She felt the warm blood streaming against her side. Sinclair held her hand against the cut that split into her right forearm. Another member of the Sala crew came up to her.

She guessed that it must have been Laredo. He carried with him a leather bag.

Marco tapped her on the shoulder to get her attention.

"You're wearing a sports bra, correct?"

Sinclair nodded, pleased at the gentlemanly courtesy on display.

"That's right. You need to remove my skirt? No worries, the bra is a very fortified and modest assembly because it is also proofed against stabbings, small caliber bullets, and the kind of mayhem that occurs at the club."

He acknowledged with a curt nod, and turned his head.

"Help me get this off of her," Marco exclaimed to VJ.

Laredo was now preparing his tools, and fishing around in his bag.

Sinclair eyed that bag with a hard glare.

"Whatever you do, do not sedate me. You're going to need me to be there when you take down Mitra."

Laredo frowned as he watched his cousins remove her skirt. The sudden jerk when they pulled it off of her shoulders and arms made her screech in pain.

"I am a trained veterinarian. You're condition will be paramount in how I decide to treat you, and nothing else."

Sinclair blinked slowly as she took in what she was being told while Laredo applied a tourniquet just above her wound.

"You are a vet?"

"Frankly, horse surgery is much more difficult than most operations formed on humans. I am well trained."

At worse, she needed to be stitched up, perhaps a severed artery needed to be tied, but that was child's play with modern tools and technique if Laredo possessed the right instruments. Sinclair had no doubt he did by the organized sets of instruments she saw lined up in the bag, so she tried to relax. Was it merely her upper middle-class Quebec-born snobbery that made her feel apprehensive towards Laredo's career experience?

She decided to voice a bit of skepticism. After all, it was her body being stitched up.

"If that is true then why are you here then, instead of working from some lovely ranch in Argentina?"

Loretta stiffened up his chest, proud and defensive.

"Not of my accord. I was pulled back in the family business, as were most of the men you see gathered here."

She had no idea what triggered her, but Sinclair chortled hard at that answer, and that made her cough. Her lungs started to become agitated again. She beckoned the three cousins to give her some space.

With quite an un-lady like snort, Sinclair gathered from within her throat a loogie which she coughed up and spat on the floor. As nasty as that was at least she could breathe again. She assumed earlier that it was her childhood asthma making a late return, but she was becoming more aware that the source was something else.

Something in the air that she could now vaguely smell. It smelled of mold but much mustier than she was used to when nanospores clustered in close proximity. Something was off about this, and her lungs were putting up a hell of a defense to counter it.

"I am okay," she assured them.

As soon as she said this, Laredo leaned into her and placed a fiber cable that's stuck out from a pen-like device, and he slid it into her wound. On a molecular level it was designed to feel quite comfortable no matter the type of nerve grouping that it touched up against.

He slowly pulled it in a circular pattern inside the gash.

When Laredo frowned, Sinclair knew that she would not like his answer.

"I'm afraid I have to slow your heart rate down so I can operate on your severed artery. We have the bleeding under control, but that's a nasty bugger. If I don't address it soon you will probably lose this arm.

Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, Sinclair thought.

Marco cleared his throat to get her attention.

"I don't mean to distract you from these rather serious matters, but I'm going to need an estimation from you. How long do you think the dragon will stick around?"

Sinclair leaned her head back against the cushioned seat and closed her eyes.

"I expect it to stick around for at least the next half day given it took the time to make an elaborate dragon's den supplementary corridor maze as a defensive measure."

Marco nodded in approval of her tactical analysis. She was beginning to think she had developed a relationship with the wrong Sala.

Now, Sinclair, she admonished herself, one does not necessarily cancel out the other.

"All right, that sounds doable. The surgery and your anesthesia should take no more than three hours. We can delay going in there again until you're ready."

Marco snapped his fingers to get the attention of Chicco. Her lover had remained quiet for some time now, studying how she interacted with his cousins.

"Hey Chicco, I'm going to need you to make a run for some cocaine to get Sinclair back on her feet for after the surgery."

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

Laredo eyed him crossédly. Marco shook his head.

"Don't look at me like that, you know very well she is going to need it. Hell, we're going to fight a dragon, we are all going to need it."

Marco was right, Sinclair realized. He would approach the situation with the deliberative caution that the circumstances deserved. There was no reason she should object to going under anesthesia.

She just did not like the loss of control, but she could not delay the decision any further. The time was now. With a nod to Laredo, Sinclair said, "please, Laredo, do what you have to do."

After gaging the utility setting, and applying a green cross marked canister into it, Laredo used the same pin he had used to probe her injury, and pressed it up against her neck. Soon Sinclair faded out.

She heard the stir of flechettes that sounded of the swish of a hundred scissors opening and closing in harmony a dozen times per second. Yet, Sinclair did not feel threatened by the sound. She assumed it a mere product of her imagination.

Her entire being was absorbed in the whiteness of the ceiling above her.

Sinclair should not have seen even that as her eyes were still closed, and she barely perceived anything around her due to the sleep paralysis that seemed to sheath her.

She fell back into the void for however long she could not fathom, but then abruptly, she stood up on her feet, and quickly looked around. Sinclair was at a loss for memory of what had occurred that stirred her so.

In front of her on a four-seat table was Chicco's Russian 4 gauge where he had left it before running off to get them cocaine.

The lights in the bar room were slightly dimmer now. There was no one else around.

Did they go into the server room without her?

Sinclair panicked and she lost her breath. It caused her to double over and fall back to the carpeted floor. She concentrated on maintaining her breath.

Why were these old problems she had not suffered in over a decade coming back? It was like some catalyst entered her body had flipped on a switch that compromised her physical makeup.

She stood back up and noticed an open bottle of Midori on the lowest shelf of the bar cabinet. Sinclair quickly walked over to it, and she took a large gulp, then maintained a swallow full in her mouth and gargled it before she swallowed again.

Her throat and lungs felt much better.

Sinclair's flesh tingled along her wound. It was bandaged up very cleanly, the tourniquet removed, as well. Someone cut the protective sleeve pads off of her bra but did so very neatly with the razor. It was still a viable article of clothing, for which Sinclair appreciated.

Now what?

Sinclair bit her lips together, apprehensively. She needed to find out what was on the other side of that door.

Both the double stack RIA 10mm and Magellani .22LR lay holstered on one of the center tables. Beside the guns were several clips for each and a bandolier belt to hold them.

Quite thoughtful of the mobsters, to be honest. Marco's handsome masculine face came back into her thoughts. She hoped matters had gone well.

After strapping on the weapons, Sinclair made her way out the door. Right on the floor where she received her injury were the ruins of her jacket. Unlike her now sleeveless bra, it could not be salvaged. A pity, really. It was her favorite.

The corridor now resembled an oppressive dungeon even more so than before, crystallized fungi hung like stalactites. Something got the densidad event stirred back in action, once more.

Sinclair frowned to herself, a battle will do just that. They tended to be sensitive to the sturm of human emotion.

At the intersection of two hallways, she noted the erie silence, and Sinclair did not take that as a good sign. She walked further up the central corridor, there were no worms about. Just a splattering of a dozen or so freshly killed from what must have been a frantic battle.

What compelled the crew to go without me? Did they intend to do so all along?

She went down the stairs that were now on her right that lead to a set of corridors directly into the server room hub. When she came to the first cross section, she found the first body, lying in the center.

It was VJ. His body was shredded in severe lacerations, with the filament of flechettes surrounding him.

It looked like an ambush where his attention was forced to be concentrated in front of him and he got flanked on the other two sides.

Sinclair double checked the 10 mm she held in her hand. She doubted that there were any more of the flechettes still hanging around, and the large gun was likely not the best weapon to use against them. Several 12 gauge shells lie on the floor nearby VJ's body, but his weapons had been stripped off of him.

Her hands began to shake. She was not prone to fear, or at least allow it to affect her, but Sinclair had not been feeling herself of late. Even her stomach was rattled.

As she made her way closer to the server room, the sound of Felicité moaning very lightly, almost breathlessly, echoed down the hallway. Sinclair was strangely comforted by the sound of another human voice.

Even a terrorist like Felicité Paz, the notorious Grim.

At the server door entrance, the doors had been ripped apart. A body lay right in the midst of the doorway. It was headless, but she could tell right away by the bulk it had been Marco. He had been attempting to flee when his head had been ripped off.

Her new found affections caused Sinclair's heart to sink. She fell on her knees, and regurgitated her last meal at his corpse's feet.

Then, Sinclair stood still, searching for any hint that the dragon was still around. All she heard was the breathing and moaning of Felicité nearby. She could see into the server room, the doors were too narrow for the dragon to get through. That was her only comfort in the current situation.

She crouched down further, and leaned over to get a better look inside. She suspected the dragon would be lying in wait if it was still around.

Light beamed from above the distant spot that Sinclair surveyed where the central server room hub formed a three-story high space, with the stair lift landings, and the suspended bridges, hung from above.

However, many were shattered, and some had fallen to the floor. Others were twisted, under the central panels of glass which had been broken through.

Right above her, two large pipes had been squeezed in. Claw marks dug into the wall and engraved on the fungi surface. Sinclair understood what had occurred, now.

The dragon had lay in wait above the door entrance. Marco was the last to go through. He stood right there under the entrance, and he heard something, got a flash view of the dragon when he tried to dodge Mitra's jaws before she took his head off.

It was also evident that the dragon had escaped through the debris above her. Sinclair got back up, and made her way towards where Felicité lay. It was the same space she had been held by the snakes, but now the densidad event had reformed it into an altar comprised of the same crystallized fungi that covered the stalactites and walls.

Felicité lay in the center of the table. There was a large glass blade driven into her navel. It's handle had been severed off. The scarab that had covered her vagina lay split apart beneath where her legs rested.

Three more bodies from the Family Sala were strewn about the hub room. Sinclair was in no mood to investigate the gruesome scene though she felt obligated to do so to ensure that they were not still alive, and to render aid if they were.

Hard to tell for certain, but none appeared to be her lover, Chicco. He lucked out if he never made it back from the cocaine run.

Which likely meant less time had passed than she assumed.

As she surveyed the severed remains of the team, she heard from behind her Felicité's voice, and from it the single word, "you!"

"No damn way," Sinclair exclaimed.

"No damn way what, bitch," asked Felicité.

"That any of them survived this."

The blonde Argentinian laughed at the notion.

"If you saw what I saw you would know that is not in the realm of possibility."

Sinclair turned back around, and examined Felicité once more. Entirely nude but for the blade that impaled her.

Felicité glared.

"You want to take me back to your weirdos at Encapsulation, and have them hook me up to a bunch of machines to torture me. Don't even think it. If you want that dragon, you're going to have to get Elise involved."

Sinclair ignored the rant as she gaped in wonder.

"How the fuck are you still alive?"

To that question, Felicité threw her head back and manic laughter rapped against her throat, "they will never let me go, no matter how badly I desire to leave this world, they will never let me go. I am immortal."