“You like this game entirely too much,” she said, lowering herself. “Why don’t we just beat the crap out of the pea coats when they come?”
Smoke shrugged. “The lady makes the call.”
Together they hid out of sight behind the computer station and waited. Within a minute the door and the one adjacent to it opened. Sid could see a pair of pea coats armed with machine guns slip into the room, their hard eyes searching the floor. She pointed in the direction of the two she could see.
Smoke nodded.
Weapons ready, they popped up from behind the computer console and fired off two quick shots.
Two guards dropped dead with bullet holes in their heads.
“Status report?” said a voice on the radio gripped in one guard’s hand.
Smoke glided over and picked it up. “All secure. We have the persons detained.” He smiled at Sid.
She could see playfulness come to life in his eyes. “Don’t, Smoke.”
“Also,” Smoke continued, “One of the prisoners is really hot. Can you check her marital status? I’m not having much luck on my Matchmaker account.”
The voice came over the radio. “Who is this?”
Silently, Sid mouthed the words to Smoke, “Don’t say it.”
In a rugged voice, he replied in the radio, “I’m Batman.” He chucked the radio aside and resumed his normal voice. “Let’s go.”
Live video of Kane and Allison appeared on the monitor again. Their faces were filled with curiosity as their eyes scanned the room.
Smoke removed the gas mask from the camera and waved at them. “Hi!”
Sid popped her head in. “Hey!”
Together they waved.
Smoke turned the computer camera around, facing the server. He backed up and pointed to the C4. “You might want to cover those big ears of yours, Kane, because your server is about to go boom. Bye bye now!”
Kane’s eyebrows knitted.
Smoke and Sid left the images of Kane and Allison screaming at the top of their lungs and hustled out of the room. They sprinted down the corridor, made a turn around the intersection, stopped, and turned.
Smoke held up the detonator. “Would you like to have the honor?”
She grabbed his hand in hers. “Let’s do it together.”
They hit the switch.
Boom!
CHAPTER 34
Sid walked over the interior carnage that lay on the floor. Her boots crunched over stone. The pyramid server room was toast. The walls were bowed out. The drywall was dust. The doors had been blown from their hinges. Every speck of organization had been erased. The charred cement ceiling crumbled. The center computer console had become nothing but scrap and microbits.
The only things standing were the server and the clear wall surrounding it.
The clear finish of the glass was blackened by scorch marks, but it stood. The glass had cracked all over with spidery veins from top to bottom. She could still see the server glowing with life on the other side.
“I can’t believe it,” she said as she felt her heart deflate.
“Don’t believe everything you see.” Smoke walked up to the shield glass and poked it with his finger. Fragments of glass fell like frosty snowflakes.
Chin up, Sid moved forward and hit the glass wall with the butt of her handgun. The glass dropped in larger ice-like chunks. “Screw this,” she said, checking her weapon’s clip. It was filled with blue-tipped bullets. “Back up.”
“You’re the boss,” Smoke said, stepping aside with a grin.
Sid blasted a ring of bullets the size of her head through the glass. With a kick, she knocked the circle of glass out. Looking up at Smoke, she said, “Got any more—”
“Pineapples?” Smoke handed her two grenades. She pulled the pins and tossed them through the hole. She and Smoke took cover behind a long stretch of board that had been part of the computer console. “This better do it.”
A muffled boom was followed by the tinkling of shattering glass.
Rising from behind their protection, Sid could see the pyramid server burning.
The pulsating lights of its living network went out. The entire building fell silent. It was as if the heartbeat of the building had stopped.
Sid rested her forehead on Smoke’s shoulder. “Finally. Whew! I didn’t think we would ever kill that thing.”
“Huh, I was starting to doubt it too.”
“We need to go check on Ted and the others.” She ran out of the room, down the hall, and back into the laboratory. Many bodies shuddered inside the bounds. A gaunt figure had his back to Sid.
“Hey!” she said, firing a warning shot. “Hands where I can see them! Get away from there!”
“I’m reaching for the sky,” the man said as he slowly turned. It was Vormus. “Is this high enough?”
“Just back away,” she said.
Manson appeared from behind Vormus. He was the blond-headed, blue-eyed boy again. With restless energy, he said, “We have to disconnect all of them now! Yank every cord and breathing apparatus you can find. Without the computer giving the orders, their bodies will shut down and die.” He yanked the tube out of one man’s mouth and plucked the cables connected to the man’s head. “Their bodies need to awaken!”
On a motherly instinct more than following orders, Sid did as requested. She went from body to body, yanking out the slimy tubes and macabre wiring. She found Asia and set her free, saying, “Asia, wake up.”
All the little woman did was blink.
Smoke entered and did the same. Many of the people coughed and sputtered. Some convulsed. “This one looks like she’s having a heart attack.” It was Rebecca Lang. “What do I do?”
“Nothing,” Manson said with his head down at the task at hand. “There’s no guarantee they can adjust to the real world again. Just keep doing what you’re doing.”
Sid kept at it. She caught Smoke’s eye.
His face was stern. He said to her with a quick nod, “Survivors survive.”
Finally she was at Ted Howard’s cart, and she removed the breathing tube from his mouth. Her quick hands pulled the needles from his head. “Oh, Ted,” she said, holding his cheek.
The husky man’s body trembled. He shook the cart so hard it scraped over the floor. His chest jumped. He coughed and hacked. His forearms strained against his restraints.
“Manson! Get over here! This is bad! None of the others resisted like this.”
Manson hopped clear over a table and landed right beside her. He stuck his hands in the goo and cupped Ted’s straining neck. “Oh my, this isn’t good. I believe he actually is in cardiac arrest.” He shrugged. “Sorry, Sid, it happens.”
“Sorry my ass!” Sid shoved Manson to the floor. Immediately she started giving Ted chest compressions. “Come on, Ted, Come on! You can’t die on me now!”
Ted’s body went still.
“Nooo!” she screamed. She kept pressing on his chest. After all this time, she couldn’t believe Ted was still alive.
The one who died must have been a clone!
It had hurt so much when she’d lost him the last time that she couldn’t stand to lose him again. “Ted, your family needs you! I need you! Fight, Ted!” Tears streaming down her face, she alternated between chest compressions and mouth-to-mouth breathing.
His body didn’t move.
Smoke grabbed her arm and tried to pull her away.
She shrugged him off. “No!”
Putting his strength behind it, Smoke pulled her back. “He’s gone, Sid. I’m sorry.”
Every last ounce of strength she had fled her. She collapsed into Smoke’s chest, crying and sobbing. She pounded on his chest. “Why?”
Smoke didn’t have the answer. He held her upright in his strong arms. “Let’s help the others.”
“I can’t bury him again, John. I can’t.” She stared back at Ted. He lay in the table goo, lifeless as a mannequin. “No person should have to go through this. What am I suppo
sed to say to his family?”
“So far as they know, he died with honor. I’d leave it that way.”
“But that’s not the truth. He died like this.”
“He lived with honor. That’s what matters. It’s the truth.”
“Let’s just try one more thing, shall we?” Manson had a huge metal syringe in his hand and held it over Ted’s chest. “Normally, I wouldn’t do this, but somehow all this sappiness got to me. But no more blubbering if it doesn’t work.”
“What is that?” Sid said as she turned and wiped the tears from her eyes.
“This isn’t the first time these bodies have had spasms. Every once in a while we have to reboot them. This is my version of an intracardiac injection. Lots of adrenaline. But your friend is old and has a bad heart, probably from too much chili fries and beer, so don’t go harping on me if it doesn’t work. He’s better off dead if you ask me. How would you explain his revival?” He poised the needle over Ted’s chest. “Well?”
“Do it!”
CHAPTER 35
Manson plunged the needle into Ted’s chest. His thumb pressed the fluid down, and Ted’s body leaped parallel off the table, where it flopped like a fish out of water and steadied. His eyes were wide open. His lips mumbled.
Sid leaned over him. “Ted, it’s me, Sid.”
Ted spat goo. “What the hell happened? I feel like a car ran over my chest.” His soft eyes darted around. “Where the hell am I?”
She said to Manson, “He’s awfully alert.”
“It’s the adrenaline. It’ll wear off. He breathes…for now.”
“We need to get him out of here. We need to get them all out of here. Ted, what’s the last thing you remember?”
Blinking rapidly, he said, “Eating pizza and drinking beer. Why? Did I have a heart attack? That’s it, isn’t it. I had a heart attack.” He found Smoke looking at him. “Oh, it’s you. Smoke, right? Everything’s hazy.” He strained against his bonds. “Why am I tied up? And why am I covered in pea soup? Sid, what’s going on?”
“I’ll fill you in on the way home,” she said. All over the room, the awakened people began to stir. One woman fell off her cart. It was Rebecca Lang. “Manson, can they walk?”
“Not well. They haven’t used their limbs in months. Some haven’t moved for years. They might be awake, but I’m not certain we can just waltz them out of here. Let’s not forget there’s a horde of deaders and pea coats out there, wanting to rip us all apart.”
“You stay here,” Smoke said to Sid. “Vormus and I will check it out. Are you going to be okay?”
She nodded. “I’m not going anywhere without them.”
***
Smoke and Vormus stood inside the garage bay. It was a war zone. Men shot to pieces. Even shifters lay still. Smoke was relieved to see that the giants—Lance, Thorgrim, and Rexor—hadn’t moved at all. The only things moving aside from him and Vormus were the deaders. A handful still moved. Their foul bodies lay on the cement floor, struggling to move without the necessary limbs. Smoke finished them off with bullets to the chest.
“You sure made quite a mess,” Vormus commented as he stepped over the wreckage.
“You can’t clean up evil without getting messy.” Before he headed up into the garage, he’d retrieved the Arabian sword and put it back in its sheath. He slid it out again.
Vormus eyed him.
“Just a precaution,” Smoke said. He ran up the ramp that led outside into the courtyard of the compound. “Let’s go.”
The only thing stirring outside was the wind. The guard shack was abandoned, the gate wide open. A fire burned on the rooftop. Smoke did a three-sixty. There had been several cars and trucks in the lot, but now they were gone. Only one single black SUV remained, parked in the front.
“Do you think Kane left?”
Vormus shrugged. “It’s hard to say. He’s a stubborn man.” His eye caught something moving inside the building.
Smoke turned.
A man walked through the glass doors and down the steps. His nice shirt and slacks were torn up. A cigarette burned between his fingers. Half of Reginald’s face looked like it had been skinned off. “Pardon the appearance, but explosions tend to do that. An angry Kane does, too.” His skin was repairing itself, his svelte look slowly returning. “I’ve got a message for you. Kane’s pissed.”
CHAPTER 36
Reginald chuckled. “My, I’ve never seen Kane so angry. You know, that’s a rare thing when you make a shifter angry. Normally, our polished resolve does not come unfettered, but today, well, things got ugly.”
“So, are you here to congratulate us?” Smoke asked. “Is there going to be a trophy ceremony?”
“Such a clever tongue, Smoke.” Reginald flicked off the ashes of his cigarette. “It’s that stand-up routine I like about you. But no, you won’t be getting any kind of trophy for your achievement. But I have to admit, I never thought you would be able to take that server down. Your fortitude is incredible. Kane literally jumped up and down screaming when the pyramid exploded. I found it amusing, myself.” Keeping his distance from his adversaries, he walked over to a light pole and leaned against it. He lit another cigarette. “You managed to wreck decades of work—in an extremely bold move, I might add. ’Course, you had some unique help.” He eyed Vormus.
“Changing sides gave my hollow life a dash of flavor,” Vormus replied.
“Vormus, you can’t undo what you’ve done. You know that. He’s just leading you along, Smoke. That leopard won’t change his spots. Once his zeal for entertainment is over, he’ll come back to the brood. This isn’t the first time he’s tried something like this, you know. He did the same thing with Guermo.”
Smoke gave Vormus a look. He didn’t trust the shifter as far as he could throw him, and he always watched his back. He wouldn’t be one bit surprised if Vormus turned on him at any moment. He focused back on Reginald. “So what’s the end game? If there’s no trophy, then why are you here?”
Reginald puffed out a smoke ring. “To kill you. To kill you both.”
“You against us?” Smoke said. He tapped the tip of his sword on the pavement. “I like those odds. I’ve developed a knack for killing shifters.”
“Yes, you have conquered many. Kudos to you. But no, I don’t plan to battle you in a melee contest. It’s your soul I want to slay.” Reginald pushed off the lamppost. “You see, you actually have achieved something quite devastating. You wiped out the clones. Oh, I can’t imagine the horror that has erupted all over DC. Just think about it. All of the clones that have been so carefully planted out there have lost their connection to the computer.”
He removed a phone from his pocket and eyed the screen. “These little things have made our jobs so much easier. Hah! Listen to these headlines.” He cleared his throat. “Mayor Roslyn’s speech turns into a babbling nightmare. Police Chief Bannon drops dead. Congressman Agnew races naked in the streets. Oh, a streaker. Now that’s funny, but hardly anything shocking from the political ilk. But eh. Just you wait and see, all this current news popping up tonight will be wiped clean tomorrow. Don’t you understand, mortal? WE control everything. The secret wars we fight have been witnessed by countless eyes, yet the truth is still hidden from the public. You might win one battle, but in the end, you’re still going to lose the war. The Drake always wins.”
Smoke stepped forward. “You didn’t win tonight.”
“Don’t hoist your trophy up over your head so soon, Smoke. Even though you’ve proven you have a knack for being one step ahead in most things, you’ll never be a step ahead in everything. We aren’t so overconfident that we lack a contingency plan.” He held out his phone. “As you can see, I have a phone, and with this phone I can do many things. I can call Kane. Order pizza. Play a mind-numbing game. Or I can detonate explosives. You’re familiar with explosives, aren’t you? Why yes you are. You’ve been blowing up a lot of things.” Reginald pecked on the screen. “But we have bombs in place as well. You
see, if the operation of the Drake were ever discovered, we would have to destroy all evidence. So it’s armed with explosives.”
“You’re bluffing.”
“No, I’m not. If your little helper Manson was as smart as he thought, he would have known this entire facility could be detonated from outside. You didn’t have to smash in here like a bunch of angry pirates. You could have used some sophistication.” He flicked his cigarette away. “Anyhow, the entire roomful of people you rescued are nothing but hostages now. That goes for your wife and all her precious friends.” He shrugged. “Now, there’s a remote chance she’ll survive the explosion with the suit on, but I don’t think she or anyone else will make it out when the building collapses right on top of them. It will be a crushing defeat.”
“I will finish you one way or the other.”
“You’re perfectly fine with all those people dying when you could save them?” Reginald hitched up a brow. “No, you couldn’t live with it. Just imagine the thought of never seeing your wife alive again. No more hugs. No kisses. No making love at the beach. The very love of your life buried in one of the heaviest tombs ever. How sad.”
Smoke’s fingers twitched. His grip on the sword tightened.
Reginald continued as he paced with an easy stride. “And think about your baby. You’ll never get to hold your baby.”
“What are you talking about now?”
“Oh, what a surprise, the man with an uncanny ability to be a step ahead of everything doesn’t know his own wife is pregnant? Perhaps she doesn’t want you to know. How interesting. Perhaps because it’s not your baby. Perhaps it’s Kane’s.”
Smoke had his suspicions to begin with. Sid had shown signs of morning sickness several times. “If the child is Kane’s, I don’t think he would want to see the baby in the grave.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. Kane’s sired many, and they’re all dead. Typically, neither the woman nor the baby survives the birthing process. If they did, shifters would be everywhere. Wouldn’t that be glorious?”
The Supernatural Bounty Hunter Files Collector's Set: Books 1-10: Urban Fantasy Shifter Series Page 103
