The wind howled at the top of the old insurance building, three blocks away from the cemetery. Henry, Kol, Mika, and Tara crouched behind a ventilation wall, scouting the panorama through binoculars and scopes.

  Below, the city was a labyrinth of dead asphalt. But ahead, the cemetery stood out like an open wound: the glow of the Crusaders' bonfires created an orange dome over the white marble of the Mausoleum.

  “Look at the size of that place,” Tara whispered, adjusting the heavy strap of her vault-door shield. “They aren’t just guarding seeds. That’s a fortress.”

  Henry lowered his binoculars and looked at his team. He needed everyone to exploit their specialties so they wouldn’t be swarmed on the ground.

  “We can’t cross the road. If we go down now, Vincent’s scouts will catch us in the open,” Henry decreed. “We split up and converge at the cemetery’s north gate.”

  The Infiltration Plan

  Mika (Acrobatic Route): “Mika, you take the power grid and the billboards.” Henry pointed to the steel wires still linking the smaller buildings. “Your dismantled Naginata is light. Use your agility to clear the lookouts in the crow’s nests.” Mika simply nodded, breaking her spear into two batons and snapping them to her back. She leapt onto the parapet and, with the lightness of a specter, began sprinting across the dead high-voltage wires.

  Kol (Shadow Route): “Kol, you go down through the vent ducts of the annex parking lot and follow the maintenance catwalks.” Henry looked at the Ukrainian. “If you hit resistance in tight quarters, you know what to do.” Kol Valet patted the handle of his fire axe, his eyes gleaming with a dark intensity. Without a word, he slid into the darkness of a metallic duct, moving with the silence of a trench survivor.

  Tara and Henry (Impact Route): “Tara, you’re with me across the roof of the neighboring cathedral. If we need a fast exit, your shield is going to be our door in—and our door out.”

  Movement Across the Rooftops

  The crossing began. Henry and Tara leapt from building to building. At one point, a Crusader guard in an elevated watchtower spotted a silhouette. Before he could raise his horn to alert Vincent’s army, a shadow fell upon him.

  It was Mika. She appeared out of nowhere, leaping from a shoe advertisement billboard. In one fluid motion, she used her carbon batons to deliver a double strike to the guard’s temples. The man collapsed silently. She looked at Henry and gave a "thumbs up" with grease-stained fingers.

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  On the other side, Kol found two Crusaders on a metal catwalk. The Ukrainian didn't hesitate. He used the saw blade of his axe to hook the neck of one, dragging him into the shadows. The second was silenced with a blunt strike from the back of the axe, straight to the nape.

  Henry and Tara reached the final edge. The jump was long, but for a Heretic, it was all in a day's work.

  “Piro, we’re on the edge,” Henry whispered into the radio. “What’s the view from there?”

  “I see you, Blue,” Piro’s voice crackled over the sound of snapping flames. “The cemetery is quiet... too quiet. But there’s a group of ten guys patrolling near the Mausoleum. If you jump now, you’re landing right in their laps.”

  Henry looked at Tara. She smirked, adjusting her spiked shield. “I love a warm welcome, Henry.”

  The night air was cut by the sound of boots hitting gravel. Henry landed with predatory precision in the center of the circle of ten guards. The light from the tire fires danced on their wooden masks as the cultists, caught off guard, reached for their scrap-metal weapons.

  “Piro, hold position. Just watch,” Henry ordered. “If anyone tries to run for reinforcements, you know what to do.”

  The Synchronized Dance

  The ten Crusaders charged. Henry and Mika stood back-to-back, forming a 360-degree axis of death.

  Mika was a whirlwind of carbon fiber. With her batons, she parried a sledgehammer blow and, in the same motion, delivered a serrated thrust into an attacker's stomach. Henry, behind her, was pure impact. A Crusader tried to grab him, but Henry delivered a straight punch to the sternum, his brass knuckles shattering bone with a dry snap.

  They were a single organism. In seconds, the circle was reduced to four men, who began to retreat as fear finally overcame the effects of the PCP.

  Volkovich’s Gift

  As reinforcements began to cluster, Kol Valet moved through the shadows of the side crypts. He pulled out three amber glass bottles—a "gift" from the Machinist.

  “Courtesy of the Travelers...” Kol whispered with his heavy accent.

  He struck a match and lit the kerosene wick. With a powerful heave, he threw the first Molotov cocktail. The bottle shattered, creating a wall of blue and orange fire.

  “AARGH! THE FIRE!” the cultists' screams tore through the night.

  The Confrontation with The Gravedigger

  The bronze doors of the Mausoleum burst open. What emerged was not a common man.

  He was nearly seven feet tall, clad in grotesque armor made of riveted iron plates and cemetery chains. The Gravedigger, Vincent’s personal executioner, dragged a heavy flail—a wrecking ball spiked with steel shards.

  “You profane sacred ground!” his voice boomed inside his iron helm.

  Tara Gearheart stepped forward, slamming her fist against her vault-door shield. “Sacred is what I’m gonna do to your face, tin-man!”

  The Gravedigger swung. The impact would have pulverized anyone else, but Tara dug her boots into the marble. Kol Valet didn't waste time; he slid under the giant’s arm, using his axe to find the exposed joints in the monster’s leg armor.

  The Siege

  The courtyard became an angry hornet's nest. Forty men armed with machetes and torches converged.

  “Mika! Back to the door! Nobody in, nobody out!” Henry yelled.

  Mika rejoined her Naginata. She was a redemoinho of horizontal slashes, while Henry met anyone who broke through with bone-crushing punches. They fought amidst a rain of ashes.

  The Charge’s End

  Inside, the Gravedigger fell to his knees as Kol severed his Achilles tendon. Tara finished him, slamming the edge of her shield into his helm, crushing steel against skull.

  The four Heretics grouped up, protecting the seeds and fertilizer, when the sea of cultists parted. At the main gate stood the terrifying figure of Vincent Malakor. Bare-chested, covered in ritual scars and a necklace of pistol magazines.

  He pointed his black-bladed machete at Henry’s blue mask.

  “Now it’s between you and me, demon!” Vincent screamed. “You think the blue can wash away the red of our baptism? I will paint you with divine blood! I will paint you with ashes!”

  Henry stepped forward, the fire reflecting in his brass knuckles.

  End of Chapter