The Ghost Consigliere

CHAPTER 21: A Spy in the Dead Station

Acid rain fell in a fine drizzle, forming shallow puddles that reflected the dim yellow glow of half-dead streetlights.

The Steam Rail Station of Sector Two stood like the rotting skeleton of a giant whale in the middle of the city. Its glass roof had long since shattered. The steel tracks were rusted, buried beneath thorny weeds and heaps of derelict train cars that no longer had wheels. This place was the graveyard of Saint-Bastian’s past transportation system, far from the eyes of the law.

Across the street, exactly ninety meters from the station’s pitch-black entrance, Elias’s armored van sat in silence. The engine was off. The headlights were dark. It blended seamlessly into the shadow of the old factory building beside it.

Inside the van, Elias leaned back in his new wheelchair. The ventilator on its back hissed softly, feeding him oxygen. His eyes were closed. The Ghost Rot veins along his neck and left eye pulsed slowly, priming themselves to fire.

"I’ve deployed the drone, El," Sloane whispered from the driver’s seat, her eyes fixed on a small monitor mounted on the dashboard.

A palm-sized drone, coated in matte black, floated soundlessly through the station’s broken roof. Its infrared camera streamed live footage to Sloane’s screen, slicing through the darkness inside.

"Movement on the main platform," Sloane reported, her thumb adjusting the control stick. "One target. Skinny guy, oversized jacket. No firearm. Nervous as hell. Keeps pacing, kicking gravel."

"That’s Ren," Elias said quietly, rolling his neck to loosen the muscles. "The informant got here before the detective."

Sloane glanced back at him. "Want me to take the shot from here? Once he’s dead, you take the body, then we lure Detective Kael into a trap."

"No," Elias said firmly. "If you fire now, the sound might carry if the detective’s already nearby. We take the informant quietly. I need a corpse, a bum or thug around the tracks, something to choke him from behind and drag him out of the meeting radius."

"You’re looking for a homeless corpse? In this cold?" Sloane frowned. "Frozen bodies usually have brain damage, El. Your signal won’t connect."

"We try first. Expand your infrared radius, look for a fresh body near the rails..."

Crash!

Elias’s words were cut short by the violent sound of the station’s metal door being kicked open.

Sloane immediately redirected the drone camera. On the infrared display, six large figures moved with military precision. They wore black tactical jackets, night-vision goggles, and carried heavy assault rifles. One of them held a curved steel machete.

"Damn it," Sloane muttered, her hand instinctively reaching for her pistol. "Elias, we’ve been beaten to it."

Elias opened his eyes. "The detective brought SWAT?"

"That’s not police, Boss." Sloane’s voice tightened. She zoomed in on the image. On the shoulders of the six men were emblems, a snarling wolf’s head with glowing red eyes. "Black Hounds. Gideon Vancroft’s elite kill unit."

Elias’s heart began to pound faster.

Gideon was not blindly burning the city.

His older brother had tapped into police frequencies, or worse, had a mole inside central command feeding him intelligence about Detective Thorne’s meeting with Ren.

Inside the station, through the monitor, Elias and Sloane watched the horror unfold.

Ren, startled by the arrival of the six massive killers, immediately tried to run.

Too slow.

One of the Black Hounds raised his rifle and fired a single tranquilizer round straight into Ren’s back.

Pfut.

The skinny man collapsed onto the rusted tracks.

The Black Hound commander, the one with the machete, approached casually. He grabbed Ren by the hair and yanked his head back, forcing him onto his knees.

Sloane angled the drone’s microphone downward to capture their voices. The commander’s rough voice hissed through the van’s speakers.

"Detective Thorne’s late, little rat," the commander chuckled, pressing the dull side of his blade against Ren’s cheek. "Now tell me what you were planning to sell the cops about the Ghost. Tell me where the Ghost is hiding, or I start cutting off your fingers one by one until you sing."

Ren broke into hysterical sobs. "I... I don’t know where he’s hiding! I just saw his van! P-please let me go! I’ll work for Gideon!"

"A van? What kind? Plate number?!" the commander barked, kicking Ren in the ribs with a crack of breaking bone.

"A... a plumbing van! Faded paint! I didn’t see the plate, but there’s a small hole in the roof!" Ren screamed in agony, spitting blood onto the platform.

Inside the van, Sloane held her breath.

Her eyes flicked to the roof of their vehicle, still marked by a small bullet hole from a sniper round.

The informant remembered too much.

"He’s giving us up, El," Sloane whispered sharply, reaching for her sniper rifle. "I’m taking the shot now before he says more. Watch your radius."

"Wait," Elias ordered, grabbing her arm and stopping her.

He stared at the monitor, his reddened eyes flickering with sudden hesitation.

Sacrificing innocent people was not his way.

He killed enforcers, hired guns, monsters like Dante and the Vault Master.

But Ren?

Ren was just a poor man in the wrong place at the wrong time.

If Sloane pulled the trigger now, they would be no different from the Black Hounds.

"You feel sorry for him?!" Sloane hissed. "If he gives them your description, our bunker gets bombed by morning! Shoot him, or I will!"

"If you fire from here, your rifle leaves a ballistic trace straight back to this van!" Elias snapped through clenched teeth. "Those Black Hounds are professionals. They’ll triangulate the shot, rush out, and surround us! My radius is empty, Sloane. There’s no corpse there to help us escape!"

Their argument died instantly at the sound of another metal door creaking open from the opposite side of the station.

Sloane swung the drone camera.

Someone stepped inside through the main entrance. A tall man in a long coat, revolver in his right hand, tactical flashlight in his left.

Inspector Kael Thorne.

The detective had finally arrived.

But the Black Hounds were ready.

At the sound of the door, two of them slipped behind a derelict train car, switching off their night-vision goggles to avoid reflection. The commander reacted with terrifying speed. He understood instantly that the informant was now a liability.

Without hesitation, he drew the curved blade across the front of Ren’s throat.

SRAAAKKK!

A deep, brutal cut tore open Ren’s neck, severing both carotid artery and trachea.

Ren could not scream. His vocal cords were destroyed. Only a wet, choking gurgle escaped him. Blood sprayed from his throat, soaking his jacket crimson. The commander released his grip, letting the limp body collapse onto the steel rails with a dull thud.

Ren writhed on the ground, eyes bulging, life slipping away in absolute agony.

Death was seconds away.

The commander signaled his men.

The six killers spread out silently, taking positions behind the station’s iron support pillars.

A perfect semicircle.

A kill zone.

They prepared to ambush Detective Thorne, who continued walking slowly onto the platform, his flashlight sweeping through the darkness.

Kael Thorne had stepped into a trap with no exit.

Inside the van, Elias’s breathing turned ragged. His bloodshot eyes locked onto the monitor. His hesitation, his refusal to act, had triggered a chain disaster.

"That detective dies if he takes two more steps," Sloane muttered, gripping the steering wheel. "And we die if the Black Hounds trace us. We need to pull out now, El."

"No," Elias said.

His voice was low, but it carried a vibration of rage that seemed to hum through the van’s glass.

"El, are you insane?! He’s not our problem!"

"He’s our only access to the police network," Elias shot back, tearing the oxygen tube from his nose. His eyes burned, radiating the presence of a death god reawakening. "If Detective Kael dies here, we go blind forever."

Elias shut his eyes tightly.

The Ghost Rot veins along his temple bulged violently, writhing beneath his skin.

Distance to Ren’s body, eighty-eight meters.

Still within range.

A surge of necrotic static burst from Elias’s cortex, ripping through the cold night air, piercing the station’s brick walls, and slamming into Ren’s body, whose heart had stopped just one second earlier.

Elias forced his way into the freshly dead mind.

Inside the station, just as Detective Thorne began to sense something wrong with the unnatural silence and raised his revolver.