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A remote farm in England

Giorgio stiffened as his hound suddenly erupted in a huge celebratory howl in his mind. He closed his eyes just for a second, sending warm congratulations to his packmate Kolton, who had just witnessed the hatching of his son with his fated mate, Simon. You deserve every happiness, Kolton. With Hades’ blessing, I hope that’s me one day.

“Hey. You falling asleep on the job?”

Giorgio was jolted back into his current reality by a sharp jab on his shoulder. He shifted his rifle from one hand to the other, shaking his head. “Just random thoughts, man. You know how it is. Is it just me, or are you thinking there’s something not right about this place?”

Mitchell, his partner for the mission, shrugged and casually puffed on his cigarette, although Giorgio knew he was watching for any signs of movement. Crouched among foliage in a remote forest was all perfectly normal in Giorgio’s line of work. It was the building they were watching that didn’t fit with his normal cases - a giant concrete monstrosity in the middle of nowhere.

Giorgio could see one dirt track – basically two wheel ruts cut into sparse gravel leading to one side of the building - but there were no other signs the place was even being used.

The position of the windows indicated the building had at least three floors, but all of the glass had been broken out, and the gaps were boarded up. He and Mitchell were situated as close to the one solitary door they’d found – a battered solid wooden door that used to be red if the remnants of paint left were any indication. There were no lights on, no sounds coming from anywhere in or around the building, and yet there was a vibe in the air Giorgio couldn’t ignore.

“We were told to go in at zero two hundred.” Mitchell stubbed out his cigarette on the sole of his boot. Both men were dressed in camouflage gear, including heavy footwear. “It’s coming up on that now. You having second thoughts about this?”

“I’d feel better if I knew what we were going in for,” Giorgio muttered. “We’re in retrievals, we deal with active hostage situations. I’m not sure there’s anyone here to retrieve, and I’m not seeing anyone we can negotiate with.”

“We’ve been in deceptive buildings before,” Mitchell reminded him.

“True that. But shit, look at this place. If someone set this place up to look like a creepy deserted building in the middle of nowhere for a movie set, they succeeded. In the meantime, our backup is a half hour hike away, and we get sent in with nothing more than coordinates that weren’t that accurate, either. This whole situation feels wrong.”

“I’ve got as much respect for gut feelings as the next man,” Mitchell said, straightening up from the crouch he’d been in, hefting the door rammer he’d carried in. “Especially in this business. But a job’s a job and you know damn well Duncan’s not going to give a damn about your gut instincts. He’ll have our asses for breakfast if we don’t at least go into the damn place.”

Giorgio grimaced at their handler’s name. Duncan’s only claim to fame was that he could down an entire family-sized pizza in the time it took most people to eat a slice. He’d never worked in the field and would probably faint if someone stuck a gun in his face.

“Quiet could be a good thing, right?” Mitchell nudged him again, and Giorgio stood up as well. “We bang down the door, make some noise, check all the floors and give the rats a damn good fright. Then, we can say we’re done and head back to the support team. It’ll be an early night for a change.”

You hope. Giorgio wasn’t so sure. “You bang down the door, I’ll go in first. Make sure you stay behind me this time,” Giorgio warned. “Your sweet Sarah almost had my balls in a sling the last time I had to drag you back home with a bullet in your arm.”

“Ah, happy days.” Mitchell’s teeth showed through his beard. “Her nagging is her love language.”

“You keep telling yourself that. She made me feel as though I needed to wear a bulletproof vest just to come to dinner.” He was procrastinating. Giorgio knew it. Inhaling sharply, he tried to center himself and his hound. I’ll go and visit Kolton tomorrow, he decided. Take them a gift for their son and get a look at the little fella. Remind myself it’s not the whole world that’s gone to shit. Just parts of it.

“On three…two…one…” Like clockwork, Mitchell ran forward, pounding on the door with his rammer, splintering the old wood into a dozen pieces. As he stepped back and to the side, Giorgio ran forward, glad they were going in at night – it meant his eyes didn’t have to adjust to the gloom.

He didn’t have to run far. The whole first floor was a wide open space – even the lining had been pulled off the walls. It was the smell that hit him first. Dead bodies. A whole lot of dead bodies. Stacked in a heap, they looked as if someone was planning to put a match to them. Giorgio lowered his weapon, his nose wrinkling at the stench as Mitchell came up beside him.

“There’s no one left alive…” Mitchell started to say, but Giorgio held up his finger.

“I’m going to check this lot. You do a quick check of the other floors. Be careful and mind your back,” he said urgently as his hound alerted him to the faintest of whimpers around the far side of the stack.

“Oh, shit, no,” Giorgio growled, dropping his rifle with a clatter on the concrete floor, as he ran around the side of the body mound, searching for any sign of movement.

One blink in the gloom. A tiny flash of the whites of someone’s eyes. Giorgio only saw it for a split second, but that was all he needed.

“I’ll get you out,” he promised as he started moving the bodies nearest where he’d seen the eyes with as much care as he could. “I swear, I’m not leaving you here. Just hang on. For fuck’s sake, hang on.”

Giorgio had seen and smelled a lot of horrible shit in his time on Earth, but as he worked as fast as he dared, his heart ached at the carnage left for them to find. He had no doubt he and Mitchell had been set up, although for what, he had no idea. But there was no way this was a regular retrieval job.

“Hey, there. You still breathing?” Giorgio tried to keep his growl out of his voice, but his hound was getting more agitated with every passing moment. Eyes blinked open, and as he went to move the body closest to the living being, a hand reached out, gripping the sleeve of his jacket.

“Boom.” The word was the barest whisper, and if it hadn’t been for Giorgio’s hound, he never would’ve heard it.

“Boom?” Giorgio went to reach for the hand that moved off his arm, but then he saw the young man was pointing downward… underneath him…at the wires.

“Oh shit. All right. Don’t move.” Taking the hand, Giorgio put it back on his arm. “Do. Not. Let. Go.” Inhaling sharply, he looked over his shoulder and yelled, “Mitchell, get down here. Fucking run, you fat-assed bastard!”

“Who are you calling fat, you over-muscled hunk?” Mitchell was panting as he hurried down a concrete set of stairs and crossed the room. “What have you found? Fuck, a live one?”

“Grab my jacket.”

“What the fuck? Why.”

“If you want to see Sarah again, grab my jacket and don’t let go.”

“You are some freaky dude, G.”

“I’m going to pull you out now,” Giorgio said to the eyes that hadn’t left his face. “Don’t let go.”

He got a tiny nod, and that was going to have to do. “Mitchell, you’d better swear on your mother that what you’re about to see you’ll never repeat to another soul.”

“My mother’s been dead for the last ten years.”

“Then swear on her grave.” Bracing his feet firmly on the floor, Giorgio mentally counted. One…two…three! Holding tight to the arm he was now gripping, Giorgio translocated with his two passengers. As their cells broke down, he heard and then felt the blast of the explosives, waiting for whoever had the misfortune to be the one sent on a retrieval mission.