Immortal Death (Kieran Grey Psionic Hunter Book 3)

by Fivecoat, R. B.

  The snake-man’s coming back? For his eggs?

  “Cassie. How could he have eggs? You think there is a female king cobra around too?” The thought of fighting two of the beasts wasn’t appealing in the least. I started peeling off my coats as well. Darcy followed suit.

  “King cobras are asexual. They reproduce with only themselves.”

  “That’s no fun,” Darcy joked in an attempt to lift the mood.

  “You want firepower?” Tanaka’s voice filled our ears.

  “Cassie?” I asked her and she shrugged back. “Not yet Tanaka. I want to save the big guns for later.”

  Without the bulky parka and jumpsuit over my armor it was much easier to move. And that’s what we did. I stared down the hole in the closet to the dirt below. When nothing but the shadows from the fire moved, I jumped down. The circular room had been dug out underneath the cabin. Claw marks littered the walls with a scratchy pattern where they had scraped away the earth. Near the entrance were the corpses. Each one showing the advanced signs of weeks of decomposition in a high heat area. Off to the far end of the room a fire blazed. The flames were low, already dying out in some areas of the twelve-foot-wide bonfire that had once been large enough to scorch the cabin floor above.

  Darcy dropped down with nothing but her stick in hand. She used it to point at the large snakeskin that had been shed on the other side of the bodies. “Is that how damn big that thing is?”

  Cassie followed her down. “No. It shed its skin. That means it’s bigger now.” The girl shook off the impact of the drop and jumped to her feet. Blind determination coated her face. She stormed over to the nest and raised her guns.

  “What’re you doin’?”

  “They have to be destroyed Big Sister. If they hatch, each one will be as strong as the parent. Babies that are as strong as adults already.”

  Like you?

  “Are you sure? We have to kill them? No other choice?”

  “No. Master Yuric was very clear. None of the children can be allowed to mature enough to hatch.” Ripper rounds launched out of her guns before we could discuss it further.

  The nest was devastated under the explosive ammo.

  “NNNOOOOOO!!!” a hissing roar filled the room. It echoed off the walls making it impossible to pinpoint.

  We circled up back to back in the center of the room.

  “I think daddy’s home,” Darcy’s voice dropped an octave with a throaty growl to it she’d never had before.

  I risked a glance over my shoulder at her. Her fangs were out, and her eyes had bleed through to glow with the power surge inside her body. But it was the look on her face that scared the piss out of me. The murderous glee on her face looked exactly like the dead Kraddick.

  “Darcy? You alright?”

  “Yesss. I’ve never felt this good before. So alive. So powerful.” Her lips twisted into a sadistic grin that made me cringe.

  The comm in my glasses clicked once to let me know one of our group had switched over to a personal channel only I would hear.

  “She’s changed with Kraddick’s blood in her system,” Tanaka pointed out the obvious. “What she is feeling is a berserker’s bloodrage. Only extremely powerful master vampires have that ability. Watch your ass. She doesn’t know how to control it. It could consume her. Then she’d kill anything that moved.”

  Wonderful!

  “Floaty. Security Protocol Beta. Spectrographic location of target.” Cassie kept searching the room with her eyes, but had frozen in place waiting for the attack.

  The flying robot shimmered back into visibility and started spinning in place. It never had a chance to finish a single rotation.

  Like a volcano, the bonfire erupted, spewing fire and ash . . . as well as one oversized weresnake. Thirty feet of evil uncoiled and lunged for us with enough power to knock Darcy and I flat, even against my shields and her ubervamp-superpowers. The reptilian version of the arachnataur scooped up Cassie in its immense hand, slamming her into the wall of the cave hard enough to partially embed her into the packed dirt.

  Floaty came to life with dual guns blazing. Explosive blue fire rained down harmlessly against the tough scales of the monster, doing little more than just pissing it off further. The creature’s tail suddenly filled my vision; slamming into me hard enough to hurt even through my shields. It smacked me away like a person batting away an annoying insect.

  Darcy passed me as we flew. Me flying towards the remains of the fire on the far end of the cave, her right towards the snake-man. I was protected by my armor and shields when I landed amongst the flames. By the time I was back up and running again, Darcy was on the attack.

  The monster wailed in pain, flailing its arm in an attempt to grab the vampire attached to its back. Darcy’s fingers were imbedded into the scaly flesh clear to the last knuckle. As soon as it twisted just the right way, she lunged in and bit the creature’s neck, bringing forth a rain of fresh blood.

  Cassie called for Floaty. The robot buzzed between her and the snake, drawing its attention away from the child. She spun between the grasp of the creature and the wall like a dancer. Little Cassie slipped its grasp and dropped to the floor in a graceful glide, only to pounce back up . . . blades ready. Her arms shot out, the blades extended from her grasp, working like scissors as they cut clean through the weresnake’s neck.

  Darcy jerked back on the beast, flinging its body beyond me into the flames. The move fully separated the severed head from the body. It flew straight towards me. There was still life in the eyes of the beast as I watched it come closer.

  A simple thought, a nudge of the shields, and a flick of the wrist was all it took to draw out the obsidian blade and cleave the severed head in two. Both halves sailed past and found their way into the growing mass of flames behind me.

  Muscles twitched in the death-throws of the beast as it was consumed by the flames. I stood there watching it writhe in fire until Cassie’s voice drew my attention.

  “Fifteen.”

  One word. A single word that, to a person that knew and understood, meant so much. One word that defined the child. A simple number that proved, sweet little innocent looking Cassie . . . was one of the world’s biggest and most certifiable BAD ASS KILLERS!

  It made me wonder if the other fourteen of those monsters she had killed had taken as much help from others, or if she had killed each of them all on her own. I wasn’t putting it past her either way.

  Chapter 27

  “It hid underneath the fire to keep warm. Just like a snake, he was cold-blooded,” Tanaka explained after we had finished with the scene.

  “It’s really dead now though, right?” I asked.

  “Yes. Nothing but ash.”

  For the first time in hours I breathed out a small sigh of relief. Yet another monster dead, and another problem solved. Yay us.

  We didn’t waste time pretending to look for missing werecats that we knew for a fact weren’t there. Instead we reloaded, rearmed, refueled, and reentered the storm that gave no sign of letting up anytime soon.

  The break in the warmth at the cabin had been a relief, yet made going back to face the storm seem that much colder.

  We followed Julie through the freezing white soup until the trees parted to a solid rock wall. The rock cliff was covered with ice and snow in every nook and cranny that the freezing stuff could stick against the winds. The climbing conditions were so poor I doubted we would get very far using the “looking for lost climbers” cover story.

  The android led us down along the bottom of the cliffs until she stopped at what appeared to be a small camp. A few backpacks, some random climbing gear . . . and hanging off the cliff itself, one rope anchored above us beyond the abyss of frost and snow.

  “Our sign of missing climbers?” Ren yelled over the raging winds while pointing at the rope.

  Someone took setting up this cover story a bit more seriously than I had ever thought they would.

  “Guess we go up. Can we even go
up here?” I turned and asked Tanaka.

  He stepped over and threw his leg over the case holding his giant gun then smiled to us as he straddled it. “If you can’t fly on your own, climb on. Those that can fly, help keep us stable in the wind, and we will be at the top in a matter of moments.”

  I had my doubts it would work, but the hovercart took off gently rising even with the combined weight of the cyborg, android and human passengers along with all the gear. Darcy and I flew along with it, keeping the cart between us so that we could hold it steady against the rising gale force winds. And true to his word, moments later we topped the cliff.

  Before us, the lights from Vampiric Embassy cut through the storm like shining beacons of warmth and safety. Welcoming all who were caught in the storm. After a quick double-check that we were each sporting the supplied armbands to make us look like part of the rescue effort, we took off for the nearest door that happened to be towards the rear of the posh looking ski lodge.

  Glasses on, hoods up, and armbands in sight, we looked just like we were supposed to. And soon I figured out that our cover had to be working, because once we were a bit closer I could make out the heavy assault rifles mounted all around the building that constantly scanned the surrounding land looking for trouble.

  “Gun turrets. Gonna be hard to get reinforcements in with them in place,” Tanaka’s whispering voice purred into my ear through the comm.

  With each step closer to the building the thudding club music grew louder. Even at several feet from the door, the music was drowning out the howling winds of the storm.

  The nervous trek through the snow to the door had me on edge. Paranoia keeping the blood pumping. Senses on high. Waiting. Ready. Ready for the attack. Ready to face down the monsters of the night. Ready for anything that Jacob and crew could throw at us. Ready for anything at all. Absolutely anything at all.

  Anything . . . except Phil.

  A few feet from the door it opened.

  “Evenin’ all. Name’s Phil . . . now get on in here outta that cold.” It was like Santa giving us the keys to the workshop, and Phil looked the part. Beard, belly, rosy cheeks and a button nose. Just give him a red suit, a sack, and poof . . . instant Santa. His smile threatened to smother us with joy as he waved us in from the storm.

  One by one we went right past him, inside the Vampiric Embassy. Right inside, with an invitation by the man guarding the door no less.

  “Burrrrrrr it’s a cold one tonight, sure don’t envy ya’ll havin’ to be out in it. But I’m betting it’s important else ya’ll wouldn’t be out in it either. Don’t got much to offer ya here, but ya’ll’er welcome to share a bit of my cocoa if’n you like. It’s hot!” He smiled and picked up his thermos.

  We kicked and brushed off the snow, then took off our coats. Poor Phil’s face dropped as soon as he got a better look at us.

  “Well hell. Just not gonna be my night, is it? Ya’ll are the ones from the GCP aren’t’cha? The ones there?” the once jolly man asked with a point at a notice poster by the security monitor by the door.

  I took off my glasses and stood closer to the poster so that Phil could get a good look and compare. Right on the poster, it had our pictures . . . all but Julie and Darcy. And in giant lettering a single order regarding us, “SHOOT ON SIGHT.”

  “Ya’ll gonna kill me now?”

  “Depends Phil. You going to cause us problems? Raise an alarm? Or do you feel like being cooperative?” I kept my face pleasant and asked softly.

  “I have a debt, just doin’ what I have’ta to pay it off. Just tryn’ to look out for my family ya’know?”

  “We are willing to compensate you for your actions,” Tanaka chimed in.

  I glanced over at him and saw him pull out a stack of bills from his coat pocket. A thick stack. A thick stack of hundreds. Phil’s eyes grew. Tanaka pulled out three more stacks and held them up.

  “We can get you more, if you do a little something for us.”

  * * *

  Turned out Phil had borrowed money from some nasty Vampires to pay for his daughters medical expenses, and he was stuck working for them until he paid it off. Which at their exchange rate would have him finally paying it off about the same time his great, great, great, great, great grandchildren had kids of their own.

  A promise of a number of decimal points later, and Phil handed us detailed blueprints of the entire building. As well as pointing out the locations of every security checkpoint, gun turret, alarm, trap, and surprise the place could possibly offer. He even provided us with the frequencies to the buildings security teams, and the passcodes to every single door that he had access to.

  “The downstairs is filled to the max with innocents. To them this place is just a fancy nightclub. As soon as the guns start shooting we are looking at a mass riot that could turn lethal.” Ren was all cop as she surveyed the blueprints.

  “How ‘bout callin’ in all them cops outside?” Phil asked with a genuine interest in being helpful.

  “Because this is an Embassy, their jurisdiction is extremely limited here. And as you said Phil, those guns are computer controlled, with programing to shoot down any who try to approach the building that isn’t authorized. Even if we could give them a legitimate reason to advance, they would be cut down before reaching the door.”

  “Yea. . . . Well, that one that looks like you with the scar,” Phil pointed at me, then down at the blueprints. “Is here with that Jacob monster. If ya’ll follow this path, it’ll take ya’ right to ‘em. But, ya got ya’ll an army between that ain’t gonna just let’cha stroll on in.”

  “He’s right. With all the patrols on the upper floors, it’s going to be a bloodbath. Not to mention the rioting civilians.” Tanaka had his face scrunched up in deep thought.

  It was looking hopeless, but I wasn’t giving up.

  “Anyone got any ideas?” I asked with a sigh as I tried to force my brain to grind out at least one possible solution.

  Cassie scooted forward and pointed at the blueprints. “Here, here, here and here. Remove the turrets. Make a corridor for the agents outside. Clear the main floor of guards and then use charges to blow open the main doors. The crowd will panic and look for the closest exit with the explosion. Group think will funnel them out the remains of the front door and directly into the arms of the awaiting federal agents. The explosion will also give them justifiable legality to enter the building to investigate the source of the detonation. At the same time, we make our way through the main security force to Jacob. There will undoubtedly be casualties, but their numbers should be contained and acceptable.”

  Only Phil looked shocked as the child outlined a plausible assault plan.

  “The explosion would supply a reason for the agents to approach, but it’s still an embassy. Without expressed permission it’s, well, touchy. But, technically, we are here acting as MSRT members. We can request the assistance of the agents as such. They will need an authority contact to make that request though. Just like the MSRT asked the GCP for help, we can ask them under the same authority,” Ren offered.

  “That WOULD keep it from looking like this was a GCP operation. If the right person was in charge to make that request.” Tanaka looked at Ren and she nodded.

  “So, open the door, shoo the innocents out, bring in the feds for reinforcements . . . and no matter what happens it’s not the GCP’s fault so there can’t be a repercussion war?” I asked just to clear up my own understanding.

  “In a somewhat simplified manner, yes. Ren will have to be the contact for us. And I can handle the crowd control. Keep them moving straight out the front door.”

  Phil held up his hand like he was in school, stopping Tanaka from saying more.

  “If it will help ya’ll . . . I know how to turn off them guns. If’n I can make it to the upper control that is.”

  * * *

  I smiled to myself as I watched Julie and Darcy dancing in the security monitor. Without their faces plastered up for the secur
ity officers to see, they were able to move about without much question. They moved with purpose unless they had to stop and pretend to be a couple that had snuck off from the main party whenever they encountered a patrol.

  Darcy danced around the main hall in a seductive manner that drew the attention of the observing guards. That let Julie go virtually unnoticed as she pretended to be checking on the storm through the front windows by the main door, all the while as she planted the plastic explosives.

  Within minutes the two were snickering with each other like old girlfriends back at the security checkpoint that separated the upper floors from the rest of the lodge. The guards never suspected a thing, and never had a chance. Both women, one a vampire and the other an android, moved with lethal proficiency. Within seconds the security detail was dead, so we left the guardroom and were on the move.

  “Gotta go this’a’way.” Phil jerked his thumb to the left. “Ya’ll follow yer path just like I showed ya and ye’ll find what yer looking fer.”

  Julie armed up and fell into step with the jolly Santa man as they headed to kill the guns.

  “Alright, they got thirty, get as far as you can before we knock on the door. Good luck,” Tanaka hefted his massive cannon and gave us a nod.

  A glance at Ren and I could read in her eyes that she was ready to do her part and call in the troops, then help usher out the crowd that was soon to become violent.

  Darcy and Cassie fell into step with me as I took off following the path that had been outlined for us. And true to his word, every security alarm, booby-trap, patrol and nasty thing that could surprise us was exactly where and as described by Phil. With his helpful info we made good time and cleared three hallways before the gunfire started.

  Like hard rain falling on a metal roof, the gun turrets posted around the building all began firing at once. A glance out a window as we passed showed the guns attacking the guards and transports of the embassy itself. Cars, limos, and various other vehicles parked around the building started to explode under the gunfire. The noise of the night went from nightclub to World War III in a matter of seconds.