Starlight (The Dark Elf War Book 1)

by William Stacey

  Alex held his hand out to the RCMP officer. “Constable Groulx, it was a pleasure.”

  The RCMP officer paused, watching Alex’s face for a few moments, then reached out and took his hand. “That a Newfoundland accent I hear?”

  “Cornerbrook,” Alex replied.

  “Long way from home,” the officer said.

  “Sounds like you’re a long way from Quebec, as well,” Alex replied.

  “True enough.” The officer turned to the farmer. “I’ll write a report, ask around about the local kids, but I think we’re probably done here.”

  “Weren’t kids,” the farmer insisted.

  The RCMP officer nodded, pocketed his notebook, and walked away toward his patrol car. Alex helped Buck push the cart around the back of the house, while keeping an eye on the police officer. A minute or two later, the patrol car drove off down the dirt road toward the highway. The two men stood in front of the doglike animal’s carcass, staring at it. Buck handed Alex a pair of surgical gloves and kept a pair for himself.

  “Fuggly things,” Buck said, nudging it with his toe. “Still smoking from the mouth.”

  “This one of the things that hit you?” Alex asked.

  “Oh, shit, yeah. Nothing like this on planet Earth.”

  “These things take out a patrol of Tier One operators, but a farmer takes it down with a shotgun?”

  Buck stared at Alex, his eyes cold and hard, and Alex tensed, certain the other man was on the verge of becoming violent. Instead, Buck sighed and looked away. “Wasn’t just these fucking hellhounds. There were other… things that were controlling them. And maybe Farmer Brown here is just the luckiest man in Canada.”

  The moment had passed, and Alex forced himself to breathe, to act normal and pretend he wasn’t hanging out with an insecure psychopath. “He said he heard howling, like a pack.”

  “They run in packs like wolves.”

  “If there’s more, we’re gonna have to run the rest of them down.” Alex bent over and, with a gloved hand, grabbed the creature’s hind legs and waited for Buck.

  “Gonna need a tracker,” Buck said as he took the creature’s front quarters.

  The damned thing must have weighed two hundred pounds, but the two men hoisted the carcass onto the metal gurney. It shuddered under the weight, and its wheels sunk into the soft ground, but they were wide, designed to move across rough terrain.

  “Man, this thing stinks,” Alex said.

  “They’re way worse when they’re alive and breathing fire at you,” Buck said.

  “I can imagine.”

  Buck snorted. “Trust me, Newf—you can’t. Let’s get back to the Magic Kingdom. McKnight is gonna want to see this thing, and Simmons and her lab dorks will want to take it apart.”

  The two men pushed the cart back to the van. Mr. Granger stood near his front door, watching, as they shoved the cart up the ramp at the back of the van and rolled it into the vehicle. Once inside, they strapped it into place.

  Buck glanced over at the farmer. “Just give him cash, and let’s get the hell outta here.”

  Alex nodded and, walking over to the farmer, pulled hundred-dollar bills from a large roll he had stuffed in his shirt pocket. He ended up giving the man way more than a single cow was worth, but the money didn’t matter.

  Soon, they were back on the dirt road, heading for the highway. As always, Buck drove too aggressively. When the van hit a bump in the road, it jumped into the air, landing hard and jarring Alex’s teeth. Buck grinned.

  Dickhead.

  Wham! Something smashed against the side of the van, jarring it. But both men turned and stared wide-eyed at one another. The thumping was coming from the enclosed body of the van. A moment later, they heard the creature howling.

  Buck slammed on the brakes, and the van screeched to a halt. Without a word, both men jumped out of the cab, each stopping only long enough to reach under the bench seat and pull out a P90 submachine gun. They ran to the rear of the van.

  Alex glanced about. There were trees all around them and no one else in sight. He grabbed the rear-door handle, still holding the submachine gun in his firing hand. Buck positioned himself about ten feet away, at a firing angle but not directly facing the rear door, his weapon in the ready position. Both guns were equipped with sound suppressors that extended the length of the short weapon, and the fifty-round plastic magazines that were fitted flush against the top of the weapon’s frames were loaded with 5.7x28mm SB193 subsonic ammunition. Buck braced himself then nodded at Alex.

  Alex yanked the door open and jumped out of the way. A jet of flames ten feet long shot out of the back of the van. At almost the exact same moment, Buck let loose with a long stream of submachine gun fire; he paused for a moment and then fired another, shorter burst. There was a brief, cut-off screech of pain from inside the van. Alex moved beside Buck, making sure he stayed out of his line of fire. He aimed into the smoking rear of the van and then also began firing short bursts of subsonic fire.

  “Wait,” Buck called out.

  Alex kept his finger on the trigger and his weapon pressed into his shoulder. As the smoke cleared, he saw the carcass of the creature now lying on the van’s floor. A large pool of blood was spreading out around it. Both men stepped closer. The back of the van was shot to shit with the monitors shattered and shards of broken glass and pieces of metal strewn about. The inside of the rear doors was charred, and a small fire was still burning where the damned thing had tried to burn its way out. From about three feet away, Buck put two shots into the hellhound’s skull, making sure it was dead this time. Alex rushed to the cab to get the fire extinguisher, and a moment later he was back, aiming the hose at the flames and putting them out with a burst of compressed CO2.

  Buck, gritting his teeth, nudged the creature with his boot. He looked over his shoulder at Alex and then grinned like a fiend. Alex couldn’t help himself, and both men began laughing. They slammed the door shut again, got back in the cab, and drove away.

  Chapter 11

  Corporal Jean Alexis Groulx was driving down One Hundredth Avenue in downtown Fort St. John when the call came in. Up until that point, it had been a typical slow afternoon with the only excitement being the burned cow and escaped animal at the Granger farm earlier that morning. “Dispatch,” said a female voice, clearly excited. “This is Car 7, 10-33 at the corner of Juniper and Hemlock. Code 5, I say again Code 5.”

  Jean’s eyes darted to his VHF radio. The officer putting out the call was Corinna Trotter, a new constable in the Fort St. John detachment, transferred only a month earlier. She was a good officer, cool and professional, but there had been panic in her voice. Code 10-33 meant officer in trouble; Code 5 was high-risk danger—guns drawn.

  That almost never happened in Fort St. John. Jean reached for the handset. He had felt a sense of unease hovering over him all day; now, that apprehension was intensified. He keyed the mike, pausing only a moment before speaking. “Dispatch, this is Car 4, responding.”

  He turned on his patrol car’s lights and siren and accelerated toward the scene of the call. As he maneuvered around traffic, he pressed the switch on the microphone once. “Car 7, this is Car 4. What is the nature of the emergency?”

  When she didn’t answer, his unease grew.

  “Car 4, this is Dispatch. We’re getting numerous calls describing a… wild animal threatening a school bus at the corner of Juniper and Hemlock.”

  That was just outside of town, in a small subcommunity called Clairmont, only about four kilometers from his current location. “Roger,” Jean acknowledged. “Bear or moose?” Just for a moment, he wondered if another one of those weird wolf things had escaped the feds. Jean’s eyebrows knitted together as he waited—too long—for the dispatcher’s response.

  “Car 4, neither. The calls are claiming there’s some sort of… dragon.”

  Jean swung out around a dump truck and then ran through a red light where the traffic had stopped. He keyed the mike again. “D
ispatch, say again what type of animal.”

  “A dragon. The callers are describing a giant lizard of some type.”

  Five days ago, they had found the wrecked remains of a car on the highway. It had caught on fire and burned, and the driver, a thirty-six-year-old woman, was missing. He remembered thinking that the roof of the car had looked as though it had been peeled back but, at the time, had discarded that idea as crazy. Now, Jean wasn’t so sure. Maybe some idiot had brought a wild animal—a tiger or a komodo dragon or something like that—up north. Could an animal even do that to a car? Jean stepped on the gas.

  Corinna’s voice came over the radio again, clearly desperate this time. “Please, Dispatch; I need help. Send everyone. Send SWAT. It’s going to kill a bunch of kids.”

  The tires of his patrol car screeched as he pulled off the Alaska Highway and onto a side road. He was almost there. Moments later, he was into a residential area, roaring past stop signs and praying he wouldn’t run into some kid playing in the street. His pulse raced; his heart pounded beneath his vest. Just ahead, he saw a fire truck stopped at an intersection, its lights flashing. Corinna’s patrol car was there as well. Black clouds of smoke rose from a burning car, obscuring the scene. A yellow school bus had driven off the road, right into the side of a house. He saw the terrified faces of children inside it. A man was slumped over the wheel.

  His tires skidded as he screeched to a halt beside Corinna’s car. As he was stepping out of his patrol car, he saw it.

  “Osti de Criss,” he whispered. His palm rested against the handle of his service automatic in its holster. It wasn’t a komodo dragon—it was a real dragon.

  Twice the size of an elephant, it stalked about on eight legs. Foot-long spikes ran down its back, giving it an otherworldly appearance. It was covered in overlapping scales of dark green, each the size of his hand. Its long, thick tail whipped back and forth as it paced alongside the crashed school bus. Without warning, it shrieked in fury—a stuttering, alien cry—and smashed its massive horned head, the size of a fridge, against the school bus’s frame, shattering windows and rocking the bus. The children screamed.

  This isn’t possible.

  Then he heard the distinctive popping of handgun fire and saw Corinna standing beside the red fire truck. Two volunteer firefighters stood next to her, wide-eyed. She held her service pistol in both hands as she fired again and again at the dragon. The creature ignored her completely as if the pistol fire were nonexistent. How thick were its scales? He ran to her side, only then realizing he had drawn his own handgun. Aiming down his weapon’s sights, his vision seemed to tunnel in on the monster.

  “Aim for its head,” he said, amazed he could even speak coherently.

  He began to rapidly squeeze the trigger. The pistol jerked with each shot, but Jean let its barrel fall back onto target before squeezing it again. In seconds, he had emptied his entire ten-round magazine, and his slide was locked back.

  He had hit the monster, he knew he had hit it, but it kept smashing its head against the school bus, oblivious to their fire.

  His empty magazine fell from his weapon, clattering against the pavement as he loaded another and released the action of his weapon, chambering another round. In moments, the second magazine was empty as well.

  “It’s not doing anything,” Corinna said, desperation in her voice. “It’s gonna kill those kids!”

  She was right. Its hide had to be too thick for pistol fire, or maybe the 9mm rounds were just too small to do more than sting it. He was breathing too fast. If he didn’t get a grip, he might hyperventilate. Once again, the dragon smashed its head against the metal frame of the school bus, shattering windows. It tried to bite the side of the bus but couldn’t get its teeth into the metal. Jean’s thoughts returned to the wrecked car on the highway, its roof literally ripped clear. If that thing managed to get a grip on the metal of the school bus, it was going to rip it open—and then it’d start eating the children. He wasn’t going to let that happen.

  Looking about himself, he saw the hose of the fire truck, coiled against the side of the vehicle. An idea came to him. He grabbed the shoulder of the nearest firefighter. “Get that hose loose,” he yelled. “When I give you the order, I want you to hit that thing with a blast of water.”

  The firefighter, an older guy, maybe forty pounds overweight with panic in his expression, stared at Jean for a moment.

  Jean shook his shoulder. “You hear me?”

  The man’s eyes snapped toward Jean’s, and he nodded, his face still ashen. “Yeah,” he muttered. Then, as if released from a spell, he turned and yelled at the other firefighter, a young guy with bright-red hair and a goatee. “Help me, Ed!”

  Both men ran to unroll the hose.

  Jean turned to Corinna. “Can you drive that school bus?”

  She stared at him in confusion. “What?”

  “Corinna, damn it. Focus! Can you drive that school bus?”

  Her head darted to the bus, and she nodded. “I guess.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I’m sure, but how will I get in? That thing is in the way.”

  “Just be ready to move. We’re gonna distract it. When we do, you get that bus out of here as fast as you can go. Don’t stop; don’t wait for me. Just go, and keep going.”

  She nodded quickly, staring again at the dragon.

  Jean turned back to the firefighters. They had already unrolled the hose and were attaching it to a fire hydrant.

  “You ready?” Jean called out.

  When they didn’t answer him right away, he repeated his question, yelling this time. The older firefighter glanced up and nodded. The younger guy ran to the hydrant to turn it on. The cords in the older guy’s neck bulged as he yanked the hose into place, his face now bright red.

  “Tabernac!” Jean swore under his breath. He’s gonna have a heart attack. He ran over to help drag the hose into position. He stood behind the older man, each of them holding the hose. Then, he glanced over at Corinna. “You ready?”

  She nodded, her face white.

  “Crank it,” Jean yelled. Please, God; please work.

  A moment later, the hose jerked to life, almost flying out of their grip. Jean set his feet and manhandled the hose back into position.

  “Brace yourself,” the firefighter yelled as he opened the nozzle.

  A blast of water as wide as a man’s fist jetted from the nozzle. Jean and the firefighter adjusted their aim, striking the dragon square in the face and knocking it onto its side. It screeched in anger and frustration, whipping its body about. As it did, its massive tail smashed into the side of the bus, rocking it. The dragon spun to face them, but it took the stream of water right between its open jaws and was knocked down again, this time farther away from the bus, creating the opening Jean had hoped for—although the dragon was pissed at them now.

  “Go!” yelled Jean to Corinna.

  She bolted for the bus, but Jean’s focus was on the dragon, which was trying to get back up. They readjusted their aim, keeping it off balance. Each time it tried to get up, they knocked it down again. It shrieked and howled in rage, sending shivers down his spine. Sooner or later, it’d get at them. This couldn’t last.

  He heard tires screeching and risked a glance to see the bus flying backwards, away from the house it had hit, and onto the street. Corinna was seated where the driver had been slumped over. Her face was a mask of determination as she yanked on the bus’s wheel, turning it away from the dragon. Seconds later, the bus sped away from the intersection, toward the highway.

  Merci, Jesus. Way to go, Corinna. Way to go!

  He turned his attention back to the monster trying to get at them. Jean yelled at the younger man next to the fire hydrant to come take his place. In the trunk of his patrol car was an Arma-Lite C8 carbine. The young man grabbed the hose, and Jean ran for his rifle. He needed to kill this thing, and he needed to do it now! Out of breath at the trunk of his car, he fumbled like an idiot for
the code that released the latch.

  Too long, he thought. This is taking too long.

  The dragon was still shrieking, still trying to close the distance between itself and the men with the hose, but they kept sweeping it off its legs with the powerful spray.

  Yes! He finally got the code right, and the trunk popped open.

  Jean unzipped the bag holding the rifle and drew the weapon out. The carbine was a heavily modified version of the famous US Army M-16. Its barrel was shorter, but it took the same 5.56 ammunition in a thirty-round magazine. He inserted a magazine into the weapon then drew back on the cocking mechanism, inserting a round into the firing chamber. There were another ten fully loaded magazines in the trunk—more than enough to put this damned thing down!

  He turned toward the monster, his weapon pressed up into his shoulder, ready to fire. And then, in horror, he saw the dragon leap over the stream of water the firemen were aiming at its head. The damned thing was unbelievably agile, and it had jumped about twenty feet, landing just in front of the two men. They tried to readjust their aim to knock it back again, but at that moment, its eyes glowed with a blue fire. The two men stood frozen in place, their skin turning gray, cracking, and flaking—like stone.

  The barrel of the carbine dropped as Jean stood transfixed. The dragon rushed the two men, bowling them over. It dropped its wide jaws over the older man, biting his body in half. Blood sprayed as the dragon raised its head, chomping as it swallowed. His lower body remained standing upright, exactly as it had been. The hose whipped through the air, spraying water everywhere.

  Jean shook his head, forcing himself to move. He raised the weapon once again, aiming down the barrel. “Let’s see you shrug off this, you ugly eight-legged bastard.” Strangely, he felt very calm. He even managed to aim for one of the creature’s glowing blue eyes the size of a dinner plate. His finger tightened on the trigger—

  And then a diminutive, thin woman stepped in front of him. She gripped the barrel of his weapon in one hand and yanked it aside. Where had she come from?