Number Six was face down on the narrow bed, arms in restraints to keep him from rolling over. His back was a mass of red-stained dressings.

Number Seven looked at the patient chart on the clipboard that hung on the end of the bed. Who was he kidding? He was a competent combat medic but he was no doctor. He had no idea how Six was doing.

Six shifted slightly in the bed. 'Don’t just stand there, you arse. Come over here where I can see you,' he said.

'Where you can see me? I’m not getting in bed with you. You’re not well,' said Seven.

'They’re not that tight.' Six demonstrated by wriggling onto his side.

Seven moved to the chair by the bed. Now he could tell that it had been placed where the staff could sit and talk to Six without staring at the back of his head.

'How are they treating you then?' said Seven.

'The usual. They’re a bunch of bloody fascists but sexy fascists in tight uniforms,' said Six.

'No stealing my lines.'

'What’s happening out in the real world?' said Six.

'The Boss has called in the Department.'

'Which depart… Oh you mean the Department. For a grenade?'

'She’s not worried about the grenade. She’s worried about how it got into the room,' said Seven.

'I was wondering about that. Who swept the room?' said Six.

'According to Number Three it was Two.'

'Then it wasn’t there when she swept. And I arrived right after Three. And the room was never unoccupied between then and the explosion. Only the six of us were in there. That’s weird.'

'Abby had the forensics on Number One. He wasn’t drugged and neither was the boy. The killer didn’t leave a single drop of blood behind.'

'Did the Boss bawl you out then?' said Six.

'Nice subject change there. Subtle. Of course she did.'

'You know sometimes when she’s having a go at me she gets this look in her eyes and I can tell she’s wishing it was you,' said Six.

'Yeah I get that too,' said Number Four from the door. 'She’s shouting at me but she’s thinking of him.'

'Did you get Three back to bed without a fight?' said Seven.

'Three made a break? That explains the shouting,' said Six.

'I have no idea how he did it,' said Four. 'He was barely able to keep his head up by the time I got him back to his room. He was snoring almost as soon as he got his head down. I had a word with the Sergeant. Told her to send in a pretty boy or girl to mop his fevered brow every couple of hours so he doesn’t feel neglected.'

'I’ll bet that went down like a pint of cold sick,' said Six.

'I gave her my best sarcastic eyebrow and quoted Abby at her.' Four walked around the bed to stand next to Seven. 'How’s this idiot then?'

'I’m just peachy keen. Thank you for your concern,' said Six. 'You two?'

'I’m fine,' said Four, 'not a scratch. He’s got 3 cracked ribs, lots of bruising and he pulled something in his back. And ruptured his eardrums again, of course.'

'Medical records are supposed to be confidential,' said Seven.

'No one keeps secrets from me. I thought you knew that,' said Four. 'Did he tell you about the Department?'

'He did. Have either of you ever worked with them?'

'Not directly,' said Four. Seven shook his head.

'I have and they are properly weird. Do you remember the first time you worked with special ops, back when you were just regulars?' said Six.

'Yes?' said Four.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

'Barely,' said Seven.

'Forget the awe and the hero worship you were trying to hide. Try to remember how weird they seemed. No rules to follow and no recognisable command structure but all the cool equipment. And that swagger that they weren’t even aware of. The way everything seemed mundane to them and even taking fire was boring. Remember that?' said Six.

'I remember that the first SAS guy I met looked like he was carved out of teak,' said Four.

'The first time I worked with the SBS I saluted one of them and he told me not be so fucking stupid and not to salute people who worked for a fucking living, Sir. I learned a lot of new words working with him,' said Seven.

'Which one was your safe word?' said Four. Seven ignored her.

'It was like that working with the Department,' said Six. 'I met their Chief Archivist when I was breaking a sex trafficking ring. I’d been working the case with Special Branch. They called themselves the Children of the Black Sun or something. We thought they were just using occult trappings to scare the girls but then we got one of the Madames into custody.

'Took me two days to break her and she’d only been talking for a couple of minutes when she spontaneously combusted. All we had was a charred corpse, a bunch of leather bound books in ancient languages, and a lot of paperwork covered in unintelligible scribblings. So we put a call in to the Department.

'They sent in a team from the Archive. Weirdest bunch you ever met. The woman in charge was something else. They call her Ice Cold Alex. Agent Alex to her face. She looks like Louise Brooks. Wears a lot of red. She and her team deciphered the papers and she had a look at the books and just started laughing.

'She grabbed me and said, ‘Let's go speak to the Magus.' And I said, ‘What, right now? We don’t have any evidence. We can’t prove anything with this.’ And she said, ‘We’re not going to need proof.’ She grabbed one of the books we found and we just went straight in the front door.

'You would have loved it, Seven. She went up to the receptionist and said she wanted to see the man in charge. Of course the receptionist called security. The guy came to throw us out and Alex pinned him to the floor with a fountain pen through the foot. Turns out she can accelerate small objects to high speed with the power of her mind and as a side effect they get very cold. Transforming heat energy to kinetic energy she called it. So she’s all, ‘Shall we try that again?’

'To cut a long story short I had to shoot a few people and she stabbed, froze and intimidated a few all the while flirting like it was an Olympic sport. We got to the top floor and by then my plan is to finish the job as quickly as possible and at least try to get back to the car before we start tearing each other’s clothes off.

'The guy in charge was such a complete douche that I was looking forward to him trying to kill me. He was ex Soviet military and he was dressed up like Rasputin. Long hair, beard and fingernails. The whole top floor was one part sex dungeon and one part church of Satan. He starts his whole, ‘do not underestimate my power,’ thing. She cut him off mid word and waved the book at him.

'He tried to bluff it out. He actually said, ‘the ignorant are unworthy to gaze upon it.’ She just opened it and started reading out loud.

'He turned inside out and then exploded. I have never seen a mess like it. It took the Department cleaners a week to clean it. So I’m standing there surrounded by bits of a human being that had been breathing seconds earlier and she started coming on to me again. I have never been so not turned on in my entire life.'

'Inside out?' Seven stared at Six unsure if the man was serious or not. Six glared back as if daring them to call him a liar.

Screaming. The unexpected sound drove Seven to his feet almost before he was aware that he’d heard it.

'Go,' said Six, his eyes darting from Four to Seven, 'but come back and tell me about it later.'

#

Number Seven ran towards the screaming, Four at his side, his heart sinking. No-one screams like that unless someone is dead. Medical staff don’t scream like that unless they’re worse than just dead.

Seven caught himself praying that the bad thing had happened to an innocent bystander and not to one of his friends. He felt a stab of guilt but he couldn’t bring himself to stop.

They followed the sounds to room 3. By the time they got there a crowd had gathered outside and someone was throwing up in the corridor. The screaming hadn’t stopped. The Sergeant nurse arrived just ahead of them. She pushed her way through the crowd but stopped for a moment in the doorway. Seven could see her willing herself to go in.

Seven and Four reached the threshold. The room was red with flecks of black. Seven couldn’t take it all in. His eyes were drawn to a young nurse with no rank marks on her uniform. She was standing just inside the door and screaming. Her voice was hoarse with it. Her body taught with horror. She didn’t seem able to stop. The Sergeant shook her by the shoulder. She kept right on screaming. The Sergeant slapped her and bundled the now silent nurse out of the door, passing between Four and Seven.

'You two secure the room. Don’t let anyone in,' said the Sergeant. She started to leave then paused. 'Don’t touch anything and for God’s sake don’t die.' She dragged the young nurse away before Seven could say anything.

Seven watched the Sergeant pulling the younger woman down the corridor. He turned back to Four. She was standing just inside the doorway. He stepped up behind her and looked over her shoulder.

The stench was unbearable. Death and blood and bird crap. The windows were open. There was a drift of black feathers on the floor. Something had eaten most of Number Three. His eyes were gone. Ragged holes picked in his face.. His body had been torn open and his intestines dragged out across the bed.

Dreading what he would see Seven looked up. There was arterial spray all over the ceiling. Three had been alive when he was attacked. Alive and moving about.

There was a skittering sound. Something like fingernails scrabbling against marble. There was movement in the room. Down low. Hidden amongst the black feathers.

Four leapt for it while Seven drew his gun. When Four stood up she was holding a fat raven. It wriggled in her grasp and tried to claw and peck at her. She raised her hands to dash its ugly head off the wall and Seven shouted, 'No!'

She glared at him but she didn’t finish the bird off.

'It’s evidence,' he said. He put the gun back in the holster.

'Are you going to interrogate the little fucker then?' said Four.

'No,' he said. He shrugged off his jacket and wrapped it round the raven. 'I’m going to hand it over to the Department. Maybe they can interrogate it. If they can cut holes in reality and turn people inside out then talking to birds should be a piece of cake.'