David’s prescience flared another warning as the other soldiers around General Broadman opened fire. Bullets kicked up dirt around him—several of them slamming into the militiaman crawling toward him and finally putting the man out of his misery.
With only four men still standing, all of them now turned to face David’s approach, he finally picked out the General. He was the same broad-shouldered ex-military type as his guards, but he wore a gold star on his uniform where no one else in the compound had insignia at all.
He also didn’t move like his men did. He had the same clear military background, but where his core followers were clearly Empowered, the Speaker’s power was in his voice.
Especially as he pointed at David and commanded his men:
“Kill him!”
Clearly having realized bullets weren’t going to work, all three of Broadman’s followers charged David, retractable bayonets deploying from their rifles as they closed the range. The gleam of sunlight on the silvered edges warned David to be careful—even he wouldn’t be healing any cuts those blades left.
He dodged the first stabbing bayonet, dancing sideways and drawing his pistol as the three men closed with him. To his Sight, the men rippled with fragments of Broadman’s orange-purple aura, strings linking the puppets to the puppeteer.
Faster and stronger he might have been, but the three men knew exactly what they were doing. They spread out, staying inside support distance of each other as they tried to pin him down between them.
For a few seconds, David dodged backward, trying to get a clear shot at Broadman instead of his mind-controlled minions. The soldiers knew their trade far too well for that, though, and he only barely avoided being stabbed, the blade skittering off his armor warning him against taking the Speaker’s bodyguard less than seriously.
He grabbed the bayoneted rifle that had just struck him, yanking the militiaman toward him and bringing his pistol around to fire. Before he could shoot the man, however, his prescience flashed. He released the rifle, throwing the fighter away from him as his friends opened fire, silver bullets flashing through the space between them as David recoiled.
Dodging bullets or not, he lined the big caseless pistol up on the center militiaman and fired. Set to burst, the gun spat three fifty-caliber silver rounds at the man. The last missed—but the first two ripped open the base of the soldier’s throat and took off the top of his head.
Magical strings or not, he wasn’t getting back up.
The other two responded by charging back at David at full speed. Faster than any regular human, they came as a trained team, one going low while the other attacked high.
David kicked aside the low strike and caught the high strike in his free hand, yanking the rifle out of the militiaman’s grip. Muscle memory ingrained by teachers with both magic and time kicked into play and the weapon spun neatly in his hand, his fingers reaching the trigger as the barrel aligned on the still-armed militiaman.
The M16 was set for full auto. Silver bullets ripped through the other man’s body, sending him crumpling to the ground in a bloody heap.
Even unarmed, the last of the Speaker’s bodyguards attempted to fulfil his orders, coming at David with his fists. He was good, forcing David to parry with the rifle—and then managing to disarm the much stronger ONSET officer, the rifle spinning away.
Unfortunately for the guard, David still had his pistol and the gun barked again, firing another three-round burst into the last of General Broadman’s bodyguards. Leaving the militiaman to fall to the ground, David closed with the Speaker himself.
“Order them to surrender,” he demanded, the gun trained on Broadman.
“I am Anthony Broadman, General of the Rampant Stallions—“
“Order them to surrender or I will blow your fucking brains out!”
“You will surrender!” Broadman snapped, and power rippled off him in waves as he commanded.
His power washed over David and he could feel it pressuring against his mind. The Speaker’s gift was less effective on supernaturals, and more powerful when exerted over time…but Broadman was powerful and he was focusing that power entirely on David White.
“Kneel!” he commanded, and David felt his knees tremble.
He fired. The heavy bullets slammed into Broadman’s chest and he felt the magic waver—and fired again. And again. And again.
He kept pulling the trigger until it clicked uselessly, emptying his magazine into Broadman until the man with the magic voice was very definitely dead.
Chapter 31
David stood over the Speaker’s body, breathing heavily as he mechanically reloaded his pistol while staring at Broadman’s shattered corpse.
Across the compound, the surviving militiamen were throwing down their weapons. Even without looking at them, David could feel their horror, their shock—they hadn’t even realized their minds were no longer truly their own until Broadman had died and the shackles had been released.
“Realize that most will not have been fully controlled,” O’Brien murmured softly as he laid a hand on David’s shoulder. “Manipulated, yes, but they would have followed Broadman willingly into much of it. His Praetorians, though…”
David felt the werewolf shiver.
“If a man whose commands resonate with your very flesh and bone keeps telling you must be faster, stronger, tougher…your body changes. Speakers are one of the few supernaturals that can create a completely different form of supernatural.
“And they were his in body and soul,” O’Brien concluded. “Killing Broadman wouldn’t have spared the Praetorians. They would have died to avenge him, neither eating nor sleeping until either his killers were dead or they were.”
“Missed that part of the briefing on Speakers,” David said quietly. “His voice was…like fingers in my brain. I’ll be happy if I never feel that again.”
“Broadman is only the third Speaker we’ve ever encountered strong enough to turn followers into Praetorians,” the older Commander told him.
“And we didn’t even know he was here,” David noted. “There was more going on here than we even suspected. Any signs of thralls yet?”
“We’ve barely got them to put the guns down,” O’Brien observed dryly. “What about the buildings?”
David took a deep breath and stepped away from Broadman’s body. The icy feeling of the Speaker’s power in his mind still had him shivering, but he had a job to do. A series of commands to his helmet’s systems opened up the satellite surveillance and he studied the thermal imaging.
“Looks like we have about a dozen runaways,” he noted, watching the tiny splotches of red fleeing through the forest. “They’re going to run into Freeman and Donnelly’s men. We shouldn’t have any loose ends aboveground.”
Turning his attention to the compound, he studied the buildings, then shook his head.
“There’s too much concrete for overhead to give me much,” he told O’Brien. “Our fanged friends are probably underground, but there still could be people in the buildings.”
He looked over to where Stone and Ix were none-too-gently zip-tying the unwounded militiamen while Dilsner and Hellet were delivering rough-and-ready physical and magical first aid to the wounded soldiers. Their teams looked pretty busy.
“I think everyone except the vampires should be pretty ready to surrender at this point,” he considered aloud. “Think we can sweep the barracks and hall ourselves?”
O’Brien chuckled.
“David, I could sweep them on my own. Us together? Shouldn’t be a problem.”
#
The gas had dissipated from the main floor when David and O’Brien, having reclaimed David’s carbine along the way, stepped past the zip-tied quartet of militiamen he’d left behind and entered the building for the first time.
The main entrance hall was brightly lit with strips of fluorescent lighting along the ceiling and sunlight streaming in from the door behind them. They were mostly safe from the expected vamp
ire counterattack for the moment, though that might not last.
Half a dozen militiamen lay slumped around the room, having fallen unconscious in positions of varying degrees of comfort trying to get through the grenade’s gas cloud. The two ONSET Commanders swept down the hall slowly, checking each room as they passed it and zip-tying the unconscious militiamen as they reached them.
The ground floor of the building had no conscious Night Stallions—and was also lacking in any access to mystery underground complexes.
“If Dresden has set us up, a lot of people just got killed for nothing,” David said quietly as he and O’Brien converged at the stairs upward.
“Maybe,” the werewolf grunted. “Though I’d call breaking a mind controller’s hold over two hundred–odd people worthwhile all on its own. Two more floors. Moving up?”
“Let’s get it done,” David agreed.
The second floor was a collection of single rooms leading to a shared bathroom. Each room was personalized, posters and books scattered around, but none were occupied.
Reaching the third floor, however, David stopped O’Brien as he realized he could hear movement.
“Someone’s still here,” he told the other man, then stepped out into the hallway, his gun barrel sweeping the row of closed doors.
“Police!” he shouted. “Show yourselves and surrender.”
The building was silent for a moment as the two ONSET men moved farther forward. All David could hear was their footsteps—and at least four sets of panicked breathing.
“I know you’re there,” he told them loudly. “We are authorized to use lethal force, but I’d rather not at this point. Show yourselves and surrender,” he repeated.
More silence, then one of the doors opened and a panicked-looking woman, maybe twenty years old at most and only half-dressed, emerged—followed a young man wearing the pants of the ubiquitous camo fatigues but no shirt.
“We surrender,” the girl said quickly. “We didn’t know anything was going on.”
“Carol’s not even supposed to be here,” the young man interrupted. “I snuck her into the compound; no one else knew she was here—whatever we’re all under arrest for, she had nothing to do with it!”
He didn’t seem to care that he was being arrested, at least not compared to making sure that the girl who snuck into his room didn’t get in trouble. The kid had his priorities straight, even if he didn’t appear particularly bright.
“Get dressed,” David ordered. He gestured past them to O’Brien. “Two more in the left-hand room at the end of corridor; they’re awake, they’re just pretending they can’t hear me.”
The werewolf stalked past the two kids toward the designated room. He made it most of the way before the door opened and two older men, no more dressed than the youngsters, stepped out with their hands up and resigned expressions on their faces.
“Y’all can guess how well this goes over with this lot,” the older one said with a shrug and a half-wave at his partner. “But guess it don’t matter anymore either.”
“Not really, no,” David told them. “Get dressed, then we’re going to have to cuff you all and move you out.”
“But Carol isn’t a Night Stallion,” the young man protested again. Brave, not smart.
“And once we’ve had a chance to validate everything, she will probably be allowed to go home,” David told him—and the girl, who was scared out of her wits but handling it quite well—gently. “But we need to be certain.”
#
Leaving the dormitory, shuffling their new prisoners ahead of them, David surveyed the compound. The militiamen were mostly sitting in absolute shock, much of their motivation stolen once the puppeteer who’d yanked their strings had died.
It was likely none of them were entirely innocent, but it would still be years of therapy before any of the soon-to-be-ex–Night Stallions could separate what had been their own thoughts versus what Broadman’s power had forced them to believe.
They were gunrunners and drug smugglers who’d knowingly helped a vampire cabal, but David could still feel sorry for them for that.
“Overhead shows the compound clear,” Cynthia Leitz reported over his radio. “Charles is analyzing the thermal take. Donnelly and Freeman have taken prisoners; we’ve still got a few lost in the woods.”
“Can you direct the sheriffs to them?” David asked.
“I have a live link to Freeman,” she confirmed. “I’ll make it happen. Nightfall is expected in six hours, Commander.”
He nodded. If there were vampires under his feet, they’d almost certainly have an escape tunnel, but so long as it was light out, they couldn’t run.
“Stone, Hellet,” he snapped. “The prisoners?”
“Everyone is cuffed and contained,” Stone reported.
“We’ve got a few who need more intensive medical attention than we can provide,” Hellet told him. “We’re not going to lose anybody quickly at this point, but a few need a real doctor or Healer inside of an hour or two.”
“Catch that, Cynthia?” David asked.
“I did. One of AP Six’s heavy transport choppers is available; we can borrow some of their medics and bring that in for medevac to get them to a Seattle hospital we can control information flow from.”
“Do it,” David ordered. “We’re moving on the main hall; what have you got on the overhead?”
“I can’t see through concrete on a satellite image any better than you can, boss,” she pointed out.
“And that’s about the problem with the tunnels, too,” Charles interrupted. “Ai can be pretty sure they’re there, but nae much in terms of detail.”
“Can you pick out an escape tunnel?” David asked.
“Ai have…five possibles,” the dragon warned him. “Want mae to pass them on to Freeman?”
“Freeman and Donnelly’s people aren’t armed or trained to fight vampires,” the Commander said grimly. “Keep the Pendragon crew in the loop. If you see anyone make a break for it, they have authorization to light up the whole forest.”
“Understood,” Leitz replied. “What about you?”
“Apparently, I’m walking into the gates of the underworld, looking for vampires.”
#
“Our entrance point to the tunnels is almost certainly in the main hall, past the power plant,” David told the ONSET teams. “I want Stone and Dilsner to remain up here; your job is to watch over the prisoners and make sure no one does anything stupid.
“You have air support and inbound medics,” he noted. “These people have surrendered, which means nobody else dies if we can avoid it.”
“We can manage that,” Stone promised. “The fight’s out of this lot. Protecting them will be more trouble than containing them.”
“That’s the hope,” David agreed, “but let’s not take it for granted. There’ll be two of you and over a hundred of them, still.
“The rest of us are going to hit the main hall and sweep up,” he continued. “Once we’ve secured the aboveground facilities, we’ll locate the entrance to the power plant and move underground.
“That’s where we’re most likely to encounter our fanged friends, so be careful and do not get separated from the group,” he ordered. “We’ve all done this drill before, but at close range and underground, the vampires are even more dangerous than usual.
“Questions?”
He waited a moment.
“All right, let’s move.”
#
The exterior shell of the main hall was the same prefabricated concrete form as the dormitory building, but the interiors had been laid out quite differently. Most of the ground floor was taken up by a single massive cafeteria slash assembly hall, with angled ceilings that cut through the two floors above it to a set of skylights in the roof that filled the room with natural sunlight.
“Ix, O’Brien—check the left side. Hellet, with me,” David ordered, heading toward the doors on the right side of the big assembly hall.
Kicking open the first set, he found himself in the main kitchen for the Night Stallions compound. The space would have put many full-scale restaurants to shame, with massive counters and ovens set up to feed dozens of men or more on a regular basis.
It was also completely empty of people.
“Kitchens are empty, sweeping to storage,” he reported aloud. He kept moving, Hellet trailing in his wake as he moved along the room, kicking open each door in turn.
Most of this half of the building was storage, long rooms stocked with every variety of consumable and massive freezers full of meat, entire deer and cows dressed and hanging. The Night Stallions had clearly eaten well.
“We’ve got kitchens and storage over here,” he told O’Brien. “Stairs at the north end, moving upward. What have you got?”
“Armory and utility access,” the werewolf reported. “Stairs in the same place as on your side.” There was a horrific screaming noise, the sound of metal tearing.
“Damn, even with everything they were carrying, these guys still had enough guns left in here to fight another war. No one in the armory, though,” he concluded. “Guessing the utility room has the basement access; it’s a lot more locked down than anything else would justify.”
“Check upstairs, but watch your back,” David told him. “Which I’m sure I did not need to tell you.”
“Not in the slightest,” O’Brien agreed cheerfully, “but you are in command and I might have forgotten.”
Reaching the second floor on his side of the building, David moved carefully, tracking the barrel of his carbine across the open space. The floor above the kitchen looked like a warehouse, with crates and cardboard boxes of non-perishable food stacked ceiling-high in a confusing-looking warren of supplies.
“I don’t hear anyone in here,” he murmured to Hellet, “but no chances. Watch the stairs; I’m going to make sure.”
ONSET: My Enemy's Enemy Page 21
