C17 Chapter Seventeen

The boom of Riley’s shotgun reached Flynn’s ears as he skidded to a stop outside the entrance to the locker room. Four shots, in rapid succession, and then silence.

“Riley?” Flynn shouted into the locker room, his back flat against the wall next to the door, but the only response he received was the thunder of another shot being fired somewhere inside.

A glance back at the rest of the unit showed them climbing to their feet, weapons in hand, but none of them would get there quickly enough to help. Flynn had to choose; wait for backup or go in alone and hope he could save Riley.

It really wasn’t any choice at all.

Flynn spun around the corner.

The corridor ahead of him was empty.

He moved swiftly down its length, until he reached the point where the corridor turned and entered the locker room proper. Flattening himself against the wall, he double-checked his weapon. The sound of a struggle could be heard in the next room, raising Flynn’s hopes that Riley was still alive, and so he took a deep breath and spun around the corner.

He took in the scene with a single glance.

Riley was on his back on the floor with a six-legged monstrosity astride him, the creature’s scythe-like forearms locked in either hand as Riley struggled to keep from getting his head cut off while simultaneously trying to dodge attacks from the creature’s lunging jaws. Around him were the carcasses of three other reaper demons, one of which still twitching in its death throes.

Seeing his teammate standing in the doorway, Riley shouted, “Shoot it, for God’s sake! Shoot it!”

Flynn did.

The bullets tore into the demon’s torso, ripping gaping holes in its flesh. It shrieked in pain and raised its upper body to turn and face him, which was just what Flynn was waiting for. He fired again, driving the creature off of Riley and up against the nearest wall, pinning it there with the sheer impact of the firepower. Flynn didn’t stop until he’d emptied his clip into it and there was little left to recognize.

“You okay?” he asked.

“I will be,” Riley replied, as he climbed to his feet. His uniform was ripped in a several places, but the pads of ballistic armor sewn throughout had done their job, he had only minor injuries. Nothing their medic couldn’t patch up, given five minutes of peace and quiet.

Flynn watched his teammate snag his shotgun from the floor where he had dropped it, but rather than heading for the exit, Riley crossed to the row of mirrors over the sinks. Flynn was about to ask what he was doing when Riley made the question mute by grasping his weapon by the barrel and slamming it butt first into the surface of a mirror. A few seconds was all it took for him to shatter all four of them.

“Don’t tell me,” Flynn said.

“Yep. They came through the mirrors, just like Cade always warned us.”

Any further discussion was cut short when the sound of gunfire coming from the main room reached them.

They took off at a run.

Riley skidded to a halt as he and Flynn emerged from the depths of the locker room, trying to process the scene before him. Reaper demons seemed to be everywhere and the rest of Echo had their hands full trying to fight them off. Cade, along with Davis and Chen, had their backs to the glass wall separating the exercise room from the pool. A stack of bodies lay at their feet already and four more demons were doing what they could to advance despite the withering hail of gunfire the three men were sending in their direction. Ortega was helping Duncan to his feet, apparently after dispatching a reaper that had gotten the best of their younger companion. Callavecchio, on the other hand, was nowhere to be seen.

“Where in heaven did they all come from?” Flynn wondered aloud and it hit Riley like a train wreck. How could he have been so stupid?

“Follow me!” he shouted over the clamour and took off running without waiting to see if his companion was following. There were two locker rooms and that meant two sets of mirrors. He had destroyed the first, but the second…

He just hoped he was in time to prevent any more of them from coming through.

Riley’s path took him diagonally through the center of the room, twisting and turning through the maze of Nautilus machines and other exercise equipment, headed for the dark maw of the entrance to the women’s locker room on the far side. His course took him past the demons threatening Cade and the others. As he passed, he pumped two shots into the back of one of the beasts and was very nearly taken out by a stray shot from one of the other knight’s weapons, but then he left them behind and reached the entrance to the locker room.

He heard Flynn shouting behind him, telling him to wait, but he plunged inside the entrance without slowing.

Riley took half-a-dozen steps and then his foot came down on something round in the darkness and he felt himself tumbling forward, out of control. He hit the ground hands first and the shotgun he was carrying went off with a roar, nearly taking his arm off at the shoulder.

Disgusted with himself and with the fact that he’d just lost any opportunity of surprise, Riley glanced at the floor as he climbed back to his feet, curious to see what he had stepped on.

A human hand, severed about halfway down the wrist, lay nearby.

Considering the Templar ring on the fourth finger, there was very little doubt as to who the hand had once belonged.

Callavecchio.

Feeling like he’d just been punched in the gut, Riley reached down and picked the hand up, just as Flynn came charging down the hall and caught up with him.

“Is that…”

“Yeah.” Riley stuffed the hand in his pack, knowing it might be the only piece of their friend they would get the chance to bury given the nature of the things they were facing. At least the coffin won’t be empty, he thought, and then turned his attention back to the job at hand.

They came around the corner into the locker room proper, weapons at the ready. Unlike the men’s locker room, with its four sinks and accompanying mirrors, this room had one long mirror that extended the length of the wall and the two men were just in time to see a pair of reaper demons disappearing back through its surface, carrying Callavecchio’s limp body with them.

From the way the man’s head hung half off his shoulders, it was clear that their teammate was beyond assistance.

Unhindered by concerns over Callavecchio’s fate, Riley didn’t hesitate. With a twitch of his finger he turned the mirror into a shower of shattered glass, preventing the demons from returning along the same path. Behind him he could hear more breaking glass and knew Flynn was doing the same to another mirror elsewhere in the locker room.

By the time the two men reemerged into the main area, their teammates had dispatched the rest of their foes.

Echo had survived their first attack, but not without casualties.