United States. Tall Oaks Cathedral.
The centuries-old Gothic structure was completely surrounded, inside and out.
Compared to Leon and Helena grinding through underground crypts solving puzzles and hunting for keys, Star Fire's intervention turned this rescue into a brutally straightforward tactical steamroll.
A dull directional blast echoed through the basement. The massive stone door that would have required an absurdly elaborate mechanism to open was blown to rubble along with half the wall by the Shadow Team's C4.
"Clear. No point wrestling with locks from the Middle Ages." Jason tossed the detonator aside and led the way into the dust-choked chamber, electromagnetic rifle up.
Leon pulled Ashley along, charging in right behind Helena.
At the deepest point of the basement was a hidden laboratory packed with high-tech equipment. On the central operating table lay a young girl, deathly pale, in a deep coma.
"Deborah!" Helena screamed and broke free of Leon's grip, throwing herself forward.
Her hands shook as she unfastened the restraints binding her sister, tears streaming down her face. But the instant she touched Deborah's skin, a shocking wave of heat burned against her fingers.
Deborah's eyes snapped open. Her pupils reflected a hopeless dark red.
"He... le... na..." Deborah's voice sounded like it was being forced through shredded vocal cords. The next second, the skin on her back writhed violently. Bones cracked with a nauseating sound as several razor-sharp bone spurs, like enormous spider legs, ripped out of her body and stabbed straight at Helena.
A portable shield snapped open in front of Helena. The bone spurs slammed into it, throwing off a shower of sparks.
Jason was already at Helena's side. His left hand held the shield steady. His right hand didn't go for his gun. Instead he reached behind his back and pulled a metal injector venting cold white vapor from his tactical vest.
Shadow soldiers fanned out quickly, but every muzzle pointed at the floor. None of them locked onto the creature on the table.
"No! Don't kill her! Please!" Helena collapsed to her knees, clinging to Jason's pant leg.
Leon stepped forward and drew the large-caliber pistol from his hip, deep sorrow in his eyes. Across countless outbreaks, he'd seen too many irreversible mutations.
"Helena, get back." Leon's voice was low and rough. He leveled the barrel at Deborah's head. "She's already infected. To spare her any more suffering..."
"Alright, Leon, put the peashooter away. What year is it? We're still doing mercy kills like it's the Wild West?"
Ryan's voice cut in through Jason's earpiece, equal parts teasing and lazy. He'd switched the comm to broadcast. The whole basement could hear it.
"Boss." Jason grinned. His left hand shoved the shield forward, pinning Deborah's thrashing body down.
"Star Fire is a legitimate pharmaceutical company, not a crematorium." Ryan's voice drifted through the comm, unhurried. "Jason, hit her with an Abyss secondary derivative, plus a high-concentration C-Virus vaccine. It's Simmons's bargain-bin virus. Just force-interrupt the mutation process."
"Copy."
Before the word was fully out of his mouth, Jason lunged forward like a big cat. He ignored Deborah's flailing bone spurs, used his enhanced physical abilities to seize one of the spider-leg appendages bare-handed, and locked it down.
Then he drove the thick, frost-venting injector with precise, brutal force into the core nerve cluster at the epicenter of Deborah's spinal mutation.
Pale blue serum was pressure-injected straight into the marrow.
Deborah let out a scream of pure agony. Then something impossible happened.
The dark red muscle tissue that had been growing out of control hit a wall. The expansion stopped dead.
The sharp bone spurs lost their vitality under the serum's neutralization, withering with a dry crackling sound before detaching from her back entirely and dissolving into a puddle of foul-smelling discharge.
The dark red drained from Deborah's eyes like a receding tide. Her breathing steadied. She was weak to the point of collapse, but the wounds on her back were already beginning to clot under some kind of repair factor.
She fell into a deep unconsciousness. But she was, without question, still human.
"Done. She'll have a couple scars on her back, but she's alive." Jason pulled out the empty injector and tossed it aside.
"Deborah... Deborah!" Helena threw herself over her sister, felt the faint but steady pulse, and broke down sobbing. She looked up at Jason, then toward the communicator, her eyes filled with nothing but shock and absolute, unwavering gratitude.
Leon's gun hand froze in midair. He watched the girl who was human again, let out a bitter laugh, and quietly holstered his weapon.
"Ryan, you bastard..." Leon sighed into the comm. "You always turn other people's nightmares into miracles."
Helena held Deborah tight, her sister's breathing growing steadier. Her fingers still trembled. Her voice was raw. "Mr. Cole, as long as my sister lives, my life belongs to Star Fire."
"Keep your life. Star Fire doesn't need martyrs." Ryan's voice carried the languid ease of someone who saw the whole board. "Leon, while you're at it, pull the server hard drive on the left side of that operating table. Simmons wasn't just making people down there. He left his core financial records with The Family. That's the last nail in the coffin. Testimony alone won't cut it."
Leon crouched down and stripped the equipment out with practiced efficiency, a self-deprecating edge in his voice. "You even knew where he hid the books? He's..."
"I didn't figure it out. Someone wants him dead, and Simmons is too arrogant. He assumed Tall Oaks would be a graveyard. Nobody gets out of this basement alive, so he felt safe leaving the evidence right under his own nose."
Jason shoved the cloned hard drive into his tactical pack and waved everyone toward the exit. "Leon, three tiltrotors are waiting on the evac route. Vice President Benford's already been secured by another Shadow Team."
Leon glanced around the wrecked lab. His eyes went cold. "Bring Deborah. We're leaving. I'm going to tear that two-faced bastard apart myself."
Ryan chuckled on the other end. "Don't just stand there. There should be a few more goodies in that basement."
Jason turned. His gaze landed on a playback device in the corner. Next to it sat a detailed experiment log. The inscription on the cover read: Happy Birthday, Ada Wong.
"Clone manufacturing records." Leon picked up the dust-covered file. His expression turned to ice.
"Grab the footage and the logs. Time to go." Ryan's voice grew serious. "From here on out, Tall Oaks is the Secret Service's stage. You're done here. The real main event is in Asia."
[This novel is now COMPLETE. Read the entire series right now on Patreon: patreon.com/NiaXD]