Beast Devourer: I Grow Stronger by Eating Monsters

The facility didn’t appear on any map.

That, by itself, wasn’t unusual. Raven Ashford had spent a good part of the last twelve years entering and leaving places that officially didn’t exist, riding in vehicles without license plates, carrying weapons without serial numbers, and using identification documents that belonged to dead men. He had slept in bases buried beneath mountains, interrogated targets aboard ships registered as fishing vessels, and received orders from people whose names never appeared anywhere in the official chain of command.

That was how Black Hound operated. If anyone asked about them, they didn’t exist. If an operation went wrong, neither did it. And if one of their members died during a mission, their family received a carefully manufactured story about a training accident, a vehicle rollover, or some other tragedy boring enough to discourage questions.

So Raven felt nothing in particular when the helicopter descended between the mountains beneath a steady curtain of rain and revealed a concrete structure embedded directly into the mountainside.

What bothered him was the silence.

Rain hammered against the fuselage in a constant rattle while the rotors kicked up water and mud around the landing pad, distorting the yellow perimeter lights into trembling smears. Beyond them, there was nothing but forest, rock, and darkness.

No security vehicles. No visible patrols. No one waiting for the team’s arrival.

Raven remained seated while the other five operators began releasing their harnesses.

"Warm welcome," Mason muttered.

Raven didn’t answer. One hand rested on the modified HK416 between his knees. Suppressor. Hybrid optic. Tactical light. Thirty rounds in the magazine and one already in the chamber.

Simple weapon. Reliable.

He knew every millimeter of it.

Across the cabin, Cole tapped Ramirez’s helmet twice and pointed toward the door. The pilot gave them a thumbs-up, the light switched from red to green, and the side door opened.

Cold air rushed in immediately.

"Move!"

The team disembarked.

Raven went last. His boots hit wet concrete while the rotor continued spinning above them. He lowered his head slightly and moved away from the helicopter, rifle tight against his chest as his eyes automatically swept the elevated positions around the complex.

Communications tower. No movement.

Two cameras. Operational.

Reinforced windows. Empty.

Main entrance. Two armored doors. Closed.

Nothing looked wrong, and that was exactly what Raven didn’t like.

The helicopter lifted off again behind them.

Raven turned his head.

"It’s not staying?"

Mason heard him despite the noise.

"Orders say separate extraction."

"That wasn’t in the briefing."

Mason shrugged.

"Last-minute change."

Raven watched the helicopter disappear into the rain. He said nothing, but he filed the change away.

Black Hound survived because it employed paranoid people.

Raven had survived longer than most because he was worse.

They moved toward the entrance. Cole pressed his thumb against the biometric scanner and waited as a blue light swept across his print.

ACCESS GRANTED.

The doors slid apart with a heavy hydraulic hiss, revealing a white corridor descending several yards toward a second security door.

Too white.

Raven passed the security station and stopped.

Empty.

There was a mug on the desk with coffee still inside. Raven touched it with two fingers.

Cold.

"Problem?" Ramirez asked.

Raven glanced at the monitor. The screen displayed 21:14. No alerts.

"Where’s security?"

Cole kept walking.

"Nonessential personnel were evacuated when they detected the intrusion."

"All personnel?"

"That’s what the report said."

Raven looked at the abandoned mug again.

"The report said a foreign team entered this facility forty-seven minutes ago."

"Yeah."

"If they had forty-seven minutes to evacuate, somebody would’ve finished their coffee."

Mason laughed.

"You’re two weeks from retirement and you’re still looking for conspiracies."

Raven looked at him.

"Conspiracies are paying for my retirement."

Mason grinned.

"I thought that was dirty government money."

"That too."

They continued.

The first security door closed behind them before the second opened.

THUNK.

Magnetic lock.

Then another.

THUNK.

Raven looked back. Cole did too, and for a fraction of a second their eyes met.

Raven saw no surprise.

That was the first thing that truly mattered.

They kept descending.

The facility was larger than the plans they’d been given during the briefing suggested. Concrete corridors stretched between industrial pipes and doors marked with alphanumeric codes. The air carried that distinctive underground-complex smell of metal, filtration systems, electricity, and trapped moisture.

There was no gunfire. No bodies. No signs of an incursion.

According to the mission brief, an armed group of unknown origin had penetrated the facility and seized the dimensional laboratory on level four.

Raven hadn’t seen so much as a drop of blood.

They reached the first intersection and Cole raised a fist. Everyone stopped.

Two fingers to the left.

Mason and Ramirez covered it.

Raven took the right with Park.

They advanced through room after room, finding each one empty. Raven checked every corner with small, controlled movements. Muzzle first. Shoulders behind it. Never exposing more of his body than necessary.

Muscle remembered even when the mind was busy with something else.

And Raven’s mind was very busy.

The radio gave a small burst of static.

"Control, Black Hound One. We’ve entered level one. No contact."

Static.

Cole waited.

"Control, do you copy?"

Nothing.

Ramirez touched his earpiece.

"I’ve got nothing either."

Park checked the communications module attached to his vest.

"Internal signal’s dead."

Raven looked at the small indicators mounted along the ceiling.

"The cameras are still working."

Everyone glanced up slightly. A black lens watched them from the corner.

Cole frowned.

"Localized interference."

"Convenient," Raven said.

Mason sighed.

"You gonna do this all night?"

"Probably not."

"Why?"

Raven looked at the camera.

"Something tells me the night’s going to be short."

Mason stopped smiling.

For the first time.

They continued toward the main elevator, but it wasn’t working.

SECURITY LOCKDOWN.

Cole pointed toward the stairs and they descended through level two, then level three.

The absence of resistance was becoming absurd.

Raven could feel that familiar pressure between his shoulder blades growing stronger. It wasn’t fear. He had learned a long time ago that fear was simply information sent by a body that didn’t want to die.

And the information was telling him something didn’t fit.

So Raven started counting.

Five men besides him.

Cole in front. Ramirez. Park. Mason. Davis covering the rear.

All of them carried roughly the same equipment, but there were differences.

Mason had changed his usual setup. His pistol wasn’t strapped to his right thigh; he carried it high on his belt, faster to draw while seated or inside confined spaces.

Park had two extra magazines that weren’t part of the standard loadout for a reconnaissance mission.

Davis had removed the secondary medical kit from his back.

More room for ammunition.

Cole had checked Raven’s position twice since they entered. Not enough for a normal person to notice.

Too much for Raven not to.

Then came the final detail.

They passed through a fire door, and Raven caught sight of a small security mirror mounted at the next corner. In its reflection, Mason’s weapon was slightly raised.

He wasn’t aiming down the corridor.

He was aiming at Raven.

Raven kept walking. He didn’t change pace or look back.

"Cole."

"Yeah?"

"How far to level four?"

"Two minutes."

"Good."

Raven let his rifle hang slightly lower from its sling. Relaxed. Almost casual. His right hand drifted closer to the front buckle of his vest while Mason took another step behind him.

Raven counted silently.

One.

Two.

Three.

Cole stopped.

Raven did too.

They were inside a narrow maintenance section with concrete on both sides, an armored door ahead, and no side exits for roughly fifty feet.

Bad place for an ambush.

Excellent place for an execution.

Cole didn’t turn around immediately. Raven watched the back of his neck.

Then he heard it.

Five safeties, almost simultaneously.

Click.

Raven gave the faintest smile.

"Ah."

Cole lowered his head.

"Raven."

"Yeah."

"Drop the rifle."

Raven glanced to either side. Ramirez had backed up two steps. Park was already aiming directly at his chest. Mason covered his head while Davis kept his distance.

Good formation.

They’d thought this through.

"That explains the helicopter," Raven said.

"Drop the weapon."

"Also explains the lack of security."

"Raven."

"And the communications."

Cole finally turned around with his rifle raised.

"Don’t make this difficult."

Raven tilted his head slightly.

"Difficult for who?"

No one answered.

The corridor seemed even quieter now that the weapons were pointed at him. Raven could hear the ventilation, the electrical hum of the lights, and a drop of water falling somewhere behind them.

Five rifles.

Closest distance: eight feet.

Farthest: twenty.

Cover: none.

Odds of surviving a direct exchange: bad.

Fortunately, direct exchanges were for people without imagination.

Raven slowly raised his hands and let the rifle hang in front of his chest.

"All right."

Mason exhaled.

Mistake.

It was only a minimal relaxation, but it was enough.

"Remove your sidearm," Cole ordered.

"You want the knives too?"

"Everything."

"I have seven."

Mason frowned.

"Seven?"

"Eight if we’re counting the one you missed during inspection."

Park shifted his muzzle.

"Stop talking."

Raven looked at him.

"You’re nervous."

"Shut up."

"Your finger’s too deep on the trigger."

"Raven."

"If you get startled, you’re going to fire before everyone else."

Cole’s voice hardened.

"Enough."

Raven looked back at him.

"Then tell me why."

Cole didn’t answer immediately.

That was information too.

"I can’t."

"You can."

"It doesn’t matter."

"If you’re going to kill me, confidentiality seems a little redundant."

Mason looked away for a fraction of a second.

Guilt.

Ramirez didn’t.

Neither did Park.

Davis looked sick.

Raven catalogued every reaction.

"My retirement?" he asked.

Silence.

"Was that it?"

Cole clenched his jaw.

"Drop the pistol."

Raven slowly moved his hand toward the holster and every muzzle followed the movement.

Perfect.

"Twelve years," Raven said. "And you couldn’t wait two more weeks."

"This isn’t about that."

"So you can talk."

Cole looked at him, and Raven saw the conflict.

They had worked together for six years.

Kazan. Tripoli. A border whose name had changed three times since then.

Raven had carried Cole out of a burning building with a bullet through his thigh. Cole had held pressure on Raven’s artery for twenty minutes inside a helicopter while both of them were convinced Raven was going to die.

None of that meant much now.

But it meant Cole wanted to explain himself.

Raven knew him well enough to know that.

And as long as Cole was talking, he was thinking less about shooting.

"Nine days ago," Cole finally said, "Oracle Zero had a vision."

Raven’s expression didn’t change.

Inside, something clicked into place.

Oracle Zero.

He had heard the name. Everyone in Black Hound had.

No one knew who or what it actually was. Some said a woman. Others claimed it was an artificial intelligence project. There were even rumors that Oracle Zero was a girl who had been raised inside a laboratory since birth.

The only consistent thing was the results.

Operations canceled hours before ambushes no one could possibly have predicted. Coups prevented. Targets located where conventional intelligence had no way of finding them.

Predictions.

"Go on."

Cole briefly looked toward one of the cameras.

"Not here."

Raven followed his gaze.

"He’s listening."

Cole didn’t answer.

"Of course he’s listening."

Then the lights changed from white to red.

A silent alarm began flashing above the doors, and Raven heard a mechanism activate behind them as the security door they had entered through started to close.

Davis instinctively looked back.

Raven moved.

Not toward his pistol.

Toward Park.

His left hand caught the rifle barrel and shoved it upward just as Park reacted.

BANG!

The gunshot exploded through the corridor, tearing through a light and plunging half the maintenance section into darkness.

Raven drove the heel of his palm into Park’s throat.

Not a punch.

A short, brutal thrust directly into cartilage and trachea.

Park stumbled backward, choking.

Raven ripped the rifle toward himself while twisting his body.

Mason fired.

Raven had already put Park between them.

Three rounds struck Park’s vest in rapid succession.

THUD. THUD. THUD.

Raven released the trapped rifle, reached beneath Park’s arm, and drew the man’s pistol.

Two shots.

BANG. BANG.

Mason took one in the shoulder and another just below the collarbone before crashing into the wall.

Ramirez opened fire.

Raven dropped his weight and the bullets passed over him. He grabbed Park by the vest and dragged the man down with him, using his body as temporary cover.

There was no time to think about who had once been a friend.

Only angles, distances, and threats.

Cole was the best shot.

Davis was farthest away.

Ramirez had a partial line of fire.

Raven fired from the floor.

Once.

The round hit Ramirez’s knee and twisted the leg beneath him.

Second shot.

Chest.

The plate stopped it, but the impact knocked him backward.

Raven rolled toward the left wall.

Cole fired.

Concrete burst inches from Raven’s head, filling the air with white dust.

Raven extended the pistol without exposing his entire body and fired at the remaining light.

BANG.

Darkness.

Only the red emergency lights remained.

Perfect.

The others had night vision.

So did Raven.

But activating it required one hand and half a second.

In a corridor like this, half a second was too long.

So none of them did it immediately.

Raven already knew the exact dimensions of the space. He had counted them while they walked.

He moved back two steps and listened.

Ragged breathing to the right.

Park.

Not an immediate threat.

Fast movement ahead.

Cole.

Raven fired toward the sound.

Cole returned fire.

A round grazed Raven’s side and slammed into the vest. Sharp pain spread across his ribs, but there was no penetration.

He kept moving.

Davis shouted through the darkness.

"Raven, stop!"

Park tried to recover his pistol.

Raven caught his wrist, bent it backward, and drove the elbow against the floor.

CRACK.

Park screamed.

Raven tore the weapon away and smashed the grip into his temple.

Once.

Park went still.

A flash of light illuminated the corridor.

Mason had switched on his flashlight.

Raven saw the beam before it reached him and fired.

The light shattered.

Mason cursed.

Raven moved toward him.

He didn’t retreat from the gunfire.

He moved inside it.

Mason raised his rifle, but the weapon was too long for the distance. Raven knocked the barrel aside with his forearm, trapped Mason’s forward wrist, and smashed the pistol into his face.

Nose.

Blood.

Mason tried to retreat.

Raven hooked his leg and broke his balance, then drove a knee into his abdomen.

Mason folded and went down.

Raven pressed the pistol beneath his jaw.

"No."

Mason froze.

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