Dominick flew the helicopter back to the hotel. Wrecked, it looked like the center of a war zone. Not too far from the truth. Various sections of the building blazed or smoldered, and an entire wing of it had cracked open like a clam shell.
The fence remained intact except for a few sections that someone had cut through. It looked like the building had power, but only minimal and, probably, that came from a backup generator. The bodies of the mercenaries they had hired over the last several months to keep them safe lay littered around the guard posts.
Somewhere inside the building, an alarm blared in useless warning of an attack.
Haatim, in the copilot's chair next to him, looked exhausted and beaten down. Frieda still just sat and stared through the window in the back, her expression unreadable while she surveyed the devastation.
Dominick had radioed ahead multiple times to try and raise a response. He had prayed that someone might have survived the attack, but so far, no answer had manifested. He landed the helicopter, and they stared at the demolished hotel for a few minutes.
"We need to check," Frieda said.
"You know what we'll find," Dominick said. "Maybe, we should just go."
"We need to know for sure."
He let out a deep breath. The storm didn't seem as bad here, but it still snowed heavily. With the engines off, they climbed out of the helicopter and headed toward the wrecked building to search for survivors.
An endless sea of bodies waited outside, murdered and left out in the snow. He hated leaving them like this and knew they would need to gather them in the morning, once the storm had moved through.
Frieda followed him into the main lobby, and Haatim wandered around the side of the building. Dominick thought to stop him but decided to let him go on his own. Probably, the guy just needed a few minutes to wrap his head around it all.
They all did.
Dominick went upstairs. The stairwell smelled of copper and smoke. Blood streaked the walls where defenders had fallen back, leaving handprints that told stories of desperation. Spent brass casings littered the steps, rolling under his boots with each footfall.
The first Council chamber he found belonged to Marcus Chen. The old man lay sprawled across his bed, three neat holes stitched across his chest. But the walls around him told a different story. Scorch marks radiated outward from where Marcus had made his final stand. The councilman's gift had always been fire, and the blackened bodies of four mercenaries lay crumpled in the doorway, their tactical gear melted into their flesh.
Marcus had taken them with him. Small comfort.
Dominick moved on, each room a new horror. In the west corridor, he found Elena Vasquez. She'd been one of the strongest Hunters he'd ever known, capable of sensing demonic presence from half a mile away. Her body lay beneath the window, a pool of congealed blood spreading from the bullet wounds in her back. Glass shards surrounded her. She'd tried to escape.
But it was the room itself that stopped Dominick cold.
The furniture had been rearranged. Chairs and tables pressed against the walls in a perfect circle, held there by force of will alone. Even in death, Elena's telekinetic barrier hadn't fully collapsed. Three mercenaries hung suspended in the air, frozen mid-stride, their faces locked in expressions of confusion. They'd walked into her trap, but more had come from behind.
No Hunter could defend against enemies in every direction.
He found Council Elder Yusuf in the library, surrounded by a ring of salt and silver that had done nothing against bullets. The old man had been teaching since before Dominick was born, training young Hunters in the art of demon detection. His gift had let him see the supernatural clearly, the telltale shimmer that possessed humans gave off, the dark aura that clung to demonic artifacts.
That gift hadn't helped him see the sniper through the window.
Room after room. Body after body. Some had been executed in their sleep, never given the chance to fight back. Others had used every gift the bloodline had granted them. Frederick had created a barrier of hardened air that had held for who knew how long before someone had simply shot through the floor from below. Sister Catherine had tried to heal herself, her hands still glowing faintly blue even in death, but no amount of healing could outpace a magazine of armor-piercing rounds.
The worst was the nursery.
Dominick stood in the doorway, unable to enter. Three young children, all under ten. Potential Hunters, their gifts not yet manifested. They hadn't even had a chance to learn what they could become.
He turned away, his hands shaking.
The Council had believed they were safe here. For centuries, this hotel had served as their stronghold, protected by Hunters and mercenaries alike. They had grown complacent, relying on reputation and tradition instead of adapting to a world that had changed around them.
Nida had known exactly where they were vulnerable.
He found Frieda down in the lobby. She looked devastated and hardly able to stand. Was it from the blood loss, the exhaustion, or the emotions of seeing her entire life's work and her friends and family all dead around her?
Probably all three.
"Six Hunters left in the world," she said. "Counting you. I'm the last Council member."
"I'm not done searching," Dominick said. "I've only accounted for ten."
Frieda looked at him, her expression one of sheer devastation. "Do you think you'll find any more?"
He didn't answer. Instead, he said, "How was this possible? Marcus burned four of them. Elena held six in the air. Frederick's barrier should have lasted hours."
"They knew our gifts," Frieda said, her voice hollow. "Every single one of them. Nida planned this for years. She knew exactly how to counter each ability."
"The detection wards should have sensed them coming."
"Human attackers. No demonic presence to detect." Frieda shook her head slowly. "She turned our own defenses against us. We built everything to fight demons, and she sent men."
Dominick couldn't believe the sheer destruction of what had taken place. Whoever had planned this had been incredibly thorough. He'd known many of these people his entire life and had thought the Council could never be brought down, let alone so quickly and efficiently.
"This is insane," he said.
"I know," Frieda said. "We lost everything."
"We have a lot of funerals coming up."
"Those will need to wait," Frieda said. "This isn't over."
"You think Nida will come back?"
"I know she will. Whatever she's planned, this is just the beginning."
"What do we do now?" Dominick asked.
"Rebuild. Call in every favor owed. Find every friend we can. Prepare for what's coming."
"And what is that?"
Frieda looked at him and sighed. "War," she said.
Dominick looked at the ruins around them, smoldering in the snow.
"It isn't coming," he said. "It's here already."
Haatim found his father's car on the south side of the building, near where the explosion had taken out a huge section of the hotel. The door leading inside hung open, and a ramp led down into a storage room, where he found the bodies of several soldiers scattered.
Some killed by the impact of the explosion and others filled with bullet holes. A few small fires still burned in the area, filling it with smoke that poured out of cracks in the ceiling.
He stood there, listening to the crackling of the flames and trying to come to terms with everything. So many people dead. Unfathomable. Only just introduced into this world, and already, it had turned on its head.
Abigail gone. Too difficult to process. Even with how much he'd worried about her possible execution these last months, he'd never imagined what it might feel like to lose her.
The worst part about it was that he'd never, in fact, had her. Different from anyone he'd ever met, he cared more for her than he'd believed he could care for any human being. Too late to tell her, he realized just how much she meant to him.
Now she'd gone, and he stood alone in the world.
A noise came from further in the room. A dragging sound. Haatim looked around. A pistol rested against the wall. He picked it up and edged his way through the dim space, searching for whatever had made the sound.
He came upon it around the corner, tucked behind machinery. His father struggled to drag himself across the floor with one arm, and his other shoulder hung twisted and broken. Though bloody and weary, his eyes flashed when he saw Haatim standing in front of him.
"My son," he said, his breath coming in ragged gasps. He smiled. "Thank God, you're here."
Haatim stared at him, feeling a mounting rage in the pit of his stomach. "You did this," he said.
Aram's smile faded. "I tried to stop this--"
"It's your fault. You got them killed. You got them all killed."
The words spilled out, and he took a menacing step toward his father. His hand squeezed the grip of the gun, and his father seemed to notice it for the first time.
"Haatim, please ... think this through."
"I am." He raised the gun. Never in his life had he felt such fury. Could he pull the trigger and take his father's life? He wanted to.
And, his father deserved it. After everything that had happened, he shouldn't be the only one allowed to survive. Moreover, if he shot him now, it would look like just one more dead body. No one would ever know what he had done, and it would serve to balance the scales.
Justice.
"You got her killed."
"Haatim, please."
Haatim hesitated, struggling to decide whether or not to pull the trigger.
