by S. L. Eaves
The man with the dart gun began turning when the chaos broke and now he leaps at me with hungry eyes as I scramble to my feet. Ignoring him, I take the hit as I fire past him at Striden who is wrestling with Zack for the gun. The bullet strikes his back as the wolf descends on me.
He pins me to the ground, digging his claws in. But he's young and naïve; the smell of my blood in his nostrils makes him forget I'm still holding my gun.
Sliding my arm between us, I try to aim the pistol at his head. A shot rings out and it's not from me. The wolf above me balks. Suddenly Zach appears at my side, ripping the wolf off me. I shove the muzzle under his chin as Zach lifts him up. Fur, bone and brain matter sprays above me.
Zach helps me to my feet. Gun shaking at his side.
“Thanks. You alright? Where's Striden?”
“He took off after you shot him.” Zach points down the hall.
“And Hailey?” I ask, wiping blood off my suit.
“Don't know where he's keeping her.”
“He tell you what he wanted?”
Zach shakes his head. “I woke up with track marks in my arms. I think he drew blood. Not sure what else.” He looks down, scratches his head, “I've been unconscious most of the time.”
“Let's find her and get you two out of here. I have back-up on the way. They'll deal with Striden.”
He nods. “This way.”
We proceed back to the stairwell.
“Crina you there?” Realizing we probably should have come up with code names. If I'm going to be running around the facility shouting her name into a comm it sort of kills the element of surprise. Though he definitely recognized her pistol.
“Yeah, I heard the scuffle. I'm working my way inside.”
“No sign of the others then?”
“Not yet.”
“Stay in position. Stick to the plan. We've got him on the run. Zach is going to extract Hailey and I'll flush out Striden.”
I say it with such confidence even I believe it.
We bound up the stairs.
Zach stops at the door, looks through the narrow glass window into the empty hallway.
“It's clear. Should we try this floor or go up another flight?”
“Floor by floor,” I propose.
He nods, pushes open the door. A gunshot goes off the second he steps through the doorway. The force sends Zach flying into the metal door. He falls limp and lifeless to the floor as I dive for him.
“Zach!” I drop to my knees, clutching at his body.
The bullet connected with his head point blank, rendering everything above the neck unrecognizable. Seconds pass before the shock of his death and the ringing of the gunshot fades under Striden's maniacal laughter.
Our eyes meet, he’s laughing down at me, wiping blood from his shirt.
“Well that went about as expected,” he raises the still smoking gun to my head.
He squeezes the trigger in slow motion. It pulls me out of the paralysis. The shot grazes my head as I dive backwards into the stairwell. Another shot lands in my back as I roll onto the balls of my feet and launch myself up the steps.
Heat and blood…so much blood. Zach’s blood drips from my suit as I sprint blindly until I’m out of steps and bulldoze through the door.
I tear down the hallway and crash into an empty room.
“Crina, Zach’s dead. Striden got him.”
“Shit! Bastard. We have to end this now. Where are you?”
“Top floor. He’s chasing me. I can lead him to the roof, I just don’t know how to get to it. Can you see an access point from your position?”
“There's a door near the garage. The stairs on that end must lead to the roof.”
“Okay, I don’t know where that stairwell is relative to my position, but if I can’t find the exit I’ll make one.”
With the blood I’m trekking around, tracking me will be too easy for him.
The room I’m in is lined with cots and privacy curtains. I hop up on a cot between two curtains and wait. It doesn’t take him long. When he enters I fire off a couple shots at the door. The curtains blow apart for a brief moment as he dives for cover. I take off in the opposite direction. I’ve hit him twice now with silver bullets and they aren’t slowing him down as much as they should.
There's medical equipment propped against the walls and more lights on in this room than the others.
“Hello?” Hailey’s voice calls from the other side of the wall.
“Hailey?” I yank open the adjoining door so quickly it snaps off its hinges.
I’m equal parts relieved and horrified to find her. She strapped to a chair with tubes running from her arms. Her heart beat is weak but steady. She smiles when she sees me but the alarm doesn’t leave her eyes.
“Damn it’s good to see you. Ari? Tell me you found Ari? Is she okay?”
“Yes, she’s fine. And she’s safe.”
“Oh thank God.” Relief washes over her.
“Get these things off me. Let’s get out of here,” she shakes her arms.
I break off the cuffs and she begins pulling the needles out.
“Striden’s right behind me.”
“I think he still needs me alive. You can use me as leverage.”
Shaking my head as I look over my shoulder, “Crina’s on the roof. I just need to get him up there.”
“Zach is here somewhere, too. Saw a couple wolves cart him past. Heard him yelling at one point.”
When she sees my face she freezes.
I start to explain, but her gaze shifts from me to the doorway. I turn knowing what I’ll find.
Raising my gun, he points his at Hailey.
“Don’t play that game, you already admitted how valuable she is.”
“Maybe I already got what I need,” he nods at the vials sitting on the table to Hailey's left. “Willing to take that chance?”
Lowering my gun, “What is all this? What do you want with them?”
“This is science fast forwarding evolution. I'm engineering a new breed of wolf. Stronger, faster, smarter...and I'm slowing the aging process. If all goes according to plan, they'll even be immune to silver. He points at the shot I landed in his bicep.
“Already seeing some positive effects. While these shots weren't fatal blows, they used to sting a lot worse.
“Your clan destroyed much of my work. At least what was left in the labs. But not the subjects who walked out of them. By now I'm sure you know about your friends' connection to S&D. Perhaps that’s what drew you to them. Maybe you thought you could use them to draw me out of hiding. There’s a lot of reasons why it makes sense you kept them close.
“Anyways, you ended up helping me more than you helped them. You are dangerous company to keep. So I owe you a bit of thanks for that.
“If I can reverse the process by which my former team created them, I will have the base I need to replicate the formula. Think of it as deconstructing a meal down to its ingredients. Requires blood, marrow, organ and tissue samples. Hailey is a unique specimen because she was our first successful attempt at evolving the wolf. Before we actually exposed her to lycan DNA we started with evolving humans. If what enhanced her can enhance a wolf, it'll give birth to a new breed.”
“And I suppose you'll stand to benefit directly from this too? The silver immunity? Slow aging?” It’s my turn to laugh. “You can’t manufacture immortality.”
He smiles. “You got me talking. Stalling isn't going to accomplish anything. My pack already intercepted the van. Your backup isn't arriving.”
Shit. Did Crina hear that?
He fires a shot into my leg. It drops me to one knee.
“Don’t!” Hailey moves in front of me. I push her aside. Striden raises the gun to her head. “It won’t be ideal, but I can still complete my work with your dead body.”
He tosses me the cuffs with his free hand. They hit the floor with a clang. “Let's try this again. Cuffs or she gets a bullet in the head. Just like Zach.�
��
Hailey’s jaw drops slightly at that. She looks down at me. For a moment I think she wants me to take the cuffs. I wouldn’t blame her.
“You capture me and what? You don't think the DIA is on their way? How much time does stopping one van buy you? It's over Striden. The only way you survive this is if you turn yourself in.”
“Do I look worried? I'm always ten steps ahead of their best guess.”
He inches forward and wraps his finger around the trigger.
“Stop stalling, Lori. I’m so going to enjoy testing the limits of your immortality.”
I scoop the cuffs off the floor then look up at Hailey; my eyes dart from her to the table full of lab equipment. She gets it.
In one swift motion I hurl the cuffs at the vials on the table and knock Hailey to the ground out of the line of fire. He doesn’t pull the trigger. His eyes follow the cuffs for a second and I take the opportunity to rush him. He snaps back to attention, the gun fires as I connect with him but he’s too late and the shot lands in the ceiling as I knock the gun loose.
His head smacks into the doorframe. Dazed, he claws the air as I hop off him. Behind me, Hailey scoops up his gun. There's a door at the far wall that connects to another room. I grab a few remaining intact vials and motion for the door.
“Through there.”
Hailey fires a shot at Striden as he gets to his feet. It hits his knee. I don't make too many good calls, but teaching them how to shoot was one of the better decisions I've made lately.
He falls against the wall, clutching it with talons from his hand. He’s turning.
“That's for Ari!”
I grab Hailey's arm and lead us through the door. I'm limping slightly, but the bullet went clean through and it's healing fast.
“Are there others here?” I ask, noticing all the equipment.
“I don't know. He had a few men working with him. Wolves. That's all I saw.”
We're running down the hall. When we reach the end, Striden emerges from the lab and begins charging us.
“That way,” pointing at an exit sign to our left. “Get out. Go to Ari. I've got this.”
She hesitates but Striden's quickly closing the gap and she doesn't have time to argue. Holding up one of the vials, I start down the opposite corridor.
“You need these?” I chuck one into the wall.
“Stop! I will tear you to pieces.”
Predictably, he takes the bait and chases me into the nearest room.
I dart to the window, throw it open and jump onto the sill. From there I can easily reach the roof ledge. Striden dives across the room as I hoist myself just out of reach.
“Crina, you there? I'm on the roof.”
“I'm here, but ran into some trouble. I need a few to get into position. Tell me where you are. Did you make it to the access door?”
It doesn't take me long to realize we're not near the garage. We're on an adjoining wing a few stories higher than the one attached to the parking garage.
“I think I took a wrong turn down one of the wings.” Looking over my shoulder as Striden pulls himself onto the roof. He's almost fully transformed.
“How much time do you need?”
“Just a…wait I found you, can you draw him closer? I don't have a clear shot.”
“No problem,” I mutter darting across the roof. He's on me in seconds. I under estimated how fast he is. We roll across the rooftop. His hands and feet are the first to transform and the claws rip into my suit.
“Take the shot!”
At that he stops and looks up.
“Sniper? Crina?” He glances around and sniffs the air.
I pull out one of the vials. At this point it's probably the only one that hasn't cracked during our scuffle. His temper has gotten the better of him.
Hurling it into the air, he takes off after it. A shot whizzes past and hits him in the back as he disappears over the roofline.
From the angle, it may have pierced his heart. I race to the edge stopping just shy of the concrete lip. I can hear him grunting and huffing...he's still alive. Leaning forward cautiously, I peer over the edge knowing he hasn't made the plunge. At least not completely. Not yet.
Striden hangs by the talons of his big fury claws, transformed, his ripped clothes fluttering in the wind as they make their way down the five stories between us and the ground.
It's not insurmountable. The fall would be survivable for him. He's old but he's strong. The smart move here would be to drop and make an escape. It must be the desire for revenge driving him.
Smoke seeps out of his back. The silver is burning his insides. He's only four or five feet beneath me. There's no windows on this section of the building and the concrete allows for very little in the way of a ledge or sill to grip.
I'm overwhelmed by the sense of deja vu and have to step back to shake off the painful memory. Striden wasn't there the night his brother killed Catch, so I decide not to waste anytime commenting on the irony. I do snag a quick glance over my shoulder to make sure there's no one standing behind me with a crossbow. We're alone. Well not quite.
Crina chimes into my ear.
“Did I hit him? I can't get a visual.”
I bend down. “That all you got?”
His nostrils flare. He snarls as he swings his arm into the side of the building punching through cement and metal, shards spraying the air. Using the indent, he's made himself a foothold and lurches upward in one swift bound. Back pedaling quickly, I'm wishing I'd grabbed a gun and not those vials right about now. Striden hurls himself up and over the ledge with remarkable agility. I turn and sprint across the roof.
“Take the shot! Take the shot! Take the shot!” I scream hoping Crina can get a bead on him as we race across the roof. Striden breathing down my neck the whole time.
The hospital wings aren’t all the same number of floors and the one I'm heading towards is a few shorter. It's an easy leap down and I get to enjoy a second of relief when I hear the shot ring out somewhere to my left. Crina is the best shot I know, a moving target his size won't present much of a challenge. The silver from that rifle should put him down permanently.
I imagine the bullet ripping through Striden's temple and smile at the thought of what I'll see once I turn around. But just before my feet hit the ground Striden snatches me midair.
The instant his claws connect with my back I can tell he has more momentum than I do. He snaps me sideways and I hear bones crack as he tosses me down into the roof. As I slide across the gritty surface, I glimpse a bone sticking out of my leg just below the knee. I won't be getting up from this.
It's nothing short of a miracle he doesn't land on me. He's close and he's not going to give me a chance to recover. The world spins and I don't have time to get my bearings. Pain radiates through my body. When I feel warmth and fur descend I move frantically to fend him off. A rush of energy surges through me, something akin to adrenaline.
My legs won't work, but my arms still do. I bring my hands in front of my face and make contact with his fangs. He snaps, his teeth grazing my fist as I connect with his nose. I try to grip his lower jaw, feeling my ribs break under his weight. Shots ring out. At least one hits Striden because he spasms as if to shake the bullet free. He seems to consider ignoring his assailant; he's seconds away from finishing me and we both know it.
***
Her rifle assembled and loaded with silver core bullets, Crina finds Lori through its scope. She watches as Striden leaps into view.
You're mine now.
She adjusts the rifle and steadies her aim.
“Take the shot!” she hears Lori yell as she sprints across the roof with Striden on her heels.
A growl and thumping noise breaks her concentration. She pulls the trigger as she feels teeth sink into her shoulder.
***
Reluctantly, Striden turns to see who's pelting his backside with bullets. Hailey is walking steadily towards us, firing shot after shot. They're not silver bull
ets and it's not going to be enough to stop him.
She's buying time. Thing is I can't make anything out of the opportunity.
I roll onto my side, but too many bones are broken and I can't get anything to work right. It occurs to me that I must be paralyzed, my lower half is completely unresponsive. I hate feeling this helpless.
“Crina, get down here. I can't move.” Silence. My comm may have broken.
“Striden!” I call to him, trying to get him to refocus his assault. My cry goes ignored.
Hailey begins to retreat when she sees I'm not getting up. She unloads the clip. Striden pounces, barely slowed down despite most of her shots connecting. She smashes him in the face with the gun. He responds by slamming her into the wall.
***
Crina wrestles with the wolf. She manages to slide one of her pistols between them with her free hand and fires a shot into his chest. He lets out a whimper and falls limply onto her. She pushes him off, gets to her feet and scowls at her ripped and blood stained jacket.
“Damn. How many did he turn? Any more of your friends follow you up here?” she asks his corpse as she gestures over at the dead body at the far corner. They've been successfully keeping her preoccupied and she risks a quick glance around the perimeter of the building before sliding back in place behind the rifle.
Eye on the scope, her finger wraps around the trigger. She freezes, trying to make sense of what she's seeing.
***
Vega appears as if materializing from thin air. I watch as the tall cloaked figure glides effortlessly towards Striden, grabs him by the scruff of his neck, peals him off a startled Hailey, and wraps his arms around the beast's throat. In one swift, sudden movement he snaps his head back and breaks his neck.
The sound of his head severing echoes across the rooftop.
Vega releases his grasp and Striden's lifeless body drops to his feet. It looks as if the grim reaper himself has intervened. Vega turns to me, eyes glowing under the dark hood. He gives me a slight nod then vanishes in a blur.
I roll onto my back. Hailey rushes over and drops to my side.
