by C. E. Martin
He turned back to Dean Johnson. "How many of these things are there?"
"How should I know—they all look alike."
"We're switching to burst contact," Kenslir said. "And radio communication between each other."
"Yes, sir," Smith answered.
"Keep together. You've got strength in numbers."
"Will do, Colonel."
"Bad news," Paul Briones announced, approaching Josie, Smith and Phillips. "In the fight, a lot of our gear got trashed. Looks like we're down to three '249s."
"Briones, Jacobson and Stevens—you're on MG duty," Smith directed. "Kane?"
"Right here, sir," Jimmy said. He was seated on the floor of the tunnel, taking his boots off.
"You think you can track these things?"
"No problem—and someone can have my M4. I won't need it."
***
In the machine shop, Kenslir's wounds were fully healed now. Laura Olson was bending inch-thick metal rods together, fashioning a crude crutch.
"Where's the portal device?" Kenslir asked Dean Johnson.
"Down the hall—not far from here. Can I have a gun?"
Kenslir started to unzip his assault vest, but Laura stopped him.
"Hold on, he can have my stuff," she said. "It's like wearing a damn straightjacket."
She unzipped her assault vest and the leg straps for her shotgun and passed them to Johnson.
"All you brought is a shotgun?"
"I travel light. And here," she said, passing Johnson the improvised crutch.
"My rifle's shot," Kenslir said, examining the cracked plastic and bent steel of his autoshotgun. Slung across his back at the time he was attacked, it had borne the brunt of the überwolves' attack.
"I'm sorry," Laura said, coming over and patting him on the shoulder. "Tell you what, I'll take you gun shopping, you take me shoe shopping." She pointed down at her bare feet.
Johnson was adjusting the straps on the assault vest, so it would fit him. "What now, boss?"
"We need to secure the portal. If there are any more, we don't want them escaping, or calling for reinforcements."
Once Johnson had his vest adjusted and on, with the shotgun holster strapped to his good leg, he Kenslir and Laura Olson exited the room, heading down the long, glowing-brick tunnel. Like the aircraft hangar, the tunnel in this part of the base was constructed long before the Nazis, but had been blasted in several places, to make new chambers in the mountain.
"So where we at, boss?" Johnson asked, hopping along on his makeshift crutch.
"The construction is very similar to what we found in Greece. I'd wager this is another antediluvian structure. Much older than the one in Arizona."
"That's it," Johnson said, pointing to a double set of doors put in the smooth-walled tunnel. Rough concrete and steel welds held them in place, and the doors were simple swinging ones, with no locking mechanism.
The Colonel drew his OA-93 from his thigh holster and pushed cautiously through the doors.
The chamber beyond was nowhere near as big as that of the aircraft hangar, but it was large. It appeared to be a courtyard of sorts, with a large fountain in the middle–a gleaming metal ring, about nine feet in diameter, standing upright in the fountain.
Wires and tubes were connected to the ring, leading over to a huge assortment of machinery and equipment the size of a large delivery van clearly added to the room by the Germans. Overhead an arched ceiling extended upwards three levels. On each level, balconies were visible, with corridors leading off of them.
"Did you see them activate it?" Kenslir asked, cybernetically switching his tactical goggles to record mode.
"No, sir," Johnson said. "They were on my ass as soon as I came through."
Kenslir walked over to the machinery, submachinegun still at the ready. Part of the machines seemed distinct from the rest, but were connected by more wiring. This smaller block of metal cabinets and pipework featured an old-fashioned globe and a large, open bowl, the insides of which were charred black.
"I smell blood," Laura said, walking up beside him. She rubbed a finger in the bowl while the Colonel looked through documents spread out on a table beside the machinery.
"Yep, burnt blood," Laura said, sniffing at a finger.
"Greenberg and Katz," Kenslir said, holding up a document. It was an old paper, yellowed with age, with a picture of Yadid Greenberg from the 1940s, when he was very young. At the bottom of the page, a long strip had been torn off, just below several paragraphs of German print.
Kenslir pulled another page from the table—this one was intact, the bottom edge stained a dark brown.
"Let me see that," Laura said, taking the page. She sniffed the brown at the bottom and then licked it. "Blood. Human blood."
She read the information on the paper. "Mr. Schwartz's blood, I presume."
"So what does all this stuff do?" Johnson said, looking at the machinery. It was ancient, with old style gauges and vacuum tubes.
"Blood sacrifice," Kenslir guessed, pointing to the bowl. "They burn the blood and the machine gives them a location for the target—empathic resonance. Then they open a portal at those coordinates."
"Jackpot," Laura said, holding up a rack with seven vials of what appeared to be blood in it.
Kenslir took one of the vials and read the label. "Erik."
"And Bernhart and Friedrich and Sleepy and Dopey," Laura said. She took one vial and set the others down. Uncorking it, she sniffed at the blood inside. "Looks like we only had seven of these little dwarves to worry about."
"Seven?" Johnson asked, surprised. "That means..." he started counting on his fingers.
"Three. Three are left," Kenslir said.
CHAPTER THIRTY
She was pretty sure she had a concussion and at least one of her ribs was cracked, but Javan Wallach wasn't giving up.
After she'd been thrown into the wall by the überwolf, she thought for sure she was going to die. But the stone soldiers had shown up and drastically turned the tide of battle. Two of the monsters were killed, and the third ran away.
And she damned sure wasn't going to let it escape.
Javi had been able to track the monster for a while, following the blood it leaked onto the ground and the sooty smears it left on door handles as it fled through the bunker complex. But eventually the trail had turned cold—just like the enormous bunker.
Well, that wasn't entirely true. As she'd descended, and passed from rough hewn stone tunnels into ones lined with the eerily glowing bricks, the temperature had increased. It was an odd sensation, being able to feel heat and cold, but not actually being able to feel either.
She estimated she was far below the surface of the glacier now, having followed a spiral, winding ramp down, down, and down. There were no signs of the creature, but her gut told her she was on the right path.
She began to hear strange creaking and grating noises ahead. At first she worried it might be the beast she was pursuing. She was down to just a few magazines for the Uzi, and her Mk 23 pistol. She was hoping to catch the creature unawares as it licked its wounds. They'd managed to stop one once before with gunfire—if only for a few moments. She'd stop this one and then cut its head off. She didn't need superhuman strength or magic to do that.
The ramp finally leveled out and Wallach walked out into an enormous cavern, formed by sheer rock walls and thick ice high overhead. It was the size of a football stadium—well over a hundred feet high. Formed by two ridge lines, separated by a wide canal, with the glacier overhead.
Just as the Detachment's werewolf and the Colonel had predicted, the Germans had found a sub-glacial channel leading deep into the continent. Warm waters remained unfrozen here, where ancients had once built a port. The glacier was melted in this warm pocket, forming a gigantic bubble-like valley—a vast air pocket under the ice.
The far shore was rough, unfinished black rock—another ridge like the one the underground complex was built in. The side she was on wa
s lined with buildings made from the glowing white bricks—a wide row of shops or residences or something—stretching out on either side of the tunnel for several hundred feet. All built along the edge of a massive stone and marble dock.
The channel was a couple hundred feet wide under the glacier—the sound of the creaking and grating she had heard came from the ice shifting above. The channel started here at the dock, stretching out, flowing north. It passed under the edge of where the glacial ice came down and met the water, headed towards the coast over a hundred miles away. Only a submarine could navigate this channel.
Javi walked to the edge of the dock, senses alert for any sign of the überwolf she was stalking. She crouched and dipped a hand into the water. It was luke warm. Some kind of geothermal spring, perhaps. Which accounted for the warm pocket around the dock.
A slight clicking noise caught her attention. Javi stood slowly, Uzi at the ready. It was coming from one of the many pueblo-like buildings carved from the cliff face and covered in glowing bricks.
Something was moving in one of the buildings.
***
In Detachment 1039's Command Center, Major Robert Campbell was hurrying through the latest packet of information burst-transmitted from Antarctica. He watched the recorded video in fast-forward, trying to keep up with the team's recorded progress in the event real-time transmission resumed.
"Sir!" an Airman called out from one of the many workstations in the room. It was the Space Command liaison.
"What is it?" Campbell asked, looking up from his own panel. "You have something?"
"Heat bloom," the Airman said. "Keyhole has detected something coming out of the complex, onto the glacier."
"Zoom in!" Campbell said, duplicating the Airman's display on one of the large monitors hung on the wall.
Sure enough, one of the überwolves had just emerged from the bunker complex. The storm had died considerably, but he was still hard to detect in all the swirling ice crystals. He was moving away from the complex, east, out onto the glacier.
"Colonel!" Campbell said, transmitting the images and his own audio to Kenslir. "One of them has just left the complex."
"I see him," Kenslir said. "We're still a man down—Commander Smith is searching for Ms. Wallach. I've secured the portal device. Start putting together a recovery operation for this site."
"What about the other two targets?"
"I'm sure they'll turn up somewhere," Kenslir said. He zoomed in on the aerial feed showing the fleeing überwolf, the imagery displayed in the augmented reality of his tactical goggles.
"Where do you think you're going?"
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Javi was sure she'd heard it. Yes, there it was again. A kind of clicking noise—almost a tapping.
She was deep inside the large buildings lining the dock now. Whatever they had been in antiquity, the Nazis had pillaged them, removing everything and replacing it with crates of equipment and supplies—most of which were empty.
She crept along slowly, weaving between the stacked man-sized, open crates, her Uzi at the ready. The chambers off the dock were large, but all seemed to be connected by small openings between one another, allowing her to travel parallel to the water. Whatever she was pursuing was moving away from the tunnel to the upper levels. She wondered if the base had verm-
Away from the tunnel. A cold chill went up her spine and she stopped. She was well over a hundred feet away from the tunnel now—four chambers past it. Even in a flat out run, on an open plain, that was too much distance. She would never be able to outrun an überwolf.
She suddenly felt like a fly, lured into a trap by a spider.
She decided it might be best to back off and ask for some help. She fumbled in her vest pockets for the data cable to reattach her goggles. Then she heard a clicking noise in one of the chambers she'd already passed through. Behind her.
Now she knew what it was. Claws on stone.
Javi quickly weighed her options. She had four magazines of 9mm ammunition and her pistol. No grenades—the Colonel had been concerned she'd blow him or his granddaughter up. Just white phosphorous and neurotoxin-laced silver bullets.
The chamber she was in was open in the front. A wide opening big enough to drive a car through. Beyond that was thirty feet of stone dock, then the water. She might be able to make it.
She heard a low rumble—a growl from one of the creatures stalking her. It was nearby. Maybe in this chamber, ducked low behind the crates.
Javi made up her mind. She aimed her Uzi and fired as she sprinted for the dock.
***
"You're sure?" Commander Smith asked, looking down the long ramp that spiraled down. He tapped at the control pad strapped to the back of his left arm. The tactical goggles displayed a map of the complex, created as the teams moved around in it. The ramp was definitely headed down, away from the rest of the complex. Down to sea level.
Jimmy changed back to human form, his t-shirt and camouflaged stretch pants once more hanging loosely on his body. "Definitely. She went this way, recently. And I'm smelling something else. Maybe two of the überwolves."
"One out on the glacier, two below—that's a full head count," Smith said, looking to Chad Phillips. "Briones, Jacobson, Hornbeck and Stevens. You're with me. Chad, take the kids and head for the portal chamber."
"You sure that's a good idea?" Chad Phillips asked. "You might need my help."
"I'd rather get these two somewhere safe," Smith said. "I think we can handle two of them. Right, Kane?"
"Right. Two. Three tops," he said. When Smith gave him a deep frown, he revised his estimate. "Two. I'm ninety-nine percent sure."
***
Javi was down to her pistol now. She'd been firing her Uzi in short, controlled bursts into the openings along the dock. The überwolves had learned the painful lesson of the bullets. They ducked in and out, only revealing themselves for a moment and drawing her fire.
Javi had tried to work her way along the edge of the dock, back to the tunnel, but the creatures were not having it. She glanced back, over her shoulder, at the warm waters behind her, wondering if the Germans could swim.
Her mind was made up for her as both überwolves appeared—one to her left and one to her right. They were growling, hunkered over, bodies trembling with rage. They looked as though they might leap at her any minute.
Javi chose the one on her right, closest to her pistol. She fired several shots as she stepped back off the dock, plunging into the water.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
"What do you mean stay here?" Laura Olson demanded. "And do what, paint my nails?"
"You need to secure the portal," Kenslir said. "If Kane is wrong and one of those things shows up, you destroy it. No hesitation."
"Where are you going?" Laura asked.
"I've got to catch that one on the surface. You saw Miami—they can create more of themselves. If they haven't already. We have to eliminate them all, here, now."
"And you think you can catch it on foot?"
"Maybe, maybe not. But sitting here won't do any good."
"Can't we scramble a plane or something? Maybe wait til the weather clears, then I can fly after it?"
Kenslir considered this for a moment. "What if you caught it? How would you kill it? You didn't look like you were doing so well back in the tunnel."
Laura crossed her arms, scowling, but unable to think of what to say.
"Follow instructions for once—please," the Colonel said. He turned and dashed out of the room.
"God, he infuriates me," she said after Kenslir had left.
"Almost done," Dean Johnson said. He was on his hands and knees, crouched by the machinery connected directly to the portal ring. "This should blow it into enough pieces even Doctor King would have a hard time putting it back together."
The stone soldier crawled back, away from the glob of C-4 explosives the Colonel had given him, trailing a long detonator wire. He managed to get back on his good leg
and scooped up his makeshift crutch.
Colonel Kenslir reappeared in the doorway to the chamber. "Olson—how much power can you store up?"
Laura was shocked to see him and stuttered for a moment. "I-I don't—what are you doing? I thought you were chasing down Rover?"
"Can you store lifeforce indefinitely?"
"What? I mean, yes, but why?"
"Flying might not be such a bad idea."
***
The gunfire died out, just as the stone soldiers raced down the ramp and out into the dock under the glacier. The men slid to a halt, stunned as they took in the sheer size of the chamber and the thousands upon thousands of tons of ice suspended above their heads.
"There!" Commander Smith yelled, pointing to his left.
The men all turned and immediately sighted the two überwolves, crouched near the edge of the dock, looking down into the water.
Briones, Stevens, Jacobson and Hornbeck all opened fire immediately, M249s and M4 spewing out streams of lead, silver and pain.
The überwolves roared defiantly as the fusillade of bullets tore into them. They staggered back, the one closest to the team dropping to one knee, smoke rising from burning fur and flesh as white phosphorous sizzled inside him.
Commander Smith immediately charged forward, a Bowie knife in each hand.
The furthest überwolf bellowed and dove into the water, while its brother tried to move back, toward the shelter of the storage buildings built into the cliff face.
Smith reached the beast, slowed as it was by neurotoxins trying to shut down its nervous system. He leapt and crashed down onto the creature, sinking both blades into its back. It screamed in pain and rolled onto its back, trying to shake him off.
"I got the other one!" Isaac Jacobson said, running and jumping into the water.
***
"Josie, Jimmy—what's your location?" Colonel Kenslir asked. He and Laura Olson were back in the aircraft hangar, searching the walls.
