Return of the Phoenix - 01

by Heath Stallcup

  “They did something to his mind. If I didn’t know better, I’d think a natural had gotten to him. Most likely chemical brainwashing,” Damien said.

  “Why could it not be a natural born?” Foster inquired.

  “Mitchell, sire. He detests our kind.”

  “Our kind?” Foster turned to Damien, his inquiry clear. Did Damien dare to compare himself to his sire, a nearly three hundred-year-old natural born vampire?

  “I meant only…our kind…in…that we are both vampire, sire.” Damien’s eyes were lowered.

  “I know what you meant, my child,” Foster said softly, his voice like music to Damien’s ears. “You want so desperately to be like me. The power, the nobility, the money, the abilities.”

  Damien was smart enough to hold his tongue. Nothing he could say at this point would be the right answer. If he disagreed, that would be telling his master that he was wrong. If he agreed, his master may well kill him for coveting what he had. Damien could only bow and scrape to him and hope that he would soon tire of toying with him. Luckily for Damien, Paul Foster simply enjoyed fucking with the minds of his minions.

  He reached down and grasped a handful of Franklin’s hair and lifted his head so that he could look into his face. “What’s with the stupid look on his face?”

  “He’s still highly suggestible. I told him to sit down and shut up and he did,” Damien responded.

  “Very well.” Foster turned and retrieved a robe from a nearby chair. Wrapping the heavy garment around himself, he somehow looked smaller. Foster was barely six foot tall, but he seemed much larger to those who witnessed him. Damien assumed it was a trick of the mind from the power he exuded due to his age. He appeared to be maybe forty years old, but at nearly three hundred years old, Paul was in incredible physical shape. “Set him here so he doesn’t fall over,” he ordered.

  Damien sat his father in one of the high back chairs and held his shoulders steady. Foster pulled another chair over and stared into his eyes. “Tell me.”

  “Tell you what?” Franklin said drunkenly.

  Foster smiled coldly. “Tell me what they did to you.”

  “Who?” Franklin asked, his face a blank slate.

  “Mitchell’s people…tell me what they did to you. From the beginning.”

  “Mitchell?” Franklin struggled against Damien’s hands. “Mitchell? Mitchell needs…he needs…he needs..”

  “What did Mitchell do to you?” Paul Foster’s stare intensified.

  “Mitchell needs…” Franklin tried to break eye contact, but Damien held his face. “He needs…he needs…needs…”

  “What did Mitchell do to you?!” Foster practically shouted.

  “He needs…needs…needs…needles! Needles! They stuck a needle in me,” Franklin gasped. He was gulping air, like he was trying not to drown. He kept trying to pull his head up and away from Damien’s grasp but he held his head still, their gazes locked. “They stuck a needle in my arm, and I told them my plan.”

  Foster never broke eye contact, but he contemplated ending Franklin’s life there and then. He needed to know how much Franklin told them. Their survival may depend on it and Franklin’s most certainly did. “What exactly did you tell them?”

  “That I was trying to save Damien. I had to save Damien. He was all I had left.”

  “Save him from what?”

  “From Mitchell.” Franklin was sobbing. “From his damned Monster Squads.”

  “What else did you tell them?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Did you tell them about me?”

  “I don’t know who you are,” Franklin admitted. “Who are you?” he asked almost hypnotically.

  Foster smiled. “Did you tell him of your plan to expose him and his squad?”

  “Yes,” Franklin admitted.

  “How did they catch you?”

  Franklin’s brows knitted together. “I don’t know. I stuck the USB bug into the computer and all went well. I was leaving and a guard tackled me. Treated me like a common criminal. The twit.”

  Foster smiled at the thought.

  “And then?”

  “Then they cuffed me,” Franklin said with apparent disbelief. “When I wouldn’t cooperate, they stuck me with a needle and everything got fuzzy. I felt woozy. And they made me talk to them,” Franklin pleaded. “I didn’t want to, but I had to,” he whined.

  “Yes, of course you did,” Foster cooed. “What happened next?”

  “I woke up next to the most beautiful redhead I’d ever seen. She sucked my dick and I really liked it,” Franklin smiled.

  Foster’s face went blank. “You what?”

  “I remember being in New Orleans and there was this beautiful redhead with the most enchanting green eyes…” Franklin was smiling. “She had the biggest penis I’d ever seen.”

  Damien let go of his father’s head, “What the fuck?!” Foster hissed and Damien’s shocked eyes met his. He reluctantly reached back down and held his father’s head in place. Foster continued staring into his eyes.

  “What then?”

  “I went back to Washington. But I couldn’t stop thinking about her,” Franklin admitted.

  “Let’s not discuss the transsexual for the moment. How did you get to New Orleans?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t remember. I just woke up there. Maybe she brought me there. She had the most beautiful green eyes.” Franklin smiled. “I think she put her penis in my butt because it was really sore…”

  “Gah! Focus! What transpired between Oklahoma City and you waking up in New Orleans?” Foster asked.

  Franklin’s brows knitted together in thought. “I can’t remember. There’s nothing there…”

  Foster sighed. “He’s useless. There’s nothing of usefulness in there.” He waved him away with his hand.

  Damien was torn. On one hand he was totally disgusted by his father’s admission of having bedded a transsexual, but at the same time, he still felt that his connections in Washington were their best shot at getting the Monster Squad shut down without either exposing themselves or losing any of their own numbers.

  “Sire, I still think he can be of use to us,” Damien said. “If you can clear his mind of this…blockage, he will remember his rage toward Mitchell. He will have back his old desires of destroying them. He will stop at nothing. And he may still have usefulness in Washington.”

  “We never needed a politician before, and the one time that we tried to use one, the attempt failed us,” Foster said, obviously ready to give up entirely on the idea.

  “It never hurts to have friends in high places,” Damien whispered. “A United States Senator, whose only son is a vampire in your service?”

  Foster debated on simply feeding on the old man. Still, the boy had a point.

  “And I think that if you could clear his mind of what Mitchell did to him, give him back his true focus, he could be a powerful ally, and he could very well take up more of Mitchell’s time in battle than we ever could.” Damien pointed to the withered man in the chair. “If he were given back his direction, he may still be able to see this through.”

  Foster weighed the options and decided that even if Damien was wrong and he still allowed Franklin to live, and somehow Franklin failed at every attempt at Mitchell perhaps the boy had a point. Franklin’s attempts to engage Mitchell and bring him down could keep his focus redirected…at least long enough that when they did structure a strike against the Monster Squad, they could coordinate it so that it did enough damage to truly cripple them.

  “Very well,” Paul said. “I will give him another chance and hope that he proves useful. Hold his head and I will clear his mind of what Mitchell has done to him.” Foster smiled. “Then we shall see if your father has any real teeth and knows how to use them.”

  *****

  When morning rolled around, Jack found the bed empty next to him. He slipped some clothes on and grabbed the walking stick that Nadia had brought him and strolled down to the kitche
n. He didn’t feel the need to use the walking stick, but it was a gift from his beloved and it felt good in his hand.

  Jack entered the kitchen and Nadia wasn’t there. He found some coffee and filled a mug, added some sugar and cream into it and walked out into the garden. Nadia wasn’t there either. He went past the stone walls and climbed the ramparts. He checked the tree line, but couldn’t see any movement there either. Coming back into the dining hall, he ran into Natashia.

  “It is done?”

  “By ‘it’ I take it you mean my mating with Nadia?”

  Natashia’s eyes narrowed but she said nothing.

  “Yes, it is done,” he said. “And I’d do it again in a heartbeat.”

  “Stupid human!” she spat and spun around.

  “Don’t you mean, ‘stupid wolf’?” he demanded.

  Natashia spun on him, her eyes glowing amber, her voice a growl, “No. I meant what I said. Human. You are not worthy of my daughter.”

  “It wasn’t just my choice, mom. It was your daughter’s as well. And the Fates,” he goaded.

  “Insolent fool!” she yelled and advanced. Jack kicked his walking stick up into his hands and spun it like a bo stick. He assumed a defensive posture and prepared to knock out his mother-in-law’s teeth. She paused and laughed at him. “Seriously? You think you could stand against me?”

  “Any day, any time, mom,” Jack said.

  She dropped her robe and although Jack’s impression was not ‘mom’, but ‘hot older sister’, she did nothing for him. It was probably the really high bitch-factor. Before he could think much more, she shifted and Jack faced her Halfling form. She nearly tripled in mass, standing close to seven foot tall and, if Jack’s assessment was right, close to four hundred pounds of rippling muscle, teeth, and claws, her reach would be unreal. Jack assessed the damage she could do and realized, even with his augmentation and nearly healed body, he was in deep shit.

  He lowered his stance and took a half step back, assuming a forty-five degree angle, keeping the stick extended slightly to his front so that he could extend his reach. He knew it wouldn’t be enough.

  He heard a noise behind him but didn’t dare divert his attention or he’d risk losing his head to his bitch in law.

  “Mother!” Nadia screamed.

  The bitch-in-law roared back, and every hair on Jack’s neck stood on end. Hell, even the hair on his arms and legs stood on end. He really thought that if they could, they’d jump off his body and run like hell. They’d seen what these damned things could do once before and no part of him wanted another encounter. The last time, they were armed with silver bullets and automatic weapons, but the wolves got the drop on them. Now, he stood here with little more than his dick in his hand. He was poorly outgunned.

  “Come on, you foamy-faced bitch. If you’re gonna eat me, let’s do it now and get it over with. At least I’ll get the satisfaction of knocking a few of your teeth out before you do. And I hope to God I give you the worst case of indigestion you’ve ever had,” he spat.

  Natashia paused and looked at him sideways. She actually stood sideways and…was she laughing at him? Seriously? Was he being laughed at by a seven foot tall she-bitch? Oh, hell no. Jack advanced and swung the walking stick as fast and hard as he could, aiming straight for her snarling puss. But as fast as he was, she was faster. Her paw came up and caught the end of the walking stick and stopped him from connecting his blow. She gripped the walking stick and pulled it from his hands with one smooth motion, pulling him in closer to her at the same time.

  Jack’s mind was racing as he was pulled in to his attacker. With her ginormous arms, the only chance he had to inflict any pain before his death would be to move in close and try to work her from the inside. As she pulled him in, rather than try to withdraw, he dove for her middle and tried to get inside her arms and land a blow…but before he could complete a thought, much less an action, she held both of his arms, just below the shoulders in her massive paws and lifted him from the ground.

  “Mother, that’s enough,” Nadia said. “Obviously, he isn’t going to back down.” There was no panic in her voice. “I think he’s passed your test.”

  Jack was struggling to get free but could barely breathe he was being held so tight. She had him held perfectly. He couldn’t get enough momentum to get a good kick, he couldn’t move left or right. All he could do was lift his forearms. So he did. He lifted both forearms into the furry chest of his attacker and grabbed…boobs? There were boobs under that hair?

  The Halfling’s eyes widened momentarily and she looked down at the tiny man in her arms who now held her breasts in his hands and a low growl escaped her throat. His eyes narrowed and he stared right back at his bitch-in-law. He set his jaw and told her point blank, “Surrender now, or suffer the worst purple nurple to ever be laid upon man or beast!”

  Natashia froze in surprise, then as best as Jack could tell, the wolf laughed so hard she dropped him.

  In the blink of an eye, his bitch-in-law was human again and holding her sides. “My dear,” she gasped for breath, “I’ll give your man this much…he does have spunk.”

  “I tried to tell you, mother. He is worthy,” Nadia said as she approached Jack and wrapped her arms around him.

  “Would somebody mind telling me just what the hell is going on here?”

  “Mother needed to be able to confirm to father that you would stand for me…no matter what,” Nadia explained.

  “And you performed exemplary, my boy,” Natashia said embracing him.

  “Umm…thanks. I think,” Jack said. “But this would be so much less awkward if you’d put your clothes back on.”

  Natashia looked up at Jack and smiled. “But, Jack, just a moment ago you held my breasts in both of your hands…”

  Jack was shocked! “Yeah...but…in self-defense!” Jack pleaded. “And if we are being totally honest, you were about to face the ‘titty-twister of death’…”

  Natashia and Nadia both laughed as Jack sputtered.

  *****

  Laura came out of the Post Exchange with the few things she needed. Her mind was still preoccupied with Matt’s behavior lately. He seemed to be hell-bent on destroying anything and everything no matter what the cost. It used to be, protect the squad first, take out the monsters after. But since the loss of Second Squad and the replacements blending so smoothly, she felt that he was taking chances. Or was he? Was it just her reaction to his desire to use whatever Evan could come up with? Or was he changing? What he did to set up Franklin seemed over the top and Evan went right along with it, happily.

  Could she blame him? If somebody had locked her away and starved her for three years, she might be surprised what she would be willing to go along with. Still, she expected more from Evan.

  And she expected more from Matt.

  Maybe it wasn’t them that were changing, maybe it was her? She left the company because she couldn’t go along with a lot of the things that they pulled to ‘get the job done’ and she felt that Matt was a cut above. Had she deluded herself? Or maybe she just wasn’t cut out to make the ‘hard decisions’ as Matt would put it.

  She jumped into her Jeep and sat there, holding the key, but not hitting the ignition yet.

  What was wrong with her? Why was she second guessing herself? She had devoted her life to this job. She had no private life to speak of. The closest thing to a relationship she’d had was with Evan over three years ago. And nobody else had stepped into that roll since then. Since his release, neither one of them had the time or had put forth the effort to pick up where it had left off.

  She wanted to cry. But instead, she put the key in the ignition and headed back to the hangar. She had some soul searching to do and she wasn’t going to be able to do it sitting in the parking lot of the PX.

  21

  The HH-60 Pave Hawk approached Tinker Air Base in Oklahoma City and Apollo breathed a sigh of relief. It had been a long night and an eventless morning as the squad set a deep perim
eter around the battle scene allowing the cleanup crews to do their job. The story, as far as he knew, was that a military transport train had derailed and the military was cleaning up a fuel spill and some chemicals that, when mixed, could result in a deadly gas. It kept a lot of the civilians away and the Apaches kept any nosy reporting aircraft away.

  Satellite imagery found the tunnel that the newly termed ‘gopher troll’ had emerged from. The squad followed the road graders dragging the carcass back to the entrance and then searched the interior for any evidence of secondary invaders. The risk was very low as trolls are usually solitary creatures, but not all trolls act alike. Once they were assured that the creature was alone, the cleanup crews sprayed it down with aqueous film forming foam used to fight fuel fires to slick it’s skin, then pushed it back into its hole and buried it. The foam and high pressure water was used to wash away blood and gore from the battle scene into a pit and buried in the middle of a wheat field.

  The real question of the day was, ‘how did a troll end up in Kansas of all places?’ Trolls are indigenous to the European continent, although sometimes the smaller ones were known to hitch a ride on transport ships or wander close to the coast and fall off a pier and wash out to sea where they bob and float across to another continent. That was how trolls were established in Nordic countries thousands of years ago and evolved to survive the colder climates. But on those rare occasions that a troll ended up in ‘the new world’ it was almost always along the coast. Perhaps this one had washed up on a shore and being so happy to have land under its feet again, it began to dig and didn’t come up until it hit Kansas? He had no idea, but it was taken care of and people were safe again.

  The Pave Hawk made its approach for Tinker, and rather than heading for the normal helipads, received clearance to land at the reserved helipad closest to the MS hangar. Apollo hit the coms to his squad mates. “Ready your gear. We’re about to land.”