– Commander, we’ve identified a possible Ulrich hideout.

  Cerberus doesn’t look up.

  – Location.

  – A hunting lodge north of the city. The power load hasn’t dropped for three weeks. Continuous draw. He’s there. Sending coordinates.

  – Forward them to the teams. Order stands – move in and verify.

  The line goes dead. Cerberus sets the phone on the table and pulls on fireproof gloves. His movements are slow, precise. A glass measuring cylinder. A conical flask. The flask already holds a clear substance. From the cylinder he adds a few precise drops, sets it back into its stand, seals the flask and gives it a single controlled shake. The liquid thickens, blue spreading through it as it settles into a dense, resistant gel.

  He raises the flask to eye level, watches the gel cling to the glass, resisting its own weight, then nods once and steps forward. Ten steps. The mannequin stands waiting. Where a plastic head should be, Vann’s head is fixed in place.

  Cerberus tilts the flask. The gel pours slowly, coating the face, sliding into the eye sockets and mouth, tracing the jawline, dripping down onto the torso. He empties the flask and steps back. A waterproof match strikes. Blue flame. He flicks it toward the head.

  The mannequin ignites without sound. Blue fire spreads evenly. Plastic softens. The gel eats through synthetic material and bone alike. Skin blisters, melts, sloughs off in heavy fragments.

  Cerberus pushes the goggles up onto his forehead, draws in a deep breath, pulls the smoke into his lungs.

  He smiles.

  The van slows on the forest road and stops five hundred meters short of the lodge. The side door slides open and five soldiers pour out in a single, practiced motion, splitting instantly: three vanish into the trees, two stay on the road, low and controlled. As the teams break apart, another soldier steps down from the van and launches a compact drone, sending it up through the canopy.

  – Eighth to First. Drone deployed. Aerial feed in one minute.

  – First acknowledged. Taking position in thirty seconds.

  The forest tightens around the three-man element. The rear soldier peels left and angles uphill, shedding his rifle on the run, dropping to one knee and then flattening into the ground. The weapon comes back up, bolt cycling, scope locking into place.

  – First in position.

  The drone climbs higher.

  – Conducting aerial sweep. No movement. Switching to thermal. No heat signatures.

  – Visual on the structure. No movement inside. Alpha and Bravo set.

  A brief pause.

  – Move.

  They enter the house and begin the sweep, room by room, wall to wall. No people. What remains instead are the details – carnations placed in corners, thin threads stretched across open space, shards of glass scattered along the floor, paper clips, white powder, small devices fixed to the walls at deliberate angles. Nothing random. Everything placed.

  – Alpha reporting. Structure appears empty. Orders?

  As the words leave his mouth, his boot brushes something barely there. A thread tightens. The house answers, metal screaming through the rooms as hidden mechanisms engage.

  Time slips back only a little.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  Ulrich stands alone in the house he is about to abandon, a place that held too many years to count, most of them good. He moves through the rooms without haste, methodical and exact, planting charges where they will do the most damage – not out of hatred for the house, but to make sure whoever comes after him pays for every step.

  The present snaps back.

  – Bravo to Eighth. Something’s wrong here. We’ve taken a defensive position. Check it.

  The drone feed shifts as infrared floods the image. Heat blooms everywhere. Too many ignition points packed too close.

  – Evacuate immediately. Get out now. The whole structure is about to go.

  The soldiers break for the exits, clearing the house just as it detonates. The blast tears outward in one violent breath, lifting them off their feet and throwing them hard into the ground. Sound collapses into a high, hollow ringing as debris rains down through the trees.

  They are alive.

  All but one.

  A fragment of the structure slams into Seventh’s back. His body folds and hits the ground without a sound.

  – Report status.

  – Alpha and Bravo hit by the blast. Everyone’s up except Seventh.

  – Status on Seventh?

  – Checking.

  Bravo reaches him, rolls him onto his back. A wet, broken rasp escapes his throat.

  – Seventh. Do you hear me?

  – I can’t feel my legs.

  – Eighth, he’s alive. Non-ambulatory.

  A brief pause.

  – Evacuate him. Then we pull back to base.

  Three soldiers move in, securing the fourth for extraction. First starts to rise from his position and freezes.

  From the nearby tree line, something separates itself from the darkness – not a shape at first, more a shadow pulling itself free. It moves toward them.

  First tries to speak, to warn the others. Nothing comes out. His jaw locks. His body refuses to obey.

  Paralysis.

  Then a calm voice reaches him, close and unmistakable.

  – Don’t interfere with Gobby. Rest.

  The world goes dark.

  Three soldiers finish securing the wounded man and lift the stretcher when movement pulls their attention forward. A boy steps out of the darkness and walks straight toward them. The stretcher drops. Weapons snap up in the same instant, muzzles locking onto the approaching figure.

  – Bravo to First. What’s going on? Who is that?

  Silence.

  – First. First.

  A voice answers instead. Flat. Mechanical.

  – The subscriber is unavailable. Please try again later.

  The soldiers exchange brief, uneasy looks.

  – Eighth here. Report. What’s happening?

  – Object moving toward us. Possibly a child. First is not responding.

  No pause follows.

  – Open fire.

  Gunshots tear through the comms. The drone lifts again, the view pulling up and back. From above, the figure drops to all fours as its arms begin to change – one thickening, swelling into a crude mace of fused bone and flesh, the other sharpening, stretching into a long, brutal stake.

  The boy launches forward, cutting from tree to tree at full speed. He reaches the first soldier and drives the stake straight through him, lifting the body and carrying it forward, using it as a shield as rounds slam into dead weight. He closes on the second and brings the mace down once. The skull collapses.

  The third soldier claws for a grenade, fingers hooking the pin. Too late. Someone is already behind him. Another boy. Movement too fast to follow. Blows land low and precise, the mace crushing into the lower spine until the nerves shut down and the body locks in place, breath trapped in the chest. The second boy is already gone, dissolving back into the trees.

  The first boy advances slowly. The mace rises. It falls.

  Head and neck give way together.

  Eighth watches in silence, the image refusing to assemble into anything coherent. He tightens the drone zoom on the first boy. Focus catches. The boy lifts his head.

  There is no face.

  What should be skin is a mask grown directly onto the skull – bark instead of flesh. Not clean wood, but something crushed and fused: splintered bone, blood, meat, fragments of skin pressed into a single living surface. No eyes. No mouth. Only the suggestion of features trapped beneath the texture.

  Eighth starts taking pictures without thinking, one after another, fingers moving on reflex. The image jerks. A stone fills the frame. The drone shatters midair, torn apart by the impact. The feed goes dead.

  Eighth recoils hard. He stands beside the van, breathing shallow and uneven, and hurls the controller into the ground with all his strength. Plastic cracks. He doesn’t notice.

  He looks up.

  Ulrich steps out of the forest. He doesn’t approach the vehicle. He stops at the edge of the trees, raises his right hand, and waves calmly, almost politely. For a brief second, stunned by the absurdity, Eighth raises his hand and waves back.

  Then understanding lands.

  He drops his arm.

  Ulrich’s voice carries through the open space.

  – Tell Cerberus he made a mistake taking this contract.

  – And tell him my boy Vann has been avenged.

  Ulrich turns without haste and disappears back into the forest. Eighth lunges into the van, the engine roaring to life. Tires scream against gravel as he slams the accelerator, the van fishtails, then tears down the road.