Under My Heel

by Michael Anderle

  Nathan replied, “I’ve asked Pete’s team to take a look, so far nothing has been found. We seem to at least be assured that our backdoor is closed.”

  Stephen sighed, “Thank God for one small favor. We might as well get everyone ready. The shadows are dark enough that I expect the first wave to arrive soon.”

  Basing their deployment on what Pete’s and Todd’s teams learned while fighting on the ship, they placed the werewolves in front and those with weapons behind them. There was a sixty-foot area in front of the cave that was clear. Then you had three different lanes that left the area with houses between them. The cliffs above them were steep, and went up seventy-five feet. It would have been a good sniper position, but they lacked the equipment to get up there.

  The silence in the valley was deafening. Stephen could hear the noises of the first wave of Nosferatu. He told those around him, “Look sharp, they’re on their way.” Seconds later the werewolves could hear the enemy as well.

  Pete came up beside him, Stephen looked over and nodded and then went back to watching the lanes. Pete slowly unbuttoned and untucked his shirt. He then took it off and turning slightly he threw it toward the mouth of the cave. He remarked, to no one in particular, “No need to mess up a perfectly good shirt.”

  Pete waited, wishing he understood a way to help him focus enough to start his turning early. “Dammit! I need to get angry enough before I can turn.”

  Stephen turned to look at the Wechselbalg, “I’m sorry, what?”

  Pete answered, “I need to get angry enough to start the change into my other form. I’m just not angry enough right now.”

  Stephen smiled, “Well, why didn’t you just ask for help?” And with that he slapped the young man. The ‘crack’ was easily heard back in the cave. Pete slammed into the ground fifteen feet away. Stephen looked over at Pete and his eyes narrowed, “Now get up and fight like a man, you ass-kissing dog.”

  Stephen turned to face the lanes again, assured Pete would be just fine and ready to fight in a moment.

  He was. Stephen could feel the rage directed at him from Pete’s stare. He pointed to the middle lane, “Our fight is with them, I just jump-started your change, Peter.”

  Pete glared at the vampire, anger in his eyes and turned his head to the direction Stephen’s finger pointed. Ah! Nosferatu. Pete roared at the newcomers, “Bring it, Bitches!”

  The fight commenced.

  The cracks of rifle fire preceded three Nosferatu dropping to the ground, their bodies trampled as those that followed ignored their fallen.

  Men, women, teenagers. David didn’t discriminate when he changed friends and family to become cannon fodder. All had the look of hunger in their eyes. They could sense the blood of those in front of them, and this time the blood didn’t hide behind doors.

  The pain, the desire to drink was too much for the Nosferatu. They couldn’t see past getting that which was closest to them. If they had been satiated, perhaps they would have tried to find others, but why would they go anywhere when they could smell the blood so close to them now? They would strive to get into this cave all night, until dawn forced them to hide in other nearby caves. Once again to sleep during the daylight hours.

  Except when dinner came walking right into your room. That time they had killed the soldiers, eaten them and then laid back down. The blood of the newly dead bacame their mattresses, on the cold, dark floor.

  Then the front of the Nosferatu line hit them. Stephen and Pete tearing into the Nosferatu with abandon. Pete’s claws taking jaws from the beings, his return strokes gouging out throats.

  On his right, the vampire was doing the same, just with considerable more efficiency. Stephen was a machine of destruction. He would slam his clawed hand across a skull, shattering the head and spraying the nearby Nosferatu with brains. Then, he would kick out and another Nosferatu would have their rib cage crushed with his foot. They would be pushed back a few feet, but the Nosferatu behind them stopped any significant backward momentum. Sometimes those he kicked would fall. At other times they would come back and press the attack, if significantly slower than before. Normally before Stephen could get back to such an attacker, its head would often explode. Todd’s team providing fire support from the cave.

  The Nosferatu couldn’t get through the two fighters in the center. So many tried to go around. They would attack Pete’s and Todd’s teams. Matthew, Joel and Joseph on the left, Tim and Rickie on the right.

  Two Nosferatu ganged up on Joel and a third slipped through the line. It was on Kevin Russel faster than Chet could react. It had savaged Kevin even as the bullets from Chet’s rifle slammed through its head. Both the Nosferatu and Kevin fell.

  Chet yelled, “Man down!”

  Nathan left his post at the door. Both he and Ecaterina were backup. Firing as they could, but predominately the second layer of defense.

  Now, Nathan had to move up to take over Kevin’s position. Nathan quickly got to Kevin and confirmed that he was alive. He pulled him back to Ecaterina who started dragging him into the cave. There, Diane and Dorene took over, working to patch him up as best they could.

  Art was deeper inside the cave. He knew the valley group the best and since he had the skills, he was the third layer of defense.

  The fighting was intense, but they didn’t suffer another line break like they had before.

  Thirty became twenty, twenty became eight and then when those fell to the defenders, only the fallen Nosferatu were left.

  Pete was looking around, his anger boiling his blood. The heat of the fight encouraging him to seek out more enemies. He turned to look beside him and threw a punch at the one who hit him before.

  Only to have his fist caught in the vampires left hand. Stephen turned to look at the Werewolf. “Calm yourself, Peter. The rage is driving you, not you commanding your rage.”

  Pete was trying to pull his fist out of the grip of the one in front of him when the words registered in his brain and he stopped fighting. He took deep breaths and slowly felt his body come back around, the light of the evening seeming to recede a little. It now looked a lot darker out there.

  He nodded to Stephen who released his fist.

  Pete rubbed his jaw where Stephen had slapped him, “Thanks… I think.”

  Stephen smiled, but didn’t stop looking around them, “You’re welcome. It will come easier for you. Each time you change, you will get more accustomed to producing the feelings you need. Eventually, you will be able to bring it on whenever you desire.” Stephen stopped looking into the small town and focused on the man standing next to him, “Unfortunately, that is when you become most susceptible.”

  Pete was confused, “Most susceptible to what?”

  “Power, Pete. The power that you feel when in that form is a drug. You will forever fight against the desire to rip, to tear, to exalt in the feeling of destruction that you now command.” Stephen turned back to watching the night.

  Pete considered his words, “Did you have friends that were Werewolves in your past?”

  Pete heard Stephen, talking into the night as a whisper to the wind, “None that I didn’t have to kill when they lost their humanity.”

  They had a fifteen-minute respite before Stephen could hear the next wave of Nosferatu coming out of the caves.

  “We have company, again.”

  Pete stepped up beside Stephen, “Is there another way besides sending my jaw fifteen feet away to help me with this change?”

  Stephen considered his answer carefully, “Yes. Are you sure you want to know what it is?”

  Reaching up to feel his jaw, the memory of the pain recent even if he had fully healed during the fighting, “Yeah, lay it on me.”

  Stephen exhaled slowly, and then spoke loud enough for all of those around them to hear. “I spoke to the girls on the Ad Aeternitatem, they say you have a tiny dick…”

  Pete was confused, at first, when Stephen had said what he had. He then heard Tim and Todd both snicker and
the night became bright, in his rage at being laughed at. He turned around to take care of their insolence. A hand grabbed his arm, squeezing enough to get his attention. He turned to find the vampire holding him and pointing back to the Nosferatu that he could hear rushing towards them. He turned towards the fight, his baritone voice easily heard over the oncoming rush, “I’ll deal with you two, later.”

  Both might have been more concerned if Stephen hadn’t winked at them and told everyone, “Get ready, here we go again.

  The night became loud with screams and the crackle of gunfire as the immovable rock stood against the raging flow of Nosferatu in that lonely valley in the middle of nowhere, one more time.

  Ecaterina had never felt so alive, even during her trips to her uncle’s mountain. The savageness of the Nosferatu as they tried to get through the protective ring of Stephen and the troops. Nathan impressing the ever-loving-hell out of her with his calm and collected shooting skills.

  His was a constant, “crack, crack, crack” with his body turning slightly each time. She would notice Nosferatu heads exploding when she spent a second checking on him. Going back to her side, she would continue with her own efforts. She might be getting three shots off for every five shots of Nathan’s, but it felt much slower than that.

  She was shooting when she saw Rickie, mouthing off as normal, get pulled into the mess, requiring Tim to reach over to help pull him back out.

  A Nosferatu slipped between Tim and Stephen and raced towards the entrance. Paul Stevens, one of the marines backing up the right side, dove for its feet, wrapping them up and tripping the Nosferatu. Ecaterina swung her rifle down and shot the Nosferatu, hitting it in the back. Her second shot exploded its skull.

  Paul was gone. The Nosferatu had reached down and tore open Paul’s neck before Ecaterina had been able to finish it off.

  Ecaterina ran over to Paul’s position and started firing into the pack. She thought life was intense before, it was downright scary now. She calmly fired until she needed to reload, then switched out the magazine and continued firing.

  Ecaterina could hear rifles going off from where she and Nathan had been stationed at the door. The skull of a Nosferatu exploding next to the one she had just shot. “That’s twenty years in the service, mother-fuckers!” The laughing behind her sounded more of a release of tension, than a lady off her rocker.

  “On your right!” Ecaterina turned in time to see the three Nosferatu which had just swung around Joey. Todd shot one of them, and clubbed the other. The third went around him coming at Ecaterina.

  She swung her rifle around and shot from the hip, nailing the Nosferatu but not stopping it before she felt indescribable pain and then only darkness.

  Diane screamed and shot the Nosferatu that had just sank its teeth into Ecaterina’s neck. It raised up to look at the woman when Dorene’s shot took it between the eyes. The ladies ran over to grab Ecaterina and pull her out of the way. Diane went inside the cave to grab some bandages as Dorene pressed against the bleeding wound. Ecaterina was losing blood, fast.

  Diane came back and together they worked to staunch the heavy flow of blood. “This isn’t looking good, sis.”

  Dorene ripped open a gauze pouch with her teeth, “Tell me something I don’t already know.”

  That was when they heard the howl of despair, both looked over to see the second, and by far the largest, standing Werewolf this world had seen in a long, long time.

  Ecaterina’s mate had seen her bleeding and unconscious body.

  It turned into a massacre. Nathan was easily half a foot taller than Pete’s body and probably out-massed him by another fifty to seventy-five pounds.

  The problem? He wasn’t in his right mind.

  Bethany Anne had popped Nathan into the Pod-Doc after he had mentioned that he and Ecaterina would be going on this mission. Something would have to trigger Nathan’s change, but he had been such a calm individual, Bethany Anne wasn’t sure what it would be.

  Now, even the Nosferatu backed up under the onslaught of the mighty beast attacking them. Stephen took the head off of the Nosferatu in front of him and took a quick glance to his left. He grabbed Peter and pulled him to his side, “Fight them!” He pointed as his group, “I’ll try to help Ecaterina.” Peter tore into the Nosferatu with renewed vigor. These things had just killed his sister, his friend. As each Were became aware of what was going on, the anger and grief they felt overrode their sensibilities and the slaughter began.

  No longer did the Forsaken push against Stephen’s group, but rather they in fury slammed into the Nosferatu. Nathan, in unrestrained fury killed with heated abandon. Nathan would grab a head in one hand and crush it while reaching for a second to rip out its throat. If an arm got in his way, his jaws would open wide and he would bite through the bone, jerking his head to try and rip the arm out of their body. Spitting out the meat from his mouth.

  Stephen raced to Ecaterina, he put his wrist up to his mouth and used his sharpened teeth to rip his wrist open. Both women stood transfixed at the red-eyed man ripped off Ecaterina’s bandages and placed his blood on her wound, then forced some down her throat.

  “Fire at them!” Stephen snapped them out of their transfixed stares at him and Ecaterina. They both grabbed their rifles, not sure how the … man … was helping the young woman, but feeling that he was trying his best.

  The next second, both women were shooting into the mess again, this time the shots weren’t surgical. If there was any opening, that didn’t have a team member between them and the monsters, it was fair game.

  It felt as if the fight went on for another eternity. Nathan picked the last living Nosferatu up high into the air before turning it over and breaking its back on his upraised knee. He flung the body off of into the dirt. The marines went around, shooting the skulls of any Nosferatu who looked like they might be able to heal themselves.

  “NATHAN!”

  The beast eyed the shadowy walls, the cliffs that held those that had killed his mate. Which of these, it wondered, could hold more so he could sink his teeth and rend them apart?

  “NATHAN!”

  It turned at a familiar name, looking behind itself. It saw a man, bent over his mate, looking at him.

  “NATHAN, COME BACK GOTT VERDAMMT! ECATERINA NEEDS YOU!”

  The man was yelling at it, rage on his face.

  “GOTT VERDAMMT NATHAN, COME BACK FOR HER!”

  Ecaterina?

  The beast shook its head in confusion.

  Ecaterina was the name of his mate… His memory came back, him looking her in the eyes, telling her he would never leave her… But the caves were calling.

  He started running towards his mate.

  He left as a Werewolf, he arrived as a man.

  Stephen held his mate gently as Nathan got on his knees. Stephen spoke, “Look, I’ve done what I can, but if I give her too much, I run the risk of turning her.”

  Nathan looked up at Stephen, “So?” He growled, “Turn her already!”

  Stephen’s voice became coarse, “Nathan! You’re not thinking. She wouldn’t want to be a vampire. She would choose to be a Wechselbalg!” Stephen was frustrated, but kept his voice as calm as he could, “I can’t change her, YOU have to change her!”

  Nathan turned to face Stephen again, his face a mask of confusion. “What? How do I change her?”

  Stephen looked over his shoulder eyeing everyone who came to check on Ecaterina. The idiots were leaving the defenses unchecked. “Dammit! Pete stay here, the rest of you clean up those bodies and make a wall. We havn’t won yet! Take Paul’s body and prepare it. We won’t leave it behind.” The rest of the men jerked into action. The concern they had for Ecaterina had blinded them to what they needed to be doing, for the minute. “Pete, I need a knife.”