Page 66 of Toy

I stepped inside and looked around. Tall white built-in cupboards lined the wall directly on my right. I didn’t open them. I simply fired four or five bullets into each one.

When I finally wrenched the doors open, three lifeless bodies fell out and thumped onto the black and white tiled floor, blood oozing from fresh wounds. I beckoned to Jolie. “See?” I said in a low voice, gesturing to the cupboard.

Her eyes widened. “Wow. They really are pathetic cowards.”

I reloaded my empty gun and stepped forward as quietly as possible. Over the next fifteen minutes, Jolie and I systematically made our way through every lavish room on the ground floor, searching every nook and cranny. We found three more men hiding in separate wardrobes, but apart from them, it was clear.

“Do you think the other men are actually in here?” Jolie asked as she wiped droplets of the last man’s blood off her face. I’d managed to hit a major vessel when I shot him, and she was standing right in the path of the massive arterial spray.

I nodded. “Upstairs, yeah.”

“But they could’ve gone out another side door, right? So they could be hiding out in the forest instead of the house.”

She had a fair point. I was about to reply when a sudden racket assaulted my ears. Multiple gunshots echoed from the room directly above us, and Jolie nearly jumped out of her skin. “Holy shit. What the hell was that?” she asked, clutching my left arm.

“I have a feeling I know exactly what it was,” I muttered, turning toward the polished staircase on our right. I headed up and made an immediate left when I reached the second story’s main hall.

I pointed to the first door in front of us. “If this place is an exact replica of the Louisiana mansion, then this is the Elder’s meeting room,” I muttered against Jolie’s right ear. “It’s where all the gunshots just came from.”

I turned the golden knob and pushed the door open as silently as possible. The sight before us confirmed my suspicion.

Directly ahead of me stood an enormous semi-circular mahogany table. Twelve gray-haired men were slumped in wingback seats around it, heads lolling forward. Each of them had a single bullet wound behind their right ear, and a small handgun lay near each of their right hands. The closest man was Elder Thibodeaux, and the one next to him was Elder Moreau. The other ten Elders made up the rest.

There was another group of bodies under a large bay window on the other side of the room. At least twenty men lay there with blood seeping from bullet wounds in the center of their foreheads.

“Mass suicide,” Jolie murmured.

I nodded. “I guess they finally saw the writing on the wall. They knew it was over.” I stepped over and peered down at the line of bodies near the windows. “They didn’t all shoot themselves, though. These guys don’t have any guns. Looks like the Elders lined them up and shot them, and then they sat down and shot themselves. I’d say they were all willing, though.”

“Makes our job easier, I guess,” Jolie said with an indifferent sniff. She walked around and counted all the bodies in the enormous room. “Thirty-four guys in here. So that’s it, right? They’re all dead?” she asked. Before I could reply, she scanned the Elder table again and shook her head. “Wait, no, I haven’t seen my fath—”

A familiar clicking sound cut her off midsentence, and her face paled as her lips clamped firmly shut. I whipped around.

“That’s right, honey,” Jacob said with a smirk as he stepped up and aimed a gun right at Jolie’s face. “You missed me.”

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