Garek froze, air locking hard in his throat as the image of Marnix’s smirking face seared across the screen. Betrayal. Not a perimeter breach, not a random attack, but a calculated, inside job. A venomous sting spread through his chest, colder than the glacial air in the panic room. He hammered a fist against the console, a dull thud against the reinforced steel. “The blind spots, the outdated access codes… he was feeding them intel for months.”
He watched the primary camera feeds, the chaos of the main hall. He saw the shimmering heat haze of a stealth dropship settling onto the aerie terrace, a silent predator descending from the rain-slicked sky. The landing gear retracted with a soft hiss, and a ramp extruded, kissing the polished durasteel. From its shadowed maw stepped a figure. Tall, lean, clad in a tailored obsidian suit that absorbed the neon glow of Neo-Kyros like a black hole. His silver hair, slicked back, caught the light, and a faint scar traced a line from his temple to his jaw.
Corvan Daelus. The name clawed its way out of the darkest abyss of Garek’s memory, dragging with it the suffocating stench of antiseptic and ozone, the searing pain of electrode burns. The figure on the screen was older, his face etched with a colder, sharper intelligence, but the eyes were the same—predatory, devoid of warmth. Garek’s entire body locked, the muscles in his limbs seizing. His vision tunneled, the world narrowing to that one terrifying face. He was back in the lab, strapped down, the hum of the neural siphons a prelude to agony.
In the main hall, Marnix sighed, shifting his grip on the firearm. Velia Morcant whimpered, her face blotchy with tears and mascara streaks. “Oh, do stop the theatrics, dear Velia. It’s quite unbecoming, even for you.” He leaned down, his voice a sibilant whisper. “And the ankle? Really? Such a tiresome ruse.” With a swift, almost casual movement, he hooked his foot under her crutch and kicked it away. It clattered against the marble floor, sliding out of reach. Velia shrieked, collapsing in a heap, her perfectly fine ankle bending with unnatural ease. She scrambled back, pupils blown wide as her back hit the wainscoting.
“But… but you’re the head butler!” Velia stammered, her voice thick with snot and disbelief. “Mister Sintra trusts you implicitly!”
Marnix chuckled, a dry, rustling sound. “Trust. A quaint notion. I’ve been mapping Aegis Manor’s little blind spots for nearly a year. Every forgotten maintenance tunnel, every out-of-sync security drone, every flaw in the ‘impregnable’ smart-estate. The syndicate pays rather well for such detailed blueprints.” He gestured with the suppressed handgun, its polished slide glinting under the chandelier. “Now, if you’ll just remain a useful little hostage, perhaps your rather dull life might be spared.”
Zova, having navigated the service corridors with practiced ease, had reached the kitchen. The sounds of Velia’s pathetic wails and Marnix’s condescending explanations filtered through the thin wall. A glance at the dumbwaiter shaft, barely wide enough for a slender frame, gave her an idea. No time to find a proper route. She checked the interior, noted the grime and lingering scent of stew. “Well, at least I won’t be the only thing dropping unexpectedly.”
She grabbed a heavy-duty cleaning cloth, wrapped it around her hand, and used it to activate the manual override for the dumbwaiter platform. With a grunt, she squeezed into the small shaft, her knees pressed against her chest. The metal groaned as she began to descend, a controlled plummet towards the main hall. She could hear the muffled voices growing louder, Velia’s hysterical pleas a beacon.
“Oh, do hush,” Marnix snapped, his patience wearing thin. “It really makes me wonder why Corvan even bothered with you. A liability, at best.” He leveled the sidearm, aiming it not at Velia’s head, but at her kneecap, a cold smile thinning his lips.
Just as his finger tightened, a blur of motion erupted from the dumbwaiter opening near the kitchen entrance. Zova burst out, a whirlwind of grey uniform and focused intent. She didn’t bother with stealth. With the momentum of her drop, she launched herself directly at Marnix. He barely registered her presence before she was on him, a blur of practiced violence.
Her hand shot out, not for the gun, but for his wrist. A sharp twist, a yelp of pain from Marnix, and the silenced sidearm skittered across the polished floor, stopping inches from Velia’s trembling fingers. Before Marnix could recover, Zova had him in a headlock, her arm a steel band around his throat. He struggled, flailing, but her grip was unyielding. He tried to stomp on her foot, but she anticipated it, shifting her weight with effortless grace.
“Now, now, Marnix,” Zova chirped, her voice surprisingly light given the chokehold she maintained. “No need to get your silk tie in a knot. Though, speaking of knots…” With a swift, fluid motion, she ripped his impeccably tied silk tie from his neck. Marnix gasped for air, his face turning an alarming shade of purple. Zova spun him around, leveraging his own momentum, and efficiently hogtied him, using the expensive fabric to secure his wrists and ankles together. She even added a neat little bow for good measure.
He landed on the floor with a pathetic thud, grunting, his face pressed against the cold marble. Zova patted his shoulder. “There, much better. Now you look less like a double agent and more like a very confused present.”
Velia stared, her mouth agape, from the hogtied butler to Zova, then back again. Her sobs had ceased, replaced by a stunned silence. “You… you tied him up with his own tie?” she whispered, a strange blend of awe and horror in her voice.
Zova grinned, wiping a smudge of dust from her cheek. “Well, it was already tied. Seemed a shame to waste the effort.” She then turned toward the dropped weapon on the tiles. Before she could pick it up, a guttural crackle erupted from a fallen mercenary’s comm unit, abandoned near a shattered archway. The sound echoed through the main hall, momentarily silencing the distant gunfire.
“Wraith.” The voice was calm, resonant, and utterly chilling. It emanated from the comm unit, broadcasting directly into the house frequency. In the panic room, Garek watched the monitor, chill needle-pricks prickling down his arms. It was Corvan Daelus. “It’s been too long, my dear. I see your instincts are as sharp as ever. It’s time to come home.”
Zova froze, the smile slowly draining from her face, leaving behind a hollow, distant expression. The name, ‘Wraith,’ vibrated in the air, stirring a deep, terrifying tremor in the forgotten corners of her mind.