He put Jim with his pistol on the main road, behind an old rusted hulk that had been a pickup truck.
Terry told Mark to head another quarter mile perpendicular to the newcomers’ avenue of approach and protect the left flank. He gave him a magazine with ten rounds. “If you shoot, make every shot count. Sight alignment. Sight picture. Breathe out and squeeze. Go.” Mark ran off.
Char stayed with Terry. “Do you want a knife or something?” he asked.
“Nope. I’m good,” she replied. He thought he saw fire in her eyes, but it was only for a moment. If she needed to change into a Werewolf during the fight, he wouldn’t begrudge her that. Whatever it took. This was the deadly serious part of being the security chief. Winning was all that mattered. The only fair fight is the one you lose.
He nodded and started walking down the road toward the incoming mob.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“Boss,” Harold called. Once Sawyer turned toward him, the man pointed ahead. A man and a woman were walking toward them on the road.
Sawyer Brown watched for a moment. “He’s armed. Spread out, you idiots,” he called. The ditches along the side of the road were filled with debris. Broken down fences blocked most of the way out of the ditch. Two men went left, picking their way through until they were beyond and in a relatively open area. They rode ahead quickly until they were abreast the two people Two men went to the right, but they couldn’t get through. They settled for riding as close to the ditch as possible.
Sawyer gave up and spurred his horse forward until he was right behind Harold and Smeghead, ensuring they shielded him in case any shooting started. The man and woman finally stopped walking. The man’s rifle was slung differently than what Sawyer was used to seeing. It hung under his arm, casually, yet ready to fire. He wore other gear that made him look like a soldier from days past. Sawyer called his men to a halt.
The woman was striking and once Sawyer saw her, everything else he’d been thinking about disappeared. He was close enough to see her purple eyes and brown hair, the silver streak on one side. She was tall and shapely. She carried nothing, and like the man, she stood easy, confident, unconcerned about the armed and dangerous men before her.
“Ho there, friend,” Sawyer called. The two didn’t move. The woman looked to her right where two horses with Sawyer’s riders stood still, watching from the side. “I said, ho, friend.” Sawyer repeated, as he slowly removed one pistol from its holster.
* * *
“What business do you have here?” Terry Henry asked, all the while assessing the enemy. He’d seen the big man loosen his pistol and then hold it in his lap. He also noted how the big man positioned himself behind the two in the lead. A bully. A coward. You die first, fucker, Terry thought.
“We are looking to trade, that’s all, friend. Who am I talking with?” the man offered, but he wasn’t convincing as a trader. “Shut up, Clyde!” the big man added as the dog on the road barked and growled, keeping his attention fixed solely on Charumati.
“That’s different. I thought you were coming to try and take what we have, but if you’re willing to trade, then I’m sure we can work something out. Put all your weapons and ammunition on the ground and we’ll see you get as much food as you can carry.”
The big man snorted as he gently stroked his pistol, a 9mm Glock, if Terry wasn’t mistaken.
“By the way, friend,” Terry said, making the word “friend” a pejorative, “a nice, young couple lived in that cabin that just burned down. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?” Terry taunted. He turned his head just enough to hide that he was whispering out the corner of his mouth. “Take the two in the field, when I fire.”
Char nodded almost imperceptibly. She could smell the men’s thoughts of lust. It sickened her. She started shaking with anticipation of an impending kill. C’mon, TH, shoot him already. Let’s get this party started! she encouraged within the confines of her own mind.
“Nah. It was burning when we rode past. Nothing we could do, so we kept on,” the big man parried.
“I’m Terry Henry Walton, security chief for New Boulder, and who may I have the pleasure of addressing?” Terry continued to size up the tactical situation. Seven were bunched on the road, two in front, two partially blocked near the ditch, the big man hiding, and two more further back. Then there were the two in the field. Nine total men, most armed with Kalashnikovs. The big man carried two small pistols. He was clearly their leader. Terry wondered how dedicated the others would be to the fight when their boss was lying dead on the ground.
“I’m Sawyer Brown and these are my boys. We come from a small place south of Denver,” Sawyer replied, giving the same that he received. “Clyde!” he yelled again. The mutt stood with its hackles up, growling and baring its fangs.
“Well, Sawyer Brown, how about we go back to that cabin and see how things are, talk to that couple, make sure they’re okay.” One of the men in front of him snickered, then covered his mouth as he darted glances back to his boss and forward to Terry.
“I don’ think there’s any need to do that. I think that fine lady should come closer and say hi to me,” Sawyer said, ogling Char appreciatively. His boys also looked at the woman. Terry glanced from one to the next. No eyes were on him. He smoothly pulled his .45 and held it behind his leg.
“What do you think, Char? I can go right if you want to go talk with the big man?” Terry said, hoping she got his meaning. She turned and winked at Terry, before sauntering forward. She walked between the two men acting as a shield for their boss. As she passed, she trailed a single finger down each of their legs, not looking up to see the effect it had on them.
Clyde backed up slowly and started to bark again.
Terry watched it all, stuffing the pistol into his pocket as he readied his rifle. The two closest men turned their backs on him as they watched Char approach Sawyer Brown. The big man was licking his lips, eyes wide in anticipation.
* * *
Billy set the pace as they jogged back to his house. Ivan seemed to be keeping up with no problem, a huge change from only recently. Felicity didn’t like walking and downright despised running. She struggled through only because of the threat to their lives. Billy hurried the small group. He wanted to be armed and swore that he’d never leave the house again without carrying a weapon. It was embarrassing to be running and not have a rifle with him.
Once they were close, Billy yelled over his shoulder. “I’m running to get my rifle, and I’ll cover you as you make it the last bit.” Felicity took that as her cue to walk. Billy left them behind as he raced for the house, straight through the front door, and to the armory. He opened it and left it unlocked as he jammed a magazine into the slot of his AK-74 and pulled the bolt back, letting it ram a cartridge into the chamber. He raced upstairs, opened the window, and looked out. He couldn’t see what he wanted to see. A tree and a lone house blocked his sight of the road approaching from the south.
The black smoke from the cabin fire continued to drift skyward, lighter now, but still there. The last of the wooden timbers had held out as long as they could, Billy surmised, and now they were giving in, turning to ash and coals.
He shook his head in disbelief as Felicity and Ivan walked toward the house, chatting as if on a Sunday stroll. “Would you two idiots get in here!” Billy yelled. Felicity stopped where she was and slowly dialed up her middle finger that she thrust in the air at him. Then they started walking again.
“Ivan! Go grab the shotgun from the armory and watch out back,” Billy ordered. Ivan jogged forward and entered the house, not waiting to hold the door for Felicity. She walked in, closing the door behind her and locking it once inside.
Time for you to earn your keep, Terry Henry Walton, she thought. Those men had best not make it here.
* * *
Terry looked quickly about, using just his eyes so the enemy wouldn’t see movement until it was too late. He confirmed that the enemy were all looking a
t Char. It was time.
Terry dropped to a knee and fired at one of the men in the field on their right flank. The man went down. The second horse bucked. Terry waited until all four hooves hit the dirt, then he squeezed the trigger. He didn’t wait to see the second man fall. Terry was a sitting duck if he stayed in the middle of the road. He assumed the rest of Sawyer’s gang would attack, so he dove forward, off the road, and rolled into the ditch.
At the sound of the shot, Sawyer snapped his head up to see who fired. Char took two steps and leaped. The big man started to raise his pistol but he was too late. Char flew at him, rotating her trunk to add power to her right-handed jab. She hit him in the face with everything she had, but he was the biggest man she’d ever tackled. He rocked backward, then slowly tumbled from his horse. Char bounced off him and spun away, landing lightly on the ground.
The men up front were fumbling with their weapons, and she couldn’t see where TH had gone, so that was the direction she decided to go. She ran toward the two between her and Terry, grabbing an arm of each man and yanking them from their saddles. When they hit the ground, she kicked one in the face and seized the other by his head, savagely twisting it around. She broke his neck and dumped him where he died. She throat-punched the first man so hard, she felt his spine with her knuckles. The man flopped in his death throes, unable to take a breath through his crushed windpipe.
Char dodged behind the horses as a shot rang out from behind her. Then a second. Terry returned fire from the ditch, but only once. He was too limited on ammunition to fire without having a clean shot.
Char guided the scared horses toward the two men at the side of the ditch. She slapped the horses hard, driving them before her. They ran into the other two, and she bolted around them, heading for one of the two men. He pointed his rifle at her, but she was too close and struck the end of the barrel with her hand as he fired. The bullet whizzed past her ear as the blast deafened her. She ripped the rifle from the man’s hand as the butt of another rifle crashed into the back of her head.
Sparks and stars was all she saw as she stumbled forward, bumped against the horse, and started to fall. A rough hand grabbed her and started to drag her upward. She screamed and it turned into a howl as she involuntarily changed into her Werewolf form. She raked the man’s arm with her claws and then bit his face. The Werewolf kicked off the horse and flipped backwards, landing with all four paws in the middle of the second man’s chest.
* * *
“What the hell is going on? I can’t see anything, I’m going up to the attic,” Billy said, frantic at the sound of gunfire. He ran for the access, pulling down the folding ladder, and quickly climbing into the hot, dry attic. He scrambled upward and into the dark, where he had to wait until he could see enough to not fall through the ceiling. There were boards placed across the ceiling runners that he carefully negotiated to get to the window. Once there, he flung it open and looked out. Finally, he could see into the distance, but it was far enough away that he couldn’t make out details.
He could hear the firing, but couldn’t tell who was doing it. The volume of fire suggested that it wasn’t Terry’s men. They didn’t have the ammunition for it.
He watched what looked like a skirmish on the main road. Two horses were prancing in a field to the right of the road. To the left was another open field, but there were no horses out there. He thought he saw men running in the fields, but couldn’t be sure who they were.
There was something going on with four horses wedged tightly into one area. He waited for them to separate so he could try to figure out what happened.
* * *
As the Werewolf crashed into him, the man tried to cover his head with his arm, but Char clamped her jaws on it and bit through his forearm. With a shake of her head, she ripped that part of his arm free. He screamed in panic as she dragged him from the horse and hauled him bodily into the ditch, where she tore his body apart in her rage. Once the bloodlust settled, she changed back into human form and looked for her clothes, which were torn and covered in blood and dirt.
Terry watched Char as she changed, but only briefly as he had the last two men to deal with. Those two were firing as if ammunition was easy to come by. He kept his head down as bullets pinged and splattered all around him. When he was able to get off a shot, it wasn’t well aimed. He hated to waste it, but he had to do something. With Char engaged, he was on his own. Then he saw the rifles in the road from the first two men Char had killed. He decided to leave cover when he heard other shots coming from the field.
Mark was running on one side and Devlin, the other. They were shooting while running, an ill-advised tactic, but it distracted the last of Sawyer’s men and gave Terry the opening he needed. He jumped from the ditch, ran two steps, and dove for the closest rifle. He flipped it off safe, aimed, and fired.
Click.
He looked at it. Although a magazine was seated, the rifle hadn’t been loaded. He frantically searched for ammunition while lying prone in the road. While Terry was digging through the pockets of the dead, Sawyer Brown came to his senses enough to act. He used the saddle’s stirrup to help pull himself to his feet. He crawled onto his horse’s back and yanked the beast’s head around as he spurred it back south. With Sawyer’s horse out of the way, Terry found himself exposed in the middle of the road. The two men took aim, but their horses were dancing as they watched their boss race past.
Terry rolled back toward the ditch as the last two men turned and followed their fleeing leader. When Terry crawled from the ditch and aimed his M4 at the retreating forms, something bumped his leg. He jumped back, only to find Clyde at his feet, looking at him, panting and wagging his tail.
Mark and Devlin fired a couple more times, but Terry yelled at them through cupped hands to stop wasting ammunition.
“Catch those horses!” He pointed at Devlin as the young man ran through the field. He slowed, slung his rifle over his shoulder, and walked slowly toward the animals, holding his hands up and trying not to spook the horses any more than they already were.
Terry picked up the rifles and scoured the bodies for ammunition, pleased with what he was able to amass. The first rifle he recovered, the one he tried to fire, was bad. It had a broken firing pin. But he could use it for parts for the other rifles, all AK-47s, which fired the 7.62 x 39mm round. Between the four men on the ground, there were hundreds of rounds of ammunition and three working rifles.
Mark worked his way through the ditch and looked oddly at Char, finally approaching her and asking if she was okay. Her clothes were torn, disheveled, and covered in blood. She looked as if she’d been attacked and violated, but she assured him that wasn’t the case. Terry handed the weapons and ammunition to Mark.
Terry approached Char. “Are you all right?” he asked, concerned after Mark had just had the same question. He’d heard the shot, but didn’t know if she’d been hit.
“I’m fine, just got a little over-exuberant, shall we say? Did you see…?” she asked.
“See what?” He pointed down the road. “I was occupied with the Ballslappy McAsshats that got away.” Terry looked down the road at the dust from the retreating horses and clenched his jaw.
She didn’t need to know that he knew.
Each of the men who escaped was someone they’d have to fight again. “We have rifles, ammunition, and horses. I think we need to follow those asswipes, all the way to their home, and then clean out the nest of snakes,” Terry hissed.
“Where’s Jim?” Terry asked, looking at Mark. He pointed down the road to the position Jim had been assigned and started waving. Soon they could see the larger man jogging toward them.
Devlin rode one horse and led the other as he negotiated his way from the field, through the fence and ditch, and onto the road.
Terry reassessed the tactical situation. Six enemy down, no friendlies injured. Three escaped, including the leader and that was a major shortcoming. Five rifles and one shotgun recovered. Four rifles function
al. Once they checked the saddlebags, they found more ammunition, an entire brick—about a thousand rounds for the AK-47s. They only found four shells for the 12-gauge. And then there were the six horses.
The men carried nothing remarkable besides their weapons. The saddles were rough but functional, and the horses looked lean, leaner than they should have been.
Terry wanted to leave that instant to follow Sawyer Brown and finish him, but the horses were in poor shape and he needed to train his men on how to use their new rifles. He also wanted to conduct an after action, teach them how to train themselves to be better by reviewing every single action taken during the engagement.
No time like the present.
They removed the saddles and let the horses graze along the ditch where the grasses were growing fairly well. Terry brought his people together in a circle. Clyde barked and snapped at Char. When she’d had enough, her hand lashed out and grabbed the dog by the scruff of its neck. She picked it up and held it before her face. She bared her teeth and yelled in its face.
The dog went limp, whimpering. She put it back down, gently. “Now shut up, you dumb dog,” she cautioned. Clyde slinked away until he was behind Terry Henry.
“I guess we know who the alpha is,” Mark said.
Char’s head rocketed up and she glared at him. “What did you say?” she demanded, although she’d heard clearly.
“Nothing. Nothing at all,” he countered.
The alpha. She liked the sound of that. Maybe she’d take care of business when her pack returned. They needed a new alpha, and with what TH was going to teach her, she’d be ready to deal with Marcus when the time came.
“Listen up, we’re going to walk through this engagement, talk about every aspect of it, what we liked, what we didn’t like, and what we need to do better. This review will establish our training plan until we can make sure those horses are healthy. And then we go after one Sawyer Brown and make sure he never bothers us again…”
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