In the Werewolf's Den

by Rob Preece

  His trust gave her a flush of pleasure.

  She outlined her plan to him quickly, ignoring his expressions of disbelief. Sure it was chancy. So what? It wasn't like they had a lot of other choices.

  After half a mile, she veered from her trail, then circled back.

  The dogs closed around them when she and Carl finally stopped, but she'd chosen her spot with that in mind. They crouched on a gently sloped hill with the shattered remains of a windmill at the top. Between her sling and Carl's growls, the dogs didn't dare close.

  Timing was critical now. The dogs’ handlers would catch up soon, and the helicopters would target them shortly afterwards.

  Soon, but not yet. For now, the helicopter gunships circled around overhead, apparently aimless. Her quick cutback and the large number of infrared signatures had confused them.

  And Danielle's plan only needed a few moments.

  A line of armored personnel carriers roared over a low rise, splashed through a small trickle of water, and followed along their original trail.

  "Now,” Danielle shouted.

  Carl didn't argue. Instead, he rushed toward the last of the APCs.

  The dogs must have thought Christmas had arrived early. Their torturers, so powerful when together, had separated and one was running. The pack charged after Carl.

  He slowed, letting them almost surround him and relying on Danielle's sling to keep any from striking a fatal blow.

  She followed more slowly, using what cover the ground provided and popping up to hammer a rock into whatever dogs snapped too closely at Carl.

  "What the—"

  The last APC ground to a halt. To them, it must have looked like the pack of dogs was running away from something. As she had planned, Carl blended into the pack.

  The Warder captain commanding the APC dropped his mouth open as the dogs ran up to his vehicle, one of them actually ramming its head into the tread and dropping, unconscious.

  Carl transformed his run into a leap, taking the APC captain full on the chest and shoving him off the vehicle.

  He was already in human form as he dropped through the open hatchway and into the vehicle.

  A few of the dogs snapped at the APC out of frustration, but too many quickly remembered their other, less protected target.

  Danielle broke from cover as the APC charged toward her.

  The pickup had been one of the several problems with her plan. She knew how to navigate an APC, but Carl didn't. Yet the vehicle had to come to her. She'd never make it through the circle of increasingly angry and frustrated dogs.

  The APC didn't even slow as it rolled six feet from where she stood.

  She blurred, then leapt, grabbing an antenna and pulling herself up onto the monstrous weapon.

  "Just keep driving.” Carl's voice, very human-sounding. Very deadly sounding.

  Carl, his body human and beautiful, had grabbed a pistol from somewhere and was pointing it at the pilot's head. Three other warders watched in stunned disbelief.

  "We've got to respond to their signals,” the young pilot said, his voice cracking as he fought panic and tears. “Don't you think that we've lost APCs before? They'll target us."

  "We've got a couple of minutes,” Danielle said. “So let's talk about what you're going to say."

  "I'll report situation normal,” the pilot answered quickly. Too quickly. He was planning something.

  Even in her basic training, Danielle had been taught a code for trouble, a panic button response that would sound normal to any untrained hijacker.

  "What happens if you send the panic button?” Danielle asked quietly.

  "How'd you know about, uh, I mean, I'm not sure what you're talking about, ma'am."

  She clenched the fabric of his collar, pulling his uniform tunic tight against his Adam's apple. “I'm an academy graduate, corporal. Don't try to lie to me."

  "Yes, ma'am. I mean, no, ma'am."

  "If you send the panic signal, my guess is you become target number one. That about right?"

  The poor pilot looked around to the other warders, but they pointedly looked away. Without the captain whom Carl had so unceremoniously dumped over the side, they weren't trained to make decisions. They certainly didn't want any share in the blame that would follow whichever way the pilot finally leaned.

  "At least we would have prevented our weapon from falling into enemy hands,” he finally answered, his voice a pure sulk.

  "Maybe they'd award you a medal. Posthumously,” Danielle sneered.

  A thin line of sweat ran down his neck. “Better than being shot after we let you get away."

  She had to give it to him. The soldier, hardly more than a boy, was being honest with her when it would have been easier to just buck responsibility upstairs.

  "We're going to the zone. Suppose that you just stay there with us, out of their reach."

  "Wait a minute,” Carl broke in. “The zone is for the magical. We can't just have anybody dropping in because they don't like the way things are run outside."

  "Bullshit. That's exactly what we've got to have. So what do you think, corporal? Want a chance of life with us, or to die a glorious but immediate death?"

  "Uh, live."

  "Good choice.” She looked around at the other three warder soldiers. “What about the rest of you? You can bail now, or stick with us. If you bail, they might not shoot you. But if you stick with us, you're in it for the long haul."

  "I'm out of here.” One of the soldiers stood, climbed the ladder to the hatchway, and leapt.

  The other two looked at Danielle, then at Carl. “We lost our APC. That'll mean stockade at best,” one said. “Guess I'll stay."

  Danielle wasn't sure how far she could trust them, but their personal weapons were stored in a chest that Carl guarded with a ferocity that none of the soldiers were likely to challenge.

  "Let's head for the zone,” she ordered.

  "What should I tell Command?” the pilot whined.

  "Tell them you see something and you're following up."

  "They'll send reinforcements."

  "Yeah. So?"

  He didn't have an answer to that. Of course, she didn't either, but she didn't need tell him that.

  She wasn't sure how they would get into the zone on a huge armored personnel carrier, nor whether the warders would simply follow her in and launch the invasion she had worked to prevent, but she felt a lot better protected by a few tons of armored aluminum and plastic laminate rather than just a ragged shirt.

  "Ask for them,” Carl broke in.

  "Huh?” Both the pilot and Danielle stared at him like he'd grown horns.

  "Don't resist reinforcements, demand them. If they're like any other bureaucracy, they're more likely to say no if you ask for help than if you don't."

  Danielle shrugged. “Worth a try. And remember, corporal, any funny stuff and one of those gunships has your name on it."

  "Trust me, I'm no hero."

  He picked up the radio and began a string of jargon that Danielle's training barely let her translate.

  When he finally switched off, sweat stood out from his forehead in huge beads despite the air-conditioned comfort of the APC.

  "I think they bought it. But they're sending two units as backup."

  She nodded. It would have been nice for things to go right for a change, but she was past expecting it. “Let's see what this baby can do, then."

  "Really?"

  This poor soldier definitely needed someone to mother him. Danielle had never known herself to have maternal instincts, but she patted him on the shoulder. “We're on your team now, corporal. Let's see if we can stay alive for a while."

  He nodded. Apparently her words had given him the reassurance he needed.

  "Which direction, ma'am?"

  "North-northwest,” she told him. “We'll circle away from the main group."

  He punched the acceleration pedals and roared off the path taken by the other armored vehicles.

&n
bsp; Carl shoved the gunner out of the way, taking over the weapons control system.

  "You know how to handle those weapons?” she asked him.

  "I can read directions."

  It wasn't the answer she was looking for, but what choice did she have? The pilot and the two remaining warder soldiers had made noises about cooperating, and they certainly didn't want to die, but they wouldn't mind becoming heroes by capturing the renegade warder and dangerous Were, either. She certainly wouldn't count on them to fire on any enemies.

  The APC bounced over bumps, slammed its way through small trees, and made surprisingly quick progress across the open countryside.

  "Left those other two behind for now,” the corporal grinned. “They don't have the balls to play.” He glanced at her. “Meaning no respect, ma'am."

  "Try to outdistance them gradually,” she told him. “The boys upstairs are watching."

  Sure enough, two black helicopters circled around the APC's path; occasional streaks of tracer shells snaked to the ground and indicated that they thought they'd spotted something alive and weren't taking any chances.

  "Don't guess Bert is going to make it,” the pilot told her after an especially long burst of fire targeting the area where Danielle and Carl had boarded the APC. “I thought jumping out was pretty dumb with all that shooting going on. By the way, I'm Gus."

  "Is Bert the private who decided he'd take his chances outside?"

  "That would be him.” Gus laughed bitterly. “He always had the ridiculous idea that the warders were there to protect people, so we shouldn't have any enemies. Probably thought they'd send a helicopter down to rescue him."

  Danielle didn't say anything. Until a week earlier, she'd shared Bert's beliefs. Like Bert, her naive faith had almost gotten her killed. Bert, though, had only hurt himself. Her own willingness to ignore the truth had gotten a lot of other people, innocent people, killed.

  "How close will this thing be able to get us to the zone?” she asked, hoping for a change of subjects.

  "Lady, we can drive this thing down Main Street."

  "What about the guards?"

  "They're looking inward, not outward. We'll go right through them."

  "And once we're past them, inside?"

  "Then we get shot up,” Gus admitted. “Our rear armor isn't much to write home about. These pieces of junk aren't like the old Bradleys. Now those systems could stand up to a beating."

  Danielle could understand the economizing. How much armor does it take to mow down a teenaged elf-girl? Still, right now, she wished she had a bit more protection.

  "This baby is complicated,” Carl announced from the fire control seat. “And the IFF system is designed to keep us from firing at anything remotely designated as a friendly."

  Which meant that they weren't going to get any help from the APC's weapons.

  "Maybe it will make it hard for them to shoot at us too,” Danielle suggested. “We'll just tell them we're in hot pursuit and drive through."

  As plans went, this one sucked.

  Nobody suggested anything smarter.

  Chapter 16

  Danielle hung onto the braces as Gus smashed through a tree, drove straight through a shallow brook, and then rolled over a massive barbed wire fence.

  "Here goes nothing,” Gus muttered as he brought his hands to the track levers.

  "Ten more minutes and I'll have this fire control system hacked,” Carl promised. His fingers flashed across the keyboard as he sought some way, any way, to arm his weapons against their enemies—enemies that the computer stubbornly insisted were friends.

  They didn't have ten minutes, though. Command seemed increasingly frustrated with their story about confirmed sightings. No one else had seen anything, and Command had finally realized that their supposed prey was moving too fast.

  "Just got orders to return to base,” Gus reported.

  "Make that ten seconds,” Danielle instructed Carl. “We're going in now."

  "Uh—"

  "Punch it,” she ordered Gus, cutting off Carl.

  A storm of bullets bounced off the APC's frontal armor as they approached a guard tower.

  "Guess they decided we're a foe,” Gus said. “Didn't take them long to reprogram their computers. How about some counterfire, Carl?"

  "Working on it,” he reported. Miles of engine-straining performance had overwhelmed the machine's air conditioning and sweat glistened on Carl's forehead . He punched a few keys, swore, and then punched another one.

  "Almost there."

  "Knock down the tower,” Danielle ordered Gus.

  "They're pretty sturdy,” the corporal argued. “It might break something.” But he jammed both levers full forward.

  The APC rocked as it was struck by something a lot heavier than a machine-gun bullet.

  "Just do it before they chop us into pieces,” she ordered.

  Gus nodded grimly, his face pale. “I'm on it, ma'am."

  The guard tower erupted in a storm of machine gun fire, rocket grenades, and TOW missiles.

  Gus zigged and zagged. Twice, Danielle actually saw anti-armor rockets brush past the APC.

  The machine gun fire cut off abruptly and Danielle realized that they were beneath the tower's firing angle. They were going to make it.

  Then a warder calmly stood, pointed a shoulder-mounted missile at them, and fired.

  Gus just ducked.

  The missile smashed into the APC, bringing the vehicle to an abrupt stop, knocking Danielle to the floor, and plunging them into the dim red lighting of the battery backup system.

  Gus recovered his chair, restarted the engine, then revved it. The vehicle spun in place. “Lost a tread,” Gus said. “We aren't going anywhere."

  The weapons roar was even louder this time than the first and the APC shook under its force.

  "Sorry I got you into this, guys,” Danielle told Gus and the others.

  Gus started to nod, then slammed a fist against the APC's armor. “Great shot, Carl!” She hadn't really noticed, but Carl's cursing had suddenly taken a different tone. As she watched, the tower crumpled on itself.

  "Sorry I'm a little late coming to the party,” Carl announced. “The worst thing is, we'll have to leave this baby here just when we got things going our way. They really didn't want anyone hacking that code. All sorts of traps in it."

  "Let's go,” Danielle shouted. She reached for the hatch.

  "Let me give those choppers something to think about first,” Carl said.

  He was stroking rather than hammering the keyboard now, coaxing extra effort out of a friend rather than beating cooperation from an enemy.

  The APC shuddered again as it launched a flurry of lead into the air.

  "I put it on automatic,” Carl announced. “Anything that flies too close gets shot at. Might give us a bit of cover."

  And it might not. Either way, it was time to leave the comfort of their vehicle and make a break for the questionable safety of the zone.

  She popped the hatch, blurred, and flew up the ladder.

  A couple of warders were halfheartedly popping at the APC with personal weapons. They scattered when Carl pressed a button on the keyboard and blasted the neighborhood.

  "Move,” Danielle commanded.

  Gus, the two other soldiers whose names she hadn't managed to learn, and finally Carl emerged from the battered APC.

  "You'd better lead,” Carl said. “If three soldiers come barging into the middle of the zone, they're likely to get shot."

  Danielle wasn't so sure why her reception would be any better than that for the soldiers, or why Carl got to play hero, but this wasn't the time to argue.

  "Come on,” she shouted.

  She blurred again, moving quickly ahead to ensure that the men weren't going to get shot at, and then letting them catch up.

  Carl morphed into his wolf form and cleared the terrified remainder of the tower warders from their posts. Weapons that would have been effective against the onrus
hing APC were too slow and awkward against the fast-moving Were.

  Danielle didn't see the black helicopter dropping from the sky until it was almost on top of them. It swerved to avoid the storm of computer-controlled fire coming from the now distant APC and descended.

  A door opened in the chopper and a rope ladder dropped out. Danielle saw a group of camouflaged warders preparing to lower themselves down. Presumably they wanted to capture her since the gunship's huge cannons remained silent.

  Carl howled and charged toward them, but he was too far away to catch them before the warders arrived. Not that he could do much when he got there. The warders would be equipped with silver bullets.

  She'd picked up a handgun and fired a couple of shots into the helicopter, but the warders’ body armor protected them. Her automatic locked empty, ejecting its cartridge.

  Well, damn. This wasn't the ending she'd been looking for.

  "Keep running,” she told her adopted soldiers. “I'll hold them off as long as I can."

  Which would be about half a second. Still, it was better than nothing.

  "Bullcrap,” Gus answered. He reached into his shirt, and withdrew what looked like a flare gun, only larger and uglier.

  "I always wanted to try this.” He fired directly into the open door.

  The helicopter exploded into a fireball.

  "Guess I really can't go back now,” he grinned, tossing the single shot weapon on the ground. “Hope you weren't kidding about the zone being open to us normals."

  "Let's head there and find out,” Danielle said.

  * * * *

  Carl had used the week she'd bought him through her hacking of the warder computers and the manhunt her escape had created. While Carl had been bringing her in, Mike the Vampire had focused zone defenses around the southern end.

  Still, as Danielle crouched in a newly dug slit trench, she wondered if it mattered. The invading warders had too much armor, too many helicopters, too many trained soldiers for her to believe that Carl's impromptu militia could do anything but make them angry.

  The first wave of armor met a pathetic love-tap of fire as magical creatures opened up with what few weapons they'd been able to hide from the frequent warder raids. One APC bogged down, but most simply shrugged off the low-caliber fire.