Lycanthropic (Book 4): Moon Rise [The Age of the Werewolf]

by Morris, Steve

  ‘What’s happening now?’ asked Seth in wide-eyed terror. Whatever had happened to Josh, it had taken a very long time for his screams to eventually subside and stop.

  ‘Now they’re coming for us,’ said Chris.

  ‘Who is?’

  ‘Whoever just did that to Josh.’

  The dark figures guarding the exits entered the tower one by one. Men in black motorcycle leathers. Mean, muscular, ugly men. Chris didn’t think he had ever seen so much facial hair in one place.

  The last man to enter was even bigger and uglier than the others. He had a bald head and wore black shades.

  Josh’s friends huddled together in one corner with Brittany. They were all shaking, and not from the cold, Chris guessed. The flute player’s face had turned white as a sheet.

  The huge biker studied them thoughtfully. ‘Take them outside,’ he said, ‘and kill them.’

  The leader’s minions began to manhandle the flute player and the others out of the tower. Brittany screamed as one of the men grabbed her and threw her over his shoulder like a rolled-up carpet.

  The chief biker glared at her in annoyance. He put up a hand. ‘Wait!’ He rubbed his smooth head with a thumb. ‘Kill them … slowly.’

  Chris watched as they were dragged away, kicking and screaming into the night. Before long, Brittany’s screams intensified. Chris tried his best to ignore them.

  The huge biker removed his shades and examined Chris, Ryan and Seth with interest.

  ‘What shall we do with these three?’ asked one of his henchmen.

  The giant stroked his beard thoughtfully. He reached a hairy hand deep into a pocket and brought out a coin. He showed both sides of the coin to Chris. Heads. Tails. Both were equally grimy.

  Outside the tower, the screams went on, the other guys now joining in with Brittany in a chorus of terror. Whatever was happening out there, it wasn’t good. Chris had thought his luck had already reached rock bottom, but now he knew that it could sink even lower. Much, much lower.

  Up went the coin, spinning in the firelight. Heads, tails, heads, tails. Chris watched it go, mesmerized by the flickering metal. It seemed to spin for a long time, almost suspended in mid-air, just as his own life hung in the balance. Up, up, went the coin, almost to the top of the roofless tower. Then back down. The big man caught it in his huge hand. He held it out for Chris to see.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Seth. ‘Tell me what it is. No, on second thoughts, I don’t want to know.’

  The screams from outside showed no signs of stopping. They had been joined by the chilling sounds of wolf howls as the full moon began to peep through the open archway.

  Chris squinted at the filthy coin. In the firelight it was hard to see. ‘I’m not sure,’ he said. ‘It looks like …’ He stopped. It looked like tails. But if it were tails, that must surely be a bad thing. Tails couldn’t possibly be good. He swallowed. ‘I think it’s –’

  ‘Tails,’ said the hairy biker with a hint of regret. ‘Tails, I lose.’

  Chapter Seventy-Eight

  Gatwick Airport, West Sussex, full moon

  Liz had been given the Glock by Dean back in London, almost at the very start of the werewolf troubles. Now, after all these months, she had finally got to use it for real. The thought filled her with no pleasure, but she was glad she’d had the gun when she needed it.

  Thanks, Dean.

  Her dead colleague had saved her life, even though she hadn’t been able to save his.

  A short-range headshot from the Glock had finished off Major Hall quickly enough, vampire or no vampire. The dead man lay beside her, still looking like an exhumed corpse, but slowly changing to take on his normal appearance. Liz herself had already changed back from vampire form and was fully human again. Amazingly, the wound in her neck where the Major had gouged her with his long claws had almost entirely healed. It must have been the curative power of the vampire blood she’d drunk.

  She looked around and saw mostly bodies littering the rooftop. Then she caught sight of Kevin and the kids, and ran toward them. ‘Oh, thank God! You’re all alive!’

  She gathered Mihai into her arms, and gave Kevin a kiss on the cheek.

  ‘You alive too, Liz!’ said Mihai gleefully.

  ‘Yeah, nice work,’ said Kevin. ‘Good use of teeth, and all that.’

  Corporal Jones was storming across the rooftop toward her. She couldn’t tell from his face if he was happy or angry. He stopped a few paces from her, eyeing her circumspectly.

  Now that she had seen for herself how hideous vampires looked, she couldn’t blame him for treating her with caution.

  They looked at each other for a few moments, then he stepped forward to embrace her. It was the first time they had ever touched. She let him hold her in his beefy arms, crushing her against his massive chest. She would gladly have kissed him then, and not just on the cheek, but he pulled back to a safe distance before she could act on the impulse.

  ‘You didn’t tell me they were all vampires!’ he said, eventually.

  ‘Well, how was I supposed to know? You didn’t tell me you were afraid of heights!’

  ‘Yeah, well,’ he said sheepishly. ‘It’s not a fact I like to boast about.’

  ‘I’m sorry about Evans,’ she said, nodding in the direction of the fallen Welsh Guard.

  Llewelyn nodded. ‘He went out in style.’

  ‘He certainly did.’

  ‘All guns blazing,’ said Kevin.

  ‘He was a hero.’

  ‘It’s just me now, then,’ said Llewelyn. ‘My men are all gone.’

  He had lost something, and not just his men. It took Liz a moment to realize what it was. The boyish good looks that the Corporal had always worn were still there, but they had hardened. He had lost more than just his fellow soldier up here on the rooftop. He had lost his innocence.

  Llewelyn walked across the rooftop to the body of his fallen comrade and picked up Evans’ abandoned rifle. Liz saw him kneel down and mutter some words to the dead man. When he returned, he offered the weapon to Kevin. ‘Think you can handle a machine gun, Private Bailey?’

  Kevin stood awkwardly, his pistol still in his hand. ‘I reckon I probably could.’

  Llewelyn held it out to him, but Kevin seemed strangely reluctant to take it. ‘Do you think Evans would have wanted me to have it?’ he asked.

  Llewelyn nodded. ‘He’d have wanted it to go to a friend, yes.’

  ‘A friend, right.’ Kevin holstered his pistol and accepted the new weapon as if he were being awarded a medal. He headed off down the stairwell without another word. Liz thought she saw a tear in his eye, but it must have been a trick of the light. She could hardly remember a time when her father had cried.

  ‘We need to get off this rooftop,’ said Llewelyn, ‘and fast. No doubt the whole base has heard our little firefight. And what chance do you think we have of convincing anyone that Major Hall and his officers were vampires?’

  Llewelyn was right. They had just killed the base commander and more than a dozen of his top officers. No one would believe their story. They needed to leave the camp immediately. ‘We just need to call in on Samantha and the Singh family before we go,’ she said.

  When they reached the hotel suite, everyone was busy packing.

  ‘What are you all doing?’ asked Liz.

  ‘Getting ready to come with you,’ said Mr Singh. ‘Vijay told us we have to leave.’

  ‘No,’ said Liz. ‘I have to leave, and my father, and Corporal Jones too, or we’re liable to be shot by the army. But the rest of you must stay. We have to run, and we don’t know where we’re going. It won’t be safe outside the camp for you, especially not for Mrs Singh, and certainly not for Samantha, Lily and the baby.’

  Samantha was the only one who hadn’t made any attempt to pack. She was sitting on the bed, nursing Leo, with Lily by her side.

  ‘Samantha, I promised Dean that if anything happened to him, I would keep you away from danger. I don’t want
to break my promise to him, but I can’t take you with me now. It wouldn’t be safe.’

  Samantha smiled. ‘I know. You mustn’t worry. You’ve already kept me from harm. And Lily and Leo too. You’ve fulfilled your promise to Dean. Now you must go. I’ll be fine here with the others, especially with Drake and Vijay to protect us. Look at them, they’re almost grown men.’

  Drake and Vijay both stood up straight, doing their best to look as manly as Samantha had claimed. The boys were not yet men, but she hadn’t been exaggerating too much.

  ‘We’ll look after everyone,’ promised Vijay.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Drake. ‘We’re real men now, yeah?’

  Aasha slung her arms around the two of them. ‘Don’t worry, Liz. I’ll make sure these two don’t get too cocky. If their heads grow any bigger they might fall off.’

  ‘You should keep Shadow with you, too,’ Liz told them. ‘A cat makes a good vampire alarm.’

  ‘And a kickass fighter, too,’ said Drake, cradling Shadow in his arms.

  Mihai had said nothing since Liz’s announcement that she was leaving. He was looking up at her, his face sullen, his dark eyes misty with tears. The boy wasn’t prone to crying. He was a tough kid, who had been through a lot. More than any child should ever have to endure.

  Kevin reached out and ruffled his messy hair. ‘You coming then, kid?’

  ‘Me come with you?’ His eyes lit up.

  ‘Of course,’ said Liz. She gave him a quick hug. ‘Did you think I was going to leave you behind?’

  He hugged her back, shouting with happiness in Romanian.

  ‘But we’ve got to go immediately, okay?’

  ‘Sure thing, Liz. Let’s do it!’

  Chapter Seventy-Nine

  ‘Let’s get rolling,’ said Llewelyn from the driving seat of the Foxhound.

  Liz was sorry to leave her patrol car behind, but if they were going to survive the unknown hazards of the post-apocalyptic world beyond the camp, they would need all the protection that the armoured Foxhound could provide. Besides, there were just four of them now. Herself, her father, Mihai and Llewelyn.

  The image of them driving off together as some kind of idealized family unit flashed briefly across her mind, but this was no time for sentimentality. And idealized families didn’t usually drive armoured vehicles with crates of weapons and ammo stowed in the back.

  ‘Make sure you’re all strapped in,’ said Llewelyn. The Foxhound began to move almost before he finished speaking.

  Liz had driven in the eight-ton armoured truck once before. It had seemed outrageous then, to be driving around London in a bombproof vehicle designed to operate off-road in deserts, jungles and mountain terrain. Llewelyn had proudly told her that its heavily-protected V-shaped hull could survive an explosion from an enemy mine, and that it could keep on driving even if one of its four wheels was blown off. She sincerely hoped they wouldn’t have to put that to the test.

  One feature she hadn’t noticed before was the display screen fixed to the middle of the dashboard. It glowed brightly in the darkened cabin, giving a 360 degree view from cameras mounted on the front, back and rear of the vehicle.

  ‘Thermal imaging,’ commented Llewelyn. ‘Handy for when you fancy a drive in the dark.’

  Liz studied the screen and looked nervously out through the thickened glass of the side window. ‘How long before someone comes looking for us?’

  ‘I’m surprised they’re not here already,’ said Llewelyn, flooring the accelerator.

  The Foxhound was no sports car, more of a lumbering hulk, and it took its time to pick up speed. But Liz had a feeling that once it got moving, nothing would stop it.

  ‘Look,’ said Kevin. ‘They’re coming.’

  She looked where he was pointing and saw a couple of army Land Rovers heading to cut them off. Llewelyn stamped on the brakes and took a sharp turn left. The Foxhound bounced heavily over a grassy hump and onto a different road. The vehicle’s huge tyres buffered them from the worst of the bump, but Liz still felt like she’d just jumped a fence on a bareback horse.

  ‘Four-wheel steering,’ boasted Llewelyn from the driving seat. ‘This thing can go anywhere.’

  ‘It’s even less comfortable than it looked from the outside,’ groaned Kevin from the back.

  ‘Quit moaning,’ said Llewelyn. ‘By army standards, this is first-rate luxury. We’ve even got air-con.’ He put his foot to the floor again and the engine din rose to deafening levels, cutting off any further complaints.

  ‘How are we going to get out?’ asked Liz. The two Land Rovers had turned to follow them, and another one had appeared further up the road in front. ‘Can we drive this thing through the main gate?’

  ‘Not a chance,’ said Llewelyn. ‘The gate’s made from solid steel. It’s built to withstand high-speed attacks from trucks.’

  ‘So how do we get out?’

  ‘Too many questions, Liz. You’d better let me concentrate.’

  The Land Rover up ahead had come to a halt and was blocking the road sideways on. The soldiers inside were readying their rifles to fire. Liz looked about but couldn’t see any obvious way around the blockage. The road was lined with a solid brick wall on one side and a crash barrier on the other.

  ‘Um, …’ she said.

  ‘Hush, Liz. Not now. I’m busy.’

  The Foxhound approached the Land Rover rapidly. It must have reached around fifty miles an hour and was still gradually accelerating, its engine screaming as the rev counter moved into the red. She doubted that Llewelyn could stop it now, even if he intended to, and stopping didn’t look like it featured in his plan.

  Up ahead, soldiers were disgorging from the Land Rover and leaping for safety over the crash barrier.

  Liz closed her eyes.

  The scream of metal and the jolt from the impact left her in no doubt that the Foxhound had collided with its target. The seatbelt tightened hard around her as she was thrown forward in her seat. Behind her, both Kevin and Mihai screamed.

  The Foxhound rose up and over the Land Rover, crunching glass and metal as it crushed the smaller vehicle into oblivion. She opened her eyes and for an instant all she could see through the front windscreen was sky. Then she felt a second impact as the rear wheels mounted the squashed remains of the Land Rover and rolled over the top of it. The Foxhound bounced back onto the road surface and carried on as if nothing had happened.

  ‘Fuck a duck!’ yelled Kevin from the back.

  Llewelyn appeared unruffled by the operation. He peered into his side mirrors and seemed satisfied by what he saw. ‘You were asking me something, Liz?’

  ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘How do we get out?’

  But already more vehicles had pulled into view up ahead, including an armoured vehicle even larger than the Foxhound and equipped with a turret-mounted gun.

  ‘Hey, that’s a Warrior,’ said Llewelyn with a frown.

  ‘Bad news?’

  ‘30mm armour-piercing cannon bad news.’

  The gun turret on the Warrior was already turning in their direction.

  Llewelyn spun the wheel and the Foxhound lurched off the main road and onto a service road running parallel to one of the runways. ‘We need to make a rapid exit now, Liz. So no more questions, okay?’

  She kept quiet and let him do whatever he had in mind. It was best to trust the soldier’s instincts and training. He hadn’t got them all killed so far.

  ‘Private Bailey!’ called Llewelyn. ‘I’ve got a job for you.’

  ‘Yes?’ said Kevin.

  ‘Open the roof hatch and climb up on top. You’ll find a couple of light machine guns up there mounted on swivel stations. Find a target and start shooting.’

  ‘Yes, sir!’ Kevin unstrapped himself and started fiddling with the roof hatch.

  ‘Wait,’ said Liz. ‘You can’t fire on the other soldiers. They’re supposed to be on our side.’

  As if in response to her plea, the sound of automatic gunfire opened up outside.
The army was firing on them. Bullets rattled angrily off the Foxhound’s composite armour.

  ‘Someone forgot to tell them we’re on the same side,’ said Kevin.

  Llewelyn swung the vehicle in evasive action. ‘You need to understand one thing, Liz. This is the part where we kill or get killed.’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘No one else dies tonight.’

  She grabbed hold of the steering wheel and yanked it hard to the left. The Foxhound lurched off the track onto open grass. In the back of the truck, Kevin tumbled to the floor. Llewelyn tried to wrestle back control, but she held the wheel with all her strength.

  ‘Okay,’ said Llewelyn, ‘I see your plan.’

  Up ahead the perimeter fence loomed into view. The chain link fence was fixed to steel posts and topped with razor wire.

  ‘Reckon it will work?’ asked Liz.

  ‘Let’s give it some welly.’

  Llewelyn stamped hard on the gas and the Foxhound picked up speed. Bullets began to bounce off the rear of the vehicle again, but the armour was doing its job.

  ‘I think I’ll stay down here after all,’ said Kevin from the floor.

  The fence grew larger until it was all Liz could see.

  ‘Here goes,’ said Llewelyn.

  The Foxhound jerked sharply slower as it burst through the fence and the six-cylinder engine whined in protest. The steel posts caught the truck like a ball in a net, and for a second Liz thought they would be hurled backward. But then the truck broke free and the fence crashed to the ground as four huge tyres swept over it, squashing it into the mud.

  Llewelyn took control of the steering again as they sped off into the night, leaving the airport far behind.

  Chapter Eighty

  Stoke Park, Buckinghamshire, waning moon

  By the time Leanna arrived to inspect her victory the fires had mostly died away, and only smoking vehicles and the ruins of the hotel building remained. The tent city that had filled the lawn in front of the hotel was largely gone. Huge numbers of corpses were strewn across the battlefield, most of them human. It had been a decisive victory for the werewolves.