Orion Locke crossed the room in two long strides and reached the sealed stairwell before the Collector could escape.
He drove a fist into the steel-plated door hard enough to distort the frame, then hooked his fingers around the loosened edge and tore it open with brute force.
Elena’s eyes had opened slightly, although she was still barely conscious, so Orion carefully pushed her through the doorway and away from the gasoline-filled room.
At the same moment, he pivoted and drove a side kick directly into the Collector’s abdomen.
Boom!
The Collector’s heavy body flew backward and slammed violently against the steel-covered wall, causing the blood leaking from his severed shoulder to burst outward like water squeezed from a soaked sponge.
Orion shut the damaged stairwell door again, leaving Elena safely outside, then turned toward the masked killer with a thoughtful expression.
“What exactly are you?” Orion had originally believed the Collector was another Level 2 life form because two rifle rounds to the head had failed to stop him.
After physically overpowering him, however, Orion had discovered that the man’s strength and durability were nowhere near his own; beneath whatever was keeping him alive, the Collector’s body felt only somewhat stronger than an ordinary human’s.
That contradiction immediately made Orion suspicious of something else.
“Is it the mask?” His gaze settled on the Collector’s strange dark leather hood.
Orion distinctly remembered hitting the man in the face, yet the material showed no bullet holes, tears, or blood despite red streams now running from beneath it.
Considering that Orion had already ripped off one arm, crushed part of the man’s chest, and kicked him hard enough to rupture internal organs, the fact that he remained conscious was becoming increasingly unnatural.
The Collector was already close to death by any normal medical standard.
Most of his ribs had been fractured, his right shoulder and part of his chest were missing, several organs had almost certainly ruptured, and enough blood covered the floor that an ordinary man should already have lost consciousness.
Yet the masked killer remained alive and continued trying to move, strengthening Orion’s suspicion that the strange hood was somehow responsible.
Orion crouched and grabbed the mask.
“Hm?” He pulled upward, expecting it to slide free, but the material seemed almost fused to the Collector’s face.
Orion increased the force until he actually lifted the wounded man partly from the floor, yet the mask still refused to separate.
The discovery only made his curiosity stronger.
Orion frowned and changed his grip.
Crack!
With one violent twist, the Collector’s neck broke and his head separated from his body.
So much blood had already been lost that surprisingly little flowed from the severed neck, while the blue glow behind the killer’s eyes disappeared the instant his head came free.
His pupils returned to normal at almost the same moment, and the formerly immovable mask suddenly loosened beneath Orion’s fingers.
This time, Orion removed it effortlessly.
The face revealed underneath was almost disappointingly ordinary.
The Collector looked like an unremarkable middle-aged man who could walk through a grocery store without attracting a second glance, and there was even something vaguely mild about his features.
Nothing about that face suggested a serial killer who had constructed elaborate death traps, mutilated hundreds of victims, and transformed Hotel Argento into a private museum of human suffering.
Orion stared for another moment before the Black Book reacted.
Special Energy had appeared.
“As expected.” A faint smile touched Orion’s lips.
Whatever secret had kept the Collector alive, the Black Book unquestionably recognized something abnormal about him, meaning Orion hadn’t wasted his time coming here.
He slipped the strange leather mask into his pocket, deciding to examine it more carefully later rather than leaving something potentially supernatural behind.
Orion retrieved the Collector’s lighter from the floor and flicked it open.
He tossed the flame onto the gasoline-soaked corpse, and fire immediately raced across the body before spreading into the fuel covering the surrounding floor.
From killing the Collector to removing the mask and starting the fire, barely three minutes had passed.
When Orion emerged into the corridor carrying Elena in his right arm and the Collector’s severed head in his left hand, John and Kisch had only just finished dealing with the remaining spiders.
Both men were covered in bites and scratches, and they were hurriedly injecting themselves with the broad-spectrum antitoxin carried in their medical kits.
Even so, John visibly relaxed the instant he saw Elena.
“Orion!
Hell of a job.” John checked the unconscious young woman before looking at the severed head.
“Target recovered, hostile confirmed dead.
We’re done here—everyone pulls out.” No one argued.
They regrouped with Arkin and the badly injured Lucello before beginning their retreat through the hotel.
Arkin helped support Lucello as best he could while the Bison team covered their movement, and by the time they reached the vehicles, thick smoke had already begun pouring from the upper floors.
Moments later, a violent explosion ripped through the sixth floor, and flames quickly spread through Hotel Argento, consuming the Collector’s horrific collection along with his labyrinth of traps.
Several hours later, the surviving Bison members had returned to the second floor of the Buffalo Bar.
Sander sat behind Kisch with alcohol wipes and medical supplies, cleaning dozens of cuts while the heavy-weapons specialist clenched his teeth and repeatedly flinched.
Both Kisch and John looked slightly ill, with faint bluish discoloration around their lips from the spider venom still circulating through their bodies.
“Bull, would you stop whining?” Sander snapped when Kisch jerked away again.
“My granddaughter handles scraped knees better than you.” “You know I hate pain,” Kisch complained without the slightest embarrassment.
He looked like a man who could walk through machine-gun fire without blinking, yet his nervous system seemed unusually sensitive, making even injections miserable.
Ironically, that weakness had helped forge his legendary tolerance for discomfort because military training had forced him to function through sensations that felt far worse to him than to most people.
Talia approached wearing gloves and carrying two freshly prepared syringes.
Without wasting time warning either man, she injected one dose into John and the other into Kisch near the upper hip.
Kisch immediately cursed while John merely grimaced.
“There.” Talia watched them closely for a moment.
“That should neutralize what’s left of the venom.
You were lucky you used the emergency antitoxin quickly; otherwise the systemic effects could have become much worse.” Orion looked toward her with genuine surprise.
“You made a specific antivenom that fast?” Talia disposed of the used syringes and nodded.
Before she could explain, John laughed and rubbed the injection site.
“Black Snake isn’t just our sniper.
She has a master’s degree in pharmacology from Duke.” That was new information even to Orion.
John’s team was beginning to look considerably more capable than the small-town mercenary group he had first imagined, and Talia’s knowledge explained why their medical supplies had been so unusually comprehensive.
This mission had also demonstrated just how much the team benefited from having people with specialties beyond shooting.
“I picked up most of the practical side while I was still serving,” Talia said calmly.
“Education gives you the theory.
Combat teaches you which parts actually keep you alive.” Orion nodded in understanding.
Talia had spent much of her military career operating as a sniper, sometimes isolated far from friendly support, so knowing how to identify toxins, prepare emergency treatments, and use drugs effectively could mean the difference between surviving and dying alone.
For someone working behind enemy lines, pharmacology could become a weapon as easily as a medical skill.
John leaned back in his chair and exhaled with relief.
The Collector had been far more dangerous than expected, and without Orion, the mission almost certainly would have ended with the Bison team dead somewhere inside Hotel Argento.
Bringing Orion into the group now seemed like one of the best decisions John had made since leaving the Navy.
At the same time, across Monroe, several black SUVs rushed into the private entrance of an upscale hospital.
A slightly overweight middle-aged man with a noticeable limp stepped out surrounded by bodyguards and hurried through the building with none of the calm normally associated with a billionaire businessman.
Mr.
Peters had spent the previous several hours waiting for news about his daughter, and wealth had done nothing to make that waiting easier.
“Elena!” The moment he entered Lucello’s private room, he saw his daughter sitting beside the bed peeling an apple for the injured man.
Mr.
Peters stopped for half a second as relief washed over his face, then Elena looked up and immediately abandoned everything in her hands.
She rushed across the room and threw herself into her father’s arms.
“Dad!” Elena began crying almost immediately.
Barely more than a day had passed since she had been abducted, but for a young woman fresh out of college, those hours inside the Collector’s hotel had felt endless.
Mr.
Peters wrapped both arms tightly around her, his expression finally softening after spending the entire night imagining every possible way he might lose his only daughter.
After calming Elena, he walked toward Lucello’s bed.
“How bad is it?” “I’m fine, sir,” Lucello answered, despite both feet being heavily bandaged and elevated.
“It looks worse than it is.
Give me some time and I’ll recover.” Mr.
Peters knew he was minimizing the injuries, but he also knew why.
Lucello had worked beside him for more than twenty years and was closer to family than an ordinary employee, which was exactly why the man had personally entered Hotel Argento instead of simply sending hired guns.
The fact that both Lucello and Elena had survived was enough for Peters to overlook almost anything else tonight.
“It was Orion,” Elena suddenly said.
Her father looked toward her.
“If Orion hadn’t been there, Uncle Lucello and I probably wouldn’t have made it home.” Elena’s exhausted expression noticeably brightened as she spoke his name, and she quickly began describing how Orion had saved her in the hotel after already protecting her during the incident in the mountains.
The admiration in her voice was impossible to miss.
Mr.
Peters stared at his daughter for several seconds.
Then the corner of his mouth twitched.
He had only just gotten his precious daughter back.
Yet somehow, he already had the uncomfortable feeling that another man might be preparing to take her away.
(End of Chapter) 500 = +1 Chapter] [Review Goal: 10 = +1 Chapter]