Silence.
Just rain on the metal roof and our breathing and the sound of blood dripping onto concrete.
Bodies everywhere. Ten. Maybe twelve. Hard to count through all the blood and gore.
Sebastian stood on top of the crates, chest heaving, bow still raised. Blood streaked his face. His hood had fallen back, revealing hair plastered to his skull with sweat and rain that leaked through the broken roof.
He looked like death incarnate. Beautiful and terrible in equal measure.
“Clear!” he called down.
I scanned the space. Checking. Always checking. “Not yet.”
Movement from behind the trucks. Someone crawling. Trying to escape. Leaving a blood trail across the floor like breadcrumbs.
I reached him in three strides. Grabbed him by the collar. Hauled him up. Young. Mid-twenties. Scared shitless. Gut wound. Fatal. Just a matter of time.
Good. He should be scared.
“Who are you working for?” I demanded.
He tried to spit at me. Blood instead of saliva. I slammed him against the truck. Hard enough to rattle his teeth. Hard enough that his eyes rolled back for a second.
“Wrong answer. Try again.”
“Fuck you.”
Sebastian dropped from the crates. Landed in a crouch beside us. Arrow still nocked. Pointed at the man's chest. Close enough that he could see the obsidian tip. Close enough to see his own death reflected in it.
“He asked you a question,” Sebastian said. Voice cold. Empty. The voice of someone who'd stopped counting bodies. “Answer it.”
The man's bravado crumbled. “I don't know names! We don't get names!”
“Then what do you get?”
“Codes! Instructions! Money!” He was gasping. Bleeding from the gut wound. Knowing he was dying. “They call him Ghost Zero. That's all I know! I swear!”
Ghost Zero. Another code name. Another dead end.
“What are you being paid to do?” Sebastian asked.
“Surveillance. Information gathering. We watch the palace. Report movement patterns. Schedule changes.” The man's eyes were going unfocused. Shock setting in. “And we wait. For the signal. For Ghost Zero to tell us when to strike.”
“Strike how?”
“I don't know. Above my pay grade. I just. I just watch and report. That's all.”
I didn't believe him. But he was fading fast. We were running out of time.
“One more question,” I said. “Where is Ghost Zero?”
“I told you. I don't know. Nobody knows. That's the point.” He laughed. Wet. Hollow. Blood bubbling on his lips. “You're chasing a ghost. You'll never find him.”
“We'll see about that.”
I hit him once. Hard. His head snapped back. He went limp. Unconscious or dead, I couldn't tell. Didn't care.
“We need to move,” Sebastian said. “Someone heard the gunfire.”
