Madness: DxD

Madness

Glass screams somewhere to my left. Sirens wail like they're being paid by the hour. I step through the blown-out front doors, coat already ruined, boots sticking to something that used to be linoleum.

AALN grunts. Black suits. Red glasses. Same uniform as always. Same lack of imagination.

Different posture, though. Sloppier. Twitchy.

I crack my neck and draw my gun.

Legend: I don't have time for this.

An agent turns, raises a rifle. Too slow. I put him down before he finishes the thought. He collapses in a way that suggests his bones are arguing with each other.

Cops are dug in behind desks and overturned vending machines. A lieutenant is trying to reload with hands that won't stop shaking. I walk past him.

Lieutenant: Hey! The Legend of the Night is here!

I kick a dropped shotgun toward him.

Legend: Less talking, more shooting.

More agents pour in from the stairwell. Coordinated, but not clean. Like someone's pulling their strings with greasy fingers. I move through them. Punch, shoot, throw. A baton snaps. A neck gives up. The room fills with smoke and the smell of hot metal.

One of them laughs while I'm breaking his arm.

That's new.

He keeps laughing even after he hits the floor.

I shoot him in the head. The laughter stops mid-note, like a bad record scratch.

The remaining agents hesitate. That's all I need. I advance, relentless, efficient. By the time it's over, the floor looks like a crime scene that lost an argument with physics.

Silence. Breathing. Mine and everyone else's.

Commissioner: Am I glad to see you.

I holster my revolver.

Legend: You're welcome. Try to invoice them. They hate paperwork.

He studies the bodies, then me.

Commissioner: That was the Agency Against... AALN?

I nod.

Commissioner: That can't be right. You dismantled their operations years ago.

I crouch by a corpse. His hand is wrong. Veins too dark. Skin too tight, like it's stretched over something impatient.

Legend: I didn't dismantle them. I ended them.

The commissioner frowns.

Commissioner: Then how—

I don't answer. I'm busy opening an agent's chest cavity. Inside, everything's where it should be. Mostly. But there's a black residue clinging to the ribs, pulsing faintly, like it's breathing without lungs. Not to mention my medallion going haywire.

I touch it with a knife. The residue recoils.

That seals it.

Legend: They're not autonomous.

The commissioner swallows.

Commissioner: In English?

I stand, wiping the blade on my coat.

Legend: They're possessed.

A body on the floor twitches. Its head snaps toward me, eyes flickering. A voice comes out that doesn't belong to a throat.