I calmly lifted my hands off the desk, Janet's hand still clutching my wrist.
"Let's not do anything too hasty."
"Quite a bit too late for that." Janet said flatly.
She cleared her throat and continued"Here's what I'm going to do. You are going to come with me to the parking lot. You will get in the grey sedan. You will not attempt to ask for help, otherwise, I'll kill you. The story is that we are headed to a working lunch. Something came up while refactoring the codebase and you requested my input."
"Ok."
Best to just go along with this until I think of a way out.
We walked out of the room, Janet behind me, boxing me in. We walked past the security desk. I hoped the guard would look up and notice me, but no such luck. His nose was deeply buried in a magazine as Janet swiped us out. Of course it couldn't be that easy.
How strong was she? My way out of this was (probably) grappling her,getting my gun and shooting her, but I wasn't sure if I could pull that off. While I ruminated, we marched into the parking lot, Janet still behind me. She pointed towards a grey Jetta GLI.
"Get in. Back seat." This was escalating from detention to kidnapping. That didn't bode well at all
I nodded.
I bent down toward the back door, hand on the handle. This was my chance, maybe my only one. The moment I was halfway into the car, bent over and vulnerable, would be when she'd be most relaxed.
I yanked the door open and immediately kicked backward with my right leg, aiming for where Janet's midsection should be. My foot connected solidly with Janet's midriff. I heard her grunt and saw her fold over and hold her abdomen. I tried to push myself back out of the car, opening my mouth to shout-
A hand clamped over my mouth from inside the car. Another hand grabbed my jacket and yanked me fully into the back seat. I caught a glimpse of an unremarkable white man in his thirties, bland features, the kind of face you'd forget immediately. Except for his grip, which felt like a steel vice. "Enough," he said quietly. I felt something press against my ribs. Cold. Metallic. Janet slid into the driver's seat, rubbing her stomach with one hand.
"That was stupid," she said, sounding slightly winded.
The man in the back seat kept the weapon pressed firmly against my ribs. The pressure was constant,a physical reminder that any further escape attempts at this juncture were likely to prove fatal. I heard the distinctive click of the car's child locks engaging. Janet had locked the back doors from the driver's controls.
"In case you get any more ideas," she said without looking back.
Janet started the engine, and away we went. My one comfort was that the man hadn't patted me down and found my pistol after my escape attempt. I wasn't sure why. Possibly overconfidence. The weapon pressed harder against my ribs as the Wraith beside me shifted slightly, getting comfortable for the drive. I forced myself to breathe normally, to not give them the satisfaction of seeing fear. Not yet, anyway.
After a few minutes, judging by the scenery passing by, we were headed back to NYC by way of the Turnpike. Both Wraiths were quiet. I kept my eyes on the scenery. I had to wait for a better opportunity to escape. Whatever they had planned for me wasn't likely to be conducive to my future health.
The man broke the silence. "This form disgusts me."
"Then maintain it properly, Sister," Janet said flatly, eyes on the road. "We need you functional for the ritual."
A pause. Then the Wraith beside me spoke again, matter-of-factly. "We're going to sacrifice you, you know."
"No stellar alignment available" Janet added. "We require a potent fuel source. Your species makes adequate batteries."
I wisely kept my mouth shut.
The Wraith beside me continued. "Cattle serving their purpose."
Janet glanced at me in the rearview mirror. Her expression was utterly flat. "Your discovery gave you value. You should be grateful. Most of your kind are simply consumed."
That was apparently all the explanation I was getting.
I continued to keep my eyes and ears open for a way out of this, but eventually started making peace with the fact that this might be it. I'd never see my family again, and I'd die a dimension away from most people I knew. I felt a deep pang of sorrow.
The thought should have terrified me more than it did. Instead, I found myself looking at the world outside the window with new eyes. Even the uninspiring scenery of the turnpike had a certain stark beauty to it. These were the last things I might ever see. The noon light catching on dirty windows. The way traffic flowed like a river. Small, meaningless details that suddenly felt precious.
The Wraiths remained silent, apparently content to let me stew in my fear. Their assumption wasn't wrong. I was afraid, but underneath that fear, underneath the sadness was something else. Determination. I didn't come this far to fail.
We came to a stop in front of the Deterrence Research Corporation's downtown tower on Fifth Avenue. The building was a generic corporate monolith, thirty-some stories of steel and glass with DETERRENCE RESEARCH CORPORATION emblazoned across the top in chrome letters that caught the bright midday sun.
The man poked me with his gun. "Out."
I moved out of the car, legs stiff from the drive. I wondered idly what excuse they were going to deploy with front-desk security for being here. We strode into the building's lobby. The lobby was exactly what you'd expect from a mid-tier defense contractor: polished granite floors, beige walls, and that particular feeling of corporate sterility. DETERRENCE RESEARCH CORPORATION was mounted behind the security desk in brushed steel letters. It wasn't flashy, just prominent enough to remind you whose building this was. A row of turnstiles separated the public area from the elevator bank. I was flanked on both sides by Janet and her taciturn companion. The man swiped his badge through the turnstile reader, and the gate clicked open for all of us. Interesting. I'd assumed Janet wouldn't have downtown access, but apparently her companion did. He nodded cheerfully at the bored-looking security guard at the desk.
"Afternoon, Bill. Just badging in this contractor and Janet from QA. They needed legal eyes on one of the projects, and I told them—hey, why suffer in Jersey when you can come into the city? We've got the executive conference rooms, a killer expresso machine, and my secretary can grab us some lunch. Plus the view from fifteen is killer. Make it a working lunch, knock this thing out in style, you know?"
The transformation was remarkable. The cold, arrogant creature from the car had become a gregarious corporate lawyer, complete with the casual name-dropping and easy rapport. The guard was already tuning out, nodding along.
"Sure, sure. I'll need badge numbers for the two without access, though."
"Of course, of course." The man gestured smoothly for our badges. Janet handed hers over without a word. I did the same.
The guard copied down the numbers into his logbook with the mechanical precision of someone who'd done this a thousand times. I caught a glimpse as he wrote: Sargent, B. - guests: Davis, Q. / Smith, J. - 1:00 PM.
B Sargent. Legal. I filed the name away, though I wasn't sure what good it would do me. The guard handed our badges back without looking up, already returning to whatever he'd been reading.
"Have a good one, Bill!" Sargent gave a friendly wave as we headed for the elevators.
The mask had already dropped by the time we were out of the guard's sightline. The warmth drained from his expression like water from a broken glass, leaving only that flat, alien regard. I'd been amazed at the performance. Now I was just terrified by it. We walked into the elevator. Sargent swiped his card again in the elevator to activate it. He then punched the button for the 20th floor.
The elevator ride felt like one of the longest of my life, not aided by the complete silence that both of my captors maintained. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, the elevator dinged as it arrived on the 20th floor.
We walked down the hall of the suspiciously quiet floor, until we arrived at a room. Sargent opened the door, and I filed in with Janet behind me.
The conference room was a massive monument to 70's corporate design sensibilities. Wood-paneled columns rose to the drop ceiling. A sunken conversation pit occupied the far end near floor-to-ceiling windows. A massive table dominated the center, surrounded by chairs that probably cost more than a cheap car. Two potted plants sat near the window, both utterly desiccated. This room evidently wasn't very highly trafficked.
Janet produced two zip ties. "Sit in that chair."
I sat down in the chair she'd indicated, positioned against the side wall.
"Just to make sure you don't get any more ideas."
As she moved behind me to bind my hands, I squeezed my fists closed, palm down. When the plastic bit into my skin, I kept the pressure up. It wasn't much. Maybe it wouldn't be anything at all. But if I could enlarge my wrists a bit, I might be able to work the zip ties loose later.
Meanwhile, Sargent picked up a phone in a corner of the room. He dialed a number that I didn't see, his hands moving rapidly.
"This is Sargent. We're having our meeting on the 20th floor. I'd prefer watercress sandwiches, if you have them."
Watercress? Must be a code word.
He hung up and checked his watch. "1:47. We have time."
"How long?" Janet asked flatly.
"Two hours to get everyone here and the materials in position," Sargent said. "The bio facility is loading the animals now. Two-hour drive from Jersey, plus unloading and placement in the sub-basement."
I tested the zip ties binding my wrists to the heavy conference chair. No give.
Sargent walked to the doorway and raised his hands, murmuring in an unfamiliar language. The atmosphere of the room shifted. The room felt charged with something I couldn't quite put my finger on. I'd read about Dire Wraith magic in comics, but seeing it firsthand was entirely different.
Over the next two hours, the conference room gradually filled.The software team from the Wraith detector project came first, drifting in ones and twos. They made small talk about code reviews and deployment schedules. Around 2:30, three people in business attire arrived. Finance types, judging by their bearing. One of them immediately started complaining about quarterly projections, loud enough for anyone passing in the hall to hear. At 3:00, a facilities manager in a polo shirt showed up with an IT specialist. They discussed HVAC issues and network upgrades with the kind of tedious detail that made my eyes glaze over. At 3:45, a severe-looking older woman in her fifties entered, wearing a dark blazer. She had the presence and bearing of senior management. The room's energy shifted the moment she walked in.
She glanced at Sargent, who nodded slightly. "The materials?"
"Trucks arrived at the loading dock twenty minutes ago, Samantha" Sargent said. "Bio team is positioning them in the sub-basement kennels now. Our sisters are preparing the receiving circle."
"Good." The woman checked her watch. "We have eighteen minutes before the meeting starts. The spell will take fifteen minutes, plus three for final preparation. Tight, but manageable."
By 3:50, there were about twenty-seven people in the conference room. More than you'd normally have for a meeting, but not absurdly so.
Samantha did a quick headcount, her expression tight. "Lock the door. We're cutting this close."
One of the Wraiths moved to comply. The deadbolt clicked.
"The original plan was spread out over weeks," said the woman in the charcoal pantsuit. She had dark skin , close-cropped hair,and was probably in her mid-thirties. "Small batches, controlled transmutations. Now we're attempting forty transformations in one casting, with poor alignment, and the materials only just arrived-"
"Because the mammal found our modifications," Samantha cut her off icily. "We either act now or lose everything. The dogs have been prepared. The circle in the basement is ready. Now we just have to execute."
"The meeting starts at 4:10," Samantha continued. "We finish the ritual, release the hellhounds through the elevator shaft directly into the executive conference room. The hounds eliminate the guards and hold the C suite members and DARPA staff until we arrive. We then consume their minds and replace them. Clean, efficient, decisive." Her eyes swept the room. "Questions?"
One of the software Wraiths, in the form of a early 20's man with a distinctly pale complexion, spoke up. "Sister Samantha, why not simply assault the meeting directly? Thirty of us against-"
"Seven Mark II Mandroids," Samantha cut him off. "The C suite is paranoid. When the full C suite meets, they spare no expense on security."
The younger man put his hand down, sufficiently chastened.
"Hellhounds can phase," Samantha said flatly. "The Mandroids cannot target what they cannot touch. The hounds phase through the suits' protective fields, materialize inside the armor, and kill the pilots ."
The younger Wraith nodded slowly, chastened.
"Any other questions?"
Samantha's tone made it clear that she expected none.
No one spoke.
"Then we begin." Samantha's voice hardened.
Every person in the room began to change.
Their skin rippled like water disturbed by a stone. Within forty-five seconds, twenty seven humans had become twenty seven Dire Wraiths.
Deep crimson skin. Three-fingered hands. Yellow eyes with no pupils. Faces that were fundamentally wrong, too angular, mouths too wide. When they moved, it was fluid and predatory. Samantha stepped forward, her voice now carrying that odd resonance. "Software cell, inner circle. The rest, secondary positions. We channel through the floors to Sister Kira's receiving circle." The Wraiths moved into formation with practiced efficiency. The software cell formed a tight inner ring around the center conference table. Finance, facilities, IT, and legal arrayed around them in supporting positions.
Samantha began to chant. Harsh, guttural sounds in a language that hurt to hear. The other Wraiths joined in, their voices layering.
Dark light gathered at Samantha's fingertips, purple-black like a living bruise. It spread across the floor in geometric patterns.
The temperature dropped. My breath misted. A sharp ozone smell hit my nose, and the atmosphere seemed to be charged.
Most alarmingly, a circle appeared beneath my chair, glowing with that sickly light. Symbols writhed within it, shifting and reforming.
The chanting built. I could feel pressure in my ears, my chest. The air felt thick.
I tested the chair. Heavy, not bolted. I could probably tip it if I needed to.
The symbols pulsed in rhythm with the chanting. Each pulse sent cold through the floor, through the chair, into my bones.
Suddenly, one of the Wraiths stiffened.
"Ward breach. Stairwell, nineteenth floor, ascending."
The chanting faltered. Samantha's head snapped toward the speaker.
"How many?"
The wraith stared.
"Unclear. The stellar alignments are poor,so I had insufficient power to cast a more complex array on my way up."
"Damnation."
Samantha's voice was pure fury. For a moment, her control slipped. She pointed at two Wraiths, restraining herself from shouting. "You two. Handle it. The rest of us continue. We're too close to properly threading the connection to abort now. We haven't even started draining the human. We should be able to connect it without the two of you."
The two began shifting back to human form. One of the wraiths muttered bitterly. They moved toward the door. Samantha resumed chanting, voice harder now, more forceful. The others joined in. The ritual momentum built again, the symbols flaring brighter. Both Wraiths slipped out into the hallway, and the thick door closed behind them with a solid thunk. The chanting in the room continued, uninterrupted. Samantha's voice led, the others weaving their power around hers. The symbols beneath my chair pulsed in rhythm, the cold seeping deeper. About a minute passed. Then the door cracked open. Just a few inches. Not enough to see who was on the other side.
Something small and cylindrical arced through the opening but froze,suspended midair in a sphere of light.
A sharp chime rang through the room,crystalline and jarring.
Must be the wards they put up earlier...
One of the Wraiths spun. "GRENADE!"
Samantha's eyes locked on it. "Flashbang! Darken the-"
I was already moving as soon as I heard "flashbang", throwing my weight sideways, tipping the chair onto the ground and closing my eyes.
The flash burned through my eyelids. The sound was muffled, contained by the sphere.
Another discordant chime. Then another.
Two muffled heavy thuds. A different sound than the first. Heavier.
Fragmentation grenades?
The air in the room changed. It felt less..charged. Was the ward down?
I heard a distinct metallic clink of an object hitting the carpet, then another blinding burst of light flashed through my eyelids. Three more clinks followed, and a distinct hissing sound filled the room
That decisively answered that question.
Shouting. Chairs scraping. Then gunfire. Not the sharp crack of unsuppressed weapons, but the distinctive suppressed snap of silenced guns. Professional. Controlled bursts.
I forced my eyes open. The world swam with white afterimages and thick gray smoke. Shapes moved vaguely through the haze.
The zip ties. When they'd bound me, I'd clenched my fists. Now, with the chair on its side and chaos erupting, I relaxed and twisted. The ties were still tight, but there was just enough room for me to wiggle.
I worked my right hand through first. It was painful, the plastic biting into skin, but my thumb popped free and the rest of my hand soon followed. I then repeated the process for my left hand. I stayed low. My wrists were raw and bleeding where the plastic had cut in, but I was free. The air was thick with cordite, ozone, and acrid smoke that burned my lungs.
My needle pistol. I fumbled it from my shoulder holster with hands that still felt numb.
Finally armed, I tried to make sense of the chaos through the smoke. Vague shapes moved through the gray haze. The attackers were flowing through the doorway, office clothes visible in brief glimpses. The Wraiths were scattering away from the entryway, their pinkish-red forms momentarily visible through gaps in the smoke before vanishing again.
Purple-black light flared somewhere in the murk and I heard a scream cut short. One of the mystery assault team, hit by something I couldn't see.
A Wraith materialized from the smoke near me, yellow eyes locking onto me. It hissed and lunged.
I brought up the needle pistol and fired. The crack was sharp even through the chaos. The flechette caught it in the shoulder. It staggered but kept coming through the gray haze.
I fired again, backpedaling. Center mass. It didn't stop. I kept pulling the trigger—five rounds, ten, fifteen—the mechanism cycling frantically as it closed the distance. Each shot should have dropped it. It just kept advancing, snarling the whole way.
Twenty rounds and it finally went down, dissolving into the smoke.
Then another Wraith was suddenly there, coming from my blind side through the murk. It covered the ground in a heartbeat. I tried to bring the pistol around but it was already too close, too fast.
"MORONIC MAMMAL!" it screamed, voice distorting and cracking with guttural rage.
Its hand caught me across the chest and flung me sideways.
I had a moment of weightlessness as I flew through the air. My stomach flipped. Then I hit the wall chest first.
The impact drove the air from my lungs. Something in my chest gave way with a snap and a supernova of pain exploded across my torso.
I slid down the wall and crumpled to the floor. The needle pistol clattered away across the carpet. My vision grayed at the edges.
Dimly, through the haze of pain and smoke, I heard more gunfire. Saw shapes moving. Muzzle flashes lit the gray fog in brief strobes. A Wraith's silhouette tried to cast a spell, hands weaving, but gunfire caught it mid-gesture. The spell collapsed and the wraith dissolved.
Purple light flashed somewhere in the smoke. The spell went wide, blowing out a section of wall with a crack and a shower of plaster.
Three Wraith shapes near the far end of the table were trying to work together through the obscuring haze. Two began chanting in unison, hands linked. I saw dark smoke beginning to form between them,its onyx color clashing with the grey smoke of the grenades. It felt wrong and cold, and I wasn't even close to it.
The third Wraith stood in front of them, hands raised. A shimmering purple barrier formed in the air. Bullets sparked off it harmlessly, visible as brief flashes in the murk. One of the men behind a column, barely visible through the smoke, grabbed something from his belt, pulled the pin and pitched it overhand at the shield.
I quickly averted my eyes.
The flash lit up the entire room through the smoke. When I looked back, I saw the barrier flicker and collapse. The three Wraiths clutched their eyes, and were promptly gunned down in a hail of bullets for their trouble.
Another Wraith raised a hand, fingers splayed, and spoke a harsh word.
A sudden wind erupted from the Wraith's position. The smoke swirled, then blew outward in all directions, dissipating in seconds. The room was suddenly clear.
Two of the assault team were caught in the open on the left side of the room. Both older guys, one Black, one white with graying hair. They'd been using the smoke for cover.
Another Wraith near the windows saw the opportunity immediately. Purple-black energy crackled around its hands, then lashed out in a bolt of lightning.
The bolt caught the first man square in the chest. He convulsed once, smoke rising from his vest, then collapsed. The lightning arced to the man beside him, the energy striking his shoulder. The second man bonelessly flopped to the ground.
The smell hit me a second later. Burning flesh and ozone. My stomach lurched.
The younger grenade thrower from before and another shooter popped out from behind the columns and pumped controlled bursts at the lightning casting Wraith.
The Wraith who'd cast the lightning died a second later,both bursts cutting it down simultaneously. But the damage was done.
Through the haze of pain and adrenaline, some part of my brain was doing math. Twelve shooters. Twenty-something wraiths. Bad odds, even with surprise.
The only reason it was working was that the Wraiths were a mess. Sluggish. Uncoordinated. Most of them had turned toward the door when the wards triggered, just in time for the first flash-bang to go off.
If the Wraiths were just slightly less in shock, Reynolds and I would be discussing my payment in the afterlife.
Through my haze of pain, I vaguely recognized one of the assault team working his way into the room. A middle aged white man with wire-rimmed glasses, his charcoal suit now rumpled and torn,revealing a Kevlar vest. Reynolds. His SMG suddenly hitched mid-burst. A Wraith saw the opening and charged.
From seeming thin air, Washington intercepted the Wraith with a shoulder charge. The man hit the Wraith like a truck. They went down together with a thud. Washington was strong and trained, but the Wraith was stronger.. I watched him lose ground, the Wraith forcing him down, clawed hands reaching for his throat. Washington managed to pull a combat knife from under his suit jacket and drove it into the Wraith's side. The Wraith shrieked but didn't stop, just grabbed his wrist and twisted. The knife clattered away.
A different Wraith saw Reynolds still wrangling with his jammed gun and charged him. Reynolds didn't panic. He threw the jammed SMG at the wraith's head and it connected with a distinct thunk that made her flinch. In that split second Reynold's hand was already moving to the small of his back, returning with a suppressed pistol. He fired. Once, twice, three times. Center mass.
The wraith staggered but kept coming. He fired again. Four, five, six rounds. The wraith was still moving, still closing. The pistol locked back empty. Reynolds dropped the magazine and reloaded. He slammed the fresh magazine home, racked the slide, and pumped four more rounds into the wraith at point-blank range. It finally went down, body beginning to dissolve.
One of the other men spun towards Washington and fired a three-round burst into his Wraith assailant's head. It flopped over instantly.
After that, I lost track of the broader fight, only catching flashes through the haze of pain. It felt like forever but was probably less than ten minutes. Then it was over. The acrid smell of cordite and ozone lingered in the air. Broken furniture. Three corpses from the assault team. I tried to breathe and immediately regretted it. Each breath felt like knives in my chest. Last time I thought I'd broken my ribs, but they'd only been bruised. This felt vastly worse. These were definitely broken.
Footsteps approached me, and I looked up. It was Reynolds, reloading his pistol as he walked. He looked down at me. His ever-present glasses sat askew on his face, one lens cracked. A cut on his cheekbone bled freely down his jaw. His suit jacket was even more tattered.
"You're alive," he said conversationally, his controlled tone utterly incongruous with his disheveled state.
I managed to groan. "Used me as bait.."
Reynolds shrugged slightly, holstering his pistol. "It worked. We lured out and killed the Wraith infiltrators."
I pushed down my desire to punch him. Pain lanced through my chest. It would be counterproductive to do that now anyways,even if I was physically capable of doing it.
"Three... Wraiths... in the basement," I managed to grit out through clenched teeth. "Dogs. Ritual." Reynolds' expression didn't change, but I saw something flicker behind the wire-rimmed glasses.
He turned to the assault team, who were checking bodies and securing the room. "Washington. Secure the floor, then radio security and tell them to check the sub-basement. Tell them to expect three hostiles."
Washington nodded, already moving out of the room.
Reynolds looked back at me.
"I'll handle explaining this to the C-suite. You should focus on not dying."
He stepped away, speaking quietly into a radio one of the assault team handed him. I let my head rest against the wall and tried very hard to keep breathing despite the pain. At least I was alive.