Chapter 26: The Rare Books Massacre
Chapter 26: The Rare Books Massacre
The elevator doors chimed and slid shut, taking Victor Sterling out of reach. Eleanor was alone in the corridor with three highly trained assassins. The air smelled of old paper and impending violence.
The first woman lunged, a karambit knife flashing in the dim red light. Eleanor didn't step back; she stepped in. She parried the strike with her forearm, grabbed the assassin's wrist, and twisted brutally. Bone snapped. The woman didn't even cry out, but she dropped the knife. Eleanor caught it mid-air and drove it into the woman's shoulder, using her as a human shield as the second attacker threw a volley of throwing stars.
The stars sank into the first assassin's back. Eleanor shoved the dying woman forward, disrupting the second attacker's stance, and drew the ceramic blade from her thigh holster.
The fight was a blur of velvet, blood, and shattered glass. Eleanor moved with calculated fury. The third woman, taller and heavily muscled, tackled Eleanor through a glass display case containing a first-edition Gutenberg Bible. Glass rained down around them.
The woman pinned Eleanor, wrapping her hands around her throat. Black spots danced in Eleanor’s vision. She gasped, her hands scrambling against the marble floor. Her fingers brushed the spine of a heavy, leather-bound encyclopedia.
With a primal scream, Eleanor gripped the book and smashed it into the side of the woman's head. Once. Twice. The grip on her throat loosened. Eleanor drove her knee upward, unseating her attacker, and finished the fight with a swift, merciless strike of the ceramic blade.
Panting, covered in glass dust and blood that wasn't hers, Eleanor tapped her earpiece. "Julian. The jammer is local. I'm taking out the relay."
She limped to the corner of the room, found the blinking red signal jammer, and crushed it beneath her heel.
"Eleanor!" Julian’s voice roared back to life. "Jesus, are you alive?"
"Barely. Sterling got away."
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"Not completely. Leo tracked his elevator car. It didn't go up to the roof. It went down. Into the catacombs beneath the library."
Eleanor ripped the torn skirt of her gown, tying it tightly around a deep cut on her arm. She picked up a fallen submachine gun from one of the assassins. The aristocrat was gone. The mother was back. "Tell Leo to keep the engine running. I’m going hunting."
