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Slayers (Jake Hawkins Book 1)

Page 25

by Matt Rogers


  “What did you do after we left you?”

  “A local family took me in. They told me I could stay as long as I needed. I think they’ve had trouble with the law in the past. They sympathised with me. Anyway, I was out buying food, and then suddenly, everything went mental. Oh my god…” Her voice dropped to a low whisper. “Jake, there’s one at the end of the alley.”

  “Jesus, Zoe, can it see you?”

  A pause that felt like it lasted years. “I don’t think so.” Another. “Okay, it’s gone. You need to get me out of here. Please. I know you know what these things are. I know that’s why you were being secretive. And I don’t care.”

  “Look, Zoe, I can’t. If you stay…”

  “Jake!” she shouted. “I flew you here. I helped you. You need to help me. Please. And I’m not some damsel in distress. A broken nail isn’t going to kill me. These things are going to kill me. I’m not exaggerating.”

  “I know you’re not.”

  Jake banged his fist against the wall in frustration. He couldn’t let this go. He knew what he had to do. It wasn’t going to be easy.

  “Okay, Zoe, stay there,” he said, thinking. “You told me you have a satellite phone. Does it have co-ordinates on it? GPS?”

  “Yeah, it does.”

  “Read them to me.”

  Zoe told him the latitude and longitude of her location. Jake relayed the details to Irene, who in turn scribbled them down on a piece of paper. He became acutely aware that a rescue might not be too far-fetched after all.

  “Don’t make a noise, Zoe,” he said. “I’m coming to get you.”

  He snapped the phone shut.

  Wolfe looked up. “Who was that?”

  “Zoe,” he said. “She’s the girl who flew us here.”

  Wolfe cocked an eyebrow. He turned to Felix and Thorn. “You got Dan McCloud’s daughter wrapped in all this?”

  “We didn’t have much of a choice,” Thorn said half-heartedly, preoccupied with tending to Crank’s wound.

  “She’s down there in Iquitos,” Jake said. “It’s our responsibility to get her out.”

  “We’re not doing anything,” Wolfe said. “Doesn’t matter who she is, I can’t put her safety over the safety of an entire city. I’m sorry, Jake.”

  “Then I’ll do it myself.”

  “Don’t be an idiot. You want to risk your life for the girl? Let me guess, you two have a thing.”

  Jake ignored the prodding. “I promised I would get her. I won’t be able to live with myself if I let her die.”

  “I won’t let you.”

  “You want to just leave her there to die? I thought Dan was your friend.”

  Anger flashed in Wolfe’s eyes. “Don’t lecture me about leaving people to die. There’s tens of thousands of people in danger down in Iquitos, not just your girlfriend. Even if you manage to get Zoe, I can just give you the same charade about leaving everyone else to die. But it’s not even about that, Jake. If we had time, I’d storm in there and get her myself. There’s millions of people at risk if Archfiend unleashes the horde in Washington.”

  “She’s important to me, Wolfe,” Jake said. “What if it was your wife down there?”

  Wolfe hesitated just a fraction too long. Jake remembered the framed photograph back at the house. His initial guess had been correct.

  “Look, Jake, I can’t stop you from doing whatever it is you want to do,” he said. “But I can at least advise against it.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “Then go for your life. But you’ll have to be quick, and you’ll need a plan. We can’t drop you off. A chopper this big will attract way too much attention. There’ll be hundreds of slayers on our location in the blink of an eye.”

  No-one spoke.

  “Any bright ideas?” Wolfe said, his tone laced with sarcasm.

  Jake eyed the backpacks underneath each seat. “These are parachutes, right? I can skydive in. That’ll be quiet. That won’t attract attention. There’s empty cars all over the place down there. I’ll get Zoe, and you pick us up. We’ll be in and out before the slayers know what hit them.”

  Wolfe raised an eyebrow. Jake could see sudden worry on his face, as he realised Jake was serious and the plan was just about feasible. “Ever jumped out of a plane before?”

  “Once. It was a tandem. My old friend Liam bought it for me as a birthday present.”

  “Having an instructor do all the work is immensely different to the real thing, Jake. You’re in for a rude awakening.”

  “That’s alright. The guy let me steer and everything.”

  Wolfe smiled. “I’ve got to say, you’re a changed man. This time a few months ago, you would have been a nervous wreck.”

  “I’ve been through so much,” Jake said. “It’s going to take something pretty extraordinary to scare me.”

  “Well,” Wolfe said, “it’s your call. If you want, you can skydive in. You’re your own man now. You can make your own decisions.”

  “I’ll do it,” Jake said.

  “Let’s get you geared up.”

  “You don’t want to come?”

  “You need to attract the least amount of attention possible. You know what you’re doing. I trust you to get the job done.”

  “Scared of jumping out with me?” Jake teased.

  “Kid, I’ve done more skydives than you could imagine. It was part of life in the Delta Force.”

  “Well, you’d better give me a crash course.”

  Wolfe smiled. “I’ll let Irene know you’re leaving shortly.”

  Jake reversed the Snowdog’s holster so that instead of resting against his back, it was strapped to his chest. He slotted the huge gun in and secured it, then grabbed the parachute out from under his seat and stepped delicately into the harness.

  It was heavy. Two straps went around his upper legs, which he tightened, and then another strap clicked into place across his chest. Wolfe adjusted them until they were just tight enough not to constrict movement. A new kind of fear began to creep into his stomach. The air grew cold. Suddenly, he realised how far off the ground the chopper was. Was this a rational plan?

  How hard can it be? he asked himself. Compared to going toe to toe with a slayer, pulling a cord was child’s play. He felt back for the orange pulley and clasped it between white knuckles.

  “Alright, Jake, this is going to be scary,” Wolfe said. “I mean, really scary. I take it you haven’t done an AFF course?”

  “What the hell is that?”

  “Wonderful. This is what I want you to remember. When you jump out, the wind is going to hit you. Arch your back. It’s critical, no matter what position you’re in. That’ll straighten you out in the air. I want arms and legs splayed, like this.” He spread himself out like a starfish. “Legs slightly bent, but not at ninety degrees. Usually, when people learn to do this, they have instructors holding onto them, to keep them stable. You might be shaky. Just breathe. You need to relax as much as possible.”

  “Okay.”

  “Don’t hang around in freefall. You’ve never done this before. As soon as you’re even remotely stable, reach back, get a grip on the pilot chute and pull it out. Don’t panic if the chute doesn’t come out straight away. Count to five. If it’s not out after five seconds, throw one shoulder over. The pilot chute might be hanging around in the dead air on top of you. You want it clear, so it can rip your main parachute out. Got it?”

  “I think so.”

  “Once you’re under canopy, steer with the toggles. There’ll be one on each side. Pretty simple stuff. When you come into land, pull down on both toggles. It’ll flare the canopy. You’ll slow down.”

  “Okay.”

  Irene yelled from the cockpit. “We’re almost above the location Jake gave me! One minute till I open up!”

  They were the longest sixty seconds of Jake’s life. He spent the time pacing up and down nervously, attempting to quash his twisted gut.

  “Thirty seconds!”

>   “Good luck, kid,” Wolfe said. “You’ve got this.”

  Jake breathed in deep and stared at the rear ramp. The dark, hulking wall loomed ominously over his head. He started to count the scratches and dents that covered its surface. Anything to take his mind off what was about to happen.

  The ramp lowered with a hiss of escaping air. As soon as there was a sliver of a gap, the wind came howling in, drowning out all noise. Instinctively, he was terrified. His brain was screaming for him to back out.

  The ramp stopped at a perfect horizontal angle. Jake saw open sky. The Super Stallion was dizzyingly high. Irene had brought the flying behemoth to a standstill, hovering in the air. He looked out at the curvature of the earth. Iquitos lay below.

  “We’re eight thousand feet up!” Wolfe roared above the wind. “I haven’t bothered to give you an altimeter. I don’t want you wasting time checking a dial on your wrist. As soon as you’re stable, count to three and deploy.”

  “Before I go,” Jake said. “I know you’re hiding something from me. Archfiend told me, in the hive. He said when I find out, I’ll never be the same.”

  Wolfe paused. “There’s a lot I haven’t told you, Jake. But now’s not the time. I’ll explain everything when I see you again.”

  Jake shrugged. Wolfe let go of his shoulder and gave him a hard slap on the back. “Now get out there.”

  “Pick me up as soon as I’ve got Zoe,” Jake said. “I’ll call you.”

  Wolfe nodded.

  Jake let his mind go blank. He tried to run, but his legs faltered.

  Do it!

  He broke into a sprint for the rear ramp, away from Wolfe. To his left, Crank, Thorn and Felix flashed by in a blur. The parachute was heavy on his back, like a deadweight. Then he was out on the ramp, surrounded on all three sides by the elements. Up this high, it was cold. The wind buffeted against his body. He ignored it, and kept running.

  The ramp dropped off into nothingness and he took one more deep breath and dove out into the sky.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  There was no stomach drop.

  No inkling that he was falling at near terminal velocity.

  Just the world catapulting as he spun through the air and the all-consuming howl of the wind against his body. It cut through his clothes like a thousand icy knives. The thin material did nothing to fight the cold. He couldn’t see. Sensory overload had kicked in.

  Arch your back.

  Jake arched. He was upside down, or something like that, but he fought against the momentum. It took a few seconds, but he began to level out. It seemed like an eternity. He splayed his arms wide and bent his legs just like Wolfe had told him to. Suddenly he was floating on his stomach in the air.

  At least it felt like he was floating. Eight thousand feet up, the earth was beautiful. It didn’t seem to be growing any closer, splayed out in all directions underneath him. For a fleeting second, Jake experienced a rush of elation like nothing he had ever felt before. He smiled. He could see tight clusters of buildings, nothing more than pinpricks from this height, surrounded by gorgeous green plains and snaking rivers. To his left, the Amazon Rainforest.

  He was flying.

  The feeling was overpowering. Sure, he was unstable, shaky in the air, volatile, and it felt like he was going to tip over onto his back at any moment, but for a brief moment in time he was more alive than he had ever been.

  Wolfe had told him to deploy his parachute as soon as he was stable. There was no way to check his height. The buildings far below didn't seem to be growing any closer. Jake reached back and fumbled against the bottom of the backpack. He came up with nothing.

  Where’s the bloody pilot chute?

  Still nothing. Now, he was closing the distance between the buildings. Fast. In desperation, he started to slap different areas of the backpack. Wild, panicked breaths were cut off by the unrelenting wind. He struggled to breathe.

  He found it. His fingertips brushed over a small, plastic ball hanging from the bottom of the pack. Terror seized him as he looked down and saw the fast approaching rooftops. He yanked the pilot chute out of its holster, held it an arm’s length from his body and released it.

  He couldn’t see, but he sensed the small bag zipping up, catching the air, inflating, wrenching the main parachute out, which in turn caught the wind and billowed out above his head. Each cell inflated until the canopy expanded to its full capacity. The deceleration wrenched him up by the shoulders with a vicious jolt.

  He was suspended a thousand feet above the ground by two straps tightened to his upper legs. His feet dangled in thin air. His mouth went dry.

  Just as Wolfe had said would happen, two yellow toggles appeared above. Jake took one in each hand and gently lowered the left toggle until his elbow was bent at ninety degrees. The parachute lurched to the left, scaring him momentarily. Now, he was facing the city.

  Down below, chaos ensued. Plumes of smoke rose intermittently from across the skyline. Car alarms sounded in the distance. He stared in awe at the scene before him, but then his attention was taken by the parachute coming into land.

  He was heading straight for the rooftop of a three-storey building. It looked like the perfect place to land. The roof was made of flat concrete, with nothing but a metal ventilation unit at the far end, puffing steam out into the air. He tugged the right strap just a little to correct his trajectory. The chute descended further and he shot over the lip of the rooftop’s edge. He was now skimming through the air above the concrete. Far too fast to land. Wolfe was right. He would need to flare the parachute to avoid breaking both his legs.

  There was sudden movement ahead. A slayer stepped out from behind the ventilation unit. It had been obscured from view before, but now Jake noticed it tense up, ready to attack. As soon as he landed, off-balance, awkwardly, it would move in for the kill.

  There was an alternative.

  Jake adjusted his aim a little and straightened his legs out in front. Right now was the perfect time to flare. He was just above the roof. But he didn’t. He kept on shooting towards the slayer.

  It realised what was happening far too late.

  Standing at the far end of the rooftop, it had no room to dive out of the way.

  He soared in and dropkicked it in a bone-jarring collision, planting both his feet into its chest and sending it flying. The slayer cleared the end of the rooftop by a metre and dropped straight down to the asphalt three storeys below. Jake reached up and wrenched down on both straps with all his might. Each end of the parachute arced down toward him and he slowed considerably. His stomach dropped a little. He thumped down onto the concrete on his rear. A second earlier, and he would have shattered his coccyx from the impact.

  He came to a skidding halt at the very edge of the rooftop. His feet dropped over the edge, into open space. But then he was stationary, centimetres from falling to a grisly fate. He fell back and unclipped his harness with a sigh of relief.

  The only sound came from the hissing of the ventilation unit. There was a gentle whoosh as his canopy began to deflate. Jake swung his legs back over onto flat ground and picked himself up. He left the parachute on the concrete. There was no need for it anymore.

  There was a buzzing against his thigh. Still shaking from the rush of free fall, he clumsily fished it out and answered.

  “Was that you?!” an exasperated voice yelled.

  Zoe.

  “Was what me?” Jake said.

  “Someone just came down in a parachute,” she said. “They dropkicked one of those things off the roof! I think it’s dead.”

  He looked around. “Yeah, that was me. You saw it?”

  “You’re truly crazy, you know that?”

  He ignored the remark. “Are you close?”

  “Look down the alleyway in front of you. See those boxes?”

  “No way…”

  For the first time, Jake looked out over his surroundings. His building was one in a long row of similar structures, facing out onto a
narrow, dilapidated street devoid of all life. There were clear signs of mass panic. The windows of nearly every store on the opposite side of the street were broken. Cars had been abandoned in the middle of the road. They were clustered up tight, skewed at random angles across the tarmac. He swore. Even if he stole a car, there was no way to find a way through the maze of vehicles. It was already an impossible mission.

  He saw the alleyway Zoe was in, across the street. It was a tiny, dark path, nothing more than a crack between two buildings, but sure enough he spotted a crouching figure at the end.

  “Did you use the co-ordinates I gave you?” she asked.

  “You bet I did. I’m not that lucky.”

  “Well, you landed in the right place,” she said.

  “Yeah,” Jake said, smiling. “About time I had some good news. Stay there, Zoe. I’ll be there soon.”

  He hung up and assessed his options. There was no sign of life in the street below, but he guessed there would be slayers lurking in the shadows, waiting for the opportune moment to strike. The slayer he had kicked off the roof had landed on a parked car. It was lying on the dented bonnet, coughing up blood, suffering from heavy internal injuries.

  Jake moved to the ventilation unit and saw the exit to a fire escape built into the side. High on adrenalin, he kicked out against the lock. The door didn’t budge. Another kick, and the wood splintered. He retreated back and then charged forward, slamming his bulk against the damaged frame.

  The door burst open, revealing a narrow concrete stairwell spiraling down to the ground floor, illuminated by pale halogen lights. He hurried down, taking the stairs three at a time. Each of Jake’s footsteps echoed off the walls. The silence was unbearable after such an intense experience. He felt the blood rushing to his head, and his heartbeat pounding in his ears.

  At the last step, he hesitated. In here, it was quiet. And safe. Out there were slayers running rampart, looking for a meal. He savoured the peace for a second longer, knowing that there would be nothing but violence and bloodshed out in the city.

 

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