Rain hammered down in sheets, and the rotting cabin shuddered in the wind as if the thick darkness outside might swallow it whole.
Leon was shoving a heavy oak table toward the window. He wiped rain from his face and glanced back at the two girls sitting on wooden crates. In his memory, Sherry was still the child who'd clung to his hand in Raccoon City's sewers, begging for protection, and Becky was the sickly, fragile girl he'd seen in that small-town motel.
But everything had changed.
"Uncle Leon, how's your ammo?" Sherry asked, pulling a loaded magazine from the holster on her thigh.
"Three boxes left." Leon patted the tactical pouch on his belt and looked at her, his expression complicated. "You sure you don't need me on overwatch?"
"Forget overwatch. You'd be more useful keeping an eye on Luis and Ashley." Sherry smiled, and it was Ryan's smile she was copying, that calm, quietly commanding look.
Outside, dense footsteps closed in. The low growling of parasite-warped villagers.
"Here they come." Becky's voice was barely above a whisper. She'd been holding her tactical kukri in a reverse grip, the same blade she'd pressed to Luis's throat minutes ago, and now her wrist flicked with practiced ease, guiding the tip into the leather sheath across her back with a soft click.
Then she unclipped the assault rifle from the mounting hooks on her chest rig in one smooth pull, racked the charging handle, and the sound of a round chambering cut sharp through the rain.
"Becky takes the second-floor side window. I'll suppress from the ground floor, front."
Sherry gave the order. She holstered both Desert Eagles at her waist and reached behind her back, pulling the Star Fire custom carbine free from its tactical sling in a single fluid motion. Stock seated against her shoulder, she dipped her chin, closed her left eye, and locked her right on the firelight beyond the window.
"Hey, man, don't look so grim." Luis Sera crouched at the stairwell landing, arms wrapped tight around the metal case holding the Amber. Monsters bearing down outside or not, the Spaniard hadn't lost his sense of humor. He waggled his eyebrows at Leon. "I haven't seen the boss in action yet, but judging by these two ladies' idea of 'workplace etiquette,' I'd say the folks out there picked the wrong house to demolish tonight. By the way, is their company hiring? What kind of salary does a senior consultant who brings his own assets get?"
"Luis, watch Ashley," Sherry said without turning around. "Otherwise you can kiss that bonus goodbye."
"Copy that, ma'am! Holding my 'workstation.'" Luis ducked his head and pulled Ashley deeper into the dead space behind the fireplace.
BOOM.
The cabin door bucked violently. A villager with a rusted axe was slamming into it like a man possessed.
"Time to work."
Sherry's carbine spat fire. She didn't spray wildly; precise three-round bursts, each one punching through door gaps and windows, shredding the infected villagers crowding the entrance.
Upstairs, Becky's assault rifle answered in steady, rhythmic thumps. Every shot dropped another cultist mid-throw, explosives and all.
Leon stood behind the door, pistol tight in both hands, and realized he could barely find an opening. Sherry and Becky's overlapping fields of fire turned the ground around the cabin into a kill zone. Anything that got close became meat.
Then a villager threw himself through a side window, screaming, lunging straight for Ashley.
Sherry reacted instantly. She didn't bother turning to aim; the carbine's length was a liability indoors. She flung it to her side and the sling caught it, the weapon hanging snug against her hip.
Her right hand dropped, fingers splayed, caught the knife handle and ripped it free.
The villager never saw who killed him. His head rolled across the floor along a clean, even cut. Sherry didn't stop, carrying her forward momentum into a flick of the wrist that slotted the blade back into its sheath behind her.
Click.
Lock confirmed. She grabbed the carbine off her hip, shouldered it, and reacquired the front door. The whole sequence took less than a second, and the suppressive fire never broke.
"Good Lord..." Luis muttered. "This isn't a job. This is a live performance of violence as an art form."
Leon watched the whole thing and shook his head with a rueful smile. He'd assumed Ryan had simply rescued these two girls from Raccoon City. Now he understood that Ryan had forged them into killing machines capable of taking on an entire village by themselves.
"Sherry, does Ryan make you two sleep holding your guns?" Leon dropped a straggler with one shot and asked between breaths.
"No." Sherry didn't look up, swapping the carbine's magazine with calm efficiency and tucking the empty into a retention pouch on her vest. "Uncle Ryan says guns are just tools. A real professional learns to make killing into muscle memory. Like a delivery driver who can cover an entire city without checking GPS."
Leon had no response to that. Comparing killing to food delivery. That was exactly how Ryan's brain worked.
As the minutes wore on, the bodies outside the cabin piled into a small hill.
Then, deep in the curtain of rain, something roared, a sound so low and heavy it vibrated in the chest. A figure over two meters tall came charging out of the downpour, muscles knotted like slabs of rock under a bull-horned helmet, swinging an enormous iron hammer and bellowing as it bore down on the cabin door.
"Heavy unit. Becky, switch loadout." Sherry's voice came crisp over the radio.
Becky stopped firing immediately. She clipped the assault rifle back to her chest rig and dug a specialized grenade from her vest's side pocket, one marked with an electromagnetic symbol.
She drew a folding grenade launcher from the small of her back, snapped the barrel open with a clack, and loaded the round.
THOOM.
The micro-grenade detonated right at the heavy cultist's feet. Blue high-voltage current surged through his entire body, charring the once-unstoppable giant black and dropping him to his knees.
Becky stowed the launcher, grabbed the rifle off her chest, and put two precise rounds into him. Done.
"Performance review progress: eighty percent." Becky's voice crackled through the comm. "Uncle Ryan says if we clear this wave, tonight's overtime pay doubles."
"Then what are we waiting for?" Something lit up behind Sherry's eyes. She slung the carbine onto her back and drew both Desert Eagles from her hips.
"Ashley, Luis, stay down. What comes next might get a little... 'unprofessional.'"
Leon looked at Sherry's cold, steady silhouette and could only sigh, raise his pistol, and hold position at Ashley's side.
He knew the show these two girls were putting on was only getting started.