by M. D. Massey
Seconds after the first wolves had been cut down by the claymore, the roof of the access shelter exploded in a shower of tar paper and wood fragments. An enormous ’thrope flew out of it, landing past our remaining claymores and damned close to our skirmish line. It tilted its head back and roared at us, leaving lines of spittle hanging from its mouth as it raged in challenge.
“That’s one of Van’s sons, Skull. He’s mine,” Bobby growled. I had other plans than to let Bobby take that huge wolf on, and swiveled the machine gun at it. But before I could get it in my sights, Bobby had jumped forward, slashing across its chest in a strike that he’d obviously meant for its throat. He followed up by going low with a slash to Skull’s quadriceps, then another to his gut. Only the shot to the leg connected deeply enough to do any damage, and the beast staggered as it counterattacked.
I looked on in awe as Bobby took it apart, one swipe at a time. It was like watching a skilled butcher taking apart a side of meat. Even though Skull was twice his size, the big lug just couldn’t touch him. Bobby slashed arteries and debilitated limbs in swipe after swipe after bloody swipe. Then, Skull got smart and began to back away so that he could use his reach against Bobby’s speed. I wanted to see how the fight would end, but I got distracted by three more wolves who leaped out of the access shelter the same way, each one landing in a different direction.
That totally screwed up my plans to funnel them through our kill zone, so I lit up the closest one with the Stoner, cutting him down with a five-second burst of the gun. At nine hundred rounds a minute, seventy-five rounds of 5.56 made quick work of it. I swiveled to the second one, only to find that it was almost right on top of me. It leapt and I lit it up, picking the Stoner up and following the damn thing over me as I landed on my back to let it pass overhead. That jacked up the belt feed on the damn thing, and it jammed up on me. I didn’t have time to screw with it, because even though Bobby had ganked Skull and was engaged with the third wolf, two more of them were already headed our way. I tossed the Stoner aside and ripped the little MP7 machine guns off my vest, sighting in on our latest party guests.
I was squeezing the triggers when Colin dove into my field of fire. “Shit!” I yelled, firing a few rounds that barely missed him, just as he started using that big sword like a scalpel. He took one wolf out at the knees, then parried a swipe from the second and split that wolf nearly in two down the torso. Not getting up from that shit, that’s for sure, I thought as I watched him lever the blade out of the body. He yanked it free and beheaded the other wolf without a glance, scanning for more of the pack.
Seven left.
I knew that now they’d either wait or come at us in a rush. Either way, I wanted off this roof before they got us trapped up here. I hollered at my crew. “Guys, time to go!”
31
MISTAKE
Bobby was painted in blood from head to toe and scanning the roof for someone else to rip apart. Colin, on the other hand, was backing away from the door, the professional warrior in him fighting against his baser, less rational instincts that said stay and fight. Unsurprisingly, Joe was nowhere in sight.
I yelled again, louder. “Bobby, let’s go!” He turned to look me in the eye, savagery and civilization obviously warring inside him. I saw the challenge in his eyes and knew that with him in this state, it’d be a deadly mistake for me to drop my gaze from his. I spoke in a lower voice, clear and commanding, and held his stare. “I said, let’s go. That’s an order.”
He stared a moment longer, then broke eye contact with me. I mentally sighed in relief. I didn’t want to think about what would’ve happened if he hadn’t. I wasn’t normally one to play dominance games, but I knew with ’thropes, dominance was anything but a game. I spoke to Colin, keeping Bobby in my peripheral vision. “We need to get off this roof before they rush us. Snap into your harness and head over the side—I’ll cover you and Bobby.”
He nodded and rappelled down the side of the building within seconds. I watched him go, then turned back to see every last wolf pouring onto the roof like ants swarming out of their nest. I opened fire with the little MP7’s, emptying both magazines and spraying the wolves at random. The rounds had little effect on them since I wasn’t focusing my firepower on a single wolf. I turned back to Bobby and yelled at him.
“For Christ’s sakes, Bobby, you can’t take them all on! Over the side, now! I’ll cover you and follow right after.”
In truth, I knew I wouldn’t have time, but I hoped he wouldn’t realize it. I still had three grenades on me, and I planned to pull the pins at the last minute to take as many wolves with me as possible. With any luck, Sam would hit the Tannerite and take out the rest.
Bobby looked at the wolves and looked back at me, then shook his head.
“No,” he growled.
He rushed at me and slung me over his shoulder, knocking the wind out of me, and then he ran like hell to the side of the building. I was still trying to catch my breath when I realized we were airborne. One moment we were flying toward the ground at bone-crushing speed; the next, our momentum was stopped with jarring force, and I saw that Bobby had grabbed one of the rappelling ropes.
The top of the roof exploded above us, right before we crashed through a window four floors down and I was knocked unconscious.
I came to with a two hundred and fifty-pound werewolf slapping my face. Again.
“Scratch, wake up, man! Scratch, you with me, buddy?” The kid was practically screaming in my ear, and his gruff werewolf voice and harder than human slaps were making my ears ring. Or maybe it was the forty pounds of Tannerite that I’d loaded that HVAC unit with, or impacting a plate glass window at what felt like terminal velocity just a few moments before. Regardless of the cause, my head felt like someone had been playing soccer with it all day long.
I reached up and snatched a large, furry, clawed hand from the air. “If you slap me one more time, I’m taking you to the vet to get fixed.” I shoved his head away from me. “Now, quit screaming in my ear and help me up.”
He pulled me off the floor and I assessed the damage. I had multiple cuts to my arms and legs, but thankfully none were serious. Bobby, on the other hand, was shredded but healing rapidly. I’d correctly assumed that werewolves could heal most wounds and injuries fairly quickly. However, based on what I’d seen, coming back from dismemberment seemed to be beyond their capabilities. Earlier, the kid had been more or less mum on the topic when I’d asked him how fast wolves could heal, calling it “werewolf stuff” and changing the topic. However, he was also enthusiastic about the prospects of using high explosives to ruin the Pack’s day, which I’d taken as a sign that I was on the right track. Thankfully, my gamble had paid off.
At least, I hoped it had. “Bobby, what’s the situation?”
“You were only out for a few seconds. So far, I haven’t heard anything from the roof and I haven’t heard anything coming down the stairwells, either.”
“We need to go check it out.” I picked some glass off my clothes and out of my hair, discarding it as I walked. Bobby followed me down the hall from the conference room we’d landed in, and I checked my equipment as we headed for the closest stairwell. Glocks? Check. Katana? Check. Rifle? No idea. Machine pistols? MIA. Stoner LMG? Probably scrap metal at the moment. What a damned shame.
I drew the sword, noting a distinct twinge in my shoulder that definitely hadn’t been there earlier. I also still felt woozy, but I was operational. We approached the stairwell cautiously, listening for any sound or indication that some of the Pack had made it. I looked through the door glass. The stairs were full of debris and dust. No movement, though. We headed through the door and up two flights of stairs, until the way became barred by structural beams and cinder block fragments; it appeared the roof had collapsed.
Bobby grunted. “I doubt any of them made it.”
“Agreed. What happened to Joe?”
He growled softly. “He went over the side of the building when we were about
to get overrun.”
“Can’t say I blame him. I didn’t think he’d stick around even that long. Bet he’s ten miles from here by now.” I rubbed my face and sighed. “Alright, let’s go see how Sam and Gabby are doing.”
We bolted down the stairs, forgetting momentarily that there might be undetonated booby traps and some not quite dead werewolves waiting for us. It was a mistake which nearly cost us our lives. As I hit the seventh floor landing at speed, a huge, wounded ’thrope came up from below, leaping stairs three at a time. It bled in several places, and was missing an ear and possibly a few digits, but it was also pissed as hell and ready to rumble. It knocked the sword from my hand, and I barely avoided getting my head taken off by a powerful swipe of its claws, only just ducking under it and diving awkwardly to the stairwell below.
I rolled as I hit the next landing, coming up on one hand. I looked up and saw Bobby fighting with the wolf at close range. His speed and agility advantage was negated by the close quarters, which meant that he was forced to grapple with the larger and more mature ’thrope. And he was losing. He had one of the ’thrope’s wrists locked in his left hand, and the other was around its throat, barely keeping its slavering, snapping jaws away from his face. The ’thrope’s other hand was savaging Bobby’s torso and head with heavy blows.
I looked around and located the katana, reaching out for it and nearly grabbing it, just before I noticed that the blade was suspended in mid-air by an almost invisible strand of fishing microfilament line. I stopped myself with a sharp intake of breath, and slowed my roll considerably. I picked the sword up carefully to avoid placing any additional pressure on the blade. As I snatched it from the tripwire, I paused in anticipation of the distinct plink of a grenade spoon releasing.
Hearing nothing but the sound of my balls dropping out of my abdomen in relief, I rolled across the landing and came up with a right-to-left upward slash of the blade that severed the wolf’s Achilles tendon on its right ankle, causing it to stumble and lose leverage. As it dropped down closer to my level, I reversed the cut and neatly beheaded it, narrowly missing Bobby’s hand. The head fell and bounced down the stairwell to the landing below, where I skewered it to keep it from hitting the trip line.
Bobby collapsed on the steps behind him and checked his hand to make sure all his fingers and claws were still attached. Assured that he was still in one piece, he shook his massive canine head and let out a sound that was closer to a whine than a sigh. “When this is done, I’m going surfing.”
I extended a hand to him. “The sooner we get out of here, the sooner we can get someplace safe and relax.” After he was back on his feet, I pointed past the severed ’thrope head below. “Just please be sure to mind the tripwires on your way out of the building. I nearly blew us to kingdom come a second ago.”
He laughed. “Now wouldn’t that be ironic, if it was your klutziness and not mine that got us blown to bits?”
“Yeah, let’s don’t and say we didn’t.” I grabbed my sword, tiptoed over the wire, and headed down to the ground floor, with Bobby screaming, "Don’t step there!" at random intervals and giggling, the whole way down.
32
DISMAY
Somehow, Bobby and I managed to avoid any more run-ins with booby traps and not-yet-dead werewolves on the way down to ground level. We did find a lot of ’thrope parts, though; apparently, they were the idiots who’d triggered the traps. The kill radius on an M67 fragmentation grenade was five meters, and in the confined spaces of the stairwell, the concussive force and shrapnel had made short and bloody work of them.
Even so, the day wasn’t over yet. We still had to go through Van, or Fenrir, or whoever the hell he was, and then we’d face Piotr—a being who, by all counts, was some sort of super-vampire. By any measure, we still had a long night ahead of us. So when Bobby and I hit the ground floor and none of the others were there yet, I began to worry.
“Bobby, do you have eyes or ears on anyone?”
He shook his shaggy head. “Nope. Think they’re still on their way down?”
I shook my head. “Colin should at least be here. I saw him heading over the side, right before you grabbed me and did that Jason Bourne maneuver.”
“Yeah, that was pretty Matt Damon-esque, was it not?” He brushed imaginary dust from his shoulders, then looked around. “Well, the good news is that I don’t see any Colin bits lying around.”
Not really in the mood for jokes, I grimaced and started to panic. The last thing I had wanted to do was get people killed. I headed to the other tower, calling out for the others. “Sam! Gabby! Colin!” No one answered. I yelled across the common area to Bobby. “Check around the perimeter of the buildings—see if you can find anything. I’ll check inside.”
“You got it, boss.”
I bolted through the front door of the other building, intent on making a beeline for the stairs. But as soon as I entered, I was clotheslined by a massive hairy arm. I landed hard, bouncing off the ground as I hit. My brain must’ve got rattled pretty good, because I was seeing stars as a large ’thrope picked me up by the throat and held me at arm’s length.
He backed away from the door as I dangled from his grip, leaving the tips of my toes dragging along the tiles. I tried kicking free, but he had his claws dug into my neck close to my spine, and his grip was a vice. No dice on that plan. I tried to draw my guns, but when I did, he shook me like a rag doll and scrambled my brains even more. That’s when I realized that if he’d wanted to kill me, he’d have just snapped my neck already. With no alternatives left to me, I decided to make nice and see what he wanted.
I looked him in the eye and attempted a smile, a difficult task considering the grip the thing had on me. “I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced,” I choked out.
“My given name is Hati, but most call me Hate.”
“Ah," I squeaked. "The other half of the hair band duo formerly known as Skull and Hate.” Of course, the last thing I wanted was to tell him his brother was dead, being as he was just a twist and a crunch away from crushing my spine. I changed the subject. “Just curious, where’s your dad at the moment? I have a bone to pick with that guy.”
The ’thrope chuckled. “As he does with you.” He pulled me in close and huffed hot, fetid dog breath in my face. It smelled slightly of dead, rotted meat—and toothpaste, of all things. “What big teeth you have,” I quipped. “Must be hell on dental bills, though.”
He growled in reply. “I should kill you right now, but Father would be very displeased with me if I did, as he longs to see whether you live up to your reputation. Granted, he might provide me with some leeway, considering that you helped kill my brother.” I must have registered some surprise on my face, and he sneered. “Oh, yes, I’m aware of his death. Pack knows when pack bleeds. However, unlike the others you slaughtered, my brother will be back with us as soon as Piotr opens the gateway. You see, my kind can’t die—we just get sent back to the other side—then we simply come back and kill more of your kind.”
“Yeah? Well, I’m not really big on recycling,” I said as I pulled my Bowie and attempted to stick it in his eye. He quickly blocked my attack, grabbing my arm with his free hand and breaking my wrist with a loud snap. I dropped the blade and screamed in rage and pain.
“Tsk, tsk, Mr. Sullivan. Although Father wants you alive, he won’t mind if I break you a little. Behave.” He tossed me across the entryway of the building, and I landed on the hard tiles and slid several feet to collide with the other wall. I cradled my arm as I sat up; from what I could tell, it was cracked, but not displaced. No telling if I’d be able to use it anytime soon, and it already hurt like a son of a bitch. What I wouldn’t do for some Vicodin right now, I thought.
Hate cocked an ear and gave a small nod of his head. “Ah, the whelp is coming. When he arrives, tell the pup that Hati is waiting for him at the compound.” He pointed one long, clawed finger at me. “And you, Mr. Sullivan. Father is waiting for you there as well.” Then
the thing beat feet for the back entrance. I sat there cradling my arm as Bobby walked in the door.
“No sign of them—” he said, pausing as he saw me sitting in a heap against the wall. “Holy crap, what the hell happened to you?”
“Hate happened to me. He just left.” Bobby started to run off after him, but I held a hand up to stop him. “No, don’t bother going after him. He’s not going far. Based on what he just told me, he and Van will be waiting for us in the compound. Right now, I need you to stick tight and help me splint my arm. The fracking cur broke it.”
He grinned a canine grin at me. “‘Fracking cur’—gee, boss, your vocabulary has really improved since we first met.”
“Yeah, every day’s a new day. Now help me splint this thing so we can figure out where Colin, Gabby, and Sam went.”
Bobby wrapped my arm in some carpet padding we pulled up from one of the offices, then he rolled a couple of old magazines around it and we duct taped it up tight. Since it wasn’t displaced, it’d probably heal rapidly due to my quasi-werewolf powers. But as far as it healing before we ran into Van and Hate; well, I had my doubts about that. Thankfully, it was my left arm, so my dominant hand still worked just fine. But using a katana one-handed was going to be a chore. If worse came to worst, I’d just try to barrel through the pain and use my left hand; it might suck for a while, but it sure beat getting your head bitten off.
While he was fixing up my arm, I questioned Bobby on what he’d found outside.
“Nothing, and I mean nothing," he said. “Their scent ends in the parking lot. No signs of a struggle, either. It’s like they just vanished.”
I pursed my lips and shook my head. “It just doesn’t make sense. How could they disappear without leaving a trace of where they went or how they left?” I thought on it for a moment and had an idea. “Let’s check upstairs and see if they left any clues up there.”
