Episode 6 #7
There were men approaching. They just hadn’t triggered Richard’s surveillance yet.
They moved to the outer wall where the approaching people wouldn’t see them and eased their way down. The footsteps coming up were loud. They weren’t even trying to hide. All Ellisandre’s instincts were awake, sensing incoming threat. These men weren’t moving casually and their faces were covered.
One floor down, Ellisandre paused, calling Sevastyan’s number.
It rang. And rang. And went to voicemail.
Ellisandre let out a silent curse.
The first man turned the corner, coming up towards them. He gave a shout and started to raise what looked like a weapon with two hands.
Ellisandre moved. The man’s wrists broke first, then his arms and his shoulders, followed by his neck.
Ellisandre rode his falling body to the ground, leaping towards the second man and dropping him.
The third man shouted something into a microphone as Ellisandre reached him.
They turned his head on his shoulders. He fell, facing the wrong way.
Ellisandre stood slowly, three bodies behind them decorating the staircase. There were two more men on the platform below. They ran back the way they came. Ellisandre leaped the railing, dropping from one floor to the next and landing in front of them.
The man in front raised his hands. “This ain’t the job. Sorry. Not what I signed up for.”
Ellisandre tilted their head. “What did you sign up for?”
“Just a bit of a pickup, you know. Just go in, help carry.” He backpedaled into his companion.
“Who sent you?”
“Dirk. Dirk sent us.”
“Idiot.” His companion hit him and raised a gun, his hand shaking.
“Tell Dirk I’m back,” Ellisandre said. “I’ll give you twenty seconds. Run, now.”
The man with the gun turned to run.
Ellisandre caught him from behind. His companion wailed and sprinted. Ellisandre let him go. They dropped the body of the gunman to the ground. According to the call, though, there was at least one more, or perhaps two. On floor eight.
They descended the staircase. No one was at the door on level eight.
They stepped out into the hallway and passed the elevator.
The door to unit two was ajar. They opened it with their foot, sliding their own gun into their hand.
They’d managed not to shoot yet, but that didn’t mean they’d be so fortunate walking into unknown territory.
Someone out of sight was gasping for breath.
Ellisandre stepped through, letting the door shut behind them.
Whoever was in here was trapped inside with them, not the other way around.
The entrance was walled off from the rest of the space, just like Richard’s unit several floors above.
Ellisandre stepped around the partition into the living room.
There were three bodies on the floor, very obviously dead.
Kneeling among them were two slender men, both bloody and bruised.
One was taller than the other. He looked malnourished, his face battered and blood-covered.
His eyes burned. The knife in his hand was held in a reversed grip, the blade already used.
The more diminutive man’s eyes were wide, shell-shocked, and struggling to mask pain. His hand was pressed against his rib. “You came.”
It had been his voice. The one from the phone call, the one who called the number only Sevastyan should have known. His face was familiar, in a vague sort of way. Like from a book instead of a memory of life. He held his palm up, stopping the taller man with the knife from making a move.
Ellisandre kept their gun pointed forward, but not at either man in particular. “Who are you?”
“Rei,” the more diminutive man answered. He trembled as he spoke. “Is Jun safe?”
The tone was familiar, as if he knew Jun. Not as a mark, or a target, not even a principle for protection. Ellisandre almost lowered their gun. They studied Rei again. His clothes were torn and disheveled. The side of his face was marked with an old, well-tended scar, probably from fire.
“How did you know my number?”
The taller man made a frustrated sound. He still had his hand curled around the knife. The one he most certainly had just used.
“Master.” Rei’’s reply came out soft, frightened.
Grief, in the form of cold, sick waves, rushed through Ellisandre’s sternum. “What’s your master’s name?”
“Sevastyan.”
Ellisandre half lowered the gun. “How do you know Jun?” But they already knew. The familiar face made sense now. It was in the files Alice had been working on with Jun.
“We trained together. At his company, BBB3.” Rei swayed hard enough to fall. He caught himself on one hand, eyes still focused on Ellisandre.
Ellisandre crossed the room and dropped to one knee, catching Rei as his arm gave. There were scars on his wrist and blood on his shirt.
Rei. Sevastyan hadn’t just had a slave. Pieces clicked over and locked into place inside Ellisandre’s mind. Sevastyan had had Rei, Jun’s long-lost member, the original leader of PentaNow. Sevastyan had gotten Jun off the mountain already knowing Rei.
The taller man growled in the back of his throat.
Rei’s eyes fluttered. He raised a hand towards Ellisandre. “Don’t hurt Lisa.” He switched to Russian. “Lisa, don’t . . . hurt . . . Ellisandre.”
“He’s going into shock,” Ellisandre snapped in the same language. “Cushions, now. We need to elevate his feet.”
The other slave, Lisa, or Fox, lurched up and grabbed cushions from the couch.
His leg dragged and was shaking. Ellisandre frowned.
From the look of the man, he’d taken multiple blows to the head, face, and torso.
His balance was off. He fell as he approached, catching himself on one hand and swayed as he shook his head, blinking fast. Ellisandre took the cushions, pushing them under Rei’s legs.
“Stay with him.” At least that would keep one injured man from hurting himself more by occupying him with the first. They needed to examine both men, but before that, if they were going to have a chance in hell of keeping this incident under the radar, they needed to move the bodies in the staircase.
“Medic.” Lisa tapped his chest.
“Do you have supplies?”
Lisa nodded. Now that he didn’t appear to think he was going to have to fight, he was dropping fast.
“Get started.” Ellisandre stood. “I’ll be back.”
They stood and went out the door, pushing call on Sevastyan’s number in their phone. Still no answer.
The bodies were heavy, and they were a couple of floors above level eight.
There were cameras outside of Unit 2’s door to disable.
Each moment was a risk. By the time Ellisandre had finished stacking the bodies in the living room, Lisa had crawled between the bedroom and the living room, returning with a first aid kit.
He had Rei’s shirt off, revealing more burn scars down the shorter man’s side.
The two of them were tending each other with a familiarity that spoke of experience, not just with each other, but with wounds.
Now and then one or the other would close their eyes and lean in, gathering their strength.
Ellisandre pressed their lips together. The possibility of concussions for both of them were high. They checked the door and locked it, then approached the two men slowly, sinking down to one knee only when they were both aware of their presence. Lisa still had the knife on him.
“Sevastyan is not answering,” Ellisandre said.
Rei nodded, then straightened up. “He didn’t answer me either.
That’s why I called you. He said . . . if I couldn’t reach him.
If . . . if someone was coming for Jun .
. . ” Rei’s voice trailed off. His eyes were wide and his breath was starting to come fast again.
Lisa gripped his arm and said something in what sounded like Chinese.
Rei grimaced and nodded, visibly getting a hold on himself.
Ellisandre fished out their phone and called Alice. The young woman answered on the first ring.
“I’m going to be out, possibly all night.”
“Everything all right?” Alice asked.
“It will be,” Ellisandre said. “I’m going to call in a team to take you home. You can finish with the curtains. It’s safe.”
“Okay.” Alice sounded hesitant.
“Later,” Ellisandre said. “Don’t go anywhere until the team is there. I’ll have the lead call you.”
“Understood.”
Ellisandre hung up.
“Are you Merchari?” Lisa asked.
“I hunt people like the Merchari,” Ellisandre answered. They shot off a text to call in a team for Alice and Dana. It would take time to get them on site. Until then, Alice and Dana still had the protection that was kept on The Residency twenty-four seven. “Is that going to be a problem?”
“No.” Lisa spread antiseptic across a cut on Rei’s cheek. The bruise was going to be deep and painful. “We’re Merchari slaves, not Merchari.”
So Lisa was a slave also. Ellisandre had guessed as much. “Is Sevastyan also your master?”
“He’s . . .”
Rei put his hand on Lisa. “We’re taking care of him.”
That “we” sounded suspiciously like Rei identifying with Sevastyan.
Lisa didn’t deny the assertion. He stayed focused on pulling the two sides of the cut on Rei’s cheek together with a butterfly bandage.
“Lisa,” Rei whispered.
“We don’t know this person,” Lisa muttered low. His eyes darted to Ellisandre, well aware they could hear him.
Rei gripped Lisa’s arm.
“You two killed these three?” Ellisandre said, gesturing at the three bodies they had yet to move.
Lisa’s eyes darkened. He nodded once. Rei looked away.
From the signs left behind, the fight had been brutal.
No one had died quick and clean like the kills in the stairwell.
There was a keyboard and attached cord wrapped around one man’s neck and kitchen knives buried in another.
The fight of the desperate and the not truly strong.
Every dead man had bled out, filling the carpet with blood.
The coffee table was broken. The couch was marked with vermillion. Desk supplies had been scattered.