Baxter gave me an intense look.

“I’m serious Don! Tiberus didn’t decide to flee the facility until it was confirmed that Temple was a part of the group assaulting this place.”

I put my fingers to my temples.

“That doesn’t make any sense Baxter. If Tiberus was leaving, why didn’t you go with him?”

He took his attention away from the hall and turned to address me directly.

“He has more to worry about than keeping tabs on his “new recruit”, and you know as well as I do, that if Temple shows up himself, then it is because its personal.”

I flicked my wrist in frustration as I complained, “Why the hell would Temple have a,” I made air quotes with my fingers, “personal,” issue with a bunch of wild dog… men.”

Baxter gave me a flat look, clearly noticing my obvious catch.

“Look you put a gun to my head Baxter.” I deflected.

“I apologized already Don…” He growled.

I replied, with my own angry glare and a growl of my own, “Not hard enough. I have far more reason to be pissed at you right now than you do me Baxter.”

His lips curled, “I’m not a pet Don.”

I jabbed a finger in his chest, “And you’re not a friend right now either. For all I know you are gone soon as I get out of here, or this is still a part of your screwed up initiation!”

He looked like he wanted to say something, but another explosion shook the building breaking up our moment. Gunfire sounded closer and the shouts for help rang out down the halls from people who believed the Order had finally arrived to save them. I pushed past Baxter and got a look down the now dimly lit wreck of a hallway. Left and right looked the same, with the left ending at a wall much closer than the corner to the right. I held my hand out to Baxter, “Give me your knife.”

He looked confused, so I elaborated, “Look if you want brownie points you will do me a solid and give me your knife. If what you say is true, then there are probably several rooms of people that we need to try and get out before Temple’s people get ahold of them.”

I gave him an accusing point of my finger, “And most of those people are not going to be happy to see you.” I emphasized the word “not”.

He didn’t hesitate and handed me the knife hilt first. I took hold of it and gripped it with the blade down. Considering we were going to be moving quickly very shortly, I wanted to make sure that if I tripped and fell, I would end up stabbing the floor and not myself. We made our way to the nearest door to the left, where I had heard the gunshots and a woman screaming for help.

I spoke over my shoulder, “You have no idea where any weapons are do you?”

Baxter shrugged, “Was not privy to the armory. I may have gotten my rifle back if I had shot you.”

I gave him a flat glare over my shoulder, held my hand for him to stop, and calmly opened the door to the room and entered.

“Ma’am, please calm down!” I did my best to sound friendly.

As light poured into the room from the hallway, I cast a shadow against the back wall. My first sight was that of a dead man against the back wall, tied in a similar fashion to my own binds, slumped against the pipe on his knees. Blood pooled on the floor beneath him. His head hung limp with his body, in what would have been an extremely painful way were not dead. Blood had also spattered the back wall behind him.

There were two women, the blonde had slumped to the ground against her binds as well. She was hopefully unconscious, but from where I stood, I couldn’t confirm it. The brunette woman who had been screaming, seemed to be frozen in panic until she saw that I was human. She looked like she was in her late twenties, her clothing was tattered and her arm needed medical attention. She was pale. It was possible that it wasn’t her normal skin color given the potential injuries she had.

“Thank the fates!” She exclaimed in disbelief.

The room smelled like feces and urine. As I approached the slumped blonde, it was much more obvious that she had expired, but from what I could not tell. I choked a bit and turned my attention to the living woman immediately to distract from the two corpses.

I spoke quietly.

“Ma’am I need to you calm down. I also need you to be quiet. We are not safe here, and we need to get out.”

The hope on her face had faded as I spoke, and she started to hyperventilate. I talked her through what I was doing as I cut her ropes. A pain filled wine escaped her clenched teeth as I cut at the rope, and she almost collapsed when the ropes popped off. She clutched her left shoulder and hissed with a deep inhale through clenched teeth.

I introduced myself, as I took hold of her good shoulder, hoping to calm her down, “My name is Detective Kenter. Ma’am talk to me, I need you to focus.”

Fear and pain was written all over her face, “M…my name is… My name is Milly.”

I smiled, “Good. Milly, we are going to get out of here. Can you walk?”

She nodded.

I got a look at her arm, it looked swollen under her clothing, “We will get you to a doctor Milly. I know it hurts, but you need to stand up and come with us.”

Her voice quaked as she spoke, struggling with my assistance to stand, “You keep saying “we”.”

I assured her, “I have a friend out in the hall watching out for us. Don’t be alarmed, he’s a…”

Baxter interrupted me with an urgent tone as he took one step into the room, “Don we have to go now!”

Milly screamed and I dropped my knife, and tried to restrain her as she fought me to get away, “Milly shush! He’s a friend! He’s my dog!”

I know Baxter probably didn’t want to hear that, but as far as Milly was concerned, I had no idea if she was on the “pro-dogman liberation” side of things, or the “dogman as pets” side of things. It took me a few moments to get her to calm down, Baxter raising his hands moving close and repeating that he wasn’t a threat was not helping.

When she stopped struggling, she asked, “Where’s his collar?”

I insisted, “Questions later. We need to get out of here. Trust me, he is on our side.”

Baxter erupted in a snarl and whipped around toward the door ready to lung at whoever he detected before me. A voice sounded, through what may have been a giggle, from the hallway.

“Give me a reason to blow your brains about the room Baxter. Back up.”

It was somewhat nasal, somewhat raspy, and reptilian in its sound. Maybe weaselly was a more apt description. Bottom line, it was the kind of voice that makes your skin crawl. The kind of voice that a predator would use to elicit fear before it strikes. I had hoped I would never have to hear that voice ever again.

Feasil Ryzer was a ripper for the Sanctuary. He was remarkably dangerous, heavily modified on a genetic level, and simply hearing his voice sent shivers down my spine. I had one encounter with him several weeks ago, where he tore apart several Order agents and almost put me in the hospital were it not for the grace of Temple himself to stop him from breaking my back. He loved the ripping part of his job and had some weird thing with his skin that allowed him to camouflage himself near perfectly to his surroundings. His physical capabilities, many of which involved brutally savaging individuals up close and personal, were pretty impressive to witness.

Both he and Tyson tended to me during Temple’s interrogation. Feasil enjoyed tearing up my leg and the various cuts he inflicted on me. He took extreme glee in it. It was unpleasant.

I was not happy to see or hear him again. Baxter backed up slowly, tense as he tried to figure out a way to engage Feasil through the doorway. Feasil followed him in, holding a TEC-10 shotgun at the ready. He wasn’t kidding, a solid shot with that and Baxter would have lost a portion of his chest along with his head.

Feasil was roughly a foot taller than me, and built lean, wearing nothing except a pair of pants and a belt that he could easily slip out of if necessary. It was always hard to pinpoint exactly what skin color the guy had, and he had an ear-to-ear smile like a shark. His edged teeth made him more intimidating. He had the eyes of a cat, and hair that was greased back and cut to shoulder length. He also had a pronounced hook nose, and ears like a chimp.

While they were not presently extended, I knew he had blade-like appendages that he was able to flex out from his forearms. He coated them in some kind of metal, and I had seen them rip through light body armor.

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Milly screamed and Feasil tensed, a subtle sneer breaking his smile. The pitch of her cry was agitating my ears, so I know it must have affected him too.

Feasil shouted over Milly, in a harshly demanding tone, “Shut up woman!”

She did.

“Detective.” He gave me a nod.

I stared at him. I needed an opportunity to take so Baxter could do his thing. Feasil was far stronger than I am. I had seen the blades in his arms move as fast as I could draw a knife from its sheath. There was no way I could pull the distance required without being greeted by the shotgun, or his arms.

His smile returned, “So glad to find you in one piece, and predictably together in one place. Saves me a hunt.”

“One piece?”

Did he know about the train? That didn’t make sense unless he was already hunting me for some reason. My brain kicked into overdrive trying to figure out what I managed to do beyond the events of my previous case that would have convinced him to exact a personal vengeance on me.

“We have no beef with you Feasil. Temple cleared the slate.” I clarified.

His eyes squinted, and he gave a confident smirk as he monitored both Baxter and me.

“Step away from the woman Detective.”

Milly squeezed me tightly in protest, but I gave her an assuring nod. We separated and I slowly moved away.

“Feasil she has nothing to do with any history between us. At least…”

No sooner had I taken my second step away from Milly, he whipped the shotgun to bare and fired. My heart stopped. I thought he had shot me, but I was still standing. The blast took Milly off her feet, and she made a flesh on metal thud against the pipes she originally was secured to. Her head split open against the pipe, and she wasn’t moving as she lay twitching on the ground. Blood pooled beneath her. If she was alive, she wouldn’t have been much longer.

There was nothing I could do. There was nothing I could have done.

Both Baxter and I were taken aback by how sudden everything happened that I didn’t even notice my ears were still ringing from the concussive blast of the shotgun. My eyes were wide. I was mortified as I stared at Milly’s bleeding body. We were frozen in place. Feasil repositioned his shotgun back on Baxter again before he could move.

His voice oozed a snarky confidence.

“You are right detective, now she has nothing to do with us.”

Rage filled me to a boiling point. The irrational part of my brain wanted me to throw myself into his gun. The rational part did everything it could to try and convince me that there had to be a different way that would not end with us dead. Baxter made a snarl, which said we were on the same page. His hackles raised, and his gaze was murderous.

He took one step.

“Uh uh! Back off Baxter, or Donovan goes first, and you get to watch it happen.” Feasil insisted with his arrogant confidence.

Baxter halted, his menacing demeanor not faltering. I wanted to say something but couldn’t form the words. I saw myself pounding his face to goop. I wanted that, and I wanted it badly. I wanted him to genuinely apologize for the lives I had seen him take, and the lives I was not aware of.

Feasil was a monster.

I did not see him as anything more than that. If all the Rippers in The Sanctuary were like him, then I would love to make it a personal mission to see all of them dealt with in much the same way as Tyson.

“How does it feel to be “only human” detective?” Feasil spoke through a side look keeping an eye on Baxter’s movements. “So weak, and incapable of doing anything to defend yourself much less anyone else.”

He was going to kill Baxter and make me watch. The rage started to shift in my guts, morphing into butterflies and panic. I know my eyes were wide, and his smile seemed to grow wider as he noticed.

“We never did finish our talk a few weeks ago.”

Maybe if I ran at him and dove to the side he would slip up. His reflexes were so much faster than mine, he would easily see it coming. I could’ve tried to move in a fashion that would force him to pull the gun away from Baxter long enough to give a perfect opening. Maybe I would get lucky and not take a full blast from the gun. What were another several expensive hospital bills?

I felt useless.

A gravelly voice from another person outside the hall spoke loudly, “No, Feasil found Donovan and his dog Baxter though.”

Feasil’s face contorted into a shocked look of disappointment.

The gravelly voice continued, “Yeah alive.”

Feasil looked angry, the way his pupils dilated, and his ears twitched. The other man entered the room. He was wearing a full suite of body armor, sans helmet. His face was horribly scarred, and both face and hair were dirty. He stepped up behind Feasil, leaned close and spoke quiet enough so that I couldn’t hear him. Feasil’s smile disappeared. The armored guy left as if we were not a threat at all and announced down the hall, “Rest of the rooms. Go!”

Feasil’s jaw clenched, and he spoke through a snarl, “Temple wants to see you… I hope you give me a reason to shoot you.”

Another point in Baxter’s corner regarding the benevolence of Fate. Least I hoped it was.

Speaking with Temple could very well involve a simple talk before he left us in Feasil’s “care”. I chose not to dwell on that and focus on the hopes that maybe we could talk sense into Temple over purging everyone in the building. Feasil kept the gun level with Baxter, obviously not viewing me as much of a threat. He backed out of the room and made a gesture for both of us to follow.

Baxter gave me a look, and I nodded toward the door before leaving. Feasil stepped off to the left and motioned with the gun for us to move right. Gunfire erupted somewhere in the facility, and I saw some of Temple’s henchmen escorting people out of the rooms further down the hall past Feasil. He guided us to the stairs at our end of the hall. I didn’t wish to press him on his word, so I remained silent as did Baxter. Feasil said nothing as he escorted us through several collapsing halls and wrecked rooms. The building used to be an office.

We passed various henchmen and bodies along the way. The dogmen had given Temple’s crew a run for their money. Apparently, they were far more organized than anyone would have given them credit for. Many of the wounded, or killed, that we passed weren’t injured by weapon’s fire. Feasil directed us each turn, keeping close enough to make sure neither of us were able to take off.

While it may have been possible to put some distance between us ducking through the remains of the walls and rooms, it would have meant that one of us was not going to make it courtesy of Feasil’s TEC-10. He would have been able to hunt the other one easy enough, which is why his gun was in place to make sure Baxter was the one that went down were he satisfied with our level of resistance.

We were deep into the facility. It took us a solid twenty minutes to navigate the ruins down three floors to what used to be a lobby. Feasil spoke only to issue directions. Light fixtures had fallen from the ceiling, portions of the ceiling had collapsed, and the remnants of furniture lay in piles around the area. The windows by the entrance had been broken, and much of the boards in place had been broken or rotted away.

Several heavily modified guards, of the cybernetic persuasion, were stationed in the lobby. Three of which immediately leveled what looked to be high powered machine guns at us as we entered. I promptly raised my hands above my head, not that the gesture of “I mean you no harm” would have stopped them from mulching all three of us in a heartbeat.

What wasn’t obviously cybernetic was covered in military grade armor. The stuff that can stop high powered munitions from punching through you. Temple obviously spared no expense in arming his people with gear necessary to do their jobs.

As for Temple, I had only seen him twice before, and he was completely unchanged since the last time. He typically only shows to conduct business and arrives exclusively to resolve it. Other than that, the Order has had a remarkably difficult time pinning him down despite him never seeming to leave the realms of his influence in the Rail’s districts.

The guy was an enigma, and a damn reclusive one at that. It is a total coin toss regarding whether it is good fortune that I was still breathing after seeing his face, or bad fortune that he kept me around because he saw some use for me. Given his interpreted methods, and tight control over The Sanctuary, I personally find it hard to believe he does anything else but make plans regarding who he can use, when he can use them, where he needs them to be used, and how many times before said person’s usefulness is used up.

Gulp.

I did not acknowledge the guns aimed in my direction, after all, if they were going to shoot me, I would have been a meat sack full of holes well before I could think to care about alternatives. Raul Temple was the king of his country, and kings demand attention and respect when you are in their presence. My last encounter with Temple involved being tied to a chair and ended with me in a hospital bed. I would have preferred to not repeat the last encounter again.

Temple was leaning against a stable portion of a ruined island reception desk in the middle of the lobby. Just from looking at him, you could tell almost immediately that he was the kind of man that other men were jealous of. His eyes were baby blue, the kind that had more color in them than iris. That alone gave him an exotic quality, amongst the rest of his chiseled facial features. His dark brown hair was maintained in an unruly mix between a Faux-hawk and Victor hairstyle.

Where my five o’ clock shadow was a sign that I didn’t care anymore, he wore one as if it was a professional statement. There was an imposing aura of confidence about him that made me uncomfortable to be around him, and that was coming from a guy who had made his career dealing with people that were genetically and cybernetically enhanced. I have seen monsters, hell I had one following me into the room.

Temple was a different kind of monster.

He wore light body armor similar to the stuff I was wearing. Keeps you mobile yet manages to protect against the small stuff efficiently. He had a PDA in his hand he was reviewing before we entered and his sidearm, a hand cannon I could not identify, was holstered to his hip. The armor he had did not hide view of a long scar running up the left side of his neck from his collar bone to behind his ear. His only other physical imperfection beyond what looked like a previously broken nose that didn’t mend properly, was a tear through his right ear that I theorized came from a bullet. The ear was ruined and for some reason he never took the time or money to get it fixed.

His eyes fell on me quickly, and after a brief acknowledging glance to Baxter at my side, before returning his focus on me. It was like having your soul read, and I resisted the urge to shudder. Temple holstered his PDA to his left side and approached, maintaining a predatory gaze on me as he did.

A soldier in similar body armor to the guys we had seen upstairs, came from one of the other side entrances to the lobby and was greeted with a similar reaction to the hulking machine gun toting bodyguards on the other side of the room. He stopped short and announced, “Sir, we have found close to twenty people in this wing of the facility. No sign of Tiberus and his pack, beyond a few stragglers that have put up a fight.”

Temple continued his approach to me and gave his attention to the soldier. His voice had a subtle laziness in his accent. A slight slur that added a refinement to the words he used. “Keep searching. The drones outside have not seen any evidence of an escape out of the facility. They are still here.”

He stopped, closed his eyes and took hold of his chin. His index finger tapped the malar area of his cheek while he scratched the stubble on his chin. It was a moment of consideration before he pointed to the door the soldier came from and said, “Mathis, have some of your men gather the people you have found in the atrium. They are not a part of this, and probably should not have been here.” He gave a dismissive wave of his hand, “The Order’s investigative force will find them and take care of the rest.”

Mathis nodded and left without further question.

Temple resumed his approach.

“Donovan Kenter.”

I made my best effort to not sound nervous, after all it is hardly a wise decision to reveal weakness to a potential adversary. I also tried to sound as respectful as I could.

“Raul Temple.”

He stepped close enough to where I could smell a faint, smooth hint of his cologne. His eyes closed halfway in a lazy gaze, he cocked his head subtly to the right and gave me a confident smirk.

“Let’s talk.” There was an insistence in his voice.

The last time he said those words I was immediately restrained and thrown into a chair to be tortured for a period of time I would prefer to forget. The upward inflection of my voice betrayed that deep rooted fear.

“About what?”

I was scared and he knew it.