by A and E Kirk
Bill’s eyes widened. “Nine?”
Ted shrugged, equally surprised, but said, “We’re on our way.”
Bill and Ted clicked off their earpieces.
Bill planted hands on hips and let his head fall back with a long sigh. “I thought the killing spree was supposed to go down after we left, Ted.”
The Hex Boys shared panicked looks.
“That was the agreement, Bill, but plans change.”
“How are we supposed to move nine bodies without anyone noticing?” Bill kicked the guard. “Correction. Ten bodies.”
“Leave this one here. It’s just Cacciatori’s and those kids’ bodies that can’t be found later,” Ted said. “Those other two should be taken care of by the time we get there.”
“How big are the other two?” Bill hefted the guard onto his shoulder and began to carry him behind Sophina’s desk.
Blake clenched his hands as shadows lifted from the underbelly of the desk and snaked into Matthias’ fists.
“I think Cacciatori’s son is pretty big,” Ted said. “But his partner, not so much. He and she should be dead by the time we get there. They’re being held near those other kids from the warehouse.”
“Ugh.” Bill whirled at the edge of the desk. “We’re going to need a forklift to get them all to the van.”
“We’ll find something, Bill.”
“We always do, Ted. We always do.”
Bill groaned and let the guard fall off his shoulder. The body thunked off the desk, smacking Blake before it rolled off with a slap of limp flesh onto the floor.
Bill followed Ted out, grumbling, “This many kills? We should ask for a raise.”
The door hissed closed behind them. Ayden lifted the ceiling tile and shoved it aside with a loud screech.
“Uh, anyone else thinking we’re six of the nine bodies?” Tristan said, his voice shrill.
“Affirmative,” Jayden said.
“Let’s get out of here!” Ayden waved for Matthias and Blake to come up.
“Wait,” Logan said.
“Yes!” Blake pumped a fist in the air.
“What?” Tristan looked anxious. “Why?”
“They haven’t killed Sophina yet,” Matthias said. “We’re the only ones who know there’s a hit on her.”
Ayden said, “Everyone knows about her deadly reputation. How do you think Cristiano got so lethal? It runs in the family. And her guards are Sicarius!”
“But if she dies, it’s on us.” Logan dropped from the ceiling, landing on the table with a frown.
“Very proud of you, dude.” Blake hugged the little guy off the desk.
“Are you kidding?” Tristan said. “We don’t stand a chance. Did you miss the part where they’re killing Cristiano? Cristiano, who got thrown out of a plane unconscious, strapped with explosives that detonated and still somehow managed to survive. That Cristiano.”
“What the heck is Cristiano even doing here?” Blake said.
“Aurora probably sent him,” Ayden groaned. “No doubt she blames herself for all this. And if Cristiano and Horus get hurt, she’ll blame herself for that too.” He started to lower himself from the ceiling, but Jayden gasped and shoved him aside to jump down onto the desk. “What the hell, Jayden?”
“They never said Horus was his partner,” Jayden said.
Ayden frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“They never said Cristiano’s partner was Horus.” Jayden scrambled off the desk and sprinted out the door.
Matthias caught Jayden by the back of the shirt and hauled him back inside. “So?”
With growing anxiety, Jayden said, “They said ‘she’, as in a female.”
“Oh my God.” Ayden’s face drained of color. “No.”
“There’s no way he would have brought her,” Logan said.
“Babe is tenacious.”
“He’s Sicarius. He’s not that stupid,” Logan insisted.
“She is,” Matthias said.
“There’s no way!” Tristan shook his head. “It could be one of his female team members.”
Blake shrugged one shoulder. “Can we take that chance?”
“Let’s go,” Ayden said and jumped down.
“Guys!” Tristan whined from the ceiling.
“Damsels to save, dude.” Blake held out his arms. “Come to papa.”
Tristan groaned but hopped from above. Blake caught him and set him down with a hefty pat on the head.
The Boys slunk out of office in time to see Bill and Ted turn a corner.
“We should split up,” Logan said. “Half for Sophina. Half for Aurora.”
“No,” Matthias said. “We don’t know for certain if it even is Aurora. If it’s not and we can’t save Sophina, then we need to escape. Can’t do that if we’re separated. Got it?”
“Oh now, you’re down for an escape,” Ayden said with a roll of his eyes.
Matthias glanced over his shoulder. “Where the hell is Tristan?”
“Jayden, wait!” Ayden reached for his brother, but the twin already sprinted ahead and around the corner. “Dammit. I’ll get him.”
“I’ll find Tristan.” Blake turned back the way they’d come.
With a growl, Matthias grabbed them both. “I just said we shouldn’t split up!”
“Guys, wait for me!” Tristan raced out of Sophina’s office.
“Where were you?” Matthias demanded.
“Forgot my bag.” Tristan gave his backpack a happy pat.
Matthias pointed to Ayden. “Burn that thing to ash.”
Tristan gasped and ducked behind Blake. “We might need it.”
Jayden popped his head around the corner. “Bill and Ted took the elevator down to the interrogation rooms in which we were previously imprisoned.”
“Let’s go.” Matthias ran around the corner.
“Running looks suspicious!”
“Yelling ‘running looks suspicious’ makes us look suspicious.”
“Everyone be cool.”
“That instruction is far too vague. How does one appear cool?”
“By not having a stupid purse.”
“It’s a backpack!”
“Shut it!”
Matthias opened the door to the stairwell beside the elevators, trying not to let the odd looks of Mandatum employees rattle his nerves.
“What do we do if someone catches us?” Logan floated down the center of the steps as the other Boys’ pounding feet echoed in the stairwell.
“Yeah,” Blake said. “Everyone thinks we’re here because we helped the demons get into Novo.”
“Tell the truth,” Matthias said. “Sophina released us and we have footage and records to back us up now, so don’t resist. No fighting.”
Matthias opened the door to the interrogation room floor. And stopped short. Behind him, each Hex Boy thudded into the teammate in front of them. Their exclamation of irritation quickly morphed into a gasp as they saw what had frozen Matthias.
Renard, Novo director and assassin, staggered a step back from the Boys. Her two guards sidestepped in front of her.
“No,” Tristan squeaked.
Fear and rage swelled Renard’s eyes wide. “How the hell did you escape?”
Jayden cleared his throat. “Madame Cacciatori released us from holding after accepting our narrative that you were the traitor. We are currently trying to save Madame Cacciatori from your mercenaries who are on their mission to assassinate her.”
“Jayden!” Matthias yelled, then shot his arms forward.
Whips snapped around the first guard’s neck. Matthias yanked the man down and drove his knee up into his face. A gust of air blasted the second guard forward into Ayden’s fiery fist. Both men hit the ground, unconscious.
Renard turned to run. Blake lifted a finger. A tile ripped up from the floor and hit the woman’s ankles with an unpleasant crack. She tumbled down. Logan shot an arrow
that vortexed around her in a whirling tornado. Renard gasped silently and clutched at her throat. She reached forward, trying to break through the forceful wind.
But she collapsed.
Logan let the tornado dissipate while Matthias and Ayden pounced on the downed guards, stealing handcuffs to snap onto the unconscious director and her goons.
“I thought we weren’t supposed to resist or fight,” Jayden said.
“We weren’t until you bloody announced that we were on to her,” Matthias said. “What the hell were you thinking?”
“You said to tell the truth to anyone we encountered,” Jayden said.
“Oh my God,” Tristan moaned.
“Dudes,” Blake gaped at the scene. “Did we just win?”
Logan grinned. “We got Renard before she could kill Cacciatori.”
“We just have to capture Bill and Ted and we’re good.” Ayden said. A smile snuck onto his lips as he surveyed the hallway and the handcuffed prisoners.
“We’re better than good.” Blake danced a little two-step then punched the air. “We are awesome!”
Gunshots echoed.
Ayden whirled in their direction. “Aurora.”
The Hex Boys scrambled into action. Ayden left them in the dust. The gunshots continued. Unrelenting. Ayden tried to convince himself that was a good thing. That it meant Aurora was still alive and fighting. No shots meant she was dead.
Ayden rounded a corner to see Bill and Ted in a doorway, their weapons drawn. The gunfire proved so deafening, the assassins couldn’t hear the stampede of Hex Boys. Fire raged across Ayden’s body. Without breaking stride, he raised his arms with the raging intent to incinerate Bill and Ted.
Black flashed underfoot. A horrific wave of thick shadows ate across the floor. The walls. The ceiling. The endless pit of black converged on Bill and Ted. It devoured them in a writhing mass of angry serpents, strangling any cries they tried to utter as the two men suffocated.
Undeterred, Ayden whipped past Bill and Ted only to stagger to a stop inside the interrogation room. A metal table flipped on its side was covered with a million dents. Smoking bullets littered the ground. Bullet holes riddled every wall.
But it was the blood on the floor that stopped Ayden’s heart. Thick puddles. Heavy splatters. Smeared handprints.
Without the sound of gunfire, Ayden could hear uneven breathing coming from the other side of the mangled table. His boots crunched on debris as he stepped forward. Slowly. Terrified at the state Aurora would be in. Steeling himself, he leaned over the table’s edge.
A hand shot out and grabbed the front of his shirt. In a violent jerk, Ayden flew into the air. Despite the assault, elation surged through him, because he recognized his attacker and, more importantly, the stunning redhead with him.
Ayden tucked his shoulder, rolled smoothly to his feet, and flashed a grin. “I’m not going to take that personally, Cacciatori.”
OPERATION:
Why Am I Doing Another Solo Mission?
LOCATION:
Mandatum Paris Headquarters - Security Room
“Not a big fan of the plan, guys,” Tristan had told them.
Repeatedly.
But did they listen?
Of course not.
Stopping the massacre of the entire Divinicus Nex Task Force seemed much more impossible than sneaking out. But he made it to the main security room with no conflict, which, Tristan realized, was because that was where the demons had started their takeover.
Bodies littered the hallway outside. The lock to the security room was mangled, the door splintered open from being kicked in.
Inside the room, blood spatter covered the controls, computers, and sophisticated technical equipment. A slow spinning chair still had an occupant. A man. His throat ravaged. Blood, wet and glistening, soaked down his shirt.
Tristan grimaced and pressed the back of his hand against his nose. “Ew, ew, ew.” But he had no time to waste.
After he rolled the chair aside with some shrill whimpers he was glad no one was around to hear, he wiped a bloody headset on his shirt then yanked it on, trying not to gag. Once he accessed the facility’s many cameras and saw the visuals of their current predicament, he downgraded their chances of survival from slim to none.
Especially after Aurora separated from Ayden and Matthias, and decided to pursue Dubois on her own. His fingers flew over three different keyboards as he switched between cameras to direct Aurora while he also tried to get an SOS out to the rest of the Mandatum.
Aurora’s rants cut into his concentration. “Are you telling me you’ve ruined both our lives because you didn’t bother to ask if I wanted Mandatum protection?”
Aurora paused in the stairwell. She clutched her side, wheezing heavily. Finally, Tristan thought. She was seconds away from a one-on-one altercation with the Assistant Director of the Divinicus Nex Task Force, a woman with years of mastering ways to kill, compared to Aurora’s few months of training. Aurora just needed to keep Dubois cornered until backup arrived. Was that so hard?
“Oh. My. God! Argh!” On screen, the suicidal redhead jumped down five steps at a time. “You’re insane!”
Apparently, it was.
“Aurora!” Tristan yelped. “Stop chasing Dubois!”
The office door slammed open. “You will not dare to stop chasing Dubois!”
Tristan whirled. His knees went weak. “Oh, God.”
Sophina Cacciatori stood in the doorway. Her body trembled with rage. Streams of dried blood caked from her hairline down her face. A deep gash sliced across her cheek. Her clothes were rumpled and torn. Frazzled curls escaped her mussed updo. Feet bare, she fisted high heels in one hand and stabbed a finger at Tristan with the other.
“To whom is it that you are speaking, Tristan?”
“Uh— No one.” Tristan reached behind him, minimizing the camera screen on the monitor that showed Aurora. “I mean, I’ve never met her before in my life.”
“Then provide me access to that comm immediately!” Sophina stomped forward.
“No, wait!” Tristan reeled back.
Sophina yanked the headset off Tristan and jammed the earpiece to the side of her head. “Listen to me, whoever you are. I am in charge. I am Sophina Cacciatori, and from this moment on, you are mine.”
Tristan cringed.
“Do you understand? You answer only to me and you will do exactly as I say. Now speak and identify yourself at once!”
Tristan spun a panicked circle. He needed to shut down the cameras. Erase security footage. He inched a keyboard toward himself.
“I said identify yourself!” Sophina whirled on Tristan.
He froze.
“This is ludicrous,” Sophina raged. “Does she not know who I am? Or,” her eyes narrowed, “is she part of Dubois’ takeover?”
“No!” Tristan said. “She wants to stop Dubois. That I know for sure.”
“At least you know something.” Sophina gave Tristan a hard stare. “Tell me, can she be trusted?”
Tristan rushed his words. “Who knows? Never met her before. She sounds trustworthy, though. And like I said, she's no fan of Dubois.”
“Then listen to me, girl,” Sophina pressed the microphone close to her lips. “If you are not part of this, I will let you live, but only if you follow my orders. Now, where is that filthy traitorous turncoat, Dubois? And if you do not answer me at once, if I lose her because of you, I will make it my personal mission to hunt you down and make you pay with your own life to atone for the many innocent souls of my people which have been lost today!”
Tristan shoved his hands in his hair to keep his head from exploding. He didn’t think Sophina would appreciate the irony of threatening the very person she so desperately wanted to find.
Sophina threw the headset on the desk. “Tell me Dubois’ location!”
Tristan was about to point out the necessity of the headset, when the computer speakers crac
kled to life.
“Uh…” Aurora cleared her throat. “She’s just reached the bottom of the rabbit hole.”
Sophina slammed a fist on the desk. Several lights exploded above. Sparks rained down. Tristan yelped and threw his arms over his head.
Sophina shouted, “What absolute drivel she spouts! Is she attempting to confuse me? Attempting to hide Dubois? From me!”
“No! No! She’s just a little confused herself. She, uh, got hit in the head.” Tristan thumped his own head for emphasis. “I think she meant Dubois reached the bottom of a stairwell.”
“Well, why did she not say so? Which stairwell, girl?”
Tristan tugged at his hair. “Uh, girl, who I don’t know, maybe you should just speak plainly and answer Madame Cacciatori.” He needed to be helpful enough to avoid Sophina chopping his head off, but not so much that she could find Aurora. “Do you know which geographically labeled stairwell you are in?”
“Geo-what? No!” Aurora snapped.
Tristan stifled a smile.
Aurora continued, “But I do know Dubois is going down, and I’m losing her.”
“Do not lose her,” Sophina said. “Follow her. We will track your location and get a visual on you momentarily.”
That’s what Tristan was afraid of.
“Sure.” Tristan swept Sophina aside and typed furiously. “Let me get these cameras set up to—what! Oh, no!”
The security feeds blasted grainy with static, then stuttered to black.
“Tristan, what have you done to my security feeds? I can see nothing! Move aside.” Sophina shoved him back and took command of the keyboard.
Tristan mumbled an apology to her back as he ducked under one of the tables and pulled a few cords from the rear of several computers. A temporary solution, sure. Tristan would have to find a way to erase all data later.
“Tristan,” Aurora panted, “I know you said there’s nothing down here, but would Dubois know about the tunnels out through the catacombs?”
“Of course, she would know,” Sophina snapped. “The question is, how is it that you know of them?”
“Yeah.” Tristan jumped to his feet, brow wrinkling. “How do you know? I didn’t know.”
