Page 167 of Elven Crown

That would have been an enormous relief and a much-needed boost to morale if those Hells-cursed screams hadn’t continued endlessly from every direction.

Rebecca only hoped they hadn’t taken too long to get here.

Gritting his teeth in a silent snarl, Maxwell tried to signal the details of his breach strategy, but it was too difficult to focus on what he might have tried to say.

The piercing screams now felt like a skewer plunging deep into each of Rebecca’s ears, and if it was that bad for her, she could only imagine what the others felt. Apparently, it was too much.

Shell broke free of their staggered formation and stormed toward the double doors, gritting her teeth and raising her weapon. Even Maxwell had no time to intervene before Shell aimed her augmented rifle at the hulking padlock hooked through the silver chains and delivered a single explosive blast of brilliant deep-blue light into it from a yard away.

The doors rattled in their frames, the silver chain sparked and hissed, clanging against itself under the attack, until the padlock glowed a red-hot orange and the whole thing melted apart.

The second the blue lights fizzled out around the door, the screaming from all sides abruptly cut off again, plunging the team into another deafening silence.

Maxwell glared at Shell before slightly lowering his weapon. “We still need to assess the place. I want a confirmed visual on enemy combatants inside, plus a headcountandeyes on our three before we—”

When the next tortured cries cut through the air, every operative twitched at the sound, already expecting the noise to double, triple, quadruple and continue like every other time.

But this was different.

This began as only one voice and remained only one voice, coming from inside the building, beyond these newly unlocked double doors.

And it was perfectly loud enough and clear enough to make out words.

“Is that all you got, you motherfuckers? Who taught you how to do this, huh? Whoever it was, you should ask for your money back! It fucking tickles!”

By the Blood. It was Diego.

Despite the battered hoarseness of his voice and his heavy breathing between furious, baiting shouts, the same thought seemed to hit every member of the team at the same time.

Shell moved first and grabbed a handful of the silver chains before pulling at them with a quick jerk. What little of the partially melted padlock remained in place snapped easily beneath the force, and Shell tugged once more before the chains came loose. She dropped them on the ground in front of her with a heavy jingle.

Maxwell stared at her the whole time, then glanced at Rebecca, as if wanting her opinion, though he’d already made up his mind. “Or we could move in now…”

“Now’s good,” Whit grumbled with a nod.

Maxwell signaled for them to get ready, then he hauled open the double doors and slipped inside, his weapon raised to clear the space in front of him while the team filtered in closely behind.

The walls were too old and thin where they hadn’t already crumbled away, providing little protection against the awful noises from outside, but at least they were finally here.

Now they could get their captured operatives out and back to safety, and this waking nightmare of a mission would be over.

Through the building’s front foyer, across cracked tiles that only looked like marble and had once been polished to a pristine shine, the team swept in.

Frayed red velvet covered random surfaces, like the counter in front of the ticket booth’s window and the stairs leading down off the lobby. The brass banisters and handrails lining the walls were dented, darkened by age and neglect. Piles of dry and decaying leaves scattered across the floor, along with the remnants of shattered glass beneath all the broken windows.

Their footsteps echoed loudly in the silent stillness of the lobby.

Rebecca realized this particular building, though cheaply built and unkept, had been modeled after a 1920s theater hall, complete with thick curtains of dark red velvet now hanging in stained and tattered strips in front of another set of double doors opening into the auditorium beyond.

“Bring it, you fucking amateurs!” Diego’s voice rang from beyond that next set of doors. “Don’t tell me that’s all you’ve got. We’ll be here forever, and all this foreplay’s making me hungry!”

If the team hadn’t already given away their position by surging into the lobby, they would by barging straight into the auditorium while Diego spat obscenities at his captors.

Maxwell signaled for Shell and Whit to head down the left aisle branching up the lobby while Murray and Jay were to do the same on the right. Whether he was still ignoring Rowan to keep him out of the plans or just hadn’t yet gotten around to assigning the elf a task, it didn’t matter.

The trembling growl they’d been hearing across the park, the awful sound that had led them this far, rose again through the theater hall. There could be no doubt anymore that this was where the sound had originated.

It was vastly closer and therefore far louder than all the others.

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