The Valkyrie Project by Nels Wadycki Read Free Book Online

she deflected wild blows that came from her sides. Her forearms parried him over and over until she could grab one of his wrists, pin it to the ground, and use some torque on it to roll him to his stomach.
    "I don't really care to hurt you," she said, very close to his ear. He jerked his head back trying to hit her, but she pulled back and drove her knee further into his lower back. "Easy there. I just want some information, buddy. You can do that, right?"
    He probably would have given her a defiant prisoner spit-in-the-face if he could have. Instead, he just huffed and squirmed.
    "I'll get right to the point. The black van outside, where did they go?"
    "I don't know about any black van outside."
    Ana pulled his arm tighter behind his back, the leather around his arm creaking like the door to a warehouse that had actually been abandoned. The guard winced and tried to buck her off. Ana laughed quietly at the effort. She'd been on top of broncos a lot stronger and rowdier than this one.
    Ana heard a similar scuffle on the other side of the warehouse. Good. Both guards down.
    She called out, "Ana, check."
    The guard squirmed again, and Marisol was there before Ana could begin a real interrogation.
    "Anything yet?"
    "Come on, I just got him down. And I don't think he's going to be very cooperative. Are you , buddy?"
    The guard gave his stand-in-for-spit-in-the-face huff again. Then he growled as he tried to wriggle away.
    Marisol grabbed the hair on the back of his head and pulled back. Ana was sure it hurt, but she could also tell Marisol was being gentle.
    "Who was in the black van outside, and where did they do?"
    "I already told your bitch I don't know about any fucking black van."
    "Whoa there. Let's watch our language around the ladies."
    This time the guard did spit, but it landed short of where Marisol knelt in front of him.
    "Look, we're not going to kill you or anything. But the people in the van kidnapped someone, and we need to know where that someone is."
    Before he could spit or swear again, there was a whistling sound and the guard's head exploded, spraying Ana and Marisol with blood and brains. His body went limp as Ana sprang up, her gun searching for the source of the interruption.
    Marisol called across the warehouse, "Justin, protect him!"
    It was too late. Barely audible over the ringing of Marisol's voice, Ana heard the soft whine of another shot followed by Justin, much louder. "Dammit! What the—?"
    The body of the insolent guard Ana had pinned was now gone from the shoulders up and rapidly disappearing. Green liquid bubbled, eating up armor, flesh, and bone. Gas hissed from the liquid, penetrating Ana's nostrils. She reeled back as more of the acrid vapor leapt from the liquid that consumed the guard's corpse.
    Ana struggled to look around for the assassin, but her eyes were welling up from the acid's byproduct.
    "There!" she heard Marisol yell. Shots fired. At least one of them could see.
    Then a male voice rang out. "Infinite Army!" It wasn't Justin.
    Ana wiped the tears away just in time to see the man on the catwalk's head explode with the same green gel that had now more than half-consumed the guard on the floor. His hand held a gun, pointed at the place where his head had been a moment before. Then his shoulders were gone and his arms fell, still locked at the elbows from ho lding the gun to his head.
    Ana moved away from the disintegrating guard on the floor, trying to get beyond the tear-producing range of whatever was now destroying two—probably all three—of the people they'd encountered in the warehouse.
    "What the hell was that?" Ana’s question was basically rhetorical, but directed at Marisol. Then, "Justin! Status!"
    The familiar voice called back, "Well, I've got a guard turning into a pool of green acid, and the shooter just blew himself away with the same gun!"
    "Well," Ana said to Marisol, " no one to question, but at least we've got the place to ourselves."
    Marisol raised a single