by D. Laine
I downplayed my haste to get the hell out of there by retreating to the door at a normal pace. One that didn’t give away my knowledge of what every person in this room was. My hand reached for the door, then slowly dropped when the professor called my name.
“Mr. Walters?”
I wiped the grimace from my face before I turned.
“There’s a student-run study group,” the professor announced. “Mondays and Wednesdays in the evening. I suggest you consider it.”
The guy that opened the door earlier placed a paper in my hand. I glanced over the meeting time and location, and gave him a grateful nod. Anything to keep him from thinking I was nothing more than another clueless lamb being led to slaughter.
“Thank you,” I muttered before I got the hell out of there.
Jake halted his pacing in the middle of the hallway when I closed the door behind me with a shaky sigh.
“What is it?” he whispered.
I nodded my head down the hallway and he fell into step beside me as we walked away from the professor’s lair. “He’s got a protection detail,” I explained once we were out of earshot. “Of tags.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah.”
“How many?”
“I only saw the neck of the one, but I assume the others were tagged as well. At least three.”
“He is a high-level vessel.” Jake nodded thoughtfully. “We’ll need Marcus and Maria.”
“We can’t take him here,” I added. “It’s going to have to be done off school property. Half the geology students are probably already tagged and ready to protect him.” I shoved the study group paper into Jake’s hands. “I think he just tried to recruit me into his group of tag-thugs.”
Jake glanced it over before shooting me a crooked grin. “Then we need to hit the professor at home.”
I groaned when I realized what that meant. “You want to do a stakeout, don’t you?”
For some stupid reason, Jake loved stakeouts. Claimed they made him feel special—like a top-notch detective from one of those stupid cop shows he got off on watching. I, on the other hand, hated them. Stuck in a car with a dude, a thermos of coffee, and a bag of chips—nothing glamorous about that.
“It won’t be that bad,” Jake insisted. “Not when we have the Chavez twins to keep us entertained.”
I absentmindedly rubbed the still-sore bridge of my nose, which had experienced the power behind Marcus’s knuckles. “Yeah. Sounds like a great time.”
DID I mention yet how much I hated stakeouts?
They were the most boring, mundane hours of wasted life in a life already shortened by an impending apocalypse.
Throw in the Chavez twins—one of whom made it clear that she wanted to get in my pants while the other’s permanent scowl promised castration if I touched her again—and it was downright hell. Both of them sat behind me in the back seat of the Hummer, their eyes on me for two entirely different reasons.
I wasn’t grumpy because of that. I was grumpy because there were much better things I could be doing right now.
I pulled my phone out of my pocket to glance at the display. 7:44. Not one message from Thea. My thumb hovered over the screen in deliberation. I could tell her something came up tonight, or . . .
There was a chance—a small chance—I could still make it happen. Depending on when the professor decided to make an appearance. And how fast of a talker he was.
I pulled Thea’s name up to shoot her a quick text when Marcus piped up from his seat behind me.
“Movement at the back door.”
I tucked the phone away without sending the message and shifted to peer toward the rear of the building. The parking lot lights cast a creepy yellow glow on the professor as he stepped outside . . . surrounded by the three tags from earlier.
“They’re flanking him like he’s the fucking president,” Marcus grumbled.
“Nah. He’s more like . . . Secretary of Defense or something like that,” I returned. “Lucifer’s vessel, on the other hand . . .”
“Is not the president,” Maria reminded me. “Agency already confirmed that.”
“You know what I mean,” I muttered.
“Actually, I don’t,” she scoffed. “Your analogy makes no sense. We know the vessels aren’t any high profile targets.”
“I wasn’t being literal,” I fired over my shoulder. “I was—”
“Making a dumb statement.”
“Not if you—”
“Will the two of you ever stop bickering like an old married couple?” Jake bellowed from the driver’s seat.
“They’re worse now than when we were kids,” Marcus muttered.
“Fix the mess you got yourselves into”—Jake jabbed a finger at each of us—“before one of you gets killed.”
They were right, of course. It seemed hooking up had put an even bigger strain on my already unusual friendship with Maria, and they both knew it. Realizing I had no sensible argument, I spun forward in my seat with a sharp nod.
When I glanced at Jake, his eyes directed me to what was important. The professor. The tags. Across the parking lot, climbing into a single vehicle.
“Do we follow?” Marcus pondered.
“I don’t think we have much of a choice.” Jake shifted the Hummer into gear as the professor’s vehicle pulled out of the parking lot. “Let’s see where he’s going, at least.”
I expected somewhere cool, somewhere exciting. Maybe somewhere that held all the answers we still needed. What they were doing. What they were planning. What they planned to pull it off with. How many of them were still left in town to take care of the job.
After twenty minutes of following the professor and his zombie goons into the wide open nothingness outside the town limits, we came to a stop in front of a sprawling ranch house with a well-manicured lawn. Jake pulled to the side of the road as the taillights of the professor’s car disappeared inside the attached garage. We sat in the shadows cast by the thick trees that bordered the road and watched in silence as the door lowered behind him.
“Now what?” Maria snapped from the back seat.
I grinned sideways at Jake. “I don’t know about you, but I’m ready for some action.”
“Let’s go.” Jake nodded. “Only way to find out what the professor is up to is to ask him nicely ourselves.”
“And by nicely . . .” I paused with my hand on the door to shoot a grin over my shoulder.
“Let’s do what we do best,” Jake finished my thought.
The four of us climbed out of the vehicle with smooth precision and stealth garnered from years of action. Weapons checked and prepped, we turned for the house as a single unit and began our march into enemy territory.
You would think that four seasoned warriors, chosen at birth and molded for one purpose since the age of twelve, would know how to control themselves by now. You would think that we had our shit together. Unfortunately, you would be wrong.
The future of the world rested in the hands of a bunch of twenty-somethings with ripped bodies, egos the size of dinosaur-killing asteroids, and a limitless supply of lethal weapons. We were a force to be reckoned with. Let loose in the wild, we plowed our own path of destruction. The irony was not lost on me.
Yet while we all shared a common enemy and purpose, egos, tempers, and hormones occasionally got the best of us. With no one to take the frustration out on but each other, it sometimes got ugly.
I snagged Marcus’s elbow as he galloped brazenly across the manicured lawn with a little too much enthusiasm.
“We have no idea how many more might be inside,” I warned. “We could be walking into a slaughter. You might want to tone it down a notch.”
“Slaughter for them,” he amended with a deep chuckle before marching on.
“You just saw your first tag last week.” I gripped his shoulder to turn him to me. “In case you didn’t notice, they’re harder than vessels to take down.”
“I know.” His eyes flash
ed defiantly.
“You know from what the agency has told us. Real world is different. They’re faster, and when they get a taste for your blood—”
“We won’t give them a chance,” Jake offered from behind me. To Marcus and Maria, he added, “Go for the heads. We’ll take them out fast and clean and with a little luck they won’t know what hit them.”
“We need to find a way in first,” Maria reminded us as she crept toward the side of the garage.
I held on to Marcus when he tried to follow. His eyes met mine reluctantly, and I added, “No hero shit. We’re in this together. Got it?”
He ripped his arm out of my grasp with a growl. “I got it.”
“Point of entry over here, guys,” Maria announced. The rest of us rounded the corner to find her standing beneath a narrow window.
Jake stepped closer to inspect the frame with a flashlight. “I don’t see a security system.”
“The tags are his security,” I snorted.
“None of you are fitting through there,” Maria pointed out.
Jake and I exchanged defeated looks, and then I saw the look on Maria’s face. About a half second before Marcus saw it.
He turned to his sister. “You’re not—”
Maria spun on him so fast I nearly got whiplash. She pointed a finger in his face. “Did anyone ask for your opinion? No. I’m not a child, and I certainly don’t need a babysitter telling me what I can and cannot do. You want in the house? I can get you in.”
I attempted to conceal the huge grin on my face with my hand, but I knew it wasn’t working. Not when Marcus fixed his steely glare on me. I held my hands out defensively. “She’s the best option we have, Marcus.”
“I’m the only option,” Maria amended. Turning to Jake, she ordered, “Get me in.”
Thanks to the agency, we were well equipped for unlawful breaking and entering. Using the array of gadgets Jake had thought to bring from the Hummer, he jimmied the lock and lifted the window with the efficiency and stealth of a career criminal. Maria climbed through the narrow opening like she’d spent her teenage years sneaking in and out of tight spots.
Moments later, she disengaged the lock on the access door along the back wall of the garage, and we were in. From there, getting into the heart of the house was simple.
Almost too simple. Gliding through the shadows in the mud room that connected the garage to the house, something that felt too much like uncertainty churned in my gut. It was an unknown sensation, one I’d never had before. I didn’t get the jitters.
I loved danger. I lived for this shit.
The moment I poked my head around the corner at the door and spotted the two tags standing in the kitchen, the unfamiliar sensation gave way to excitement. Adrenaline took over, and I basked in the thrill of the kill I was about to make.
I lifted my hand above my head, holding two fingers up to let the others know how many targets we had. Another hand signal told them to keep it quiet. Silence was key to avoiding detection from the other tags—at least until we knew how many we were up against.
With nothing more than a wave of my hand, I ordered the other assassins to fall in behind me. Instinct and training took over, and we each slipped easily into the roles we knew.
Jake and I edged to the left, coming up around the island that separated us from the tags, while Maria and Marcus shifted to the right—to block off their closest route of escape.
On the opposite side of the kitchen was another exit point, into what appeared to be a fancy dining room, but they would have to get through Jake and me to reach it.
Marcus reached the tag closest to him first, and I got an up close view of his serrated knife sinking into its skull a moment before I experienced the thrill for myself. When the second tag stumbled back from the slaughter of his comrade, I was ready for him. My knife wasn’t serrated, but it was bigger than Marcus’s. It angled through his jaw and into his brain nicely.
My knife was a hell of a lot easier to withdraw once the deed was done. I smirked at Marcus when he had to put his boot between the shoulders of the fallen tag to yank the knife from its head.
“I still got mine first,” he reminded me.
“But mine was cleaner,” I countered with a wink.
“Idiot one and idiot two,” Maria whispered harshly from one of the doorways. “No one cares who’s got the bigger dick right now. We’ve got at least one more tag in here.”
Marcus edged away from our kills with a smirk, inching closer to where his sister waited impatiently. Behind me, Jake communicated with them silently through a series of hand gestures. Catching the tail end of his message, I got the gist of the plan.
Jake and I would go one way, through the dining room. Marcus and Maria would go the other way. We would meet in the middle, wherever that ended up.
Shadows blanketed the grand dining room Jake and I passed through. The walls were lined with cabinets containing all kinds of shiny dishes and expensive-looking knickknacks. No tags occupied that room, but as we edged closer to the next archway—one that appeared to lead into an open foyer and the front door of the house—I spotted movement.
Jake saw it too, and held a hand up to remind me that it could be Marcus and Maria. Our footsteps were softened by the plush carpet at our feet as we crept closer to the foyer.
There, a college-aged female tag stood at the door, peering through the peephole. While we inched closer, she lifted a handheld radio to her mouth.
“They’re not answering, Paul,” she said.
“I can’t check it out until the professor is done here,” a male voice answered through the speaker.
The female tag sighed loudly as she lifted the radio to her mouth. Jake sprang on her before she uttered a sound. His sharp blade to the base of her head severed her brainstem before she knew it was coming. He simultaneously eased her dead weight to the floor and caught the radio falling from her hands with a grace and skill that I admired.
When he stopped long enough to flash a toothy grin at me, I knew he enjoyed the kill as much as I did. Maybe we were all sick bastards?
We left the third tag there and moved quickly through the foyer. At least one more tag was left—and he was with the professor. When we emerged into an expansive living room, we found Maria and Marcus standing over the corpse of another tag.
“There’s at least one more,” Jake whispered to the twins.
Maria held up a radio identical to the one the tag in the foyer had. “We heard.”
“Well then . . .” I stepped over the body, careful to avoid the pool of blood soaking the carpet around it, and angled toward the only section of the house left unchecked. “Let’s go find Paul and the professor.”
I led the way down a wide hallway. We stopped at the first door we came to. A quick sweep of the room confirmed no tags. A second room was also empty. One more door awaited us near the end of the hallway. A narrow band of light seeped through the crack. As we approached, I heard a deep male voice from inside the room.
“Anyone?” There was a thud, followed by a low curse. “Come in. Is the house secure?”
I held my hand up to stop the others behind me at the sound of the tag’s footsteps approaching the door. I edged past the opening, pasting myself to the wall, seconds before the door swung open. The tag flew from the room, and came to an abrupt stop when he spotted the three assassins standing in front of him.
The gun in his hand flashed as it swung up to take aim at my partner. Jake, Maria, and Marcus lunged simultaneously, but I had the element of surprise. The tag never saw my blade coming. I angled it straight up, through the base of his skull. His body jerked, his gun-yielding hand seized, and the weapon dropped to the floor without a single shot fired.
I backed out of the way, allowing his lifeless body to slump against the wall. I bent down to wipe the blood from the blade before I stood to follow the others into the room.
A swift glance confirmed that no more tags waited in what I quickly assessed to
be the master bedroom. Another partially opened door led into an adjacent room, from which I could now hear the sound of running water.
“Professor taking a shower?” Jake wondered.
“Now what?” Maria asked.
The four of us stood in the center of the room, staring at each other. In all my years of hunting and killing vessels, I’d never encountered a situation like this.
“Do we interrupt him?” Jake chuckled. “Or wait him out?”
“Reenact the scene from Psycho,” Maria offered. Lifting her knife, she did an applaudable Norman Bates impression, complete with cheesy audio.
“I don’t know about you guys, but I wouldn’t mind a short break.” I started toward the door. “Anyone else see that fully stocked bar in the living room?”
Marcus nodded enthusiastically and took a step to follow me.
“We can’t just leave him here,” Maria argued.
“He’s not going anywhere,” I assured her.
And he didn’t. Five minutes later, I reclined in the plush leather seat in the living room with a stout glass of rum in my hand when the professor’s fast footsteps echoed from the hallway. I kind of wished I had some cigars or something to offer the poor bastard when he stumbled into the room and saw us sitting over the body of his dead bodyguard.
He spun to flee back to his room, but grinded to a halt when Maria waltzed through the doorway behind him. Her presence—that and the gun pointed at his head—pushed him farther into the room until he bumped into the leather chair across from me.
“Have a seat, Professor,” I suggested coolly.
He turned to me and a flash of recognition crossed his face. “I should have known it was you.”
I turned to Jake. “Why do they all keep saying that?”
He shrugged, and I stood to approach the old man—who I knew wasn’t as frail and delicate as he looked. Putting a hand on his shoulder, I gruffly pushed him into the seat.
“Make yourself comfortable. We’re going to be here for a while.”
15