Chapter 10 - Unleashed
The snarling of twelve mutated war hounds reverberated through the stone tunnel. Their ribs showed through stretched hide, and their jaws snapped with ravenous hunger.
"Grace, behind me!" Dante roared, switching his weapon to full-automatic.
The first beast lunged, clearing six feet in a single leap. Dante fired a three-round burst directly into its chest, the impact dropping the animal mid-air, but two more sprang from its flank, sinking their fangs into his Kevlar vest and tearing at his shoulder. Dante grunted, dropping his gun and driving his combat knife into the throat of the beast on his left, while Elena spun with her trench knives, severing the spine of the second.
More dogs poured through the opening. The sweet gas grew thicker, burning Dante’s throat and making his limbs heavy. Elena was down on one knee, slashing blindly as her reflexes slowed under the neurotoxin.
Grace stood in the middle of the corridor, completely unaffected. The Nightshade already in her system acted as an antitoxin against the gas.
She closed her eyes, letting the world disappear into a symphony of sound. She heard the scrape of claws on stone, the ragged breathing of the hounds, the mechanical hum of the portcullis winch forty feet away.
Grace drew Dante's spare pistol. She didn't hesitate.
One shot. A dog leaped and dropped instantly with a bullet through its eye. Second shot. Another beast collapsed mid-stride. Third, fourth, fifth.
Every shot found a lethal anatomical junction. She moved through the corridor not like a nine-year-old child, but like an ancient specter of death, pivoting on the balls of her feet, her small hands absorbing the kickback effortlessly.
When the hammer clicked on an empty chamber, the corridor was completely silent, carpeted with the bodies of the hounds.
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Dante, bleeding from his shoulder and gasping for clean air, stared at his eldest daughter in absolute terror and wonder. She turned toward him, her face splattered with blood that wasn't hers, and tossed the empty firearm aside.
"The winch is broken," Grace said calmly. "We have to blast the door."
