Stiletto by Daniel O'Malley

was swirling through the space, along with the smell of burned hamburgers. Felicity could just make out that the corner of the chamber had been somewhat shredded, and the thick walls were oozing a viscous liquid. The rubbish bin of urine had been knocked over, with vile results. There was not, however, any sign of a white naked man or a white naked corpse. There weren’t even any white naked fragments.
    “I don’t see him!” she shouted. “Scan the room!” She peered around, gun raised, and saw that the others had flipped down their visors too. The valve-door had closed itself tightly; not even a trace of the seams remained.
    Then Felicity saw that Pawn Odgers was lying on the ground, her throat cut.
    “Oh no,” she breathed.
    “Clements, Chopra, flank me!” ordered Jennings. His tone cut through her horror, and she nodded obediently. The two of them moved to either side of the Pawn, trying to cover every direction the enemy might come from.
    “No radio contact with the team,” said Chopra grimly. “The door is shut.”
    “No sign of the target?” Felicity asked.
    “Maybe he escaped out the door?” wondered Chopra. “And then shut it behind him?” They looked around, peering through the smoke, and saw no trace of their quarry. The chamber was silent, apart from the dripping of the wounds in the wall.
    “Or he went into the other part of the room,” suggested Felicity quietly. “That bit behind those membranes, where he said the civilian was.”
    “We’ll take it,” said Jennings. “Burst through and secure the area. Standard trident assault pattern. If that sneaky fuck’s there, we kill him. Don’t hold back. Ready on three?” They nodded.
    “One.”
    Felicity’s hands tightened on her gun.
    “Two.”
    She took a deep breath.
    “Thr —”
    There was a swirling in the smoke, and the unexpected figure of Pawn Cheng manifested just in front of Felicity.
    “God, Andrea! Don’t do that!” Felicity gasped. That must have been what Odgers was muttering before, she thought. Ordering Cheng to accompany us. “I almost shot you.” Pawn Cheng, who had opened her mouth to say something, paused and gave her an incredulously pitying look. Then she shook her head and got straight to the point.
    “He’s on the ceiling!” the Asian Pawn shouted before evaporating away. As one, all of them looked up and saw the man crouched above them. Then Felicity’s visor flared blindingly as a horrendous torrent of green flames surged up out of Pawn Jennings’s open hands. The fire roared as it engulfed the ceiling, and the entire cube squealed and shuddered.
    Felicity ducked down automatically, away from the flames, and tore her helmet off. The heat was tremendous, and sweat was bursting out of her skin. She squinted and saw that Jennings had both his arms raised and his head thrown back. A deluge of emerald fire flowed out of his skin, even gushing up from his face and neck to spread across the ceiling. Felicity tried to shield her eyes from the glare. Beyond him, Chopra was also crouching away from the inferno.
    “Jennings, stop!” screamed Felicity. “Or we’ll all be killed!”
    “I couldn’t agree more,” said a voice in her ear. She jerked away and saw the naked man was now crouching by her. He scuttled forward, moving swiftly even though he was bent double. She caught a flash of a white blade in his hands, and then he was standing behind Jennings. He swung and in one movement sliced through both the Pawn’s forearms.
    Jennings’s hands, and a good portion of his lower arms, spiraled away, green fire still spurting from them in little bursts. Felicity squeaked as sparks hissed in her sweaty hair, and then she fell back on her bottom when one of the hands landed right in front of her. The fingers clenched spasmodically, and small flames danced for a moment on the fingertips before dying away.
    The conflagration on the ceiling did not die, but it was no longer being fed by the Pawn’s will. The