Last Light Falling (43 page)

I quietly put my guns away, pull out the glasses from my pant leg, and reach to the side of my jacket to grab a smoke bomb hanging from a clip.

The silence finally breaks when the sound of the squad leader belligerently voices his concerns over the radio. “What the hell’s going on in here, Sergeant? I’ve got three dead men back there, two of which have been pierced by arrows, ready to be stuffed and hung on a wall,” he says.

“I guess we got a hunter among us, boys,” the sergeant replies.

“No shit, and we’re down here scurrying around like lab rats for our fearless leader while some rouge menace has decided to start playing cowboys and Indians,” a man says.

“Get a grip, Private! Hold your position so I can keep you in view. We’re coming toward you now,” says the sergeant.

Before the pandemonium ensues, I unexpectedly find a serene moment to cling to while I firmly hold the smoke bomb and wait. When the sergeant’s team closes in at about twenty feet, I pull the pin and release the smoke bomb out in the corridor. A sudden roar of voices scatters, and a ruckus of movement stirs about. Men are shouting back and forth while the tunnels quickly fill with plumes of gray. When I put the glasses on, I can now detect clear images of the soldiers through the smoke. I draw my swords, take a deep breath, and prepare for unmerciful carnage.

I leap out from the crevice and sweep to the left, cutting down the sergeant first. One by one, I slice into flesh as men blindly stagger around, trying to find a sense of direction. I dodge and duck, swinging violently and efficiently, taking out the sergeant’s team within minutes. I trek back to the right, stepping over bodies still convulsing on the ground in shock until enough blood spills out, leaving them motionless.

With this small maze of buildings being almost completely covered, the smoke in the tunnel has clouded almost every passage within two hundred feet. Many of the soldiers to the right of me have already bolted, but most are still left trying to find their way in the thick plume of fog.

I rush through, swinging and gashing my way through the crowd of men, killing the last of the soldiers still standing in this corridor. As the smoke begins to dissipate, the cameras in the hall reveal a terrifying image of human butchery.

“This is what you have to offer me!” Iakov angrily shouts over the radio.

“Call ′em off now, Lieutenant! Have them route back to the northeast section out into the opening. If she wants them dead, she’ll have to
follow them. It’s time to lure this snake out of its den. I want this bitch where I can see her!” yells the general.

I pick up the orders from the general on the earpiece and make the jaunt back toward the northeast corner. I’m fully aware of their intentions, and if it’s the only way to see Iakov face to face, then so be it.

“Corporal, order the men to hold steady in flanking positions, and do not engage in any fire. Do you understand? Do not engage. I want this bitch alive before I break her,” General Iakov says.

I race back on the outer corridors to make up time lost chasing them in the middle of these connected huts. As I pass the last connected building next to a lit uncovered opening, I get a small glimpse of the soldiers running parallel to me from a distance. I know I won’t catch them from here, but I can at least keep them from escaping into the opening, which will piss Iakov off even more.

I draw an explosive-tipped arrow from my quiver and tuck it snug against the strings, while I sprint toward the southeast corner. About every ten steps I see a glimpse of the soldiers in-between the buildings, running. They start to pull away from me the closer I get to the eastern wall. I race past the final corner of the village with my bow pulled back, but when I try to stop, my momentum carries me forward, sliding on the loose dirt. Before I slam into the wall, I turn and fire the arrow toward the last of the soldiers exiting the premises. The entire northeast corner abruptly explodes in a cloud of red dust, and shattering limbs spread afar with explosive force.

My shoulder gives in with unforgiving agony, as I lie exhausted against the eastern wall. The right side of my ribs is tender from the collision, and my arm is badly scraped from the coarse ground. I’m not sure I have anything left, so I rest until the smoke clears.

“Jesus, who the hell is this girl?” says the operator.

“Sir, what makes you think she’s going to come out?” the lieutenant asks.

“There’s no one left to kill, John,” Iakov answers. “Your elite force of killers have all been executed by a hormonal fifteen year old.”

When the dust settles, I slowly exit the makeshift village with the last explosive-tipped arrow settled between my knuckles and nestled tightly in the strings. I walk out in the middle of the large open area, slightly wincing from my wounds. With whatever strength I have left, I raise my bow upward toward the tower, ready to fire, but a helicopter suddenly distracts my concentration. It hovers over the prison walls with guns loaded, pointing toward me.

I quickly switch my target from the tower to the chopper and let the arrow go free. The reaction time is a split second, and the helicopter has no time to react when the arrow explodes on contact, sending blasts of fire rising into the sky and pieces of steel falling to the ground. The back end of the chopper clips the high wall, knocking half of it to the ground, and the props spin out of control, knocking into the bottom half of the wall and the ground below. The spinning blades shatter into pieces, just grazing past my head as I fall to my knees with sheer fatigue. A dark plume of black fills the air above as fuel burns with intense heat; the fuselage begins to melt within minutes.

I rise to my feet and draw my swords one last time. I look toward the tower and stare deep into the dark glass that shades a rather irate General Iakov. Right then, hundreds of soldiers come rushing in front and to the sides of me, forming a line of attack.

The adrenaline pumping through my tired body has finally surrendered, and my fate has taken a toll through weathered emotions and calloused hands. Iakov and I stare at each other through the tower window, and we have a brief emotional standoff until I lower my arms, drop my swords to the ground, and fall to my knees.

“Nice to see we have some viable means to an end,” General Iakov says. “Bring her in, and Lieutenant, I want her bound. Do you think your men can handle that simple task?”

“Yes, sir.”

I take the earpiece off and realize I’m about to finally meet the man I desperately want dead.

About a half-dozen soldiers cautiously approach me, not sure of my intentions nor trusting my position. While still at gunpoint, two men forcefully pull back my arms and cuff me.

Lieutenant John walks toward me and looks upon my face with fear in his eyes, but he’s still disgustedly angry. With a cold, stony stare piercing deep into my eyes, he removes his leather gloves and slaps me with unforgiving antipathy across the face. The sting of the leather numbs my jaw momentarily, but is shortly replaced by the backside of the lieutenant’s hand punching my face and splitting my lip. He smiles while blood drips from my mouth.

“You’re mortal after all,” he says, rubbing the blood off his knuckles. “He’s waiting for you.”

I turn my head up and spit whatever blood has filled up in my mouth at the lieutenant’s face. He heatedly wipes his cheek and draws back his fists, possessed with anger.

“Lieutenant! Stand down your place!” shouts General Iakov from a distance.

Lieutenant John firmly stays in his pose, guarded with reverential hatred. “That’s an order!” Iakov yells. The lieutenant retreats back to the line, while General Iakov stands there with his silver eyes gleaming from the shadows toward me. He takes a step forward, revealing his long, jagged face and menacing scowl that can only be drawn by a man of incomprehensible hatred. His eyes glow like that of a wolf in the night. His physique is of a soldier bred for battle. Only the gray in his hair and scars on his face hint at his age.

“Take her to my chambers and prepare the infirmary.”

I’m taken through the main complex to an elevator that shuttles us down two floors beneath the ground. I’m then thrown into a small glass chamber the size of a closet that quickly fills with gas, most likely a sedative. I guess they don’t trust me enough to use the traditional needle method.

I drop to the floor, my face painfully stings, and my bruised body agonizingly aches. I hold my breath as long as I can while I desperately try to shake out the pill from the pocket on the top of my jacket. After struggling for what seems to be an eternity, the small pill falls to the floor. I quickly grab it with my teeth and swallow, hoping at least to mask the pain that may soon follow.

I’m immediately affected by the gas when I take in a deep breath, falling limp into a state of hypnotic slumber. I briefly experience a moment of sleep psychosis and surrender my mind to a string of nightmares as I’m pulled into a dark, deep torment.

It’s not until the drug begins to kick in that I struggle to combat the riddling terrors, and if they do not stop soon, I’m afraid I’m going to die. Gradually, the tormenting images of demonized beasts feeding on dead children and wingless angels falling to the earth dissolve and fade to a black canvas of emptiness.

What seems like an eternity has only been minutes of subdued pain as I’m taken to a new state of unconsciousness. Thoughts and memories that have been kept tucked away in my brain resurface, but the images before me are only just that—memories that haven’t been forgotten.

I tilt my head up and peer through the tiny slit of my eyes as bright lights instantly blur my vision.
Have I met my Maker?
I ask myself, as I see my mother reach out to me through my warped hallucination. I cry out to her, but she does not respond—she just reaches for my hand, grasping into thin air. Out from my body a little girl appears and grabs her and walks away. I see myself emerge from my own body as a young child, walking out in a field of flowers alongside my mother, a memory I’ve kept with me to comfort my pain on the dreariest of days.

The image fades and another materializes before me, but this time it’s too recent a memory that I wish not to remember, yet the drugs are forcing me to anyway. I see Jacob and Myra sitting down at the table during our first dinner date, smiling and laughing. My hands and feet begin to tingle as the drug slowly wears off. There’s a growing reassurance that my spirit is still connected to my body, as blood rushes back into my veins untainted with those sedating toxins.

Reality begins to emerge and my mind resurfaces to the world I know. I wake up to find myself in another room, in a real nightmare, and all alone. Everything in this space is in pristine order, and no trace of neglect exists but that of a person with OCD.

I see my weapons sitting on a bar top to the left and a large leather couch to my right. I search the walls, ceiling, and corners, but I see no cameras, which leads me to believe that whatever goes on in this room is strictly private.

My hands and feet are bound to a metal chair, and there is no way of sliding the cuffs from the legs or back brace of the chair. I look down to see my jacket undone, and I shudder at the thought of my virtuous body being spoiled by any man who should violate my innocence and take advantage of my helpless state under such heavy sedation.

I try to stretch forward and slide my petite hands out of the cuffs, but the steel rings are closed too tight. I lean over to the side just enough to get a glimpse of my cuffed ankles. The braced bars on the chair leg keeps me from sliding the cuffs off the bottom, so I slam down the cuffs hard against the braces, trying to break through. After several attempts, my ankles painfully weaken, but I do have success in breaking through most of the welds from the metal bar.

I can still feel a slight snag where the cuffs are hanging on a small barb of welded steel. Although my ankles are badly bruised, and my boots are probably filling up with blood, I continue to try to free my legs from the chair. I raise my knees once more, slamming down as hard as I can through the steel supports. The sheer force of the cuffs crashing against the metal finally breaks the support bars from the legs, but the cuffs are now stuck between them. Suddenly, the door flings open and standing there with an ominous grin is General Iakov.

I quickly pull my head back against the chair and return his menacing smirk with dead calm and a cold dreadful stare.

My stomach churns with every step he takes toward me. The natural scowl on his haggard face keeps his permanent wrinkles from flexing, giving him one emotion—anger. And the thought of this repulsive
man smiling would only deform his stretched skin, creating a face of a goblin.

“So, this is our Black Death they speak of,” he says while he fixes himself a drink at the bar. “A vixen of venom spreading terror among my men.”

Avoiding eye contact, I look toward the door while he slings back a shot of vodka. He walks over to the table where my weapons sit and picks up my scorpion dagger. “Such crude weapons for a talented marksman,” he says.

“I thought you would be much taller,” I say in Russian. He immediately drops the dagger with extreme prejudice, as I have purposefully emasculated his stature.