“The path to paradise begins in hell.”

– Dante Alighieri

Act I: The First Circle - Limbo

Chapter 1: The Den of Wolves

The stagnant November night air reeked of carbon and oiled steel—silent, until the crackle of a radio broke through.

“Alpha, this is Wolf 3. We've got twelve hostiles approaching the warehouse. Over.”

“Seriously? We just got our shipment from the Hong Kong branch an hour ago! One of those dock workers is a mole. Dieser Hürensohn*, I’ll rat him out and shove a grenade down his throat later,” snarled a woman, her coral glossed lips biting every syllable.

She cracked her neck as she rose from her chair, her figure silhouetted between crates of weaponry, stacked like tombs found deep in a mausoleum. Muscle coiled under her black jeans, her broad shoulders fitted in dark brown leather.

“This is Alpha, give me a SITREP* Wolf 3. Over,” ordered the woman. She tied back her thick hazel hair into a low ponytail. The top tufts of her hair mimicked wolf ears as steel piercings bit into the real lobes beneath.

“Six on the west: three with long guns, three with handguns. Six on the east: four with long guns, two with handguns. I don’t have any positive ID on their Underworld affiliation. Over.”

Her angular brows furrowed over eyes ringed in fierce eyeshadow—warpaint for the streets.

“Do you see any NVDs* on them? Over.”

“Negative Alpha. Over.”

Her dark irises caught a glint of red under the warpaint.

“That’s it? Six small timers, with no NVDs, in the middle of the night? Who the hell do they think they are?” She guffawed. “We’ll put them in their place—six feet under. Ain’t that right, guys?”

Alpha turned to the four men across the room, flanked by shadow and crates of ammunition. Cantonese men with specks of gray in their hair. Years of combat experience embedded in their wrinkles and scars. Alpha carried the same level of composure but wasn’t a day over twenty-eight.

“Aye deoi zoeng*,” they answered in unison.

Their captain stared at them with tense eyes, reminiscing about her childhood in Hong Kong, where these men raised her like their own niece. Ceramic ballistic plates braced their iron frames. Quad-tube GPNVGs* glowed like specters while barrels of cold-hammered steel sat poised in their arms.

Alpha shouldered her plate carrier, which brandished a wolf patch with the word “Lau” written in Chinese. She secured her ballistic helmet, NVGs casting a halo of white phosphor, while plugging in the radio cables with calloused and scarred hands—seventy pounds of kit enveloped her like a second skin.

“Alpha here, comms check. Over.”

“Wolf 1, green.”

“Wolf 2, green.”

“Wolf 3, green.”

“Wolf 4, green.”

“Wolf 5, green.”

“Good. This is Alpha, we’ll execute the plan, Midnight Hunt, for these guys. Don’t you dare let these puk gaai* lay a single finger on one of our shipments. If they do, they’ll be losing more than fingers. Wu Suk* would never let us live this down otherwise. Everyone, get in position. Over.”

“Copy,” the Wolves rang.

She grabbed her rifle, an HK416A5—its tan finish worn from thousands of rounds. An Eotech optic, PEQ-15 laser aiming module, Surefire flashlight, and RC3 suppressor augmented it into a weapon of the night. A steel magazine tapped against her helmet. She slammed it home and yanked the charging handle. The bolt made a sharp cha-chack sound as it ate into a green-tipped round, then cracked back just enough to confirm.

“Wolf 1, you’re with me on the west side. Wolf 2, 4, 5, you’re on the east,” she then spoke into her headset. “This is Alpha, Wolf 3, maintain overwatch through your roof position and security cams, the rest of us will attend to our guests. Over.”

“Solid copy,” responded Wolf 3.

“Ready when you are, Alpha,” said Wolf 1, his voice a tad warmer than the rest.

“Move out,” ordered Alpha.

Six men breached the west entrance and stacked up inside the mouth of the door. They were immediately presented with a wall that would force them to bank left, down the throat of a narrow hallway.

“Who the fuck puts a wall right here?” growled a bear-shaped man in a Brooklyn accent.

“The hallway’s a coffin chute,” a rat-faced man muttered, his gaze being sucked down the tunnel.

“Something’s off,” said the large man as he pawed the wall. “This looks like fresh drywall. Couldn’t we just break through it?”

“Too much effort and noise. We’re just nabbing their weapon shipment. They prob ain’t expecting us, so we gotta be quick.”

The bear’s eyes darted anxiously. “Alright, but what if this is a trap made by the Iron Door? Didn’t the Suarez gang get wiped in Queens trying this shit? That mole gives me the spooks too. She looked as white as a ghost.”

“Iron Door, my ass. What’s a bit of drywall gonna do? The mole? She gives me the creeps too, but Miguel vetted her. Besides, they only got six—a buncha washed out chinks and even a woman. We got twice their numbers. I don’t need you pissing your pants unless we run into a Devil’s Tooth.”

“Once the Devil sinks his Teeth into you, he never lets go,” a third man jested.

“Don’t even joke about them, Takagis. A single Tooth means we’re dead, all of us,” hushed the broad man.

A camera hidden in the corner watched as the hallway swallowed the men, one by one. Patches of white primer clung to the walls, trailing their shadows like ghosts. The air was cold, dry, and carried the faint, dusty scent of raw gypsum. Overhead, bare wiring dangled from the light fixtures. The corridor bent hard right just a few paces ahead, ending at a T-junction.

“Shit, left or right boss?,” cursed the bear-like man under his breath.

“You two, on me on the right. You three, the left,” the rodent-like man ordered.

They split—three left, three right. One of them glanced up above as the lights flickered.

“Ah shit, who has a li-”

The lights snapped out, their vision engulfed in black.

Right as the last man stepped out, Alpha had her prey trapped.

“Wolf 2, cut the lights.”

A sea of darkness flooded the warehouse.

“Fǒhng lòhng chēut duhng—Release the Wolves,” was the last thing she growled into her comms.

The quad NODs* dropped over her eyes, turning her vision of the void into a panoramic gray scale. Alpha presented her rifle, elbows tucked tight with the stock in her left shoulder. Anchoring herself behind the corner of the hallway, she leaned out her upper body to the left and spotted six silhouettes, all scratching at shadows. The infrared laser and illuminator sliced through the grayscale as she canted the rifle right, thirty degrees off-center, eyes level behind the NVG lenses.

Fifteen yards out, the laser caught the first man. Her finger, taut against the trigger’s wall, squeezed when his heart was painted in IR.

In an instant, three rounds stacked his center mass. Her rifle ran like a violent sewing machine, spitting brass at three o’clock. Its muzzle barely moved under her firm grip. The supersonic rounds cracked like thunder, but the suppressor swallowed any muzzle flash. Across the hallway, another IR laser intersected the men in the middle and pierced them with volleys of lead.

Before the first man hit the ground, Alpha cut the second one down with another burst.

The third man fired blindly.

She added him to the stack of crumpling bodies.

Alpha switched the rifle to her right shoulder before sliding like a shadow against the right wall of the hallway. Balanced and deliberate with each step, she closed in on the junction.

In less than a minute, the only two figures left standing were Alpha and Wolf 1, who mirrored her from the other side. Only the reverberations of gunfire and rolling brass remained.

“Wolf 2, this is Alpha, switch the lights back on.”

The lights flickered back on, unveiling the bodies and spent brass littering the hallway.

“Arrrgh,” a bear-shaped body groaned.

A round tore through his skull, the bolt locking back on empty.

“Some of them have armor, confirm your kills,” she spoke into her comms.

The empty steel mag clattered on concrete. Alpha reached for a fresh one—then a blur of gear lunged from her right: one of the wounded, knife in hand.

“YOU BITCH!” screeched the rat-faced man.

She whipped around, caught the knife with her rifle, and cleaved an elbow through his jaw. Alpha continued to pivot as her wine-red nails tore into his arm. She launched him over her shoulder, slamming him onto the ground like a carcass.

The man choked on his breath before his eyes caught the barrel of a handgun and silver rings that glinted under the light.

A double tap echoed down the hallway. Brass spun over the concrete. Alpha hissed a breath between her teeth that danced with the smoking carbon.

Then, a heavy crunch echoed through the warehouse.

“Du Stück Scheiße!*” she snarled, her Jodhpur boot grinding into his skull. She then lifted it and scowled before wiping the blood and bits.

Alpha reloaded her rifle as she peered back over the silent hall. The bodies slowly covered the floor in a dark pool of red. Her eyes scanned for any signs of movement. She only saw ghosts now—pale stains hovering over the corpses they once shadowed. She grimaced, exorcising her tainted soul with an exhale.

“Clear,” Alpha said.

“You slammed the Iron Door right on their grubby little fingers, and worse. Your old man taught you well, Rudy,” said Wolf 1 as he emptied his rifle on the bodies. His weary eyes were treating this like a normal nine-to-five.

“Only thing he’s good for,” Rudy muttered, bitter.

“I remember when Lang threw me that hard back during our days in the SDU. Man had no restraint, even during sparring. I think I’d pull something if I tried that now.”

Wolf 1 lowered his balaclava, revealing the face of a man who looked like he ran a noodle stall in Kowloon—gentle eyes inviting you in, until you realized his chopsticks were lodged in your throat.

“He really didn’t know when to hold back, even on his twelve-year-old daughter,” groaned Rudy. She turned to face Wolf 1.

“Koeng Suk, you can spar me though,” she said with a devilish smile, “I promise I’ll hold back.”

“You’re not much better than Lang. If you break my back, you’re paying for my retirement fund.”

“How ‘bout a round of drinks instead?”

“Better be some damn good scotch.”

“Only at the swankiest Manhattan bar.”

“Deal.”

The two shared a chuckle before Rudy reached for the push-to-talk on her chest.

“This is Alpha. Wolf 1 and I have cleared our sectors. Are your sectors clear? Over.”

“This is Wolf 2, hostiles eliminated. Over.”

“This is Wolf 3, all sectors cleared. Over.”

“Copy that,” replied Rudy.

“That the new piece your gramps sent from Germany?” asked Koeng.

“Oh, my new USP compact? Mein Opa* gave it a sweet trigger job and an optic cut,” said Rudy, holding it in front of Koeng like a new toy. She grinned, sharp canines flashing.

“What caliber was it?”

“It’s chambered in 9.”

“German, compact, and reliable, just like you, Rudy.”

“You sound like my gramps,” Rudy laughed.

She gazed softly at the piece of steel and polymer in her hands, remembering the large, gentle hands that put it together.

Rudy’s radio crackled, snapping her back to the present.

“This is Wolf 3, the store room camera went down for a bit, so I went to take a look. I just finished accounting for our shipment. Did we always have this crate of seven-six-two*? Over.”

“Argh, tch, did we get an extra crate of seven-six-two? Weird. Hong Kong said it should’ve all been five-five-six*,” Rudy muttered, her brow furrowing as she glanced toward the pool of blood.

It crept towards her boots—not pooling, but reaching—like it meant to drag her down into hell itself.

“Uhhhh, Alpha here, just bring it back to HQ with the rest. We’ll double-check the inventory list later since we gotta clean up this bloody mess. Over.”

“Ugh, I need a drink after all this.”

“Now you really sound like Lang. He always needs a drink after missions, haha,” chided Koeng.

“Shut up Koeng suk.”

Rudy shot Koeng a playful jab.

As the two continued to banter, the ghosts of white primer hung above, waiting to be painted in dark crimson.