Page 14 of Hell’s Weapon

Most of the surviving players have made it to their temporary home now and are sitting around, although there’s still about fifteen on the course. We’re waiting until they either die or cross the line and join the rest before we guide them to their rooms.

She’s got a tattoo. It’s the only one decorating her skin and it's beautiful. Intricate. It's a dagger strapped to her thigh by a garter of flowers. I can’t quite make out the exact type of flora through the lens of the camera but it makes her even more intriguing. There’s no way she would put something on her body on a whim. I want to study it more closely. Maybe with my tongue.

Nope. That thought needs to take a hike.

I’m not sure what Hades would say about a guard fraternising with a contestant, let alone me–the head of this entire show. I don’t particularly wish to find out either. As the Chief Operating Officer for Tartarus I know the exact things that go on in this realm. I don’t wish to take a chance that I might end up on the receiving end of any of them.

Movement on another screen catches my eye. Number Nineteen comes stumbling in through the gate, his arm looking completely mangled. I’m honestly surprised he survived. One of my team had radioed to say he’d been caught in the blast zone of the initial land mines. Getting injured that early is not a good sign. But well done to the kid, he made it.

“Can I get a medic to the rec area? Number Nineteen needs looking at,” I command down my radio.

“Copy,” Dominic’s voice crackles back. He’s heading up our medical team. It’s not large, with Dom the doctor on site, he has a trainee and two nurses to complete the staff who will treat any injuries or illnesses during the next three months. We won’t interfere if a player becomes injured during a game; it's on them to finish the task. But once a game is done, or if they get sick or hurt in between, they will receive top class care.

I watch on as one of the nurses approaches Nineteen and lead him into the direction of the medical facility. Once he’s out of sight, my gaze finds itself back to the screen I’ve been watching the most. Ninety-Eight laughs at something Thirty-Nine says and I see his eyes light up at getting that reaction from her. I’m surprised he hasn’t moved away, back to his little gang of worshipers that he seems to have collected since he arrived.

For an assassin who would’ve spent most of his time on his own prior to coming here, he seems to thrive in the company of others. Although, several of them are now sitting in a group on the other side of the concrete area, taking up the benches, and he hasn’t joined them.

The lock on the door disengages as a pass is swiped in the mechanism. An officer enters behind me as I watch Ninety-Eight poke Thirty-Nine in the side and he goes to tickle her ribs in retaliation. My teeth grind as she erupts into fits of laughter. I can’t hear through the cameras, but I clearly see her mouth “fuck off” as she shoves him back.

“She saved him out there, you know.” Tarron comes up to lean over my shoulder, clocking the screen I’m watching.

Tarron is my second in command for the games. I knew him from my early training days, we even shared a flat for a few decades until I got the job in Tartarus, which is a live-in position. His day job now is wrangling recruits for Hades winged enforcers but he agreed to this post, after some persuasion. It's been good to work together again.

Turning to face him, I notice his wings still hanging from his back. He’s a dark angel, meaning he has wings of dark grey feathers. He wasn’t born here like I was, he was born human, and upon death became an Angel in the Heaven realm. He, however, must’ve hated being there and so ended up falling through the Styx and joining the demonic realm instead.

“Don’t believe everything the guards tell you. They love a good gossip, and you know it’s almost never true,” I reply.

“It is true, I saw it with my own eyes. She saved the idiot from getting torn apart by the Gargoyles."

I look between Tarron and the screen. Is that why those two seem thick as thieves all of a sudden? This morning I swear Ninety-Eight was ignoring every pass Thirty-Nine made at her.

“Why’d she do that?” I ask him. Not that I care. What romantic entanglements the contestants get themselves into is none of my concern.

“I don’t know. I thought she’d let him die. He’s probably her biggest competition in here. Maybe they’ll work together to win this thing.”

My feline growls but I stop it before the noise escapes my human throat. “Maybe she’s just lulling him into a false sense of security. I bet she’ll stab him in the back at the first chance she gets.”

“Probably.” Tarron laughs, pulling one of the other chairs over and sitting down, banishing his wings to fit into the high-backed office chairs we have set up in here. “She’s certainly something, that one. Wouldn’t surprise me if she wins the whole thing.”

I hum in agreement as a few more competitors cross the finish line. They look haggard and exhausted but not injured beyond a few bruises.

“So, do you have any suspicions on who the mole might be yet?” Tarron asks as he studies the monitors.

“No, unfortunately not. There’s a few I want watched more closely but I’ve got no evidence yet.”

“Do you really think the Angels want to blow this whole thing up like last time?”

“I’m not sure that was their plan last time,” I say, heaving a sigh as I lean back on my chair, raising my hands to lock my fingers together behind my head to stretch my shoulders. “I think that was the last resort after their plan started to unravel.”

“And what was their plan? Care to share now we’re here?”

“As I’ve told you, I have no idea. Hades doesn’t even know. Other than he thinks they want to get spies situated in Elysium. He hasn’t worked out their motive yet though.”

“I know the reports said no survivors, but was that true?” Tarron questions.

“None that had any capacity to divulge any information,” I tell him gravely. “There were a handful but all of them were so traumatised none of them gave any information, even under the pressure my team put on them after the initial interrogations Hades did himself. None of them are alive anymore.”

“Grim.” He winces. I nod in agreement.