertigo subsided, replaced by the throb from each bullet hole in his body. The one on his leg bled the most. He tore off the sleeve of his shirt and tied it around his thigh. If the artery had been hit, he would have already bled out.

  The makeshift bandage would do until he finished this.

  And he would finish it.

  The gunshots stopped.

  The four men with Yvette exchanged uneasy glances.

  “Give me your radio.” She held out her hand, and Robert handed over his walky-talky. “Gerard, where are you?” Static. “Charles?” Again static.

  Marcel’s two whores watched her from where they were zip-tied to the pipes, and the boy remained in the chair.

  Yvette pressed the button on the radio. “Goddamit, Charles, answer me.”

  A loud bang beat from the door to the stairwell. The crowbar holding it shut rattled.

  Yvette’s men didn’t move until the wavering voice of Edward trickled in. “It’s me.”

  Yvette nodded at Phillipe. He opened the door just enough to let Edward stumble in, then shoved the metal barrier shut and replaced the crowbar.

  Blood pumped from between Edward’s fingers where he held his hand against his stomach. Gut wounds were never pretty.

  Already the color drained from his face, his breathing stuttered, and his limbs shook.

  “He killed them.”

  Yvette squeezed the radio she held until every finger with a ring ached. “No.”

  “He did.”

  “Then why are you alive?”

  “Bernard accidentally shot me. While they went after him, I came up here to warn you.”

  “You mean you ran away.”

  He raised his gaze. The yes was there in his eyes, drowning in guilt. “He didn’t even have a gun, Yvette. He killed them with knives.”

  “Knives.” It was more of a statement.

  Yvette had heard the stories growing up, but she’d never believed them. She didn’t even believe them standing in front of one of her men while he bled out.

  There was no way a man, let alone an old man, could kill eight armed men—with knives. It wasn’t even fathomable.

  But there was only truth in Edward’s eyes. Or at least, he believed what he said.

  “Maybe we should go, Ms. Yvette,” Robert said.

  “Omar doesn’t even have half the explosives in place.”

  “He did enough to bring down the building.”

  “But not enough to make it burn to nothing.” Yvette wanted hell to rain down, not a pitiful campfire.

  “Please, Ms. Yvette. We need to leave. You can trigger the detonators a block away.”

  It wouldn’t be the same.

  Edward whimpered, and sweat matted his hair to his temples.

  At least she wouldn’t be dead, and Marcel would still burn.

  “Lock them in one of the storage units.”

  “Of course, Ms. Yvette.”

  Phillipe held them at gunpoint while Gaven and Omar cut the bindings from Ben and Jacob’s wrists, and led them into one of the storage units.

  Steel walls. Steel doors. When the building went up, even partway, it would become an oven.

  Not getting to see it happen was the only downfall.

  Robert held out Yvette’s coat.

  The roll-up door clattered closed. Phillipe engaged the locks.

  Yvette gathered her things. “Robert, make sure you send a video of this place burning to my—” She turned.

  Omar stood in front of the elevator shaft, bag of supplies in
one hand, eyes on Yvette. The look of an obedient soldier waiting for orders. Someone trained to protect Yvette. Someone loyal. Trusted.

  Someone who should have been aware of Marcel draped in the shadows of the elevator shaft, standing at his back with mere inches between them. The knife in his hand.

  And the moment he raised it.

  The bastard even paused, the darkness in his good eye was nothing like the cruelty of a cold stoned killer. There was no anticipation. There was no hate. No pleasure. Nothing showed in Marcel’s face. And it made him seem so unreal, Yvette started to question whether or not he existed.

  Then he slipped the blade across Omar’s neck. The man gasped and dropped the bag. He stared with disbelief at the rush of red soaking his shirt, streaming down his arms.

  Robert was the first to react, lifting his gun. Marcel vanished back into the elevator shaft, and the bullets threw sparks where they struck the frame.

  “Fuck.” Robert waved a hand at Yvette. “Let’s go.”

  “Where the hell did he come from?” Gaven looked at Yvette like she knew the answer.

  But she didn’t. At that moment, she questioned everything in her world. She headed to the stairwell door. Edward lay on his side. The pool of blood surrounding him leeched under the door. Yvette waited for Robert to remove the crowbar.

  Gaven and Phillip stood with their backs to them, watching the shaft of the elevator.

  Robert tossed the crowbar to the side, and they entered the stairwell. He motioned for Yvette to wait at the last step before the landing while he moved to the next set of stairs to the lower level.

  “Clear.”

  Yvette’s heels clicked against the concrete. Robert held out an arm, stopping her before she could pass. He nodded at Gaven, who took the lead. He cleared the second set of stairs to the main landing leading into the parking garage

  Yvette waited with Robert and Gaven, while Phillip cleared the area outside the stairwell.

  The parking lot was empty, except for building supplies and a couple of ground movers. Yvette had her driver park three aisles over. Not far. A hundred feet at the most. Now she wished she’d had him park closer.

  She told herself she had three of her best men at her side, armed with guns. But every silent argument spawned the image of Marcel sliding his knife across Omar’s neck.