The battle had barely begun when the airbus landed nearby.
Thanks to its vertical landing system, the aircraft didn’t need a runway. It only needed a sufficiently large, flat patch of ground.
The airbus switched to physical stealth mode.
The moment the doors opened, the waiting strike team poured out and spread into a defensive semicircle around the aircraft.
Whether there were enemies nearby or not, basic combat discipline still mattered.
"You’ve located the kid, right?" Evenson asked as he stepped out.
He had already changed into his Corruptor gear.
"We locked onto him during the aerial reconnaissance," Rumlow replied immediately. "Thermal imaging puts him inside a workshop on the far side of the quarry. There’s only one guard inside."
His voice came through slightly muffled by the tactical mask covering his face.
Evenson nodded.
Then he glanced sideways at Melinda.
"This mission is more dangerous than the last one, and the situation down there is already chaotic. I expect certain people not to get carried away."
"I understand."
Melinda slid her combat knife into the sheath at the small of her back and raised both pistols.
The last time, she’d taken a knife, jumped out of a plane, and promptly found herself pinned behind a vehicle by enemy fire.
Melinda might have been reckless by nature, but even she knew better than to ignore a lesson that painful.
"Good."
Evenson still didn’t look entirely convinced.
He turned toward Claire, placed both hands on her shoulders, and spoke firmly.
"You’re going with them this time. Don’t worry about anything else. Once you reach the target, just open a portal and bring everyone back."
He leaned closer.
"And one more thing."
His voice dropped to a whisper beside her ear.
"If things go bad, run. Don’t try to be a hero. If you decide you need to leave, nobody down there can stop you."
He paused.
"Just come back safely."
Claire opened her mouth to protest.
She was a sorcerer, after all. Those mercenaries down there weren’t exactly terrifying. She could probably take ten of them without breaking a sweat.
But before she could say any of that, she felt something cool brush lightly against her lips.
Her eyes widened.
She froze.
A blush slowly spread across her face.
Evenson wore a faintly wicked smile as he touched his own lips.
"Time to move."
He pulled up his hood.
"I’ll head down personally and make sure you don’t get overwhelmed."
With that, he summoned his Nightmare.
The demonic steed erupted into existence beneath him.
Evenson swung into the saddle and rode away in a trail of hellish flame.
I’ll deal with you later.
Claire glared at his retreating back.
Yet as she advanced toward the target under the protection of the strike team, the corners of her mouth betrayed her.
She was smiling.
Evenson’s Nightmare was fast.
Very fast.
Back in the day, even an Abomination had failed to catch him.
It took him less than a minute to reach the edge of the battlefield.
He didn’t immediately join the fighting.
Instead, he reined in the Nightmare and quietly surveyed the chaos below.
The Ghost Rider was impossible to miss.
Fire blazed around his skeletal body as he tore through the heavily armed mercenaries.
Wearing the roller skates Claire had given Johnny, he moved through the battlefield like a living inferno.
His flaming ring and chains struck with terrifying precision.
Touch meant death.
A glancing blow was enough to kill.
But perhaps Johnny had been suppressing the Rider for too long.
Now that the Spirit of Vengeance had finally broken free, it wasn’t in any hurry to finish the fight.
It wanted to play.
One dying mercenary threw a flashbang.
It exploded directly beneath the Ghost Rider.
Evenson blinked.
Honestly, the man had earned what happened next.
Who looked at a flaming supernatural skeleton tearing through an army and thought, Flashbang. That’s the answer?
Whether the Ghost Rider was actually affected was impossible to tell.
The surrounding mercenaries certainly were.
The flashbang left them stumbling around with their hands over their eyes.
When their vision finally began to return, they found the Ghost Rider floating in the air.
His body was stretched out horizontally, arms and legs spread wide.
He slowly rotated counterclockwise.
"RAAAH!"
The Ghost Rider threw back his skull.
Hellfire burned in his empty eye sockets as he fixed his gaze on one unfortunate mercenary.
His body twisted unnaturally.
Then he moved.
One instant he was several yards away.
The next, he was standing directly in front of the mercenary.
The man nearly lost control of himself.
He raised his Uzi and emptied the magazine straight into the Ghost Rider’s face.
The Rider didn’t dodge.
He simply opened his mouth.
Every bullet disappeared down his throat.
The metal melted inside him.
Then he spat the molten remains straight back into the mercenary’s face.
The man’s scream lasted less than a second.
His body collapsed into ash.
Then Carrigan suddenly burst out from the rear of the crowd.
He was carrying a loaded Javelin launcher.
Evenson raised an eyebrow.
He hadn’t expected that.
For all his reputation as the world’s most incompetent mercenary, Carrigan apparently had some courage after all.
He hadn’t fled in the confusion.
Or perhaps he’d simply realized there was nowhere left to run.
Either way, the Ghost Rider noticed him immediately.
The Rider’s supernatural awareness had no trouble picking out a soul as thoroughly stained as Carrigan’s.
And unlike a motorcycle, the roller skates beneath his feet didn’t interfere with his movement.
He could maintain perfect control of his body even in the middle of combat.
Carrigan hadn’t even finished locking on when the Ghost Rider was already in front of him.
Panic and desperation pushed Carrigan past his fear.
He gritted his teeth.
Forget the lock-on.
Forget proper targeting.
He jammed the Javelin directly toward the Ghost Rider’s chest.
"Eat this!"
He fired.
The missile struck.
The Ghost Rider was launched violently into the air, then driven back toward the ground beneath the missile’s momentum.
A second later, the missile exploded.
Evenson’s expression sharpened.
"That one probably made him angry."
He pulled the reins.
The Nightmare surged forward.
But Evenson wasn’t heading toward Carrigan or the Ghost Rider.
He was heading toward the trucks.
Toward Milkhakov.
As expected, the Ghost Rider had finally stopped playing.
He’d been treating the battle like a cat toying with a mouse.
Then the mouse had somehow blasted the cat into the air.
That was where the game ended.
Hellfire erupted beneath his skates.
The Ghost Rider shot forward, racing straight up the enormous quarry machine.
He skimmed vertically along its outer wall before reaching the operator’s cabin.
He plunged inside.
Both hands seized the controls.
Then he slammed them forward.
The machine immediately came alive.
Flames erupted across the dozens-of-meters-tall industrial monster.
The massive quarrying machine transformed into something that looked less like construction equipment and more like a weapon dragged straight out of Hell.
The advancing strike team saw it.
Everyone stopped for half a heartbeat.
Then they moved faster.
Much faster.
Nobody wanted to still be standing around when that thing decided to come their way.
Melinda, however, lowered her head slightly.
A faint smile touched her lips.
That kind of power...
Her eyes gleamed.
I’ll have it someday.
Milkhakov wasn’t nearly as composed.
He scrambled out of his hiding place and desperately grabbed another Javelin launcher.
He hadn’t even managed to get it onto his shoulder when the burning arm of the gigantic quarry machine swung toward him.
It came down like a flaming hammer.
"Shatter!"
Milkhakov unleashed a concentrated blast of shadow power.
"Shadow!"
The compressed darkness detonated with tremendous force.
The blast managed to knock the massive burning arm aside just before it crushed him.
Milkhakov staggered away.
His hands were numb.
His entire body was cold with terror.
The Javelin launcher slipped from his fingers and hit the ground.
For one brief moment, he thought he’d survived.
Then something seized him by the collar.
A tremendous force lifted him clean off the ground.
Milkhakov’s feet kicked helplessly in the air.
His escape had lasted exactly long enough to give him false hope.
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