Chapter 78 - Shadows in the Black Forest
The vault plunged into pitch-black chaos.
Emergency sirens shrieked from the ventilation shafts, their rhythmic wails accompanied by the stuttering flash of blood-red auxiliary strobe lights.
“Fire! Fire on the perimeter!” an operative shouted in German, the sound of boots scraping desperately across the shattered glass.
“Mommy’s got you!” I roared, snatching Leo into my arms, ducking low beneath the massive obsidian table just as Maximilian’s pearl-handled pistol barked in the darkness.
The bullet ricocheted off the granite tabletop with a deafening *PING*, spraying stone fragments into the air.
“Kill her!” Maximilian’s voice was no longer aristocratic; it was the rabid, hysterical shriek of an old man whose empire was crumbling around his ears. “Do not let that child leave this vault! Lock down the blast doors! Kill them both!”
*CLANG!*
The pneumatic clamps on the six-foot-thick circular vault door began to hiss, the massive steel gear assembly groaning as it started to rotate shut. If that door sealed, we would be buried alive in a concrete tomb without power, air, or hope.
I sprinted toward the narrowing gap of the doorway, carrying Leo against my chest like a football.
A guard emerged from the strobe-lit haze, raising his submachine gun. “Halt—”
Before he could pull the trigger, the entire reinforced concrete ceiling above the outer ramp exploded inward with a deafening, seismic roar!
Concrete chunks the size of automobiles crashed into the corridor. A blinding cloud of white plaster and pulverized mortar filled the air, and through the raining debris fell a figure clad in shredded black tactical gear, covered in snow, dust, and dark arterial blood.
Dante.
He landed on the shattered stone floor in a low crouch, a heavy tactical shotgun in his hands.
“Dante!” I screamed.
He didn't speak. He didn't have time.
The shotgun roared—a thunderous, deafening report that blew the guard in front of me five yards backward into the wall. Dante pumped the slide with fluid, terrifying efficiency, turning toward the interior of the vault.
Maximilian stood behind the obsidian desk, his face bathed in the blood-red strobe light, his pistol trembling in his hand.
“You...” Maximilian gasped, clutching his chest, his medical telemetry device smoking and dead on the floor. “You survived the frequency...”
Dante walked through the narrowing vault door, his boots crushing the shattered glass beneath his feet. His left hand held a heavy combat compress against his collarbone, soaked through with blood, but his eyes were wide, clear, and cold as the Arctic sea.
“The frequency was for a dog,” Dante said, his voice a gravelly, guttural rasp that chilled the room to absolute zero. “You should have remembered what you raised me to be, Maximilian.”
Dante raised the barrel of the shotgun, leveling it squarely at the center of the Founder’s chest.
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“Dante, wait!” I yelled, reaching out, my hand catching his rigid arm. “The key! If you kill him now, the trust locks Leo’s name into the international registry forever! We need his override code!”
***
