The blood slid down her fist, pooling in the old man’s collar. She watched it with distant fascination, her hand still twisting the knife.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
For three sisters. For her mother long dead, an aunt long driven mad, and her master and mentor Lady Lore. For she held more secrets than an ancient tome. She held their combined revenge and studied it, pouring their knowledge and skill into the cup their tormenter gave them. The assassin who held the blade.
Anele stepped back, leaving the knife in his neck as she wiped her fingers on his stark white shirt. There were no smile-lines. His face was a mask, smoothed of winkles so he looked alien. His slack jaw was open in surprise. There had been no monologue. No demand for apology or reparations.
No speech would soothe the massacre of Anele’s family. The rape that filled the air with screams as the sisters were found. No number of words would fill the pit that drowned so many. The Morton Family had been sacked and burnt, leaving all but the three girls to perish in the flames. They were the Helens of Troy, whispered about in the silent halls of the Fraser mansion.
Anele stalked out of the bunker, walking past the slain bodyguards in the corner. They leaned against each other like drunken men, their blank eyes bloodshot from lack of sleep, fear and pain.
Anele blinked, turning to slide out of the way as a bullet flew by her head. She knelt, smoothly, moving behind a pillar of the white walled corridor. She was five levels below sea level. No one was dumb enough to blow a hole through the walls.
“BITCH.” Someone screeched, shooting at her pillar. Amused, she slowly stood and flicked on her goggles. A man then, considering the body heat. An angry, scared one.
“Do you know who I am?” She asked him through the pillar, palming a smoke bomb.
“You killed my grandfather!” He yelled, wildly firing.
“How would you know that?” She asked curiously. It had been less than five minutes since she’d left the corpse. Fast work.
“His vitals are monitored, of course we knew something was wrong when it flatlined.”
“Here I thought he was too paranoid for cameras in his private chambers.”
“He didn’t know.”
She threw the smoke bomb, watching it spiral and blow up her cover. He began firing haphazardly, fear making his breathing labored. She skidded across the floor, moving like a large spider to his position and climbed to her feet behind him.
“Interesting,” she murmured in his ear, quickly subduing him in the grey fog. He stopped fighting her, letting her pin him to the floor as she threw his gun towards the dead security.
“He was a bad man.” She told him simply, looking around with a calculated eye. No cameras were in Wonderland. But this breathing problem made her time infinitely shorter.
“He gave to charity. He built hospitals. He went to church and formed a child protection task force.”
“Ironic.” She breathed.
“You are blinded.”
She grinned, finished tying his hands and swirling around to face him. “Why would a good man need a bunker deep in the Australian outback to keep him safe? Why would he have connections to every criminal organization known to FDA? Why would every case made against him dissipate into thin air?”
She made a snapshot decision, already hearing the lecture her master was going to give her. If she made it out.
She realized she didn’t mind if she didn’t. Her life mission was done. She could still feel the warmth from that man’s blood on her hands. It fueled her. Child murderer and rapist deserved no final words. What could he say that wouldn’t spit poison in the well?
“C’mon,” she said, dragging him to his feet. His eyes widened as she marched him through the room, struggling to catch his feet under her steely grip.
“You’re a girl!”
Anele eyed him, amazed that such a… normal person could be five levels underground in a secret shelter owned by a billionaire.
“We’re taking the stairs.”
“Why?”
She opened the door to the emergency stairway, shoving him in front of her. “Exercise and education. You’re in PE with a sprinkle of anthrophony.”
Level 4 held documents after documents. A library of works of his evil deeds and corporations. She picked one at random on their way through, thumbing to a random page and began reading as they walked.
“Subject 34 was easily trainable when we threatened to expose evidence of her deeds within Level 4. She will tip off Judge Claudous to overturn the Graham Case, and any evidence pertaining to that.”
“… the Graham case was the massacre in St Joesph’s children’s hospital.” He whispered.
She put a photo on his shoulder, and he took it, quickly turning green.
“He was a corporate mass murderer.” Anele shrugged, taking back the photo and placing it on a nearby table. She left it picture up, showing the old man smiling next to a dead woman, lording over her as a hunter over his kill.
They entered the next stairway, the grandson unable to look back.
Level 3 was art. Breathtaking works of art that stretched as far as the eye could see. They looked around with open awe, threading through priceless statues and masterpieces.
“This isn’t so bad,” he said, needing a nudge in the back to continue walking.
“Just wait.” She murmured, undoing his hands, “despite the fact most of this art is stolen or killed for. On the surface, it’s a beautiful, bloody collection.”
The next corner had him vomiting under a canvas. Body parts of women were scattered across tabletops in airlocked containers. Each had a detailed description of why and how she had been added to the collection. He went to open one of the folios on a table next to a skull and Anele slammed it shut, silently shaking her head.
He continued to walk, looking at the floor.
“How didn’t you know?” she asked, morbidly curious, “you travel to a secret compound in the middle of the desert, and you never thought to see the over levels?”
“I came to see my grandfather,” he said, devoid of emotion, “which was the bottom floor. What interest do I have in bookkeeping?”
They entered the stairway, Anele stopping him from taking a step up the stairs.
“This next one…” she grimaced, “this is why I brought you. I cannot save them. I cannot help them but for a bullet. You must face the world with the old man’s deeds. You must break this curse and provide closure.”
His face turned deathly pale, looking at her with absolute terror. “Who… who is them?”
She gestured ahead of them and robotically he turned, taking each step carefully should he tumble backwards.
Level 2 held cells. So many rooms that echoed with cries of fear, pain and anger. No person walked the hallway, only robots on wheels that carried out their purposes silently. Food was given, water was sprayed through an opening in the doorway.
“Who are in the cells, assassin?” he asked her, now beside rather than before her.
“I have not looked,” she admitted, gripping his hand to keep him moving. “But some have been here a long time. I waited on this floor for two weeks until I learnt the routines of Wonderland. The screams are loud.”
“Is that this place’s name? I just knew it as the underground storage bunker.”
“That is it’s nickname. I am Alice. No wifi can pierce the rock around us. It is a completely self-contained tower.”
“Who built it?”
“People long dead.”
“How did you know of it?”
“My mother escaped it, along with her two sisters. She was pregnant with me at the time.”
“And you came back.” It wasn’t a question. It was a gentle acknowledgement of her courage.
“We made him fear so badly he returned to the one place no one knew of. No one could find by satellite or drone.” Anele smiled ferociously, a toothy grin so threatening he let go of her hand. “But we knew. He is no Egyptian king. But he made his own tomb.”
They made it to the last staircase. It held no emergency exit sign. No one living here was deemed worthy of leaving.
He looked back at the moaning hall, his colour slowly returning. Purpose filled him.
“He was a bad man.” He said, echoing her words down below. “But… I am glad I was here for you to show me how bad he truly was.”
“Will you help them?”
He nodded slowly as they climbed towards the natural light.
Together they stood by the entrance.
“Goodbye grandfather.” He said, coming to his own decision. “May you rot for eternity.”
“Goodbye father.” Anele echoed, ignoring the painful surprise on his face, “I am named Anele for we have had enough.”
ns 15.158.61.10da2
