THE LAST GUARDIAN OF GREYFENWOOD

SERIES 1: THE ECHOES OF THE PAST Chapter 1: Champagne and Napalm

"You know the rules of the game, Mr. O'Connell... If my father saw your reflection on this terrace, he wouldn't call the police. He'd call the butcher."

The voice was soft, but carried a stifling heaviness. Katya Volkov, the only daughter of the head of the Eastern European Bratva syndicate, twirled a flute glass containing Dom Pérignon in her right hand. Her long legs, clad in a maroon silk dress with an extreme thigh slit, were placed casually on Finnian's lap.

Finnian smiled, a smile that had been practiced a million times in front of the mirror. He was wearing a pitch black tuxedo, his bow tie long untied and hanging loosely from the collar of his shirt with the top two buttons undone. Dubai at night shimmered behind them, a neon canvas that cared nothing for the sins of humanity in this 80th floor Penthouse.

"Butcher?" Finnian leaned in, his fingers tracing the line of Katya's jaw, descending slowly to her long neck, making the woman hold her breath. "What a coincidence. I always like rare steak."

Katya chuckled, a moan escaped her lips when Finnian's hand slipped under the slit of her dress. "You're an arrogant bastard, Finn. That's why I let you in."

"Not because of my beautiful eyes?"

"Because you're the only man who dares to look at me without shaking." Katya tugged at Finnian's tie, forcing him closer until their breath mixed with the smell of expensive alcohol and pheromone perfume. "Kiss me. Make me forget my name before the guard outside realizes you've turned off the CCTV."

Finnian looked into the woman's eyes. There was lust there, but also the sad loneliness of a criminal's daughter.

"Okay, Katya," Finnian whispered, his voice heavy, hoarse, and full of dominance. "Close your eyes."

Katya complied. His lips parted slightly, waiting.

However, there was no kiss.

In one movement too fast for the human eye to catch, Finnian's hand on the back of Katya's neck changed from a lover's caress to a grip of steel.

CRACK.

The voice was dry and final. No screaming. No resistance. Katya's body twitched for a moment, then fell limp like a doll whose strings had been cut. The champagne glass slipped from his hand, falling in slow motion towards the marble floor.

Finnian caught the glass before it shattered. There must be no sound.

He placed the glass carefully on the glass table, then laid Katya's body on the velvet sofa as if the woman had just fallen asleep drunk. He smoothed the woman's blonde hair with unnerving tenderness.

"Sorry, cutie," Finnian muttered dryly, all his lust evaporating instantly, replaced by a predatory emptiness. "Your father is in arrears with my client. And in his world... your life is his currency."

Finnian stepped towards the balcony, the night wind slapping his face. He touched the earpiece in his ear.

"Target neutralized. Send payment."

The sparkling world of Dubai spun, faded, then shattered into total darkness.

*

BOOM!

Finnian jolted awake, thrown from his bed to hit the rough wooden floor.

His breath was ragged. Cold sweat drenched his bare back. The smell of Katya's expensive perfume and Dubai's cold air conditioning was gone, replaced by the smell of wet earth, resin, and something burning—the sharp smell of sulfur.

Not a dream. This is real.

"Damn it!" he cursed as he rolled over, grabbing the Bowie knife he always tucked under his pillow.

His old wooden hut in the middle of the Greyfenwood forest shook violently. Dust fell from the ceiling. The tin coffee cup on the table shifted itself until it fell to the floor. This is not an earthquake. Finnian knew the tremors of an earthquake; this is an impact vibration. Something heavy was hitting the earth over and over again.

He crawled quickly towards the window, peering through the gaps in the boards.

"Oh my God..."

Nights in Greyfenwood were usually peaceful, lit only by the pale moon. But tonight, the sky is torn. Dozens of fireballs shot down from the stratosphere, tearing through the ancient forest canopy like falling meteors. Fiery orange light illuminated the forest, creating long shadows that danced crazily.

One Drop Pod hit the ground less than two hundred meters from his hut. The shockwave threw Finnian backwards. The sound of a hydraulic engine hissed loudly as the pod's door opened, spewing hot steam into the cold night air.

This wasn't a meteor. It's an invasion.

"They found me," Finnian hissed to himself. He stood up, grabbing his cargo pants that were lying on the floor, jumping into them in a matter of seconds without bothering to look for clothes. "Five years I've been a ghost, and they can still smell me? Damn it!"

Finnian ran to his secret weapons cabinet under the floor, pulling the hidden lever. Empty. He cursed. He forgot he sold most of his guns last week to buy a new generator.

"Good job, Finn. Very smart," he scolded himself, grabbing his compound bow and a handful of remaining explosive arrows. "A world-class assassin, died because he ran out of bullets in a forest in the middle of nowhere. How poetic."

WUUUNG...

That voice. Finnian froze. His trained ears recognized the voice. It was the sound of a death whistle. The sound of a Hellfire tactical missile locking onto a target.

"Get out! Now!"

Her instinct took over. He didn't think. He ran.

Finnian kicked the back door of his hut until it came off its hinges. The cold forest air immediately prickled his bare skin, but the adrenaline numbed him. He ran through the thorny undergrowth, his feet pounding the muddy ground with animal speed.

Squeak... BOOM!

The explosion didn't sound like a sound, but rather like air pressure bursting his eardrums.

A wave of heat hit Finnian's back, throwing him forward like a dry leaf in a storm. His wooden hut—his hiding place for five years, the only place he felt "human"—exploded into a giant fireball. Splinters of burning wood splattered into deadly projectiles.

"Argh!" Finnian groaned as hot wood splinters scratched his shoulders.

He rolled on the ground, got up again, and continued running. The surrounding forest was in chaos. Giant trees fell, burned by chemical napalm carried by enemy missiles. Birds took flight in blind panic.

Above him, a VTOL (Vertical TakeOff and Landing) fighter with a sleek black design hovered low above the burning trees. His spotlight swept across the ground, looking for signs of life—looking for bodies.

Finnian hid behind the roots of a giant banyan tree, his chest rising and falling violently. His eyes narrowed, focusing on the emblem painted on the fighter plane's hull. The emblem of a mechanical wolf with iron fangs dripping with blood.

Finnian's heart stopped beating for a moment.

"Impossible..." he whispered, his voice shaking not from fear, but from pure anger. "Iron Fang? I thought I'd killed all of you in Berlin."

The megaphone voice of the plane echoed, cutting through the chaos of the jungle, a cold, distorted mechanical voice:

"ATTENTION, SUBJECT OMEGA. SURRENDER IS THE LOGICAL OPTION. YOUR LOCATION IS ALREADY LOCKED. THIS ZONE WILL BE LEVELED IN THIRTY SECONDS."

"To hell with logical options," spat Finnian.

He looked ahead. Canyon. Below there is a fast river with a waterfall fifty meters high. That's the only way out. Jump and maybe die on impact, or stay here and definitely die in ashes.

The plane's searchlights are aimed right at him.

"THERE! BEHIND THE ROOTS!" the pilot's screams were heard over the external intercom. The machine gun gatling under the nose of the plane began to spin.

Finnian grinned wildly, an expression he hadn't shown in five years. The same devilish grin he wore when he broke Katya's neck in Dubai. The monster is awake.

"If you want me," Finnian shouted at the burning sky, pointing his middle finger at the fighter plane. "Come and take it to hell!"

The machine gun muzzle flashed. *BRRRRTTT!*

The ground around Finnian exploded into dust.

But Finnian was no longer there. He sprinted towards the edge of the cliff, pushed off the ground with all the strength of his leg muscles, and leapt into the empty darkness above the waterfall.

As his body floated through the air, free-falling towards the black water below, the only thing he thought about was not death. But who will he kill first when he crawls up later.

***