by Steve McHugh
She looked at the two prison guards. “Can I have a moment?”
The guards left, and Layla took the chair furthest from her father.
“I haven’t tried to kill anyone yet,” he said with an almost jovial tone.
“It’s the word ‘yet’ that I’m worried about,” Layla said.
“Do you plan on talking to me?” he asked. “Actually talking to me. About anything, not just hating me.”
“I wasn’t planning on it, no.”
“I loved your mother.”
Layla turned away. “You loved yourself. That’s all you’ve ever loved, Dad. You loved killing people, and you loved the way it made you feel powerful and in control. I’ve read the psychologists’ reports. I’ve read everything about your case. If you’d cared about me and Mom, you wouldn’t have forced me to do military training at the age of five, and you wouldn’t have made her scared of you.”
“She was scared of me?”
Layla turned back to face her father, anger blazing on her face. “You don’t even see it, do you? You don’t even see the hurt you caused to your own wife and child.” She breathed deeply. “No, I’m not doing this. Everything you say is a manipulation.”
“Why would I want to manipulate you?”
“Because that’s what you do all the time. You manipulate to get your own way. It’s almost like breathing to you.”
Sadness passed over Caleb’s face and left as quickly as it arrived, but Layla noticed it and wondered if maybe there was more to her father than what she remembered. More than what she’d read about.
“Is there no part of your childhood with me that you remember fondly?”
Layla wanted to make sure she gave away no more of the anger and disgust she felt. “I hid from the FBI agents who came to get you because I thought they were the monsters you always told me were out there. You pretended to be my father. You pretended to be a good man. Any good memories of you are tainted by the shit-show you managed to create.”
Before Caleb could reply, Harry opened the door. “Irkalla is about to let go.”
“You hate me. You really do hate me. Not just what I did. But me as a person,” Caleb said as Layla got to her feet.
“Yes, Dad. I hate you. I hate everything about you. What you did, why you did it, how you thought of nothing but yourself. How you didn’t even show remorse. How you never once cared that everything you did affected me and Mom. The fact that I have to spend time with you makes my skin crawl.” She looked down at him and wondered if there was anything left of the conscience he might once have had. Or if he was just pure evil. At one time, she’d wanted to see him, to ask why. But now, now she just wanted to forget him.
Layla left the house just as the ground began to shake and smoke rose out of the forest. “Stay here, Harry,” Layla told him.
“Not going to argue, trust me.”
The rest of the group ran into the forest. Kase sped away from the remainder of them, her werewolf-enhanced speed one of the few perks of the species that Layla envied; that, and the healing. A werewolf’s ability to heal was legendary, even amongst other non-humans.
They smelled the devastation before they saw it; the burning wood was difficult to mistake for anything else. The clearing that Irkalla had made was big enough to land two or three Black Hawks with little difficulty. She sat in the center of the area, taking deep breaths.
Remy stood beside her, his fur a little singed, but otherwise he looked okay.
“If I make another stupid suggestion,” he said, “stop me.”
“She okay?” Nabu asked.
“I think so. Have you ever seen her do anything like that before?”
“Once. We were at war and during the fight she absorbed hundreds of spirits in the space of only a few hours. She had to release so much unspent energy at the end of the battle that it basically tore the earth apart. I haven’t heard of her having to do anything similar for thousands of years.”
“Hundreds,” Irkalla called out. “I had to take the spirits of several trolls a couple of centuries ago. Long story short, there’s a mountain that’s now a bit smaller than it was before I started.”
“You okay?” Chloe called over.
Irkalla nodded. “I’m going to feel it tomorrow, but other than that, I’m all good.” She struggled to get to her feet and Kase ran over to help her up.
“We have to clear this area of anything that might cause problems for a landing helicopter,” Zamek said. “Mostly the larger bits.”
“I’ll take Irkalla back to the house,” Kase said. “Get her something to eat.”
“Thanks for doing this,” Chloe said, and Irkalla gave her a thumbs-up.
Layla thought it was odd to see her so weakened. She’d watched Irkalla defeat a troll alone; hell, she killed the oni by herself, and seeing her so depleted and exhausted was a difficult thing to compute.
Once the team was back in the house, everyone tried to rest for what was going to be a difficult few days. The sun soon set, and Layla decided to get some air, leaving the building and walking down to the driveway below, where she found Harry leaning up against a wall.
“You okay?” he asked as she approached.
Layla nodded. The smell of burning wood was still heavy in the air. Kase had helped put out the fires with her elemental powers, but the scent still lingered.
“Smells like the bonfires we used to have as kids. Like Bonfire Night.”
Layla smiled. Harry and Chloe had taken her to a fireworks display a few years ago to celebrate Guy Fawkes Night. It had been a cold November evening, and despite having lived in England for over a decade, Layla had never really understood why the British celebrated the failure to destroy their entire Parliament. But the display was nice, and she had eaten a lot of food and drunk a lot of ale.
“I’m thinking of the first fireworks display you took me to,” Layla said. “You remember it?”
“The one with the cider and ale festival?” Harry asked. “I remember you getting very drunk on ale that was a lot stronger than you expected. I remember you trying to hit on that big, bearded dude who was very confused by the drunk American who kept asking him if he was in a gang.”
Layla laughed. “Oh God, I did, didn’t I? He looked like Charlie Hunnam.”
“He did. I assume that’s why you also asked him if he’d ever piloted a giant robot.”
Layla laughed again. “That was my first ever fireworks display. Mom didn’t like big crowds, so we only used to have little ones in the garden.”
“You want a hug?” Harry asked.
Layla smiled and nodded. Harry hugged her. He wasn’t much of a hugger, and so Layla appreciated the gesture.
“We’ll be done with all of this soon enough,” he said.
“You hope.”
Harry looked at Layla, his expression serious. “You’ve got to have hope, Layla,” he told her. “Otherwise, why are we even bothering?”
Layla shrugged. “Fair point.”
“We’ll get our people back. I have no doubt in my mind about that.”
Layla nodded. “Thank you for being you,” she told Harry.
“Being this perfect takes a lot of work,” he replied, making her laugh.
“You two having some kind of secret meeting?” Kase said as she descended the steps toward them.
“We’re just deciding on the handshake,” Harry said.
Kase joined them at the bottom of the stairs. “You both needed a time-out, too?”
“Is that what we’re calling it?” Layla asked.
Kase nodded slowly. “I like my alone time,” she said. “I love my friends and my family, but I also just need to chill out sometimes and not hear anyone.”
“You want to be left alone?” Harry asked.
“No, no,” Kase said, “it’s fine. It’s quieter out here than it is in there. There’s lots of discussion about what to do once we’ve deposited your father. I thought it best to beat a hasty retreat.”
; “You’re welcome to join our gang of people who hide in the dark,” Harry said, and then paused for a second. “That sounded more ominous than I meant it to.”
Kase laughed and leaned her head against Harry’s shoulder. He put his arm around her in turn. Kase was most definitely a hugger, and one of the few people who managed to get a hug out of Harry on a regular basis.
The three of them remained quiet for what felt like a long time, but whenever Layla started to relax, she remembered those who weren’t with her and she immediately began feeling anxious again.
“You want a drink?” Kase asked Layla. “There’s vodka in the freezer. Good vodka, too.”
Layla shook her head. “Not tonight, thanks.”
Kase froze and then immediately stepped away from Harry, sniffing the air. “Get back inside,” she said, any trace of fun and relaxation gone.
Harry and Layla moved up the stairs as Kase followed behind, smelling the air every few steps until they were all back in the house.
The din of half a dozen people all talking at once immediately stopped as Kase entered the house. “We have company,” she said.
Irkalla turned off the lights, and Remy ran to the window, drawing the blinds and peering through two of them.
Layla told Cody and Malcolm to stay with her father, and neither of them complained.
“Harry, guns,” she said.
Harry ran off to the room that passed for an armory and returned a few minutes later with several rifles and boxes of bullets. He ran off again and appeared a second time with shotguns and a few handguns.
“At least Bill was prepared for a war,” Harry said after his third trip to bring more bullets.
“What are we facing out there?” Chloe asked.
“Can’t tell,” Kase said. “Multiple scents, a few hundred feet out.”
Remy ran to the door and pushed it open a few inches, taking a long smell. “At least a dozen. Can’t tell much more than that.”
Lights ignited in the driveway below the house, and everyone looked over at Zamek, who’d activated them. “We can see them easier, and they already know where we are,” he said by way of an explanation.
A few seconds later, Kristin stepped out of the tree line and moved in front of the driveway lights. Her arms were raised, and she carried a megaphone in one hand. “I’m going to put my hands down now,” she said into the megaphone.
Harry took a rifle and crouched beside Layla, passing the weapon to her, but she shook her head. She still had the Glock on her hip, and still hoped she wouldn’t have to use it.
“We need to get out of here,” she whispered to Chloe.
“There were cars in the garage below,” Zamek said. “We checked them over earlier. There’s a set of stairs that leads down there and then out to the rear of the property.”
“Okay, so how do we get them out of here with Kristin and her friends parked on the front lawn?” Chloe asked.
“We moved one of the jeeps to the rear of the building,” Remy said. “We wanted to make sure we had an easy escape should it come to it.”
“We’re not all going to fit in one jeep,” Layla said.
“Kind of my point,” Remy told her. “Kristin wants you and your dad. Getting you gone is the most important part of this mission now.”
“No, it bloody well isn’t,” Layla snapped.
“Are you going to talk to me, or what?” Kristin shouted.
“What do you want?” Kase bellowed out of the front door.
“Caleb. The rest of you can go. I’ll even drop off your friends.” Kristin clicked her fingers and Diana was brought out of the darkness and forced to kneel beside her. “See, I brought a gift.”
A low growl escaped Kase’s mouth.
“You okay, Diana?” Remy shouted.
“I’m grand,” Diana called back. “Don’t you worry about me. I’m having a whale of a time.”
Several more people appeared out of the dark woods. Layla counted nine behind Kristin; six men and three women. They all wore the same gray uniform and none of them showed any outward emotion. They just stood still and stared at the house.
“Layla, get Cody, Malcolm, and your father out of here,” Irkalla said. “We’ll keep them busy.”
“This house isn’t going to stop them for long,” Layla said, irritated that people were trying to get her to leave instead of letting her help.
“Long enough,” Kase said.
“So, how do you want Caleb?” Remy called out. “He’s a little indisposed at the moment: bad food. I figured that maybe we can wait until his stomach settles and then we’ll send him on out.”
Layla glanced out of the window at Kristin, who looked angry.
“You have sixty seconds, and then we kill your friend,” Kristin said. “And after that, we’ll kill all of you.”
“I have another plan,” Layla said.
“Layla, we need to get you out of here,” Irkalla said softly. “Your father trusts you, and only you. He’d escape anyone else, and he might hurt someone doing it. He won’t hurt you. I don’t think he believes he’s done anything wrong.”
“So I just run out back with him and the guards, and we drive away?”
“Actually, no,” Zamek said. “Get out back and run into the woods.”
“What about the car?” Remy asked.
Zamek looked at Harry. “Harry is going to drive it away from here. Loudly. They’ll think Caleb is escaping and go after him.”
“I’ll go with Harry,” Chloe said. “Best case scenario, we’ll give Layla some time to run and split Kristin’s forces. Worst case, they all run after us and we have to fight for our lives.”
“That’s not a good scenario,” Layla pointed out. She glanced out of the window again. “The man behind Diana has a dagger in his hand. Any chance we can eliminate him, get Diana free, and then do the car thing? We’ve got maybe twenty seconds before Kristin’s deadline.”
Chloe sat next to Layla and picked up one of the rifles Harry had found. She opened the window a fraction and placed the tip of the barrel just outside of it. “These aren’t silver,” she said. “This won’t kill him unless he’s human.”
“Time’s up, people,” Kristin called out. “Time to watch your friend die.”
The bullet left Chloe’s rifle and hit the man behind Diana in the throat. A second bullet smashed into Kristin’s knee.
Diana took no time in launching herself away from her captives, sprinting toward the house, and around the back of the building.
“Everyone go,” Kase said as flame leapt from the tree line, engulfing the entire front yard. Chloe fired again, and the fire stopped.
“This isn’t going to hold them for long,” Chloe said. “These bullets are hurting them, but that’s about it.”
Layla wished she’d taken an MP5 from one of the strike team back in the prison. It would have come in handy right about now.
“Get going,” Kase said. “We’re running out of time.”
Despite hating the idea of leaving her friends, Layla also knew that letting Caleb fall into enemy hands would have catastrophic consequences for everyone. She ran to the bedroom at the rear of the property where Malcolm and Cody had removed the handcuffs from her father and were helping him up.
“We need to leave,” she said.
“And how do we do that?” Malcolm asked.
Layla walked to the window and looked out at the ground below. She could drop the thirty feet without injuring herself, and her dad probably could too, but she doubted Cody and Malcolm would be able to. She wondered if she should just leave them both here, but didn’t want to be solely responsible for her father if they were outside for long. At some point Layla would need rest, and she couldn’t guarantee that Caleb would be where she had left him when she woke up.
She reached out with her power and pulled apart the metal-framed furniture that sat in the back garden. A dozen chairs and two long tables. The metal slinked up the side of the building, stopping at th
e window, which she opened.
Layla looked down at the ladder she’d made and then turned to Malcolm and Cody. “I’ll go first, then my dad, then you two. You both need to move quickly; this ladder will hold you, I promise.”
Layla climbed out of the house as the sounds of gunfire resumed. She didn’t bother with the ladder and dropped down, landing on her feet and walking away from the window. Someone slammed into her from the side, driving her up against a nearby tree. Layla reached for her Glock, but it was batted away by the woman who was assaulting her.
Layla headbutted the woman, before driving a knee into her stomach and punching her in the jaw, knocking her aside.
Kristin looked up at Layla with rage in her eyes. “You going somewhere?” Kristin snapped. She tackled Layla to the ground and rained down punch after punch on her, biting Layla’s hand when she tried to push Kristin away.
Layla saw her dad land on the ground close by, which drew Kristin’s attention and allowed Layla to punch her in the throat. She pushed Kristin off and used a nearby wooden table to get back to her feet. Layla looked over at her dad, who was staring at Kristin with an unpleasantness in his eyes.
“Don’t,” Layla said, bringing his attention back to her. She turned to Kristin and kicked her in the side of the head with as much power as she could, knocking the woman out and hopefully removing her as a problem. She picked up her Glock, along with a dagger that Kristin had been carrying, as Harry climbed down the ladder after the two guards. Chloe launched herself out of the window a second later.
Chloe took one look at Kristin and drew her gun, but Layla stopped her. “You two need to go, as do we,” Layla said.
Chloe and Harry climbed into the 4x4 Dodge truck, and Harry turned over the engine. “Be careful,” he told Layla, before she ran off into the dense woodland at the rear of the property with her father and the two guards and Harry floored the truck to make the big diversion.
The four of them ran for an hour before resting next to a pair of large trees. There was a road nearby, and the sounds of cars driving past at high speed made Layla hope that none of the occupants were searching for them.
