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Rhys uses his lifeless body as a springboard and tears into the next soldier with a curved blade resembling a machete. His target’s head goes flying as his body falls, and Rhys is on to the next. I don’t stop firing, taking out two more phoenixes before my mag runs out. Tossing the spent pistol, I swiftly draw the hatchets from their sheaths, weighing the weapons in my palms before I strike at the last man left standing.
He seems shocked at the sight of his fallen brethren but snaps out of it as I approach. He barely has enough time to raise his weapon before I’m on him, and he has the business end of my blade embedded into his eye.
It’s swiftly dawning on me that this has to be the first wave. There is no way it could be this easy to dispatch seven men.
Other than the pattering of the artificial rain, the rest of the house is silent. No shots fired, no creaks of steps on the hardwood floors. Nothing.
The dread in the pit of my stomach doubles in size.
“This doesn’t feel right,” I whisper to Rhys. “It shouldn’t be this easy. We’re missing something.”
He nods in agreement, signaling for me to follow him.
We head back downstairs to check on Evan and West. Each step feels like a land mine. Rhys, finally tired of the lack of light, ignites his Fireskin in a controlled burn. The flames don’t deviate from his palm as he uses his fingers like a torch.
Evan and West are standing out of the way of the French doors, wary of an attack from all angles.
“You guys good?” Rhys asks, his gaze scanning the room for threats.
West nods in response, and Evan appears simultaneously bored and worried out of her mind.
“Tell me this doesn’t feel right,” Rhys grouses.
“Nope,” West grumbles. “This feels like one big con.”
“I can’t see anything,” I admit, frustrated as hell. “I don’t know what’s going on, but no one is waiting to get in. No one else is out there. Whatever threat there is, it’s already inside.”
West suggests we move together to find the others, and we head to the second floor in search of Javier and Carver. We find neither, but we do see a mound of bodies.
“Fates save us,” Evan exclaims, stumbling back as she covers her mouth.
She can obviously see something I can’t, because the expression of sheer terror in her eyes is enough to chill my blood.
“Revenant,” she murmurs, clearly aghast. “Their hearts are missing.”
Rhys brings his fist closer to the bodies, the faint flicker of light illuminating the macabre scene. The floor and walls are spattered in scarlet, the lifeless men lying in a heap of blood and gore and bone.
Whatever tore out their organs was strong enough to go through their body armor like tissue paper.
“What,” I hiss, shaking, “the fuck is a Revenant?”
But it’s West who answers me. “It’s what happens to wraiths when they go crazy. They start eating the flesh of the dead. But I’ve never seen one eat from the living or even kill to get a meal.”
“And how do you kill one?” I ask, my voice growing even smaller, because holy fucking shit.
“Fire,” he replies, his gaze still locked on the gruesome pile.
Well, yippee. At least we have that.
In pairs, we move on, Evan and West searching the northwest section of the floor and Rhys and I looking in the southeast. Together, we clear our room, our bathroom, and the next guest room, only finding one body with his heart still intact. His head, though, is another story.
We make our way back to the rally point, where Evan and West hover around an unconscious Aidan and a critically injured Ian. West is working on Ian, trying to staunch the flow of blood from his neck with Evan’s thin cardigan. Ian’s eyes roll in his head, a gurgling gasp rattling from his throat.
He’s so close to death, but his future is an unknown. I suppose that’s a good thing.
“There are medical supplies in the bunker,” Evan says. “If I can get him there and stop the bleeding, he’ll survive.”
I pray she’s right.
