Out of the corner of my eye I saw her glance at the remaining window at her disposal. I snapped my whip and swirled it over my head once, sending a wave of pain screaming through me as I moved. I wrapped the length of the whip around her neck and gave a sharp pull, jerking her out of her seat and to the floor in a crumpled mess. She grabbed the whip and pulled desperately on it, trying to create some slack so she could breathe. I tightened my grip on it, wrapping a section around my upper arm as I took a step closer. The bubble of energy that had protected her was gone.
Kneeling on the ground behind her, I tightened the whip around her neck again, slowly choking the life out of her. I watched as her lips turned an ugly shade of blue and her eyes began to bulge from their sockets. Her long red fingernails clawed at the leather whip before finally dropping limp at her sides. I remained on the ground, holding her tight until I heard her heart stop beating at long last.
Unwrapping the whip, I stood, letting her fall to the ground in a heap next to her chair. She was hidden behind her large, tall desk and would go unnoticed at first glance. But I was running out of time. As I replaced the whip at my side, I could hear heavy footsteps pounding up the cement stairs toward the first floor.
Coming out from behind the desk, I continued toward my right to finish off the last of the offices so I could meet up with Rowe. Unfortunately, the doorway to the stairway exploded open and men with guns poured into the office building. I paused where I was, trying to decide whether I should continue with my extermination or stop the men who offered the greater threat. Rowe could undoubtedly finish off the office workers without a problem or help from me. I needed to cover his back so he could work quickly.
Pressing my back to one wall, I waited for the footsteps to get closer. I clenched my knives in my fists, sending another streak of pain through my hands from the shards of glass still embedded there. Blood dripped from me, staining the carpet in a motley spotted pattern. As the first man appeared around the corner, I swung both of my arms out. One knife buried deep in his muscular gut while the second one hit him in the throat. I continued to rip through his body, pulling the knives free as he collapsed to the floor in a convulsing, quivering mass of spurting blood.
The man behind him paused in horror. Like the others who had just burst in from the stairwell, he was dressed differently than those men I’d encountered so far in the office building, with their white shirts and striped ties. These men wore black pants and shirts in an effort to blend in with the darkness. Weapons were openly strapped to their bodies, as if they were the ones selected to wage the coming war against the different races. If they were looking for a war, then I was willing to give it to them. Placing my hand over that of the man who clutched a gun, I forced it up to his temple and pulled the trigger, blasting his brains against the opposite wall. He gave one last scream of terror before he slumped at my feet, dead, drawing more attention in my direction.
Flashlights flicked on, bright spotlights through the darkness, in an effort to spot their attacker, but I pulled back around the corner. While still cloaked from their view, I was dripping blood onto the carpet, which was bound to give me away eventually. Wiping my knives clean on my pants, I ducked low and swung around the corner. I took down one armed man after another. Gunfire filled the air as they frantically searched for the creature killing their men with amazing speed. A couple bullets skipped across my leg and another plunged through my shoulder, clipping my collarbone before I managed to finish them off.
Rowe appeared a couple minutes later, covered in blood, to find me sitting against the wall in the middle of a hallway filled with dead bodies. I once again wiped my knives clean on my clothes and shoved them back in the sheaths on my body. Most of my wounds had healed, but I was moving a little slower than I had minutes earlier. I had lost a lot of blood, and the glass still needed to be removed from my skin. I felt bruised and more than a little worn from the fights, but I would be able to manage as we headed down to the basement level. Below us, I could still sense a pair of lycanthropes, which I knew would be of interest to Barrett.
Smoke was starting to hang in the air on the first floor, and the temperature was steadily rising. The fire we started on the second floor had grown and was now determined to make its way down to the first floor. While it had set off a panic among the humans, giving us the ability to easily sneak up on them, it was now cutting our time short.
“I think it’s time to call in Barrett,” I said as I slowly eased back to my feet by sliding my back up the wall.
“You’re hurt?” Rowe asked, looking more than a little surprised.
I shrugged and immediately regretted the action, as my collarbone was still struggling to mend. “It was a narrow hallway and they got in a few lucky shots.”
“And the glass? You’re sparkling in the light,” he said.
“The witch got in one spell before I could kill her. You have any problems?”
“Nothing worth mentioning. The humans are dead and the naturi are alive. Just as it’s supposed to be,” he said with a wide grin.
“Don’t get too excited,” I growled. “We still need to get down to the basement and see what the coalition actually knows. The witch could see me, but she didn’t know what I was. It might mean they don’t know about our people yet. We need to be sure before we leave this place.”
Rowe turned serious as he pulled the little black walkie-talkie off the waist of my pants and pressed the button. “Any problems?”
“None.” Barrett’s voice came back scratchy but easily understandable. “However, smoke is pouring out of the roof. I imagine that the fire department is going to be here soon.”
“Then you better haul your ass in here fast so we can get this done. There are two lycan waiting for you to play with.”
“I’m coming,” Barrett replied. And with him would be the entire fury of his pack.
Twenty-one
Rowe took the point going down the stairs while I headed up the rear, with Barrett sandwiched between us, his guns drawn. Rowe and I remained with our knives, preferring to stick with the old ways. We were faster that way. Rowe paused at the bottom of the stairs and pointed toward the light coming from under the door.
“Private power generators,” he whispered, answering his unspoken question. “They’re ready for us.”
I didn’t doubt it. They had sent a dozen armed men up to the first floor and not one of them came back alive.
Standing back against the wall, Rowe pulled the door open. A barrage of gunfire flew in, peppering the staircase and far concrete wall. Rowe looked over at me and raised an eyebrow while smiling mischievously. It was a look that didn’t fill me with confidence.
“Don’t shoot! Please, don’t shoot!” he cried in a wavering voice, as if terrified. He even changed the pitch and tone, removing any potential threat from his voice. “I only came here to bring you one of these dirty werewolves when the lightning storm started.”