Chapter 235: 235 The Assassination Attempt

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235: The Assassination Attempt 235: The Assassination Attempt The emergency medical bay at Covenant headquarters was overwhelmed.

Twelve rescued prisoners from Trois-Rivières, twenty-seven injured delegates from the summit attack, and a constant stream of people demanding information about the missing and compromised.

Bruce sat beside Mishka’s bed, holding her hand while Covenant specialists worked on analyzing her collar.

She was conscious but unable to speak, her Siren voice locked behind magical suppression so complex that even their best experts were baffled.

“It’s like nothing I’ve seen before,” the lead specialist—a witch named Dr.

Reeves—explained, running diagnostic spells over the collar.

“The runes are standard trafficking work, but there’s an additional layer woven in.

Something that’s actively rewriting her magical signature.

If we remove it incorrectly, we might not just suppress her abilities—we could erase them entirely.”

“How long until you can do it safely?” Bruce demanded.

“Days.

Maybe a week.

We need to understand the modifications before we attempt removal.” Dr.

Reeves met his eyes.

“I’m sorry.

I know that’s not what you want to hear.”

Mishka squeezed Bruce’s hand, her eyes communicating what her voice couldn’t: ‘It’s okay.

I’m alive.

That’s what matters.’

Emma appeared in the doorway, her face pale and drawn.

“Bruce, Director Chen needs you in the command center.

Now.”

Bruce looked at Mishka, reluctant to leave her side.

“Go,” Dr.

Reeves said.

“She’s stable.

I’ll stay with her.”

The command center had been transformed into a war room.

Multiple screens displayed footage from the summit attack, tactical maps, and lists of casualties and missing persons.

Director Chen stood at the center, coordinating with multiple teams simultaneously.

“Bruce, good,” Chen said when he entered.

“We have a situation.

The attack on the summit wasn’t just about capturing delegates.

We found evidence that several attackers remained in the building after the main force withdrew.”

“Sleeper agents?” Julian asked from his position monitoring security feeds.

“Worse.

Assassins.” Chen pulled up surveillance footage showing a figure moving through Covenant headquarters’ ventilation system.

“They’ve been slowly making their way toward the medical bay.

We believe their target is either the rescued prisoners or the wounded delegates—anyone who might have information about Jean’s network.”

“Or Mishka,” Emma said quietly.

“She’s been in Jean’s custody.

Even without her voice, she might have seen or heard things Jean doesn’t want shared.”

An alarm began to wail—not the general evacuation signal, but something more specific.

The medical bay alert.

Bruce was moving before anyone else could react, his werewolf speed carrying him down three flights of stairs in seconds.

Behind him, he heard Julian and Emma following, heard Chen coordinating security teams, but all his focus was on reaching Mishka before—

The medical bay doors had been blown off their hinges.

Inside, chaos.

Dr.

Reeves lay unconscious on the floor.

Two other medical staff were down.

And standing over Mishka’s bed was a figure in black tactical gear, holding a syringe filled with luminous green liquid.

Bruce’s roar shook the walls.

He launched himself at the assassin, claws extended, every protective instinct screaming.

The assassin was fast—supernaturally so.

They dodged Bruce’s initial strike, the syringe still clutched in their hand.

Bruce caught a glimpse of their face through the tactical mask—cold eyes, utterly emotionless, completely focused on their target.

Mishka was struggling against her restraints, trying to move, to defend herself, but the collar and her weakened state made her helpless.

Bruce positioned himself between the assassin and Mishka, his werewolf form fully manifested.

“You want her?

You go through me first.”

The assassin pulled a weapon—not a gun, but something that hummed with magical energy.

They fired, and Bruce felt electricity slam through his body, dropping him to his knees.

Not enough to fully incapacitate a werewolf, but enough to slow him down.

The assassin moved toward Mishka.

Then Emma was there, her hands moving in complex patterns.

Wards flared around Mishka’s bed, a protective barrier that the assassin slammed into.

The impact knocked them back, giving Bruce time to recover.

Julian burst through the doorway, weapon drawn.

“Down!

Now!”

The assassin assessed the situation—three opponents, reinforcements coming, target protected by Resonant wards.

They made a split-second decision, throwing the syringe at Mishka’s bed.

Emma’s wards caught it, the glass shattering harmlessly against the magical barrier.

But some of the liquid splashed through, droplets landing on Mishka’s arm.

Where the liquid touched her skin, it burned.

Mishka’s face contorted in silent agony, her back arching as whatever was in that syringe reacted with her supernatural nature.

The assassin used the distraction to bolt.

Julian fired, but they were already gone, disappearing into the ventilation system with inhuman speed.

“Get medical here now!” Bruce shouted, gathering Mishka in his arms.

Her skin where the liquid had touched was turning black, veins of corruption spreading from the contact point.

Dr.

Reeves staggered to her feet, blood streaming from a head wound.

She took one look at Mishka and her face went pale.

“That’s corrupted essence.

Dark magic designed to poison a supernatural being’s core nature.

We need to contain it before it reaches her heart.”

“Do it!” Bruce held Mishka while Dr.

Reeves began emergency counterspells, her hands glowing with purification magic.

Emma joined in, her Resonant abilities amplifying the healing work.

For ten agonizing minutes, they fought the corruption spreading through Mishka’s body.

Bruce watched the woman he loved suffer in silent agony, unable to scream, unable to even cry out as the poison tried to destroy her from within.

Finally, Dr.

Reeves sat back, exhausted.

“I’ve contained it.

But I can’t fully purge it—not while she’s wearing that collar.

The collar’s interference makes healing magic unpredictable.”

“So the poison is still in her?” Bruce demanded.

“Dormant.

Walled off by containment spells.

But it’s there, and if the containment fails…” Dr.

Reeves didn’t need to finish the sentence.

Mishka had passed out from the pain.

Bruce cradled her, his enhanced hearing picking up her heartbeat—steady but weak, her body fighting battles on multiple fronts.

Director Chen arrived with a full security detail.

“The assassin escaped.

We’re locking down the entire building, but they clearly knew our security protocols.

Bruce, I need to move Mishka and the other rescued prisoners to a secure location.

This facility has been compromised.”

“Where?” Bruce asked, not willing to let Mishka out of his sight.

“Eldergrove.

Ironically, it might be our safest option right now.

Jean already knows everything about it thanks to her mole, so there’s no intelligence advantage to attacking it.

And Mrs.

Pemberton’s wards are among the strongest in North America—especially now that Emma has enhanced them.”

“I’m going too,” Emma said immediately.

“If the collar needs to be removed and the corruption purged, I’m the best chance Mishka has.”

“Your parents—” Chen began.

“Are terrified, I know.

But they’re also practical.

And right now, Mishka needs me more than they do.” Emma’s voice was firm, brooking no argument.

Chen made the call.

Within hours, a convoy was assembled—three armored vehicles with Covenant security, carrying the twelve rescued prisoners and the medical staff needed to care for them.

Bruce, Emma, and Julian would escort them personally.

As they prepared to leave, Frank’s voice came through Bruce’s earpiece.

“I’ve been analyzing the summit attack.

The sleeper agents—I think I’ve identified a pattern.

The collars used on the reprogrammed delegates have a specific magical signature.

If I can create a detector, we might be able to identify who’s been compromised before they’re activated.”

“How long?” Bruce asked.

“Two days, maybe three.

But Bruce, there’s something else.

The financial documents Jean left behind—they’re too detailed, too complete.

I think she wanted us to find them.”

“Why would she want us to know about Aleksander’s involvement?”

“Because it forces us to act.

We have to go after the Old World Conclave now, have to investigate their connection to her network.

Which means dividing our forces, spreading ourselves thin, playing exactly the game Jean wants us to play.”

Bruce looked at Mishka, unconscious in the medical transport, her body fighting poison and collar magic simultaneously.

“Then we play the game, but on our terms.

We get our people safe, we identify the sleeper agents, and we figure out what Jean’s countdown is really leading to.

Then we end this.”

“Twenty-two days left,” Frank reminded him.

“Then we’d better work fast.”

The return to Eldergrove was bittersweet.

The community had held together in their absence—no attacks, no incidents, just the quiet tension of people waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Mrs.

Pemberton and Mikhail had organized the residents into efficient defensive shifts, turning the gated community into a genuine fortress.

But the arrival of twelve collared prisoners, all showing signs of torture and magical corruption, drove home the reality of what they were fighting.

This wasn’t an abstract political struggle.

This was people—broken, traumatized people—who needed healing and protection.

The community center was converted into a temporary medical facility.

Mrs.

Pemberton worked with Dr.

Reeves to establish healing wards.

Emma coordinated with the other witches to enhance the protective barriers around the entire community.

Bruce and Julian implemented security protocols that would make Eldergrove harder to infiltrate than a military installation.

Patricia and Thomas Henderson arrived from Montreal the next day, their relief at seeing Emma safe warring with their fear over what their daughter had become involved in.

But they also saw the rescued prisoners, saw Mishka lying silent and collared in the medical center, and understood why Emma had to stay.

“We’re not leaving either,” Patricia declared.

“If Eldergrove is housing refugees from Jean’s network, you’ll need all the help you can get.

I’m a nurse.

Thomas knows construction.

We can be useful.”

The community rallied in ways Bruce had never seen before.

Tom organized food preparation for the increased population.

Lila set up communication systems so families of the rescued prisoners could be contacted safely.

Gillian coordinated logistics, ensuring they had supplies, medication, everything needed for an extended siege.

Bruce spent every free moment beside Mishka’s bed.

She drifted in and out of consciousness, sometimes aware, sometimes lost in fever dreams caused by the collar’s interference with her natural magic.

When she was lucid, she would squeeze his hand, her eyes communicating everything her stolen voice couldn’t.

On the third day back in Eldergrove, Emma made a breakthrough.

“I think I can modify the collar,” she told Bruce, her notebook filled with complex magical notation.

“Not remove it—that’s still too dangerous.

But I might be able to create a…

a bridge.

A way for Mishka to access her Siren abilities through the collar’s suppression, like finding a loophole in the programming.”

“Would it be safe?” Bruce asked.

“Safer than leaving her completely defenseless.

The collar makes her vulnerable.

If she could at least communicate, maybe even use minor compulsion abilities, she’d have a way to protect herself.”

Bruce looked at Mishka, who’d been listening to the conversation with fierce attention.

She nodded emphatically—yes, try it, take the risk.

“How long?” Bruce asked.

“I need to study the collar’s structure for another day, then attempt the modification.

If it works, Mishka might regain limited voice abilities within a week.”

It was something.

A spark of hope in the darkness that had engulfed them since the summit.

That night, Bruce sat by Mishka’s bed, holding her hand as she finally fell into genuine sleep rather than fever-induced unconsciousness.

He thought about the past weeks—the revelations about the binding magic, the attacks on integration communities, the summit disaster, the assassination attempt.

Twenty-two days remained until Jean’s countdown reached zero.

Twenty-two days to figure out what she was really planning, to stop Aleksander and the Old World Conclave, to save the integration movement from destruction.

It seemed impossible.

But as Bruce looked around the medical center—at Emma working tirelessly on magical solutions, at Mrs.

Pemberton coordinating healing efforts, at the rescued prisoners slowly recovering under care, at his own community coming together to protect the vulnerable—he realized something.

Jean had made a tactical error.

She’d assumed that attacking integration communities would break them, that fear would drive them apart.

Instead, it was forging them into something stronger.

Eldergrove wasn’t just a sanctuary anymore.

It was becoming a rallying point, a place where the fight against Jean’s network was centered, where survivors gathered and resistance was planned.

They were still outnumbered, still outmaneuvered, still fighting from a defensive position.

But they were fighting together.

And that, Bruce thought as he drifted off to sleep beside Mishka’s bed, might just be enough.