She dodged the other way and the M4s barked, sending rounds through the creature’s body. It bucked and grunted, but there weren’t any kill shots. Char ran straight at it, firing one pistol repeatedly as she approached. Every other round hit, but again, no killing shots.
The Forsaken maneuvered away, moving out of the line of rifle fire. Char threw her first pistol to the ground and pulled the second, but the Forsaken got to her before she could bring it up.
He stopped her wrist in an iron grip. She didn’t need the pistol. She head-butted the bridge of his nose and followed with a knee to the groin, picking the Forsaken off the ground with strength of her kick. She twisted her hand out of the weakening grip and hit the creature in the throat with a finger strike.
Char picked up her pistol and fired from three feet away. The Forsaken had turned its head and the bullet smashed through its jaw. That spun the creature around and it fell. Char’s next shot hit it at the base of its skull, blowing a large hole out the top of its head. The creature flopped in its death throes.
Char holstered her pistol. Picked up her second Glock, holstered it, and said, “Let’s go.”
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Argentina
Terry felt like a third wheel. He split his people to watch two separate small towns. Nothing was moving in either place. He had tried to call Char, but she didn’t answer.
He imagined the worst. He wanted to call her back, and was forcing himself to wait as long as possible before trying to contact her.
But he was lying in a hide site and the seconds ran glacially slowly. He had to do something. Since he always favored the direct approach, he got up, told the warriors to remain where they were, and headed for the nearest community.
Terry wasn’t afraid. He knew that he wasn’t immortal, but trusted his intuition and his speed. He didn’t see any people and took that as a good sign. If there was a Forsaken, he hoped he could flush it out.
He strode up to the building he thought Char had indicated. “I know you’re in there, you blood-sucking piece of shit,” Terry yelled. “Bring your black leather-wearing ass out here and let’s settle this like men!”
“Settle what, mi amigo?” a man with a heavy Spanish accent yelled from inside.
“The terms of your surrender,” Terry offered. “If you make me come in there to get you, you die. If you want to live, come out.”
“I think that I shall not, pendejo.”
“Have it your way.” Terry started running at the main door, but veered away at the last second and leapt, bringing his feet up to kick through the window. He landed in small study, hitting the floor with a shower of glass. TH rolled to his feet and jumped behind the door, peeking out before diving across the hallway.
He flattened himself against the wall, looking left and right. He thought he heard a boot scuff. He jumped across the hallway and plastered himself against the other wall.
He looked through the stair railing and saw the Forsaken standing with its arms crossed. At the top of the stairs, it was looking down on Terry, fascinated by his antics.
Terry pushed off the wall and walked down the hallway toward the bottom of the stairs. He kept his eye on the Forsaken as he moved.
“You dance like you have lead feet,” the Forsaken taunted.
“You can suck my ass,” Terry replied.
“Shame on you. I’ll have that put on your tombstone.”
“That is one of many stark differences between you and me. I will leave your body where it falls, because unlike you, I have no respect for you or your ways.”
“Shame,” the Forsaken replied. Terry put one foot on the bottom step, before examining the staircase. Unused as far as he could see. A large gap along the side of a few steps in the middle. Cuts in the rug runner. It was a trap.
Terry climbed four steps without looking at the stairs a second time. He moved his foot to the fifth step and when he saw the Forsaken’s mouth twitch, Terry pulled his pistol in a move too fast to see. The report of the .45 inside the house was deafening.
The Forsaken was thrown backward when the large caliber round slammed into his face. When his body hit the floor, he was already dead. Terry shimmied up the rail until he was past the trapdoor, then renewed his climb up the stairs. He stepped over the body and checked the house, finding the withered shell of the Forsaken’s latest victim.
When Terry returned to the landing, he spat on the Forsaken, then slid down the railing. He went out through the front door, closing it on his way out. He didn’t want any unsuspecting animals to fall through the trap door. They deserved better than that.
Terry returned to the team, who were waiting impatiently.
“One down, a gazillion to go,” Terry told them, walking past and toward the town in the other direction. “There’s no approach like the direct approach. Follow me down, give me a hundred-yard lead.”
The comm device buzzed and he pulled it quickly to answer. “Char.”
“We ran into a little trouble. I lost six.”
Terry stopped walking, holding a fist up to freeze everyone in place.
“One Forsaken down and we’re on our way to you now,” Char said.
“I’ll leave the comm channel open. Follow it in. I have one down here. We were on our way to take care of number two, but we’ll wait for you.”
“Be there in five.”
Niagara Falls
Butch and Skippy had watched the warriors expend a great deal of ammunition to dispatch the three Forsaken in the area. They reached out with their senses and didn’t find any others from the Unknown World.
“What do we do now?” Skippy asked. Butch shrugged and tried to call Akio, but there was no answer.
“Anyone remember where the next target was?”
“A place called Toronto? The Battle of Toronto is mandatory study material. Is that where we’re going?” one of the warriors asked.
“Sounds like it. Everyone up for a twenty-five-mile hike? I hope so, because that’s going to be the next six hours of our lives.” Skippy had been in the area enough times that he knew the way. It had been a long time, but the roads were still being used by some sort of traffic, probably horse and cart.
Having changed back into human form, thanking the warriors for bringing their clothes along, they set off at a light jog. The sooner they could get there, the sooner they could finish their mission. They wanted to get home to New York. They weren’t quite ready to pack it in.
Inverness, Scotland
Gene, in Werebear form, and Bogdan strode off the pod and the warriors followed, miffed at being left out of the first fight and upset at the blatant disregard for orders.
The Werebear wasn’t bothered by their dismay. He lumbered unerringly toward his next target. The warriors fanned out behind him, giving themselves better lines of fire to the front and sides. One filled the role of tail-end Charlie. He walked backward, constantly checking the formation’s six o’clock.
Gene started running. Bogdan took off after him, but a bear can sprint faster than any human, and a Werebear was faster than a normal bear.
Two Forsaken appeared before a mansion that had been restored to its former glory. Gene didn’t care about any of that. His eyes focused on his prey. The Forsaken separated and each brandished a pair of steel sais, a three-pronged stabbing weapon. They started to run toward Gene and he feinted as if hesitating, only to surge toward them at the last moment.
They hadn’t been fooled. They each planted a silvered sai to its hilt in the Werebear’s side. Gene roared and stumbled, then started to stagger. One Forsaken jumped toward him and raised his sai high to drive it into the Were’s heart.
Bogdan turned and with all the strength in his massive body, he heaved the axe at his father’s attacker. It hit the Forsaken in the back with the force of a battering ram, sending him flying into Gene and bouncing over top, coming down in front of the Werebear’s face.
With the last of his energy, Gene drove his front claws into it
s body to hold it steady while he took a bite out of its face.
The second Forsaken turned to save his fellow. A volley of silver bullets peppered him from head to waist. He dropped his weapon and staggered. The rifle fire resumed, better aimed at the slower target until the Forsaken toppled.
Bogdan reached his father, tears streaming down his face. He yanked the sais from the Werebear’s side and cradled the great beast’s head. Gene changed back into human form, his head lolling on his shoulders.
“Why always me?” he mumbled as he struggled to rise.
“Are there any more?” one of the warriors was astute enough to ask.
Gene’s eyes rolled back in his head, and Bogdan gently shook him.
“Huh? Oh, no. No more. Help me back to pod. You good boy. My boy,” Gene muttered. It took more than Bogdan to get Gene on his feet and moving. Three warriors helped the naked man slowly back to the pod.
One of the warriors ran ahead and directed the pod to move close. It lifted off and flew the hundred yards, landing within feet of the others. They helped Gene aboard and settled him in to a row of jump seats.
“To Saint Andrews. Let’s go get our people,” the warrior directed the pod. The ramp closed, the pod lifted off, and they flew southeast.
Cape Town, South Africa
Joseph strolled up to the other Forsaken. The woman didn’t look aggressive. The other two reminded him of himself in his younger days.
“What brings you to our city?” the taller Forsaken asked.
“I was about to ask you the same thing,” Joseph replied smoothly. He didn’t say anything else.
“Who are you?” the Forsaken asked.
“Who are you?” Joseph repeated.
“This game is going to end, soon and much to your displeasure,” the tall creature said with a faint South African accent.
“This game is going to end all right, to your displeasure.” The Forsaken was growing furious at Joseph’s passive aggressive approach.
The other one simply watched, standing at ease but looking ready to act. Joseph instantly estimated their fighting ability as Terry had taught him. He formulated a plan, based on that estimate. Keep the female between them, take the tall one first, then deal with the other one. He didn’t see the female as a threat. She didn’t smell like the other two.
Joseph moved within arm’s reach and the tall Forsaken took the bait. He reached for Joseph.
Joseph caught its arm, twisted into an arm block, and pulled the Forsaken forward as he drove his knee up into its face. He didn’t stop there. That was only the opening move. Joseph stepped back and then kicked the creature’s knee, following with a punch to the side of the head. He rotated back and drilled a knuckle strike into the creature’s throat.
It staggered. Joseph danced left. Once clear, the Force’s M4s came to life, eliminating the second Forsaken in exactly the plan that Joseph had detailed. He grabbed the tall creature’s arms and spun it around, throwing it to the side where the silver bullets could finish it.
Joseph turned back to the female Forsaken. He bowed without removing his hat. “Allow me to introduce myself, madam. John Joseph Dixon, at your service. You may call me Joseph.”
“Petricia,” she replied softly.
“From Petre?” Joseph asked.
“The same,” she replied, smiling. She looked at her two companions for a moment, before rearing back and kicking the shorter one in his ruined head. Joseph stopped her from attacking the taller one.
“They are dead. You cannot make them any more so. Save your anger for the battle; this day is not yet done. There are two other groups and we are ridding South Africa of the Forsaken peril.”
She leaned back and crossed her arms. “Are you trying to take over?” she wondered.
“No. Of course not. We’re the good guys,” Joseph tried to explain to the petite woman. Brown hair and brown eyes. If he hadn’t known, he never would have thought her a Forsaken. She seemed too fragile. But to make it through the conversion process, she would have had to have had a predisposition to nanocytes or simply a fierce desire to live.
“Establish a perimeter. We’ll get picked up here,” Joseph ordered the team without looking.
“What brings an aristocrat like yourself to a place like this?” she asked, taking his arm as they walked slowly toward a bench in front of the nearby house.
South Africa
“Ready for pickup,” Sue told her device.
“So?” came the smart-ass reply.
“Who the fuck is this?” Sue snapped.
“Skippy. Why the hell are you calling me? Hang on. Nope. I just checked my ass and I don’t have a pod to pull out of there, but if you find one on your end, send it our way, because we are out here on a nature fucking hike.”
“I was trying to call Timmons!’ she exclaimed and clicked off. She touched a couple buttons, and Timmons answered.
“Ready for pickup,” she repeated.
“We are on our way to get you and Joseph,” Timmons replied and clicked off. She kept her channel open and looked to her team. “I guess we wait in the open?” she said, half question, half statement. They left the bodies of the two Forsaken in a small wooded area where they’d been trapped. The FDG’s firepower was too much for them. Sue hadn’t had to lift a finger, only point the team in the right direction.
“Next stop, J-berg,” she said. The team didn’t see her good humor. They still had on their war faces. They’d tasted battle and were ready for more.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Shenyang
Yanmei snarled, using a back paw to keep her cubs from getting in front of her. Their little mouths were open, and they squeaked as they tried to duplicate their mother’s fear-inducing cry. Aaron circled to the side, trying to distract the Forsaken and pull his attention in two directions.
Aaron lunged and stopped as the Forsaken backed against a tree and refused to commit himself to either cat.
The Forsaken had a short, thin blade that he waved in front of him. The Weretigers had him cornered when the FDG teams joined them. Aaron growled and snapped. Yanmei snarled.
And the cubs squeaked and slashed at the air with their little paws.
The team took aim, but hesitated. The Forsaken looked afraid. It looked weak.
It said something, but in Chinese. The only ones who spoke Chinese were in no condition to interpret. Aaron rushed forward while the Forsaken was trying to speak with the warriors. Aaron raked its chest and arm with his paw. The knife fell from numb fingers, but the Forsaken picked it up with its other hand and jumped for Aaron.
He easily avoided the clumsy attack and pounced on the creature’s back. With well-practiced slashes, Aaron finished the Forsaken. He strutted away as Yanmei turned the cubs loose to attack the dead body. Aaron gave them five seconds to do their worst, then chased them away. With a snarl, Yanmei summoned her offspring and they padded casually back to the landing zone.
“That’s it?” the lead warrior asked.
The Weretigers ignored him. The cubs ran under everyone’s feet. With a look of the Weretiger’s yellow eyes, everyone understood that stepping on or kicking one of her children would meet with the harshest rebuke.
“Watch your step, people,” the sergeant cautioned, shaking his head.
“They are cute,” he admitted to the next warrior in line.
When they returned to the LZ, Akio and Yuko were there, as if they’d never left. The Weretigers and two human teams boarded and the pod headed northeast for round two. Akio briefed them on the way.
New Zealand
Ted had worked with reckless efficiency, while Andrew had found ways not to engage. As was Ted’s way, he told Andrew to stay in the pod and he took care of it himself.
Ted treated the Forsaken as if they were a business deal. “Sorry, time to die, don’t want to, but have a schedule to keep, you know the deal, sorry.”
The warriors were burning through their ammunition, but Ted didn’t care. He had a
job to do and that was part of the job. He didn’t care if they returned to San Francisco with empty magazines. He only wanted to find the last of the Forsaken, which were near Christchurch on New Zealand’s south island.
The pod circled in, flying wide around the city as Andrew and Ted tried to find the Forsaken. Making smaller and smaller circles, they closed in on the city. They never sensed anything. Ted programmed the pod to make wider circles, and then raced north and south on parallel tracks, twenty miles apart. After covering the entire southern island, they flew over the northern island until they conceded that there was nothing to find.
Ted called Akio.
“Ted-san,” Akio answered.
“We couldn’t find anything in New Zealand,” Ted told him.
“I’m not surprised. By not being able to attack simultaneously, the Forsaken have gotten the word out and the survivors have gone to ground. We eliminated the ones we found in Vladivostok and Khomsomolsk, but when we arrived in Petropavlovsk, we found nothing. They are already going back into hiding. Please return to San Francisco and await further instructions.”
Saint Andrews, Scotland
Kae formed his team three different ways before he arrived at the building that Gene had indicated. The warriors were starting to lose confidence. Kaeden called a halt.
“Huddle up,” he ordered, pointing to a sheltered area within rubble that used to be a classic building from a long time ago.
“I have a bad feeling about this. Don’t get separated. We go as one team into the building. It’ll know we’re here, so stealth doesn’t matter. As soon as we make contact, light it up. I’ll engage the thing if I have to. It’s what I was made to do, so try not to shoot me.”
Kae smiled at his own dry humor. He was boosted for a number of reasons, mostly for the legacy of Terry Henry Walton and Charumati. They didn’t want to watch their family grow old and die or for the FDG to wither from a lack of strong leadership.
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