Chapter 24

Raven Cassidy and Sage Greyson strep through the doorway into a brightly lit and very large room filled with electronic equipment and video screens. At the opposite end stand two figures looking straight at the two agents. When Raven and Sage see them, they instantly raise their weapons up at them.

“I suggest you reconsider,” the voice from hall says.

A moment later, a squad of six soldiers fills in behind the two agents pointing guns at their backs.

“Colonel Pierson, I’m guessing,” Sage states as he and his partner lower their weapons, which are quickly gathered by two of the soldiers.

“Very perceptive,” Pierson answers. “Now if you two will quietly surrender yourselves, it will be most helpful.”

“And if we refuse?” Raven asks with a sneer.

Pierson smiles. “Then you surrender by force, my dear. Grines has informed me about your, how shall I put it, feistiness.”

“Son of a bitch,” Sage mutters. “I knew something felt wrong in this whole damn thing.”

“Then I guess we have no choice now,” Raven says.

Sage looks at her and nods and then turns and steps into the closest soldiers throwing his forearm into the man’s throat, crushing it. The other five quickly react, but Raven is already one step faster, dropping to the ground with a leg sweep, knocking two of them down. As she stands up, she grabs another of the soldiers about to attack her partner, twisting him around and away into the path of incoming fire. She shoves the dead soldier into the remaining two, then pulls out a combat knife and drops down as the other two begin to stand and runs the knife quickly across their throats dropping them right back to the ground.

Sage, on the balls of his feet, launches himself after the thrown soldier and onto the other two, throwing his body onto them as well. His massive arms slam into their faces driving their heads into the floor. He stands up next to Raven, who has just finished fishing out a pistol off one of the dead soldiers. They both look across the expanse of the room to see Colonel Pierson say something to the figure masked in the shadows next to him and then step away through the door behind them.

Raven looks up to her partner and says, “I’ll go after Pierson, you that care of this guy and catch up.”

“Not leaving it up for debate are you?”

“No I’m not,” she says seriously as she pulls back the slide.

Sage nods and pulls out his combat knife stepping to the side toward the figure while Raven slips away toward the wall away from the upcoming conflict. The figure doesn’t move until Sage is nearly on top of it. When it does, the TDF agent isn’t all too surprised.

Kazubeil steps out from the shadows, revealing a massive muscular chest and arms. A large scar runs the length on his chest down to his abdomen and another across his left eye causing it to be completely white adding to his overall ferocity. Sage doesn’t show any emotion. He tightens his grip on the knife and steps in to slice at the horseman across the abdomen, drawing first blood. The beast doesn’t flinch from the strike and instead quickly grabs the agent by the wrist and twists sending a jolt of pain up through into Sage’s elbow, causing him to release his grip on the knife. With his other hand in a fist, Kazubeil comes across with a back fist with such force the man feels like his jaw has just been broken as blood is slung from his mouth.

Kazubeil hoists the human higher and drives his fist into him repeatedly before swinging him around and releasing the grip on the agent’s wrist and sending him into the far wall. Sage slams with force into the concrete wall, caving in several of the bricks and sending cracks through several more. “Damn, I need to find a different line of work,” he mutters to himself as he rolls over to his back. He rolls his head to the side and sees the horseman approach slowly through blurry eyes. As he rolls his head back something catches his attention and he blinks a couple of times to bring his eyes into focus. When he does a plan starts to formulate.

Rolling onto his hands sends a new set of pains through his rib cage, but he ignores it as he pushes on to his feet. He looks back over his shoulder once more to see Kazubeil steadily crossing the room and showing no interest to finish the job any faster. Better for me. He drives his elbow into a glass box and pulls out a fireman axe. Then he turns, taking in the room’s contents then steps forward and rear’s the axe back, flinching from the pain in his ribs and throws the axe toward the horseman.