Eight of Swords, Part One

CHAPTER ONE

Bones go crunch.

Blood spills.

Victory over would-be intruders is just so fucking satisfying.

The last man of the incoming units falls down dead in the tunnels with a small splash, his neck broken at a spectacularly jarring angle. Breathless and exhilarated, Kade looks over at his friend. ‘Was that you?’

Luca throws Kade a smug little smirk, cocks a brow and spits blood. ‘You know anyone else that can fold a spine like me?’ he asks, obnoxious, British and proud. ‘Doubt it, Motorkade. How many you get?’

‘Seven.’

‘You did not get seven.’

‘Jealousy is so ugly on you, Lucozade.’ Kade glances around the tunnel.

He’s ankle-deep in wastewater, but that doesn’t matter, nor does the fact that he caught a blade somewhere in his side.

All that matters right now is making sure that the men who were stupid enough to think they could infiltrate the Tower and take down Iron Star are stone-cold dead. ‘Is this all of them?’

‘Looks like it.’ Luca toes one, studying the body. ‘Sorrenko?’

‘Feels too aggressive for the Front,’ Hiru observes, removing a gun from a body. ‘Unmarked. What do you think, Kade?’

Kade scans around. ‘Who has a live one?’

‘I do,’ Rike calls out from further down the south fork. Unsurprising, really. Rike is cold-blooded and practical. He usually keeps one alive. The glow of flashlights in the grimy water illuminates the way, but Kade knows these tunnels better than anyone. He could find his way blindfolded.

The attacks have been increasing lately.

It used to be that every few months, a bannerless burst attack would hit the Tower, violent enough to make a statement, just anonymous enough to spare the Varrow City Accords, but now there’s a hit every two weeks.

Kade agrees with Hiru. This was too aggressive to be an attack from the Moroz Front, the only local syndicate not in the Accords.

The Front is run by an especially tricky man, Sorrenko, who likes shadows and games.

His attacks tend to be more playfully irritating than outright brutal, but maybe he, like others lately, is pushing to go after Iron Star, destroy the Accords, and crown himself the ruling syndicate of Varrow City.

No one has ever breached the Tower of Iron Star, and each time an attack mounts, Kade and his team flatten them. It’s been almost a year since they lost even a single unit. It’s become a kind of cost-effective training, almost sport.

He makes his way over to the man Rike has hold of, not quite unconscious, but he will be soon judging by the blow to his head.

Kade touches his face, turns it, studying him, checking for signifying tattoos, finding none. The man stares at him, resentful and resigned. Closely reading the look in glassy eyes, Kade starts with Russian, wants it ruled out, and he knows better than to try French.

Lee’s not in town and if she was, she would never send men.

‘Sorrenko nakonyets-to poteryal terpeniye, ili ty chuzhoy nozh?’

No recognition. He doesn’t speak it.

‘Show off,’ Luca comments from behind, chewing gum.

Kade ignores the jibe and follows his instincts. He’s not quite the human lie detector that his boss is, but he picks up on a dozen elements that others never do, including the black silicone wrist cuff. ‘I think,’ he says slowly, ‘this fucker is one of the Resets.’

‘I hate those pricks,’ Luca comments from behind Kade to a murmur of general agreement.

No one likes a leaderless movement, but that’s what the Resets seem to be.

Vicious, dedicated and utterly unswerving.

They’ve only emerged as heavy hitters in the last few months, never give anything up no matter who asks, even Kade.

They don’t talk, their weapons are always unmarked and untraceable.

The only giveaway is the black silicone wrist cuff.

The man stares up at Kade with a total, uncanny absence of fear.

Luca shudders. ‘End him already. We won’t get anything. ’

‘You do the honours,’ Kade says to Luca, moving away, interest lost. The clean snick-snap of the neck tells him it’s done. Threat neutralised, Kade scans around, checking his team. ‘Any losses?’

‘None.’

‘Injuries?’

‘You seem to have been stabbed,’ Mara points out.

‘I’m fine.’ His team are checking if there are any more, counting bodies, but they took them down fast and hard. Even so, there will be retaliation for this, always is. His boss has never allowed a blow to go unanswered.

Kade just won’t be involved in it.

His place is in the Tower.

The Tower of Iron Star isn’t the tallest building in Varrow City, but it’s unquestionably the strongest. Once a deserted high-rise, it stands on the outskirts of the main city, freight roads between woodland and industrial estates that have been picked clean, three miles west of a lake that, according to Luca, is a renowned make-out spot.

Kade wouldn’t know.

He’s never made out with anyone.

Their home is a vertical core surrounded by a base that functions as both shield and buffer.

At ground level, the base building forms a hardened perimeter of thick concrete, limited access points, controlled sightlines.

Below that, newly updated tunnels run outward into the city like arteries, built for movement without exposure.

The roads nearby are isolated and exposed.

Anyone approaching on wheels can be seen from miles away which makes the tunnels so essential.

Several years ago, Kade redesigned the sewer tunnels surrounding Iron Star. He narrowed sections, installed choke points and added a disposal chute leading down to an incinerator for the ample bodies they tend to rack up after an attack wave.

No one is stupid enough to walk up to the main gates, but the tunnels are catnip for attacks. The trick is, they only know about the walkables.

Formerly sewers, they’re built to be purposefully confusing; a labyrinthine maze of sewage, steel and concrete. Kade knows his way by heart, but the Touchtrail remains for those who are new and still learning.

You’d have to know where to feel for them.

The sewer tunnels are public knowledge, hence the bottlenecked attacks, but nobody outside Iron Star knows about the driveable one.

Cleverly hidden, vehicles move out unseen, emerging beneath a satellite blind spot along a quiet stretch of highway and they come back the same way.

Kade’s been through it a handful of times with his boss, but not for well over a year.

Kade is the First Captain of Iron Star, bodyguard to the boss and a member of High Command. Kade is responsible for all matters of operational force, tactical response, and internal security, but he’s not authorised to leave the Tower and even if he was… well. His place is here.

The Tower is his home.

Iron Star is his family.

Varrow City is his world.

And this is his life.

Kade’s sweep confirms that these were the last of them and with no high interest intelligence to drag back, he nods at Hiru and Rike to start gathering the bodies to dispose of them down the chute for incineration.

He stops halfway back, head cocked.

The air feels strange. His ears detect something slightly… off.

‘Mara,’ he says, retrieving his knife from a body. ‘Scan frequencies.’

‘Heard.’

Kade guides the rest of his team out of the tunnels through a single access hatch that only opens from above.

‘You’re bleeding, just FYI,’ Luca informs him, lightly jabbing the wound with two fingers when he pulls himself up. ‘Could be fatal, who knows?’

Kade shoots him a look, though he gives no reprimand. Rank preserved as always, but everyone in Iron Star is family. ‘You wish, Lucozade.’

Mara comes up next. Hiru and Rike will be the last.

She’s got eyes on her device. ‘Kade, there’s interference.’

Fucking hell, he knew it. ‘What kind?’

‘Pre-jam diagnostic.’

Kade’s mind instantly snaps into gear.

‘Get Hiru and Rike back up here. Alert the Watch.’

He leaves Mara to her task, heads upstairs with Luca.

‘Another attack?’ his friend asks, voice low. ‘Who do you think it is?’

‘I don’t know. It feels…’

‘Off? Bad? Weird? Scary? Sexy? Fun? Terrifying?’

‘Luca.’

‘I mean, pick a feeling, Motorkade. Your instincts are second to none.’ Not true, but Kade lets that slide. ‘We trust you to know how bad it is.’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Kade, you always know—’

‘Head to the rally point, Captain. Suit up and await orders.’

Luca falls quickly in line. ‘Heard.’

Iron Star protocol dictates that any strange activity requires First Captain to return to the control room and monitor the situation from there.

A pre-jam diagnostic is strange, so upstairs he goes.

Kade doesn’t wear an earpiece for tunnel attacks, likes to stay focused, but he pulls it out now and pops it in. ‘Switch to dark-band,’ he orders before emerging on the ground floor of the Tower. ‘I’ll assign teams from the Watch.’

An affirmative chorus of, ‘Heard,’ rings out and Kade switches to the dark-band channel before triggering Pocket Mode for all Tower Crew.

The Tower has six floors above ground, not including the basement, and four of those floors house permanent crew.

Built into each of those four levels are secure panic rooms stocked with emergency supplies, water reserves, oxygen filtration and hardline phones routed independently of the Tower’s main systems. These are the Pockets.

Pockets are not intended for Enforcers, Captains or High Command.

They exist to protect the Tower Crew during an attack.

Mechanics. Medics. Commissary. Analysts. Laundry. Cleaning. Logistics.

In the event of a serious attack, Pocket Mode is activated.

The Enforcers hold the line, and the Crew take refuge in the panic rooms.

On his way to the Watch, Kade ducks into the mess hall to make sure all Tower Crew on that floor went into Pocket Mode, pleased to find the area empty, but it’s quieter than it should be.

Curious, Kade raises a hand in front of an airflow shaft.

Nothing.

Through radio, he says, ‘QG be advised that climate control has dropped.’

Gage answers quickly. ‘Vents are non-traversable.’

‘Just letting you know.’

‘Heard.’