ENCLAVE
BOOK III OF THE EXECUTIONER SERIES
Written by Brandon Blake Varnell
Edited by Dominique Goodall
Illustrated by Lawrence Mann
Published by Kitsune Incorporated at Smashwords
Copyright 2018 Brandon Varnell
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Enclave – The Executioner Series
Copyright © 2018 Brandon Varnell
Illustrations © 2018 Lawrence Mann
Ebook formatting: Lia at Free Your Words
All rights reserved
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ISBN: 978-0-9989942-9-1 (paperback)
ISBN: 978-0-9989942-8-4 (ebook)
Contents
Title Page
Publishing Info
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Afterword
But Wait, There's More
American Kitsune
The Executioner Series
Arcadia’s Ignoble Knight
A Most Unlikely Hero
Social Media
CHAPTER 1
Tristin jerked awake as the rattling of chains reverberated around the room. His head shooting up, he surveyed the room with weary eyes, half-lidded and blinking. When he found nothing near him, he let out a deep breath and brought his hands to his face, rubbing his eyes.
God, he was tired. Tired and hungry. Tired and hungry and anxious and sex depraved. Not a good combination. What did he do to deserve this? Oh, right. He’d betrayed the Catholic Church on Samantha’s orders and discovered something he really shouldn’t have. In hindsight, that probably hadn’t been the best idea ever conceived. However, the thought of going up against the Church, and possibly reuniting with his best friend, or at least keeping him alive, had overridden all of his common sense.
Which was funny, because Christian and Samantha always told Tristin that he didn’t have much common sense to begin with.
Gotta keep what he had left, then, right?
Pulling his hands from his face, Tristin tried to ignore his surroundings. He tried to pretend he wasn’t sitting in a dank, dark cell that had the sickly-sweet smell of rotting corpses. He tried to ignore the cold, hard stone floor with its several layers of grime beneath him. He tried to ignore the bars to his left that kept him from leaving the tiny, ten square foot space. He’d seen it all before, and he’d had more than enough of this gloomy place to last a lifetime.
Tristin could still remember what happened after the Church had taken him into custody. During the ride to this lovely cell, they had beaten him, bruising his face and battering his ribs. He hurt everywhere. There wasn’t a single part of his body that wasn’t in pain. The only consolation, if it could be called that, was that they had not broken any of his bones.
Not that it mattered anyway. Broken bones or not, he wasn’t going anywhere.
How long had he been in this jail cell anyway? Days? Weeks? He’d lost count after the first few minutes. Ugh, he wished he had his computer. Then he would have been able to tell the time and how many days had passed easily. Damn those fanatics! Couldn’t they have at least let him keep his Apad? Jerks.
A loud rumbling caused Tristin to look up again. Some dust shook from ceiling, landing on his head and causing him to cough as he inhaled a lungful of the crap. As he hacked and coughed, several louder noises echoed down to him, and while Tristin could not be sure, he had the distinct feeling those noises sounded a lot like explosions. Explosions and gunfire.
The noises got much closer. Tristin was soon able to pick out individual sounds. Gunfire. Shouting. Explosions. The sound of weapons clanging, steel on steel. There were many different sounds intermixed together to create a cacophonous symphony of violence. A threnody of voices soon went up. The shouting and sounds of battle came closer. Tristin almost thought he recognized one of the people barking out what sounded like orders, but it was impossible to tell within that dissonance of chaotic pandemonium.
Another explosion occurred, this one actually blowing up the door that led into the prison. Tristin had a front row seat as he watched the metal door get blow right off its hinges and blasted into the room. It tumbled along the floor, banging and clanging and booming against the stone, a piece of warped metal crashing against the ground repeatedly. It didn’t stop until it struck the far wall, slamming against it with enough noise that Tristin was sure every two-bit guard and their mother had heard it.
Booted feet echoed unusually loudly against the backdrop of explosions, yells, and cries of pain. They walked, a slow, steady gait, getting louder and louder with each tap. Those boots. They definitely belonged to a woman. Tristin could tell. The “click” of sharp heels tapping the stone followed by the lighter “thud” of a sole hitting the floor gave it away.
Getting to his feet, Tristin stumbled over to the bars, whereupon reaching them, he grasped them to keep himself from falling over. His legs shook from a lack of proper sleep and nutrition. He was hungry and tired and hurt. Just keeping himself upright was a chore.
It was just as he reached the bars that he saw her enter the room.
Long, raven hair with curled tips whipped this way and that as she strode into the room. Intelligent blue eyes pierced the darkness, while small, thin lips were set into a stern frown filled with determination. Crisp blue pants ruffled only slightly with each step she took, with each sway of her hips. A light blue cape was set over her shoulders, rustling as she swung her arms forward in light motions. The dark blue, long sleeved shirt underneath, held together with several straps, looked as pristine as ever, as if this woman had not just fought her way into this prison. Her heeled boots clicked and clacked as she strode toward his prison cell with confidence.
“Samantha?” Tristin looked at the woman, his jaw nearly dropping to the floor. He managed to pick it up, albeit, it took a while. After the surprise wore off, however, he gave the woman a rather boyish grin. “Well, hello there, boss lady! It’s a pleasure to see you. May I ask why you’ve come? What can this humble prisoner do for you?”
He would never say this but seeing the commander for the Executioners of the entire western hemisphere gave him strength.
“This isn’t the time for sarcasm.” Samantha’s voice was harder than steel as she stopped in front of his cell. She flicked the sword in her left hand, cleansing it of blood by sending the crimson liquid spraying across the floor. She then re-sheathed the sword, her
right hand resting on the hilt, her left hand going to the sheath on her belt. “If you do not want to be sliced in half, I suggest you move away from the bars.”
Not needing to be told twice, Tristin scrambled out of the way. He moved far enough that he wouldn’t get caught up in whatever Samantha was going to do, but close that he could see everything she did clearly. This was, after all, a once in a lifetime opportunity. How many people could say they got to see this woman in action?
A deep breath was taken as Samantha slid into a sword stance that Tristin had only heard about from Christian―on the rare occasion Christian was in a talkative mood. She was leading with her left foot, which had bent at a forty-five-degree angle. She shifted her right leg behind her, also bent, but not as much. There was a second’s pause, a building of incredible tension, before, without even a hint of warning, the blade was no longer in its sheath but instead being held hyper extended and above Samantha’s head at a diagonal angle with the blade pointed at the ceiling. The blade was then brought back down in a single, smooth, controlled motion, and re-sheathed. A soft click echoed around them as the metal of the blade met the material of the sheath. A second later, the bars that had once held Tristin inside of his cell fell apart, sliced diagonally across.
So that was iaido? The art of drawing the blade. Christian had told him about it once before. He was not a practitioner, as his swords were sheathed across his back instead of his hip, and he used two, but he’d told Tristin about how it was supposedly one of the deadliest sword styles in the world. He had said that a master of iaido could kill someone before they even realized someone had drawn a sword against them. Tristin hadn’t believed his friend back then, had played it off as a joke.
He believed now.
And he only had one thing to say about it.
“Holy shit, that was awesome.”
“Thank you.”
Smack!
“Owch!” Tristin rubbed what was going to be a nasty bump tomorrow morning, wincing. “What was that for?”
“For swearing,” Samantha answered in a mild voice, as if she had not just smacked Tristin on the head with the hilt of her sword. “Do so in my presence again and I’ll hit you much harder next time.”
“Ah, ahahaha!” Tristin rubbed the back of his head, a feeling of nervous tension settling over him like a thick, smothering blanket. Samantha was rescuing him, so he really didn’t want to be on her bad side right now. “Erm, right. I gotcha. No more swearing.”
“Good. Now take this and follow me.”
Tristin fumbled and very nearly dropped the gun that Samantha threw at him. It was a standard Smith & Wesson 9mm pistol. The M&P model. All Executioner members of the Intelligence Division had one.
“Uh.” Tristin stared at the weapon, and then looked up to find that Samantha was already walking away from him. He ran out of the room, stumbling a bit as his legs buckled. Catching up to the woman, he said, “Why are you giving this to me? You know I’ve never been that good with guns.”
“I am perfectly aware that you are a horrible shot,” Samantha said without a hint of compassion or understanding. Ouch. “But we are in enemy territory, and you’re going to need something to protect yourself with, just in case myself and the others cannot protect you.”
“Oh. Yes, I guess that makes sense.” He looked at the gun for a moment, then undid the safety. Tristin could only pray he wouldn’t have to use it. He didn’t want to shoot off his own foot, or Samantha’s. That would be really bad. “So, if you’re rescuing me, I’m guessing you got my USB and managed to read the files I had compiled?”
“Yes.” Samantha scowled. She was, quite obviously, not happy at the mention of the USB that he’d hidden just before being taken into custody. Not that Tristin blamed her. The information contained in those files could flip the entire world on its head, and it had very likely pulled the metaphorical rug out from underneath her feet. Not a pleasant experience. “We will talk about that later. For now, I need you to keep up.”
Puffing a bit, out of breath, Tristin tried to keep pace with Samantha as her long strides carried her out of the prison and up a set of stairs. He made a quick vow to himself that after this was all over, he would start exercising to get back in shape—at least, until he could start using his unique abilities without fear of reprisal. Fortunately for him, it looked like that might be happening sooner rather than later.
“You mentioned... there are others,” Tristin said as they entered a pristine hallway made of white tiles and stone walls. The explosions and gunfire were getting louder now, and Tristin thought he heard laughter.
“Of course. You didn’t think I’d come all this way to rescue you alone, did you?”
“Um, well, no, I guess not.”
“I have got two others with me.”
“Just two?”
“These two are more than enough for a small vanguard of minor demons.”
Tristin would have asked what Samantha meant, but he soon found out when they entered a large entrance hall. The once beautiful and clean room was now desecrated with pock marks, scorch marks, cracked marble tiles, and corpses. Some of the corpses looked like Wolverine had gone to town on them, but there were also quite a few that had been squashed flat, or had their heads crushed. Several of the Corinthian columns, once proud monoliths standing in neat rows, had been reduced to rubble, nothing more than large piles of granite.
In the center of this room were two people fighting off nearly a dozen of these strange figures with long, black jackets. The figures were lanky. Their skin, what could be seen of it, was a blistering red. What’s more, glowing red eyes, clearly demonic in nature, glared out from underneath a hood that covered their heads.
One of the people fighting against this small horde was a tall man. Built like a brick shit house, the guy was a monster. He had muscles on his muscles. They bulged and flexed, veins popping up all along his arms as he swung an equally ginormous warhammer around like it was made of papier mache. His sleeveless, skin tight white shirt stretched to the point of breaking as he smashed his hammer down on one of the guards trying to shoot at him, crushing the demonic warrior like a grape and sending splatters of blood, bone, and brain matter flying everywhere. The man laughed a joyful, child-like laugh filled with a lust for battle.
As a point of contrast, the other figure combating the demonic warriors in cloaks was not large at all. In fact, she was quite tiny.
Standing no more than maybe four feet ten, the other figure was lithe and graceful, weaving between demonic warriors and slicing them apart with her obsidian-colored Orichalcum claws. The bottom of her pure white duster flapped about her legs as she danced across the battlefield, while the upper half was drawn taught across her bust, held together by a zipper and adorned with several straps that were fastened so tightly they squashed her breasts. Unlike Samantha, this girl wore boots with steel-toes instead of heels.
“Come on, you fools!” The man, his warhammer twirling in his gargantuan hands, growled as he swung the weapon horizontally, smacking several enemies and sending them crashing into a wall a good few yards away. “Is this all you are capable of?! Have the demonic armies of the Underworld truly grown so complacent!? Give me a challenge!”
Several demonic warriors tried to fire at him with automatic rifles, but the man blocked the projectiles from hitting him by hiding behind his ridiculously oversized warhammer. When the hailstorm of bullets ended, the hammer was swung up from its place on the ground, crashing into the chin of one enemy and tearing its head clean off. The giant of a man then spun around, his left fist catching another demon warrior in the temple and sending them to the ground, their neck twisted at an awkward angle.
Darting around the giant man, taking out the enemies that he missed, the lithe figure in the duster spun about with the grace of a dancer. Her short, boyish brown hair fluttered as she twisted her body a full 360 degrees. Extending her left hand, she let the four long claws of her gauntlet tear apart the face of on
e enemy that got too close for their own good.
Blood sprayed from the four lines that ran from the left side of their face all the way to the right, deep furrows that had gone halfway through the demon’s skull. The attack had cut apart the hood. This allowed everyone to see the red skinned face of their opponent, an almost stereotypical-looking demon with horns, eyes that were all white, and fangs jutting from the mouth. The attack had also slashed open the demon warrior’s eyes, causing them to burst like overripe fruit when they were shot by a pistol.
She swung her other hand and sliced apart a steel knife that had been set to stab her. Finishing her spin, she pulled her left hand back in, which she thrust forward at impressive speeds―for a human. Four sharp claws penetrated the warrior’s chest. Then, in an incredible display of acrobatics, the woman flipped onto the figure’s shoulders, her claws pulling out of the now gushing chest wound. She locked her feet against the demon’s head and, with a sharp twist, snapped the neck. The warrior was sent face first to the ground while the woman flipped off the dead creature’s shoulders and landed back on her feet.
Darting forward, Samantha was quick to join the fray, and, for the first time since joining the Executioners, Tristin got to see why Christian admired the woman so much. She moved with the speed, grace, and power of a jungle predator. Her sword flashed out of its sheath at light speeds, creating nearly a hundred blinding flashes of silver, an untraceable number of cuts, and then went back into its sheath. The demons surrounding her comrades fell apart into segmented pieces of bleeding flesh.
It was damn impressive. Not to mention scary.
Tristin was not a fighter. He’d said it plenty of times before, and it really was true. He was terrible at combat. He had a few skills that could allow him to fight back, but at the moment, he was not able to use them. A lack of sex would do that to a guy like him. He just didn’t have any energy left to use his skills.
So he stood there, looking like an idiot, watching as the three demolished what was left of the demonic horde guarding him, the 9mm pistol held loosely in his hand.
Enclave Page 1
