Slayers (Jake Hawkins Book 1)

by Matt Rogers

  “Get out,” he snarled. “You’re not achieving anything by doing this. I’m better than you all. I can crush you any time I want. Next time, I will.”

  He carried Jake over to the wall.

  “Tell your team that I’ve had enough of their games,” Archfiend said. “I think it’s time to teach them a lesson.”

  With that, Jake soared, subjected to an overwhelming force. Archfiend’s strength was incredible. He hit the wall behind, and braced himself for the impact, expecting his spine to snap, expecting to be smashed unconscious. But instead, he smashed straight through. The concrete fell with him and his world titled and he landed on his back. The fall sent him into a coughing fit. He was a wheezing, spluttering mess, but he was alive.

  There had been a second entrance, plugged up with a man-sized block of concrete, much like the first. Archfiend had thrown him straight through it.

  “Jake!” a voice cried out. He rolled over to see Felix, Crank and Sam sprinting for him.

  “Archfiend,” he spat out, and pointed through the hole he had created. Their eyes boggled, but they didn’t hesitate in the slightest. The three men ran straight through into the hive.

  Jake lay in the now empty warehouse, panting for breath. He tried to shut out the pounding headache that had decided to flare up at that very moment. It couldn’t have been more than half a minute before Felix called out, “We’re clear!”

  Jake rolled off the concrete slab and stumbled through into the hive. He was covered in dust and sweat and blood. Crank was kneeling over Thorn. The big man was semi-conscious, completely out of it. He had no idea where he was. There was no sign of Archfiend.

  “Where’s Wolfe?” Jake said. Tension was building in his gut.

  “Huh?” Felix whipped round. “I don’t know. Where did you last see him?”

  Jake pointed at the spot where Wolfe had been lying not thirty seconds earlier. “Right there.”

  Felix didn’t respond. He seemed confused. A cool breeze blew against Jake’s cheek.

  A cool breeze…

  He looked up. One of the windows was broken.

  “No…”

  Jake turned and broke into a sprint out the way he had come in. He made a beeline for the warehouse doors. No-one called after him. They were too confused. He ran outside into the mud, kicking up dirt with each footfall. It didn’t take long to round the corner. When he finally had a view of the land behind the warehouse, he swore out loud.

  Archfiend was standing on the edge of the forest. An unconscious body which could only be Wolfe was draped across its shoulder. Jake was helpless. He was too far away to try anything.

  Slowly, Archfiend raised a hand and waved a mock farewell. Then he turned and retreated into the darkness, disappearing from view.

  Jake was left standing by himself, in the middle of the open plain with the wind howling against his chest, his clothes flapping, cold and sore and feeling utterly alone.

  *

  By the time he raised the alarm and the four men finished conducting a search of the surrounding forest, Archfiend was long gone. Eventually, Felix made the call to head back out of the woods. Thorn lashed out, his fist gouging wood chips out of one of the tree trunks. He grunted in anger.

  “He’s got to be here, man,” he said.

  “Wolfe!” Crank roared.

  There was no answer.

  They reassembled in the warehouse. On the way back, Felix rang Link and gave him the all-clear.

  Ten minutes later, Link came running in. He was deathly pale.

  “What’s going on?” he asked. “I was getting the van ready.”

  Jake noticed he was sweating profusely.

  “Where’s Wolfe?” Link said, his focus moving from one man to the next.

  No-one spoke.

  “Where is he?”

  “Gone,” Felix said. “Archfiend took him.”

  “Took him?”

  “We don’t have time for this, man,” Sam said. He was insistent, but seemed hesitant to move. Nobody wanted to be the first one to leave, the first one to give up. “We’ll explain in the car.”

  Jake noticed none of them had suggested a plan yet. They moved lethargically, slinging gear over their shoulders and trudging out into the night, heading for the van at the top of the hill. Each man seemed wrapped up in their own thoughts. They were all mulling over what had just happened.

  Thorn was the second last to leave when Jake remembered something.

  “What about the hive?” he said.

  “Those people haven’t been bitten,” Thorn said. “We stopped that from happening. They’re going to wake up soon. They’ll be confused, but at least they’ll be alive. The slayers will have decomposed by then.”

  “And then?”

  Thorn seemed distant, in shock. “They’ll be fine. Civilisation is only a fifteen-minute walk from here. Usually we would stay with them until they wake up. We’re a little pressed for time right now.”

  “It doesn’t feel right.”

  “It’s fine. In the last hive we came across, all seventeen people had been bitten. How do you think we felt about what we had to do there?”

  Jake gulped. Thorn turned and left, and he followed him out. As he walked, he considered what Archfiend had told him.

  You shouldn’t be here, Jake.

  How did Archfiend know who he was? Jake felt like things were being kept from him. There was something that the gang was not telling him. He shivered, although he couldn’t tell if it was from the breeze or not.

  Archfiend was right. He shouldn’t be here. He should be going to school. Doing his homework. Hanging out with his friends. Any of the thousand things that normal teenagers do. Instead, he was leaving a warehouse with a gun in his hands and blood on his clothes and an empty feeling in his stomach.

  Wolfe was gone.

  He let that sink in.

  PART TWO

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “We’re going after him.”

  Sam was the first to speak. They were huddled around the dining room table. It was almost one in the morning. Thorn was pacing the room, holding an ice pack to his head where a nasty bruise was beginning to develop, and Link was elsewhere, fetching his laptop. The rest were seated.

  Jake was on edge. The mansion felt different now, almost too large. He wasn’t sure if it was his imagination or not, but it seemed like their voices echoed more than usual. The house was missing the man who brought them all together. Jake felt the team was leaderless now.

  “We can’t,” Felix said.

  Jake turned his gaze on Felix. “Are you being serious?”

  “You’re damn right I’m being serious,” Felix said.

  “Wolfe saved my life,” Jake said. “And you know he’s the one in charge around here. Archfiend didn’t kill him, so he’s clearly still alive. And you want to abandon him?”

  “Shut up, kid,” Felix burst out. “I know that you two were close – father-son bonding or whatever – but you’ve been here two months. Everyone in here has known him more than sixteen years. You don’t call the shots here. I don’t care how important you think you are … you need to learn your place!”

  Jake recoiled. He had never seen Felix this enraged.

  “Don’t take this out on Jake,” Crank said. He rarely spoke, and when he did it was calm and collected. “I know you’re angry, but it’s not the kid’s fault.”

  “Of course I’m angry,” Felix said. “In case you hadn’t noticed, Archfiend is baiting us. He wants us to come after Wolfe. He wants us to walk straight into his open arms. If he wanted to do damage, he would have killed Wolfe in the hive, along with Thorn, and along with you, Jake. He wants to set a trap, get us all in one big group. An easy target. Why else would he keep Wolfe alive?”

  Thorn spoke up for the first time. “To make us come after him.”

  “Precisely.”

  “Which is exactly what we’re going to do.”

  Everyone whirled around.

  �
��You can’t be serious,” Felix said.

  “Oh, I am,” Thorn said. “That man was like my brother.”

  “We’re not leaving him,” Sam said, agitated. “I don’t care what any of you pricks say, I’m going after him. Anyone else is welcome to come.”

  “If it was one of us in his position,” Thorn said, “he would go after us without batting an eyelid. He would risk everything for anyone sitting here. Including you, Jake.”

  Crank spoke up, the voice of reason between two heated sides. “All of this is assuming he’s still alive.”

  “He is,” a voice from the living room said.

  Link strode in, balancing a slim laptop on his hand. With the other, he was dashing his fingers over the trackpad.

  “I activated Wolfe’s tracker,” he said. “He’s alive. Slow heart rate, though.”

  “Well, that’s a relief,” Sam said, letting out a sigh.

  “I wouldn’t go as far as to say that,” Felix said. “Archfiend still has him.”

  “Archfiend probably drugged him with the hive juice,” Thorn said. “That’s why his heart rate isn’t normal.”

  “What’s this tracker you’re talking about?” Jake said.

  “We’ve all got one implanted,” Link said. He raised his free arm, revealing a small scar in the flesh of his underarm. “Never needs charging. It shows our position anywhere on the globe when fired up. These guys had them in the Delta Force. We thought they would come in handy if a situation like this ever arose.”

  “I didn’t get one?” Jake queried.

  “They’re not easy to obtain,” Crank said. “We were in the process of ordering yours.”

  Jake paused for a beat, unsure as to whether Crank was telling the truth or if they still deemed him unworthy of a place in the gang.

  “Do you have Wolfe’s location?” Felix said. He seemed to have calmed down.

  “Yes, and you’re not going to like it,” Link said.

  “How bad can it be?”

  “Bad. It says he’s currently over the Pacific Ocean.”

  Crank looked at his watch. “It can’t have been more than a couple of hours since he was taken.”

  “Archfiend moved fast,” Link said. “I did some research. Wolfe’s location matches the flight plan of a cargo plane heading for Iquitos. In Peru. Archfiend must have stashed him inside. Felix, I think they’re headed for the Amazon Rainforest.”

  There was silence for a full minute. Jake was uncomfortable. Everything was happening too fast.

  “Your Delta Force mission,” Jake said. “That was in the Amazon Rainforest, wasn’t it?”

  Crank slowly nodded his head. “He’s taking Wolfe back to where it all started. That clearing.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “Mocking us, probably. He knows that we’ll come after Wolfe. He’ll be lying in wait and ready to strike. The Amazon is one of the harshest environments on the planet. It’s the worst scenario we could possibly imagine.”

  “But you guys are experienced, right?”

  “Four days experience doesn’t make us experts, brother,” Sam said. “We can manage, though. I don’t think hiking through the jungle will be the hard part.”

  “So where do we stand on this?” Link said. “I say we go after him, no matter what. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if we left him to die.”

  Thorn said, “I’m with Link.”

  Sam said, “Me too.”

  Crank said, “I’m not happy with it, but we don’t have any other choice. I’m in.”

  “We do have a choice,” Felix said. “Either one of us can die, or all of us can die. I know I look like the bad guy here, but we can’t afford to take such massive risks.”

  “This whole lifestyle is a massive risk,” Jake said. “I’m sorry, Felix, I know you think I’m just a kid and all, but our job is to hunt slayers. I say we hunt them.”

  “It’s five to one,” Link said.

  *

  “We have a slight problem,” Link said, grimacing. “Jake’s still a missing person. He’ll be arrested as soon as he steps foot inside an airport. And we can’t go unarmed. We need to get guns over there. I think it’s safe to say a commercial flight is out of the question.”

  “This … is too much.” Crank collectively summed up how the entire team felt about the situation.

  Suddenly, Sam’s eyes grew wide. “I know what to do, boys. Anyone remember Daniel McCloud?”

  Huge grins spread across each man’s face in turn.

  “Genius, brother, genius,” Crank said, clapping him across the back.

  “Who’s Daniel McCloud?” Jake said.

  “Dan’s an old buddy of ours,” Thorn said, smiling too. “Back from Delta Force days. Sam saved his life on an undercover mission in Somalia. Shot up a whole group of mercenaries that had taken him hostage. After that, Dan promised he owed Sam his life, and if we ever needed him, to just give him a call. Sometime after we left, Dan retired from active service and started a career in military intelligence. Now he’s high up in the Department of Defense, over in the USA. He’ll be able to pull some strings. Australia usually listens to their big brother.”

  Jake smiled too. Finally, something was going in their favour.

  “Everyone start gearing up right now,” Felix said. “I want survival gear and as many guns as we can carry downstairs in ten minutes. Sam, make the call. From now on, every second counts.”

  Jake rocked back in his seat. The atmosphere had shifted, and with it the invisible vice gripping his gut tightened. He was exhausted, still reeling from the hive.

  Things were unravelling so fast that he barely had time to draw breath.

  *

  They dispersed through the house. Jake headed to his room and began stuffing clothes into a weatherproof hiking pack in the back of his closet, lying amongst cold weather gear and survival kits. It seemed Wolfe had been prepared for every scenario. He left behind the designer stuff, opting instead for lightweight clothes that would be most suited for the Amazon’s climate. As he packed, he mulled over what lay ahead.

  There was a knock at the door.

  “Can I come in?”

  It was Felix. Jake waved him in with one hand, zipping his bag shut with the other. He had packed what he considered essentials. Unnecessary weight would simply be a burden.

  “Listen, I’m sorry for my outburst,” Felix said, sitting down on the bed. “Everyone in this house is equal, and you know that. Don’t let a tirade affect how you think we feel about you.”

  “Don’t worry, I understand,” Jake said. “Emotions are high right now.”

  “You do have a say in what we decide to do about Wolfe. More than you know…” He trailed off.

  “You’ve been in the Amazon Rainforest before,” Jake said.

  “That I have.”

  “What’s it like?”

  “Brutal. You’re not going to enjoy it. You’ll be sweating non-stop. We’ll be hiking long hours. It’s going to be uncomfortable. And that’s not even mentioning the whole slayer situation.”

  “Sounds like hell.”

  Felix chuckled slyly. “It’s probably going to be worse than that.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The two Hummer H3’s shot down the freeway, side by side. The six of them had split up into two groups. Sam drove one of the brutish vehicles, with Felix in the passenger seat and Jake in the back. Crank, Thorn and Link occupied the other truck.

  Sam had organised with Daniel McCloud to have a private plane on the runway of Melbourne Airport within the hour. Sam hadn’t told them how he had managed to arrange this so quickly, or who was flying them to Iquitos, but he had promised to explain along the way.

  Felix was intrigued.

  “Fill me in, Sam,” he said, as Jake listened from the back seat.

  “Dan’s daughter is flying us. She’s right here in Melbourne. Visiting friends with her mother – Dan’s ex-wife. It’s our lucky day.”

  “Using Dan�
�s Gulfstream?” Felix said.

  “You got it.”

  Jake raised his eyebrows. He knew what a Gulfstream was. “How does a Delta Force soldier manage to acquire a private jet?”

  “An Arab prince gave him one,” Sam said.

  “No way.”

  “I couldn't believe it myself,” Sam said. “Back in the old days he saved a wealthy sheikh from a kidnapping. The dude said he could have anything he wanted. In the movies, the heroes always turn down an offer of reward but Dan is, well, Dan. He was about to retire from active service and he wanted a jet. The sheikh bought him a Gulfstream V.”

  “You guys would have been jealous.”

  “We would have been,” Felix said. “Unfortunately we’d left the service by then. There were larger priorities than jealousy.”

  “Well, thank god this worked out,” Jake said. “At least we can bypass airport security.”

  Sam chuckled. “We’d want to be able to.”

  The boot was packed to the roof with a complete arsenal of weaponry, loaded into compact Samsonite cases. There were six Snowdogs, one for each man, along with an array of grenades, pistols and machetes for hacking through the Amazonian undergrowth.

  It was late, but Jake wasn’t tired. He watched the buildings flash by on either side with a newfound curiosity. If things went wrong in Peru, this might be the last time he ever saw Australia.

  “Are you sure we’re able to get away with this?” he said. “I mean, flying into another country with no questions whatsoever.”

  “Dan pulled some strings,” Felix said matter-of-factly.

  Jake remained unsure. Even though he had never been overseas himself, everything about the situation felt off. There had been little time over the past two months to stop and draw breath. He found himself doubting how well he knew the men around him. They were friendly, and compassionate, but there was a cold bluntness to their tone when things turned serious.

  “What did he do?” Jake asked.