on the vile barrel but did not breach the container. Plumes of steam carried toward the ceiling and Nina felt sure she heard the container moan.
Nina knelt and fired at full automatic again. The barrel of her gun created flashes like fireworks bouncing off the green walls. Her shots down two more enemies. A splash from one dropped on the shoulder pads of her body armor at the same time as she rolled to her right to avoid the remaining trio of attackers: they over shot again.
Nina took to her feet and ran toward the wounded vat; one in a line of such vats along the eastern wall. She felt heat radiating from her shoulder; digging through the padding to find its way to flesh. Behind her the electronic screams grew louder yet again as the hunters sought the target.
With one hand holding her weapon, the other struggled with the smoking body armor. She pulled one arm free then reached the vats, pressing into the small space between the hideous containers and the infected wall.
The missiles altered course away from the vats, not daring to hit another of their own, and circled higher toward the rafters like dive bombers re-positioning for another attack run.
Nina used the momentary respite to remove the remains of her damaged armor taking care to not touch the noxious surface of Voggoth’s machinery. The horrid, decaying smell forced a wretch in her stomach but she remained focused on the task. No distractions could dissuade her. No horrors here could intimidate her. Nina had become a weapon unto herself. She played the nightmare in Voggoth’s dreams.
Nina emerged from the shadow of the vat and spied her attackers looming over head. They, in turn, descended in a glowing yellow picket line.
Nina squeezed the trigger on her M4 and again met their charge with bullets; a furious barrage of bullets. She felt the heat from her over-worked weapon; she smelled the burning metallic aroma of cartridges firing one after another after another.
Pop-splash. Pop-splash. Pop-splash.
A light rain of acid drizzled to the warehouse floor as her rifle dispatched the remaining orbs. Yet her victory felt pyrrhic as the battle computer inside her head realized the cost: she had expended the last 5.56 round in her possession..
The twin Mac-11s on her shoulders, a threesome of grenades, and her thigh-mounted Desert Eagle stood ready but nothing to feed the Colt…
A legion of Monks and a pair of muscle-bound Ogres awaited The Bishop’s orders in the dark hall outside his command chambers. The emerald-eyed fiend took great pleasure in what was to come and like all of Voggoth’s creations he understood that only pain-as acute as possible-could satiate his Master’s desires.
“’Go,” he commanded the mutated humans in robes, “go and purify her with your blades.”
The Monks drew the short pikes that passed for swords and marched south, first slow and then faster- faster-with the evil enthusiasm of a crazed mob…
Nina gazed at her rifle. It nearly glowed with heat, but even the radiation of the barrel could not match the heat of anger firing in her heart. The Bishop still waited. The creature responsible for her loss. The one who had used her as a tool against the man she loved. The root of the death and destruction delivered unto her world.
He will not escape.
At the far side of the chamber a long wide portal opened. A line of silhouettes raced into the room. She saw the flaps of their robes as they ran. Their numbers-100 strong-stretched from one side of the chamber to the other. Behind that fast-moving vanguard lumbered a pair of slower Ogres.
Trevor’s voice came to her as clearly as if he stood next to her in that darkness. The words he had said to her at the mansion; after the last meeting.
“Go after them, Nina.”
She would not wait. No retreat. No defense. No escape. The only thing Nina had known all her life presented the only remaining option.
Attack.
She dropped the M4 and drew her sword. Her eyes narrowed, her brow furled, and Nina ran at them. She ran with every ounce of speed her legs could muster. The black beret flew off and her ponytail fluttered behind.
Fifty feet…
The monks with their swords increased their speed in response to her charge. The sound of their pounding footfalls created a steady beat like an unstoppable tide rolling to shore. Their wide line condensed into a mob as they neared their target.
Thirty feet…
Nina grasped the hilt in a death-grip. The sword she had taken from a Mutant; the day she had met Denise. It hung behind her and to the side as she leaned forward in eagerness to meet her fate. She ran even faster. Her heart raced like a drum played by the devil.
Ten feet…
She saw the once-human rotting faces with splotches of red and green and flakes of skin hanging like scales. Their damned eyes locked on to her and knew only that they must hurt and wound and kill because that was all any creature of Voggoth could possibly desire. A destiny Nina once thought she shared but now she knew more. She understood more. And she would fight for it.
Nina jumped. She jumped like an Olympic hurdler, passing over the first enemy swings, landed behind the vanguard and in the midst of the mob, and she kept running, swinging as she moved with the momentum of her charge behind the arc of the blade. No consideration for defense. No blocks. No attempt to parry. Nothing but attack-attack-attack.
A head rolled free; a robe fell limp; an arm holding an alien rapier flew through the air. And still Nina darted through the sea of attackers, dropping her shoulders and swinging; leaping forward and thrusting. Everything in the blade. Nothing but attack!
Their counter-thrusts hit air as if trying to puncture a ghost. Enemy swords clanged against enemy swords where she had stood just a blink ago. Nina refused to stop, instead sweeping onward like a farmer’s scythe reaping harvest.
The bodies dropped around her in a line of dominoes knocked asunder. Yet more moved in with the Bishop’s orders of purification dictating tactics.
She felt the tip of one sword rip across her shoulder. Before a single drop of blood came from the laceration she had slain three more.
No fencer’s skill; Nina moved as a butcher.
A wide swath-a slit chest, a cut throat, a skull torn in half, a shoulder chopped into mush. Her sword did not falter; did not get caught in the gore. The strength of her muscle and the power of her rage made each swing unstoppable.
The entire upper half of an enemy body fell away from the bottom; the blade drove through a rib cage without pause; her weapon eviscerated a monk who dared block her path…
That sea of robes-still four score strong-spread in the slightest; took pause in the face of this demon of slaughter.
Directly in her path one of the monks discarded his blade and against the desires of his master raised his forearm and took aim with the alien gun mounted there.
Nina threw her sword. It hit the mutated man square in the chest. The body fell straight backwards to the floor.
Before the sound of the thump carried to her ears, Nina pulled the Mac-11s from their dual shoulder harnesses and, holding the guns sideways, waved her arms to either side in a slow arc dealing deadly bullets into the mob. She kept her eyes forward; she did not aim with anything other than instinct, yet not a single bullet missed.
She spied the Ogres lining up for their run at her through the gauntlet of robed monks. Her battle computer saw it all so clearly. So precisely. So easy.
Her guns clicked dry at exactly the same moment. Piles of dead monks rose on her flanks but the balance of the force did not hesitate; they climbed over their fallen brethren and poured in toward their unarmed victim like Moses’ parted Red Sea collapsing onto Pharaoh.
Nina ran forward again as the blades thrust toward her person. As she did, her arms worked in fast unison to
