Hot fat struck the first collector's shoulders as he crossed the front threshold. He screamed, lost the stair rail, then dragged two men backward into the butcher shop before they could see what had happened.
Vell heard the fall through the floorboards while the root inside Yenna's core strained against his read. Pulling his hands away would leave the barbed knot open, so the hallway had to become their weapon.
"Two on the stairs and more below," Yenna said, gripping the table edge, "tell me where you put the next surprise."
"The wire trips the first man," Vell said, guiding a broken root thread into the parasite core, "then kick the freezer door when they bunch at the landing."
Her face had gone pale beneath the sweat, but her eyes followed the ceiling hooks and doorway without hesitation. The procedure had forced her body still; it had not taken her ability to decide what happened in the room.
The first raiders hit the stairs through smoke from the burning fat. A blade scraped the wall, followed by a collector telling the others to spread out before they entered the upper corridor.
Vell had placed the wire beneath a torn runner, making it look like a loose repair. The first man stepped over it, but the second caught the line around his shin and pulled the hidden cleaver rack down with him.
Metal struck the cramped landing beneath them in a single heavy crash. Someone cursed, then a heat-lance fired through the floor, turning the butcher block below into splintered timber.
"They brought a lance," Yenna said, breathing through a wave of pain, "that makes the front stairs unusable."
"It makes them afraid of their own line," Vell said, separating another thin scar branch, "wait until they climb past the freezer."
The collectors had numbers, armor, plus a weapon that could burn through the room around them. Their problem was simple: every shot could hit the woman their employer wanted alive.
One man reached the hallway landing with a shield raised above his face. Yenna moved one chain-knife without leaving the table, snapping the link around his ankle before he could see where the strike came from.
She pulled once, causing the collector to crash into the freezer door. Vell kicked the release cord beside the table, sending the rusted door outward on its damaged hinge.
The door struck the man across the chest, carrying him down two stairs into the men behind him. His shield broke the pile badly, but the heat-lance stayed raised at the bottom of the stairwell.
Vell kept reading Yenna's core while the pain pressure climbed through his own wrists. The separated branch fed into the parasite core in small black strands, yet the root remained locked near the channels that governed her burst output.
"Safe output?" he asked, forcing the question through the Forge pressure.
"Eleven percent," Yenna said, wiping blood from her palm against the canvas, "spend it where it matters."
He hated hearing a number attached to her strength, but it gave him the boundary needed to plan. Anything beyond it could make the stabilizing core reject the extraction, which would hand the Directorate its control back.
Below, a collector began shouting orders for the men to use the rear stairs. Vell had expected the move when he placed a strip of rendered fat beneath the back window, but he had no hand free to light it.
Yenna saw the immediate threat before he could explain it to her. She hooked her remaining chain around the oil lamp near the wall, then pulled the lamp across the room with a measured jerk.
The lamp smashed against the window frame as three figures climbed the outside stair. Fire followed the fat line, forcing them down into the alley where the broken railing gave way under their weight.
The stair dropped with them, taking the only clear exit from the upstairs room. Yenna's chain came back smoking at one link, while she drew a slower breath through the pain.
"Back route is gone," she said, letting the chain settle against the table, "your turn to tell me whether that was worth it."
"It bought us a wall," Vell said, guiding the root toward the parasite core, "we needed one."
The collectors below stopped trying to climb once the rear stair burned. That pause let Vell isolate the outer half of the corrupted node, a tight black coil hidden behind the familiar silver scar.
The Forge did not call it a disease, because it had never been one. The node was a manufactured lock with a locator built into its outer shell, waiting for a Directorate signal to close Yenna's core from inside.
He showed her the shape through the shared read, not hiding the place where it wrapped around her healthy channels. Yenna studied it with her teeth clenched, then gave him a slow nod.
"Take the outer shell," she said, keeping her voice low, "leave the lock until you know the price."
Vell began dismantling the locator coils one careful thread at a time. Each removed thread made the pulse from below weaken, while each movement gave the root more reason to fight the parasite core.
A collector finally reached the top stair through the smoke, holding the heat-lance low beside his thigh. He saw Vell's hands over Yenna's chest, then looked at the burning window and decided neither target could move fast.
"Put the tool down," he said, taking one cautious step along the hallway, "the woman comes with us and the man stays breathing."
"You are standing under the hook line," Yenna said, looking at the ceiling above him, "take another step."
The collector looked up, which was the only warning Vell had intended to give. Yenna pulled the last intact chain with eleven percent output, bringing a suspended meat hook through the hallway wall.
The hook caught his heat-lance strap and ripped the weapon from his hand. It crossed the floor, landed beside Vell's knee, then discharged into the ceiling before the collector could grab it.
Vell kicked the lance beneath the table while Yenna used the returning chain to strike the man's wrist. The collector dropped to one knee, no longer dangerous, but he shouted a warning toward the others.
The outer shell came free as he worked, entering the parasite core with a sharp rush of black residue. The locator pulse stopped, leaving only the deeper lock wrapped around Yenna's Grade 2 channels.
The men below had stopped following their leader's orders after watching the hook take the lance. Vell used their hesitation to press the parasite core against the isolated node, checking how much of the lock had separated.
Most of the locator had come loose, but its command heart still sat inside Yenna's core. It could not signal outside now, yet it could close her channels if Dorr gave it the right instruction.
That left the procedure balanced on one hard truth: keeping the node open made Yenna vulnerable, while closing it left the Directorate's lock in place. Vell could solve only one part there before Dorr reached the table.
Yenna understood from the shape of his hands, although he had not spoken the calculation. She adjusted her chain around the table leg, placing the weapon where she could reach it despite the procedure's pull.
"Do not protect the easy part," Yenna said, glancing toward the doorway, "take the lock before he can use it."
Vell did not answer with reassurance he could not honestly keep right now. He shifted the Forge read deeper, accepting the extra strain while the next footstep reached the top of the stairs.
The upper hallway had become a narrow line of fire, falling metal, plus broken floorboards. Dorr would have to enter through the only space Vell and Yenna had deliberately left open.
[Anchor node isolated.]
[Yenna Rook: safe output 11%.]
The remaining collectors did not enter after watching their lead man's heat-lance fail. Instead, their shadows moved aside below the stairs as a different set of steps came through the butcher shop.
Those steps did not rush, and they did not test the traps. Vell recognized the restraint from the Association arena, where Inspector Dorr had lost a sample without losing his ability to cause trouble.
"Keep the node open," Yenna said, checking the chain knife in her uninjured hand, "I will handle the man who thinks rules make him stronger."
Dorr entered the hallway wearing an inspection coat over Grade 2 combat plates. He looked at the burned stairs, the disabled collector, then Vell's unmoving hands before smiling at the procedure he had come to destroy.