The pain never came. I opened my eyes as his head rolled across the metal floor and came to rest at my feet. I looked towards where he'd stood just seconds earlier, and saw Angus standing behind the headless body that folded in slow motion at his feet. Two wickedly sharp blades were gripped in his fists, and his eyes were black with fury.
"Thanks," I said dryly, and grinned in relief as his expression softened and the humanity returned to his eyes.
"It was a pleasure," he said, with feeling. "We should get going. Most of Anne's crew is dead or disappeared somehow, and those that aren't will need disposing of. We need to start cleaning up."
"Right," I said, " and followed him up the stairs, my feet squelching through the blood that had pooled around Snake Eyes' body. For some reason, it smelled delicious.
I looked in dismay at the carnage that filled the warehouse. It looked like every single square metre of floor space was covered by bodies, or bits of bodies. How the hell were we supposed to clear this mess in the next few hours? I thought.
I spotted Oliver in the distance, leaning against a box with wheels and camouflage paint, and apparently having a conversation with Fergus, who sat casually on top of the vehicle with a massive gun in his lap. He waved at us and Fergus looked up with a grin, and turned his head and called down to whoever was inside the vehicle. Oliver sauntered over to us in his usual careless fashion, occasionally stopping to drag one of his blades across a random throat.
"Nice," he drawled appreciatively when he reached where we stood. "Two hundred odd down, another four to go. You've got some serious talent there, little nephew."
"Thanks," I said uncertainly, surveying the bodies and wondering how many of them I was responsible for.
"Most of them," Oliver answered my unasked question. "Anne too, I hear."
"Yes," I said shortly, suddenly distracted by something he'd said which hadn't made sense. "Nephew?"
"Yeah," said Angus. "There's someone you should probably meet." And then I looked across to see Fergus and a blonde man walking towards us. We watched their progress in silence until they were a few metres away.
"Mark," said the blonde man, his face filled with a strange combination of relief and trepidation, a mirror image of my own.
"Hi Dad," I said. "Glad to see you're not dead." I turned to Angus. "You should phone Rebecca now."
"You call her," he said, handing me his phone. "Oliver and I need to distribute some C4, because there is no way we are going to get this mess cleared in the usual way."