Dark Rebel’s Mystery (The Children Of The Gods #92)

1. Kyra

1

KYRA

K yra lay flat on her stomach, peering through night-vision binoculars at the compound below. Even without the military-grade equipment, her enhanced vision would have given her a clear view of the guards patrolling the perimeter, but she'd learned to hide her extraordinary abilities, including keeping the truth from her closest friends and allies.

Kurds were highly superstitious, and the most rational and educated among them had no problem believing in evil spirits, or Jinns as they were called in these parts. If they realized how strong she really was or how good her night vision was, they might start fearing her. Already, Kyra had earned the reputation of being invisible to the Malak al-Maut based on how many times she'd narrowly escaped death.

"Six guards on rotation," she whispered. "Two at the main gate, two patrolling the eastern wall, and two more on the western side."

Soran, her second-in-command, shifted silently beside her. "The intel was good then. Matches what our source said."

She nodded, studying the way the guards moved. These weren't the usual poorly disciplined conscripts that her team typically encountered. Something about how they patrolled the ground, alert and silent, tugged at her memory, but like most things from her past, the thought slipped away before she could grasp it.

They must have important prisoners in there for an elite unit to be guarding the place, and none of the people she'd come to rescue qualified as such.

Who else was being held in this facility?

Or maybe she had it all wrong, and the special unit wasn't there to guard prisoners but a high-up commander from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard.

Funny how the oppressors called themselves revolutionaries. The inversion of truth was not only ironic but also infuriating.

The amber pendant that was hidden beneath her shirt pulsed, warm and insistent, pointing her in the direction of the eastern wing of the compound. She'd found it years ago, or perhaps it had found her, and she often wondered if its guiding power came from the stone itself or from something inside her that the stone merely amplified.

It was just one more mystery in a life full of them.

"The prisoners are being held in the eastern building," she said without explaining how she knew that. Her team had learned to trust her intuition and not ask too many questions. "We'll need to create a diversion on the other side."

Soran touched her arm, a gesture that would have earned anyone else a swift takedown, but he'd fought beside her for over fifteen years and earned the right to such familiarity.

"The usual?" he asked.

She shook her head. "No explosives this time. Too many civilians in the surrounding buildings. We need to do this clean and quiet."

Soran's lips formed a tight line, but he nodded.

Explosives would have made things much easier and faster, but they were fighting to free the people from oppression, not deliver them faster to their Maker. Still, she would be risking her team by sending them to potentially interact with an elite fighting force without providing proper distraction.

Behind them, the rest of her twelve-person team waited for instructions. They were all hardened and loyal fighters. They'd followed her on countless missions like this one, freeing political prisoners, rescuing women from honor killings, and striking back against those who thought they could break their people's spirit.

She shifted to face them. "Hamid, Zara—you're on diversion duty, as we discussed. Simulate a perimeter breach on the western wall and try to make it look amateurish; I want them to think that it's just some local teens causing mischief. Soran will lead teams two and three through the eastern approach."

Out of habit, her fingers moved along with her words in the hand signals they had developed over the many years of working together, showing each team their exact route and timing.

"What about you?" Zara asked, though she likely knew the answer.

"I'm going over the roof." Kyra had already spotted her route—a drainage pipe that looked sturdy enough to support her weight, though anyone else would have probably considered it too risky.

Soran frowned. "Alone?"

"I'm stealthier on my own."

It was true. Kyra could easily scale walls and leap between buildings while others struggled to keep up. Her body simply did things that should not have been possible, and she'd learned to hide it as best she could.

She checked her watch. "Thirty minutes until shift change. That's our window. Get into position and wait for my signal."

As her team moved out silently, she watched until they disappeared into the shadows before turning back to study the compound. The pendant's warmth had settled into a steady pulse, confirming they were in the right place. Somewhere in that building were people who needed their help.

Her hand went to the scarf covering her hair—black, to blend with the shadows. She never went anywhere without her head covered, but it wasn't because of religious conviction. She didn't want her face to be seen and remembered, and when on a mission, she covered her mouth and nose with it, leaving only her eyes exposed. The fewer people who knew what she looked like, the better.

Kyra waited until Hamid and Zara were in position before moving down the ridge. The drainpipe was precisely where she needed it to be, and her enhanced vision picked out every handhold on her planned route. As always, her body seemed to know exactly what to do, moving with a fluid grace and power that felt as natural as breathing.

She shouldn't be that strong or that agile. Not even the youngest and fittest men in her team could match the kinds of feats that she found easy.

That was another odd thing about her. She just didn't age. In the past twenty years, not a single wrinkle had appeared on her face, and despite her long days in the sun and the hard life she was leading, her skin was just as smooth and as taut today as it had been in her youth.

The only possible explanation was that she'd been experimented on in that asylum she'd escaped from nearly two and a half decades ago, and she'd been changed into something that wasn't quite human.

Kyra shook her head. Now wasn't the time to ponder questions for which there were no answers, at least none that were available to her.

The first sign of the disturbance her people had caused was subtle—just enough movement at the western wall to draw attention away from where the rest of the team was about to infiltrate.

Two of the guards immediately moved to investigate while the others maintained their positions. Professional, disciplined, and familiar, but very surprising to find in these parts. An outpost in the middle of nowhere didn't justify elite forces.

She pushed the thought aside and began her ascent. The pipe held her weight easily as she climbed, her movements quick and silent.

Hamid and Zara escalated their diversion—voices arguing, the sound of a bottle breaking, enough to demand a response but not enough to trigger a full alert.

The roof was empty, just as their surveillance had suggested.

Kyra moved across it in a low crouch, using the ventilation units for cover. Her pendant grew warmer as she approached the eastern side of the building. The prisoners were close, she could almost feel them, their fear and hope mixing with her anticipation of the fight to come. Through her earpiece, she heard Soran's team reporting that they were in position.

Reaching the edge of the roof, she peered down. There were two guards below, their attention divided between keeping their eyes on their patrol route and the disturbance on the other side.

She could disable them both before they raised an alarm.

Her hands closed around the hilts of the two combat daggers sheathed at her waist, and as she pulled them out, she appreciated their solid weight and how good they felt in her palms.

Did she need to kill these men, though?

After her many years in the resistance, she should be inured to death and killing, and she was well aware that her sympathies might be misplaced, but she still couldn't bring herself to kill when she could achieve her objectives without ending lives.

She could just as easily incapacitate them.

Sheathing the daggers, Kyra measured the distance, calculated the trajectory, and then simply let her body fall.

The landing was silent, her feet and leg muscles absorbing the impact that should have shattered them. Before either guard could react, she had them both in sleeper holds, and they slumped unconscious seconds later.

"Eastern entrance clear," she whispered into her com. "Move in."

As she worked the electronic lock, Soran's team emerged from the shadows. Disabling security systems was another oddity of hers. Somehow, she knew how to crack them almost instinctively. It was as if she'd been trained to become an operative, and maybe she had. She had no idea what she had done before finding herself in the mental asylum, which in reality served to brainwash rebellious young women into obeying the regime and their parents' dictums.

Inside, her pendant led them straight to the interrogation room where the new prisoners were held—six political activists who'd dared to speak against the regime. Their eyes widened at the sight of her team, and their hope warred with disbelief.

"We're here to help," she told them. "Can you walk?"

They could, though one limped severely. She gestured for Zara to support him as they began to move toward the exit.

Everything was going smoothly.

Too smoothly.

Kyra's instincts screamed a warning seconds before the alarm sounded.

"We've got company," Soran said. "Four hostiles approaching from the west."

She pushed the prisoners toward the exit, where the rest of her team waited. "Get them out. I'll handle this."

"Kyra—" Soran started to protest.

"Go!"

He knew better than to argue. As the others retreated with the prisoners, Kyra turned to face their pursuers. Four men in tactical gear rounded the corner, weapons raised.

Elite forces, given their uniforms, but she could handle them.

She had done it before.

Time seemed to slow as they spotted her. Kyra's body moved without conscious thought, crossing the distance between them in the blink of an eye. The first man's eyes widened in shock just before her knife connected with his throat. The second managed to squeeze off a shot that she somehow knew would miss before it even left the barrel.

She moved through them like a ghost, her strikes precise and lethal. When it was over, she stood among the bodies, breathing heavily, not just from exertion but from the strange euphoria of combat.

The killing was never easy, and she would pay the price later in nightmares and in missing pieces of her soul, but for now, it felt good to be alive while her enemies lay in pools of their own blood.

As she followed her team's exit route, the pendant's warmth faded to a comfortable glow, telling her the mission was complete.

Kyra caught up to the others at their fallback position. The prisoners had already been loaded into the vehicles, and Soran nodded as she joined him at the cabin.

"Did you get them all?" he asked.

"Of course." She touched her pendant through her shirt.

It had led them true again, but tonight's mission left her unsettled, and it wasn't just about the dead bodies she'd left behind.

Those guards had been better trained and more coordinated than usual. If she hadn't been there, her team would have failed the extraction and probably ended up dead.