by Justin Sloan
“Knock him on his ass and warn him to never try it again,” the boy replied.
“And if he comes at you again?”
“Get my big buddy the vampire to suck his blood.”
“That’s right.” Royland laughed, gently punching the boy’s shoulder. “Just remember everything I taught you, and you’ll do fine.”
“You sure I can’t have one of those sniper rifles?”
“I’m fairly certain that wouldn’t go over well. Plus, we only have a limited supply of ammo that works for that type of gun, so…”
Suddenly the boy hugged Royland, who stiffened and glanced at Cammie with a raised eyebrow. She motioned for him to hug back and he did, wrapping his arms around the boy.
“I’m going to miss you,” Royland admitted. “Come visit us whenever you want to. You know where we’ll be.”
Kristof pulled back, smiling but with a tear in his eye. “Singing and dancing on that island?”
Royland nodded. “You bet your ass.”
Kristof laughed. “You…you should take the dog. You need her more than I do.”
Royland seemed to be seriously considering this offer, but then he took Kristof by the shoulders and said, “I want Elroy at your side at all times. We can’t stay, but she can. She’s your dog, your friend.”
“Oh, thank God!” Kristof laughed. “I regretted the words the second they left my mouth.”
“I thought you might,” Royland agreed with a fatherly smile. He sighed, then hugged Kristof again and stood. “Take care of Cammie out there, you hear? This is a strange land for her, and you’re the big man now.”
Kristof rolled his eyes, but nodded.
“Good.” Royland hesitated, then added, “I’ll miss you.”
“I’ll miss you, too. Thank you for everything.” Kristof turned to Cammie and nodded, and the two of them left.
As they walked past Elroy, she stood and followed them out, her tail wagging the whole way.
“That was kind of you,” Cammie told Kristof. “You’re going to turn out all right, I can tell.”
“Thanks,” he replied. “You too.”
She laughed and led him the rest of the way up, mentally preparing her own farewell for when the time came.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The Badlands
If there was one thing Diego hated, it was betrayal. Lady Woo had said that if they got El Diablo on their side she would join them. Well, sending people to attack you and make you think it was El Diablo wasn’t exactly a sign of good will.
The betrayal hadn’t been entirely unexpected, but that didn’t make him like it any better. In fact, it irked him even more. At least if it had been unexpected, he could have been mad at himself for not seeing it coming. As it played out, however, he was fully focused on his newfound hatred for this lady and his desire to see her fall.
“You did well,” he told Clara and Platea.
Clara scoffed. “I always do,” she countered, but then paused, gave him a nod, and added, “Thanks.”
“I guess being a pirate comes with a certain amount of knowhow in a fight,” Garcia said. “Good thing, too, because it’s about to be put to the test.”
Wallace let out a deep breath. “Shouldn’t we head back to the city and gather more forces for something like this?”
“Not if we want to keep the advantage. Right now they’re not sure if their plan worked. They might be sitting there thinking they succeeded, that either we’re dead or the people of El Diablo are. If we go back to New York first, they’ll have time to check it out before we get back here. Then they’ll be ready, and you saw that place. We’ll take it, sure, but might lose good soldiers in the process.”
“But these two—” he started, pointing at Platea and Clara.
“Stop right there,” Platea said, checking her rifle, then holding it close as if he were going to try and take it. “If you’re going to say that because we’re women you don’t see us being part of this, you might just have an ass-kicking headed your way.”
Wallace turned to Diego for help, but he just shook his head. “I’m with her on this one, Chief.”
“Thank you.” Platea glanced at him and smiled. “Nice vest. It suits you.”
“He’s spoken for,” Garcia warned, jealousy clear in his voice.
Platea laughed, moving her foot to touch his. “It’s not that nice of a vest.”
Garcia blushed, and it was Diego’s turn to laugh.
“Hey, you two, we’re about to go into a fight. No time for that.”
“But if we’re about to go into a fight and possibly die, maybe—”
“Don’t say it!” Clara glared. “Let’s just kick some butt and get out of here. When we get back to New York, you can do whatever the hell you want.”
Platea smiled and shrugged. “Oh, well. Next time, Sarge.”
Diego tried to ignore the googly-eyed look the sergeant was giving her, focusing instead on the quickly approaching base. A flash of light caught his eye from the hill past the base, and then the crack of a sniper rifle caught his attention. The bullet pinged off the Pod, reinforcing Diego’s belief that Pods were pretty damned badass.
“Get us down, out of sight of those hills,” he ordered, but he saw movement as he scanned the area. People were heading down the hill toward the military base. “They must’ve sent runners as soon as we arrived last time. We have company.”
“That can’t be right.” Garcia scooted up next to him to take a look. “Reinforcements. Damn.”
“We’re still doing it?” Wallace asked. “It’s not too late to back out, you know.”
“It’s still happening,” Diego replied.
They flew the Pod right into the city this time, deciding not to try running in or breaching the gates while getting shot at. He guessed he had been right in assuming they didn’t have much in the way of guns, since few shots were fired as they made their descent. Some, but not many.
They exited onto a roof and made their way to the front edge, where Wallace, Platea, and Clara took up defensive positions with rifles while Diego and Garcia headed for the back edge.
Two shots were fired, and a man fell. Diego hadn’t even noticed him coming at them, and only now saw the pistol at the man’s side.
“Keep it up!” he shouted, then dropped the rest of the way just as more fighters appeared through a doorway. Given the nature of the city they were in a bit of a courtyard, and having the rifles up top was a clear advantage. However, one of the enemy got off a shot that nearly hit its mark. Diego ran forward shouting for them to hold their fire, rolled to an old table that he used for cover, and came up firing. He put two shots into the man’s chest.
The only survivors had clubs, so Diego stood, held up a hand to his backup to show he had this, and grabbed his rifle with both hands as they came at him. Parrying one blow with the rifle, he slammed the butt into the man’s nose, then used it to uppercut the next man. A final slam into each of their faces with his Were strength put them out of commission.
“None for me, huh?” Garcia asked, catching up as they walked through the door.
“You want some? Diego smiled, gesturing forward. “Take those.”
Another group with crowbars, two-by-fours, and knives was moving toward them.
“Just to let you know, we’re only here to ask your boss lady what the fuck’s wrong with her,” Garcia commented. “We do have a slight advantage over you, and don’t really want to kill you all.”
“Really?” Diego asked. “I kind of want to.”
“You promised them to me.”
Diego laughed. “Well, hurry up, or you’re not going to get your chance.”
The enemy was almost upon them, so Garcia lifted his rifle and sent a few rounds through the closest ones, then followed Diego’s lead by using the rifle itself as a weapon.
Having disposed of this group, they advanced into the main assembly room, pausing briefly at the door as more gunshots rang outside.
“Ei
ther my fighters got yours, or vice versa,” Lady Woo announced from her dais at the far wall. It had been just an assembly room moments before, but now a partition wall had been moved back to reveal black and white monitors and a small armory—mostly knives and whatnot, but there were a couple of guns.
Her fighters were apparently in the middle of gearing up.
“Let me guess, my men squealed?” she asked, glaring at the closest man as if it were his fault.
“Actually, no,” Diego replied. “We figured it out, with the help of my new buddy Micky.”
“Those idiots?” Lady Woo waved a hand and her fighters fanned out, forming a half circle around Diego and Garcia to block access to Lady Woo. “They’re too gullible, falling for every trick up my sleeve. If you put them in charge of anything, they’ll mess it up. That’s what inbreeding does, and—”
BAM! BAM!
Diego had grown tired of her blathering and opened fire on her guards. Garcia followed his lead, but suddenly more fire sounded from outside, but not just from the direction of the rooftop. It was coming from a distance.
Micky and his team had arrived, or were at least close, and had opened fire on Woo’s support in the hills. That was Diego’s best guess.
Lady Woo backed up as her team moved in, and bullets started coming back now. Garcia cursed, diving for cover on the other side of the stage, while Diego figured he was done messing around and charged, transforming as he did. Two bullets went right through the spot where he would have been standing in his human form and he pounced, clawing and biting his way through the guards.
A spear—an actual spear—nearly took out his hind legs, but he rolled out of the way and lunged up.
Where was she? He took down another fighter, caught a baseball bat to the side, and transformed back to snatch the bat away and beat the guy with it before realizing Garcia was calling for him.
“Diego! They’re being overrun out there!” he was shouting. “We gotta get back to them!”
Diego cursed, grabbing his clothes and running as Garcia provided covering fire.
“Can’t you just wear stretchy pants when you think you might have to transform?” Garcia asked as they darted back through the hallway.
“You’re just pissed because this isn’t working as planned.”
“No shit.” Garcia turned and fired back the way they’d come. “You get enhanced Were brains too, to figure that out?”
Diego laughed, maintaining his pace as he pulled his clothes back on. They burst back through the front door to see that Wallace and the ladies had moved back toward the Pod and were taking fire. A grenade soared through the air, landed on the edge of the roof, and rolled.
Using all his Were speed, Diego darted forward, leaped to the level of the rooftop, and lobbed it back. It exploded in the air just past the wall.
“Where they hell did they get grenades?” Garcia shouted, already climbing the nearest wall to get back up to the roof. Bullets impacted nearby and he shouted, “I need cover fire!”
Instantly Wallace was there, shooting in the direction the bullets had come from.
“They’re proving to be a bit more of a challenge than we had expected,” Garcia admitted.
“Then can we get the fuck home for reinforcements?!” Wallace asked. He didn’t swear often, and Diego knew he meant business when he did.
He made it onto the roof and returned fire, shooting at a group that had formed behind a hill. Others moved up on the buildings. The shots were coming from both inside the compound and out, and it wasn’t looking good.
“We have no choice,” Garcia shouted. “Into the Pod!”
Diego cursed, but knew he was right.
The others were in the Pod and he pressed himself against it, firing two more rounds and hitting both his marks. He saw the muzzle flashes of other shots being fired in the hills in the distance.
He jumped in, closed the door, and pointed. “Get us over there, Wallace. That’s gotta be Micky.”
“And?!”
“And we need to tell them to retreat!”
Wallace glanced back, annoyed, but nodded and took off. They made it there in a matter of minutes, shooting through the open windows at a group trying to take the hill, and slewed past to see Micky and some others holding out at some suburban ruins. The Pod dropped lower and Diego leaned out.
“We need reinforcements!”
Micky pointed down the hill. “They’re coming. I wouldn’t doubt if more are on the way.”
“Can you hole up at El Diablo? Maybe make it to New York?”
Micky cursed, fired two rounds down the hill, and glanced back, thinking about it. “We have too much going on there. We can’t leave, not with Pops.”
Diego understood. Some health issue, he guessed, that they didn’t have time to go into right now.
With a nod, he ordered, “Get back there. We’re going for reinforcements, and when I say reinforcements, I mean in a big way. Just…hold out, got it?”
Micky nodded, sounded the retreat, and they were off.
“Pull her around for cover fire,” Diego shouted to Wallace. He started to protest, but Diego wasn’t hearing it. “JUST DO IT!”
Wallace grumbled again, but turned the Pod down the hill and flew at the attackers. Bullets pinged left and right off the Pod, but stopped once the shots started coming back at them. They rotated twice while firing, hoping to take out enough to provide a good head start for Micky and his crew, then took off for New York.
“It shouldn’t have happened like this,” Diego mused, staring back at the smoke rising from where the grenade had gone off. It must’ve lit a fire, he figured. That, or the blaze had been caused by all the other fighting.
“You really expected it to go differently?” Wallace scoffed. “Hate to break it to you guys, but the world we live in doesn’t just start suddenly functioning perfectly because we ask it to.”
“That’s right.” Diego pulled himself together, leaning back in his seat. “We’re going to have to use a heavy hand.”
Garcia nodded. “Force is the only language some of these assholes understand. They want force? They’re about to meet a world of pain.”
Clara bit her lip. “You guys…you’re sure of this? I mean, can’t we just walk away?”
“I won’t abandon Micky, not after they backed us like that,” Garcia argued.
“And I won’t abandon America,” Diego added.
“With what just happened, they’ll talk. A Pod among them, shooting like that? They know we’re a real threat, so they’ll call the forces of the entire network together, and I imagine most will answer.”
Garcia gave Diego a worried look, then nodded. “Tell her what you did back there.”
At first he wasn’t sure what Garcia meant, but then Diego groaned. “I…might have transformed.”
“Well, that does it,” Clara sighed, face in her hands. “They’ll call on them all, and knowing they’re up against Weres, maybe worse if Lady Woo embellishes? Yeah, I’d just say, based on rumors only, of course, we probably won’t be the only army with Weres and vampires.”
Diego sat up at that. “You’re shitting me.”
“I wish. Who knows what to believe, but rumor had it there were at least one or two packs in the network, and maybe some of those, what do you call them?”
“Forsaken,” Platea chimed in.
“Exactly.”
Diego scratched his head, feeling sheepish. This was, at least in part, his fault. He could’ve handled it differently, but he hadn’t. He’d let his temper get the better of him, and now? Now it sounded like they were going to war.
“I can’t wait to tell Sandra,” he muttered, closing his eyes and just wanting to sink into the seat and never emerge. “Oh God, why am I worried about this when I know she’ll kill me first anyway?”
“Because you know she can’t,” Garcia said. “The baby would be pissed at her if she killed its dad.”
“Good point,” Diego commented. “Can you
maybe stand there and remind her of that when this goes down?”
Garcia laughed and nodded. “Sure, buddy. You can count on me.”
The Pod continued its flight over the badlands, leaving the chaos behind for now. Soon, though, all hell was going to break loose.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Trondheim
Arriving in Trondheim, Cammie couldn’t help but notice that the city seemed to be spooked. Many of the townsfolk were indoors, some glancing at them through shuttered windows as they passed.
It was just her, Lillian and her father, and William, with Kristof and Elroy in the middle in case there was trouble.
“This is your city, yes?” Lillian asked.
Kristof nodded, while Elroy stuck close to him and gave a yip that was almost a bark.
“Just lead us to your house,” Cammie told him. Her heart was still breaking over the goodbye between Royland and the boy. It was as if a father had given up his son, and Cammie knew at that moment that something was going to have to change in their lives. Maybe they should get a dog? Maybe, just maybe… She would try to find out if a vampire had any chance of getting a Were pregnant. Even thinking about it made her chest pound. Out of everything she had faced in life, the thought of raising a child was the most terrifying.
If it wasn’t possible, though, they would figure something out.
Kristof had gestured that he thought his house was down a side street between two taller houses, but now he paused, clearly lost.
“I’ve never gone there from this way before,” he explained.
“Which way did you go before?” Cammie asked.
Scrunching up his face, he pointed to the water. “We always came and went by boat.”
She smiled with relief and motioned for them to all head to the water. She had been starting to worry that they were in the wrong city.
They passed brick houses, some built of wood with chipped paint, and some that were barely houses at all anymore. A couple of very nice-looking ones were visible at the back of the town; Cammie guessed that’s where they’d find the town leaders.
