Chapter 27 Siege of Hollowvale #2
This was what real fighting looked like. Not the choreographed dances from training. Not the easy victories against untrained thugs. This was two people trying to kill each other with everything they had.
And I was losing.
He got me in a headlock. Squeezed. Black spots bloomed across my vision. Oxygen became a memory.
My hand scrabbled at my belt. Found a throwing knife. Drove it backward into his thigh.
He screamed. Released me. Staggered back.
I gasped. Air like knives in my throat. Vision swimming.
Viktor was there suddenly. Moving like death itself. His knife opened the mercenary's throat before the man could recover. Blood sprayed. The body dropped.
“You okay?” Viktor pulled me up.
“Peachy,” I wheezed. “Love getting my ass kicked.”
“Not your ass. Your everything.” He shoved a pistol into my hand. “Conserve arrows. You're down to eight.”
Shit. I'd lost count.
More mercenaries flooded in from the east corridor. Six. No, seven. Tactical formation. Suppressing fire. Moving like they'd trained together for years.
Dom's rifle barked. Took down the point man. The rest scattered, finding cover, returning fire with disciplined three-round bursts.
These weren't hired guns. These were operators. Special forces quality.
Marcel hadn't just bought an army. He'd bought the best.
“Grenade!” Viktor's shout cut through the chaos.
I saw it. Small metal sphere arcing through the air in a perfect parabola. Headed straight for us.
No time to run. No time to think.
Viktor grabbed me. Yanked me behind a marble column. Covered me with his body. All weight and muscle and protective instinct.
The explosion ripped through the ballroom. Shockwave hitting like the hand of an angry god. Heat washing over us in a wave. My skin felt flash-fried. Debris everywhere. Chunks of marble, shattered wood, burning curtains.
My ears rang. Couldn't hear anything except high-pitched whining that drowned out everything else.
Viktor's mouth moved. Saying something. I couldn't hear it. Read his lips: “MOVE!”
He pulled me up. Kept moving. No time to recover. No time to assess damage. Forward or die. Those were the options.
My legs felt like rubber. Head spinning. But I ran anyway.
More mercenaries pouring in from side doors. From balconies. From passages I hadn't even known existed. Where the hell were they all coming from? How many had Marcel hired?
I switched to the pistol Viktor had given me. My bow was running dry and these ranges were too close anyway.
Aimed. Fired. Mercenary went down clutching his shoulder.
Aimed. Fired. Another dropped.
Viktor was a blur beside me. Gun in one hand. Knife in the other. Moving through enemies like water through stone. Every movement precise. Economical. Lethal.
A mercenary came at him with a baton. Viktor disarmed him in two moves. Broke his arm. Used the man's own momentum to throw him into his buddy. Both went down in a tangle.
I'd never seen anything more beautiful or terrifying.
“East wing secure!” Luka's voice crackled through the damaged comm. “Server room accessed. Pulling files. He's been laundering through half of Europe.”
“Copy,” Viktor said between shots. Reloading without looking. Muscle memory. “We're moving for the study.”
We pushed forward. Every corridor another war. Bodies piling up. Blood slicking expensive floors, making footing treacherous. The manor had become a charnel house.
The air reeked of cordite and burnt velvet and copper. Of piss and shit from dying men. Of smoke from fires spreading through expensive drapes.
My quiver felt light. Too light. I checked. Eight arrows left. Plus the pistol. Plus my knives.
Enough. Had to be enough.
We reached a junction. Three corridors branching off like a trident.
Viktor held up his fist. We stopped. Listened.
Footsteps. Multiple. Heavy boots. Professional spacing.
“Ambush,” I whispered.
Viktor nodded. Signaled to Dom and Troy. They split. Flanking positions.
The mercenaries came around the corner in a disciplined line. Five of them. Weapons up. Moving like they owned the place.
We hit them from three angles simultaneously.
My arrow took the lead man through the chest. He went down hard, gasping like a landed fish.
Viktor's knife found another's kidney. Twisted. Withdrew. The man collapsed.
Dom's rifle thundered. Another mercenary's head snapped back in a spray of red mist.
But the remaining two were good. Really good. They adapted instantly, using their fallen comrades as cover, returning fire with precision that forced us back.
One of them pulled a flashbang.
“Eyes!” Viktor shouted.
I closed my eyes. Turned away. The bang was still deafening even through my palms. Light blazed through my eyelids.
When I opened them, both mercenaries were charging. One at Viktor. One at me.
Mine had a machete. Long. Curved. Wicked sharp.
He swung for my head. I ducked. Blade whistled past close enough to feel the displaced air.
He reversed. Came back with a backhand slash. I barely got my bow up in time. The machete bit into the dark wood. Stuck.
I yanked. He held on. We struggled. Strength against strength.
He was winning. Older. More experienced. Muscles like steel cables.
I let go. He stumbled forward, off-balance.
I drove my knife into his armpit. Where the vest didn't cover. Up into his heart.
His eyes went wide. Shocked. Like he'd never considered he could lose.
I twisted the blade. His grip on the machete loosened. He fell.
I looked up. Viktor had his opponent on the ground. One knee on the man's chest. Gun to his head.
“Where is Marcel?” Viktor demanded.
The mercenary spat blood. Laughed. “Fuck you.”
Viktor shot him in the shoulder. Not a killing shot. Just pain. “Where?”
“You're too late,” the mercenary wheezed. “He's already—”
Viktor shot him again. Other shoulder. “Last chance.”
“Study,” the man gasped. “Top floor. But you won't—”
Viktor knocked him unconscious with the pistol grip. Stood. Looked at me.
We were both bleeding. Both exhausted. I could see the toll this was taking. The way his hands shook slightly. The way his breathing was too fast.
We were running on adrenaline and rage and the desperate need to finish this.
“Can you keep going?” he asked.
“Can you?”
His smile was all teeth. “Da. Let's end this.”
We moved. Dom and Troy covering our backs. Dmitri somewhere behind, securing the server room with Luka.
More corridors. More bodies. The manor seemed endless. Like it was actively trying to stop us.
My lungs burned. Ribs screamed with every breath. The cut on my face dripped blood into my eye. Everything hurt.
But I kept moving.
Because eighteen years of hunting came down to this. To these corridors. To that door ahead.
To finally facing the monster who'd taken everything.
We reached the double doors. Dark wood carved with Marcel's crest. Gold handles. Pretentious as hell.
Viktor looked at me. Blood on his face. Eyes blazing with determination and exhaustion and something that might've been fear.
“Ready?” he asked.
I checked my arrows. Six left. Plus the pistol. Plus my knives.
Thought about my mother. About the rose I'd left on her grave. About the promise I'd made.
“Ready,” I said.
Viktor kicked the door open.
The study was empty.
Fireplace still burning. Desk untouched. Papers scattered like someone had left in a hurry.
But no Marcel.
“Fuck,” I breathed.
Then his voice. Echoing from speakers hidden in the walls. Smooth. Cultured. Smug as hell.
“Welcome home, my prince.”
Rage exploded through me. Hot. Blinding.
“Where are you, you coward!”
“Downstairs. Where all the best secrets hide.” His laugh cut through the comm. “Come find me. If you dare.”
Viktor's hand found my wrist. Grounding. “It's a trap.”
“I know.”
“We should wait for backup.”
“No time.” I pulled away. Headed for the door I'd spotted behind a bookshelf. “He's destroying evidence. Every second we wait, he gets away with more.”
“Sebastian—”
“You coming or not?”
Viktor swore in Russian. Followed.
The door led to stairs. Stone. Old. Leading down into darkness that smelled like water and rot.
We descended into hell's basement.
The corridor at the bottom was flooded. Six inches of water covering the floor. Flickering lights. Shadows moving.
“Dmitri, Troy, converge on basement level,” Viktor said into the comm. “We've got—”
Gunfire cut him off.
I dove behind a support beam. Viktor hit the opposite side. Bullets sparked off stone and metal.
Marcel stood at the far end. Immaculate in a suit that probably cost more than most people made in a year. Gun in one hand. Data drive in the other.
Our eyes met across the flooded corridor.
“You killed my mother,” I said. Voice steady. Cold. Every word a promise of violence.
“Correction.” He smiled. “I killed a queen who forgot her place. Who thought love and reform mattered more than order.”
“She mattered more than you ever could.”
“Perhaps. But I'm alive. And she's bones in a pretty tomb.” Marcel's voice carried across the room, calm and conversational. Like we were discussing weather instead of murder. “Just like you'll both be.”
He raised the gun.
Everything happened at once.
Marcel fired. Viktor moved. I loosed an arrow.
The bullet caught Viktor in the shoulder. Spun him around. Blood bloomed across his shirt like a deadly flower.
My arrow caught Marcel in the arm. Should have made him drop the gun. Should have stopped him.
He didn't even flinch.
Just shifted his grip. Fired again with his off hand. Professional. Ambidextrous. Trained.
The second bullet punched through Viktor's thigh. He went down hard.
“Viktor!” I was moving before thought. Reaching him. Hands on his shoulder. Blood hot and wet between my fingers. Too much blood. “Stay down. Stay—”
“Behind you!”
I spun.
But Marcel wasn't behind me. He was everywhere.
He moved like smoke. Like shadow given form. Faster than anyone that age should move. Faster than anyone human should move.
One second he was across the room. The next he was on me.