Page 87 of Wrath
A clapping sound came from the door, and they broke apart.
Alek poked his frightened face in. He clapped again and pointed at their feet the same time something rubbed up against Misha’s bare skin. When she glanced down, terror gripped her tight.
“S-s-s-snake.”
“Jesus!” Wyatt pulled her back, out of the way of the fifteen foot anaconda slowly wrapping its way around Dimitri’s body, crushing him in its massive girth. They could hear bones and metal crunch.
Wyatt scooped up her fallen clothing. “Come on. We have to go.”
Misha took one last look at Dimitri and then averted her eyes. She should feel bad, but in the end, he got what was coming to him. There was no way of saving him now.
Forty
Goddamn that snake,was all Wyatt could think as he barricaded Dimitri’s office door closed while Misha dressed back into her normal clothes in the hallway. When he was done, he told her and Alek to stay put until he returned. He’d had no response from Mary and Sloan, despite repeated attempts at contact on his comms. It wasn’t right. Tugging his mask up to conceal his identity, he made sure Misha had the golden gun, and then gave Alek one of his daggers before continuing through the hallway. Midway up the basement steps, he had to step over bodies—fallen men and white-robed lumps covered in blood and gore. They’d been thrown down the stairwell from the main level. The smell was sticky, and the air was thick. He hadn’t seen such a massacre in years. Stone cold unease unfurled in his gut as he stepped over more unmoving bodies—it was quiet. Too quiet.
He tried the comms again. “Sloth,” he hissed. “What’s your status?”
Nothing.
“Mary.”
Silence.
Shit.
Picking up the pace, he stopped only to check the pulse on a few bodies. All dead. He recognized evidence of Mary’s trademark puncture wounds in vital pressure points. Bled out from their femoral or carotid arteries from one simple stab. She must have been a tornado of destruction. He cautiously continued up the stairwell, and when he crested the top to land on the ground level, more silence greeted him. The music was off. The only light came from the green emergency exit signs lighting the path out. Deep into the club where the stage and catwalk was, it was a shadowed mess. He couldn’t see jack. But if he concentrated hard, he could feel something.
Wrath…
The sin wriggled in his gut and picked at the edges. Just like always, the string pulled its puppet, commanding his attention.That way.End the sin. Kill it now.Too many sources. One, two… he counted silently. At least five more people he could tell hiding in the shadows beyond. But who?
Preferring the safety of distance, Wyatt disconnected the throwing knives attached to his thighs. He palmed the hilts as he crept closer, keeping his movements stealthy and light. Toe first, heel second. Softly, softly, until the sounds of groaning and dying men wafted into earshot. The smell of blood filtered through his mask. If Mary and Sloan were dead, they went down fighting. His throat tightened.Keep going.
Don’t jump to conclusions. Seek them out.
Both Mary and Sloan had a unique sin signature. He’d spent his entire life learning how their anger felt, and if he concentrated, he could work out whether the signatures he sensed belonged to them, or the enemy. He tracked around the room—focusing on where he’d felt them before.
Movement in his periphery.
He rapid-fire released his daggers, satisfied when they ended with a thud and gurgle of astonishment.Got ‘em.Two wrath signatures winked out, and then… Sloan.
He felt her. Alive and simmering in anger—probably injured, but alive—thank Christ. But where was Mary? She was usually the most fearful in battle. An assassin that assassins feared. Even as human as she was, she was a force to be reckoned with. The dead bodies attested to that. Uncertainty spread within him. Why couldn’t he sense his mother?
She was either controlling her rage, or…
A loud clang, and then light flooded the room revealing piles of dead bodies fallen in disregard over fallen furniture and broken glass. A gasp behind him sent shock-waves rushing through his system. He spun around—
“What are you doing here?” he growled through his teeth.
Misha stood arm in arm with Alek by a fuse box on the wall. She’d turned on the lights.
“I’m sorry!” she gasped, white faced as her gaze traveled over the carnage. “It was so quiet. I thought it was safe.”
He bit down. “Get back until I say it’s safe.”
He waved them away and signed the same thing. It was Alek who tugged the stupefied Misha into the safe cover of the hallway. Good boy. He’d make a good soldier if they could work around the hearing and sound disability. When Wyatt turned back, his gaze traveled over the many bodies—some with arrows sticking out of them—to the main stage where two stood still, waiting.
His heart dropped into his stomach. Falcon had her bullwhip wrapped around Mary’s neck, and the rest of it was looped around the rafters before landing back in her hand. She tightened her hold and stared down at Wyatt from an unmasked face. It must have fallen in battle. Mary was also without her mask, jaw set with determination, eyes hard but thinking. The cord around Mary’s neck reminded Wyatt of the snake consuming Dimitri. Relentless, determined, and unyielding.
