Bone Deep(18)

But soon they’d be beneath her and she would dance with death again. It was inevitable. She rested her forehead against the tree trunk and mused that perhaps she was weary of killing. The need to distribute endings no longer brought the glorious, painful rush of completion it once had. Now it was simply a necessary evil.

She wondered, not for the first time, if that was how she managed to catch Abela Badr. Had he too grown tired of the game of life? Maybe he’d allowed her to take him?

She shook her head, denying it. No, she’d caught Master unprepared. The student had become the teacher. The look of surprise on his face still haunted her dreams. She usually woke satisfied from those dreams. Lately, she was nothing more than drained.

The first man burst into the small clearing before her and turned in a circle. His flashlight tracked the shadows. Then another man and another made an appearance until the clearing held at least ten men. She would get her fight it seemed.

If only Joseph had come. But she didn’t smell him in the air, didn’t feel the horror of his presence flaying the skin from her bones. He’d stayed at the house, possibly understanding that if she met him tonight, she would kill him.

She’d take his head—deny her sisters their piece of him. She would have no choice because the demon inside her was becoming a demanding bastard. It only silenced when Dmitry was close and while entirely unacceptable it was her truth now.

She’d allowed the big Russian inside and he’d commandeered a part of her she’d not realized was there.

Bone dropped without a sound to the ground, shaking off the effects of Dmitry Asinimov. She had to focus so she pulled herself inward and concentrated on the hate. It was a silken shroud on her mind and a battering ram against her heart.

Kill, kill, kill, it taunted.

So she obeyed.

She took the first man in silence, using his inattention to step behind him and pinch his carotid, incapacitating him. She took the knife in his side scabbard and stroked it over his neck before she turned and began the hunt.

She kept to the periphery of the forest clearing and took two more men before their presence was missed. When the hue and cry was raised, she stepped into the meager moonlight and waited.

They approached, not as unified front, but one by one. None of these then were Joseph’s men. More than likely they were Vadim’s, untrained and simply muscle for hire. She took them as they came at her, eliminating them with an ease that did nothing to silence her demon. She killed the second to last man with a slice over his abdomen, leaving his guts spilling from his body.

The final man stepped forward, thought better of it and then turned and ran from the clearing.

Her senses flared out. A twig snapped behind her and Bone turned, meeting the rush of a fist and ducking to avoid a solid blow. Now here were Joseph’s killers. His Sicariorum. The man’s silence was all she needed to realize these were First Team’s male counterparts. Their presence spoke volumes about Joseph’s desperation.

She took a fist to the cheek and twisted to miss the follow up. Blood welled, the copper scent of it a blessing in the crisp air. This was what she knew…this was where she found herself.

He was large man, compact but at least twice her size and so quiet she wanted to commend him. He too had been conditioned in the fires of Hell though she was sure hers had been hotter. Bone’s gaze narrowed as she picked him out of the darkness. She watched his motions, judging his timing. Then she waited.

He stilled and it seemed neither would move but then a second man rushed into the clearing. Joseph sought to end the game. He’d sent them to kill her this time.

“You cannot kill what you cannot see,” she whispered. She took a single step into the man and punched once, leveling him with a single blow to his side.

The thudding crunch of his ribs sounded loud as he fell to his knees, gasping for breath. She turned to meet the second assassin. He struck her in the leg and she was grateful for her training. Had she not learned to absorb these types of blows he would have snapped her thigh.

That was how hard he’d kicked her.

“Do not make me kill you, sister,” the man urged in a low voice. “Go with us in peace.”

“There is no peace with The Collective, brother,” she spat.

She side-stepped, kicked, and met his advance with a foot to the head. He staggered but didn’t go down. The first man stood then and they were in a circle of sorts. A ring of killers.

Bone laughed, her thoughts fanciful as she caught them looking at each other.

“Ring around the rosie,” she sang to the sky.

She attacked then, moving between them like water, a foot to a knee, a punch to a shoulder. A finger to an eye, an elbow to the head, and the dance became vicious. Bone became again what Master had taught her. She became death, let it flow through her body and out of her fists. It was systematic, her retreats and advances, a coordinated play that resulted in one man on his back, gasping for air and the other on his knees, waiting for the end she would give him.

They were worthy opponents but they weren’t her. She’d dealt with the first man at a distance in Moscow, just days ago. He could be their team’s sniper but he wasn’t Bullet. His movements had been easy to track, the light bouncing off his scope a clear indication he was nowhere near the killer Bullet was. When you trained with the best and encountered less than that, it was easy to evade the death they sought to bestow upon you.