Darkness Girl: Trickster God

Chapter Twenty: Fear of the Dark

Herrick adjusted her sword belt again. She wore it almost every day, but today it wouldn't seem to sit right. The scabbard felt long and awkward against her leg, and the kevlar belt seemed to chafe at her hip. Her squad was pressed together in a small weapons locker room near the holding cells on the lower decks. The air was hot and close. It dried Herrick's throat until she felt like she had been breathing through a hairdryer. She swallowed and wet her lips with her tongue. 

Her squad were all wearing identical military grey combat fatigues and body armour with the Unity circle and slashes printed in red on each guard's chest. As soon as the alarm started, they had strapped on their armour and raced down to collect their weapons. They were being briefed now by a Unity infiltrator in a grey coat and glasses who'd introduced himself as Trevellian. Herrick had seen him walking around the ship before and knew in a vague sense that he did something important she wasn't allowed to know about. She wondered why he was here now. 

She found herself at the front of the group, uncomfortably close to the infiltrator in the small room. She tried not to bump into him with her bulky, muscular frame. The infiltrator was lightly built, and Herrick found herself imagining how easy it would be to knock the him down. 

'All personnel have been evacuated to the cabin decks. This is a deck by deck sweep of the holding cells,' said Trevellian. 'I'll be coming with you. If one of you runs across her, call me immediately. Do not try to fight her alone.' 

His eyes swept the room, as if to emphasise his point, and came to rest on Herrick. 

'We know what we're doing, sir,' said someone behind her. 

Herrick's Sergeant was standing beside her. He nodded and looked back over his shoulder at the squad. 'I know you do, kids, but there are no mistakes today. If you make a mistake, we're all dead.' 

'Is she that dangerous?' said Herrick. 

Her mouth still felt uncomfortably dry, and her voice cracked slightly as she spoke. 

'She's a silencer,' said Trevellian. 'She specialises in covert assassination. If she catches you on your own, she's in her element.' 

Herrick looked around at her squad mates and saw their expressions were hard and focused. No one else seemed even slightly nervous. She tried to force down the swirling nauseous sensation that was rising from her stomach. It made her feel raw and inexperienced, like she was somehow larger and clumsier than all the other guards. As she stood in the tiny, stuffy room trying not to bump into Trevellian, she stretched her shoulders back to calm herself. 

Her sergeant must have noticed, or perhaps he was secretly worried himself. 'The target is dangerous, but she's wounded,' he reassured the squad. 

'As long as she's alive, she could kill every single one of you as easily as breathing,' said Trevellian. 'Get your equipment ready and spread out to cover the stairwells.' 

Herrick stood out of the way to let Trevellian walk past her. 

'It's like he thinks we're weaklings,' said one of the guards.

***

The sound of the alarm was a penetrating wail as Herrick jogged towards the aft section of the ship. There was a grated steel stairwell ahead of her with the number fourteen stencilled onto a bulkhead above it in black. As she reached the stairs, she stopped and took a deep lungful of air to steady her breathing and keep her hands stable. 

The holding cells were on the level below her, and the squad was spread out like a net to cover all of the exits. From here on, they would head downwards and search deck by deck, room by room until they closed in on the escaped prisoner. Herrick drew her katana and held it at the ready as she started down the stairs. 

The stench of mold and rust never quite went away on the lower decks, and the caged lights here were dimmer than on the upper levels. Herrick paused at the base of the stairs. There were plenty of shadowy corners along these severe grey corridors for a killer to hide in. She felt vulnerable and alone. She pushed the thought out of her mind. The other members of her squad would be mirroring her movements on the other stairwells. The radio on her shoulder beeped. 

'Forward starboard stairwell clear.' 

'Forward port clear.' 

'Central starboard clear.' 

'Central port clear.' 

In sequence, all of the squad members sounded off. Herrick waited to give her report while peering into the gloom. 

'Aft port clear,' she said finally. 

'Okay kiddies,' said her Sergeant. 'Start the sweep.' 

Herrick started down the corridor and pushed open the first door. A dark storage room. She moved to the next door and the next, checking each room to make sure there was no one hiding in the corners. She reminded herself that this was what she'd been trained to do. The familiarity of the process gave her some level of comfort. 

Her radio beeped again. 

Herrick looked across at it and felt her skin go cold. A girl with blue hair was standing next to her. 

The speed of Herrick's instincts saved her life. She flinched backwards reflexively and felt the brush of air as the shard of metal table leg the girl was holding whipped past her cheek. She wasn't fast enough to save her radio though. Before she could recover, the girl's hand snaked out and ripped it off her shoulder, cutting her off from her team. 

Herrick took three steps back to give herself some distance, as the girl threw her radio to the ground and crushed it with her foot. Herrick pulled her sword into a defensive position to keep the girl at bay. She was fast, but it was a narrow corridor and the shard of table leg she was carrying was only about a foot and a half long. Added to that, she was clearly wounded; blood was spattered across her face and clothes, and she looked unsteady on her feet. Herrick concentrated on slowing her breathing down. She just needed to say calm. 

'Stand down,' Herrick ordered the girl. 'Drop the weapon and place yourself on the deck.' 

The girl ignored her. She held up the shard of metal in her hand and carefully examined its wicked point under the light. Carefully, she reached up and touched it with a fingertip then looked at Herrick speculatively. 

'You're gripping that sword so hard your knuckles have gone white.' 

Herrick's shoulders tensed and she took another involuntary step back. She'd faced escaped prisoners before, but this was totally different. Although this girl looked relaxed, Herrick could feel waves of pressure coming off her. It was as if all of the oxygen was slowly being drained out of the room. 

'You--' Herrick started. 

The girl pounced. The movement was almost too fast to see; one moment she was standing there and the next she was in flight. Herrick stumbled back and felt the point of the table leg scrape across her kevlar body armour. She clumsily retreated until her back hit the edge of a doorway. The girl slid to a stop a few steps away in a feline crouch. 

Herrick looked down and saw a deep scour running across her body armour. Without its protection, she realised she would have been disembowelled. 

She shook her head to clear the fog. 

This was how real killers fought -- savagely and without mercy. This girl wasn't holding back, and if Herrick put even one foot wrong she was dead. She shifted her weight to her front foot. She was trapped here alone with a killer, and, without her radio, no one was coming to help her. One of them was going to die.