Corrupting Alicia

by Tsoukalas, Evan

  We stood in a thick pool of shadow across the street while I surveyed the guards. There were two at the front gate, both in dark suits. They were vigilant, an indicator that Christian might have put more weight to my threat than he’d let on, and though their weapons were concealed, they were readily accessible, and each man moved in such a way so as not to impair the ability to get at them.

  Four more guards patrolled the driveway and front yard, which wasn’t as big as I’d expected. According to Alicia, Christian was very wealthy, but overly large places made him uneasy. The larger a place, the harder it was to safeguard, and in his business, he couldn’t afford vulnerability, real or perceived. Those guarding his house were well-trained and had seen some form of combat. The guards inside the grounds were trained that bullets were the best form of communication, but I wasn’t overly concerned about that.

  During our planning, Alicia outlined twelve house guards, but I anticipated no fewer than twenty after discovering that security was heavier outside. Every so often, I could see an overtly armed shadow pass in front of a lighted window on all three floors, the shadow sometimes parting the blinds and peering out into the night and other times passing by without stopping. There appeared to be no timing to the movement, and that fact indicated to me that the house guards were indeed skilled. Randomness was the key to any successful patrol.

  I glanced to Alicia, who was studying the grounds with the help of a pair of state-of-the-art night vision goggles obtained from a rather shady revenant that I had spared during one of my trips across the country. According to him, the American military didn’t even have this stuff yet, and I was inclined to believe him. Exaggeration wouldn’t occur to him.

  Christian imposed a rigid separation between business and pleasure, and that worked in our favor. There would only be soldiers here. Not that it made any difference. I wouldn’t hesitate to kill anyone inside the compound, but it might mean something to Alicia afterward.

  She was decked out in a calf-length leather coat that buttoned to her waist and had a slit all the way up to the small of her back to avoid limiting movement. She looked incredibly sexy, especially when the two long strips of the leather in the back parted to reveal her tempting backside, clad in black stretch pants that looked as if they’d been applied with a brush. The crowning touch to the outfit were the steel-toe Doc Marten boots.

  I tapped her shoulder gently, and she turned to me, the goggles whirring as they automatically brought me into focus. I pointed up to the sky, she nodded, and I took to the air for a closer reconnaissance of each guard position, making mental notes and altering our planned entrance accordingly. None of the guards had a clue that they were being watched, and there was only one potential sticky spot when one of the dogs, a Rottweiler surgically altered to make no sound when it barked, got closer to me than I liked by approaching downwind.

  Thanks to preternatural speed and flight, I was able to take to the air before his handler was alerted. The handler surveyed the air and muttered “Stupid dog,” before continuing his patrol. I returned to Alicia’s side, opening the link between our minds so we could communicate silently.

  No surprises, I said. It’s time. She nodded, removing her goggles and placing them in the pocket of the coat. I gripped her shoulder and forced her to look at me. Are you ready?

  Alicia nodded, a look of steely determination settling on her features. She was definitely ready, eager even.

  Remember, even if you can’t see me, I’m with you. Nothing will touch you.

  I know, she replied coolly, completely secure in my ability to protect her, which of course made me feel special. Then, she patted my hand, squeezing it firmly for a moment before releasing it and stepping boldly from our concealment and into the street. I followed close behind, my eyes fixed firmly on the gate guards, who could not yet see her.

  She walked calmly and slowly to the edge of the darkness, still unnoticed. She hesitated for only a moment before stepping into the flood of light emanating from a pair of high-wattage lights mounted atop each of the granite columns supporting the machine-driven gate wide enough for two cars.

  One guard picked her up immediately, silently signaling to the other one, and they both turned to face her. Hands closed in on weapons, but neither drew, and they wouldn’t until a threat was determined. There were other houses on this road, and it wouldn’t be good to go around scaring the neighbors, who all thought that Christian was a charming, wealthy businessman. Apparently, Christian’s psychotic behavior was well-concealed beneath a charismatic public exterior.

  There’s something familiar about the sound of that...

  Alicia stopped ten feet from the guards. One of them moved to close the gap to six feet, careful not to move into the other’s field of fire. It was careful and professional, but it didn’t matter; a platoon of Israeli commandos wouldn’t have had a chance.

  “Hey Jesse!” Alicia offered, greeting the nearest guard with an exuberance reserved for close relatives. Jesse seemed confused for a moment until recognition set in, and then his hand moved incredibly fast.

  I was a little impressed by his speed, but he wasn’t nearly fast enough to get a finger on his weapon before I caved in his skull. He collapsed as I hit the light switch regulating his life, and I moved on to guard two, who had gotten a hand cannon out of his shoulder rig just as I clapped one hand over his mouth and the other on the back of his neck, pushing his head backward until I heard and felt the vertebrae pop.

  As the second guard fell dead at my feet, I turned to Alicia, nodding. She smiled slightly and moved to stand in front of the gate camera. Her left hand came up in an exaggerated wave, and the camera whirred quietly as it zoomed in on her. While she made nice with the camera, I retrieved the two dead guards and went up and over the gate in a blur, installing myself in a thick patch of shadow. I silently lowered my passengers to the ground and pinpointed the location of each patrolling guard.

  I was there less than ten seconds before I could hear a voice issuing commands to the guards via earpieces. Alicia was certainly not alone, and she was to be taken alive. I smiled as the guards approached the gate. Christian really was stupid, putting the need to punish Alicia personally above getting the job done. If our roles had been reversed, Alicia would have been the first to die, a hefty bonus to the guard who did it. She was the conviction behind this assault, and without her, it might falter enough to make it less effective, if not make it collapse completely. By taking Alicia mostly out of my equation, Christian was making this so easy for me that it almost took the fun out of it.

  Thankfully, it’s impossible to take all the fun out of killing mortals.

  The nearest guard reached me, a silenced Heckler & Koch MP5SD held in assault position, eyes straining to make sense of the darkness. I tore the gun from his grasp with my right hand while my left introduced his face to the back of his head. His legs buckled, and he let out a choked gurgle as he went down. I brought the weapon to my shoulder and placed a single 9mm round into the face of the next closest guard before the first one hit the ground. In an otherworldly display of preternatural speed, I swiveled, aimed, and fired five more times, dropping the remaining external guards and three attack dogs before any of them could register the muted spits of gunfire from my position.

  Clear, I whispered to Alicia, using a minor telekinetic exercise to trigger the switch that made the gate open. It lumbered open with an eerie soundtrack of motor and rattle, and Alicia walked past me and up the driveway. I broke each weapon in my collection of corpses before following her.

  About thirty feet from the gate, Alicia made a sharp right onto the cobblestone walkway that led to the front door. I sped ahead of her, coming up against the front wall of the house just to the left of the front door. Back to the rough stone surface, I could hear the rushing of footsteps inside, counting three distinct sets before the front door was flung open. Three men in black utilities poured abruptly into the night, each also armed with an MP5SD. All three were
abreast of one another, four feet apart. That wasn’t enough separation for such a direct, frontal maneuver.

  Bonus.

  I left my position, appearing in front of the leftmost two guards like a ghostly blur. I gripped the stubby, silenced barrels of their weapons, one in each hand, and crossed my right hand over my left, placing each man in the other’s field of fire. They cut each other down a second later, and I yanked each weapon free, flipping and spinning them both in midair.

  If my life were a movie (hint, hint), they would have flipped in slow motion and landed with a pistol grip in each hand. Instead, they flipped wildly over my shoulder, drawing the third guard’s attention for a split second. Long enough for me to grab the suppressor in one hand and the stock in the other, ripping the firearm from his grasp and butt-stroking him underneath the chin in one motion.

  He went down immediately, his body on the walkway and his head hanging over the edge, touching the grass. A stomp to the nape of his neck finished him off and a kick to the shoulder sent his body tumbling onto the lawn.

  Clear, I told her again, moving back into the shadows as she climbed the front steps. She stopped two feet from the front door, a wide, black number with a huge lion head knocker, and swiveled her head to look at the camera mounted in the corner to her right. “Is that all you’ve got, Chris?” she asked, laughter in her voice, doing a cute little pirouette.

  I almost laughed with her until I heard four more sets of running footsteps stop on the other side of the door. Knowing their intentions instantly, I vaulted onto the small porch, wrapping Alicia up in my arms and taking her away from the door several seconds before a blanket of bullets tore both it and the frame to pieces.

  Wait here, I commanded, moving again. Alicia was stunned as much by my maneuver as by the destroyed chunks of door that littered the ground where she had been seconds earlier, but she managed to nod before I barreled through the decimated doorway so swiftly that the wind from my movement caused chunks of the door to clatter around on the porch.

  I was a whirlwind that spun into man after man in the front foyer, leaving a trail of decapitated corpses in my wake. After ripping a head free, I tossed it to the next man as a distraction before doing the same to him. Six heads later, I was the only one standing in the foyer, my clothes splattered with warm, fragrant blood, my feet surrounded by sticky puddles.

  The BloodHunger raised its head in interest, but I managed to stop myself from licking the blood off the floor like the dog that I am. Instead, I extended my senses, discovering several mortals in the room to my right, and several more rushing down the second-floor hallway that culminated in a stairwell directly ahead of me.

  After a quick eenie-meenie-miney-mo, I launched myself at the door to my right, exploding through it like a missile, and several moments later, another series of revenant-made lakes had been created.

  My clothing and skin were now soaked, thick, salty rivulets of blood running down my face. I allowed myself a moment to lick my lips and another moment to savor the sweet taste before I was back in the foyer, my feet splashing rapid-fire through the puddles there.

  The lead man from the upstairs hallway was already on the bottom step, and as he carefully put one foot onto the blood-drenched floor, eyes sweeping slowly from left to right, I stopped moving, my preternatural momentum pushing me into a controlled slide across the floor toward his position. He registered my presence just as I slammed into him like a five-engine freight train.

  We tumbled onto the bottom few steps, and he gave a sharp cry as his back broke from the force of my charge. I gave in to the frenzy under my skin, sinking my fangs deep and draining him with one prolonged swallow. Dutifully ignoring his memories, I raised his body like a shield in front of me and charged up the stairs like a rabid rhino.

  A cloud of lead wasps made his body dance with each impact. Thankfully, none of them passed through his chest before I made my way to the next flesh shield, discarding my worn-out one and hoisting the new one in place, smashing my forehead right between his eyes and cracking his skull.

  Time became thick and slow as I plowed up the stairs with controlled fury. Four shields later, I was once again the only being still standing.

  I paused, enforcing a rigid control of my breathing, my senses extended, but no new victims were on the way. Apparently, they had finally figured out that charging my position wasn’t very smart.

  I signaled Alicia, and moments later, she joined me on the stairs, walking on top of Lake Jason as if she were Jesus of Nazareth.

  Splish. Splash. Splosh.

  When she reached me, I handed her one of the dead men’s weapons and kept one myself. Her hand gripped the waistband at my lower back as we climbed the remainder of the stairs, both of us careful to keep her completely concealed behind my body.

  At the top of the hallway, I paused, all my senses extended to cover the entire house; with all the tools at my disposal, there was no need to have any surprises. On my own, I wouldn’t have cared much; I might have even welcomed a few surprises just to increase the enjoyment factor, but with Alicia, one surprise was all it would take.

  Despite the awesome well of power at my disposal, I was well aware of my limitations, at that moment more than any other.

  I bring death.

  I bring misery and suffering.

  But I cannot bring life... at least not any life I wanted to give her.

  I caught a jumbled mishmash of thoughts, some calm, others panicked, and the rest almost impossible to separate from one another. I sorted through them to the best of my ability, employing a trick that Phobos once taught me, similar to mnemonics, until at last, I found the prize.

  Christian.

  He was a bit freaked out, the part of him used to being untouchable engaged in a fierce battle with the part feeling intensely vulnerable. The untouchable part was winning, but that would change when it was time.

  Alicia and I crept silently down the hall, and I cast a quick glance back at her. Her face was ablaze with an alloy of emotion beyond joy, a colorful amalgam of all the emotions charging through her at that moment. I let her savor them for a moment before continuing on, dealing with each new pocket of guards swiftly, economically, and most of all, carefully.

  ◆◆◆

  Christian looked from left to right, convincing himself that his two most trusted, most skilled bodyguards were still there in front of him. He alternated between rage and trembling fear as he listened to the reports from the Hive, the reinforced concrete room in the basement where all of his surveillance cameras and the vital signs of each member of his house staff were monitored.

  Twenty-eight of the best men money could buy, dead. It was almost absurd in its inconceivability. Less than four hours ago, he had berated himself bitterly for increasing the security at his house so heavily in the face of such a pathetic threat, but a little voice inside him, one that he rarely acknowledged, had pestered him until he began to feel the threat in another voice, one that had spoken to him as no other had ever dared. No matter how hard he tried to deny it, that icy, quietly convicted voice still haunted him. Christian made a mental note to listen to his inner voice religiously if he survived this night.

  Wait a minute, he thought. IF? Of course he would survive this; any other outcome was unacceptable. Christian Lucier did not lose!

  Perhaps if he repeated that enough, the little voice inside would stop laughing.

  ◆◆◆

  The remaining four guards outside Christian’s office, the most skilled of the entire lot so far, put up a surprisingly fierce and predictably ruthless fight, but after the last fell face first to the floor, silence settled in. Alicia and I enjoyed the respite. I could hear her heart pounding, and my BloodHunger sat up and licked its lips.

  Forcing myself to turn away from her, I surveyed the carnage behind us. A part of me was quite surprised that Christian had hung around this long. Of course, in his business, a disaster like this couldn’t be weathered by running away. After
hearing about Christian’s retreat, every Tom, Dick, and Harry Wannabe would line up to take his shot at the title, and only one of them had to get lucky. For Christian, though, I’m pretty sure it was more a matter of pride than anything. From what Alicia told me and from what I could glean from his mind, Christian was all about respect. Earned or taken, it didn’t matter so long as it was there. The utter lack of respect that would follow a retreat would be unbearable to him.

  Besides, there was still a part of him that actually thought he could win. That would have been the saddest thing of all if he wasn’t so pathetic, making it impossible for me to feel sorry for him at all.

  Pushing back the BloodHunger, I turned my gaze back to her, reaching out to brush a stray lock of hair from her face. She smiled back.

  Ready?

  She nodded quickly, her smile becoming determined. Despite the fact that her long-awaited triumph was near at hand, she still realized that there was work to be done. Work first, celebrate later. Have I mentioned that she is truly an amazing mortal specimen?

  We walked down the hall leading to Christian’s office, our steps deliberate and timed to draw out the tension to its peak. I could almost hear the orchestra music that would accompany the scene in any good Hollywood thriller, building slowly to what would soon be a crashing tide of notes. We both stopped in front of the office door, a solid, steel core monstrosity.

  Solid is such a relative term...

  My extended senses painted a mental picture of the room within, Christian almost huddled behind two mountains, all three people focused on the door as if they expected it to explode inward at any moment. No sense disappointing them, was there?

  After a quick glance to Alicia, my mind whispered the steps of our carefully constructed plan one final time. For maximum effect, it was crucial that we follow it to the letter. She cast me a look indicating that she was well aware of the plan, and then she took her place to one side of the door, the steel mesh within the plaster wall offering her substantial cover from the three occupants beyond the door.