Leaving the question, he thinks, of what to do with the third guard. He’s caught a bolt in midair just twice in his long career, but he’s not willing to try the same with a bullet.
He has one option: about twenty feet down the hallway is one soaking patch in the floor that he did some prep work on yesterday, using his knife to carve away at the beam below, his logging experience finally dovetailing with his operational work. He’s not sure if it will do what he needs it to do—so many variables involved—but it’s worth a shot.
He hops over the wet patch as he proceeds down the hallway, surveying his work. If this doesn’t work out, he thinks, there’s a chance I catch a bullet in the back.
He’ll have to take that chance. He comes to the corner, darts his head around and back.
Three lights, three guards. All very much alert and ready.
Sigrud plots his move. Three here. Then two more above. Then Khadse.
He creeps around the corner and readies his high-powered bolt-shot and bolt-pistol. He aims the pistol first: its range is shorter and it’s much less accurate, so it’ll be harder to use under pressure.
He draws a bead on the nearest guard, a Continental woman.
He waits for her to look away, to expose her neck, waiting, waiting…
She sniffs and glances to her right.
Sigrud pulls the trigger.
The shot is sure and true, the bolt hurtling through the air to bury itself right in the left side of her throat, almost punching through her neck altogether. She gags, drops her pistol and her torch, and falls to her knees.
The guard immediately to her right—a man—jumps as he’s sprayed with blood, and stares at her. “What the fuck!” he cries. “What the fuck!” He hesitates, torn between going to help her and determining where the attack came from.
Sigrud has already lifted the high-powered bolt-shot. He takes his time. It feels like forever, but it’s probably only four seconds or so, maybe less.
He aims carefully, then fires.
This bolt is slightly high: it hits the second guard right in the mouth, punching through his front teeth and his lower jaw, maybe lethally penetrating his throat. Sigrud doesn’t stop to confirm the kill: he rises and runs back down the hallway.
The third guard cries, “Hey! Hey!” and fires. The shots are wild and late—Sigrud’s already rounded the corner, and the shots thump into the soaking walls behind him. He leaps over the wet patch on the floor, dodges through the molding desks, and hunkers down, reloading his bolt-shots and listening carefully.
There’s quiet for a long time—perhaps the guard’s an experienced operative. Sigrud holds his breath.
Then there’s a loud creaking, a tremendous snap, and a piercing, horrified shriek, which fades rapidly. Then, faintly, a crash from two floors below. Then silence.
Sigrud grins wickedly. It is always so nice, he thinks, when things come together.
He hops out the window, grabs the rope, and starts up to the fourth floor.
Khadse draws his pistol and motions to his two teammates to take up positions around the top of the stairs. There’s someone down there, and from the crash and screams and the silence he’s hearing, it sounds like the whole damn rest of his team is disabled.
He grimaces, thinking, How many out there? Five? Ten? How did they follow us? How did they know? He’s not looking forward to the idea of battling his way out of here with just two of his crew left.
Zdenic looks to him. “What’s the move?”
Khadse holds a finger to his lips. They’re likely trapped up here, if their attackers have brought a full team. The best option would be to find an alternate way out of the fourth floor—but Khadse’s made damned sure there isn’t another way. Which leaves one option.
“Hunker down,” whispers Khadse. “Make them move first.”
“We’re stuck up here like lobsters in a trap!” says Alzbeta, panicking.
“Keep your head!” snaps Khadse. “We’re not like lobsters in a trap, because we’re armed, and they’ve got to come charging up those stairs! Take up defensive positions. Now.”
They begin moving some of the rotting office furniture around the stairs down, forming crude fortifications that might or might not stop a bullet. Then they hide, and wait.
And wait.
Khadse feels sweat running down his temples. He hasn’t been forced into a situation like this in years. My whole team taken apart in fifteen minutes…Why aren’t they attacking? Why aren’t they…
Then there’s a noise, one Khadse hasn’t heard in over a decade or two: the sound of a bolt thudding into human flesh.
He jumps slightly as Zdenic slumps over, having seemingly sprouted a shaft of metal right where his skull meets his neck. He falls to the ground, shuddering and quaking.
“What!” cries Alzbeta. She wheels around, looking for the attacker.
But Khadse’s already figured out the location of their shooter, and is diving away.
“They’re behind us!” he snarls. “How the hells did they get behind us?”
Another click, another hiss as the bolt flies through the air. Then Alzbeta jumps like she’s just had an especially brilliant idea and crumples to the ground, a nine-inch bolt sticking out from just above her clavicle.
A good shot, thinks Khadse, terrified. No, a great shot. But how the hells did they get up here?
Khadse leaps up and darts across the hallway, popping off two rounds as covering fire. Then he sees a form sprinting down the hallway, away from him—a big form.
He chases them down the hallway, then turns the corner again to see his assailant sprint through a line of tables toward an open window.
And then they…jump.
Khadse is so surprised he nearly comes to a halt. “What the hells,” he whispers.
But the figure appears to hang in midair, suspended in the night sky, before slipping down.
And Khadse immediately understands what all this is. He knows this, of course he knows this.
He comes to the window—where, as he expected, a set of ropes have been carefully tied up—and aims down just as the figure slips into the third-floor windows below. “Fuckers!” snarls Khadse. “You’re Ministry, aren’t you, you’re Ministry!” He lifts up his pant leg, pulls out the knife he has holstered there, and slashes the ropes, letting them fall.
Cursing, Khadse holsters his knife and sprints back to the stairs down. I know that goddamn rope trick, he thinks. It’s textbook! Exactly what a Ministry operative does when badly outnumbered. Prep the environment against your opponents, then winnow them out, one by one.
He leaps over the barricade, rushes down the stairs, intending to intercept them, catch them before they can prepare any other tricks. There’s just one of them…One, or maybe two.
He wheels around the corner. Then his hand holding the pistol—his right—lights up with pain.
Khadse cries out and tries to hold on to the pistol, but it falls to the floor. His right hand now feels curiously heavy, and it takes him a moment to realize there’s a ten-inch knife lodged in its back, severing many of the tendons there.
He rips out the knife with his left hand, growling with pain. He finds the knife is familiar: the blade is black, the handle ornate, like some kind of royal heirloom.
He recognizes it.