Master of Myth (The Antigone's Wrath Series Book 1) (25 page)

“My dear
Captain
Sterling.” The contempt in his words set her teeth on edge. “So good to see you again. Won’t you join us?”

“I’d love to,” she called back to him, “but I’m afraid I don’t accept invitations from strange little men with squirrelly facial hair.” She paused, hearing a snicker or two in response to her quip. “Also, I’m not sure how you were raised, but you should be told that it’s considered very bad form to shoot at people with whom you’d like to have a conversation.”

“Perhaps I was unclear,
Captain
Sterling.” There was that derisive emphasis on the word “captain” again. “Allow me to rephrase. If you do not throw down your weapon and come out in the next five seconds, I will begin executing your companions…” He trailed off, and she heard the audible clicking as he drew back the hammer on his gun. “Starting with the woman. Five.”

Rachel cursed again and sighed.

“Four.”

She unfastened the pistol from her wrist.

“Three.”

“All right!” she yelled at him. “I’ll come quietly. Hold your fire.”

Rachel tossed her weapon towards the center of the room and stepped out from behind the column. Danton, Iris, the Lama, and several monks were huddled together, nervously eyeing the guns pointed at them. No fewer than eight black-suited men held them hostage, weapons at the ready. One of them grabbed Rachel’s arm and tossed her towards the clump of prisoners. With only a slight stumble, she managed to maintain her upright posture and trained her eyes on the leader.

“So, Mr. Mustache, we meet again,” she said coolly. More men gathered in the doorway.

“What… What did you call me?” His voice cracked as the moniker registered.

She shrugged. “As you never properly introduced yourself, I took the liberty of naming you. It seemed fitting.”

A muscle in the corner of his eye twitched. “You may call me Brother Mortimer Cross.” He gave Silas a shove towards the crowd. “Now, let’s have a look at that book, shall we?”

Brother Cross snapped his fingers, and a monk carrying the tome was thrust forward, encouraged at gunpoint to continue to the front of the room. A carved stone podium scraped noisily along the floor as it was placed in Jamyang’s vacated position. The monk hefted the book up to the surface before skittering away as quickly as he could.
 

“I assume you possess the knowledge required to translate this text,” he stated, motioning to Jamyang. “I’ve taken the liberty of providing you with a scribe and all the materials necessary to complete your task.”

“And should I refuse?” The Lama’s voice quavered almost imperceptibly.

Without blinking, Mortimer Cross aimed his pistol at a monk creeping along the walls in an attempt to reach the exit. He fired a single shot, and the man crumpled to the floor in a heap. Rachel flinched at the sudden noise. She hadn’t expected him to fire without any warning. The dead monk’s unblinking eyes stared at her, blood running from the hole in his temple and pooling around his face. She looked away, disgusted at the utter disregard for life.

Jamyang cleared his throat. “It will be as you say,” he said, bowing his head.

Brother Cross snapped his fingers again, and a man stepped out from behind him, not wearing the black suit that defined the men of the Brotherhood, but a disheveled, pea green suit instead. He was trembling, and Rachel wondered how he would keep a steady hand to write the translation.

“Begin,” Mortimer commanded. Both the scribe and Jamyang moved to the book for their assigned task. “Bring them.” He cast a glance at one of the Brotherhood guards. “Except him.” He pointed to Silas. “He stays to listen.”

With that, he whirled around and headed out the door. The prisoners were brought, shuffling, into the hall. He regarded the two women. “Sequester them.” His lip curled in a menacing smile as he looked to Danton. “This one has penance to pay.”

Two guards dragged a struggling Danton down the hallway, disappearing moments later around a corner. Mortimer, in two giant steps, brought himself within millimeters of Rachel’s face and leaned in to her ear. She couldn’t help visibly shuddering. His breath was hot and smelled slightly of onions.

“As for you, my dear
Captain
,” he said with that strange, sarcastic slant again. It grated on her nerves. “We have something extra special planned for you.”
 

“Does that mean I should look forward to more quality time in your
captivating
presence?” Rachel met his eyes with a cold stare of her own.

With a whoosh of air, he struck her hard across the face with the back of his hand. Her ears rung from the blow, and a slight trickle of blood oozed from the corner of her mouth, but she would not let him see her flinch. She licked at the blood and smiled again. “Careful. I might start to like that.”

He hissed something unintelligible and hit her again. Her knees buckled, but the guards held her firm. “Enough, Rachel!” Iris whispered hoarsely. “Do not provoke him further. Please.” Rachel looked at her friend and was surprised to see tears there. “For me.”

“You should listen to your friend,” he sneered. Rachel kept silent, but held eye contact. When he determined that was all he would get from them, he waved the guards away, dragging the two women behind them.

It was dusk when the screaming started. Jiao nearly knocked over the pitcher of water as she jumped up from her pallet. Instinctively, she snatched at the small dagger strapped to her calf and crouched on the floor facing the door. The sound of feet running through the hall put her further on edge. She weighed her options. There was only one door leading in and out of her room, but that wasn’t a viable exit. She spared a look over her shoulder.

A small window, barely large enough to squeeze through, let in the light from the dying day. If she put her large trunk on top of the bedside table, it would be tall enough to get her to the opening. She listened another moment. The footsteps were gone. After replacing the dagger, she opened the smaller of her trunks, rummaging through it until she found the canvas sack of survival essentials. Jiao secured it to her waist before removing the water pitcher and basin from the table, replacing them with her large trunk.

Ever full of grace, the young girl moved from the floor to the top of the chest, and shimmied out the opening. After her arms were clear, she grabbed the edge of the roof and pulled herself up onto the tiles, staying low and out of the wind as she crept along. Over the raised ridge of the roof’s spine, Jiao scanned the ground for signs of intruders. Gathered in the main courtyard were ten men in the black suits and bowler hats that marked them as Brotherhood. She had seen their envoys on the occasions they tried to enlist her father into their ranks. Those who tried did not live long, or left missing pieces of themselves.

Given the number of men stationed outside, she reasoned there were many more scattered throughout the temple. Her blood boiled at the thought of these putrescent fools polluting the purity of this place. It took her years of study and dedication to earn an invitation to Zhuqing.

The screaming started again, howls of pain. Yong Wu was known to employ particular methods to get information he wanted, and these were the same type of screams. It bothered her that this could be a crewman from the
Antigone’s Wrath
, but her heart raced with another thought: would they torture a monk, or even the Rinpoche himself? These were her brethren, her kindred. Did they dare go so far?

Rage blossomed in the pit of her stomach. Utilizing
anapanasati
, she let the cold, mountain air clear her mind. Her hot fury sharpened with each breath, shaping her thoughts into one icy intent:
kill them all
.

From a very young age, Jiao studied Buddhist teachings, but, as the daughter of one of the most powerful men in the South Seas, she knew prayer and meditation would only go so far in preserving her life. The masters of martial arts that instructed her father also instructed her. Her body was a finely honed and very deadly weapon.

She slipped across the last two hundred feet of tile and reached the center tower. Pressing herself against the wall, Jiao crept over the ridge and towards the edge of the roof. Below her, a single guard looked out across the courtyard; none of the others even glanced in her direction. Silently, she untied the slipknot holding the canvas bag around her waist, and opened it. She withdrew a short, sheathed sword and a small belt holding a series of metal throwing stars. The bag rested at her feet, the sword clamped under her chin, as she fastened the belt around her hips. Crouching a few feet back, she let the bag slide down the tiles and off the edge. She smiled a strange, devious smile, and the bag landed with a soft thud at the man’s feet.

Surprised by the sudden appearance of the item, the guard didn’t even notice Jiao until her legs were wrapped around his neck. With a quick jerk of her thighs, his spine snapped with a sickening crack. She flipped away as he fell, sword unsheathed. Three fell to her blade with slashes across the neck, stomach and back before the others knew she was there. The alarm went up, and still she continued her attack. She spun and whirled, diving into a roll only to emerge and stab at another opponent. They died one after the other. The telltale click of a gun hammer gave her ample time to locate the source. Two on the steps leading up to the main entrance aimed their weapons and opened fire.

Bullets slammed into the dirt at her feet as she took cover behind one of the stone monoliths lining the walkway. The sound of metal striking rock told her she cut it a little too close. She couldn’t stay here long. The gunfire would inevitably draw more men, and she did not want to be pinned down. Reaching up, she pulled her hair ornament free. Disassembling it with practiced precision, the large piece broke apart into several small, deadly instruments. She held a specialized throwing star to her lips briefly before tossing it circularly out into the open air. It whipped down the path, away from the temple, only to curve back around and lodge itself between the eyes of one of the gunmen. The other man’s shock at seeing his companion inexplicably felled gave her the break she needed to step clear and fling a second star from her belt, into his throat. He sank to his knees, hands vainly attempting to stop the blood pouring from the wound.

The path clear, Jiao sprinted the remaining distance and up the temple steps, through the open doors. Angry voices echoed from everywhere. The screams came from one of the floors above.

The stairs were through a wooden door across from the main entrance. Without further hesitation, she threw it open as the sound of footsteps and shouted orders wound down to her. A small closet under the first flight caught her eye, and she ducked inside it as Brotherhood guards thundered down the steps. She left the door open a crack to spy on her pursuers.

“They’re all dead, Brother!” a man outside her line of sight reported.

“All? How? Who’s responsible for this?” A lanky man with a handlebar mustache flew into a rage.

“W-we don’t know,” he stammered. “It looks like a surprise attack.”

The mustachioed man fumed. “I thought you said the grounds were secured. Were you mistaken, or are you completely incompetent?”

“We must have missed a defensive detail somewhere, sir.”

“Oh, you think so?” He was nearly shaking from fury. “Find them. Now.”

Jiao silently rolled her eyes. A detail indeed. This Brotherhood couldn’t fathom a single woman causing that much damage? She would show them. She sheathed her sword and slipped it up her sleeve.

After issuing orders to search the entire floor and the building perimeter, the man in charge spun and stomped back up the stairs. Listening intently, Jiao heard him ascend to the third floor. She crept out of the closet and flew up the stairs behind him, not making a sound. When she arrived, she cautiously looked into the hallway. The man turned at the farthest end of the left passage. Not seeing anyone else, she hurried after him. As she reached the corridor, she pressed herself to the wall and glanced around the corner. The man was addressing a pair of guards outside a door. Whatever he said to them, they parted and allowed him to enter the room. Moments later, another scream ripped through the quiet. Jiao shuddered. There was no way of knowing how many men were in that room, but she reasoned it was no more than five, including the prisoner and the one who had just entered. Given the size of the rooms here, any more would make it hard to move, much less torture a prisoner. So, plus the two guards outside, there were probably no more than six enemies.

Before she could formulate a plan of attack, the door opened again and the mustachioed man exited. Moving as quickly as she could, Jiao retreated and ducked into the first room she was sure was empty. Listening intently, she heard him pass, cursing under his breath. Shortly after, there were more footsteps and the sound of something dragging against the floor. The noise faded, and she cracked the door. She emerged in time to see a single leg disappearing back into the stairwell.

“You there!” a voice called from behind her. She palmed another throwing star before raising her hands meekly above her head. “Turn around, slowly.”

Plastering the most innocent look she could muster on her face, she did as instructed. “Please sir,” she pleaded. “I am only a student here. What is going on?”

Not one, but two men stood before her, lowering their guns. “How did you get up here?”

“I… I…” she stammered, “I have been here since afternoon meditation began. I was so deeply engrossed in my exercises, I only now heard the commotion in the hall.”

The guards gave each other sidelong glances that made her skin crawl as they holstered their weapons. Jiao knew exactly what sort of thing they had in mind for her. Another round of rage built inside her, but she maintained her demure façade.

“Come here, girl.” The same guard grinned and beckoned her with a finger. She shook her head, widened her eyes, and took a step backwards. He produced a knife and walked towards her. “I said—”