Once Leopold's death reached Barcelonian headlines, I fell entirely into Eclipse's operations with open arms. Like a winded-up soldier, I spent most of my time waiting for my next name. And I always completed my mission no matter how far they ran, how hard they fought, or the bargains they promised me. The mission was all I thought I needed.
Since Zhi was right, I was a Taotie. A dreaded fiend who thought feasting on people would bring me back to that soundproof room. I was happily in control then, free from the guilt, pain, and voices plaguing me at every turn, before Asad's unplanned demise smacked me to harsh reality.
When Eclipse came, I thought they'd be a second chance to capture the bloodlust high the lion stole from me. Their endless chase was the perfect distraction, provided it didn't kill me first. However, on my last mission, a year and a half into Eclipse, I learned the truth in more ways than one. Nothing will ever fill my dreaded soul, and no amount of delusion wipes the blood off my hands.
After a brief skirmish in Thailand, I planned to enjoy a brisk break back at base, but at that point, I was already in high enough standing within Eclipse to get sent straight to another mission halfway through. Through one invisible ink-laden letter, I found myself at a park in Luxembourg City.
Despite it only being early autumn afternoon then, even the tiniest wisp of wind felt like a whip to my hide. Some of the gusts t as I perched along a bench overlooking a decrepit water fountain. Compared to the rest of the city's ancient architecture, the structure felt like a sore outlier. Its chipped rim, constant sputtering, and molded crevasses seemed to drive everyone away unconsciously. Making the perfect cover, as I felt a far different chill crawl up my spine.
"You're late," I say while turning my head to Zhi, "I almost thought I got the coordinates wrong."
Zhi kept as calm as ever amidst the visible vein on her forehead, firing back a comeback without even batting an eye.
"Sorry, I had some business to attend to," she said as she passed me a small dossier of photos while showing off the bruised knuckles on her left hand.
Facing her subtle jab head-on, I took the dossier while replying.
"It must be an important mission if you need me on the same mission as you."
Zhi then gave out a potent glare.
"I need no one, Taotie. However, desperate times call for some insurance."
I then analyzed the pictures, the biggest of which was a drawing of a woman not much older than me with short, curly, bright orange hair, blue eyes, and a small scar on their left eyebrow. They commanded a runner's physique, spry and lankly, and a small black moon tattoo on their upper right arm. Most interesting was the second photo, which had a small light blue flash drive.
"The traitor's name is Rebekah, one of my old trainees and one of the best. Until a week ago when she went MIA around the same time our private data servers were hacked and transferred on the flash drive you see there, " Zhi said coldly.
"What type of information's on it?"
"Nothing that you should be concerned with. All you need to know is that we must destroy that drive and her before she sells or distributes our information. Before the signal went dead, we tracked the tracer in her tattoo to a back alley in the southernmost part of the city. So we think she's still here, waiting for the heat to die down and slip between us.``
Cruel confidence welled up from the challenge, not realizing all the trouble Rebekah would cause both of us down the line.
"If that's the case, then we'll have to search the surrounding area and smoke this rat out," I said firmly while burning both pictures in a nearby ashtray.
After our talk, Zhi did what she did best and took "control," already investigating the surrounding area. My first thought was to head into the streets, counting on the invisibility that homeless have in too often of places. However, she had a different theory.
We aren't the first to chase Rebekah, just the latest ones alive. Hiding away from masters of misdirection only gets you so far, but perching away from a vantage point to make the first move was also smart. Leading us to find a small multi-story hotel near the Luxembourg Airport.
After hacking into the computer, we found out if any singular person matching her description had checked in there for the last 72 hours. Bringing us to a single room on the 3rd floor, right by the fire escape. As we walked down the pristine halls by dusk, I couldn't help but subtly check the weapons hidden underneath my coat, wondering if they would be enough.
"You sure we're at the right place? This feels a little too easy for my liking."
"I told you before, Toatie, I'm never wrong. Would you prefer it if it were hard?"
"No, but you said this was one of your former students."
"And I didn't teach them "hard" enough and shut up. We're about to arrive."
When we walked to Rebekah's room, I quickly started to pick the locks once the bystanders cleared. There was a point where I was fiddling around to pretend I knew what I was doing till I heard the titular click and slide of the door. Pride welled up inside me for a second as I opened the door. A mistake that almost cost me my life as Zhi immediately noticed something I didn't.
"Wait!"
Before I could register what she said, I got kicked out of the way of a shotgun blast. Splintered wood, shredded plaster, and shrieks from civilians tore my eardrums. Still, this somehow didn't stop Zhi's orders from coming through.
"Get up! We don't have time."
Every fiber of my being wanted me to curse her out then and there, but I kept quiet and got back up to see we entered an utter madhouse. Lined up next to the door was a set of Rube-Goldberg-like strings latched onto a smoking shotgun raised to the door. Yet what laid on it was somehow scarier.
Lining up several walls were several profile pictures, written with red X"s over them, lined up against other red lines. Though the most disturbing fact was that I recognized some of the pictures, they were previous targets of mine. A detail that sent needles of numbness across my body, and the underlying message repeated across every row of pictures.
"Find the Nexus! Find the Nexus! FIND THE NEXUS!" each sentence would say as a violet octagon symbol styled in the shape of an eye adorned each message.
"What the fuck is this, Zhi?"
My question fell on deaf ears, though, instead looking out the door with a scowl that could shatter stone.
"We have a guest," she said as she looked through the window.
From several rooftops away, I saw a hooded figure in light army-green cargo pants run alongside some binoculars. At the same time, a set of hotel employees started to walk in, piecing together rather quickly that the two grown women surrounded by a smoking shotgun and a serial killer setup looked suspicious.
"Stop right there!"
"I'll hold them off here and meet up with you. You go now, Taotie," Zhi said as she held her hands in surrender.
Some of me wanted to refuse, but then I realized the employees were more dangerous than I was. So, with nothing to lose and everything to gain, I leaped out of the window and dropped to the Luxembourg City rooftops.