by Matt Cowper
Now fully geared up, she shut the Jeep XP's door and walked across the street. The sun had set, and there were few pedestrians or vehicles, but there were still enough people out and about that her lethal image caused a stir. She ignored the bleating and the hushed conversations of worried civilians. They could run, hide, call 911, do whatever they wanted, as long as they didn't get her way.
The front entrance to 4500 Grosvenor Avenue was a large glass door bearing no markings. It was locked, so Deathrain slammed the butt of her shotgun into it. The glass bent, but didn't break. Reinforced. No matter.
She pulled out a grenade, set it by the door, then stepped back a few feet. The explosion caused the civilians even more alarm. Most hightailed it away from the building, but a few brave souls crouched behind trashcans or streetlights. Some of them pointed rectangular objects at her – they were recording the incident, probably hoping to upload it to Yaytube and get millions of views.
The grenade had reduced the door to tiny shards, so Deathrain stepped inside, readying her shotgun and flamethrower.
She was in a medium-sized entry hall. Two elevators to her left. Stairs to her right. A long desk in the middle, likely used by the reception staff. The hardwood floor was polished so that it looked slick as ice, and the walls were hung with pleasing landscape paintings. Like the building's exterior, the interior was pleasant, but unmemorable. She was sure there were a thousand entry halls in Z City exactly like this.
There was no one within sight. Deathrain stood stock-still and listened, but all she heard was the ticking of the large clock behind the reception desk.
Strange. She expected to encounter resistance – either organic or mechanical – as soon as she entered the building.
This was without doubt a trap; they knew she was here. But how big a trap? The absence of resistance could only mean they had something big prepared for her, something that they didn't want to spoil by tossing a bunch of cannon fodder in her path.
Maybe they were planning to drop the building on her....
“Do it, then,” Deathrain growled. “I can take it.” She stared up at the ceiling, where she expected video surveillance had been hidden. “Hit me with your best shot, you bastards! C'mon! Let's end this, right here, right now!”
Silence save for the ticking clock. So they were making her work for it. Fine. They were only prolonging their demise.
She searched the first floor, but found nothing but bland offices and storage closets. She climbed up to the next two floors, but they were much like the first.
Deathrain was about to start blowing up random stuff just to get their attention, when she stepped through the stairwell door to the fourth floor. This floor was different: instead of being split into rooms, it was one big open space, with a well-stocked gym on the left-hand side and an Olympic-size swimming pool on the other.
“So this is where your minions train, huh, Kain?” she muttered.
She peered down into the pool, but its baby-blue waters were empty. Next she scanned the workout equipment, but no one was pumping iron or running on the treadmills. Wait – no, there was someone.
A powerful-looking man in khaki pants and a faded shirt had turned a weight bench...into a deer-cleaning station?
The deer was suspended from a pull-up bar, its guts lying in a bucket beneath it. Its legs had been sawed off and were propped against the weight bench. The man had extracted the tenderloins, and had placed a cutting board on the weight bench to slice them into strips.
A thick, macabre scent drifted towards Deathrain. The stench, combined with the incongruous, bloody scene before her, brought back painful memories of human butchery.
Moving closer, she saw the man was, as expected, Sergei. Of course he wouldn't use this gym to simply lift weights and run on treadmills. He had to bring the hunt here.
Adrenaline surged through her. She pumped her shotgun and raced forward, intent on splattering his insides over this workout equipment, just like he'd splattered this deer.
Sergei set down his long carving knife and straightened, wiping his brow with a towel. He was far too nonchalant – what was he up to?
In the next second, she knew: faster than she could see, he'd hurled a bola at her. It wrapped around her legs tightly, and she crashed down, slamming her head on a rack of dumbbells.
“Stupid girl,” Sergei said. “Did you think you could just walk in here filled with rage and kill everyone who opposed you?”
Deathrain pulled herself up, but with all her weaponry, it took far longer than it should. Sergei had closed the gap between them as fast as he'd thrown the bola. She felt something slide between her ribs – a knife, likely similar to the one he'd used to try and decapitate her. Like the one he'd used to kill Nolan and Vera.
Screaming, she grabbed at Sergei's knife hand, but he was already gone. The knife plunged into her lower back and both her legs. Again she stumbled, but as she fell she blasted her shotgun at where she thought Sergei was. The buckshot hit nothing but an empty treadmill.
The huntsman was far more deadly than she'd thought. Auspice had fought him to a standstill, but that was because the superhero had his potent sixth sense. And by the time Sergei was trying to cut off her head back at the docks, he was winded, plus he was furious at Kain for denying him the pleasure of the hunt. That was the only reason she'd been able to get in that headbutt and escape from Kain's grasp.
This was the real Sergei. Rested. Prepared. Unhindered by any distractions.
Something hit the back of her head. A weight or bar of some sort. The room spun. Again she used her shotgun, and again hit nothing.
“I am disappointed,” Sergei said from behind her. “The superhero fought so well, I expected his comrade, the infamous Deathrain, to provide a suitable challenge. But you are as easy to take apart as the common soldier.”
She jabbed her elbow backwards, hoping to hit him. She did, but it was only a glancing blow, and the hunter grabbed her arm and bent it into a hammerlock. From this position, he could break her arm as easily as Kain had done.
“I regret that this has to be our battleground,” he said. “I would much rather have hunted you in a jungle or in the mountains. In fact, that's why I let you live. But Kain suspects that I have not been totally forthright. Sometimes I must compromise to get what I want.”
A crack – her arm was again broken. She writhed, but a savage knee to her kidney dropped her to a crouch.
“So many weapons,” Sergei said. “All modern, all very heavy. Did you really think you could blast me with all these, that I'd just stand there and let myself be killed?”
“Fuck you,” she hissed. “I'm gonna kill you, one way or another, then I'm gonna––”
“Stop. You are embarrassing yourself. You are already defeated.”
She was airborne, then falling to the floor headfirst. Another crack – she tried to move her limbs, but she couldn't even wiggle a pinkie finger. Sergei had broken her neck, shattered her spine: she was a quadriplegic.
He bent down over her broken body, his weathered face impassive, his clothes barely rumpled. Was this it? Was she going to die helplessly, having barely landed one blow?
Sergei's knife hovered over her, as powerful as her entire arsenal combined.
“Time to pick up where we left off,” he said. “Cutting off your head should end you. But just in case, we will cremate your body. You cannot heal from that.”
In response, Deathrain spat in his face. He wiped it off slowly, frowning.
“Still defiant, though your doom is near. If only your spirit translated into fighting prowess. But you have done nothing but humiliate yourself just now. You are no warrior, no assassin. You are an angry, confused child, your mind pushed and pulled in a dozen different directions. To think I looked forward to this contest...but I was wrong to be so excited.”
He was right. She'd run in here like she was playing some video game on cheat codes. She hadn't done more research on Sergei and Kain, hadn't scouted the
building, hadn't acquired reinforcements. Her gazillion weapons might have scared the civilians outside, but Sergei had literally ran circles around here.
Perhaps she deserved to die for being so stupid....
Then the image of Nolan's and Vera's corpses flashed across her mind. Two innocents. Two people she barely knew, but that had brought light into her life, for a far too brief moment. With them by her side, she'd had a shot at a normal life, at making Emily Bell her true self, instead of an identity to be shed.
Again, the hunter ripped off her leather mask and stared closely at her. “As I told you before, you are somewhat pretty. You would have made a fine housewife for some doctor or lawyer. As an assassin and fighter, though, you are a failure.”
Sergei's knife was in her neck, cutting. Blood flowed down onto her shirt. The end was coming fast....
No. She came here to enact vengeance. Nothing would stop her. Nothing.
She twisted her head, getting her neck away from the blade, them chomped down onto Sergei's knife hand. Her teeth dug deeply into his flesh, and now his blood mixed with hers.
But the hunter didn't screech and jerk away, not like at the docks. He only grunted, switched the knife to his free hand, then stabbed Deathrain a dozen times.
And still she held on, her teeth continuing to burrow into his skin.
So Sergei stabbed her a dozen more times. Then a dozen more. Now a pool of blood surrounded her, and every cell of her body was on fire. The pain caused sweat and tears to run down her face.
And still she held on.
“You...finally show tenacity.” Though he tried to sound stouthearted, Sergei's face was also covered in sweat, and his brow was furrowed in concentration. “But while you are...hurting me...I can cause you infinite more pain.”
He raised his knife, and from the positioning it looked like he was going to drive it into her brain. Such a wound would scramble her mind for a few moments, and she'd involuntarily cease biting into his hand.
But as the knife went down, she grabbed his arm with both hands, stopping it. Sergei gaped as their limbs trembled from the exertion.
“You...you were crushed,” he said.
She was still partially crushed; only her arms were movable. But she wasn't about to tell him that – that would mean she'd have to relinquish her bite, and that wasn't going to happen.
Yet another crack – but this time, it wasn't her bones that were being broken. She'd bitten down hard enough that she'd cracked some bones in the huntsman's hand.
“Now you are...annoying me,” Sergei said. “But that is good, in a way. It means you have––”
She let go of Sergei's hands, and the knife plunged downward. He seemed shocked to see that it was actually moving to its planned destination – but Deathrain had moved her head, and the knife crunched into the wooden floor of the gym.
In a blink, two pistols where in her hands. She unloaded, but Sergei dove away. However, even using his whole body to dive didn't free his hand from her bite. She was dragged a few feet with him, and again the hunter was astonished.
“You are––” he began.
Another hail of bullets, and again Sergei dove, and again she held on. This time, though, some of her shots hit; blood began oozing from the hunter's shirt.
“Very well,” Sergei shouted. “If you want it so bad, you can have it!”
A machete appeared in his hand. He'd probably had it strapped across his back. Deathrain prepared herself for more pain, but Sergei's strike didn't target her. With a clean blow, he severed his own hand, leaving her biting a former piece of himself, something that now looked like a gruesome Halloween prop.
She spat out the hand and kipped up. Legs were back. Good. All the knife wounds were still open, and pain was making her dizzy, but her limbs were online.
Sergei stared at her, panting. Blood ran from the stump where his hand had been, and from his bullet wounds. With a deft motion, he chopped off his shirt sleeve with the machete and wrapped it around the stump with his remaining hand and his teeth.
“Much better, Deathrain,” he said, grinning like a junkie who'd just gotten his fix. “Now we will see who's truly the best.”
It slowly dawned on Deathrain that Sergei has chopped off his own hand as a maniacal tribute to her tenaciousness. He could've used the machete to knock out her teeth, to destroy her entire face, instead of mauling himself.
“You're insane,” she said.
“Ah, you must be talking about my hand.” He waved his stump proudly. “I can always get a prostheses. But the way you held onto my flesh just now – you deserve the prize of the hand of Sergei. And it should now be clear to you: I will do anything to win.”
“I don't give a shit about your obsession with hunting. This isn't some grand game. This is me killing you.”
She unloaded her pistols again, but Sergei ducked behind a stack of barbells, and the shots ricocheted across the gym.
Once she was out of bullets, she switched to the shotgun, but the results were the same. She couldn't hit Sergei from this angle. Even if she tossed a grenade or two, he'd just jump behind another obstruction. And as soon as he saw an opening, he'd start slinging whatever he could find at her, from barbells to medicine balls.
But if she deviated from expectations....
She'd come in here like some maniacal super-soldier or war machine, prepared to blast anything and everything. And she was still acting the role – staying back, shooting constantly, not letting Sergei get in close again.
He probably thought her strategy was to keep this up so she could heal fully – and indeed, that would've been a sound plan.
What he wouldn't expect was for her to dive over the barbell rack and tackle him – which, after quickly dropping her heavier weapons, is exactly what she did.
Sergei tumbled to the floor, clearly caught off guard. Deathrain had a knife of her own in her hand, and now it was the hunter's turn to feel a blade slide into his ribs. He took the cut gamely, quickly disarming her with a chop to the wrist.
But Deathrain kept coming. Punches, kicks, headbutts – they all drove Sergei backwards. He was still blocking, still landing some shots of his own, but no longer was he moving at near-superhuman speed.
They were ten feet from the pool. Five feet. The tile was slippery beneath her feet, and the odor of chlorine again wafted into her nostrils.
Sergei knew his predicament. Charging like a bull, he tried to rush past Deathrain. But she pushed forward with everything she had, using so much force she felt muscles tear in her legs, and rammed into the hunter, knocking them both into the pool.
A tangle of arms and legs. Air bubbles surrounding them. Water down her throat. Sergei's hand around her neck. She clawed at his bloody stump, and he released his grip, letting out a silent scream.
Now she was strangling him. His eyes bugged out. His face turned purple. Air bubbles streamed from his mouth and nose.
Something told her to stop.
No, someone. The superhero named Auspice. His voice was insistent in her mind, telling her she could stop the killing, could redeem herself. Could be...good.
She didn't listen to him.
After pulling herself from the pool, she looked back at Sergei's floating corpse. Tendrils of blood trailed from his body, strangely reminding her of high wispy clouds.
She waited, just to make sure he didn't pop back up, ready for the next round. There was a slim possibility that he'd been faking his death, or that he had access to some mystical force that would resurrect him. In the superhuman-filled world she lived in, anything was possible.
But Sergei's corpse just bobbed in the giant pool, and the water around him turned redder and redder.
She finally left him and walked over to the weight-training area. A stack of clean white towels sat on some shelves by the wall, used by the now-absent gym-goers to wipe away their sweat. She picked up a few and dried herself off as best she could.
Then she strapped her weapons to her bo
dy again, put on her black leather mask, and headed to the stairwell. She had a feeling that higher she went, the closer she'd get to Kain.
“Your underling is dead, Kain,” she muttered. “But don't worry: you'll be reunited with him soon enough.”
Chapter Thirteen
The next few floors held nothing but small, impersonal offices, much like the bottom floors. Again, no one was around. Had she really defeated the only obstacle before Kain?
Deathrain doubted it, but she continued to climb, moving through empty rooms, weapons at the ready. She beat Sergei; she could beat whoever else he threw at her.
At the top floor, she stepped out into a large hallway, its carpet a lavish red, its walls covered with paintings that were wild and surreal, splashes of black mixed in with reds and purples. Mangled human bodies appeared to be half-hidden within the colors, but she couldn't be certain that's what they truly were.
Looking closer at them, Deathrain felt an odd, immediate connection. The paintings seemed to be visual representations of how her mind – her assassin's mind – worked.
Kain. These paintings meant something to him as well, as their minds worked in similar ways. He'd decorated the entire hallway with dark artwork that he relished.
“You're close,” she whispered.
There was only one other opening visible: a large, presumably thick door, its color the same shade as the carpet. She tried to open it, expecting it to be locked and reinforced, but the handle turned, and the door opened easily.
She stepped into a windowless room of gray polished stone, black columns, and dim lighting. An enormous wooden desk sat against the far wall, an imposing high-backed chair behind it.
Deathrain instinctively knew that a great many atrocities had been planned and performed within these walls. Though the room was spotless, its dark stone seemed to be laughing maniacally, eager to impale enemies and unleash rivers of blood.
“Thank you, Deathrain,” a voice said.
She swung her flamethrower in its direction. Kain stepped out from behind a black column, looking immaculate as always in a pinstriped suit and deep red tie. He'd shifted into his second form, his hardened skin gleaming like the stonework around him.