Chapter Forty-Four
Giselle's penthouse was the sort of space you would expect from someone with a practical mind; it had plenty of space for luxuries that had gone unused. It was essentially one, big room, the front half of which had been made up as a living room while the back half served as the kitchen. The walls had been painted a rosy, slightly pink-toned red, though it was difficult to see the warming effect this normally had in the half-dark. A door leading to the bedroom and washroom, set into the left-hand wall, marked the only sections of the apartment not immediately visible when one entered from the stairs or private elevator. The right-hand wall featured a large, picture window that looked out onto the buildings below; as luck, or more likely, the architect would have it, this was also the southward-facing wall, ensuring the sun would never bake the room too thoroughly. The window itself was framed on either side by simple, dark blue curtains with the slightest, white frill on their very edges. These had been thrown open to allow what little light the moon and stars could provide into the room in lieu of proper lighting.
The living room segment was carpeted with a soft, beige material pleasing to bare feet and housed the most seating: two three-cushion couches, each a navy blue similar to the curtains that framed the window, were set facing one another across a glass coffee table. A dark green love seat was set at their far end, its back to the picture window. A flat-screen television sat in a wooden entertainment centre that looked to be of the self-assembled sort found at some furniture stores, placed near to the end of the twin couches and opposite from the love seat. The television's remote could be seen on the coffee table, along with a few magazines, the titles of which were illegible without better lighting to see them by. The kitchen segment opted for smooth, white tile instead of carpet and followed a fairly standard idea of a kitchen in most other respects, as well; an electric stove, a dishwasher, a fridge with a black handle and a standing freezer sat alongside one another along the back wall, while the spotless sink and counter-space took up the latter half of the south-facing wall the window was set in.
The penthouse was, as the group in the stairwell had guessed, not empty; the commander of the team attempting to end their lives had been left there to coordinate the efforts of his men. Having six of them suddenly fall silent after a confused batch of reports was making that job more difficult. Adding a further level of complication to the mix, his phone had just begun to ring; and, considering there was only one person it could be, he dearly wished he had the option not to answer it.
"Lieutenant. Your report, please."
The unfortunate soul who had just flipped open his phone swallowed hard at the icy, calculating tone his client was using. He had never worked for the man before, but he knew displeasure when he heard it. Not that the man on the other end was making any effort to hide it. "Yes, Sir. Six of our team have dropped out of radio contact, the other team is collecting their weapons as we speak, but have reported a pistol and rifle missing, as well as two clips of ammunition for the sidearm."
"Six," was the emphatically monosyllabic response. "Six men. Half of your team. How did this happen, Lieutenant?"
"Sir, the opposition is proving more determined than we had originally expected and-"
His employer cut him off before he could finish. "And I will not take excuses. You are trained soldiers, they are two insignificant little bugs traipsing through the halls of my building while you, inexplicably, utterly fail to exterminate them."
The man adjusted his posture so he rested the butt of his weapon against the floor, letting it lean against his leg. Clearing his throat before answering, he attempted to inject some force into his words. "Sir, there are more than two hostiles."
His client stopped berating him, but he did not sound any more pleased than he had a minute ago. "More?"
"Yes, Sir. Reports seem to indicate that the Chief of Security, Tyrone Burgess, is also on the top floor, along with several others as of yet unidentified individuals. The six men who have gone silent came across him just before we lost contact; they were unsure if they should open fire on him, as you had told us he was not meant to be part of the overall purge of the building's upper levels."
Grating his teeth, Apollo sighed audibly. He was not at all pleased with the way the events in the Icarus Development building were proceeding, but not even his most pessimistic evaluations of the situation had he included Tyrone as a contributing factor to the problems that could potentially plague the operation. "Then I'll clear it up for you; the man is valuable to me, but not as valuable as the mission's success. If you see him again and he forces you to take lethal action, do so. If he survives this, or if you manage to take him prisoner, I will see to his punishment myself."
"Understood, Sir," was the grateful soldier's reply; any break was better than none. "Our six remaining men have trapped the hostile forces, estimated at five in number, in the hallway connecting the main level with the penthouse stair; they have nowhere to go but up here, to me, so I must make appropriate preparations."
"It's six," Apollo corrected flatly. "If Burgess is up there, then it's because he is trying to save Fitch."
The Lieutenant cocked his head to one side, confirming what he had been told. "The CEO, Sir?"
"Yes. They've developed a romance of sorts. I know for a fact that she was rendered unconscious not long ago, so it is likely that he is carrying her, which puts him at a disadvantage. Exploit it if you can."
"Understood, Sir, I appreciate the information."
Hearing the quiet squeak of the penthouse door opening, the Lieutenant pulled his sidearm from his belt with his free hand and trained it on the widening gap between door and frame; he found himself unable to pull the trigger, however, when it was a child he saw standing there. Even in the less than adequate illumination provided by the emergency lights, he saw it was a little girl, wearing rain-gear and looking at him with wide, frightened eyes. With his phone still pressed to his ear, the soldier decided to take this one up the chain. "Sir?"
"Yes, Lieutenant, what is it?"
"Was there meant to be a child anywhere in the building during this mission?"
Apollo rolled his eyes, his agitation leading him to answer without really thinking it over. "Lieutenant, the building you are in is a place of business, not a daycare centre. No, there should not be any children."
The little girl, looking behind herself as though she was being chased, hesitantly entered the room and began approaching the Lieutenant, one cautious step at a time. "Monsieur? Est-ce que vous pouvez m'aider?"
Blinking at her, the soldier frowned. "Well, Sir, there is a little girl here, now. She appears to be fluent mostly in French. Hang on."
Lowering his weapon, he smiled as calmly as he could at the child, beckoning her over to him as he let the hand holding his phone fall to his side. "It's all right, sweetie. Do you speak English? Uh... parler anglais?"
Brightening up a little, the little girl nodded rapidly. "Oui, Monsieur, je parle un peu l'anglais. A little English."
Pleased with his progress, the armed man waved her over, entirely unaware of his employer's voice from the nearly forgotten phone in his hand. Apollo had, of course, realized by now the obvious truth of where the child had come from; he was beginning to regret his decision to leave the team ignorant of the shape-shifter in their opposition's ranks, no matter how much extra pay he would have had to give them to convince them he wasn't barking mad. "Lieutenant! Do not let the child near you. I repeat, it's a trick. Shoot her, now!"
But the Lieutenant did not hear him; the little girl, now standing beside him, beamed up at him with her blue eyes full of the sort of absolute trust small children have towards adults they become fond of. He swore he could feel his heart melting into a gooey mess. Tucking his phone, still on, into his pocket, he took the child's tiny hand and walked with her to the rear of the room. Ushering the little one behind the couch nearest to the kitchen, he knelt down beside her to make sure she understood his instructio
ns. "Listen to me now, sweetie; people with guns are coming and I need you to stay here, so you will be safe. Do you understand?"
She blinked at him once or twice, thinking over his words, and then nodded once. "Oui, I think so. I stay here?"
He nodded in affirmation. "That's right, very good. Can you do that for me?"
She nodded again, her smile very nearly sweet enough to rot the man's teeth. "Oui, Monsieur!"
Unable to keep himself from smiling at her sunny demeanour, the Lieutenant stood up anew; and dropped back behind the couch as Jason, now standing in the doorway, fired the assault rifle he had been left with in his direction. Cursing, he felt his phone digging into his side and pulled it from his pocket, flipping it shut and resting it on the floor as he put both hands on his weapon. Leaning around the side of the couch, he fired two quick shots back at his aggressor, forcing the gangly, obviously untrained man back around the corner of the door frame.
Feeling a tug on his sleeve, he shook his arm free of the little girl's grip. "Not now, sweetie, you'll be all right."
Ducking back behind the couch as the muzzle of the gun reappeared from around the corner, the soldier heard the telltale thuds of the poorly aimed bullets raking the walls, and then trailing up to the ceiling. Whoever it was firing at him, they were a lousy shot. Hearing a creaking sound, he glanced up and saw a chunk of the ceiling's formerly unblemished surface breaking free above him. He kept his head down as the chunk of debris broke away from the smooth expanse of the ceiling; plummeting the ten or so feet to floor, the mass of plaster landed, squarely, in the middle of the coffee table. Wincing at the ensuing sound of glass shattering, he maintained his crouch for a moment to avoid any flying shards of glass that might make it the few feet to the corner of the couch he was hiding behind. As he hunkered down, the Lieutenant felt another tentative tug on his sleeve. Sighing, he made sure that his opposition was not keen on coming around the corner with a quick, blindly fired warning shot towards the hallway, then turned to the little girl beside him; coming eye-to-barrel with a pistol he had not seen her taking out from the inside of her coat during the firefight.
The formerly angelic child smiled wickedly at him, her voice suddenly devoid of any noticeable French accent and speaking in fluent English. "I love that you fell for this, but I suppose you are only human. Oh, and your employer is an idiot for not telling you about me, by the way. Cheers."
With the sharp retort of the weapon ringing through the air, the Lieutenant slumped backwards with an expression of confused disbelief plastered on his face that made Black absolutely tingle with smug satisfaction. A tingling that continued even after Jason, Burgess, Nadia and Murakami had entered from the hallway to find the little girl firing the Lieutenant's gun empty into the dead man's body, giggling like the child she appeared to be throughout. Turning to them, her raincoat giving her the unsettling appearance of being dyed bloody, the little girl beamed up at them; the expression of sinister delight etched into her every feature sent a chill down even Burgess' spine and he recalled what Nadia had said about what Black supposedly was. It did not seem quite as irrationally sentimental as it had before.
In Icarus' Shadow Page 62