“The door is unlocked,” Hagar informed me. “You can tell by the green light just below the handle. If you run into any doors where that light is red, do not try to open them. You’ll set off an alarm.”
“Good to know.” The door’s knob twisted easily in my hand, and it pulled open on silent, well-oiled hinges. “I’m in.”
The small maintenance room I’d entered held a collection of basic tools on a pegboard against one wall, a tattered binder filled with yellowed paper on the workbench beneath them, and a set of stairs that led deeper into the building.
“One second, let me get these cameras oriented.” A few seconds later, Hagar broke the silence. “All right, you’re clear down to the tenth floor. I’ll let you know if that changes. Move quickly.”
My heart raced as I sprinted down the squared spiral staircase. My Eclipse nature was restless inside me, a tiger pacing its cage. I’d felt like this before almost every fight in the Five Dragons Challenge, and I’d never gotten used to it. There was a hunger in me now, a taste for violence I didn’t want to indulge.
It dogged me all the way down the stairway, a constant clamoring to punch and kick and break things that just wouldn’t leave me be. The dark urge knew there was a fight coming, and it wanted blood.
“Hold.” Hagar’s voice dragged me out of my thoughts. “There’s a guard outside the door to your left, ten paces. Take him down, now.”
“Take him down?” I said. “Why can’t I just wait for him to move—”
“Now!” Hagar’s shout rang in my helmet.
The panic in her voice broke through my hesitation. I glanced at the door’s handle, saw the green light, and eased it open into the passage beyond.
The Borrowed Core technique forged connections to a dozen rats as I raced up behind the guard. Their breaths became mine, and their bestial aspects filled my aura. The serpents twitched inside me, ready to burst forth and do my bidding. As much as I didn’t want to admit it, the rush of adrenaline felt good.
It felt right.
The guard wore a boring khaki uniform, complete with a heavy utility belt on his waist that held a holstered pistol on his right hip. A tactical harness covered his torso in a web covered with items I didn’t recognize. He held a walkie-talkie in his left hand. I’d need to deal with that before he had a chance to call for help.
The guard heard me when I was less than a step away. Time slowed as he spun on his right heel, one hand dropping toward his holster, the other hand lifting the walkie-talkie to his mouth. The color drained out of his face at the sight of an intruder so close to him, and panic aspects leaped into his aura in a sparkling flurry.
If the guard’s hand reached his holster, he’d have a weapon trained on me in the next second. If he got that walkie-talkie up to his mouth, there’d be a bunch more weapons trained on me not long after that.
My serpents exploded out of my aura. The first to emerge darted toward the guard’s left hand, a chittering swarm of shadows that closed around his wrist in the blink of an eye. He yelped in surprise, and my serpent yanked his arm toward me.
Hard.
Off balance, he couldn’t recover in time to defend himself. A right backfist knocked the walkie-talkie out of his grip and into the wall, where its black plastic housing shattered. My left hand slammed into his shoulder, knocking his hand away from his pistol’s grip. Before he could recover, I drove my knee into the guard’s gut hard enough to bend him double.
My opponent’s breath shot out of his lungs, and he fell on his tailbone, hard. My Eclipse nature wanted me to end the man’s life to ensure he wouldn’t cause me trouble later. If he raised an alarm, the whole mission would be in jeopardy.
Instead, I drove my fist into the side of the man’s head, just behind his ear. The jinsei-amplified attack put the guard’s lights out, and he flopped onto his side, unconscious. His breath stuttered, then resumed. He’d have a terrible headache when he woke up, but at least he would wake up.
“Pick him up,” Hagar ordered. “There’s a storeroom down the hall to the right. Hide him in there.”
The guard and all his gear were heavier than I’d expected, and I fed a bit of jinsei into my back to make hauling him around easier. The unconscious man groaned as I carried him and started snoring when I leaned him against a stack of toilet paper rolls in the storeroom. I ran back to collect the pieces of his broken walkie-talkie and deposited them in a nearby trashcan.
“One down, twelve to go,” she said.
“Twelve,” I hissed with surprise. “That’s insane.”
“Good thing for you, then, it’s only three.” Hagar snickered. “Lighten up. Your next target is straight ahead and then left. Stop at the intersection. Wait for my go.”
I hustled down the hallway, relieved and irritated at the same time. It was easy for Hagar to joke about this mess, as she was safely back on the transport. I, on the other hand, was neck deep in enemy territory. If anything went wrong, I’d pay the price, not her.
I wondered how heretics would deal with someone like me, then pushed all those thoughts aside. I’d seen too many TV shows where sneaking around ended up in torture. I pressed my back flat to the wall and cycled the nervous aspects out of my aura. No one was going to torture me. I’d get out of here in one piece.
“Wait for it,” Hagar said. “Wait for it.”
The guard walked with his head down and didn’t even see me hiding in the shadows as he strolled along his rounds.
I reached out when he passed by my hiding spot, hooked an
