Wylde

by S. C. Mitchell

  She tightened the dirt around his hands and arms to keep him from digging a hole through.

  “We’ve got a problem here.” Port’s muffled voice filtered out of his prison. Who was he talking to? Did he have some kind of communication device too?

  “Eat dirt, asshole.” He’d have to if he wanted to get out.

  “Oh, little Dove, you’ve become so clever.” So much for her secret identity. She spun around.

  Leonov held John clutched and struggling in his big hand.

  “Go to hell, bastard.” Apparently, she was still mad at him. But he had kidnapped her, and then tried to rape her, so yeah. Mad as hell worked for her.

  He threw John toward Port’s mud prison. “What you build, I destroy. It is my destiny.”

  John splatted against the mound of dirt. The integrity of the structure crumbled.

  “Your destiny is to have me beat the crap out of you.” She wasn’t giving in to this bastard. No way.

  She realized then, that she was still wearing John’s new gloves. Schling. The claws slid out. Yeah. “Or maybe I’ll just cut you down to size.”

  The brute growled at her. “You want a piece of me, bitch. Bring it.”

  Dumph. Port, covered in mud, suddenly appeared in front of Leonov. He held up his hand. “Not here. Not now. We have to go.”

  Then he wrapped his arms around Leonov and, dumph, they were gone.

  In the distance, down the road toward the city, sirens wailed. John, mud from head to toe, pulled himself up. She flung the mud away from his body, cleaning him up. “You okay?”

  “I’ve been better. I—” He looked past her. “Harry?”

  ~ ~ ~

  Wylde scampered toward the downed man. His friend.

  Harry Dickson lay on his stomach. The other two men were kneeling at his side, one holding a bloody handkerchief to a wound just below his right shoulder. He rolled to his side, looked up at Wylde, and grimaced. “I think I’m okay. Nothing vital hit. Hurts like hell though.”

  “We’ve got wounded here. Send a medic.” Dove’s voice came from behind him. She must have been on coms with Xi Force headquarters.

  Good girl.

  The sirens grew louder. Glancing toward the road, Wylde noted a line of police vehicles, lights flashing red and blue, heading their way.

  “We should probably get out of here,” one of the kneeling men said. “Harry, can you move?”

  Detective Dickson pushed to a sitting position, as the man next to him continued to hold the handkerchief against the wound in his back. “Yeah, I can move, and we don’t want to be caught here.”

  Dove shook her head. “But they’re the police.”

  Wylde help the men get Harry to his feet.

  The detective shook his head as he stood. “They’re a bunch of thugs in uniform. There isn’t a real police officer left on the force.”

  Wylde pointed toward the tree line of a thickly forested area about two hundred yards to the west of the field. “We can hide in there.”

  The five headed off toward the trees.

  As they jogged, one of the other officers, a stocky, brown-haired, middle–aged man, kept Harry’s arm over his shoulder, and pressure on the wound in his back. “I’m Casey.” He jerked his head toward his companion. “That’s Leroy.”

  Wylde nodded. “I’m—”

  Leroy jumped in. “I know. You’re Wylde from Xi Force. You’re awesome, Mr. Wylde.” The man’s smile was broad and genuine.

  Casey switched his gaze toward Dove. “Ma’am.”

  “I’m Quantum. I’m . . . new.” Dove’s cheeks reddened.

  Eyes widening, Leroy pulled in a deep breath. “Gosh, real superheroes. Helping us.”

  There was awe and wonder in his tone.

  Casey grunted, and rolled his eyes.

  They reached the trees just as the police vehicles pulled over along the road. Uniformed men spilled out by the dozens.

  “Halt.” The command echoed from behind, but shots rang out almost instantly.

  “Not bloody likely,” Casey mumbled as he pushed aside some brush.

  Yeah, those guys had no interest in taking them in. Not alive anyway.

  Wylde hung back, hoping to absorb any gunshots that reached them. “Go, go, go.”

  He turned to see their pursuers grouping up and dashing toward them. Then the ground wrinkled in front of him and mounded up on itself to form a wall about ten feet wide and over six feet high.

  Dove placed a hand on his shoulder. “That should stop the bullets and give us some cover.”

  He smiled at her. “Nice.”

  Harry, teeth gritted, hobbled along beside Casey. The bloody wound in his back looked worse than he was letting on. A strong man, but how long could he last.

  And this was Wylde’s fault. It had to be, somehow. “I’m Sorry. I don’t know how Port and the Destructor knew I was there. I didn’t mean to draw you guys into anything.”

  Harry shook his head. “I think they were after us. We were warned not to investigate Mac’s murder. Didn’t think they’d try to kill us though.”

  That made more sense.

  Wylde could smell the coppery tang of his blood. Harry had lost a lot and was losing more with each passing second. “We need to find some place to hole up and take a look at that wound.”

  Pointing ahead and to the right, Leroy motioned them to follow with his other hand. “Gerry Allen has a hunting cabin about a couple miles up the road. I know where he hides the key. He won’t mind.”

  Wylde nodded. “Get us there.”

  ~ ~ ~

  A half hour into their flight, pursuers still dogged their trail. Dove dropped back next to John. “We need to do something. They can’t keep moving at this pace. We’re slowing down.”

  And their pursuers were catching up.

  Harry was putting up a brave fight, but his strength was ebbing. He’d lost too much blood.

  John nodded at her, then said to Harry, Casey, and Leroy, “Keep going. We’ll catch up with you later.”

  Pulling his gloves from her hands, she handed them to him. “Here, you might want to use these.”

  At least he had a piece of his costume.

  He smiled. Schling. “Let’s go kick some ass.”

  There had to be at least fifty of the thugs, searching the forest for them, but they’d spread out which made for easy pickings. Dove distracted a group of three by thwapping them with tree branches while John stealthed around behind them.

  “Fuckin’ trees are alive.” The idiot actually fired his gun into a tree trunk.

  John took him out by kicking him into the maple he’d just tried to murder. Then he tumbled between the other two, punching out in both directions at once, sending them both to the ground. One struggled to get back up and John applied his boot to the man’s chin. “Three down, a couple dozen to go.”

  They spent the next fifteen minutes distracting, misleading, and generally messing with the thugs, giving their friends time to slip away.

  Pulling Dove behind a tree trunk, he stole a quick kiss. “That was almost fun.”

  “Yeah.” It had been. Exciting at the very least, and they’d worked well together. Was this what it would be like when she was allowed to accompany the team into the field?

  He sniffed then. “I’ve got Detective Dickson’s scent. Let’s go find them.”

  As she followed him through the forest, she noted, on the microscopic level, traces of fresh blood on the ground every once in a while. In her limited veterinary training, she’d acquired a level of medical knowledge. If that man was still bleeding, the wound was worse than they’d thought.

  Wylde led her to a small log cabin in a clearing. They found the three men within. Harry Dick
son was lying on a couch on his side, breathing heavily.

  Casey had a glass of water to his lips. “Drink, man, you need to restore some fluids.”

  Leroy paced, wringing his hands.

  The handkerchief had been replace by a wadded up dishtowel, with another wrapped around him to keep it in place, But that was already soaked through with blood. Harry was pale, his eyes glazed.

  Dove knelt beside him, and pealed back the makeshift bandage.

  John stood at her shoulder. “How bad is it?”

  It was bad.

  The bullet had torn into his shoulder and must have hit a major blood vessel. He was still losing blood, and fast. This was beyond her training. A wound like this in an animal usually meant it would be put down. “We need to get him to a hospital.”

  Chapter 24

  Kayla’s voice crackled in Dove’s earpiece. “Quantum, do you read me?”

  “Phaze?” She breathed a sigh.

  “Kirk says I’m close. Are you in that little cabin?”

  “Yes.” Xi Force had finally arrived. Kayla had much better medical training than Dove. And hell, there wasn’t a better doctor in the world than Heather. If she was with the team, they were golden. And the Xi-1 had a fully stocked medical bay. Maybe there was a chance for Harry after all.

  She hadn’t heard the Xi-1’s engines, but it probably had to land on the roadway, or a field. The cabin was surrounded by trees.

  “John, they’re here.” At last.

  He dashed to the cabin’s front door and pulled it open, but Kayla came phasing through the side wall.

  “Hi, guys.” She panted like she’d been sprinting. Her light tone didn’t hide the distress in her expression. And she was alone.

  “Where were the others?” Had she arrived on foot?

  “They can’t get through. There’s some kind of force dome over the whole of Megopolis. No one can get in or out. No one but me anyway.”

  John shut the front door. “Force dome?”

  “It happened right after Quantum called in.” Her expression hardened. “Sorry, guys, all you get is me.”

  Dove motioned her over. “Here. He needs medical attention.”

  “Oh God.” Kayla knelt and gazed at the wound, swallowing hard.

  According to what Dove had gathered, one year from graduating, Kayla dropped out of medical school because she couldn’t handle the yuk factor. She had a very low gag threshold when it came to blood and gore. This would probably be extremely uncomfortable for her, but she did have the medical training needed.

  Treating a wound like this was beyond Dove’s limited medical skills without some guidance, but she’d often helped her dad work on wounded animals, and the blood and gore didn’t bother her. “I can do the work, but you need to talk me through it.”

  Swallowing hard one more time, Kayla nodded. “O-okay.”

  She pulled off her costume gloves, and extracted two sets of rubber gloves from her belt, handing one pair to Dove. “Here.”

  Despite her queasy stomach, Kayla had grit, and got right to work examining the wound. Her teeth clenched tight, Dove could see she was trying hard to hold down her gorge. “We need to get that bullet out. Do we have any forceps . . . large tweezers . . . anything like that?”

  John scanned the cabin, then held up a pair of needle nosed pliers.

  Kayla nodded. “Boil those, they’ll have to do.”

  She had her finger in the wound, but suddenly lurched, and turned aside. “I’m sorry. I can’t do this.”

  Dove jumped in. “Talk me through it.”

  The woman had faced down a demon from another dimension, but couldn’t handle blood? Well, everyone had their thing. Dove’s was snakes. Yuk.

  And after that business with John’s father, she wasn’t too fond of spiders either.

  Kayla nodded, once again swallowing hard. “I felt the bullet lodged against the Scapula, near the Glenoid. You’ll need to find it and extract it with the pliers.”

  She hollered toward John. “They need to boil at least three minutes.”

  Steam rolled over the gas stove in the kitchen.

  “Got it,” John shot back.

  “And you,” Kayla pointed at Leroy who was standing, staring open-mouthed, “locate the cleanest sheet you can find, and cut it into strips a couple inches wide. We’re going to need some clean bandaging material.”

  His head bobbed up and down. “Y-yes, ma’am.”

  He dashed toward the back of the cabin.

  Casey knelt on the other side of the couch, looking down at Harry. “What can I do, ma’am?”

  “Pray.”

  ~ ~ ~

  Harry was breathing easier, and snoring softly, resting on the couch. It had been touch-and-go for a bit, but Kayla and Dove had pulled him through.

  Wylde beamed with pride at Dove, who’d had to do the bulk of the operation. She’d really come through, and it looked like Harry was going to make it.

  She was at the kitchen sink, washing her hands and chatting with Casey and Leroy.

  Kayla . . . Phaze had directed the operation, at times looking away to ease her queasy stomach, but she’d hung in until the end. Now she was sitting across the room in an easy chair, Eyes closed, deep breathing, but keeping it all under control. As he approached, her eyes fluttered open.

  “You okay?” She was tough.

  She shook her head. “It’s so stupid. I wish I could control it.”

  Wylde shrugged. “You helped save his life.”

  “I know, but I should have—” Her eyes glazed, and she held her finger to her ear. “Hold it a second. What? Sure.”

  She pulled her phone out of her belt pouch. “There’s a video. Something just happened in the city.”

  As Harry slept, the five others grouped close around the kitchen table to watch the tiny phone screen. Wylde marveled at the ability of such a small device to do so much. Technology had advanced amazingly in his years out of the loop. Giving up the wolf, becoming a person again, had a steep learning curve it seemed.

  The video focused on a press conference at Megopolis City Hall. Commissioner Warren, or at least the person impersonating him, stood at a podium. Even on the small screen, Wylde recognized the man standing next to the commissioner as his father.

  He gritted his teeth. His gut fisted. Deep down he’d been hoping the bastard hadn’t survived the collapse of the Red Guard compound. That the body hadn’t been discovered when they’d gone through the wreckage.

  The commissioner raised his hands for silence. “This city is now under martial law. Everyone is to stay indoors. Anyone caught outside after one hour from right now, will be shot on sight. This city is now hostage of the Red Guard.”

  “What the hell?” Casey thumped the table.

  Then Commissioner Warren began to morph, shrinking down into the diminutive, feminine form Wylde recognized from that computer screen back in the Red Guard compound. What had lance called her?

  Camille. “She’s a shape shifter.”

  She must have played a number of roles in her rise to power. It sounded like she’d been working here for years. Was that why the compound had seemed so empty? Everyone had been moved here and into position to seize the city? Those police thugs were probably Red Guard agents, which made them all the more dangerous.

  The camera closed on Camille’s face. “Ten billion dollars, delivered by Doctor Heather Johnson to the city limits on highway 10 in three hours, no cops, no military . . .” Her voice lowered. “And no Xi Force,” then her tone became sing-songy, “or people are gonna start dyin’.”

  Wylde cocked his head. “They want Heather to deliver the money?”

  Dove exchanged a look with Kayla. “They want her zombiebot process.”

 
Kayla thumped the table with her fist. “Amber and Ghaim must have been working for Red Guard all along. If we hadn’t stopped them, we’d be facing an army of zombiebots along with these guys. That had to be why they built that lab in Coal Town.”

  Sheee-it. It made sense. Red Guard’s team of super-powered humans backed by an army of blindly obedient soldiers that would do anything they were programmed to do? That lab had been set up by Ghaim to churn out eight of the dead creatures at a time. But Xi Force stopped them from getting Heather’s process and tore down the lab. “They probably don’t even need the money, they just want her.”

  Dove caught his gaze. “If they’re after Heather, they must have constructed a new zombiebot factory somewhere. They probably aren’t even planning on releasing this city if they get Heather and the money. They’d have everything they need, here under the protection of the force dome including a captive population they could turn into an army of the dead. We’ve got to stop them.”

  Kayla nodded. “First, we’ve got to get that force shield down. Xi Force, the State Police, and the National Guard are all waiting to rush in, but we’re the only ones inside. We’ve got to find and disable those controls.”

  Dove shook her head. “It’s a big city. They could be anywhere.”

  Casey grunted. “The Commissioner’s house. Right after Beth and the kids moved out, Commissioner Warren began some extensive renovations of his house. Builders, lots of electronics.”

  “We thought he was turning it into some kind of big man cave,” Leroy added. “Hell, if my wife left me, I’d do the same thing.”

  Casey shot him the side eye. “And yet Shelly is still with you.”

  Kayla shifted her gaze to Casey. “Can you show us how to get to that house?”

  The ex-police officer cocked his head, a thin smile traced across his lips. “Better, I’ll take you myself. Leroy, stay with Harry.”

  Dove stepped in. “Wait, didn’t you hear? The city is under martial law. Anyone caught outside is going to be shot at.”