The Werewolf of Marines Trilogy

by Jonathan P. Brazee

  So why let them even try to tell others? Aiden had wondered.

  But being a good little Marine, he’d kept his opinions to himself. In an actual Marine unit, everyone’s opinion was valued, even a boot private’s. But Aiden was out of his element, and the CIA agent didn’t seem the type to let a mere asset make suggestions.

  With a deep breath, Aiden left the cover of the shack and started into the ground-covering jog that he knew would cover the 30 miles to the target in just over two hours. The CIA agent running his brief had initially wanted him to be inserted closer to the target, but when he, Keenan, and the other two guys present had started to argue about how close he could get inserted without alerting the enemy, Aiden had volunteered that he could easily cover far more ground than when in human form. He still had to assure them several times that the shack which had been considered was well within his capabilities before they had relented and arranged for his position in the convoy.

  Aiden stretched out his stride, reveling in the simple motion. This was the first time he’d been able to let it out like this since experimenting in the desert north of Vegas (the pines in the Croatan Forest had been too densely packed for Claire and him to really open it up). As a recruit, when he’d been forced to run, he’d been in pure agony, gasping for air and generally feeling miserable. Now, his mind was focused on his muscles working together, on his tendons stretching and absorbing the force of each footfall, of his lungs expanding and contracting, forcing oxygen through his body. He was a machine—an organic machine, to be sure, but a machine none-the-less.

  It was still quite hot, but it was bearable. Despite many of the Tribe living in hot climates, his kind were more suited for the cooler environs. Still, Aiden had no problem other than his ill-fitting assault pack bouncing up and down as he ran.

  An hour-and-a-half later, Aiden started to slow down and cast his senses for his target. He had a GPS in his pack, but it didn’t do him much good there, he knew.

  That’s something else to bring up, he noted. I need it where I can easily see it.

  He knew he should stop and get it out, but a perverse sense of wanting to do it on his own and not rely on technology kept him from doing the logical thing. Still, he was about to give up when the faint smell of humans reached him through the night air. He slowed to a walk and pushed forward, following his nose for another twenty minutes before he could detect the muted sound of life.

  Intel, either military or CIA, had pinpointed the location of Aiden’s target to a small group of huts in a desolate wadi. This small village had changed hands several times during the conflicts of the last few decades, and from the satellite photos shown to Aiden, it had not suffered those conflicts well. There were five buildings, slightly protected from the sun, sand, and wind by creosote bushes, but with a flat open area surrounding them. Any approach to the village offered no cover.

  Aiden’s target was supposedly in a hidden underground cell beneath the second largest shack. The insurgent’s plan was to extract all the information they could from their prisoner before marching her to a larger village northwest of Mosul and execute her in the public square. At least that was what Intel thought. How they knew all of this, Aiden wasn’t sure. But he was told to leave one of the shacks alone. Whether this was to ensure that someone survived what was going to happen or their source of information was in that shack, Aiden didn’t know, but either made some degree of sense.

  Aiden dropped his assault pack. If he was supposed to be a progeny of Iblis, the jinn who defied Adam and was the local equivalent of the devil, he doubted that he’d be carrying a Marine assault pack into a fight. Keenan had warned Aiden not to take anything for granted and go in loaded for bear, but Aiden had quietly decided that if he was going to do this, he had to act the part as well. He contemplated his Tavor for a moment, and in a last-second act of compromise, slung the short weapon over his back. There were between eight and a dozen insurgents in the little gathering of huts, and that could be too much for an unarmed varg, even given the darkness and the advantage of surprise.

  Aiden moved out again, this time at a slow walk as he tried to project his senses forward. He didn’t bother with crawling. If the insurgents had night vision devices, they’d see him—if they didn’t, he’d be able to get in much closer before he could be spotted. At the first sign of discovery, however, Aiden would spring forward and launch into his attack.

  To his mild surprise, Aiden was able to walk through the retusa saltbushes unnoticed. Hozan had told him that werewolves had an ability to move about almost unnoticed, but this was the first time Aiden had been in this position. Stealthy abilities or not, anyone guarding the village couldn’t miss a six-foot varg standing at the edge of the village.

  Aiden slowly drew a huge draught of air, savoring it as an oenophile might savor the bouquet from a bottle of burgundy. As that image popped into his mind, he almost laughed, and that cracked his concentration.

  Get ahold of yourself.

  He took another deep breath, and the swirling scents began to make sense. He could smell menstrual blood coming from the nearest shack, together with lighter human scents that he instinctively knew were children. From just beyond that shack, the smell of humans mixed with tobacco and steel let Aiden know that there were three armed men in the room, eating some sort of beans. Aiden wasn’t sure how he knew that, nor how he knew they were in the second shack over, but he knew both of that still the same. He never thought about how his ears could tell the direction of a sound, either, so he guessed it made sense.

  A third building reeked of rat urine, but there were no humans inside. The fourth building, his target building, had four or five men in it. The gun oil smell muddled his senses, and he couldn’t determine an exact count. He couldn’t pick up the scent of a woman, though, and that sent a wave of apprehension through him.

  Have they already taken her to be executed, he wondered.

  For a moment, he wondered if he should canc the operation. It was his call, he’d been told. But the possibility existed that his senses, as good as they were, simply could not pick up her scent from her underground cell.

  No, it’s still a go.

  The mission given to Aiden had been purposefully generic. It got him to the village, it gave him a no-fighting zone with the fifth shack, but that was about it. Aiden didn’t need Keenan to tell him that this was a test of his abilities, and that the satellites would be locked onto the village tonight. He was not alone.

  He was hit by a sudden desire to raise one varg paw to the sky, its middle claw extended. He resisted the temptation, though, and didn’t even look up. He’d ignore the drone boys back at Creech AFB north of Vegas or the NSA satellite guys back at Ft. Meade or wherever they hung their hat and just get on with the mission.

  He decided to take out the three that were eating their dinner first. Their weapons were probably up against the wall or on the floor, and Aiden was pretty sure that with the element of surprise, he could take them out without a shot being fired.

  Staying within the bushes, he moved to his left in order to shorten the distance to the shack. As he did so, a new scent hit him like a slap in the face.

  Fuck! Security! Of course, they have someone out and about.

  The man’s scent had been wrapped up with the others, but as Aiden had sidled to the left, the scent stream had become separated from the rest. Aiden searched in that direction and was rewarded with a brief glow from a lit cigarette. The glow was quickly masked. The man was evidently cupping it in his hand, but it became exposed when he brought it up for a puff.

  Good, but not good enough, Abu! Don’t you know smoking will kill you?

  The man was at least 40 meters away, facing the rough track that led into the small collection of huts. The line of saltbushes would cover Aiden’s approach for about half of that distance. After that, it was open ground to where the man sat on a stack of tires.

  As Aiden eased his way silently through the bushes, a burst of laughter r
ang out of the second shack. Aiden jumped, then had to tell himself to calm down. He glanced back to see a person walk in and out of view past a window.

  His target was in front of him, but he couldn’t get into his varg-like one-track-minded focus. He couldn’t ignore the eight men in the buildings. With only a little bad luck, one of them looks out the window to check on his buddy on security, sees Aiden, and drops him with a head shot while Aiden is concentrating on his target.

  Aiden edged up to the furthermost bush, but before rushing the guard, made a very careful examination of the area, relying on his noses, eyes, and ears. It wouldn’t do to have another guard with eyes on the first one. After of good minute of straining his senses, while he couldn’t be 100% certain, Aiden was confident that this was the only person outside the buildings.

  The insurgent kept looking back at the buildings instead of out into the desert. He was probably waiting to get relieved—that, or he was a particularly incompetent guard. His view peripherally took in where Aiden was standing, but he made no indication that he noticed a werewolf waiting in the shadows. Aiden would rather have waited until the man was staring away from the huts, but if he was going to get relieved soon, Aiden wanted to take him out first. Besides, Aiden’s powerful haunches would propel him across the intervening 10 meters in just a second, hardly enough time for the man to realize what was happening, then bring his weapon around to bear.

  This is it!

  Aiden sprang forward just as the man turned back again. The man’s face showed no sign of Aiden’s rush registering as he plowed into the man, teeth taking him around the throat. The force of Aiden’s charge broke the man’s neck even as his jaws closed. The two of them fell over the stack of tires with a crash and a thud, but the man never made a sound. He quivered twice, then was still.

  Aiden let the man’s head drop as he froze, waiting to see if anyone inside had heard. There were no cries of alarm. It seemed as if Aiden’s first kill had gone unnoticed.

  Aiden had planned to attack the three men eating dinner next, but divide and conquer, as the old adage went, seemed like a much better idea. He picked up the dead insurgent and tried to prop him on the tire stack. The broken neck was problematic, though; the head would not stay in any natural position. Aiden had to take the man’s AK, run it up the man’s shirt front, and ram the muzzle up through his chin and into his brainpan. It was a scarecrow fix and wouldn’t stand scrutiny, but he hoped it wouldn’t have to.

  He hurriedly retreated to the rusted hulk of a vehicle, too far gone for Aiden to know what it had been in its previous life. The hulk did not offer much cover, but it was only a couple of meters from the path leading into the compound.

  Twenty minutes later, Aiden decided he must have figured wrong, and the guard was not about to be relieved. He’d have to take them in their building. He’d just stood up when the door of the second hut opened up, the light inside illuminating a good 10 or 15 meters around it. Aiden’s varg eyes were more light sensitive than his human eyes, which was great for running around in the dark, but the flash of light almost blinded him. He quickly dropped back down and blinked furiously, trying to get his night vision back.

  He was able to make out someone stop in the doorway, turn around and say something to those still inside, then make his way up the path towards Aiden and his dead companion.

  Aiden’s vision started to come back quickly, which was good given the 30 seconds or so it would take the man to reach the guard post.

  “Nadeem!” the man called out as he approached. “Alwaqt litanawul altteam!”

  As he approached, something must have warned him that things were not as they should be.

  “Nadeem!” he shouted louder, unslinging the rifle he had on his back.

  Aiden had to move; he couldn’t allow the man to get off a shot. With a low growl, he sprang forward, keeping low. The man heard the growl and started to swing about, but Aiden hit him low and hard, reaching up to knock the insurgents AK out of his grasp.

  “Ayreh feek!” the man shouted as both of them slammed to the ground.

  Aiden still only massed his 160 pounds no matter being in human or varg form, but all of that landed forcibly on the man’s chest as they hit the ground. He gasped for air as Aiden scrambled up to get a better hold on him.

  There was no fear in the man’s eyes as he tried to hold Aiden back, only anger. He managed to get one hand on Aiden’s throat, but despite being a bigger man than Aiden, it that did him no good. Aiden easily batted the hand away and took the man’s face into his jaws. He bit as hard as he could, but while the man managed to get a half-shriek out, his skull held firm. The coppery-tasting blood filled Aiden’s mouth as he shifted his jaws to bite again, and that excited him.

  Aiden knew he should be disgusted, and he would be after he shifted back, but as a varg, he felt the thrill of power, the thrill of the hunt. He reveled in it.

  He had to finish this, though, before someone else heard the sounds of the struggle. Giving up on the head, he let go, pushed up on the man’s chin, then sunk his fangs into the man’s throat. The soft flesh was no match for his cutting teeth. Keeping his teeth clenched, he pulled back, taking out half of the man’s throat.

  Blood fountained up and drenched him. For a moment, the anger in the man’s eyes was still strong in the faint light of the crescent moon, but within seconds, the life had fled the eyes, leaving them shark-dead in the darkness.

  Aiden stayed prone on top of the body for a few moments, scanning the village to see if he’d been discovered. To his amazement, there was no hue and cry. Two insurgents had been eliminated, and no one else had been alerted yet. This was really better than he could have expected.

  He took in a long draught of air, the smell of blood seemingly stimulating every cell in his brain. Aiden had never taken hard recreational drugs, but this was how he imagined coke or meth might make someone feel. It would be so easy to slide into an orgy of violence, and he wanted to let go and embrace it. It took an extreme effort of will to regain full control of himself.

  Werewolves were amazing killing machines, able to deal violence in sudden and intense fury. They allowed emotion to take over, they allowed their varg self to ignore the human tendencies for caution and planning. That might have worked well against 14th Century peasants huddled in their huts in fear of the dark, but modern humans had technology on their side. Modern weapons could kill a werewolf, as Aiden’s patron had discovered. The insurgents in the little village were armed, and a berserker varg would only get himself killed. Aiden had to keep control of himself if he wanted to succeed in the mission and get out in one piece.

  A couple of deep breaths, and Aiden was himself again, a varg, but with his human side in control. His Marine training and experience kicked in.

  He rose and glided silently to the second hut, the one with two men still inside. They might not be insurgents, he knew. But they were armed, and they had to be aware of who was in the little group of shacks. That was enough to damn them.

  Aiden put his ears up against the wall of the hut. He could make out the muffled murmuring of the two men inside. Their voices did not have the tone of alarm. The fruity tobacco smell of shisha emanated from the building, a very good indication that the men inside were relaxing and probably done with their duties for the night.

  All the better for Aiden.

  He silently worked his way around to the front door. On their hooka pipes or not, the men were probably oriented towards the door. Aiden would be if he were in their shoes, at least. Because doors are natural chokepoints that can be easily defended, Marines have a habit of making their own doors right through the walls when they could, bypassing any possible booby-traps or defenders. And while Aiden thought he could crash through the weathered stucco, doing so would create a huge crash, one that the other insurgents in the shack only 20 meters away would hear.

  It had to be the door.

  He reached out and gently touched the makeshift latch, which was nothi
ng more than a piece of metal stuck through a hole in the door and hanging from a string. Pulling down on the tip of the metal outside would raise the end on the inside. While it might keep the door closed in the wind, it would do nothing to keep someone out who wanted to come in.

  Aiden bent down to look into the small gap that allowed the piece of metal to move up and down. He could see a 40’s something man with a well-weathered face sucking on the end of the hooka. He held in the smoke for a moment, then let it go. Turning the hose back on itself so the mouthpiece was pointing at him, he passed the hose to someone just out of Aiden’s view. Aiden only caught a hand as it reached out to take the hose.

  On the table, on the other side of the pipe as the two men, lay an AK-47. The pistol grip of the weapon was pointed towards Aiden and the front door. The first man said something and pointed at the pipe.

  Almost before he knew it, Aiden was in motion, taking advantage of the man’s attention on the pipe. He flipped the door latch and pushed into the room. The first man looked up in confusion as Aiden made his entrance, hesitating only a moment before lunging forward to grab at the AK. The hesitation was the death of him. Aiden reached the weapon a fraction of a second before the man, whipping it out of reach. He swung it around in a circle, gathering momentum, before bringing it back to complete the circle by slamming the heavy barrel into the side of the man’s head. He’d wanted to drive the barrel though the insurgent’s skull, but it merely glanced off as the man’s head was knocked backwards. He collapsed, though, to fall heavily to the rug-covered floor.