Do Or Die (Surreal Blue Rogue Agent 1) (4 page)

Kelly
stared at his employer’s broad, tensed shoulder and took heed of his stance. He
automatically reached for the weapon secreted on the inside of his overcoat.

“You
are a thousand years ahead of yourself to be dictating to me, scrub,” Viktor
snorted.

Kelly
sucked in a deep breath; his cheeks swelled with the torture of curbing his
tongue rather than correcting Viktor on his wrongly-worded metaphor. He
released a calming breath as he drew out his nunchucks.

Kelly’s
weapon of choice strayed from the conventional nunchaku. Far from the ones
sustained by Bruce Lee, they were not made solely of wood, but were silver-gilded
with gold.

The
top of the nunchaku were held together by a short silver chain; the body of
each long silver-gilded stick was referred to as the shaft. Holding the batons’
top between his thumb and forefinger, he swung the nunchucks upwards, towards
himself, catching it squarely in his palm.

“Payne.”
Viktor turned his head briefly to look back at him. Kelly’s head was bent. He
did not catch the telling stare in Viktor’s eyes. “The level of concealment is
limited and we’re heading into terrain where an ambush is highly likely.”

Without
looking up, Kelly acknowledged him with a short nod. Catching the nunchucks in
the palm of his hand, as one slender shaft met the other, he lightly pressed a
small mechanism that allowed him to freely control the many, rows of two-inch
blades embedded in the weapon, which he incorporated into his fighting style.
Spinning the nunchucks deftly between his fingers, the blades escaped through
slits in their exposed surface. The blades did not all come out at once, but in
a pattern only Kelly, and one other, were able to intuit: a unique, consistent
pattern.

“I’d
also like to keep the blow-by-blow to a minimum.” Viktor was firm on this
regard.

Unbelievable,
Kelly
thought. He couldn’t believe that he was letting the misuse of all these common
English idioms slide.
Oh, to be Maleficent is a godsend,
Kelly thought, 
his eyes trained on Viktor’s back as he now spun the nunchucks with such speed
that it appeared to be one long stick, the blades coming in and out of the
shafts in quick succession. A novice would have had several fingers lopped off
at this stage. Kelly was no novice.

Kelly’s
mind vaguely wondered at the other occupants that shared this darkened place.

Humph,
Darksmith thought.
Another pretty boy.
Darksmith observed the lanky blond
newly added to the group before looking back at Viktor. They were surrounded by
– nothing. They were in a bubble, a vacuum, a minor dimension controlled by
Viktor himself. Aside from the statue poses of the three little women who gave
the faint whiff of dog to Darksmith’s sensitive nose,
blondie
, and
Viktor here, there were no other markers to speak of.

Darksmith
gritted his teeth. His mouth pressed together in a sneer, he touched the long,
thickly stemmed weapon at his side.
I most certainly do not want to be here,
he thought quietly to himself.

“Kelly,
process as many heads as you can, as quickly as you can. I want to know exactly
where she is as soon as you know. Darksmith, cover Kelly, nobody touches him.
Girls, you can let loose as soon as I’ve got Audrianna’s distinct position –
understood?”

“We
want what you want,” one of them concurred. Viktor snorted in disbelief. They
only kept themselves in check because of Audrianna. They were more unrepentant with
him than their master.

Viktor
paused. “Hold back as much as you can.”

Beep-beep,
beep-beep.
Everyone grew motionless. “What’s that?” Kelly’s voice
sounded hoarse. He looked in Viktor’s direction.

Viktor’s
head was bowed. His attention appeared to be caught by something on the ground.

Beneath
Viktor’s stylish dress shoes lay his cell phone, the screen glowing. Almost out
of juice, it beckoned its owner for replenishment. Viktor had used the device
to acquire exact GPS coordinates to complement his mystical compass trajectory
spell. It had worked, not for the first time.

His
foot was on his cell phone. Looking down, he stared at it. He stepped off the
device, stooped down and clutched it. His hold only tightened as he stood up,
placed the phone in his pocket, gathered his wits, and flexed the arm that held
Hell’s Embrace.

Hefty
reasoning and the calculations of a purposeful raiding party became fogged by
the fury that intensified with the stillness of every second they waited for
the right moment to attack. A slender trickle of sweat escaped the furrow of
Viktor’s brow to slither down the side of his nose. The perspiration was not
due to fear. Fear, panic, derision of the enemy – these were all emotions that
were scaled down to a level of inferiority that would be overshadowed by skill
and due diligence in the time of combat. Trained in the method of combat
science, the act that had been whittled down to a measured reflex when needed,
he found himself displeased that he must struggle to find the inner voice necessary
to soothe the rage that threatened to control his actions.

Viktor
closed his eyes and inhaled deeply.
My time here, in this moment, is too
crucial for me to allow my anger to take control.

I must
remain calm, now more than ever… I must prepare to protect everyone in my team
from direct fire. I must cover all dead space…
 

Beeb-beep
, the
phone went off again, beckoning Viktor’s anxiety. His eyes flew open. He
exhaled roughly, his jaw muscle flexed. Twisting his neck to the side caused a
small cracking sound to escape his muscular shoulders. He raised Hell’s Embrace
straight up, directing the crystal crown overhead.

“Now!”
he yelled, blasting a spectacular stream of white, electric, luminous light
towards the  top of their black enclosure.

The
black walls that surrounded the company of six slowly dispersed, puffing up
vertically like plumes of smoke. The trajectory of the blast became visible.
The inside of the transport helicopter exploded, and so too did the occupants
as the force of their entry became evident. Their pocket dimension had been set
up to emerge inside the man with whom Xin had placed the phone. Viktor had
blown the dimension walls apart, along with the helicopter the man had boarded.
They had landed from the inside out, causing a large explosion. Everyone in the
man’s vicinity had been killed.

The
helicopter was a transport chopper; not fit for landing, it had a ladder and
pulley at the entrance, presumably for hoisting an infirm patient for
transport. The party of six fell to the ground on impact.

The
explosion had the effect Viktor had surmised of eliminating a number of
combatants on contact. It also had the dubious effect of attracting everyone’s
attention and did not make for an ideally stealthy approach. The eyes of
everyone still on the rooftop fell on them. A screeching alarm blasted the
silence, alerting all others to the intrusion at the base, and the six fighters
were immediately under massive direct fire.

Viktor
turned; he was at the back of the line. Kelly was in front, using his numchucks
to deflect bullets. Viktor cursed. He raised his club to fire – but a long, thin
silver projectile appeared from the side, penetrating the stomach of an
attacker. The force of the object did not end with the first impact, but
continued, pulling the attacker off his feet and causing him to slam into a
fellow combatant. The projectile, sinking into the flesh of the second
combatant’s side before hitting a third, dragged all attackers backwards into
the side corner of a wall. The wall broke off and all the enemies were heard
screaming as they followed it over the side of the building.

All
stood and looked back at the direction from which the projectile had originated.
Brighton Darksmith lay heaving with exhaustion, holding a long thin weapon that
looked like a recoilless rifle. The stares leveled at him turned witless.

Viktor
walked over to him and offered him a hand up. Brighton took it and stood, righting
himself. Viktor looked upon him, thoughtful, making Darksmith feel
uncomfortable under the direct scrutiny before a bullet whizzed by, grazing the
side of Viktor’s cheekbone. Specks of blood and broken skin splattered into the
air.

Two
assault rifles. It was then Kelly brought out his second numchucks from inside his
jacket, spinning both pairs in the form of  X’s  with either hand so fast they resembled
straight, golden batons.  He deftly deflected all the bullets streaming toward
them. The bullets flashed and sparked as they flew into each golden shaft.

The
two combatants stood side by side, effectively blocking the only entrance to
the roof. Their accuracy was skewed, though, a tell-tale sign of their lack of
experience in using the Kalashnikov. They decided to advance, believing a
smaller gap would give them a better shot at him, in between the spin of the
nunchucks. Kelly’s movement did not allow for breaks in speed. Their strategy amounted
to futility, and closing the gap only allowed Kelly a better shot at them when
deflecting the bullets. He parried both rifles with the ease and fluidity of a
trained professional. He had sheathed the blades, and this had allowed his
free-form tactics to become sharper.

The
rifles were on semi-automatic. The short bursts of gunfire veered off in either
direction, due to the combatants’ stance in shouldering their rifles. Kelly
used the brief reprieve from being in the direct line of fire to accomplish a
change-up. He skillfully turned around, grinned at his counterparts as he flung
both numchucks under his arm, caught them at the baton stick’s middle on one
end, and turned once more to face the shooters. Lunging forward, holding both
sticks in either hand, he swung both diagonally across in front of him.

He
effectively deflected a bullet, sending it flying to hit the AK-47 shooter on
his left in the hand holding the gun’s grip. The shooter yelped.  Another
bullet came at Kelly from the shooter on the right. Kelly swung both numchucks
above to his chest in a criss-cross style, deflecting the other bullet into the
other shooter’s head. The bullet shattered the skull, entering the brain, and the
man slumped to his death.

With
his compatriot dead beside him, the man began to panic. The alarms still rung
loudly, the clouds crackled, the rain started to drizzle steadily.  The man
began to fumble for the vertical selector lever on the left side of the AK-47.
If he hadn’t noticed when one of the initial bullets Kelly had deflected
earlier had ricocheted off the lever rendering it ineffective, he noticed its
stub missing now. 

Before
he could reach for the other safety so he could place the rifle in
full-automatic mode, he felt a sharp, unbearable pain at his abdomen. He looked
down to witness the unthinkable; a black hand had pierced his middle straight
through. He then looked into the face of owner of such an arm, and it held the
prettiest brown eyes he had ever seen. That was his last thought as his neck was
caught between two inhuman jaws.

The
other young girl of African descent had semi-transformed into a wolf. With her
head that of a large werewolf, her body grew into an oversized human. She had
run up behind her sister and latched onto the man’s neck before spinning to a
stop and spitting the head over the edge of the rooftop. She then transformed back
into a small-sized human. 

Great,
Viktor thought, as he absorbed the scene before him. Remnants of the blown
chopper and body parts lay burnt, askew at their feet. The smell of burnt flesh
and aviation fuel assailed their nostrils. Smoke from the blast also hung low
about their ankles, held there by the cold night air. The rain would be pouring
on them soon. Viktor advanced towards the entrance. No survivors from their
entrance. He cursed.

“I
recall you saying earlier that you needed some alive?” Darksmith stood behind
him, looking into the shadowy stairwell.

“Not
if direct fire doesn’t allow it.” But this was too much overkill, Viktor
thought.

“Right
then.” Darksmith advanced into the corridor. Above the blaring sirens that
called the men securing the property to arms, footsteps could be heard
shuffling cautiously in their direction. Darksmith reached to his side and
pulled out a bronze hammer, the head of which was shaped like a fist. 
Darksmith grasped the hammer tightly with both hands, lifted it above and over
his shoulder. Its handle length appeared to increase by way of magic. The fist
opened into a palm, and Darksmith then swung the weapon onto the ground with a dull
clang
. The floor erupted with waves that were visible to the naked eye,
and also what seemed to transport a blue, flickering electric pulse down the
floor of the corridor, turning the corner, out of their sight.

A few
moments after the disappearance of the wave, resounding screams of pain could
be heard along the corridor. Viktor led the team round the bend to discover the
bodies of men in bulletproof vests and grey security fatigues littering the
floor.

“Kelly.”
Viktor crossed over the men walking further down the corridor. “Get to work.”