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Chapter Eight

"The weather tomorrow will be cloudy with a touch of rain..."

Marilyn, a small orange vixen was watching the news report with her feet up on her desk as Janus entered the room. She had been waiting for him to get back so that she could lock up the office and leave but Janus had kept her waiting for almost two hours.

The police station had long since closed with nobody else left in the huge skyscraper. Janus had a small office in the west wing of the tenth floor, where his secretary, Marilyn Carson, a young but perky Vulnira managed his affairs.

"Mr Everston!" she exclaimed as Janus walked through the door at almost half past ten at night. "I was beginning to wonder if you were ever coming back. I've been here for two hours! I hope I'll get paid for staying out so late!"

Janus sighed, she had started the moment he had got in, blaring with a voice like a foghorn that just went straight through him. She had a really annoying voice, it was high pitch and Janus thought that she could probably hear her from the other end of a rugby pitch.

"Marilyn?" he asked as he plonked his coat on the rack besides the door. "Why are you still here, I told you I would be out working tonight..."

"What!?" asked Marilyn, releasing that she never really had to be here at all. "When was this?"

"I sent you an email from my car." replied Janus, as he took out a cigarette and opened the window of his office, which allowed sounds from the city below to seep into the room, car horns and police sirens.

The heartbeat of the city itself.

"I never received anything!" blared Miss Carson as she checked her email inbox on the computer. She had not received anything from him all day, it had been extremely boring with no calls and she should have headed home at seven o'clock.

Janus put his paw to his head as he leant out the window and took a drag on the cigarette. Smoking was usually prohibited in these buildings and Janus took great care not to set off the fire alarm and sprinkler system.

"Well I don't fucking know, do I?" he shouted, finally having enough of her irritable voice. His mind was still on the meeting with Obsidian and how his investigation had led him to Phoenix Grace. "It probably didn't send, signal isn't perfect, y'know!?"

Marilyn was about to say something but as Janus turned around he noticed a small red dot moving about the room. He looked at the window to see where it was coming from but could see nothing in the darkness of the night. Turning back, to ignore Marilyn's latest complaint and the barrage that he was about to receive, he suddenly realised.

But it was too late...

"Get Down!" he suddenly shouted before a bullet smashed through the glass of one of the window panes with a quiet but deadly whizz. Janus suddenly dived to the floor, pulling out his own sidearm which he had been carrying with him.

He had tried to warn Marilyn but it was too late, the bullet hit her straight in the gut and sent her reeling backwards with a scream. She landed behind the desk, which effectively covered her against the other two or three shots that came afterwards.

Janus suddenly felt exposed. His heart was pumping as he attempted to get behind that narrow edge of a shelving unit of case files. He poked his head out and peered into the night, attempting to assess where the sniper was shooting from.

He could not believe anyone would attempt to kill Marilyn, she was annoying but...

Oh no... he suddenly realised that they might have been attempting to aim for him but his movement from the window while he was arguing with her had caused the sniper to hit her instead.

He couldn't see anything in the whirl of lights that lit up several skyscrapers across the plaza from his building.

Then just as he poked his muzzle out...

Whoosh! Another bullet came flying past his head.

He could not deal with this alone, he needed support. There was no commotion in the street below, no screaming that would normally come with somebody firing a weapon and no sound of a gunshot.

That meant the assassin was probably using a silenced sniper rifle of some description.

Janus had a plan.

He quickly turned, shooting a few rounds into the same pane of glass that the sniper's bullets had come through, causing it to shatter. His gunshots were loud and unsilenced so they echoed through the empty building, the window shattered as he intended a breeze of cool air from the outside flooded the room, while an ailing Marilyn's heavy breathing behind the desk.

The noise had created just the reaction he wanted, the shattering of the window had caused commotion down in the street below with people screaming as the walked by. Help was on the way as people came investigating the gunshots and the glass and there was no way that a sniper could operate that way without being notice. Janus just hoped he had not injured anyone on the street below.

After a few seconds, Janus made a bolt across the room, diving behind the desk as he had the opportunity to attend to Marilyn who was clutching the bullet hole in her stomach. She was in obvious pain and the wound was causing a substantial amount of bleeding.

Using the desk as cover from anymore shots encase the sniper was still there, Janus ripped off the arm of his shirt, using it to form a makeshift bandage and applied pressure to the wound that Marilyn was clutching. He knew that help was going to arrive soon and he had seen a lot of bullet wounds, this one was serious but survivable.

"A-Am I-I going to d-die?" asked Marilyn while looking up at Janus. From the sound of her voice it was obvious that shock was slowly setting in as the loss of so much blood, so quickly had severely weakened her.

"Listen!" said Janus commandingly as he kept his paw down on the cloth over the wound. "You are not going to die Mari, I promise you that. I won't let you... y'hear?". He couldn't help but have flashbacks to that fateful day that had changed his life forever and what that meant to him.

He wouldn't let another person die.

"I... I'm s-sorry, I s-shouted at y-you" she said weakly.

Janus did not understand, the bleeding just would not stop. He reminded himself of the first aid course he had taken on gunshot wounds.

"1. Apply pressure to the wound in order to stop the bleeding and remind the patient not to panic."

Why was this not working!?

He heard the blaring of sirens approaching the police station, he knew that help was coming. He just had to make sure she stayed alright until then. He never really liked her, she was a rude, overbearing bitch but he would not lose her.

He would never lose anyone again.

"Sshhh!" said Janus calmly, he knew it had suddenly gone from looking good to going very very bad but he could not let her know that. She had to fight, to hold on to that flicker, even when all the life was draining out of her. "You aren't gonna die!"

Marilyn closed her eyes and Janus instantly checked her pulse. It was extremely weak. "Hey Hey!Don't you dare go to sleep on me, you old bitch! Come on... Stay awake!" he shouted in desperation as Marilyn slowly began to slip away from him, her large blue eyes suddenly beginning to close.

Janus just felt it again... the pain, the powerlessness. "I-I'm sorry, I'm so... tire--"

Her warm blood was still soaking up the makeshift cloth bandage as Janus attempted to stop the bleeding by adding more, taking off his whole shirt and trying to stop the bleeding. "No! No! I won't let you go! Please god! No... Not again!"

Silence just filled the room as Marilyn's paw dropped to the floor as she touched his muzzle one last time.

She was gone.

Janus could not cry. He had spent all his tears on that day. He wanted to cry for her, she was an innocent, taking a bullet that was meant for him. Hell. She would not have even been here if it had not been for him. If he had come back to the police station after his meeting with Remmy.

But he could not cry, the tears would not come. He laid her lifeless body, the last flicker of life pouring out of her through the hole in her gut.

But why had she died?

Was it him? Did he do something wrong? Or was he just unable to protect anyone, was he such an idealistic fool in his youth and this was Athen's way of showing him he was. How much more was he going to take from him?

His feelings of remorse were suddenly replaced with something else. A willingness to accept his fate. Somebody wanted him dead...

They could have him dead.

He rose to his feet and waited. Waited for the bullet that would end his life, his suffering, his pain and the void that had been there ever since Cassata had died. The void that had turned him into an uncaring, unfeeling monster that could not even cry for the death of an innocent young woman.

"End my pain" he thought as he waited. Waiting for the end. "End it all"

But that bullet did not come. All he felt was the chill of the wind and even a few seconds later, when armed officers crashed through his office door. All he could think about was one thing.

"Why was he still alive? How much more was he going to suffer before the end?"

However a small flame of hope still burned inside him. The sniper had obviously fled once Janus had returned fire and caused such a racket. That had probably saved his life. He was alive for a reason. He still had his revenge.

But now it was a revenge for two.