Chapter 185
There'd been all kinds of plans for how to sneak into the Sanctuary, but each one was discarded because either it wasn't very good or it wasn't very possible. In the end, after Valkyrie had left Nadia in Fletcher's capable hands – she used the term loosely – they just went up to the side door of the English Sanctuary and knocked.
The door opened and the Administrator, Merriwyn Hyphenate-Bash, looked out. Her gaze took them all in and then settled on Frightening.
"Mr Jones," she said, "I wasn't aware of an appointment."
"No appointment," Frightening said pleasantly, "but I need to gain entry nonetheless."
"I'm sorry, sir, but security has been tightened," she glanced at Valkyrie for less than a second, "and rules must be obeyed. If you'd like, I could have a representative of the Council come outside to meet with you, and if he is satisfied, we can begin formal procedures to get you a temporary visitor's pass."
Gracious stepped forward with a grin. "What do you make of this?" He asked, thrusting a small glass cube into her hand.
Valkyrie raised an eyebrow. The cube glowed in Merriwyn's hand. "It's certainly pretty," she said, staring at the colours. "Where did you find it?"
"It was just over there," said Gracious, not pointing or showing where. "I thought someone might have dropped it. The lights are interesting, aren't they? Almost hypnotic."
Realising what the stupid cube was, Valkyrie forced her eyes from it and looked at the wall where the others were all suddenly staring.
Merriwyn nodded and kept staring. "Very pretty indeed."
"They'd almost put you to sleep, wouldn't they? If you look at them hard enough."
"They might very well do."
"You can almost feel your eyelids get heavier…"
"I suppose your right."
"Look at all the nice colours…"
"I'm looking."
"Feel yourself getting more and more tired…"
"I'm really not tired, though."
"Feel your eyelids starting to droop…"
Valkyrie rolled her eyes and Donegan sighed as Gracious toppled over in a deep, deep sleep.
"Oh, my," was all Merriwyn had time to say before Aurora punched her and she collapsed into Frightening's arms. Tanith dropped down from where she was perched, watching the whole thing amusedly, as Frightening hid the Administrator behind the commercial green, blue and black rubbish bins.
Donegan nudged Gracious in the face with his foot until his partner moaned and sat up. "That," Donegan said, "was brilliant. You have outdone yourself, Gracious, you truly have."
"Did it work?" Gracious groaned, sitting up sleepily.
"You're a genius," Donegan continued in the same flat voice. Tanith and Valkyrie hid their smiles behind their hands while Aurora glared and the others watched on. "A magical, mystical genius. They'll write songs about you in years to come."
"Guys," Valkyrie said quietly, pretending she wasn't grinning. "We need to move. Save it."
Frightening helped Gracious up, getting a small blush from the smaller man, and they all slipped through the door, closing it quietly behind them. Aurora checked the air as Tanith flipped to the ceiling. "Two Cleavers in the next room," she whispered. "They're facing us."
"I'll handle this," Gracious said determinedly, digging into his many, many pockets.
Tanith giggled from the ceiling and Valkyrie had to hold back a snorting laugh. Her sister was so weirdly giddy after sex. She was almost glad she wasn't getting it at home or she'd have to deal with that constantly. "Are you sure?" Tanith asked him teasingly. Then again, it was so nice to see her old humour come back. She was way too stressed at home.
Gracious waved away their looks and threw a rubber red ball into the room, instructing them to shield their eyes. They did and a moment later a bright flash lit up everything.
Silence. No alarms raised.
Gracious crept to the door and looked out. Finally, he breathed in relief. "It worked."
"Useful," Tanith commented, and they all followed him out. The Cleavers stood perfectly still.
"What did you do to them?" Valkyrie asked as Frightening waved a curious hand in from of one's face.
"They're on a sensory shutdown. It's just like the other bomb but this one's not as big, and it's slightly more advanced than the other. I would have used this one before but, honestly, I grabbed the other first and I was feeling sort of desperate at the time."
"Understandable," Valkyrie muttered. "At least we're in. Right. Remember the plan, such as it is. Tanith, stay entirely out of view, you're our secret weapon. Frightening, you do the talking and pretend we're totally allowed here if anyone sees us. Gracious, try not to kill us with your gadgets. Donegan, make sure Gracious doesn't kill us. Wilhelm… try not to kill yourself. Aurora, can you guide us?"
"Sure. I've been before, we literally just have to act natural and not get seen. It's just after shift change, everyone should be taking it easy," Aurora shrugged before taking a deep breath and stepping out like it was nothing. They followed her lead and walked casually with Aurora in the lead, slowly checking, acting natural for any lazy guard scrolling through cameras, and moving along the walls towards the Repository three floors down. When they got there unharmed or seen, Valkyrie's body felt more tense and worried than it had in a long time. She couldn't understand where everyone was or how their plan was going so smoothly.
Tanith and Frightening took out the two Cleavers at the doors silently, and they went in together. Both stopped cold at the entryway and Valkyrie rushed up behind them.
Five men stood in the middle of the room, not as large as the Repository in Ireland – this was only one of many for the English Sanctuary – weapons drawn and obviously just having gotten down from a vent in the ceiling.
"Who are you with?" Valkyrie asked immediately, bringing white energy to her hands. Tanith and Frightening stepped to the side to give her room and drew their swords.
The men grinned. "You know who we're with," one said. All five seemed as if they once lived in the sun, their skin damaged from the heat and weather, but now it was pale. Their accents were hard to place too.
"Are you Spiders?" Tanith snapped.
They all scoffed. "Not everyone working with them is a Spider you know," another remarked mockingly. "We're just here to do our job so if you could step outside."
"We're not letting you get the Sword. You're all under arrest," Valkyrie growled, the rest of her team coming up behind her in support.
"Aww, look at that," a third commented. "They still haven't worked it out."
Valkyrie paused for a moment. "Worked what out?"
They all laughed. "The mole, little girly. The mole you've been trailing around. He's done a shitty job of it, and we'll have to kill him for that, but I'm impressed you didn't realise."
Wilhelm let out a 'eek' at their promise and Valkyrie almost sagged. Tanith grabbed him and pulled him in front of them to stand near the five men. "What the fuck, Wilhelm?"
"I'm sorry!" He almost shouted. "I didn't mean to betray you! Please don't let them kill me!"
"They're not going to kill you, but I might!" She growled. "How long?"
"Since the start," he said pathetically.
"How much did you tell them?" Valkyrie snapped.
"Everything I could. But you never told us the whole plan until right before so I couldn't relay enough for the Spiders to get the weapons before you."
"You are a rubbish spy," she told him. "Get on your knees and stay out the way."
He whimpered and shuffled off to the side, lowered himself on his knees and stayed there, facing the wall, like the pathetic, weak little man he was.
The five men sneered. "Disgusting."
"Agreed," Valkyrie muttered. "You're still all under arrest. Are you going to hand yourselves over or do we have to make you?"
"Well," the biggest of the five said. He was bald, with a big beard, and a broadsword, "it's not like you can arrest us from over there, is it, baby?"
Valkyrie thrust her arms out to shoot him with her magic, but all of a sudden, the alarms went off, doors slammed shut, alarms wailed and Cleavers burst out from nowhere. Valkyrie's heart sank even further as she realised the trap the English had set up for them. The five men looked happier than ever as the odds stacked up around them.
"Nobody," a man's voice said. He came around the corner and was revealed to be a narrow, almost petite, man. He was Palaver Graves, an Elder, "move." He stopped and looked them all over, weapons drawn and still facing each other from ten feet away. "Look at all you pesky little flies, all trapped helplessly in my web. Weapons on the ground."
Valkyrie immediately began suspecting him of being an insider to the Spiders. Or maybe he was just mocking them. She wasn't sure, but she hated him even more the longer she knew him, and she'd known him for several years now. She didn't do anything for a moment, but then the criminals heaved signs and threw their weapons away from themselves, even taking out hidden ones and throwing them in all directions just to be dramatic. Valkyrie and her team put theirs on the floor and raised their arms.
Graves smiled smugly and he gave the signal to stop the alarms, which they did a moment later. "Valkyrie Cain and Gracious O'Callahan. Two Irish mages breaking into the English Sanctuary to steal a weapon of supposed unstoppable power… some might say that's enough reason to go to war."
"This has nothing to do with the Sanctuary," Valkyrie said immediately. "We're on here on our own behalf, behind the Sanctuary's back."
"Yes, yes, you would say that, wouldn't you?" Graves said. "And who else do we have? Frightening Jones, operative from the largest Sanctuary in Africa. Donegan Bane, rogue English mage."
"I'm a rogue," Donegan whispered quietly.
"Aurora Jones," Graves continued, "an American who betrayed her own Sanctuary and has barely begun winning back their trust. They won't be happy you're involved in this, I dare say. And lastly, Tanith Low. A freelancer with rather unethical methods, new mother and honorary Dead Man, or so they say. You should all be ashamed of yourselves."
"I don't like you," Aurora said snottily.
There was a murmuring of agreement from all of them. She wondered if the Cleavers joined in.
"Ah," Graves said, turning to the five men, "I don't think I know any of you."
"Good," the smallest said. He was even smaller the Graves, probably barely five foot, and slight as anything. Valkyrie was probably twice his weight. Nadia was probably twice his weight. Usually, she had learnt, the smallest in a group of men like that was the most dangerous. His magic was probably going to be incredible and destructive.
"And what was your plan, then? I know how entitled and gullible Cain and her merry band of misfits can be, but what about yourselves?" Graves said as the doors began to open again.
"We know what we're doing. In fact, you're playing into it right now," the smallest continued. All the men laughed.
Graves chuckled. "And how is that? You've been outmanoeuvred. Outgunned. Outsmarted."
"No, not outsmarted," the small one laughed. "You think so, but… not quite. We might be more brute than brain, sure, but I promise, we have outsmarted you this time."
"Uh, hu? How so?"
"Have you ever seen the movie 28 Days Later?" He asked. "With Cillian Murphy and Brendan Gleeson? With the rage-zombies?"
Valkyrie shook her head as Graves said he hadn't.
"You should, it's good. It's about a virus that gets out and everyone who gets it turns into the raging-zombie people who want to kill everything they see. Just mindless people, killing their lovers, children, friends, everyone at all. It's kind of in Kingsmen as well." Valkyrie had seen that, with the phone that let off the noise that made everyone try to kill each other. The scene towards the end when Edgar's mum tried to kill his baby sister had been awful to watch. She felt herself get chills as the man grinned and Graves' face fell. "Well, it was on telly a few weeks ago and it gave us the idea. How could we make a virus to turn everyone into rage-zombies to distract all of you idiots so we could get what we want and escape? Turns out, we can't, but we could pay someone else to make one, so we did. They'll be coming for us soon I think."
As if on cue, the sound of screams and shouts began in the distance.
Graves looked at the door in fright. "Close the doors back up!" He shouted.
"It's too late. See, when you apprehend a criminal, Elder Graves, you wait until everyone is in handcuffs and the coast is clear before opening your doors back up. Otherwise, you create situations like this. When you closed these doors, locking us inside, it put the whole building on lockdown and every person was stuck with the air vents pumping oxygen, and our virus, into their rooms. And then you opened them all prematurely with a little wave of your hand. Those doors won't allow another lockdown for another twenty minutes. However will you survive?"
From where Valkyrie was stood by the open door, she could see into the dark corridor where the screams were coming from, and began seeing shapes. Moving shapes. Coming towards them.
"Get ready!" She shouted. "They're coming!"
Thank god Graves had been stupid enough to get the doors back open, Valkyrie though as she immediately turned her attention on the wild, rampaging Cleavers. Those people would have been slaughtered by each other if they hadn't all spread out, keeping themselves further apart from the Cleavers and their blades. It seemed the Cleavers all grouped together, perhaps sensing the greater fight in each other, and then the rage-Cleavers and normal ones locked in battle. It was an amazing sight, one people, even someone like Valkyrie, very rarely got to see.
She didn't focus on that. She blasted them with controlled measures of magic, trying to get the worst of the fighters out of the count. Tanith and Frightening went for the criminals between the very sudden crowd of angry people in suits and work uniform, while Graves and most of his men ran, their little herd of Cleavers keeping the hoard off of them. Pathetic, she sneered as she slapped a woman that got too close, the smallest amount of magic enough to throw her to the ground. She was trampled by three other people clambering to get to Valkyrie, forcing her to back up quickly.
"Gracious, do something!" She screamed over the racket.
She didn't hear a reply, but she did hear Wilhelm as he started shrieking. She almost blasted the person that had gotten to him, a heavily pregnant woman, but stopped herself at the last moment and dove towards them, grabbing her and pushed her to the ground, fully aware of how vulnerable she was. She couldn't risk choking her out or hitting her head or zapping her with magic, so she struggled to grab her handcuffs, dragged her by the hair and attached her to the metal shelving, getting scratched in the face for her efforts. It wasn't perfect but she wasn't going to be held responsible for killing her unborn child within the mess going on.
Unfortunately, Wilhelm, left alone, tried to make a run for it towards the back of the Repository where Graves had gone. Several other rage-zombies had gotten through the gap Valkyrie left in the form intended to keep the people back, and they saw a moving person and just went for him.
It was different from zombies though. They weren't trying to literally rip them apart or bite them, they were just trying to beat everyone around them. Some had objects and weapons, and those people were beating others up far more brutally, but it didn't seem as if they wanted to kill anyone. If anything, it seemed as if they were more rage than zombie. Certainly, it was nothing like when the remnants escaped.
Valkyrie grabbed a man by the back of the head by his hair and threw him to the ground before he could hit Tanith and took the thin metal pole from his grasp. She swung it and hit another in the knees that tried to get forward. She had to stop them from getting closer to the pregnant woman, who was snarling and screaming incoherently behind her. And she had to protect her team from the back too.
For what felt like hours, they continued to fight, and a literal mound of bodies, most of them crying and slamming their fists into each other despite being badly wounded and unable to stand, grew around them. When Gracious was finally able to throw one of his balls down the corridor they were coming from and stun them, making them all pass out properly unlike his other ones, Valkyrie swirled on her heel and ran into the shelving.
"Find the thieves!" She screamed, knowing she sounded more than hysterical. This was the closest they'd come to losing on the mission and she really, really didn't want to mess this up!
She ran and tried her best to find them, but she had a sinking feeling in her guts that it was too late. When she found a second hole in the ceiling and a grate on the floor, she knew they were gone. She turned the corner and found the display case the Sword was supposed to be in, shattered with a large chalk signal around the base of the stand to turn off the signals protecting it.
The next moment a wall opened up, revealing Graves standing behind four people with machine guns and flanked by Cleavers.
"Hands up, Cain," he said quietly, barely a hint of that previous smugness in his voice. "Just let it happen."
Valkyrie grit her teeth and hung her head. Corrival and Meritorious were not going to be impressed.
Of course, happy PRIDE month to everyone :) And happy BLM protesting, we're doing good things at the moment