Forge of the Assassin: NEXUS, #7

By Ross Harrison

- A sci-fi thriller and sequel to Church of the Assassin -

 

Codename Ares. A legend. A ghost story. They say that seven years ago, she rained down hell from the stars, cutting through everyone in her path: cops, intelligence officers, assassins. All for a baby girl. They say that if she really was just one person, she died under a thousand tonnes of rubble.

They're wrong.

Alexiares has kept Baby safe for seven years, staying one step ahead of assassins and hunters. But one step isn't enough. Not when their new enemy reveals himself. Her worst nightmare becomes reality: Baby is ripped from her. Taken to be made into the perfect assassin – something Alexiares promised she wouldn't allow.

The clock's ticking and her failure is almost complete. She must work out why she's still alive while staying ahead of the assassins, a government task force, and the malevolent whispers of her own broken mind. She must find a way to rescue Baby. And she must remind them all of one thing...

She is the only thing they fear.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Shadow Archer Publishing
• Release date: Jul 15, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223861737

Ross Harrison

Ross Harrison is the author of novels and short stories in the realms of science fiction - specifically space opera and science fantasy - thriller, noir, and steampunk. He has been writing since childhood, and occasionally likes to revisit those old stories for a good cringe and nervous laugh. He also talks about himself in the 3rd person because it seems more professional. Ross lives on the UK/Eire border in Ireland, where he moved from England in 2001, hoping the rain will help his hair grow back.

Book preview

Raised by the Devil

Andréj Lucia Outskirts, 4.29am

Juni Lien, five years old, rested her finger above the trigger like she’d been shown. Nestled her shoulder into the rifle’s stock, sawn off to make it short enough. Her tired eye stared into the scope, its crosshairs aligned with an ear half a kilometre to the west.

Alexiares's datapad, linked to the rifle, showed the man tapping on his van’s steering wheel and nodding his head, presumably to music. He gazed around him, as though idly taking in the architecture of the old city. In reality, he was looking for signs that he was being watched by a creature forged from darkness and blood. Forged from childhood as a killer. He didn’t think to look this far away. His team and their masters were too arrogant to think she might have known they were coming.

Juni gasped. ‘That’s my room!’ Vague shapes moved in the darkness on the other side of the top window. It was impossible to tell how many or exactly where, because the glass was treated to give a false impression of what was behind it. Protection against snipers without being suspicious to passers-by. Something no parent should have to do to their child’s bedroom window. ‘They’re in my room!’

It wasn’t her room any more. They could never set foot near the place again. Just like the last, and the one before that. Not that Juni would remember those. This was the first time she was old enough to be aware of the concept of being driven from her home. Not to comprehend why, though, smart as she was.

Alex pushed out the ghost of Baby’s— of Juni’s real mother. She’ll be a woman, not an assassin. Alex wasn’t making her an assassin. She was going to be around guns, so she had to understand. The Church might hunt her for the rest of her life, so she had to be prepared. That wasn’t the same thing. She wasn’t raising Juni like she’d been raised.

She caught herself. There was no ghost. No voice. Who was she justifying herself to?

‘They didn’t knock on the door,' Juni said. 'Are they allowed to do that?’

‘Think.’

Juni sighed. Seeing strangers in her bedroom left her in no mood for learning. ‘I’ve seen them in films. They have to knock and show the people their badges. And if they arrest you, they have to—’

‘That’s talking, not thinking.’

She sighed again. Then another gasp. ‘I left Daddy Huggles in there!’

Even the name made Alex’s skin crawl. ‘Good. That thing’s creepy.’

‘He kept me safe!’

‘I keep you safe.’ Alex wasn’t sure if a five-year-old could make a silence pointed, but as she looked at the shapes of assassin-hunters who’d invaded their home to murder her and her adopted daughter, it felt like a pretty pointed silence. ‘Safer than a bear-pig thing.’

‘Bat. You’re not around all the time.’

‘I’m always around. Whether you see me or not. What’s missing?’

‘My hairbrush, my favourite jim-jams, Daddy—’

‘From what you’re seeing.’

The screen went uselessly blurry as Juni moved the scope around the scene too quickly. Then she lost the house completely. Alex reached over and carefully adjusted the aim, and the van reappeared.

‘They don’t have their flashing blue lights on.’ She thought. ‘And why don’t they have more people? Don’t they know you’re dangerous?’ she added with baseless pride.

‘They’re dangerous too.’

‘When are they leaving so we can go home?’

‘Shoot the back tyre.’

‘No! It hurts my ears. And there’s a man in there. He’ll get scared.’

‘Rifle’s quieter this time.’

‘There’s. A man. In—’

‘Do you want to shoot him instead?’

‘What? No!’

‘Shoot the tyre.’

Juni sighed. ‘I don’t understand you sometimes.’

Alex didn’t know how to respond when she said things like that. Did she even know what they meant, or was it a lucky guess when she appropriately used things she heard in films?

‘Don’t,’ Alex said.

‘Don’t what?’

‘Don’t squeeze your eyes closed.’

‘I didn’t!’

‘You scrunched up your face and shoulders. Eyes come next. It’s quieter now.’

Another sigh. Juni relaxed and re-centred the sights on the back wheel of the van. The scope was already calibrated for the distance. ‘Squeeze the trigger,’ she whispered to herself. She still grimaced, but it didn’t affect her aim as the rifle made a sound like a cow sneezing – something Alex was glad she wouldn’t have to hear at night any more – and the van’s tyre silently burst on Alex’s screen.

Juni looked at her again.

‘Don’t look at me; look at him.’

Juni turned the scope to the front of the van in time to see the hunter scrambling for the front door of the house. ‘See? I told you it would scare him.’

‘What else is wrong? Notice the details.’

Juni stared at the front door. It was wide open, no guards posted. She was remembering them entering. ‘If they came to arrest us…’ Yes. ‘Why didn’t they have any handcuffs?’

Alex waited.

Juni gasped again. ‘They’re not policemen!’ She looked earnestly at Alex, those big blue-green eyes glittering and no longer half-closed with tiredness. ‘Are they the bad people?’

A pinprick through both of Alex’s hearts.

‘Yes.’ Alex pressed a button on the screen. The house silently flashed and became a bright blob of orange in the distance. ‘They were the bad people.’

Juni said nothing. Her little mouth hung open as she looked at the orange blob.

Alex picked up the casing from the grass and dropped it in the rifle bag, followed by the rifle and the datapad. She picked Juni up by her dewy yellow hood and put her on her feet, and they walked back to the road. The motorbike was a decent choice to help avoid hunters looking for two people, but she’d need something else now they had a long drive to find a new place to stay. Juni fitted in front of her on the saddle, where the rifle on Alex’s back wouldn’t get in the way.

‘They say,’ Juni started, her tone the one she used when quoting something she’d heard or reading aloud, ‘that, um, when you kill a man, the nightmares never go away.’ What the hell did she watch when Alex was out? ‘Are they why you don’t sleep?’

Alex hesitated. She was five.

Alex stared at the dancing orange flames. They didn’t represent a triumph. Victory. They represented failure. She’d failed to threaten the Church into peace. She’d failed to keep Juni hidden. Again.

‘Not those ones.’

Good Instincts and Bad Luck

Nowhere, 7.13pm

Staying hidden was pretty easy. Alex had done it all her life. The tricky part was hiding in the first place. Once the hunter had your scent, it was difficult to shake him off and go to ground. Every near miss, every recently abandoned safe house the hunter found gave him just a little more to go on. Just a little more to help find you the next time. The tiniest mistake could lead to that happening all too soon.

They’d learned that the hard way a few times. When Alex had picked up a couple of her favourite mods for the third-hand car she’d bought. Cash only, but it hadn’t made a difference. They had her car from before the purge. They knew what she liked to modify, and that had been enough. Or when a couple of boys had picked on Juni because her ears stuck out a bit. She didn’t know what a pixie was, but she’d decided she didn’t like being called one. No one in that human colony could growl like a Krathan, so that had given them away.

This was what ran through Alex’s mind while she held the blowtorch over a rusted bearing, imagining it was Drew’s knee. Or whatever his name was. Something rhyming with ‘eww’. The car was nearly a hundred years old, but it didn’t look a day over ninety-nine. He brought the thing in at least once a week, sometimes for her to investigate a knocking sound that was miraculously not there when she started the engine, sometimes to have it washed. That never resulted in the wet T-shirt he was always hoping for. Parking the car on his foot hadn’t been a big enough hint for him.

‘Hello? Anybody home?’ Lou laughed. Or whatever his name was. He had a gold earring in each ear. She hated that. Matched the gold tooth, though. ‘Knock, knock, man. Ha. Just kidding. I know you… That’s…’ He struggled for something clever. ‘Concentration.’

She ignored him.

‘So, what’s… Blowtorch, huh? Hot.’

‘Did you hit your head?’

‘What? No. Ha. Listen, Serenity.’ She hadn’t told him her name, so he’d chosen one for her. The word he was looking for was serendipity, not that it was as clever or romantic as he thought, even if he’d got it right. ‘I’ve been thinking—’

‘No,’ she said.

‘No to what?’

‘To that, on every level.’ She swapped the blowtorch for a mallet.

‘Ha! I don’t get it. I’m gonna… That’s loud! Gon…gonna be leaving town in a… Wow, does that hurt your ears? …In a day or two, so I was thin…thinking we could have that dinner. And maybe… Wow, kinda making me flinch, ha. Loud. I got a’ – Alex stopped hammering – ‘motel room!’

The other two mechanics’ heads popped up as the words bounced around the brick walls. They quickly looked away in case they caught her eye, but they couldn’t hold in the sniggers. She looked at Sue.

‘I mean… Close to the restaurant. So… I mean so I can drink and not worry about driving. Because I’m…responsible.’ That had sounded cool in his head, somehow. ‘Did you… What did you think I meant?’

‘Waste of time,’ she said.

‘What?’

‘Trying to fix this. Too corroded. Needs to be replaced.’

‘Wait, that won’t take long, though, right? I need the car to leave town the morning after. After our dinner, I mean. Ha.’ He winked. ‘Come on, bab— Sorry! For me, Serenity.’ He tried to make the light glint on his gold tooth, to make the grin more charming.

‘Part’ll be here tomorrow.’

The grin widened. ‘Aaw—’

‘For you or anyone else,’ she cut in, shooing him out the door. ‘Supplier’s round the corner.’

That was a lie. She wouldn’t be around to get the part tomorrow. Today was payday. The one she’d been waiting for. She’d ramped up the number of shifts she’d been working. Arranged some convenient and prolonged food poisoning of the boss’s favourite mechanic and helpfully volunteered to take his work too. Today was payday, tomorrow was packing day, and the day after was leaving-to-try-to-get-lost-on-Orion day. Risky, going back to a planet where she was still wanted by that Alliance Intelligence task force, but the Church was known there, too, and an alien assassin agency on their turf took priority over her. She would not make the same mistake again and stay here for too long.

Besides, Krathans and Terrans might be nearly identical on the outside, but it was still easier to see a Krathan assassin coming when they weren’t surrounded by other Krathans, so Orion was preferable to any Krathan world.

The boss startled when he turned from his desk and saw Alex in the doorway. ‘Oh! Home time?’

She wasn’t sure if that was rhetorical. She didn’t respond.

‘Uh, right.’ He pulled up his oily jeans and held them in place with one hand while he reached for a cash box on the shelf. ‘Thanks for pitching in with Dan’s shifts. He’s feeling better now, so he’ll… He’ll be…’ Alex said nothing, but her presence naturally encouraged him to skip the small talk and get to the point. He handed her a bulky, oil-stained envelope. Local currency, but easy to exchange for credits. ‘Anyway, I put a little extra in there for the effort. And the great work.’

She looked at him. He didn’t stare at her body. Didn’t force extended eye contact. Didn’t look away too quickly. Seemed legitimate. He didn’t want anything and no one was using him to accelerate her timetable. Just one of those decent people she’d heard about.

She nodded and left for the last time.

Of course. She should have known he’d left too easily. Roo pushed himself off the wall outside and waved, despite her being less than three metres away. ‘Hey! I thought I should walk you home. It’s getting dark.’

‘I’m not walking.’

Her new bike sat in the garage’s parking lot, in a pool of yellow light from the streetlamp. In that light, she saw the problem as soon as she rounded the corner.

‘Yeah, it looks like someone pulled something out of your ride.’

A section of piping was missing from the bike, and its front wheel sat in a black puddle. Alex turned on him, but quickly decided he’d done nothing. His hands weren’t dirty enough, he wasn’t nervous enough, and he was too stupid to know what to pull out if he’d wanted to.

The Church? Pointless. If they’d found her, they’d have simply shot her or dropped a bomb into the oil tank.

‘Probably kids, ha.’

The gun in the back of her waistband pressed into her spine, reminding her it was there if she needed it. Her eyes scoured every corner, shadow, doorway, window, and rooftop. Nothing. ‘Yeah. Kids.’

She started walking. She’d planned a route she’d have to take if ever she were forced to flee on foot, but it included kicking her way through a couple of apartments and stealing a local loan shark’s car. She’d have to rethink parts of the route, she guessed.

‘So,’ Hugh started, reminding her he was still walking next to her, ‘where to, m’lady? Ha. Just kidding.’

‘About what?’

‘What?’

‘Go home.’

‘We… What about dinner? Perfect opportunity,’ he added, prolonging the ‘eee’ in a manner he probably thought was persuasive.

‘No.’

‘Well, at least let me wal—’

‘No.’

‘Oh.’

She heard it first. A soft sucking, a little crunch of grit. Tyres. It was a street, and it was only early evening – a car wasn’t that weird. The problem was that she only heard it. It was too dark for anyone to be driving with no lights, even as slowly as whoever this was.

Stu heard it and stiffened.

Damn. He needed the car. He had a motel room. She should have put it together sooner. He wasn’t leaving town; he was skipping town.

Whoever was behind the wheel must have noticed him noticing them. An electric buzz pushed the tyres faster for a couple of seconds, and then a long saloon veered onto the kerb in front of them.

‘Hey, Goldie!’ It was one of three passengers. Tank top, baggy jeans, bad moustache, indecipherable tattoos. Something bulging in his pocket. And a pistol crammed dangerously into the front of his waistband, she saw as he quickly jumped out of the car. He was even smaller than Alex, and younger. Reminded her of the newest mechanic the others all called Pipsqueak.

‘Oh, it… What’s up, fellas? I just… That’s not my name, you know. Ha!’ Goldie was backing away as he spoke, and the big ‘we’re all friends’ smile and outstretched hands wouldn’t fool anyone.

The other three occupants of the car were quick to follow the loudmouth. Alex couldn’t walk past, because the car was almost touching the apartment block. She turned to cross the street, but the biggest of the men held out an arm and shook his head. His smirk immediately irritated her.

‘Move.’

Three of them rested their hands on their pistol grips. All three were smirking now.

‘You gonna abandon your man like that?’ the big one said and laughed to the others. ‘Doesn’t take good enough care of you?’

‘I’m free and single, sweetheart,’ said one of the others. So pasty she could see his veins. ‘I’ll take care of you.’

‘Don’t be stupid,’ said the big one. ‘You hate kids.’

Alex’s eyes locked on to his. Kids.

‘Her man?’ Goldie laughed nervously. ‘No, this is… She’s my mechanic. I was just—’

‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ Pipsqueak said. ‘There must be some kind of misunderstanding. Must be someone else mouthing off all over town about bagging the little firecracker from the body shop. Hey, firecracker,’ he said to Alex. ‘You the one who likes to be tied up?’

‘Woah, that’s… Nope. No, no. Ha! I must have been unclear. That’s my fault. I was talking about something el—’

‘Where’s our money, Goldie?’

‘Your money? Fellas… Ha! You got me! That’s… I fell for that! I still have three days, so—’

Pipsqueak sucker-punched him in the solar plexus and he made a sound he wouldn’t be proud of. The others had their pistols out in an instant, to make it clear that Alex shouldn’t try to run.

But she wasn’t going anywhere. Kids?

‘You had three days. Then you pawned your watch and your grandma’s necklace. You signed into a motel under a pseudo-name. So we put our heads together and tried to imagine a reason that you might do that.’ Every word drained a little more of Alex’s patience. ‘Fumigation? No. Some one-night stand role-play thing with the firecracker? No, she has to get home at night.’ There it was again. These nobody lowlifes shouldn’t have known about Baby. ‘Surely he wouldn’t be running?’

Goldie was retching and struggling to breathe. Alex’s peripheral vision showed Pipsqueak reflected in the car window, stepping closer and closer to him as he spoke, gradually backing him against the wall.

‘He wouldn’t be planning on ripping us off for the sake of a few grand?’

‘I…’ Goldie tried. ‘…explain…’

‘You know,’ Pipsqueak said, reaching into his pocket, ‘we’d be happy to take a down payment. A show of good faith. That you really intend to pay.’

Pliers. All three guns raised now. Their fingers were on the triggers. Safeties off. If their aim was as bad as their gun safety, she’d be fine. But it was doubtful.

‘No! I can get—’

Another punch made sure Goldie couldn’t fight back while Pipsqueak clamped the pliers around the gold tooth. Alex was pretty sure she heard a crack before the screaming. The pliers were probably too big. Grabbed two teeth.

‘Now, that’s gonna cover a bit of what you owe— I’m talking, Goldie. Goldie? Shut up.’

The screaming and crying died down and turned into muted groans as the pliers clamped onto one of Goldie’s earrings now.

‘Aggravating, but better. As I was saying, this will do for now. And your firecracker’s gonna keep us company until you bring us the rest tomorrow.’

Goldie made a louder groan but thought better of trying to speak.

‘We’ll take care of her for you,’ the pasty one said with a grin. He looked down at his phone and forced a pained expression. ‘Just a shame I hate kids so much. She’ll have to go.’

He held up the phone for her and Goldie to see the photo of her cottage in the middle of nowhere. Baby was doing a handstand outside. That was taken at the weekend. How long had they been watching her? How had she not noticed? They must have stuck to drones.

‘I’ve never broken a kid’s bones before,’ the pasty one went on. ‘Do they bend more before they snap?’

‘Okay, calm down,’ the big one said, wrinkling his nose.

‘What? You knew what was gonna happen. What are you— Don’t calm down me!’

‘I know, but you don’t have to make me picture it.’

‘It’ll be in front of him! I’m making him picture it, dumbshit!’

Alex wasn’t listening. It took focus to separate feeling from action. She felt like gutting them all, but even if they weren’t quick enough to shoot her, there would be someone at her home. In case extra incentive was needed. She’d make things worse by doing it her way.

‘I guess we can stop calling you Goldie now,’ Pipsqueak said. ‘Let’s go, firecracker. I’ve got some rope in the car,’ he added with a wink.

‘She just got paid!’ Goldie slurred through a copious amount of blood, pointing at Alex’s face.

Pipsqueak looked over at her. ‘Great, she can buy us all a round.’

‘No, it’s enough! She got, like, double pay.’

‘Is that right?’

Alex’s mind ran over it. She had enough to cover what they were looking for. But then there wouldn’t be enough to get her and Baby to Orion. But the gang would have no reason to threaten them. No reason to have someone posted near her home.

She nodded. Reached for the envelope in her inside jacket pocket.

‘Ah! No,’ the big one said. ‘Allow us.’

The pasty one stepped forwards, pointing his gun from over his head in a weird, amateur but annoyingly effective way. He reached inside her jacket, making sure to brush over her breast on the way.

He looked surprised to find that there really was an envelope full of money in there. He stepped well away from her before he flicked through the notes.

‘Huh!’ he said. ‘Look at that. He’s right. Everything we’re owed and a little tip for taking this time out of our busy social calendar.’

‘See how easy that was?’ Pipsqueak said, patting Goldie on the shoulder and making him flinch. ‘I’m gonna keep this tooth, though. I don’t feel like you deserve it. We’ll call it interest.’

Goldie nodded but wisely chose not to say anything.

They all headed back to the car. The pasty one kept his longing eyes on Alex. ‘Nice meeting you. Hope I see you again.’ He grinned and climbed into the car.

He wouldn’t. But she’d see him again. Soon.

‘Are you kidding me?’ Pipsqueak said as the car reversed off the sidewalk. ‘It’s not even real gold!’

He threw the tooth out of the window and the car sped away.

Goldie shuffled on his hands and knees to the tooth. He spat on it, brushed it off, and pushed it back into his gum, accompanied by a lot of groaning, wincing, and more bleeding.

Alex rounded on him.

‘I, uh, I’m really—’

‘Who are they? Where?’

‘Just a nothing little gang. Think they’re tough. They just jack cars and lend money—’

‘Where?’

‘You going to the cops? They won’t do anything. They’ll assume—’

Alex’s hand caught his throat and part of his jaw, and she lifted him from his knees. She pushed him against the wall so his neck wouldn’t snap. She wasn’t tall enough to lift him off the ground, but he struggled to get his feet under him.

‘Where are they?’

*

For a while, Alex had kept them fed, clothed, and housed by taking from thieves and gangs. They – particularly the gangs – often had an abundance of cash lying around. And what were they going to do? Report it to the police? But there was only so long she could do that before it became a pattern. A thread for the Church to follow. So she’d stopped. The money disappeared quickly.

That wad of cash was a month’s work. She couldn’t afford the time to earn it again. That was time they didn’t have. She’d been making too many mistakes; she needed to move them on quicker than usual, and get somewhere safer.

Too many mistakes. She never used to make mistakes. How had this started?

Lightning flashed. Lit up the warehouse like daytime for a second. For that second, she was reminded of the night the Church initiated a purge of her sect. Of making her way to Juni’s real mother, with no idea what she’d find.

Pinky. He was why she was making so many mistakes. Him and the elders. She wasn’t only making the small decisions any more. The sniper perch, the choice of poison, the escape route. She was making the big decisions too. She’d never had to do that before. She’d never had to keep anyone but herself alive. They’d always made those decisions. And they’d been better at it than she was.

The warehouse was wide open. Some shabby sofas around a holoscreen in the middle. Numerous crates brimming with electronics, car parts, cheap weapons, and whatever else they could sell to the less discerning customer. Several space heaters, a couple of broken cars, and a couple of working ones, including the one that had cut her and Goldie off earlier. The other one had arrived after her. It had been the one posted near her home. Near Juni.

She’d seen all that from the pyramid skylight or pitched roof window, or whatever it was called. She hadn’t seen this metal door though. Some kind of panic room, hidden under a sofa.

Pinky. She wondered, as she did now and then, whether the old man had survived the purge. Sometimes she was sure he had. Sometimes she wasn’t so sure. He’d raised her. Trained her. But she couldn’t seem to locate any feelings on the matter. Maybe because she didn’t know. Maybe because she didn’t care. Or maybe it was her broken mind.

Pipsqueak tried to pull in air through his crushed larynx. It made a rattling sound. Eyes still on that door, Alex bent and pulled the car key out of the pasty one’s pocket. He’d broken her fall from the skylight. Her fall had broken his neck and spine.

She looked around. There had been six men, plus the boss. A look through a few of the phones lying around and a ledger written in a simple cypher told her that was all there was to this gang.

There was no point wasting time trying to get into the panic room. The boss was irrelevant. She only needed the money back and to eliminate the threat to Juni. The boss and his glamour muscles were not a threat. That his first instinct was to run and hide made that clear. And the fact he had no one left to call.

All the same, she grabbed the welder someone was using on one of the broken cars and welded the door shut.

She picked up her envelope of money from the sofa and headed for the car. On the way, she kicked open the trunk of the nearest wreck. Sure enough, it was used for storage. Some more guns, phones, and a cashbox. Another few thousand for the travel fund. The bulk of the gang’s funds was probably down in the panic room, accessible only by the boss. This was for expenses.

At the car, she paused. Looked over at the metal door again. Something didn’t feel right. This was the whole gang, but there were no drones in the warehouse. No cameras or surveillance equipment, except a cheap scope on the passenger seat of the second car.

She’d move the timetable up some more. They’d leave for Orion as soon as Juni woke up.

They Come at Night

Outskirts of Nowhere, 3.50am

Alexiares breathed in the crisp, early morning air. No hint of any scent that shouldn’t be there. Damp grass, damp air, something fake-fruit flavoured that Juni dropped that morning. All around the stone cottage, insects chirruped. Everything was still and quiet, but not too still and quiet.

She opened the front door and that changed.

A stumpy, nearly six-year-old girl launched herself from where she’d been bouncing on an armchair like a trampoline. She slid in her socks across the tiles to Alex, grabbed her hand, spun around her, and then slid back towards the armchair. She misjudged and bounced off the arm.

‘Where have you been, upside-down lady?’ she asked from the ground.

‘Work.’

‘Why?’

‘To work.’

‘Why?’

‘Money.’

‘Why?’

Alex closed the door and eyed the holoscreen. About ninety per cent of whatever it was playing was blurred out and pixelated. ‘Why aren’t you asleep?’

Juni jumped up and threw herself hard at the chair’s backrest. She bounced forwards, bounced off the seat, and back onto her feet. ‘Couldn’t sleep.’

‘Why?’

‘I’m too bouncy!’

‘You weren’t bouncy when you went to be— Oh no.’

‘I was thirsty.’

Alex stepped on the trash can’s pedal, hoping she wouldn’t see what she knew she would, and the lid popped up. There it was. Colourful and squeezable and hateful. She grabbed the pouch and held it up to Juni. ‘Are you on the juice again?’

In answer, she bounced six times on the armchair, breathlessly counting each one.

‘You told me you’d quit.’

The bouncing stopped and the little face, scrunched up in almost manic concentration, slackened into disbelief at what she was hearing. ‘I’m five.’

Alex let the trash can lid snapping shut punctuate her silence.

‘What are they doing?’ Juni pointed at the screen.

‘Go to bed.’

‘I’m too bouncy.’

Alex didn’t have time to answer. The thrusting pixelated shapes on the screen were replaced by a grey image. Two SUVs slowly rolling along a narrow track, flat, open ground all around. Lights off. Towards a stone cottage.

Baby stopped bouncing.

‘Tunnel.’

The girl hurried to the kitchen island and rolled it aside. Alex lifted the top of the coffee table and pulled out the pistol, rifle, and grenade stashed inside. Big, glittering eyes watched her from the ladder down into the concrete tunnel.

‘Watch the screens,’ Alex said, pushing the little head down and closing the hidden door again. She pulled the mat back over it and rolled the island back into place. Baby knew what to do. They’d practised enough times. Too many times.

Alex turned to the back door and stopped. They were driving quietly up the track, lights off. But that didn’t mean they didn’t know she had cameras and sensors. It didn’t mean the real attack wasn’t coming from the rear. There could be a team already at the back door. No. She was paranoid. Her sensors had sensors; she’d know if they’d been tampered with. Which meant no one could have got to the back. A sniper. But why not shoot her five minutes ago when she was outside? No, it was only those cars.

Having already wasted too much time thinking, as usual, she unlocked the back door and slipped out. She stayed low and moved across the ten feet of short grass to the longer stuff, carefully kept at the right length for her to hide in if necessary. It was tough and didn’t stay flattened in her wake as she moved towards the front of the cottage.

Her ears picked out the deep, crumbly sounds of tyres on damp dirt. She should have put gravel down on the track so she’d hear vehicles more easily. But that wouldn’t help if they hovered. Or if they stopped and walked on the grass. She’d consider it for the next place.

The two black vehicles slowly and quietly rolled to a stop only twenty feet from her front door. She watched through the grass as all eight doors opened and eight men silently slid out. They wore plastic suits, the bottoms of the legs taped to rubber boots, the sleeve cuffs taped to rubber gloves. They all sported freshly shaved heads, over which they pulled tight plastic hoods.

This wasn’t the Church. These weren’t assassins or the assassin-hunters she’d dealt with five years ago during the purge. Apart from the lack of armour, they were too confident. They hadn’t been told who lived in the cottage. What waited for them. The gang boss couldn’t afford cleaners like this. And he’d have warned them of danger. Someone didn’t know, or someone was sending her a message through them. Didn’t matter for now.

None of them spoke. They were relaxed but professionally alert. They weren’t new to breaking into a woman’s house in the middle of the night and making her disappear. Each wore a belt with a holstered pistol and knife. They were too confident to unholster anything. Usually, cleaners were brought in after some kind of gang hit, but these clearly made the messes, too.

She eyed the SUVs. One rode lower at the back than the other. Vats of acid, if she had to guess, to really make her and Baby disappear.

Two of the men headed to the back of that SUV to unload. One headed around the far side of the cottage towards the back door. The other five swept a sensor over the front door to check for an alarm, and then opened it. They smirked at each other. Stupid, clueless woman thought it was safe to leave her door unlocked because she was in the middle of nowhere. They silently slipped inside.

Alex heard the quiet pop of the SUV trunk. The quiet whine of the hydraulic hinges. The five men had all entered now.

About the time that the other two might conceivably heave the vats of acid out onto the ground, she shot them both in the head. The silenced pistol still sounded harsh in the silent night, as did the bodies collapsing. A quick flurry of sound from where the others might expect it.

One of two things would happen. Alex stayed put long enough to determine which.

The worse but quicker one.

A man stepped back outside, his pistol drawn now. Alex shot him in the temple. As he crumpled, she picked up the rifle and moved back through the grass towards the back of the house. She knew the other four would have seen the direction their friend was shot from, so she stopped partway and aimed at the windows. It took five seconds for a curtain to pull aside and a face to peer out. She shot him too, then moved quicker.

Some muffled shouts came from inside, and she knew the one at the back would be on alert. She holstered the pistol and gripped the rifle instead. The grass hid her from him as he swung around the corner, expecting to get a shot at their attacker. Instead, he got a three-round burst into his chest.

She arrived in time to see the back door open and another cleaner rush out. He was about to stumble over his friend, but another three-round burst stopped him instead.

Alex pulled the pin out of the grenade and tossed it into the doorway. Gas, coloured yellow for visibility, billowed from both ends of the little cylinder. She hurried back through the grass to the front.

Sure enough, the last two stumbled outside, coughing and spluttering and wildly waving their guns about. They had no hope of spotting her through their streaming eyes even if