Chapter 9. Assassin's Bible; Know your enemy. For obvious reasons.
Pip let out a disgusted sigh as he navigated his way around the carcass of some long dead animal, the stink causing the rest of the party to gag. Angrily he slapped at a fly, but the errant insect simply buzzed away, flying in circles around his head. Pip focused all his will power and stared at the fly, silently willing it to die. Unfortunately it just refused to oblige.
"Do you have any idea where we're going?" Mark asked for what seemed to Pip to be the hundredth time. Of course I Fuckin' don't. He wanted to scream, We're in a God damned sewer, do you think we planned to be attacked by some sodding sniper. Instead of that he simply nodded.
At least the girls weren't complaining, and remembering Seras' dislike for dirt and sludge he was thankful for the small mercies in life.
And we're so obviously going to be attacked! His mind moaned to him, it was a fact of life. In his life lady luck hated him, and every now and then she just liked to take the opportunity to twist the knife. Closed corridors, practically a maze of tunnels, and perhaps twenty different places that someone could attack from. Oh Buggering hell.
"Ricardo." Pip called quietly. The tall man sidled his way up to him and nodded. "I want you to scout ahead, we'll be travelling in a straight line." The man nodded again and jogged ahead and away from them, his figure disappearing into the darkness.
They trudged on for another half an hour, their nerves fraying as the stink intensified and everyone realised that there wasn't really anywhere else for them to go. They had never thought to make contingency plans. Now they were suffering from it.
"Captain!" Ricardo's voice drifted eerily down the tunnel, coming from ahead, he sounded excited and shocked, though not hurt. He had found something then. Coming forwards Pip found that he had been correct. Laying slumped against the curved wall of the sewer tunnel was a dead man. Dressed in an expensive black suit the man looked to be in his early thirties or late twenties, clean shaven and with black hair streaked with grey. Despite having been walking around in a sewer he was well dressed and quite clean.
That was if you didn't count the two holes in his chest. The blood had long since stopped flowing and had even begun to dry. The tall French woman walked past Pip and knelt down by the man, checking his pulse before she picked up the gun he had dropped. It was German, a HK-Mk.23. She released the magazine with a snap.
"He fired six shots off." She reported to them, throwing the gun into the murky sludge, where it almost floated, before being swallowed by the thick goo.
"There's something in his hand!" Luke exclaimed suddenly pointing. Mireille grabbed his hand which was closed around a piece of paper. Struggling she managed to pry his death grip away and obtain the paper without destroying it. Without consulting Pip, she read the writing on what was actually an envelope and then opened it.
"Hey!" Pip objected quickly, "I am ze commander here." Ignoring him she began to read silently to herself before handing the letter to the young girl of all people. "Let me see ze letter." Pip sighed extending his hand, instead he received the envelope.
"It's to us." Mireille explained in an aloof tone of voice, indicating the flowing script that read "Noir." Pip sighed dejectedly, bloody women. "An.. old friend is offering us a place we can stay, the address is contained in the letter."
"And how does zis "old friend" know we're here?" Pip commented angrily. This was supposed to be a covert missions darn it.
"He has many sources, I'm pretty sure we can trust him. He says to tell you that there is room enough for the soldiers and a basement for the vampires." To give her credit, Pip conceded, she did look a little apologetic at this. This bloody friend knows who we are, where we are, our numbers and that we have two vampires! Wait, no, he thought Alucard and Seras would be with us? So he must have known the sniper would be there and assumed we would all escape.
"Fine, fine, but we'd best get going before whoever killed 'im does for us too-" On cue a loud gunshot sounded. Spinning around Pip's eyes widened as a suited man fell into the slop of the sewer, disappearing under it. Spinning back he noticed the Asian girl calmly looking for more targets. Bloody hell that was fast! He hadn't even heard nor seen anyone, and yet she'd, spotted him, drawn her gun, cocked it, switched off the safety and fired accurately in no time at all.
"Time for uz to be gone!" He cried, knowing the gunshot will have echoed for miles through the sewers, everyone within six hundred metres would have heard it.
Kirika was angry. She didn't think she's ever felt such a raw emotion before. Of course she felt for Mireille, but that was different. That was the fear of separation, the feeling of panic settling in your stomach. And the intense heat that she felt when Mireille touched her.
But this was different. Her breath was ragged. Her eyes stung with tears, her hands were clenched around her Beretta so tight that it was hurting her. And yet she didn't want to let go. She wanted to yell, to scream in fury and to lash out at anyone who would accept her challenge. For a moment she thought that the other her had come forth. But no she realised, this was herself, and she was furious.
They said they would leave us alone! To live alone! The said they wouldn't interfere! But now they were here. Soldats. There was a faint splash behind and to her left, without looking, without thinking, her gun swung behind her and her finger pulled the trigger. The recoil was fierce but her arm never moved. There was a gasp and a cry followed by a splash.
They promised! Her mind cried out in pain and anger, even as another attacked them from behind, jumping from a smaller tunnel connecting to their own.
BANG-BANG-BANG. Three shots whistled past her, barely missing her body as she stood stock still. The bullets sparked harmlessly on the stone floor or smashed into the sewage. Kirika felt that she was shivering, even as she slammed her arm straight, aiming at his forehead and snarling as she pulled the trigger. Another died. His black suit stained from grime and blood.
"Kirika!" A feminine voice cried. Kirika span to see what Mireille wanted, their party was moving away, and she had stayed to fight instead of accompanying them. Smiling bitterly she ran up to Mireille, her eyes darting each direction in case of a threat. "Come on we're falling behind." Mireille urged, jogging away with Kirika in tow. No enemies assaulted them, and for some reason Kirika was saddened by this.
"We've found a manhole to get uz out of 'ere!" Pip yelled, struggling to be heard over the fire of two automatic rifles a way down the tunnel. Kirika assumed it was the others holding them off.
"Escape." Kirika commanded softly, Mireille looked at her with a frightened expression. "I can hold them off, then follow you easily enough. But if we carry on like this someone will die." Pip gave her a look of respect before nodding, Mireille still looked worried though she too nodded.
"LUKE! MARK! GET YOUR ASSESS OVER 'ERE!" Pip screamed, there was another round of heavy fire before the two men came hurtling around a corner and running towards them.
Not waiting for the enemy Kirika ran forwards, she reached the corner and fell to a sitting position, her gun already poking around the corner and firing off three shots towards the enemy. Releasing her almost empty magazine she slipped a full one into place.
"Soldats..." She breathed slowly. Angrily.Without warning she threw herself from cover, clearing the sewage in a single bound whilst firing with great precision towards the suit clad men moving forwards. There were three there, running to the corner where her friends were hidden. Not behind cover they made easy targets, and two fell to her first barrage.
Tucking into a ball, she hit the floor with her shoulder before flipping herself into a handstand and forwards near a wall. Shots raked the floor where she was only a moment before. Not stopping her forwards flipping, she span in mid-flip and aimed. A single shot, taking him high in the chest even as she landed on her feet.
She heard it before she saw it. Throwing herself to the side and twisting in mid-air she avoided the blazing fire of an Spectre-M4 submachine gun, it's bullets leaving glowing contours in her vision. The shots sailing harmlessly high. The man was shocked, not even bothering to move behind cover as she shot him dead. Just before she landed she slammed an arm out, using the floor as a lever, to flip herself backonto her feet.
The magazine fell from her gun, a new one in place before the empty metal container evenclattered against the stone floor. She was crying. The tears streaming down her face even as she begged for more enemies. They lied! They'll never leave us alone!
"I'll kill them all!" She cried out to the sewers. Hoping more Soldats would hear her. They would see that they had picked a fight with Noir. And that was a mistake no one made twice.
But right now her job was done, she could hear the footsteps of more men, but she had earned more than enough time for five people to climb from the sewers. Turning around she leapt the chasm of sewage and fired off a few shots behind her, discouraging pursuit. She took a longer route back to the ladder, just to confuse them. She saw the metal bars, and the ray of light streaming down from the manhole. Smiling she jumped from the bottom and caught a rung higher up. She was about to pull herself out when she saw Pip.
"Where's Mireille?" He asked. Her face must have said it all. "She went to look for you, thought you were in trouble." Letting go she ignored their cries as she fell back into the sewer. Mireille! Her mind cried. Running along she heard gunshots.
"Kirika!" A voice cried angrily and pleadingly. Mireille was ahead, battling enemies on two fronts, even as she searched for Kirika.
"I'm already here." She spoke, quietly, yet knowing Mireille would hear her. Six shots exploded past Mireille, nearly hitting her as Kirika joined the fray. And yet even though she had shot so close, Mireille never moved. Trusting Kirika's aim to perfection. "Get going." Kirika hissed, "I'm right behind you."
Mireille disengaged, firing off the remaining rounds in her Walther before turning and sprinting back to the ladder, her high heels clacking on the stone floor.
Kirika stood in plain view, backing away but with her gun held forwards. One man showed his head and died. The rest took the hint. When Kirika glanced behind her she saw Mireille's legs as she was pulled out of the sewer. Time for her to follow.
Firing off her last two shots she span and ran, hurling herself as high up the ladder as she could get. She hauled herself up and was just about out when it hit her. A fiery pain erupted in her left side, and she lost grip on one of the rung's with her left arm. She sagged and would have fallen were it not for the burly solider, Luke, who grabbed her and hauled her out.
The grate slammed into place, and a skip was pushed over it, locking the Soldats in place for a while. Without warning Kirika was in Mireille's arms, letting the blonde support her as her legs gave out. She couldn't feel any pain, only a warm stickiness in her left side, just above the hip.
She had to smile as she felt herself blacking out, Mireille's face growing further away and her ears switching off. She always got shot there. It.. was...al..most... funny...
That's it for this week. Decided to leave you on a cliff hanger there. Well... actually that's just all I wrote this week. Tune in next weekend for some more. Thanks to Tenkaichi, Dark Knight and especially Lain. I think you're my only readers, or you're at least the only ones who review.
p.s. Information on firearms comes from a site specialising in guns information. The address for those interested is written in my profile.