The Darkest Night (The Second Dark Ages Book 2)

by Michael Anderle

  Michael chewed his lip, thinking a moment. His eyebrows drew together in concentration as he placed his hand back on the log, then he deliberately thought of the annoyance he felt about having to wait before he was able to see Bethany Anne again.

  The Universe was fucking with him.

  That perhaps, just perhaps, she might die before he had a chance to tell her he loved her once more. Gott Verdammt…

  “Fuck!” he said, jumping back from the log that exploded in front of him. Parts were in flame, falling from the sky as he rolled around before jumping up. He felt a twinge and reached up to his right cheek, where he pulled out the two large splinters that had impaled his face. Looking down, he quickly pulled out another fifteen slivers. He sniffed and turned to his right. Jogging over, Michael stomped out a small grass fire that had started from a chunk of the log.

  Lesson learned. He was touchy about not seeing Bethany Anne again.

  Two more logs, two more chances to figure out what might start a fire without exploding the damn material.

  —

  “This suit,” Yuko told the two, “is made of a very stretchy fabric.”

  “Can it handle if I change into a…” Jacqueline stopped and looked at Mark. “How tall was I?”

  “Uh,” Mark paused a moment. “At least six and a half, maybe seven feet? I was mostly on the ground under your foot, so size was relative at that moment.”

  Jacqueline blushed. “I…uh, I’m sorry about that.” Mark pulled her close as she turned back to Yuko. “If I’m six or seven feet tall?”

  “So, you can turn into a Pricolici?” Yuko knew this, but wanted to make sure they spoke about it in the open.

  “Yes.”

  “The materials can stretch that much, but when you change back, you might have to get it wet and allow it to dry so it will shrink back to the normal size. It could be loose on you until you do.”

  “Better than walking around butt-naked,” Jacqueline admitted.

  “Why?” Mark asked. “I’m kinda of fond of ...”

  “Others?” Jacqueline asked him. “I mean, I’m Were, so I can handle walking around naked in front of a bunch of guys.”

  Mark turned back to Yuko. “So, do you have another set of these for her? If one gets ripped in a fight or something, we wouldn’t want her to be without.”

  The shorter android came up. “We have plenty. For some reason we are full up on clothes.”

  “The reason,” Yuko turned to look at her friend, “is that you went through a design and creativity phase back in the fifth decade, but didn’t have enough people to use them.”

  “Not my fault that Japan went all insular again,” Eve argued.

  “My people have always been a bit insular,” Yuko replied. “It is close to what ‘Japanese’ means in most languages.”

  Eve just shrugged her shoulders.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Sabine aimed the pistol and ...

  “Don’t,” Akio told her. “Don’t aim the gun, make it an extension of your thoughts, of your being. It isn’t there to be aimed. It is there to send the bullet where your mind wishes it to go.” He held a hand out. “Let me have one.”

  Sabine gladly handed the pistol over. “You forgot to take it off safe,” he told her. He glanced at the bodies and heads. Some were close, others were farther away. Sabine watched him; his body was facing her, but his glance was downrange before he turned back to look at her. “Each.” He fired a shot; it split a head in two. “Time.” He fired again, still looking at her. She saw a body twitch about thirty paces from the skull he had first shot. “You shoot.” Another squeeze of the trigger, another hit. “You just feel the bullet and the target become one, and wish your body to make it happen.”

  She noticed his next three shots hit bodies farther away. Her mouth dropped open. “You didn’t even look!”

  He shook his head. “I did look, originally.” Akio told her. “Then, it is in here,” he touched his head with his left hand. “and here.” His hand dropped to his chest over his heart. “A gun is a tool to make your will a reality when someone attacks you and your people. A tool for protection.”

  Her mind was leagues away before his voice cut through her memories. “Sabine?”

  Her head jerked around. “Sorry!” She flashed him a short smile. “I’m sorry. you mentioned protection.” Akio nodded. “I’m still thinking of my parents, my friends, and their senseless deaths.”

  “That is good, Sabine. If you are going to take a life, you must have a reason to do so. The protection of your friends’ lives is a better motive than revenge, but justice for the dead is a very close second. I will share a few tricks with you that I have learned over the years,” he told her as he flicked the pistol’s safety back on.

  She accepted the weapon, verifying that the safety was on before reloading, as he had taught her. “How many years is that?”

  “More than you can guess, little one,” he whispered.

  Moments later, both pistols loaded and safeties off, Sabine stood ready. “You will walk forward, Sabine. Each time I call out, you will shoot to either your left or right, whichever has a closer target. But you will not be thinking of them as targets; you will be thinking and believing they are alive. They are the ones attacking your village.

  Sabine nodded her understanding.

  “Now, I want you to be ready, and I want you to walk straight and look straight, even if the target is off to your side. Do you understand what I am telling you?”

  “Look straight, walk straight, shoot wherever I need to,” she told him.

  Akio nodded as he insinuated himself into her mind. He tapped the memories she had pushed down, but still used to fuel her anger.

  Her drive.

  Walk, and let us kill those who attack the people you love.

  —

  The memories came back, but this time she could smell the smoke, hear the screams, and feel the wind blow across her skin.

  Her breath caught in her throat.

  You have the power to protect them, little one, the voice told her. She looked down to see the two pistols in her hands.

  How did you two get here?

  She took a step. Your future is ahead of you. Protect, or die, Sabine.

  The buck of the first pistol in her grip barely registered. She stared ahead, aware of those who were attacking as she continued. She barely heard the commands to fire, then she lost even that guide as she felt the pain of those who were dying, the fear as children were murdered, their arms ripped off by teeth of creatures that should not exist.

  Those that were not killed by the people of her village. A creature went down each time her pistol bucked in her hand, and the ones she shot didn’t get back up.

  Her right pistol shot twice, then her left once, and she continued walking forward. She looked into the distance, unseeing but uncannily accurate.

  Turn around, five shots, duck!

  Sabine kicked her right leg behind her left, then bent down both pistols out and fired.

  Left, left, right, left, right!

  Back to the front!

  She continued her twist and stood back up. She yelled into the morning light, “Bring it, assholes!”

  In ten more steps, her guns went silent.

  The enemies from her past all lay dead behind her.

  She was coming back into her own mind when she heard the warning. “Attack above you!”

  Both pistols whipped up as she turned around and found two pieces of wood flying towards her head.

  Blam blam!

  The pistols barked in her hands and both branches exploded into splinters.

  “Safety!” came the command, and Sabine easily flipped them both on.

  Sabine looked towards Akio, who wore a small smile as he waved her towards him. He turned, and she watched him head toward the ship. She walked past the targets and was able to see where all the shots had hit.

  All but two were close to dead center. One was high and to the righ
t, the other barely clipped. She noticed the five shots she had made as she turned around. All five were on target, but not dead center.

  She would have to feel for the target better next time.

  Akio was returning from the ship when she finished walking back through the bodies on the ground. They smelled horrible, but she had smelled that odor before.

  He was carrying a belt as he approached. “Here are holsters for your weapons.” She reached out and he shook his head. “No. I will put this on you the first time. Then, until you die, you will be the only one to remove or don these weapons. Is this understood?”

  Sabine nodded quietly, and lifted her hands as the man to put the belt around her and cinched it up. He adjusted it so the holsters hung correctly on her hips. “It is time,” he told her.

  She lowered her hands and placed each pistol in its holster. As she settled the second pistol, she looked at Akio. “Thank you.”

  He nodded to her, then turned to look into the distance. Sabine wasn’t sure why, so she twisted to see what he was gazing at.

  There were four figures walking towards them. The two on the left were holding hands.

  “Sabine,” Akio introduced everyone as they walked up. “The young man on the left is Mark, and those are Jacqueline and Yuko. The short one is Eve.”

  Sabine nodded to each in turn.

  “Where is Michael?” Jacqueline asked.

  Akio turned towards the north.

  Michael?

  Are you done, Gunslinger? Michael asked, joy coloring his speech.

  I am done for now, Akio agreed.

  Good. Everyone but Sabine noticed the piece of wood that shot up into the sky above the hill, but even she noticed when it exploded in flame.

  I’m in need of some more fun.

  —

  The building was made of cement. Its windows were up high, and the morning sun starting to stream through them. A middle-aged man walked through the double doors, a rifle casually held over his shoulder. “They are coming, Kirk,” he called out. His walk was neither too fast nor too slow.

  The rusty brown haired man with a beard looking over the maps on the table called back, “Which ones, James?”

  “The Yellows,” James replied as he arrived at the lonely table. “From the west. Early reports give us maybe an hour, hour and a half tops.”

  Kirk nodded and moved an old bolt he had painted yellow closer to the city. “So it begins.” He tapped the table twice. “I wonder how the Yellows were chosen as the first pack to come after us?” They had named all the packs by color to distinguish them.

  James shrugged. “Not sure it matters, but it is something that will forever bug the hell out of me now that you have planted that question in my mind.”

  Kirk chuckled. “Are the teams in place?”

  His friend and second nodded. “In place, or heading there. It’s just you, me, and the six who stay with us.”

  Kirk nodded. “We have the snipers?”

  James scratched his chin. “Yes, and they have some balls to be out there, willing to take those early shots without protection from the others.”

  Kirk shrugged. “We all have an appointed time to die.” He reached down to a chair on his left and grabbed a vest. It had many sewn loops with cartridges in them.

  Large cartridges.

  Turning to his right, he grabbed a sawed-off shotgun. “Let’s go out like the heroes we are.”

  —

  Adorjan was running free with his tongue hanging out of his mouth, a howl ready in his throat at a moment’s notice. He had five hundred fifty-three Weres strung out behind him. He had been commanded to take out the groups of humans in Paris so that his master could finally subjugate the once-amazing city. Over the last decades, he and his pack had first silently, then not-so-silently attacked the humans once the Duke had taken control.

  And taken control he had. Quickly and decisively. Adorjan had been third in the pack when the Alpha and his second had been killed ruthlessly and efficiently by the Duke. Adorjan had taken all of five seconds to decide the Duke was an acceptable Alpha for him. The news had come this morning that the Duke expected to be able to enter Paris without problems in just a few days, should he want to.

  The silhouette of the old city skyline was lighting up, the early morning sun reflecting from panes of glass still in the windows after so many years.

  Paris would be the Duke’s.

  —

  “We have a large contingent of Weres approaching from the city north of us,” Eve told the group.

  “Send a puck to disrupt their flow, Akio.” Michael commanded.

  Akio turned to look at Yuko and raised an eyebrow.

  “Yes, three are available,” Eve commented.

  Michael turned to look at her. “You have three?”

  “It has been a very action-heavy hundred and fifty years, Michael-san.” Yuko answered. “We are making more, but we have only three with us at this time.

  “The technology we have,” Eve added. “It is the ability to make some of the parts we lack. We are slow to build them.”

  “There was a large fight in China some five months ago.” Akio continued. “The only way to deal with them, I felt, was to pummel the location with pucks.”

  “And by pummel,” Yuko interjected, “he means bomb them until nothing was standing.”

  “What kind of enemy was this?” Michael asked.

  “Chinese Weres in the jungle.” Akio answered. “They preferred to stay there instead of engaging in a straight-up fight.”

  Michael smiled. “Ok, if three is all we have, then let’s send one right into the middle of their group, or inside the biggest group between the middle of the pack and the first wolf.”

  “Why not just bomb the Alpha?” Jacqueline asked.

  “These are going to be under the control of the Duke, I’m sure.” Michael answered. “There is already a command in place and whether they have an Alpha or not, they will complete the command.” Michael looked around. “Let’s grab a ride and see if we can make a difference.”

  —

  Sabine was strapped into one of the drop seats in the container that Yuko was using to transfer the materials Akio had requested. Michael had one of the two doors on the end open. He clutched a handhold and was looking out of the door.

  She averted her eyes and looked at Jacqueline, who was answering a question. “No, we came from America.”

  Sabine forgot the uneasiness in her stomach. “Really?”

  Mark nodded. “Yes, we were on a ship on the way here when Akio picked us up, and then we landed in front of you last night.”

  “That was an accident?” Sabine asked, remembering her run. They had shared food with her, which had helped her stomach and given her energy as well. No one had asked if she wanted to stay behind. Sabine looked over to see Akio talking with Yuko and Eve.

  —

  “Yes, I will be a part of this!” Yuko hissed, her eyes fiery mad.

  “You have stayed out of most of the fighting for a hundred and fifty years, Yuko,” he observed. “What is causing this strong desire to be a part of it now?”

  Yuko clamped down on her first response. With her left hand, she reached out and covered Eve’s mouth.

  Akio raised an eyebrow and Yuko shrugged. “Eve is always guessing out loud. I want to answer this myself.” Yuko thought for another couple of moments. “It is time that I carried some of the load,” she finally answered. “I was charged, just as you were, with Michael’s safe return to Bethany Anne and to do that, my role was as the Diplomat.” Her eyes flashed red once, and her lips compressed as she looked out into the space beyond where they were.

  Akio stayed out of her mind. He had promised he wouldn’t ever read her unless it were a life or death situation, and it hadn’t reached that level.

  Yet.

  His own eyes narrowed as he realized what was pushing her buttons. Yuko, for as long as he had known her, was the biggest romantic he had ever me
t. Her ability to believe in the power of love and her wish to see it blossom and create happiness were the reasons she opened her eyes every morning, he was sure.

  Why she was so unlucky in her own love, he never understood.

  Yuko was shocked a moment later when her taciturn friend reached out and pulled her into a hug. Her eyes, round with surprise, looked over at Eve, whose own expression was disbelief. Eve shook her head slightly.

  “I got nothing!” she whispered.

  Michael was busy looking out the door, a small smile playing at the edges of his own lips. Yes, keep her there for a few moments. This is the way you center your friends, Akio.

  This is strange, Michael, Akio replied, his mental voice halting.

  Welcome to the opposite of killing your way to answers.

  Akio felt Yuko’s body lose some of its rigidity, and she hugged him back.

  “Stay behind me, little one,” Akio whispered to his friend. “I am responsible to the Queen for you as well. She wants to have you back.”

  She nodded into his shoulder. “I have your back, old man,” Yuko answered, a small tear running down her cheek. “Sorry, old wise man.”

  Akio chuckled.

  Once.

  When they separated, Yuko reached up and put a hand on Akio’s arm. “You taught me to dance, as well. I will not embarrass you.” Akio nodded his understanding and watched as she untied the front of the pretty robe she was wearing. Jacqueline and Sabine watched as she took it off.

  Yuko wasn’t paying attention as the two women’s mouths opened as she stood there in polished black form-fitting armor. She folded her robe and grabbed two swords, inserting them into her hip sheaths. Then she grabbed a set of shoulder holsters and slid her arms through the openings. The butt of the guns laid along her ribs, and she clipped the tiedowns to her belt to hold them in place.

  Michael’s voice was gentle, if firm, when she turned around. “Bethany Anne would approve of your clothing choices.” She smiled when he winked at her. “Now,” he continued as he looked across the weapons laid out along the wall, “let’s see if you have something a bit stouter than this Wakizashi, hmm?”

  “Oh!” Mark jumped in. “We can go shopping for weapons now?”