I love fucking with my prey in the darkness.
One of The mercs who was hiding runs out from under a desk pounding on Colvin’s door. “Lao, let me in she’s gonna kill me. Please!” He scurries over beating on Colvin’s office window. Drawing my sword, I walk up behind him. Help!” he shrieks.
“Your friends don’t care about you. They left you out here in the dark to die alone.”
He stares at me in terror, as he beats on Colvin’s office door. “Please help me!” He cries. I snatch him by the neck lifting him off his feet and skewer him in the stomach. His body twitches with pain. I hurl his corpse through Colvin’s office door knocking it down. He snaps his gun at me his hand trembling with fear. Colvin fires and dart sticks into my arm. “I’ve been upgraded tranq darts don’t work on me anymore.” I aim my 45 at him. “I have a world of suffering planed for you, asshole.” I saunter toward him and rip my sword out of the carcass.
Colvin sobs and laughs, eyes moist with tears. “Goddamn, honey! I must say I’m really impressed with how quickly you dispatched my men like swatting a fly. It’s a true testament to how valuable you are to me.” He tries to hold his composure, but he is a king that realizes his kingdom is gone.
“For fuck sakes this drivel again?”
He buttons up the middle button of his black pinstripe jacket. “Just h-hear me out. Imagine the woman who has made a career out of taking lives finally, gives life, and she becomes The Savior to humanity. Sinner to saint. Killer-to healer.”
Sneering at him, crossing my arms. “Man, talk about history repeating its self. Catalina spat that same bullshit at me just before I tossed her ass into a pit full of starving tigers. Too bad they're no tigers here.”
“Lilith, why are you so selfish? Are you willing to let cancer and disease continue to ravage the world? Don’t you see what I am doing is for the greater good of humanity?” “Every time someone talks about the greater good it just leads to shit like the Relocation Units and the Blight Districts.”
“You’re horribly misguided, Mrs. Cohen. The world has made you so jaded, it’s sad.”
“I may be jaded, but I know pure evil when I’m looking at it. Pure evil always tries to play the savior of the world.”
He flashes a mocking grin. “Evil? Evil is subjective for instance: I’m sure the Founding Fathers of America were labeled as evil, terrorists, traitors when they rebelled against the British Empire. However, to us, they were heroes, saviors, patriots, freedom fighters. Or if you want a more modern example, take Israel. Your country believes what they are doing is right, but to the Palestinians what Israel is doing is oppressive.” His hand quivers with fear as he pours him a drink and offers me one but I decline. “So you see, evil is in the eye of the beholder.”
My face twists with disgust and my nostrils flare. “My country is not funding terrorists, so you can get wars going or kidnapping people and using them as lab rats!”
He cocks his head to the side and chuckles. “You sure about that? War is a business, and it’s far more lucrative than peace. Killing me is just a drop in the bucket in the grand scheme of things. The wars I instigate keep America’s economy flowing. Without them, America would die!”
“Yes, America’s economy is doing so well that’s why there is a Wealthy District and Blight District.”
He gulps down his drink and points his finger at me. “Hey, that was all the government’s doing. Anyway, back to those nanites of yours. I know the serum is unstable I saw that with… my wife, but I am sure through science, and with a bit of cooperation from you; we can make it more universal.”
“You do know it stops people from reproducing right?”
“Yes, of course, I do, but do you think a person who is dying of a horrid disease like cancer will give a shit? Besides, the nanites are tiny computers they can be reprogrammed. You are a blessing upon this world, Lilith. Its high time you realize you’re the medical breakthrough the world is waiting for.”
“I don’t give a damn what I am. I will not help you make a profit from Athena. Pieces of shit like you have nothing but nefarious purposes with tech like Athena. Besides, all of this is pointless now that the word is out. The CEO of Black Reign is the mastermind behind the assault on The UN and assassination attempt on The President of the United States.”
He grits his teeth and slams the whiskey bottle on the floor. “You sanctimonious, bitch!”
“Sayeth the man who speaks of a greater good for humanity.”
He gulps down his drink. “You Hunters claim to fight for humanity. Yet you won’t do the one thing that would preserve humanity.”
“You killed your wife with Athena. Your people have turned on you. The FBI will soon be burning your empire to the ground. Are you incapable of seeing what your insatiable greed has gotten you?”
He stiffens his jaw. “It will work! Just work with me, Lilith! I just need more time! He implores. “Together we can save the world from sickness and death. Give the world a chance my wife never had! Let me make things right,” he whimpers.
“Your days of playing savior to humanity is over.” I start marching toward him when Cai steps between Colvin and me. “Step aside, asshole. I need to kill your boss.” “Sorry, Agent Cohen. I’m afraid I cannot do that. You see, you killed my commander and best friend, Lauren.”
“Well, now that you mentioned The Hunters still have an active contract on your head.” “I see, and I assume your intent on collecting. Interesting, but I think your monetary endeavor is heading for disaster.”
Confidence born of ignorance. He must’ve read The Law of Attraction too much.
“Fine. I accept the challenge.” I sheath my sword.
“Cai, use darts don’t kill her
Cai plants roundhouse kick upside his face. “Come, Agent Cohen. If you’re going to collect on the contract, let's make it interesting. Put down your weapons.
A Gentlemen Mercenary, that’s a new one. I holster my sidearm and throw my rifle down, and put myself into a kickboxer stance. It’s a basic fighting stance used by Krav Maga. I also have other martial arts training in my arsenal as well.
“Ladies first, Agent Cohen.” He bows.
I throw a punch he grabs my arm and flips me over his shoulder. My body hits the tile with a violent thud. He spins around and pins me to the floor withhis foot. “Oh, my apologies I forgot to mention, I was a PostAthena agent.”
“Then why the hell does Colvin want me alive if he has you?”
“He doesn’t know I’m like you.”
“Why do The Hunters have a contract on you?”
“I was exiled from the Hunters and branded a traitor resulting in the bounty on my head. Let’s just say I was a bit too… morally flexible with my skillset.” He slaps me across the face.
I know this fuck did not just bitch slap me!
I sweep his leg sending him to the floor granting me a few seconds to scramble to my feet. He regains his footing and surges toward me throwing strikes. I dance around all his punches. He launches a kick, but I catch his leg and hammer my fist into his nose. Forcing his head down, I bash my knee into his face and then bounce his head off the marble wall. He slips in an elbow strike to my jaw and shoves me away.
A cocky smirk transmits across my lips. “You better bring more to the table than that, cupcake.”
“Okay.” He gets up dusting his pants off. He runs and leaps in the air throwing a kick at me, like something out of a damn Kung Fu movie. After narrowly missing me, Lao lands on his feet behind me. He elbows me in the back of the head knocking me forward. I whip my body around throwing a combo of punches at him, he evades and traps my arm. He makes an effort to kick, but I deflect his foot with a kick of my own. I head-butt him in the beak and deliver a push kick shoving him back a few feet. I break into a charge he does the same. Just as we’re about to grapple, he ducks under me. Stupid, Lilith.
The wind is knocked out of me when he sends an open palm strike to my sternum. He then throws me against the wall cracking the m
arble. Falling to the floor, I glance at him with a smirk as I feel the back of my head and see blood on my hand. “That all you got, cupcake?”
He stalks toward me. I deliver a jump kick to his jaw knocking him to the floor in a daze. I wrap my legs around his neck. He desperately punches my leg gasping for air.
Cai rips one of my throwing knives from its sheath and jams it in my thigh and twists it. “Ah!” I groan. I stand up hobbling away from him. I let out a hiss as I yank the knife out.
That’s the downside to having knives on you in CQB.
I throw it at him, and he dodges it. He leaps in the air and does a flying kick, but I catch him midair and slam him to the floor with a bone-crunching thud. I raise my foot and try to crush his neck He rolls out of the way just before my heel can connect. He tries to deliver a swift kick to my gut, but I grab his leg and sweep his supporting leg from under him. I leap on top of him mauling his face with my fists. As I’m about to connect with another strike, he catches my hand twists it to the point I can hear my bones cracking.
I’m not breaking another bone this week.
I slap my hand on his face thrusting my thumb into his eye. Lao groans in pain and bashes an elbow in my face and kicks me in the ribs knocking me off of him. Wiping the blood from my nose, I see him pull out a curved combat knife. “Let’s make this a bit more fun what do you say, Agent Cohen?”
Blades. Good, I was getting sick of this Kung Fu theater shit.
I draw my Karambit from the sheath. “Now this is getting interesting,” I say, moving toward him. I have my position in the knife fighting stance. My right hand is my knife hand, and my left is for grappling.
I slash, and he jumps back and comes in with a thrust I leap back out of his reach. We both swing at each other at the same time. Our edges deflect off of each other. I circle him, constantly moving.
One of the basics in knife fighting is never stand still.
He moves in with a slash, and I quickly backstep and come at him with a thrust. He grabs my hand and his blade cuts across my chest. I grab his neck about plunge my blade into his trachea when he lacerates the side of my arm and down my thigh. He kneels and drives an elbow into my ribcage snatching the wind from me. He drives a hammer fist into my knee dropping me to the ground. Lao grabs a wad of my hair about to plunge his blade into my neck. I take my knife and slash him across the gut and leap to my feet and slam an uppercut into his jaw knocking him back a few inches. Clutching my arm, I see it’s a deep gash, and my leg is bleeding like a sieve.
Healing factor will kick in soon. Doesn’t stop this shit from hurting like a son of a bitch though.
He throws hands out to his side. “It looks like The Great Death Angel is nothing more than urban legends kicked around among the agency,” he says, grabbing me by the leg and throws me against a window cracking it. “It’s hard to believe you were one of thefirst of the Hunters.”
Thank god it held. Falling a hundred floors is not my idea of fun. He picks me up and bounces my head off the desk and knees me in the jaw and flings me over the table.
My head throbs and my ears ring as I push myself up on all fours. I try to crawl to my knife, but he storms over and pins the blade to the ground. “I may be a Merc, but I still have honor.” He slides the knife over to me.
I take the knife and stagger back to my feet. Pain surges through my legs as I put weight on them. Throbbing pulsates throughout my dominant arm. I smirk at him “Is that all you got, cupcake?” I wince in pain.
He thrusts his knife, and I trap his knife-arm yanking him to me and plunge the blade into his bicep; he Lets out a grunt and kicks me away. He swaps his knife to his left hand. Shit, he would be ambidextrous.
He charges unleashing a flurry of slashes and thrusts. After deflecting his swings, I whack him in the nose with the hilt of my knife and pitch him across the room. He crashes through the secretary’s office window. Lao lands on the desk, cleaning it off as his body rolls across it. He stands, holding his knife guard up all the while his other arm is just a limp piece of meat. Blood drips from his arm dotting the white carpet. Hell, we’re both covered in each other’s blood. I advance toward Cai, and he proceeds to stab me, but I grab his hand, and with my other hand I grab his neck choke slamming him on the desk, breaking it in half. He sits up and plunges a sharp object into my thigh.
Hello Kitty Letter opener. You gotta be fucking kidding me.
I scream as he twists it. My hand grapples his to stop him from opening the wound further. Sharp pain fires through my body wrestling for control of the opener. He pounds me in the kidney trying to get me to let go, but he’s not so lucky I have a death grip on it.
I’ll be damned if Hello Kitty is going to be the death of me.
I jab him in the neck and his grip releases as he gasps for air. I rip the letter opener out of my side and shove it through his stomach and eviscerate him. The office lights up with red flashing strobes, and an alarm sounds off.
“Warning explosive device detected in the weapons storage.”
“You fought well, Agent Cohen. You fought with honor. Funny how it takes us to be on the brink of death before we realize the error of our ways. Tell Connie… I’m sorry.” He grabs a clump of my sleeve. “Don’t lose your way like I did, Lilith. You know the code. You know the penalty for an assassin’s betrayal.”
I draw my 45. “Yes, I do.” The suppressor hisses decorating the floor with his brains.
I could kill terrorists all day and not bat an eye but not a fellow assassin. Even if they are marked as a traitor, it’s still like killing family to me. It’s something I never get used to.
Standing up, I clutch my side, limping out of the room. “Time to come out and play, Colvin! My muscles tense with rage when I see he’s escaped through an open bookshelf. “Goddamn it!” I scream.
That’s it run, bitch. You’re just delaying the inevitable.
I need to get out of this building so Dominic can blow it up.
“Lilith? Come in, Lilith.”
“Go.”
“Charges are set. What’s the status of Colvin?”
“He ghosted himself while I was tied up fighting Lao.”
“Damn it! Alright, get your ass out of the building so we can set off the bombs.”
“Copy that.”
Hobbling down the stairwell, every step feels like that letter opener is still twisting in my side, and with all the cuts I sustained; I feel like a flayed piece of meat. I look down and see I’m leaving a trail of blood behind me.
I better take care of this or I won’t last till the REGEN kicks in.
I pull a bandage from the small med kit in my pack and unbutton my shirt stripping down to my tank top. Lifting my tank, I see my waistband is crusted in blood. My teeth grit as I slip my pants down so I can treat the wounds I took to my leg. “Fuck!” I hiss as I shove the QuickClot gauze into the puncture wound and wrap it with a bandage. I do the same for the lacerations on my thigh and arm. The shiner, bruised jaw, and ribs can heal on their own.
There. That should hold me till the nanites do their thing. I slip another bandage around the cut on my arm. Leaving my shirt there, I pick up my sword, continuing down the stairs.
Nearing the bottom of the stairwell bullets whiz by me forcing me to throw myself against the wall away from the railing. I lean over the railing and fire off several rounds, and the mercs reply with automatic fire and I leap away from the rail. I limp down one set of stairs and fire a few shots down at them. Sparks fly off the metal railing as bullets slam into it making me hug the wall.
“Lilith, what’s taking you so long?” Nina says over the coms.
“I’m pinned in the stairwell leading to the Lobby.” A bullet ricochets off the railing and grazes the side of my head and embeds in the concrete wall. “Fuck!” The side of my head is damp with blood. “Lilith, are you alright!
“Yeah, I’m fine. Just took a bullet to the head.”
“What!”
“Relax, it was
a graze.”
“Good. I won’t blow the bomb till you get out.”
“Thanks.”
“Lilith there one more thing. Venora is in the lobby along with an army of her IRA thugs, it was weird.”
I pop off a few rounds down the stairwell one of them mercs let out a scream. Tag you’re it.
“Nina, telling something is weird when it involves Venora is a broad stroke. Be more specific.”
“She and her men gunned down Colvin’s people and let us go free. We have been a thorn in her side for a long time. Why not just have her men move in and kill us?”
If Venora is helping us escape, it means she has a more critical goal then killing us at the moment.
“It means Venora has bigger fish to fry and that worries me.” I hear a thump noise from below. “Fuck!” I dart down a flight of stairs, and an explosion rocks the stairwell throwing me down a flight of steps. I let out a groan as I land on my wound. The sprinkler systems kick on in the stairwell.
“Put another one up there this bitch dies today.” A merc orders.
Really, asshole?
Another thump sounds off from below. The explosion slams me into the wall as I near the bottom of the staircase. The staircase I was just on gives way and falls down the well. “Look out! One of the Mercs screams. A loud thud hits the floor, filling the well with dust. I rush down the stairwell. “There she is!” Bullets zip over my head blowing out chunks of concrete. I duck behind a pillar. Bullets chew up the column. The shooting stops and I peak around the column and see the assholes in the bottom in a firing line reloading. Just as I’m about to pull the pin on my Frag a thunderous roar of machine gun fire fills the well as tracer rounds rip through the door punching gaping holes in the mercs. “Come out, Lily,” a female voice with an Irish accent says.
I really don’t like this.
Stepping into the lobby a twelve-headed serpent banner hangs on walls and the same symbol painted on the black marble floors. I look to my right and see a group of men in old-school military green camo with M16 and M14 rifles trained on me. Then I see her, the wicked ginger holding an M60, the barrel breathing smoke like a dragon.
Lilith Cohen Retribution Page 17
