In between his position and those stairs were six well-fed Variants. The beasts prowled along the webbing and pulled a few bodies from the tendrils.
Dohi focused on the faces of those human corpses, but their skin looked parched and curled off their bones. These people hadn’t died recently.
Spearhead might still be alive, and if they had made it to that stairwell, that meant their last calls had been sent from at least one more floor above them.
After signaling to the rest of the group what he’d seen, Dohi looked down the hall without any monsters. An elevator shaft beckoned to him. One of its doors was jammed open by a gurney. He could see that behind those doors, there was no carriage.
Fitz signaled for Dohi to go up first and check things out, while the rest of the team waited here to avoid making extra noise.
Dohi snuck down the hall and slipped into the shaft. As quietly as he could, he climbed inside and started the ascent up to the next floor, hearing voices near the top.
Human voices.
He stopped near the bottom of the next open doors, listening.
It sounded like just two men, posted somewhere down the hallway.
Collaborators.
They were discussing the Canadians and how easy it was to capture them. Dohi’s heart picked up a beat. The Canadians might still be alive.
“The Prophet is going to have fun with those heretics,” one of the men said.
An idea bloomed in Dohi’s mind, and he retreated down the shaft. By the time he got there, the Variants had moved on to sleep off their full bellies.
He explained what he had overheard to Fitz and the rest of the team.
“Let’s send Corrin to talk to the collaborators,” Dohi said. “See if we can find out where Spearhead is.”
Fitz looked to Corrin.
“I’ll do it,” the Chimera said.
“Okay, go up the stairs,” Fitz said. “We’ll cover you from the elevator.”
The team moved out. Dohi watched Corrin leave. In a few minutes, they would find out if the Chimera could truly be trusted.
By the time he got to the top of the elevator shaft, Corrin was already approaching the two collaborators at the nurses’ station. One was a man with a black baseball cap, and the other had a matted beard.
The collaborators bowed their heads, shrinking back at Corrin’s arrival.
“Sir, did Elijah send for us?” asked the man with the cap.
Dohi noted the name, guessing Elijah must be a Chimera leader.
“No, he sent me,” Corrin said. “I need to see the prisoners. Take me to them.”
The two collaborators exchanged a look.
“Take me to them,” Corrin said, this time a little more fiercely.
The man with the beard looked up. Suddenly, the look of fear melted into one of skepticism.
“Where’s your cutlass?” he asked.
The capped collaborator began to raise his rifle. “I’ve never seen you before.”
Dohi raised his rifle out of the shaft.
“Elijah sent me,” Corrin said. He growled.
“Prove it,” said the man with the cap.
Both pointed their weapons at Corrin.
Dohi sighted up the guy with the cap and blew it off, along with part of his skull. Corrin lunged over the counter of the nurses’ station and tackled the bearded man.
Glad we decided to let Corrin live, Dohi thought.
The team climbed out of the shaft and set up a perimeter while Corrin held the bearded man down, claws to his throat.
“Where’s the Prophet?” Fitz asked. “And where are the prisoners?”
The collaborator shook in Corrin’s arms. “If I tell you… if the Prophet…”
“The Prophet is the least of your concerns right now.” Fitz stepped close to the collaborator. “You won’t take another breath if you don’t tell me where the prisoners and your Prophet are.”
The collaborator raised a finger, pointing overhead. “We… we took the prisoners upstairs. Up where the Scions went.”
“Where upstairs?” Fitz asked.
“The lecture hall.”
“If you’re lying to us, this beast will rip out your throat,” Fitz said. “Do you understand?”
The collaborator gulped, but nodded.
“The Prophet is with the prisoners?” Fitz asked.
“With our prisoners, yeah. That’s right.”
The man’s eyes twitched, and he nodded a little too vigorously. But Dohi wasn’t sure if he was lying. He had already pissed his pants out of fear, which made it difficult to tell.
Corrin yanked him up.
“Take us to them,” Fitz said. “You scream, and you’re dead.”
Corrin started walking with the collaborator, holding the man by an arm.
When they reached the floor where the collaborator claimed the lecture hall was, Dohi took point again. The doors to the hall were wide open, and he snuck inside. True to the collaborator’s word, he spotted Team Spearhead, but the Prophet wasn’t here and the room was free of Variants.
All three of the Canadians were pasted on the walls above the seats facing a podium covered in webbing. Toussaint and Neilson were struggling against their restraints, vines covering their mouths. Blood dripped from Daugherty’s nostrils. His head hung limp. Dohi noticed his chest was still.
He wasn’t breathing.
Dohi waved the rest of the team in, and Fitz gave the order to Ace and Rico to set the prisoners free. They hacked away at the cocoons holding Spearhead in place, then gently lowered Toussaint and Neilson out first. The two fell to their knees, gasping for breath and retching.
Dohi checked on Daugherty, pressing two fingers to the man’s neck. He held it there for a moment, hoping to detect a pulse, but his heart had stopped.
“Damn,” he whispered. He looked to Fitz and shook his head.
Fitz snorted with anger.
“Where’s the Prophet?” he asked their prisoner.
“I…”
Fitz grabbed him by the neck, and Corrin tightened his grip on his arm.
“Tell me or I’m going to make you wish the Variants had feasted on you,” Fitz said. He kept his voice low, but the ferocity in it surprised Dohi. He rarely heard the master sergeant this angry.
Dohi’s aim roved around the room, waiting for a pack of Variants to descend on them or more collaborators to spring from the doors at
