Hero Stalker

Part Forty-Six

 Smoke filled my lungs as I ducked through the hole in the wall. Embers scattered under my feet. Two men looked up from the burning pile of papers and drew their guns.

Before he could get his arm up to shoot, I slammed into the man closest to me and sliced his firearm in half. He yanked on my cape with his free hand, pulling it off. I spun around and elbowed him in the jaw. He collapsed.

A gun went off behind me. "Peregrine!" I shouted, spinning around.

She hung in mid-air as she drove her foot into the other henchman's collarbone. Snap! The gun dropped from his hand. He squealed in pain. Peregrine darted around him like a hummingbird, kicking him in the groin and chin. I felt almost relieved when he passed out.

"Did you really have to do that?" I muttered.

She looked at me like I'd lost it. "He tried to shoot me."

My heart raced as I reached down and retrieved my cape from the edge of the fire. Thankfully, it didn't look damaged. All things considered, that had been easier than I'd expected.

Peregrine snatched a piece of paper from the fire and beat it out against her sleeve. What remained bore a company letterhead and looked like the start of a bill, although what Harpy had ordered had been burned away.

"They must have known we were coming," Peregrine said. The firelight cast eerie shadows across her costume. "We need to see what we can salvage."

A heavy footstep rang out above us. Peregrine froze and shot me an anxious glance. I looked up at the rotting ceiling. The planks had split in one place, leaving a hole just big enough to climb through. Harpy? Could these floors hold his weight? Maybe the upper stories had been maintained better. Or the unidentified psi-positive was lurking around. It didn't matter. A Centurion runs towards danger, Slasher had told me. Especially a combat operative.

I took a deep breath and regretted it as the smoke filled my lungs. "I'll go check it out." I coughed. "You try to put out the fire."

With a single leap, I threw myself through the hole. Old syringes cracked under my feet as I landed. A broken metal staircase coiled halfway up along the wall. Someone had left behind an empty Fanta bottle and a roll of plastic tubing. Hazy smoke filled the room and coiled out the narrow window. I couldn't see anyone save my shadow, stretched out long from the flickering firelight below me.

Up we go. My feet flung me up to the third floor. The dimming light left nothing visible but drug paraphernalia and owl pellets. Rotten wood and bird nests pilled up on the fourth. The waning moonlight shone on what might have been a footprint in the dust. I bent to examine it, wishing for night-vision goggles. Then a step echoed right over my head. Gotcha.

Half the floor above me had broken away. The toe of a man's boot hung over the edge, illuminated by a faint beam of light. Tiny puncture marks shone in the wood. Slasher's words danced around my head. If you have to stick your blades in his chest . . .

I took a running jump, kicked off the lighthouse wall, and spun in midair. My foot connected with something solid.

Slam! The man flew into the wall. I landed in a crouch on the edge of the fifth floor, panting.

"Nice moves, sister." He got to his feet—a tall black guy around my age, with dreadlocks coming down to his knees, wearing nothing but grey sweatpants. His torso was all hard muscle, his nose had been broken more than once, and his eyes danced all over me. A camping lantern sat at his feet. "You single?"