So he had found the leader of the village, or at least this part of it, but his situation had not improved.
Instead he found himself tied to some former cop from Madrid who still hadn't given a solid answer as to what exactly he was doing in these parts, and in all likelihood he was about to be executed, or possibly worse. To round it all off, his neck hurt like hell and he had a splitting headache to go with it.
He shook himself – self-pity was not constructive. As long as he wasn't dead, he wasn't beaten. The nature of the situation spurred him into a flashback of his government training, the majority of which was supervised by a large and menacing man who had gone only by the moniker 'Boss'. If there was ever a time to remember his training, this was it.
Boss's voice came back very distinctly – the man had a penetrating one.
'There is a saying,' Boss had said one day, holding a rifle as he paced before them. 'A soldier is only as good as his weapon.'
He held up the gun, letting a moment pass for that to sink into his trainees before letting loose with a resounding, 'BULLSHIT!' Everyone had jumped at that.
'The environment is your weapon! Your allies are your weapon! Your body is your weapon! Your brain is your weapon, and I'm assuming at least some of you have one. Make no mistake – the ability to outthink your enemy is one of your greatest assets. You must THINK faster than your enemy, REACT faster than your enemy, SHOOT, SPIT, and FUCK faster than your enemy! The capability to make quick decisions under pressure will serve you invaluably in combat. If you ladies survive this training, you might even find out for yourselves.'
"Well I'll be damned," Leon mumbled to himself. "Boss was really onto something."
"What?" Luis sounded puzzled.
"Hey, try pushing against me," Leon said, ignoring the query. "See if we can stand up."
Their efforts were interrupted by the oncoming sound of someone moving down the hall towards their room. It was an odd metallic noise, the steady cadence of something being dragged across the rough floor. Leon tensed in preparation, though he was still uncertain what he could do.
The fact that he had to do something was pounded home when the noise in question proved to be a Ganado lugging a large axe. Panic was the enemy, he reminded himself. Don't panic.
He was panicking.
Wait, what was that? A burst of inspiration slid across the back of his brain, too quick for him to catch. Maybe if he concentrated really hard, it would come back to him… That was it!
"He'll swing for the middle!" Leon burst out.
"What?!"
"The middle," Leon reiterated, frantically scooting on his ass to put some distance between himself and Luis. "It's a heavy axe, he'll swing down. When he swings, move apart!"
"And what if he speaks English-"
With an primal roar, the Ganado swung the axe downward with all his might. Leon lunged forward, and nearly lost his balance as he was sliced free from his bonds.
The Ganado wasted no time in starting a second blow, but Leon was ready for him. Bracing himself on his back, he planted his feet on the chest of his enemy as he carelessly lurched forward in his attack and flipped the madman up and over himself. He was rewarded with a sickening snap as the neck of the Ganado broke on his awkward impact. He rolled to his feet in a ready position, but the assailant didn't move.
Taking a shaky breath, he stood. He turned, starting to speak. "We should-"
Luis was gone.
Leon couldn't believe it. This wasn't exactly the time or the place to be running off alone. He shrugged, shaking it off. If some weird Spaniard who had never really explained what he was doing here wanted to go off and get himself killed, that was his business. Leon had to find Ashley Graham, and fast.
He just hoped she wasn't already dead.
The beneficial properties of steel toed boots became abundantly clear yet again as Leon landed a solid kick to the jaw of the robed lunatic who had just attempted to kill him with the wild swing of a morning star. The crunch was quite audible as the man's jaw shattered, and a mixture of teeth and blood flew from between his split lips. Ashley had stopped making small sounds of horror hours ago, but Leon could still feel her wince behind him.
"Joder!Joder!" The pseudo-monk spat viciously through a mouthful of blood. Leon could only assume the man was cursing. If he had just been kicked in the mouth like that, he knew he'd be swearing too, assuming he was still capable of speech.
The blinding pain he had inflicted on his adversary gave him the time he needed to reload his pistol, and then end it. A quick shot to the temple and the Ganado fell against the wall and slid to the floor, staining the elaborate wallpaper on his way down.
But Leon didn't pause to watch him fall, instead immediately turning his attention to his other two foes, one of whom was still recovering from a bullet to the thigh. The abnormally pale man opened his mouth, no doubt to shout something threatening, or call for help. It presented a perfect target. No more than a syllable passed his tongue before a bullet pushed the words back down.
Leon had the split second image of the man's teeth instantly stained a horrible red as the back of his throat was punctured – blood flew out from between them to run down the corners of his mouth as a much larger hole was punched through the back of his neck, the projectile's velocity almost undimmed as it continued onward to smash into the back wall of the room. This time, Ashley did squeak. Whatever the man had been going to say was lost in a choking gurgle and he collapsed, clutching his throat.
The third Ganado had an ace up his sleeve, as evidence by the odd bulges beginning to take form on his skull. Leon wasn't going to wait around for the parasite to join the party, and instead he took the initiative. He fired rapidly into the man's fragile head, large chunks of it dislodging as the true target inside squirmed in pain. The Plaga never had a chance to emerge. Filled with too many holes to sustain itself, it died inside the ruined remains of its host's head.
Just to be safe, Leon fired a last shot the gas lamp hanging from the ceiling. Burning liquid splashed down onto the corpses and found a ready fuel in their robes. The smell was overpowering, but Leon was well used to it at this point.
It occurred to him that maybe Ashley wasn't.
He turned around to look at her, something he hadn't done for awhile. She was always right behind him, and he realized in an odd way she was providing support for him as he was protecting her. Unarmed she might be, but it helped to have someone else around, and not just as an early warning system. A human presence at his shoulder blades was a great comfort with monsters around every corner.
No enemies had come running during his thoughts. Here was a moment of breathing room; he felt that he should use it.
She looked tired, though not exhausted. If things continued at this pace, that would come later. She was clean, at least compared to him. It was a strange thing to think, but it struck him how her porcelain skin was yet to be covered in filth. She looked out of place. There weren't any tearstains on her face. She had appeared all cried out by the time he had found her in the church. Her clothing still bore signs of their trek through the village and woods, some few mud stains and even a couple burrs stuck to the side of her skirt. Her hands were clasped in front of her, arms limp, though sometimes he could feel them placed on his back, or resting on his shoulders. He thought he might find her a gun to fill them with, but had the idea that she would probably refuse. And in truth, the thought of a person without any firearms experience carrying a loaded weapon behind his back wasn't all that appealing.
Uh oh, she was looking back at him. He'd better say something. "Holding up okay?"
She nodded, but wouldn't meet his eyes. A deep feeling of sympathy washed over him. It was at times like this he could almost remember how it felt that first time in Raccoon City. Leon holstered his pistol.
She had taken her sweater off again. The tightly built stone rooms of the castle were filled with various burning light sources, and it wasn't so much the heat but the ever-present smog that was suffocating. The comforting hands he placed on her bare shoulders left smudges of blood and ash that stood out against her fair skin, but she didn't seem to notice.
"Ashley?" Shock was a soldier's enemy, he knew. A person could fall apart in the terrors of battle, and they would be dangerous not just to themselves but to the others who depended on them. "Ashley." He said it firmly, and this time she looked up at him. "Fall apart on your own time."
That got her attention. Her eyes widened. "Excuse me?"
Even if she hated him for it, anger was a focusing force. "When we get back home you can scream, you can cry, you can flip out and smash everything in your room then go into therapy, but right now you keep it together. You look forward and you get the goddamn job done, because that's what we have to do, and terror is a weakness we can't afford."
She gaped at him.
"Terror is a weakness," he repeated. "We don't need a liability in here."
To his delight (and relief) she actually lifted her lips in a small smile. "Is that something they taught you in the army?"
"I was never in the army," he told her, "but if I had been, I bet they would have." He moved his hands down to grasp hers, serious again. "We can't succumb to shock. I need you with me for this."
"Okay," she said softly, squeezing his hands. "Okay. I'm with you."
As they pressed forward some of the unspoken aspects of what they had said would resonate with him, especially later when she was lost into the hands of madmen.
I need you with me for this.
I need you with me.
I need you.
There comes a time in every man's life, Leon thought hysterically, insanely, when he gets crushed by a giant lawn ornament.
The statue's massive feet weren't all that far behind him and it really wasn't the time to be thinking in abstract jokes, but he couldn't help himself. The situation was terribly, terrible deadly and terribly, terribly absurd.
Of course, maybe it was all just because everyone else in this godforsaken ass end of Spain was bat shit crazy.
He repressed the urge to do his best Tex Avery impression. Instead he continued running for his life.
Predictably, the bridge behind the locked door he blasted open had not been designed with one hundred ton terracotta statues in mind. The inability of the original builders to foresee that particular need resulted in the statues' literal downfall. Leon coiled himself like a spring and caught the edge of the rapidly collapsing structure. He was too busy pulling himself up to safety to look down, but he heard the impact of the giant thing like a bomb going off in the chasm below.
He paused to catch his breath before pushing on through the large double doors and into the tower to find that, once again, Salazar had stuck around to greet him. He was clapping – for what, Leon wasn't sure.
"So nice you could join us, Mr. Scott Kennedy."
"I have a first name, you know. It's not even hard to remember."
Salazar ignored him. "The sacred rite that is about to begin at this tower will bestow the
girl with magnificent power. She will join us, become one of us."
"It's like fucking Mad-Libs around here. Try formulating your next sentence without using the words 'join' or 'us'."
Once again Salazar became infuriated, a state that seemed natural for him. "You think you are clever? You will never see Ashley again, because you will die before you leave this place."
The gesture Salazar made on the word 'die' provided an opportunity too good to pass up. Whipping his knife from his sheath, Leon threw it with deadly accuracy. He knew he couldn't kill a Plaga infected person with a simple knife wound, but he could cause some serious pain.
Salazar stared in disbelief and growing agony as his left palm sprouted a knife handle. Leon shrugged at him. "I'd say it was a hell of a throw, but I was aiming for your crotch."
The little man may have been struck mute by pain, but his bodyguard wasn't frozen into inaction. Swiftly pulling the knife from Salazar's hand, the hooded thing hurled it back at Leon almost faster than the eye could follow.
Leon had been waiting for that. Fast as the creature was, he dodged the retaliation with little difficulty, stepping aside and letting it imbed itself behind him.
Salazar had no vicious parting words, instead whimpering as he ran to the safety of the waiting elevator. Leon sighed, watching them ascend as he wrenched his blade free from the wall. It was tryingly predictable, but once again he'd been left to play catch up.
"I guess I'll take the stairs," he said to no one in particular.