“If you hold the faith, you will abide my words,” Azrael said.
“Yes, Prophet,” Gabriel said, eyes lowered. “It was foolish of me to speak like that.”
One of the doors to the lab opened. Four Scions marched in with their cutlasses strapped over their backs. Between them limped a hulking form.
All the way from across the room, Azrael could smell the beast’s festering wounds in his diseased flesh. It was the general, finally returned from Canada.
The Alpha stumbled toward him. One of his arms hung useless at his side.
“I am sorry to… interrupt, Prophet,” the general said, dropping to his knees before Azrael.
His massive chest expanded and deflated in heaving gasps. Blood caked the rim of a bullet hole in his shattered elongated jaw.
Azrael looked at Gabriel, who was staring straight at him. “You have come at the perfect time. We are approaching victory in Vegas… and elsewhere.”
“Yes, Prophet.”
Azrael spun, holding his claws wide to the rest of the room. “Soon we will all taste victory! And even sweeter, we will feast on the flesh of our enemies.”
A few monstrous howls rose, and human loyalists cheered.
“But only those who do not fail me will feast.”
The general dared to look up at Azrael with eyes that sparkled with a hint of fear.
“Please, Prophet, I almost…” he began to say.
Azrael snapped his claws. Red vines from the floor and wall slithered around the general. They snaked into his nostrils, ear canals, and the bullet hole in his jaw, prompting the general to screech in agony. More vines wrapped around his wrists and legs, yanking him off the ground.
All the chatter in the operations center ceased, except for a few squawking radios. Even the mastermind was watching.
“You failed me once,” Azrael said.
He gestured toward the mastermind. The vines stretched until the general’s bones started to crack. The wounds he had sustained from his attack on Banff opened, fresh gouts of blood drizzling out.
Azrael snapped his claws together again. This time the vines continued to stretch, and the general’s roars shook through the room. A violent tearing sound ripped through the space as his limbs pulled free from their joints, bones and flesh torn apart by the gruesome contractions of the webbing.
The torso of the general dangled in the air, vines still holding him up by his head and neck. Rattling gasps escaped the creature as he let out agonized moans.
Azrael ignored the beast, facing his followers again. “We are close to destroying the Allied States. Do not let failure become a distraction. While the human armies are focused on Las Vegas, we will deliver a strike that will paralyze them forever.”
The final breaths escaped the general’s broken body, and the vines released him. His corpse slapped against the floor.
Azrael turned away from the dying creature. He had no more time to waste dealing with insolent fools.
He looked back at Gabriel and the others. “Bring me Beckham. Bring me Ghost. Bring me victory.”
— 12 —
Dohi crouched at the entrance to a windowless second-floor corridor. They had traveled back up from the morgue through the hospital when Spearhead had called for backup.
The shrieks of Variants had sounded throughout the climb, but now the beasts had gone quiet. There was no sign of the Canadians. No streaks of blood. No bullet casings. Nothing to indicate where the team had gone.
Dohi was no longer sure going after them was a good idea.
The mission to find the Prophet far outweighed the lives of a single team, including even Team Ghost. But Fitz believed finding where the beasts had taken Spearhead would lead them to the Prophet.
For now, that was their game plan.
Sweat matted his ACUs and saturated his gloves as he gripped his rifle. The temperature in the hospital seemed to be rising.
Dohi clenched his jaw, holding his breath, waiting for orders.
“Should we try them on the comms?” Rico whispered.
Fitz shook his head.
Ace surveyed the area with his rifle, cutting through the darkness with his barrel-mounted tac light.
Corrin sniffed at the air. He leaned in close to Fitz, then whispered, “Variants are close.”
The air only got hotter as they made their way deeper into the hospital. Dohi blinked the sweat from his eyes. He came up on a corner and put his back against the wall, then snuck a glance around.
The coast was clear, and he shot a gesture to the team to relay the info.
Fitz signaled to continue.
Striding out with his rifle shouldered, Dohi finally saw the first tracks from Spearhead across the webbing covered floor.
Bodies hung from vines on the walls. Most were nothing but ragged corpses, a few pieces of leathery flesh hanging over tooth-marked bones. One man moaned, somehow alive despite his shriveled body.
Dohi shuddered, remembering his own experiences in the webbing. This man wouldn’t survive being taken down from the vines, but Dohi couldn’t just let him suffer.
There was only one thing to do.
He pulled out his hatchet, but then decided not to spill blood.
“Do you want me to end this?” Dohi whispered.
Sunken eyes focused on Dohi, full of relief more than fear. He gave Dohi a nod.
“I’m sorry,” Dohi whispered. He held the man’s gaze as he pinched his nose shut and pressed his hand over his mouth.
Dohi waited a few moments to make sure it was done. The other soldiers didn’t say anything and continued past empty hospital rooms and gurneys left in the hall. A few windows allowed the team to flick off their tac lights and put on their NVGs.
Another dark three-way intersection waited for them at the end of the corridor.
This time Fitz motioned for Corrin to take point and listen. The Chimera exchanged places with Dohi who could already hear the soft squish of claws digging into webbing down the passage. The air reeked of rotten fruit.
Corrin sniffed at it, gesturing to confirm there were Variants nearby.
Leaning around the corner, Dohi saw the footsteps in the webbing
