Chapter 18 Through Blood #2
I grabbed my weapon. Two more targets behind the trucks. They were coordinating. Professional. One laid down suppressing fire while the other moved to flank.
“Pincer movement!” I shouted.
“I see them!”
Sebastian ran three steps up the wall, pushed off, flipped backward over their covering fire. He landed behind a crate, already drawing. His first arrow caught the flanker in the throat. The man dropped, drowning in his own blood.
The other one panicked. Started spraying bullets wildly. Sebastian vaulted over his cover, closing the distance impossibly fast. The man swung his rifle like a club. Sebastian ducked under it, swept his legs, and put an arrow through his chest before he hit the ground.
Movement everywhere now. More men pouring in from the back. Four. Five. Where the hell had they been hiding?
“Too many!” Sebastian called out.
He was right. We were outnumbered. Outgunned. This was about to get very bad.
One of them threw something. Small. Metal. Grenade.
“Down!”
We both dove. The explosion was deafening. Shrapnel tore through crates and metal. Something hot grazed my leg. Didn't matter. Had to keep moving.
Sebastian was already up, moving like water through the chaos.
A man came at him with a knife. Sebastian caught his wrist, twisted, broke it with an audible snap.
Used the man's own momentum to slam him into a support beam.
Grabbed the knife from his broken hand and opened his throat in one smooth motion.
Two more came at him together. Smart. Coordinating. One high, one low.
Sebastian dropped into a slide, went under the low attacker's swing. Came up behind them both, arrow already nocked. Put it through the first man's spine. He dropped. The second one turned, rifle raising.
I shot him. Three rounds. He went down.
Sebastian and I were back-to-back now. Circling. Covering each other. Moving like we'd been doing this for years instead of weeks.
A man charged me with a machete. I sidestepped, caught his arm, used his momentum to drive him into the wall. Heard his face crunch against concrete. He slid down, leaving a blood smear.
Behind me, I heard Sebastian's bow sing. Heard someone scream. Heard bodies hitting the ground.
“Last two!” he called out.
They'd taken cover behind the trucks. Smart. Using the vehicles as shields. We couldn't see them. Couldn't get a clean shot.
I grabbed a metal pipe from the ground. Threw it to the right of the trucks. It clattered against concrete. Both men turned toward the sound, weapons tracking.
Sebastian was already moving. He ran up a pile of crates like stairs, launched himself into the air, drew mid-flight. His arrow caught one through the temple. The man dropped.
I came around the left side. The last man turned, saw me too late. I put two rounds in his chest. He staggered back against the truck. I put a third through his forehead.
Silence.
Just rain on the metal roof and our breathing and the sound of blood dripping onto concrete.
Bodies everywhere. Ten. Maybe twelve. Hard to count through all the blood and gore.
Sebastian stood on top of the crates, chest heaving, bow still raised. Blood streaked his face. His hood had fallen back, revealing hair plastered to his skull with sweat and rain that leaked through the broken roof.
He looked like death incarnate. Beautiful and terrible in equal measure.
“Clear!” he called down.
I scanned the space. Checking. Always checking. “Not yet.”
Movement from behind the trucks. Someone crawling. Trying to escape. Leaving a blood trail across the floor like breadcrumbs.
I reached him in three strides. Grabbed him by the collar. Hauled him up. Young. Mid-twenties. Scared shitless. Gut wound. Fatal. Just a matter of time.
Good. He should be scared.
“Who are you working for?” I demanded.
He tried to spit at me. Blood instead of saliva. I slammed him against the truck. Hard enough to rattle his teeth. Hard enough that his eyes rolled back for a second.
“Wrong answer. Try again.”
“Fuck you.”
Sebastian dropped from the crates. Landed in a crouch beside us. Arrow still nocked. Pointed at the man's chest. Close enough that he could see the obsidian tip. Close enough to see his own death reflected in it.
“He asked you a question,” Sebastian said. Voice cold. Empty. The voice of someone who'd stopped counting bodies. “Answer it.”
The man's bravado crumbled. “I don't know names! We don't get names!”
“Then what do you get?”
“Codes! Instructions! Money!” He was gasping. Bleeding from the gut wound. Knowing he was dying. “They call him Ghost Zero. That's all I know! I swear!”
Ghost Zero. Another code name. Another dead end.
“What are you being paid to do?” Sebastian asked.
“Surveillance. Information gathering. We watch the palace. Report movement patterns. Schedule changes.” The man's eyes were going unfocused. Shock setting in. “And we wait. For the signal. For Ghost Zero to tell us when to strike.”
“Strike how?”
“I don't know. Above my pay grade. I just. I just watch and report. That's all.”
I didn't believe him. But he was fading fast. We were running out of time.
“One more question,” I said. “Where is Ghost Zero?”
“I told you. I don't know. Nobody knows. That's the point.” He laughed. Wet. Hollow. Blood bubbling on his lips. “You're chasing a ghost. You'll never find him.”
“We'll see about that.”
I hit him once. Hard. His head snapped back. He went limp. Unconscious or dead, I couldn't tell. Didn't care.
“We need to move,” Sebastian said. “Someone heard the gunfire.”
He was right. Sirens wailed in the distance. Getting closer. London's finest responding to reports of automatic weapons fire.
“Help me with him.” I grabbed the unconscious man under the arms. Sebastian took his legs. We dragged him out to the bike, threw him across the back, secured him with zip ties.
Then we rode. Fast. Away from the sirens and the bodies and the evidence of what we'd done.
Away from the warehouse full of corpses we'd left behind like breadcrumbs for whoever came looking.
The farmhouse was thirty miles out. Derelict. Abandoned. The kind of place that had been forgotten by everyone except people who needed places to disappear.
Adrian owned it through a shell company. Used it for exactly this. For interrogations. For things that needed to happen far from witnesses.
We dragged the man inside. The generator hummed to life when I flipped the switch. Lights flickered on. Bare bulbs hanging from wires. Cracked walls. Holes in the roof where moonlight bled through.
Perfect.
I cuffed the man to a pipe in what used to be a kitchen. Sebastian stood by the window, watching the road. Making sure nobody had followed.
“He won't talk yet,” Sebastian said without turning around.
“He will.”
“Will he? Or will he just tell us what we want to hear?”
“There is difference?”
“Yeah. Truth versus survival.” He finally looked at me. “People say anything when they're afraid. Doesn't mean it's real.”
“Then we make him fear the truth more than the lies.”
Sebastian's expression didn't change. But something shifted in his eyes. Something that looked like recognition. Like he knew exactly what I meant.
Like he'd done this before.
The interrogation started slow. Clinical. I zip-tied the man's hands to the pipe above his head. Checked the bindings. Made sure he couldn't escape.
Sebastian stood by the window, watching. Silent. His bow leaned against the wall beside him. Blood still on his hands from the warehouse.
“Last chance to talk without pain,” I said to the man. “Tell us about Ghost Zero.”
“I already told you. I don't know anything.”
“Wrong answer.”
I broke his right index finger. Quick. Clean. The snap echoed in the empty room.
He screamed. High and sharp. The sound bounced off cracked walls.
“Ghost Zero,” I repeated. “Who is he?”
“I don't know! I swear I don't know!”
I broke another finger. Middle finger this time. He screamed louder.
Sebastian shifted by the window. Didn't look away. Just watched. Learning. Or remembering.
“Let me try something,” Sebastian said quietly.
He crossed the room. Crouched in front of the man. Looked him in the eyes.
“You know what the worst part about dying is?” Sebastian asked. Voice soft. Conversational. “It's not the pain. It's the knowing. Knowing that you're going to die and there's nothing you can do to stop it.”
The man was crying now. Snot and tears mixing with blood. “Please. Please I don't know anything useful.”
“You know more than you think.” Sebastian stood. Nodded to me. “His left hand. All of them.”
I broke three fingers in quick succession. The man's screams turned to sobs. Incoherent. Broken.
“Ghost Zero!” Sebastian's voice cut through the crying. Sharp. Commanding. “How do you receive orders?”
“Encrypted. Email. Dark web servers.” The words came fast now. Desperate. “We never see his face. Never hear his voice. Just text. Instructions. Targets.”
“What kind of targets?”
“Politicians. Businessmen. Anyone. Anyone he wants watched or eliminated.”
“The royal family?”
“Yes! Yes, we've been watching them for months! Reporting schedules, security changes, everything!”
I grabbed him by the hair. Forced his head back. “What is Ghost Zero planning?”
“I don't know! I swear I don't know! He doesn't tell us the big picture! We just follow orders!”
“Bullshit.” I slammed his head against the pipe. Once. Twice. Blood ran from his scalp. “You know something. Tell us or I start breaking bones that don't heal.”
“Wait! Wait!” He was hyperventilating now. Panicking. “There's. There's a meeting. I heard about a meeting.”
Sebastian and I exchanged a look.
“What meeting?” Sebastian asked.
“They're coordinating something big. Something that happens soon. That's all I know. I swear that's all I know!”
“When?”
“I don't know!”
“Where?”
“I DON'T KNOW!” He was sobbing now. Completely broken. “They don't tell us! We're just foot soldiers! Expendable! We get orders and we follow them or we disappear!”