Knuckles had a killer punch—one could literally kill you. He cracked his knuckles, ready for a fight as he and Tank watched the hunters approach without a kill. Sergei had something more valuable than meat, though—a traitor’s head.
Tank looked at Ivan’s head in amazement. “That sneaky fucker. He really did it. The fat shit-louse really tried to escape.”
Now that they had returned to the bunker, Terrier wasn’t sure what was going to happen. He wasn’t afraid of the hunters, but Afana, on the other hand, was a man worth fearing. Terrier had no intention of speaking with Afana, though. Not if he could help it.
Tank looked at Sergei with greed, which made Sergei grip both Ivan’s hair and his machete tighter.
“Wait,” Tank said. “That fat fuckface tried to run on my watch. I would have gone after him and caught him. That means his head is mine.”
Tank grabbed his machete and took a few menacing steps toward Sergei. He wasn’t going to let them in without a fight. Knuckles moved away from the door to stand beside Tank. It was two against the four of them.
“It’s rightfully Tank’s head,” Knuckles said. “Give it to him. Or we’ll take it.”
The two groups squared up. They were just posturing at this point but fights between the hunters and the guards were common. Terrier suppressed a smile. He was hoping something like this would happen.
Terrier had made it a point to distract the hunters all the way back to the bunker, not giving them time to think about what was waiting for them. They’d forgotten that they had to get past the guards before they could claim any prize.
The guards were known for collecting heads. Rumor had it that many of the so-called traitors weren’t trying to escape at all, and the guards just took their heads to get the reward. If they were willing to do that, they’d have no problem brawling for a real traitor’s head.
Sergei and the other hunters looked ready to fight over Ivan’s head, too. There was a standoff. Terrier took the opportunity to slip into the bunker while everyone was distracted.
He heard scuffling and arguing behind him, but he didn’t bother looking back. He had made it to the bunker and given Ryder a head start. This was his head start, and he knew just where to go.
Knuckles slammed his fist into his palm. “Give us the head,” he demanded as he and Tank walked menacingly toward Sergei.
Tank might have wanted the head, but Sergei had earned it and he wasn’t going to let the guards have it. “If you want it, you’ll have to take it from us.”
Yegor and Nestor looked at one another.
“Us?” Nestor asked. They weren’t getting the reward. Only Sergei was.
“Yes, us,” Sergei hissed and bared his teeth at his men. They were assholes, but he needed them since he was outnumbered.
Yegor and Nestor lowered their weapons. This wasn’t worth dying for. They weren’t going to get anything out of it. Sergei would be pissed at them, but that would only matter if he lived, and the odds were not in his favor.
“You fucking chickenshits!” Sergei cursed. “You better watch your heads because I’m coming for you two next.” Sergei pointed his machete at Pavel. “Where do you stand?”
Pavel looked at Yegor and Nestor. They tilted their heads toward the bunker, indicating exactly where they thought they should go. Then, Pavel glanced at Tank and Knuckles. They grinned at him arrogantly.
“Run away, pussy,” Tank taunted. “You hunters aren’t shit compared to us.”
Knuckles flapped his arms like a chicken. “Yeah, chickenshits. Stop your clucking and get lost.”
Pavel gritted his teeth and gripped his knife. “You two are so full of shit, it’s coming out your mouths. And you know the old saying: ‘Talk shit. Get hit.’”
Yegor and Nestor stopped looking at the bunker door and moved up beside Pavel. All of them bristled at the guards’ taunts.
Tank rolled his eyes. They’d gone from fighting Sergei on his own to four against two, but he wasn’t worried. The hunters had nothing on him and Knuckles, and Knuckles was happy to show them that.
Before any of the hunters could move, Knuckles swung a meaty fist at Yegor, knocking his scrawny body to the ground. Then, he turned his fists on Nestor and administered the same punishment. Nestor’s unconscious body crumpled on top of Yegor’s, making an “X.”
Knuckles laughed. “Maybe we’ll bring Afana three heads today.”
Tank nodded beside him, grinning.
Pavel hadn’t planned to lose his head today. “Give him Ivan’s head.”
Sergei gaped at the other hunter, unable to believe what he was hearing. The last of his men had betrayed him. Terrier had started this. He’d made him look like a joke in front of his men.
Fuck! Terrier. Sergei realized that the big man wasn’t there anymore. He’d sneaked into the bunker while Sergei was distracted by these jerkoffs. Terrier would fucking pay for this.
“Have the fucking head.” Sergei tossed Ivan’s head toward Knuckles. It rolled and stopped at his feet.
Knuckles and Tank looked down at the mutilated head. “What the fuck did you do to him?”
Yegor started to stir and pushed Nestor off him, waking him up. This time, Knuckles’ punch hadn’t killed them. They didn’t wait around to see if his next one would.
Sergei and Pavel were already walking in the direction of the bunker entrance.
“He’s your problem now,” Sergei said. He was going to make every one of them pay for what they had done to him today, and Terrier would be the first.
9
Afana was the Immortal leader of the bunker, and he reigned over his people with fear.
This was no benevolent dictatorship.
Through the day he would sleep and at night he watched the twenty-five monitor screens in the security room. The people on the camera feeds—his people—went about their lives in the bunker like good little drones, blissfully unaware that Afana looked down at them like a god on high, admiring his creation.
That wasn’t too far from the truth.
Afana had tried to think of everything when he had commissioned the bunker so he could live through the nuclear war in his own little kingdom beneath the earth. First and foremost, he made sure he had an endless supply of food to keep himself immortal.
After that, he thought about design. The bunker was a circular structure with six levels. Level One was at the top, closest to the surface. Control was power, and Afana controlled it all from Level One. The floors were made from glass so he could look down at everything if he felt so inclined.
The middle area of each level was the social area, and there were metal staircases at the sides with guards on each level to make sure that people stayed where they belonged.
The bunker also had open sections which Afana used to travel quickly through the levels or to drop traitors down. He’d make an example of traitors he caught on camera, dragging them to his level at the top. Afana ordered everyone to watch, and they did as they were told.
He’d open his mouth, exposing his fangs, and sink them into his victim’s neck, draining their body of blood. Afterward, he would drop the body through the open area in the floor so it would crash on Level Six, where the women would clean up the mess.
There were cameras everywhere, and Afana watched everything, just like he was doing now. The cameras made it impossible to hide. Two levels hosted sleeping quarters for the men, another was reserved for the women, and all levels and tunnels were packed with the resources the bunker needed to operate.
The bunker had kept its inhabitants safe for two hundred years now, but those years were beginning to show. Some of the white paint was peeling off the brick walls, and the bare parts had coppery drip stains on them from leaks. The bunker hadn’t been well maintained, to say the least.
He tapped his lips thoughtfully. Perhaps his subjects needed some motivation to keep their home in better condition. The only question was whether to use the carrot or the stick.
They shouldn’t
need persuading at all, in his opinion. He’d expected them to be grateful for him keeping them safe and fed. They owed their lives to him. But like the cattle they were, they couldn’t be expected to behave with dignity and class. They were filthy creatures without minds of their own. This became clear early on.
Sadly, his human cattle had been a necessity ever since Afana had met Randal, the vampire who had turned him. The blood that had once run through Afana’s veins had been poisoned by leukemia. Randal had saved his life, but in the process, he had given Afana a new disease. Well, that was how Afana thought of it. With the new blood, he was no longer able to withstand the sunshine.
This had all happened before the world went to shit.
Afana had gathered all the best hematological and scientific minds from around the planet. They had been working on a cure for Afana so he could become a daywalker.
He had begun to hope, when the WWDE happened and somehow the nanocytes changed. Afana thought that it had something to do with the fallout which blanketed the world after the nuclear holocaust. Nanocytes began showing up in his cattle, and at first he feared they would turn into vampires and become strong like him.
Out of a mixture of fear and hope, he had the infected cattle pruned from the herd, and they became test subjects for the scientists.
Over the years the original scientists had died in the bunker, leaving Afana with the watered-down versions of them, in the form of their descendants.
The scientists had taught their children everything they knew before they died, but knowledge got lost from one generation to the next, and the end result wasn’t the same.
Now, after two hundred years, Afana was no closer to finding a cure to his sunlight dilemma. He sat in the bunker, shielded from the sun, and he felt like his body was a prison. The need to escape it was stronger than any feeding urge. He could not, and would not, live like this forever.
Sweat rolled down Ryder’s face as she moved through the swamp. She tried to get through it as quickly as she could, but that was easier said than done. Every step felt like a monumental effort.
Ryder took a gulp of water—more than she meant to—but it was too late now. It was like she’d taken a shot of tequila. It hit her immediately, filling her head with a pleasant fog. She licked her lips for the drops that had missed her mouth, and a goofy grin appeared on her face.
She scanned her surroundings to make sure she wasn’t being followed. Then, she scanned them again because she couldn’t remember if she’d checked both sides.
Ryder laughed. Maybe just one more drink…
Terrier made his way down the metal stairs two at a time. He knew that Sergei and the others would be after his head, literally. He’d decided to hide in the tunnels off the bottom level of the bunker.
Afana kept the women on the lowest level, and the entryway to the heart of the bunker was located there, too. It led to the engines that kept this place going.
Air, water, and power were all run from down there, forming a maze in which Terrier could lose Sergei and the others. The trickiest part would be getting down there without being seen, which was hard when you were the biggest man in the bunker. Everyone knew Terrier.
He made it through the first level with ease. That was where the advisors worked and Afana lived. He liked to look down on his cattle to make sure they didn’t stray. The next level was where Afana’s advisors lived. They told the generals on Level Three what to do, and the generals governed the people below them.
Then, he hit Level Four, one of the floors where the men lived, and a nosy hunter named Decso blocked his path on the stairs before he could head down farther.
“What did you catch today?” Decso asked Terrier. Decso liked to be involved in everything, even when he wasn’t welcome. Especially if he wasn’t welcome it seemed. It was as though he couldn’t see the cues people gave when they didn’t want to be bothered. He had an unusually round head, with round glasses to match. The glasses were too tight, so it looked like they were being eaten by his head.
“No luck today,” Terrier said, trying to weave around Decso without having to shove him out of the way. The last thing he wanted to do was draw unwanted attention to himself.
Decso raised an eyebrow and looked at Terrier’s empty hands. “Nothing? You’ve never come back with nothing before.” He looked behind Terrier. “Where the hell’s Ryder?”
Terrier paused. He wanted to tell the man to mind his own fucking business, he held his tongue instead.
“Terrier?” Decso snapped his fingers in front of Terrier’s eyes. “Earth to Terrier!”
Terrier walked around Decso. “He’s taking a shit.”
“And the others?” Decso pushed Terrier for an answer.
“How the fuck should I know?” Terrier shot back gruffly, hoping that would put an end to the interrogation. He kept walking and didn’t look back, but he knew that Decso would question Sergei and the others once he found them. With any luck, he’d be long gone by then.
He hustled down the stairs, but he came to an abrupt halt when he reached Level Six. He cursed under his breath. He was having the worst fucking luck today.
Vera, as round as she was tall, was in his way. If you knocked her over, she’d probably roll along the floor like a ball. Terrier arched his head backward, praying to the gods that she hadn’t noticed him. She was one of the loudest, most aggressive women in the bunker.
Her eyes landed on him immediately, and a huge grin spread across her face. Vera hoisted her overly-ample cleavage in her hands and shook it gamely at Terrier. “You want some, baby?”
Terrier backpedaled until he collided with the wall. He swallowed hard. There was nowhere else to go.
“Don’t be scared,” she crooned, trying to sound sexy but just sounding creepy. She leaned into Terrier, her lips too close for comfort. He flinched away from her.
Vera started cackling, revealing teeth the color of an old cedar plank. “You’ve got the biggest dick here, and you don’t even know what to do with it. Vera will show you, you’ll see!”
She grabbed for Terrier’s junk, but he pushed her aside and made a run for it.
Vera’s laughter echoed behind him as he ran down the tunnel. “If you change your mind, I’ll be right here waiting!”
As Terrier had feared, Decso talked about his encounter with Terrier to anyone who would listen. Even worse, he was telling everyone that he didn’t think Ryder had come back to the bunker.
Most of the hunters ignored him, except for Eric and Jones. They were always looking for traitors, and even if Ryder wasn’t a traitor, he was out there on his own and good for the taking.
They were the fastest runners in the bunker, and they wasted no time taking off to find Ryder.
10
Leandro quickly caught up with the girl, who was making her way through the swamp and looking pissed off. Leandro didn’t blame her. This swamp fucking sucked, and he wished for the millionth time that she’d chosen a different route.
Swimming through this filthy water meant all kinds of horrifying shit was matting into his fur. He didn’t dare change back to human form, though. Insects would swarm him like he was a bug buffet. He thought of all the insects nibbling at him, and a shudder raced through his body.
The mysterious woman stopped wading, still hip deep in the muck. Leandro stopped, too, hiding behind a fallen tree. She wiped the sweat from her face, which looked like it was glowing from the sun beaming down on it.
She drank from her flask, then brushed the drops of excess water off her lips. He wanted those lips on his, and the idea made Leandro smile. I don’t think she’d want to kiss my snout.
She didn’t seem angry by the time she’d finished drinking. She actually had a devilish grin on her face, and her cheeks were flushed, which confused Leandro. It was like she had drunk alcohol, although that seemed like a bad idea. It would only make her more dehydrated in this heat.
Was she really trying to escape from the bunker as Leandro ha
d originally thought, or was she just out for a drunken stroll?
Then, Leandro remembered a customer who went to The Old Dog who got drunk on water. Massimo called him “Tightwad” because he never bought any liquor but got drunk anyway. At first, Massimo had thought the man was sneaking liquor into his glass when no one was looking, but one day, Massimo drank from Tightwad’s glass to find out. It was just water, like Tightwad had said.
Massimo thought it had something to do with nanocytes, but that was his Pops’ answer for everything that wasn’t normal. Leandro didn’t have any other way to explain how he was a werewolf or Massimo was a vampire, and the idea of nanocytes did kind of make sense, so it wasn’t too much of a stretch to believe that Tightwad could get drunk on water.
Leandro thought the same thing was happening to the woman.
She stumbled forward and grabbed a tree to stop herself from falling. The branch broke under her weight, and she crashed into the water. Leandro wanted to help her up, but he changed his mind. She might think he was trying to hurt her. It was better to wait and see if she needed his help first.
The girl came up gasping. Long strands of water-weed clung to her head, making her look as if she had green hair. She brushed them off with disgust. Her body was completely wet, and her garments clung to her fine figure. There was no doubt now that she was female. A warm, excited feeling buzzed through Leandro at the sight.
“Fucking muppet,” she said aloud, before laughing at herself.
She went to take another drink, and Leandro cringed. He thought she’d already drunk enough. She tilted the canteen all the way up and trickled the last drops into her mouth. Leandro was happy that she was out of water, but she wasn’t. She flung her flask as hard as she could.
Her shoulders slumped after she did it, though. She wasn’t too far gone to realize that she’d have to go fetch it, which would increase her time in the swamp. She had a good arm but didn’t seem too bright. Maybe that was because of the alcohol, or possibly water in her case.
Madness Unleashed: Age Of Madness - A Kurtherian Gambit Series (Live Free Or Die Book 1) Page 6
