As I am setting fire to the tinder I think back to my very first ritual. I did it with my Mom. A squirrel had jumped out on the road in front of our car. My Mom made sure to let me know it wasn’t my fault that the poor thing had died, but that it was still something that had happened to me, to us, and that we had to make amends.
We buried the squirrel in our backyard. Though I don’t remember her scraping it off of the road, therefore we may just have buried an empty shoe box, to be honest.
Then we both cut strands off of each other’s hair, tied them into loose knots, and put them inside a stone bowl in our garden, together with potpourri and frankincense. Then we burned it.
Watching the smoke rise to the night sky, my mother told me about how the universe would receive our offering and release us from the burden of owing a life. It was sad, yet beautiful, and I felt safe and loved.
My second ritual was quite a different mess. It was cold and dark, and I was alone, trying to burn a T-shirt soaked in blood with the flame of an old gas lamp. My face wet and sticky from more blood, and tears, and rain…
I guess I have gotten more used to killing since then. At least I am not going to shed a tear for any of the people I have killed this time.
The alarm starts ringing, drowning out the growl I just heard. But I can still hear a wet, splashing sound from behind me, where Discord just turned the surgeon’s upper body into a bloody mist. I try not to look too closely at his video feed projected in the upper right corner of my vision. “Bob’s alive!”, I hear him yell, at the same time as the door down the hallway that we came through opens.
I take a step back, walking over the door Discord flattened, and take cover insight the operating room. Just in time it seems, since the Elf emerging from the newly opened door immediately shoots a long burst my way. She’s cute, but not the best shot. I dodge it easily.
The Ork, who followed her out of the room, shoots at Dwarf Guy. He hits him. The Dwarf simply dusts off his shoulder and shoots a grenade towards our new opponents. It’s a frag grenade. It detonates in mid air, right behind them. The fragments go everywhere, bounce off the walls and the open door. The Ork gets practically vaporised. More disgusting splashing sounds and cut off, barely human screams from insight the room, tell me that there may be more guys in there. Or at least there have been.
The Elf Girl who just shot at me got hit too. She’s badly hurt, but still standing. I decide it’s best for everyone to not drag this out any longer and shoot a burst into her chest. While she’s still falling to the ground I run over to the open door. I told you, I am fast. Inside the room is about one Meta Human of Junky Salsa, and another one bleeding heavily. I also take him out of his misery. That’s my third kill today.
“Troll!”, I hear Romeo yell in my earbud. A quick look at his feed (upper left corner of my vision) shows me that he’s managed to open the front door. He’s in a large room now, on the other side of the double doors that I was just facing a moment ago.
“Helping with Troll!”, I hear Discount. “Coming!”, I add, but now that I have moved back down the corridor, I am quite far from the scene. In his feed I see the Troll firing shots at Romeo with a Remington Roomsweeper that looks comically small in his huge hand. Still he does quite a bit of damage to squishy Romeo.
Focusing back to my own actual vision I can see Dwarf Guy rotating the barrel of his grenade launcher to a green slot. Without moving any closer, or even giving a shit about Discord who’s by now reached and opened the double doors, he shoots his grenade down the hallway, through the doors, into the room next to the Troll. On both, Romeos and Discords feed, everything becomes so bright that it blinds me and I have to look away. When I can see things again, the room is on fucking fire. The floor is burning! So is the Troll and a Human holding an Uzi, who I hadn’t noticed before. And so are Discord and Romeo! “Are you crazy!”, I yell at the Dwarf.
White smoke is clouding the room. I can barely make out what’s happening anymore. Discord, ignoring that his Chameleon Suit is on fire, continuous his running into the room, swinging Silencer, and taking the Humans head off. He’s fine.
But Romeo isn’t. He’s on the ground just outside the front door, trying in vain to stop the fire that is burning his suit. Fuck this shit, I need to help him!
Without certainty that I can make it through without catching fire myself, I run, no, sprint, down the hallway, into the fire, through the burning room, shooting a burst at the Troll in the passing, and over to Romeo. He wheezes at me as I reach him and this shit won’t stop burning! I have to take off his suit. Good that I am fast at undressing people as well.
Behind me I hear the Troll screaming in agony. Discord, still on fire, ends his pain, smashing him through the stairs. And then we finally see the source of the growling, as some Ghouls make their way up the cellar stairs that have just been exposed. One of them stops on the way to take a bite out of the dead Trolls arm. Gosh, these things are disgusting! And also contagious.
Despite the broken stair case two women make their way down to us from the upper floor, at the same time as three Ghouls from the cellar reach the room we are in.
At least the Steel Lynx has now also managed to climb up the two steps outside the front door and moves over to aid Discord.
As I am throwing Romeos burning pants as far away from us as possible, one of the women shoots at me with a pistol. Two shots. I evade both.
A third woman, holding a Katana comes screaming through the double door, throwing herself at Discord. I wonder what happened to Dwarf Guy. Shouldn’t he be out there giving us cover?! But I don’t have the time to find out, since one of the Ghouls is running at me with unfathomable speed. It reaches me even faster than I can draw my weapon, but I dodge out of the way.
Romeo, still on his back, points his new Nitama Optimum at it and hits it with two bursts. The Ghoul goes down. That’s Romeos first kill as far as I know. Like, ever! One more time I feel a hint of envy towards him.
Not so much for Discord though, who’s just splattering one of the women, another Troll, with Silencer in close combat. By now he is already trenched in blood.
The woman who shot at me is still standing. I take up my HK Urban Combat and shoot at her. Two bursts. Kill number four. And that’s despite the white smoke still lingering in the room.
Romeo takes down another Ghoul who was attacking Discord. By now he is crouching and seems to be in much better shape again. Not burning anymore can do that for you. Though it might be the adrenaline from the kill. Or drugs. After all it is Romeo who we are talking about.
There is still no sign of the Dwarf. We haven’t bothered connecting our visual feeds with his, so I just assume that he is fighting his own battles somewhere. Or he ran for it, fuck knows.
I hit and kill the third Ghoul. So now Katana Girl is the only one still up and fighting, and she’s though! She even blocks Discords hit with Silencer! I shoot at her, but she dodges with ease, looking badass and graceful at the same time.
I try again. Two bursts this time. They hit, but she is still up.
Discord pauses for the split of a second, looking down the cellar stairs. A growl, deeper and darker than the ones before. More Ghouls. And one of them used to be a Troll! Fuck, I hate Trolls! As opponents, I mean. Nothing against the ones who are not trying to kill me.
It seems as if Discord decided, that there’s no time anymore to keep playing around with Katana Girl. With an upswing he smashes her into the ceiling above him, right as the Ghouls emerge from the cellar. The smaller one, an Ork Ghoul, attacks Discord, but the Troll roars and runs right at me. Fuck me, how do I deserve that luck!
I dodge away from its claw. The last thing I need right now is to get infected with HMHVV.
At least I can rely on me team mates. First the Steel Lynx, operated by Hunt0rKill0r69, hits the Troll with a burst. Then Romeo hits it with two slugs from his weapons shot gun barrel. The Troll goes down. When he gets a chance to, Romeo is quite a decent shot it seems!
By now also Discord has made short process with his Ghoul, turning it into mush on the ground. Finally we are done, and Discord hurries back to the room where he found Bob.
The fucking floor is still on fire. Now that I have time to breath I can smell roasting meat. I gag for a second. This must be one of the worst battle grounds I have ever seen. Everywhere people are smashed to bits, their flesh burning. The already rotting corpses of the Ghouls are starting to sizzle as well…
I decide to take the scenic route back to Bob, walking around the buildings outside. I need some fresh air!
On the way I notice an open door to a small room. Looks like a spiders nest. I guess they have left, but that’s fine. The objective has never been to kill everyone.
When I reach the operating room Discord informs me that Bob is still unconscious. But other than knocked out (probably with the same non-lethal toxin they used on the Ork boy this morning) he seems to be alright. The cut in his chest is deep, but not life threatening, and other than that he doesn’t show any signs of injuries.
Suddenly we hear an explosion in a room behind us. I draw my gun, turn around and get ready. But the next thing we hear is a toilet flushing. And then Dwarf Guy strolls out of a door in the hallway, obviously the one to the bathroom.
Checking later I find, that he seems to have glued himself into an office room, sealing the door shut with some kind of substance. Since he could’t get it open afterwards he had to blow a hole into a wall, blowing up a sink, and creating a new exit leading into the toilets.
But right now he’s just standing there, looking pleased as fuck with himself and acting as if nothing happened. ”Is everyone fine?”, he asks.
Realising that I haven’t even gotten a scratch the whole time, while he is looking quite worn out, I can’t help myself. With a smug smile on my face I reply: “I am perfectly fine. Did you manage to get any new battle scars?”. Miri might be right to call me a douchebag sometimes.
Ignoring my comment Dwarf Guy adds in a casual tone: “Also sorry guys for the White Phosphor. That was actually an accident.” And now, I get mad. An accident? He set Discord on fire and almost roasted Romeo due to a fucking accident?! I’m not really sure that that is worse than just being crazy, but the guy really pushes my buttons. I may not be tall for an Elf with my 1.90m, but I certainly tower over the dwarf. No longer smiling I glare down at him: “Yea, dude, you better be! You can talk all the shit you want, but if you hurt my team mates again, I am personally going to kill you!” He looks taken aback only for a second before sneering at me: “We’ll burn this bridge when we get there.”
Yeah. I guess we will do that.
In the meantime Romeo has checked out the garage. In there he found three more Orks, all tied up, but otherwise fine. Discord already made his way there, quickly disappearing from my talk with the Dwarf. One of the guys turns out to be Gorel.
Checking out the rest of the house we find a connection to the sewers in the cellar. Guess that’s where the Ghouls live.
There are also a shit ton of documents, all written in Korean, and a few things of value that we decide to take and sell, since Discord confesses that there is otherwise no payment for the job. I mean, I would have done it anyways, I think. I kind of got used to the guys, and if they need me, well, then I’ll help.
Speaking of help. Romeo got a message from his lawyer saying that the Italian has another job for us. This time we will ask for more money in advance, given the shit we had to deal with last time! But the worst part of it, he asked for someone who knows his way around the Sierra Nevada. Non of us do, but the Dwarf does. So I guess we will have to work another job with him. His grenades may have been useful last time. But the question is who he blows up first, our opponents, or us.
After some hours of hanging around and looking through the house, the gangs finally arrive. Good thing we didn’t rely solely on their back up!
When everyone is up to date, rested, or gone, we close up. As much as possible we get rid of any traces of us. We prepare the Korean documents on a desk. I also take copies for Miri, she might find them quite useful. The tied up Ork that was still in our car we arrange on a bed. And, as we leave, Romeo calls his contact. The guy is a Cop. He will get a good reward for taking down an operation of the Komun'go Ring.
To stay on her good side I also forward every piece of information to Miri. I hope this is a good thing for her and the Mafia. I would hate to find out that they have any connections to an extra-shitty business like this one.
And then I finally get to go home.
Today I have taken five lives. Four Meta Humans and one Ghoul (though they might still be more meta-human than we think, from what I have heard).
And tonight, once again, I’ve cut a whole strand of hair from my head. I’ve even pierced the balm of my hand with a knife, adding a few drops of blood to the mix of dried flower pedals and frankincense.
Not because the Koreans deserve it. Hell no, they weren’t any better than that blood spirit. Even worse, I would argue, slaughtering their own kind for parts. No. Today I am arguing with the universe. If I am good, if I give back more than I took, maybe it won’t take Nathaniel from me.
I can’t lie to him any longer, I have to tell him everything. He deserves to know the truth about me!
So, now what? Hey Honey, sorry but I am a lier, a criminal and a killer.?
Yep, he’s going to dump my ass and tell me to never show up at his doorstep again. Still, it has to be done…
Just not right away. He is so excited about his training, and I don’t wanna destroy that for him. I‘ll tell him once he’s back.
Probably I should stay away from him until then, but I can’t. If it has to end, I just want to fool myself a little bit longer into thinking that he might actually still want to be with someone like me.