CHAPTER 18 - LEOPARD

Finally, Taurine called for them. Monkey stepped into the briefing room, duster fluttering, helmet in the crook of his arm, like a knighted cowboy. Leopard kept his helmet on. As far as Taurine and her people were concerned, there was no man behind his mask.

It was a comforting thought.

“As expected,” Taurine began, “the strategic situation has shifted toward us. The ELE has established checkpoints on the arterial roads leading into blocks Beta through Epsilon. The mid-ring is the subject of increased APD patrols, many of them rerouted from the outer blocks. Heightened response times from Star Patrol indicate that they’re on scramble alert.”

Taurine loomed over the holographic map of Asclepion like a malevolent titan. Glowing icons highlighted the location of other operations she had run over the past three days, the intensity of the response and the time it took for law enforcement to arrive. Next to Leopard, Monkey nodded.

“They expect another attack,” Monkey said, “Pulled everything back to defend the more important parts of the city. Figures.”

“Smartest thing you’ve said yet,” Taurine replied. “But there’s more. There’s movement throughout the cape underworld, too. Mass mobilization. Word from my informants is that they’re putting together an alliance to push us out of the city.”

“Self-policing before the IESA takes notice and comes in to clean house. Makes sense.”

“Mm,” Taurine grunted. “This Matador Alliance isn’t a threat, not while I have people in half of those gangs and vigilante groups, but it’s also not something I want to deal with while the situation is so fluid. Won’t risk a fight with SOLAR until I’m ready.”

“You and me both,” Monkey said. Taurine snorted derisively.

“Let’s get to it,” she continued. “The Alliance is being put together by the largest remaining underworld faction in the city. Call ‘emselves the Forgotten. Led by a guy who goes by Mike Romeo.”

“As in, the phonetic alphabet?”

“It’s the smart play, very modern,” Taurine said. “Now, based on what we’ve heard, his empowered capabilities involve influencing and controlling darkness, possibly even moving through it. Probably a D8 when pushed.” She looked up at them and grinned crookedly. “So, carry a flashlight.”

“Understood.”

“He’s only been active in the underworld for a couple of years, but he’s already got a reputation as being a fair negotiator. Doesn’t rock the boat. Big on building a sense of community. So, he’s been putting a lot of work into getting this alliance together. Likes talking, I suppose. But so far, he’s refused all offers to come to my negotiating table.”

Taurine indicated a section of the map on the eastern side of the city, deep into the area that the authorities had now abandoned. “He’s a hard one to track down, but intel has him pegged at the Crossbones Quarter bar tonight. I want you to head there and show him I don’t take no for an answer.”

“Got it,” Monkey said. “We’ll track him down and take him out. We can head out in five.”

“No,” Taurine said, like Monkey was an idiot. “I want him alive. If I wanted him dead, I’d have done it myself weeks ago. If people listen to him, then I want to use that going forward. I’ll take a smart D8 over a stupid D10.”

Monkey nodded. “And going forward means what, exactly?”

Taurine glanced at Monkey, past her brow. “Means you’re getting ahead of yourself again, chimp. Do this job right, bring Mike to me, and I might start to trust you with the rest of the operation.”

“Fine,” Monkey said. Leopard could hear the frustration. “Then we’ll head out in five and we’ll bring him in.”

They had turned, heading for the door, when Taurine spoke again.

“One more thing, Monkey.”

They paused. Leopard shared a glance with Monkey.

“You’re not going anywhere,” she continued. “You’ve already betrayed one employer, and I’m not stupid enough to believe that you won’t do it again, or try to. You’ll stay here, and you’ll send your lieutenant there to take care of this operation.”

Leopard frowned. A mission to abduct one of the most influential—if not the most—empowered figure in the city, and she was going to split their capabilities? Bad idea, didn’t make sense.

“That’s not happening,” he said.

Taurine grinned. “So,” she said. “You do speak.”

Monkey was silent, eyes closed. He had to have a plan, didn’t he? He’d said he’d been working on one. Something, anything.

“Spots,” Monkey said, and sighed. “Take the others and do as she says.”

Leopard felt himself blink. “But—”

“Don’t fucking argue with me,” Monkey hissed. “Not here, not now. We can make this work. I’ll coordinate things from here. We’ve done this before, it’ll be just like the Adriatic.”

For some reason, the thought didn’t reassure Leopard. But Taurine hadn’t left them much of a choice. Ants crawled across his scalp. This was it, the trap that had finally caught them.

“Sure thing,” Leopard said.

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They took one of the faster cars from Taurine’s garage. Leopard figured they’d need speed if they were going to race across the city with a crime boss in the boot. Leopard rode shotgun with Snake behind the wheel and Rooster in the back. Tiger, Leopard had decided, should stay behind as insurance. Just to be sure.

Looking at Snake, he wasn’t so certain now. Leopard knew that Snake had gone right to Tiger following her argument with Monkey. Perhaps he shouldn’t have left her behind. Couldn’t leave her with Monkey, not if she was entertaining a change in leadership. Couldn’t let her out of his sight.

“Hey, Snake,” Leopard said. “You good?”

“I’m fine.”

“Okay. Great.”

They pulled up two streets away from the Crossbones bar. No bouncers or lookouts that Leopard could spot. His gaze wandered along the building itself and its neighboring structures. No roof access, either.

“You’ve got it, man,” Rooster said. “I’ll take care of it.”

Leopard glanced at the rearview mirror. “Who’re you talking to?”

“Just some last-minute details from Monkey. Nothing important. How’re we playing this one?”

“Can’t go in shooting,” Leopard said. “Not without Tiger. Taurine said the bar’s owned by Romeo’s gang. No idea how many people we’d be facing inside, empowered or otherwise.”

“We’re in armorweave,” Rooster said. “What’re they going to do?”

“Don’t be an idiot. These suits will catch any stupid mistakes we make but the moment you think your armor will protect you is the moment it doesn’t.” Leopard popped the magazine of breaker rounds out of his handgun, replaced them with conventional bullets, slipped the breaker magazine into a thigh pocket.

“Snake, I’ll need you on technical support. Head down that alley and get your eyes on the back entrance. Rooster, stay with the car, watch the front, and be ready to move the moment I call. Remember, this guy’s wearing skull face paint.”

“Yeah, we remember,” Rooster said. “And what’re you doing?”

“Not sure yet,” Leopard said. “I think I’ll go see if Mike wants to talk.”

So, he just walked straight through the front door. Inside, the place had a swashbuckling ambiance. A skull-and-crossbones hung over the bar itself. Business didn’t seem to be going too well—Leopard only counted five people on the floor, including the bartender. Every single one of them had their eyes on him.

Leopard went straight to the bar, settled against it.

“We’re closed,” the bartender said.

“Door wasn’t locked, so, I doubt it,” Leopard replied. “I’m looking for Mike.”

“Yeah? And who’s asking?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Leopard said. “I just want to talk.”

“He’s not in,” the bartender replied. “If you’re not here to drink, I’ll have to ask you to leave.”

“Fine. Then get me a glass of water. I’ll wait here for the whole night.”

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Someone stepped into Leopard’s space, to his right, and leaned up on the bar to match his own posture. “I don’t know why you’re acting like we don’t know who you are,” the newcomer said. “Pretty stupid to come here alone.” He drew his jacket open, showing off the handgun shoved down his pants.

Leopard ran his tongue over the inside of his teeth. “Doesn’t have to go this way,” he said, aware of his breathing, fingers tingling.

Finally.

“Then how about you—”

Leopard snatched the man’s weapon, snapped off a shot that entered through the bottom of his jaw and popped the top of his skull off. He fired across himself, putting two into the back of the bartender as he dove for cover or a weapon or both, and something exploded against the back of his helmet, blasting his hearing away from him.

He whirled, snarling, ears ringing, and emptied his magazine into the shooter’s chest. Blood sprayed out across the far wall. It’d been so long. There was no fear, no doubt, no anxiety, no hesitation. The fact that he’d almost been shot in the head was so distant compared to everything else.

His snatched handgun clicked dry. Leopard dropped it, noted another gang member rising, roaring, and went for his pistol. Found it just in time for it to go flying as the man tackled him to the ground.

Leopard drew his head down to his shoulders to stop the man from being able to strangle him and caught him with a wild jab, grabbed at his face and pressed his fingers into his eyes. When his opponent rose up, howling, Leopard pulled his knife and stabbed him in the throat.

Impacts hammered his back, and Leopard could feel the force of the bullets rippling out across his armorweave. He dove for his pistol and came up shooting, blasted the fifth man’s teeth out through his cheeks.

“Hey, Leopard!” Rooster buzzed. “You good? Need backup?”

“No. Hold your positions, both of you. Make sure he doesn’t run for it.”

He made for the staircase. Someone swung out, shotgun up, but too far from the corner—Leopard castrated him with a bullet, then grabbed him, hurled him down to the ground floor.

The first floor was a corridor with multiple rooms coming off it. No way out except past him, which suited Leopard just fine. That, or the windows. Each and every doorway was a threat, and just about all of them had a shooter behind them. But cheap plywood made for poor cover. Splinters filled the air.

Someone cut the lights, and the corridor plunged into darkness. Leopard kept moving. He was a creature stalking through the night, a vicious predator circling at the edge of the campfire. Every time he flexed his finger, he cast the world into light, and someone died.

Someone stepped out into the corridor, hands alight with blue fire. Leopard threw himself to the left as the cape tossed a fiery bolt at him, then shot him in the chest. As he stepped past, Leopard paused, turned, and shot him once more in the head. Could never be too sure with capes.

“Snake,” Leopard said, pausing at a heavy metal door. “I need you to track down the power supply for the building. When I give the word, flip the switch.”

“Got it.”

Leopard banged his fist against the door. “Mike Romeo,” he called. “I’m coming in. I just wanna talk.”

He slid the door open slowly. Inside, the room was as dark as the abyss. Even Leopard’s helmet saw nothing but darkness—he didn’t want to think about that. He ducked back, just in time, as an obsidian tongue lashed out from the deep, gouged straight through the corner of the door in a shower of sparks.

“Fuck,” Leopard breathed. “Neat trick! Is this some kind of fancy telekinesis or more of a shape-shifting thing? Are you insubstantial now? What happens if I was to start firing blindly? Ever been shot before, Mike?”

No response came, but the darkness persisted. Good. That meant Mike wasn’t leaving, either. He swapped his magazine out for the breaker rounds, cocked the handgun.

“Snake,” Leopard said quietly, over their comms. “I really need those lights.”

Snake clicked back affirmative. Leopard took a breath, activated his shoulder lamp, and pulled a flare out, ignited it. Then, he stepped into the dark.

The light from his lamp faded well before it should’ve, and the flare illuminated everything in an ominous crimson tint. Leopard could make out vague shapes in the dark. Chairs, a desk—and behind both, a humanoid shape with far too many writhing limbs. Mike consumed his light.

Mike’s tenebrous form lunged at him again, a whip of physical darkness that slashed through where Leopard had been one moment before. “I told you,” Leopard said, training his handgun on Mike’s vague shape, “I just want to talk.” Somehow, not looking directly at the cape illuminated him better.

Mike’s voice was too normal for his inhuman shape.

“You’ve killed a lot of people just to stand here in front of me.”

“Didn’t want to. But going back without you isn’t an option.”

“I see. You’re one of Taurine’s new mercenaries, aren’t you?”

“Not exactly,” Leopard said. “Long story.”

“Then what’re you doing here?”

“She wants to talk to you. And if I don’t bring you back, then she’ll kill my friend. Don’t have a lot of options.”

“So you kill mine.”

Leopard shrugged. “Guess so. But they forced the issue.”

Mike said nothing.

“I’d rather not knock you out,” Leopard said.

“What assurance do I have that she won’t kill me herself?”

“None, really. But if that was what she wanted, I’d have done it already.” Still, Leopard lowered his weapon, holstered it.

“You love your people, right?” Leopard asked. “Do anything for them? Then you should accept Taurine’s terms. Keep them alive for one more day. And if you want to take her out, maybe we can some to some type of agreement.”

“How mercenary of you.”

“Sometimes we have to do things that we hate to survive for one more day,” Leopard replied, and held out his right hand. It seemed like the sort of thing Monkey would do. “Taurine won’t harm you. You have my word.”

“Doesn’t seem like it’s worth much.”

“Maybe,” Leopard said, “but it’s better than nothing.”

The lights in the corridor flicked on behind Leopard. Mike Romeo stepped around his desk. He stepped closer, and the shadows melted away from him with every step. His eyes were as black as the room had been.

He looked at Leopard’s offered hand, raised his own, and then someone shot Mike in the head.

He pitched back as the office lights burst to life, a single hole above his left eye, and collapsed in a heap. Leopard went for his sidearm, found it in its holster. He hadn’t fired it; he knew he hadn’t fired it. He turned, looking for the shooter, and there was Rooster, lowering his rifle, gunsmoke drifting from the barrel.

“What’ve you done?” Leopard asked. “What the fuck have you done?”

“Saved your ass, it looks like,” Rooster said.

Leopard sprang towards him, threw Rooster against the wall. “He was going to surrender,” he snapped. “We needed him alive!”

Rooster broke his hold. Leopard grabbed him by the collar and shoved him against the wall, hard. Rooster stumbled and went down. “That isn’t what I was told,” Rooster spat, staring up at him.

“And what, do you get your orders from someone above Monkey?” Leopard drew his handgun and bent down, pressing it against the front of Rooster’s helmet. “You fucking idiot, you have no idea what you’ve done!”

“I’m the idiot?” Rooster asked. “Who do you think told me to do it?”

“Guys,” Snake said, “We’ve got incoming. We have to go.”

Leopard ignored her. “Taurine explicitly wanted him alive. Monkey sure as hell didn’t tell me any different.”

“That isn’t what I heard.”

“You picked the worst day to develop a goddamn spine.”

Rooster tilted his head up and back.

“You really don’t know what’s going on here, do you?”

“Hey!” Snake snapped. “We have to go!”

“We’re talking about this when we’re back safe, and I’m going to throw you to the fucking wolves,” Leopard said to Rooster, stepping back and letting him climb to his feet. “Move.”

They reached the car in record time. The streetlights flickered and pulsed in a strange, threatening rhythm. Up the street, and coming closer, was a woman in a cape and a hulking giant of craggy asphalt. Forgotten gang members clustered around the shapeshifter’s bulk, using it as cover as Snake traded fire with them.

“Snake, come on,” Leopard called, pulling his rifle out of the car, “Time to get out of here! I’ve got you covered!”

She ran for it as Leopard sprayed fire at the Forgotten advance. Snake was halfway to them when the caped woman waved her arms like a composer, and a bolt of lightning snapped out of the nearest streetlight and stabbed her in the back.

Snake stumbled and went down in the middle of the street, smoking, stunned. Leopard heard her groan crackle and pop inside his helmet.

“Fuck,” Leopard said, throwing his rifle into the back of the car. “Rooster, cover me!”

Rooster grabbed him by the arm. “Don’t! Leopard, it’s not worth it!”

“We can’t just leave her!”

“We have to!”

Snake shuddered, trying to rise. In the distance, the asphalt giant stomped closer. Pounded one giant fist into another, hard enough that Leopard heard the nearby windows rattle.

“Fine,” Rooster said, climbing into the driver’s seat “You stay. But I’m not letting you get us all killed.”

Rooster ignited the engine. Swearing, Leopard ripped open the passenger’s side door and leaped inside. “Floor it!”

Rooster did. They peeled out onto the street, the acrid stench of burning rubber in Leopard’s nose, and left the sounds of combat behind.

He didn’t look back.

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“Where the hell are we?” Leopard asked.

Rooster cut the engine. Outside, loomed the bare metal pillars and expansive concrete floor of some old industrial building. The floor was still filled with containers and machinery, all long since abandoned. Graffiti tags covered almost every surface. A rat scurried through the dark.

“Like I said,” Rooster said, hopping out. “You don’t know what’s going on.”

Monkey came out of the shadows to meet them, Tiger at his side. She looked to Rooster, then Leopard.

“Where’s Snake?”

“She got tagged by an electrokinetic,” Rooster said, shrugging. “Don’t think she made it.”

“She was alive when I last saw her,” Leopard said. “You wouldn’t cover me so I could go get her.”

“What?” Tiger asked. “Then give me the keys. I’m heading back out there.”

“Wait, Tiger,” Leopard continued, and set his eyes on Monkey. “Monkey, I had Mike about to surrender. Rooster shot him in the head. The moment Taurine finds out, she’s going to kill us.”

“Good,” Monkey said. “That’s what I’m counting on.”

“This ain’t a smart play,” Tiger replied.

“Isn’t it? Our only chance of getting a shot at her is away from her base of operations. Here is where we’re going to do it. Winner takes all.”

“What’re you talking about?” Leopard asked.

Monkey continued, “I think she’ll want to handle us personally, and I think she doesn’t know that we have breaker rounds. One problem at a time. Once we’ve taken care of Taurine, then we’ll track down Snake. Tiger, you have my word. We don’t leave people behind.”

Leopard stared at Monkey, thankful for the black visor that concealed his eyes. A thought came to him, but in the voice of the dead man.

Yeah, and how much is that worth?