by Brandon Hale
“Yeah,” Cassius said. “I definitely like this plan.”
For the first time since the slaughter, Tina spoke up. “It’s a good plan, Arcas. We could win this thing in a matter of days.”
“You don’t know that,” Arcas countered. “If the humans somehow manage to defend themselves from the assault, bad things would happen. Starving vampires – especially young ones – can be very dangerous. I wouldn’t be able to control them for long. Eventually, they’d start attacking your kind.”
“The humans won’t be able to defend themselves,” Cassius said. “A full assault with every vampire and werewolf we have would end this war. They’re right.”
“Every time a vampire dies,” Arcas said, “I can feel it. I feel their deaths. It’s not a pleasant sensation. Cassius feels it, too. Thousands of vampires will die in this assault, and you’re asking us to endure that.”
“I can take it,” Cassius said. “So can you. And don’t pretend like you care about them. We both know that’s not true.”
“Of course I don’t care about them,” Arcas admitted with a smile. “I was just saying it’s very unpleasant when they die.” He turned back to Dennis. “If we do this, you can guarantee your kind will participate in the attack?”
Daciana answered for Dennis. “They’ll participate. I killed Lycaon. My kind will respect the transfer of power. Most werewolves will be glad it happened.”
Cassius raised a hand. “Question.” He pointed at the dead bodies in the room. “Would drinking their blood be disrespectful?”
Arcas closed his eyes and shook his head. “Cassius.”
“What?” Cassius said. “They killed most of them. I don’t see the big deal. It just seems like such a waste to let it spill out on the floor like that.”
“Have fun,” Dennis said. “Obviously, we’re not very sentimental here.”
As Cassius began to drink the blood from the dead werewolves, Arcas turned to the others and said, “Back on topic, there’s only one thing about your plan that makes me hesitate.”
“I’m listening,” Dennis said.
“The channeler,” Arcas explained. “Normally, I’m not concerned with channelers. We’ve killed our share over the years. But this one’s different. She’s being trained by Abbie. That could prove to be a significant problem.”
Dennis replied without hesitation. “I stand by my earlier suggestion.”
“You still think we can turn her.”
“I do.”
“Why?” Arcas asked. “What makes you so sure?”
Dennis glanced at Tina, then turned back to the vampire. “We met her, Arcas. We saw the kind of person she is. This girl is powerful, and she knows it. More importantly, she likes it. She likes the power. She didn’t wait for the Day Soldiers to clean up that town. She had to do it herself. She wants the glory. I know I can tap into that.”
“It can’t be some blackmail thing,” Arcas warned. “You can’t have some situation where she has to volunteer for it in order to save her friends. Her desire has to be real. She has to legitimately want it.”
“I can do it,” Dennis reassured him. “Right now, she thinks all vampires are like the little monstrosities outside. If we can show her there’s something else... if we can show her you, she’ll want it. All she needs is to be convinced that she’s on the losing team. After that, she’ll want to join. This girl doesn’t like to lose.”
Arcas leaned back in his chair. “I suppose we should start this new council with the right relationship. I’m going to trust you on this Dennis.” He turned to Cassius. “Hey, glutton, you up for turning every human in this city?”
Cassius popped up, his face covered in blood. He grinned. “You bet I am!”
Chapter 14
Graduation
Four Weeks Later.
Leo fell against the tree, barely able to breathe. He had been running for hours and was exhausted, but he knew he didn’t have time to rest. He pulled a small recorder from his pocket and turned it on.
“This is Leo Rosenberg, lead sniper for the Celina, Ohio infantry division. Our squad was spotted on the outskirts of New Castle, Indiana. They must have smelled us despite our scent inhibitors. The entire squad is captured. For some reason, they wanted us alive. New Castle was full of—” a noise to his left caused him to look up.
A werewolf stepped from behind a tree. Then another. And another.
“Shit!” Leo quickly pulled a bullet-shaped object from the recorder and placed it into the barrel of his pistol. He fired it into the sky just before the werewolves closed in on him.
Abbie was tied to a chair in a basement. Three werewolves were in the room with her. One of the werewolves was in human form; the other two were giant two-legged wolves. The human werewolf sat in a chair beside Abbie. He looked at a vent in the ceiling.
“I bet they’ll come for you through that,” he said.
“Nonsense,” Abbie said. “That vent is too small.”
“Then how do you expect them to come?”
Abbie smiled. “Even if I knew, why on earth do you think I’d tell you?”
The man shrugged. “I think it’ll be through the vent. I think you’re just trying to throw me off. I mean, there are no windows in this place. The only other option would be the door, and that would be pretty stup—”
There was a knock at the door.
All three werewolves looked at each other, confused.
“Well,” the leader said, “see who it is.”
Abbie was smiling. “I think we know who it is.”
One of the other werewolves shifted to a human and pulled the door open just enough to see outside. He immediately closed the door and turned around to the others. “I think it’s them. Two females, two males, all dressed in Day Soldier fatigues and heavily armed.”
“Does one of them have a sword for an arm?” The leader asked.
The werewolf cracked open the door, looked again, then shut it back. “Yeah.”
The leader looked at Abbie. “The front door? Seriously?”
There was another knock.
The door-wolf looked at the leader, confused.
The leader shrugged. “See what they want, I suppose.”
The werewolf cracked open the door a third time.
“Hi,” Lily said from the stairs leading to the basement door. “As you can see, we’ve found you. I have an offer for you.”
“What offer?”
“Let Abbie go, and we’ll walk away,” Lily said.
The werewolf turned to his leader.
“No,” the leader said with a groan. “What’s wrong with you?”
The werewolf turned back to Lily. “No.”
He started to close the door, but Lily stopped it. “I really don’t think you’ve thought this through. It’s to your benefit to let her go.”
“And why is that?”
“Because,” Lily said, “it’s the only alternative to us killing you.”
“That’s cute,” the werewolf said. “Go away.”
“So that’s your final answer?” Lily asked. “You’re definitely not going to let her go?”
Despite everything, the werewolf chuckled. “That’s our final answer, kid. If you want the nun, you have to take her.”
Lily immediately dropped to the ground, revealing that Ellie had moved directly behind her. She was pointing a gun at the werewolf. A gun which she immediately fired.
The werewolf flew back several feet and landed on the floor. It wasn’t moving.
Lily sprang to her feet and dived into the room. The non-human werewolf immediately sprang toward her, but it didn’t have a chance. Lily, Scott, and Ellie opened fire. Within a second, it was covered with bullet holes and stank of singed fur.
All three soldiers spun around and pointed their guns at the leader, but they didn’t fire.
He had taken a wolf form and now had his large claw wrapped around Abbie’s throat.
“Abbie,” Lily said with cold eyes, “live or die? I’ll
leave it up to you. They haven’t killed you yet, which means they obviously have plans for you. If we let him go, you could be facing something worse than death.”
“If you can manage it, dear,” Abbie said, “I’d prefer to live and stay here.”
“Fair enough,” Lily said. “Grung?”
As soon as she said the name, the werewolf realized that the fourth person from the hallway was not in the room.
Grung burst through the ceiling vent and fell onto the creature, stabbing the blade on his arm deep into the monster’s furry shoulder.
The werewolf howled in pain and flung him across the room. It staggered back a few steps, covering the fresh wound with its claw.
As soon as it was clear, the team opened fire.
The beast was on the ground in less than a second.
Abbie looked down at the creature, which was now changing back to a human, and said, “Well how about that. They used the vent and front door. Guess I was wrong about the room up there.”
“I guess so,” The werewolf – now a man again – said as he stood up and looked around the room.
“Commander Wallace,” Lily said to the man with a smile, “you’re naked.”
Wallace laughed. “An unfortunate side-effect of the werewolf condition.” The blade wound on his shoulder and the fresh bullet wounds were quickly healing themselves.
The other two werewolves – both now men – got to their feet. “I hate helping out with training,” one of the men said. “We have to feel the pain twice. Once when the cadets shoot us, and again when the doctors remove the bullets. Can’t we do this crap without live ammo?”
“Don’t be a baby,” Wallace said as he picked up a pair of jeans from the floor and began to put them on. He looked at Lily. “I gotta say, I was surprised by your bravado.”
“Bravado,” Lily said, “is what this team does best. But in this case, it was a very calculated move, sir.”
“Calculated?” Wallace said. “You burst into the room and opened fire like it was a video game. In a real situation, Abbie would likely be dead.”
“I disagree,” Lily said. “Our orders for this exercise were to treat it like it was real. The only difference was the fact that our ammo and Grung’s sword arm weren’t silver. By treating this as if it were real, we were pretty damn sure you didn’t intend to kill Abbie.”
“What made you come to that conclusion?”
Scott stepped forward. “Easy, sir. Werewolves don’t take individual prisoners. They will sometimes raid towns and take dozens of people back to Legion cities to provide food for vampires, but they won’t do it with an individual. The work isn’t worth the effort. If they’ve taken a single person prisoner, it means they really want her alive.”
“Or,” Wallace countered, “it means I can’t kill Abbie because it’s a training exercise.”
“Our orders were clear,” Lily said. “We were to treat this as absolutely real. And werewolves don’t take single individuals prisoner. Period. So we worked on the assumption that you’d only kill her as a last resort.”
“Fair enough,” Wallace said as he untied Abbie. “Still doesn’t explain why you blasted in here like super heroes. What if there were other werewolves in the room? You could have been slaughtered by a dozen or more werewolves.”
“Nope.” This time, it was Ellie that spoke. “I watched you for almost two days, sir. We were sure that you three were the only werewolves in the building.”
“Ellie took complete measurements of the vent shaft,” Lily explained, “and we found another one in the building next door that was the same size. Grung went through three trial runs. Everything you witnessed here looked like some spontaneous gun show, but it wasn’t. Even my question to Abbie was just to keep your mind off the vent.”
Wallace smiled and shook his head. “Gotta admit, I’m impressed.”
“So we passed?” Grung asked.
“Yes, dear,” Abbie said. “There’s really nothing more you can learn in Sneaker City. With previous training groups, part of the final exam involved releasing vampires in the area, but that all changed when Lily refused to allow me to use them here.”
“I know,” Lily groaned. “I’m an awful person.” Since Abbie admitted she changed the entire training program based on Lily’s objection, the little digs just didn’t have the power they once had.
“Wait,” Scott said. “Am I hearing you correctly? Our training is over?”
“Report to me in a week for your first assignment,” Wallace answered.
“Just like that,” Grung said. “We’re done.”
“We can have a ceremony if you want one,” Abbie added. “Although I detest that kind of thing.”
Wallace looked at the group. “You’ve grown into a fine team. I think you kids will do some amazing things.”
“Thank you, sir,” Lily said.
“For now,” Wallace continued, “I recommend you get out of Sneaker City and find a shower. Then go eat a steak or something.”
“Oh, God,” Scott said. “A steak. I think I’ll skip the shower and go straight for the steak.”
Wallace leaned forward and sniffed. “I know I have a werewolf’s sense of smell, but I really recommend you take a shower first.”
Scott laughed as he walked toward the door.
Lily started to follow but stopped when Abbie placed a hand on her shoulder. “I’ll need you to report to me tomorrow with your answer.”
“Answer?”
“I asked you a question eight weeks ago,” Abbie explained. “You still haven’t told me why humanity deserves to win this war. I expect an answer tomorrow.”
Shit. Lily had completely forgotten. She looked at Grung. A sword was attached to his left arm where his hand used to be. Right now, the sword was for training. Once they went into the field, it would be silver. Beneath the sword, a wooden stake lay flat against his forearm. The stake and the sword were connected to a swivel at the end of his arm. With a quick flick, he could switch from sword to stake.
She suddenly had an answer.
“Grung,” she said. “Come here.”
Grung walked her way. “Yes, boss?”
Lily pointed toward his sword-arm. “Why did you do this?”
Grung smiled and lifted his arm. “Because it makes me a Day Soldier killing machine.”
“That’s not what I mean,” Lily said. “Abbie wanted you to take a support role in this war. You refused to accept that. Why?”
“Because,” Grung explained, “I knew I could do more. If I’d been injured enough to be a hindrance to this team, I’d have taken another job. But I knew you still needed me, and if I turned my back on that, I’d be turning my back on the human race.”
Lily turned to Abbie. She pointed at Grung and said, “That. You asked why humanity deserves to win this war. Well, Grung – and every person like him – is why. He’s fighting for something bigger than himself, and he’s not doing it for glory or recognition. He’s doing it because it’s his responsibility. Until you can show me a vampire that would do that, for that reason, I’m going to point at Grung as the reason we deserve to win this war.”
Scott stepped forward and said, “That’s bull.”
Lily turned to him. “You have a better answer?”
“The Legion has zealots,” Scott said. “Zealotry doesn’t make us special.” He looked at Abbie. “You want to know why we deserve to win this war? Well, that’s a trick question. The truth is, we don’t deserve to win it. But who cares if we have some lofty justification for fighting these monsters. We’re not fighting them to protect the earth. We’re fighting them to protect ourselves. I don’t know about you, but I can’t think of a better reason.”
“I agree with Scott,” Ellie said. “We don’t deserve to win this war. When it comes to mass destruction, we’re the best. Everything we’ve ever created has been born from the ashes of something we destroyed. But I promise you, the Legion is no better. They’ve already proven that. New York is a
city in ruins now.”
“Then why are we fighting?” Abbie asked.
“Because,” Ellie answered, “we have the capacity to make things right. We don’t deserve to win this war, but we damn sure have a responsibility to win it.”
“You’re all wrong,” Grung said. “Truth is, we won’t know if we deserve to win this war until we win it. Before the Olympics, athletes don’t sit around talking about how they deserve the gold medal. They get out there and they win. And if they don’t win, they don’t deserve it.” He smiled. “We won’t win this war because we deserve it. We’ll deserve it because we’ll win.”
Lily looked at Abbie and shrugged. “What they said.”
Abbie was quiet for a moment, then said, “Report to Commander Wallace in a week for your first assignment. Congratulations. You’re Day Soldiers.” Lily smiled.
Part Four:
The Day Soldiers
Chapter 15
The Proving Grounds
“We need a name,” Scott said.
“We have a name,” Lily countered. “We’re sneakers.”
The team sat in Wallace’s office, waiting on him to arrive with their first mission.
“No,” Scott said. “I think we need a name for our specific team.”
“Baxter’s Bandits,” Grung offered.
“That’s dumb,” Ellie said.
“You’re dumb,” Grung countered.
“How about the B-Team,” Scott said. “It could be a reference to Lily’s last name and to the fact that we’re part of the Beta team.”
“Whatever,” Lily said. “We’re about to get our first mission. Maybe the name of our team isn’t the most important thing to be thinking—”
“B-Team go!” Grung screamed.
Lily jumped. “Dammit, Grung!”
“Sorry,” Grung said. “Just testing it out. I like it.”
Ellie pulled out a stake and stabbed forward, killing an imaginary vampire. “You just got stung… by the B-Team!”
Scott laughed. “Pretty good. Okay, it’s settled. We’re the B-Team.”
Lily shook her head and succumbed to a chuckle. All in all, she was pleased with her team. They were good people. The past week had been a good one. They’d eaten well, slept in comfortable beds, and got some much needed relaxation. The only thing missing was Leo, who was still on assignment in Ohio.
