Chapter VII
Chris studied his partner. A bruise blossomed on her blood encrusted temple. The awkward stance of her posture indicated the pain she had to be in. He couldn't help that sharp pang of guilt he felt whenever he dragged her into one of his crusades. But Jill was the best operative they had, and sometimes that overrode even his own personal desire to protect her. She wasn't just his friend, she was also one of BSAA's toughest and most deadly agents. And they'd both signed up for this war, despite his original insistence that she go into hiding after the outbreak.
"How you holding up?" he asked.
"Don't worry. I'm proud owner of a skull at least as thick as yours. It's going to give a bruise and need a hair wash to get the blood out, but I'll be fine."
She patted him on the shoulder to prove her point, and got to her feet. "Come on, big boy. Let's find Spencer before one of his monsters does."
Nodding, he couldn't agree more with his partner.
But before they could proceed, Chris froze at a scuttling sound. A rat could never be so loud, but neither could one of these creatures be so quiet.
The sound gained in volume - whatever caused it was approaching. He tapped Jill on the shoulder and motioned for her to listen.
Years of partnership made words superfluous and she followed his gesture, perking her ears to pick up whatever he had heard. Chris pointed to one of the open cell blocks. Shadow was going to lend them enough cover to be able to appraise the situation without being spotted. Jill pressed against the wall, hiding her slender form from unwanted eyes. Chris slipped into the shadows beside her, rigorous stealth training having made him surprisingly silent, given his huge frame. He narrowed his eyes and scrutinised the dimly lit corridor.
The scuttling turned into footsteps. Hurried, panicked, but most certainly human. Plenty of experience and a healthy dose of intuition made it easy to distinguish the difference by footfall alone. Judging by their gait, this person was frantic, disoriented. Civilian.
As the steps grew louder, a thin shadow began to cast on the ground, drawing closer to where the two BSAA operatives lay in wait. Chris leapt from the darkness, his movements fast and brutal as his hand closed around someone's shirt. There was a clatter of a weapon falling and he found himself pinning a rather elderly gentleman to the wall. Hazel eyes blinked at him in surprise, fright and indignation.
"I gotta warn you now," Chris said and waved his gun around with his spare hand. "I'm a shoot-now, ask-questions-later kinda guy."
"Who... who are you?" the man inquired, as if their presence bothered him more than the torture tract they were standing in. Going by his clothing, Chris didn't need long to put two and two together. This man was one of Spencer's staff, perhaps even his personal butler.
"Not important," he replied and lifted the man further onto his tiptoes. "We're looking for Spencer. And since I'm guessing you work here, you're going to take us to him."
"You did this?"
"Did what?" Jill asked as she emerged from the shadows.
"You'll never get away with this!" the man yelled and struggled in Chris' arms. It was like watching a mouse winding its way out of a cat's mouth. Futile.
Stepping up beside her partner, Jill decided to throw some diplomacy into the pot of intimidation Chris had brewed. "Listen, it seems we're not the only ones after Spencer. He might be luckier if we find him before anyone or anything else does."
"I'm not going back there!" the man squealed. "You're too late! Go wherever you came from as long as you still have legs to carry you!"
"We just want know the best way to get to Spencer," Chris said. "You stick with us and take us to him, and you've got a much better chance of staying safe. You don't, and we leave you to whatever the hell is roaming about here waiting to smear your brains all over the floor. It's your call."
There was an obvious internal conflict mirroring on the man's face. "I won't betray him..."
Chris looked at him with a faint expression of disgust. It baffled him just how these Umbrella psychopaths managed to inspire such fanatical loyalty from their staff.
"You want to live, and you want him to live, then you better take us to him."
That seemed to turn a switch. Either the guy's logical mind had kicked in or he was running low on air from Chris' grip.
"Alright, fine, let me down. None of your reasons to find Lord Spencer could be as lethal to him as his current company. And hurry already, before the guards notice us."
"His current company?"
"I... I... I don't exactly know, but if you two didn't cause that bloodbath out front, then someone did," the man blustered, and Chris was left with the unsettling sensation that they weren't being let in on the whole picture. But they didn't have time to stand around all day interrogating this butler, so he set him down roughly and put a warning hand on the scruff of his neck.
"Come on," he said, giving him a bit of a shove. "Show us the quickest way to Spencer."
In the pit of his stomach there was a tiny thrill of elation. Because as spooked as this man was, he'd just confirmed that Ozwell E. Spencer was in the building. And that meant that they were closer than they'd ever been.
They followed the butler through more corridors, up a set of stairs and two times left. Then luck turned its face away from them again. The moment they stepped on some wooden plates laid out on the floor, the material beneath them gave a weary creaking - before the ground under their feet was suddenly replaced with a gaping hole.
One minute they were standing on solid ground, and the next Chris went crashing through the floor, landing in a pile of dust and debris. Dazed from the impact, he looked up at the hole above their heads. He fumbled for his gun, which had left his grasp somewhere in the duration of the fall. Beside him, the old man was groaning and spluttering.
"Jill...?" A knife tore through his heart as he saw his partner lying a few metres away.
"Shit..." A string of far worse obscenities left his lips as there was a loud creak above their heads, and a split second later he was dragging the old man out of the way as the remainder of the floor came down with a crash.
"Jill? Jill?" he yelled through the cloud of dust.
He saw her, hissing and clambering to her feet close to the wreckage.
"Shit, my gun!" Jill said.
He was at her side in an instant. "Are you..." He stopped in his tracks, suddenly realising that somehow, he felt horribly naked. His gun was gone too.
Jill got to her knees and started to dig through the debris. But three minutes and a few bloody fingertips later her shoulders sank and she let out a deep sigh.
"You get your wish fullfilled," she told Chris. The humor that was supposed accompany her words was null . "Mission style knife only."
"Why can't just one fucking thing go smoothly?" he asked, irritated. "How much more bad luck can two people have? Why can there never be one fucking mission where we just go in, get the target and get home in time for dinner? Why the fuck is it always traps, and monsters, and fucking major architectural malfunctions lying in wait just especially for us? It's beyond a fucking jo-"
"Hey..." the butler mumbled, waving his arms.
"...yeah, not now Jeeves, ok?" Chris snapped in retort, before turning back to Jill to continue his tantrum. "I'm serious Valentine, one of us must be jinxed, it's just..."
"HEY!" their new companion hissed, catching Chris' arm. The BSAA operative spun around.
"What is... oh."
'It' was apparently a five foot tall, green skinned reptilian monstrosity, which had just spotted its new prey. He was right. They were jinxed. And in a moment or two, they were also going to be dead.
The butler scurried beyond some falled debris, leaving the two agents in the immediate range of their newest enemy. What was standing before them had a striking resemblance to a Hunter, but it was a lot bigger, featuring longer claws and sharper teeth. Their combat knives wouldn't even tickle it.
His lips pressed into a tight line and he furrowed his brows. His fingers wrapped around the handle of his machete and he watched the super-Hunter watch them back, observing its prey and figuring out the more painful way of making it die.
Chris moved forward very slowly, placing his broad form between the creature and Jill. If it wanted to make a meal of his partner, then it was damn well going to go through him first. He could feel Jill tense up behind him and the heart within his chest beat at triple speed. As if to make matters worse, the butler, who had been standing frozen in fear, began to sob. Quiet at first, but increasing in hysteria he soon drew a peaked glance from the slavering creature.
Then the Hunter decided it was too hungry to wait any longer.
Chris couldn't tell whether the butler's breakdown was a bliss or a terror to them, but it garnered the creature's attention for a precious moment. He detected a blur of movement as Jill initiated the combat, faster than he, or even the Hunter had expected.
She sprinted up to the reptile, passing it and coming to stand a few metres behind it. It turned its massive body towards her, having chosen its first toy to play with.
She had lost her fucking mind, he decided. He'd seen her do a lot of daring and stupid stuff over the years, but this was really taking the biscuit.
Only when the monster turned on her, did he realize that her plan had more backbone than he had initally attributed it with. With the Hunter focused on Jill, Chris had full access to its unprotected back. As it raised its huge claws to swipe for his partner, Chris slipped up behind it, looking down at his woefully inadequate machete before ramming it home into the Hunter's ribcage. The monster let out a screech and tried to flail round, but he kept his hands clinging onto the hilt of his weapon for dear life. As strong as he was,, he couldn't match the thing's virally enhanced power for long.
The ball was on to Jill now. They only had so much time before the Hunter got a lucky strike in and even with their medical equipment still available, the risk of another combat wound was too high to take. Running up to their opponent Jill swung her knife in a curved line across the Hunter's throat. The skin ripped and blood gushed, but she had apparently not cut deep enough.
With a strength that exceeded any normal human's by far, the Hunter abandoned the knife in its ribs and slapped a claw against Jill's chest, sending her stumbling back until she hit the wall.
Chris braced one booted foot against the thing's back and yanked his knife out with all the force he could muster. He dodged a swipe at his head and rolled out of the way, retreating to the pile of rubble. They needed to regroup, and they no longer had the element of surprise.
The creature charged after him, and at that moment there was a hysterical shriek that couldn't have been Jill's. The butler made a dash for it.
Fortunately for Chris, and unfortunately for the poor bastard who'd drawn its attention, the Hunter decided to opt for the weaker specimen and made a leap for their prisoner. It landed on top of the butler's chest and pinned him to the floor, baring its teeth in threatening fashion.
The butler barely had time to let out a scream before the Hunter sank its teeth into his arm, worrying at the appendage like a dog on a bone. I was clearly intent on toying with its prey before it tore him limb from limb.
Chris shot Jill a desperate look. His sense of duty told him to intervene, but his sense of survival was screaming at him to take the opportunity and get the fuck out. As much as his standards of honour were high, the sheer volume of blood on the ground told him that it was only a matter of time before their companion was dead.
He broke out into a run, grabbing Jill's arm as he passed her, dragging her away from the feeding monster.
"Come on..." he hissed, wincing at the sounds of the dying man, and the Hunter's screech of triumph at its impending kill.
