The woman came to a stop, the larger man rolling his shoulders as he stumbled to a halt as well. “Bertrand here will get the answers we want, eventually. Do yourself a favor and save yourself some unneeded pain. Your high-metabolism and rapid healing can only handle so much and only extends what we can do to you before you croak. Trust me, you’ll be begging to tell us everything before he gets done with you. If you play ball, I’ll make it quick. You’ll never even know what hit you.”
As if to illustrate the giant man’s lust for torture, his face split into a wide grin, shark-like teeth appearing as his tongue snaked out. He looked truly eager to get right to it.
He had to force down the urge to vomit; the sight was horrifying.
Despite the ferociousness of the foes arrayed against them, his heart wanted him to act, to somehow come to Benji’s aid, but what the fuck were they supposed to do against any of that? For all he knew, there were more of them hiding in the woods, waiting for them to make a move.
“Take him inside with the other one. We’ll finish what we started with the Indian, then move onto him,” the woman commanded, then half-turned towards the house. “Secure the perimeter. They couldn’t have gotten much of a head start and we didn’t see any vehicles on the road heading in. They have to be in the area, the GPS had them here no more than twenty minutes ago.”
Before anyone could answer a blood-curling howl split the air, causing everyone to freeze in place, the beast’s rage echoing across the open space with such ferocity even the large behemoth seemed to stop breathing.
“¡Maldita sea! I told the fucker to leave. Lock and load hombre, this shit is about to get real,” Naomi told him, stepping forward with her weapon up, her finger on the trigger. “See you on the other side, this one or the after-life.”
Chapter 11
I
A large beast leapt out of the woods on the right, the massive form bounding across the small clearing bearing straight for the parked vehicles and the armored figures surrounding them. He had never seen a wolf of this size outside of a horror film, the enormous muscles flexing with every movement, the light brown fur pressed heavily against his skin, the ragged look fearsome to behold. Golden eyes were focused solely on the largest member of the enemy group, the claws of his feet throwing divots of earth with his frenzied leaps.
Bertrand turned to face the oncoming beast, his automatic weapons looking like pea-shooters in his massive hands as he depressed the triggers on both.
Benji thrust his fists up and broke his oppressor’s grip, then struck the man in the jaw, throwing him backward.
The female commander had already turned towards Ezio, her weapon starting to fire as well, and her head jerked towards Benji as she tried to decide who was the bigger threat.
An engine roared, the black Humvee they’d arrived in earlier bouncing down the road and slamming into the rear of the Volvo, driving it forward and into the man that had jumped from the roof as he tried to render the man Benji had attacked aid. His body was flung back towards the steps with the force of the impact, where he lay for only a brief second before jumping back to his feet, his weapon rising to meet the new threat.
Naomi’s weapon erupted in gunfire as she advanced on the fallen figure Benji had struck, a roar of inexplicable curses escaping but drowned out by weapons fire. Stepping from behind the tree, he moved to follow her, careful not to take aim until she was out of his line of sight.
Ezio slammed into the large man, his shoulders bleeding but his momentum unphased by the rapid shots he had been taking. Bertrand stumbled back a few steps, his gun falling away as his hands reached around to seize Ezio’s shoulders, the fingers squeezing the wounds as the elongated snout of the ferocious wolf darted towards the man’s throat.
The woman came around, weapon up, trying to get a clear shot, her position changing so rapidly he knew instantly that she wasn’t solely human; no one moved that fast.
Naomi was standing over the body of the thrown soldier Benji had pushed, a single gun shot to the head ending the man’s life. Benji was rushing towards the man on the steps, his calm exterior gone, the look of a very hungry feral cat replacing it as his hands changed into claws, his body moving so swiftly that he could not keep up with it visually. Renny had emerged from the Humvee, his own weapons in hand as he moved around the Volvo and began advancing towards the female commander in a flanking movement.
He aimed carefully and lightly squeezed the trigger, his shoulder flaring as the kickback hit, his overly tense muscles making it known that they protested his actions. He had to loosen up or he’d be sore as fuck by the time this was over; if he lived that long.
The shot glanced off the woman’s shoulder armor, driving her back a step and causing her attention to shift off the wrangling werewolf. “Withdraw,” she commanded the others, taking another step back as she brought her weapon around on him.
Naomi shot her in the thigh and the woman’s gun shifted downward as it gave out on her. “You’re not going anywhere, puta! Hoops, give Banker a hand, I’ll cover this bitch.”
Ezio’s maul had seized the large man’s throat, the hands of his enemy trying to pull him away, but only helping the wolf’s teeth tear the flesh more easily as his lifeblood splattered the wolf’s brown fur. The werewolf was digging in and would settle for nothing less than the man’s corpse lying at his feet.
“I think he’s doing just fine,” Renny told Naomi, coming to a halt at her side, eyes on the dying man in Ezio’s grip.
He walked around the duo and glanced at the porch steps. Benji’s head was cocked at an odd angle, the other man’s head jerked to the side, arms and legs wiggling as if he were a worm on a hook. He didn’t need to see anything further to know what was happening and he shouldn’t have felt sorrow at the man’s death, but he wasn’t cold enough to just turn it off either.
Naomi cursed something inaudible in Spanish and an instant later another gunshot rang out. “Damn it! Fucking bitch!” The woman at her feet had just put her gun to her jaw and pulled the trigger, her head exploding across the gravel as she took her own life. “Are any of these fuckers still alive or did we kill them all?”
Ezio tossed Bertrand aside, his frame heaving with large gasps, arms flexing as his head turned to look at those before him. His wolf-form was impressive, massive, and beyond what he’d pictured in his head. This wasn’t Jack Nicholson with long hair on his face and glowing eyes, more American Werewolf in London. Large ears twitched, and the golden eyes shifted in his direction, making him falter a step.
“It’s just me, big guy,” he offered, as he came closer to Naomi, hoping that Ezio was in there somewhere and not some mindless raging beast.
“He’s not the Hulk, he understands you just as he would if he were human, though that’s not saying much,” Naomi snarked, drawing forth a growl from their companion. “No, I told you no humping my leg tonight, sorry bud. You disobeyed a direct order and I don’t fucking care how this turned out, you’re in deep shit. Don’t push it.”
A phone began to ring.
Naomi stepped over the woman’s corpse and liberated her phone from a pouch on her waist. Studying it for a moment, she glanced his way and smiled, “care to share the bad news?”
It must be the vamp calling to see how his minions fared. He smirked, “why not?” Hitting accept, he put the phone to his ear. “Helga’s House of Pain, you present it, we spank it.”
Naomi snorted and shook her head.
“You’re still alive.”
“Here I thought you were smart, some kind of evil mastermind thrumming his fingers and petting a white cat. I underestimated who I was dealing with, as you did me,” he shot back with a grin.
“Don’t get cocky son, you have no idea who you’re dealing with,” the voice growled, then the line went dead.
He stared at the cell for a second, then tossed it in Naomi’s direction. “Doubt you can trace it, but who knows, right?”
A bright white light flared into
existence, temporarily blinding him, the sound of rotors thundering the world around him; how had he not heard it coming? “This is the police, stay where you are, you are surrounded.”
Naomi’s face went from triumphant to panicked in two seconds flat. She shot a look at Ezio. “You and Benji get out of here. You’re both fast enough to avoid detection and have a better shot at eluding capture.”
Benji was hovering nearby, his chest covered in gore, his tongue working at cleaning his lips, but it was merely smearing it even more. His arm came up and he wiped at his face, his eyes drifting from the overhead chopper to her. “You sure? I can stick around, see if I can smooth things out.”
“Not in your condition,” Naomi returned hurriedly. “Not even your telepathic powers are strong enough to cover this shit up. The two of you beat it. Hoops, is Ayana in the Humvee?”
Renny shook his head, “no, she’s with Kayumi and Speedy, getting them to our safehouse.”
Ezio rolled his shoulders, drool dripping off his teeth, blood seeping out of numerous wounds in his torso. He cocked his head to look at the light, then his ears perked. The sound of approaching sirens were growing in intensity, the chopper’s reinforcements en route and only minutes out. He gave Naomi one last look, then turned, bent over, and launched himself towards the eastern woods faster than the overhead light could follow.
Naomi was standing in front of him, her eyes just inches from his own, giving him a start. “We don’t discuss any of this with the norms, got it?”
“Norms, as in anyone not involved in this supernatural bullshit?” he asked, setting his gun on the roof of the Volvo and unbuckling his ammo belt. “I got it. I’ll keep my mouth shut. I hope you have a good lawyer though, this is going to be hard to explain. I wouldn’t even believe any of the crap we’re going to have to toss out to explain all of this.”
“You don’t worry about that, you just keep your mouth shut and ask for your lawyer,” she told him as red and blue lights illuminated the front lawn. “Our names are on the deed, it’s our property, so the self-defense angle is workable, but you’re right, it’s going to be hard to explain. There are a lot of dead bodies here and we don’t look like we got woken up by an intruder. Just be patient.”
He tossed the rest of his gear on the car roof, he didn’t want to give the cops any more reason than they already had to shoot him; he’d take his clothes off if he had the time for it. Wasn’t there a movie where that happened, with that Butler guy stripping down naked before the cops showed up? He didn’t know, but it didn’t matter, it wasn’t relevant. His adrenaline was still pumping from the fight, it all hadn’t set in yet, and he doubted it would any time soon. This was just a crazy ass night and it didn’t appear to be ending anytime soon.
As the squad cars came to a stop behind the piled-up vehicles, he automatically put up his hands and tried to steady his nerves; no point getting shot by the good guys, right?
Wait, does that make me one of the bad ones?
II
He’d never been in an interrogation room before. His hands were cuffed, and a chain bound them to a metal bar bolted to the table top. He shifted his weight in his seat and tried to get the chafing to ease up, but there just wasn’t much maneuverability and his fingers were tingling from the loss of circulation. He’d been there for an hour, but it hadn’t taken long for him to decide he didn’t like this, not one bit.
Just keep your mouth shut. Ask for your lawyer.
Yeah right.
What else was he going to do, start spouting off at the mouth about werewolves and vampires? Would a Dr. Soberman type get called in to evaluate his mental health, give a diagnosis that he was a looney, have him hauled out in a straitjacket and tossed in a padded cell for the rest of his life? Would he move about like a zombie, drugged to hell and talking to his imaginary friend Lenny? Because even if he did tell them the truth, who the fuck would believe it?
He didn’t know if they’d be dealing with the police or if some other agency had been called in to deal with them. Who exactly handled situations like this? There was no way they could hide the weapons in that armory that Kayumi kept. That combined with the strange body armor and dead bodies, it would be hard to explain to anyone with a level head that they were innocent of any wrong-doing; he couldn’t count on a Mulder-type walking in to do his interrogation. Though, he wouldn’t mind at least a Scully. She was a skeptic and could keep an open mind. These guys? There was only one reality, and they were sure of where it began and ended with a bedrock confidence that would be very hard to budge.
He couldn’t know that for sure that’s what he would be dealing with, but twenty-four hours ago he’d been exactly the same way, and they didn’t have the visitation of a blood-thirsty dead wife to usher them into a different way of thinking. Then again, how many had endured such an experience? If it were a commonplace occurrence there’d be more than folk tales and fictional accounts to give it life.
Vampires were real.
If he hadn’t seen it, felt it, if he hadn’t held his wife one last time before she died for a second time in a week, he never would have believed it. He seemed to recall a moment in the Sookie Stackhouse world, whether it be in the show or the books, where she had asked what else in the world existed after being confronted with a being other than a vampire? She had been just as floored as he currently felt.
Werewolves he knew about. Demons had been brought up. And he’d seen a frackin’ Leprechaun, and it sure as fuck didn’t look like Willow in a green suit and heavy make-up. But what else was out there? What else had he only scratched the surface of? Was there some lizard swimming around a lagoon in the Amazon? Were aliens routinely sticking probes up the asses of rednecks looking for God knows what?
What of God? Did He exist? Did angels? If demons were prowling about, didn’t that imply that the inverse existed as well? A yin yang vacuum that would need to be filled? What else kept them at bay other than other supernatural beings that interceded on Mankind’s behalf? Had his abandonment of his family’s religious beliefs prove to be a fatal mistake when considering his immortal soul? Did he even have a soul?
He shifted again and felt the pain in his sciatica flare. They had to be doing this on purpose; make him as uncomfortable as possible so that when they finally did enter the room he’d spill if only to shift his weight to a more comfortable position. Well, he was stronger than that. A week ago, he never would of thought so. Hell, half a day ago he had wished for death, but somehow all of the events of the night had molded him, hardened him, made more capable of fighting for life; despite his sudden lack of the woman that had been breathing it into him for so long.
He felt a new purpose fill him, a new resolve he hadn’t thought himself capable of. No, he wouldn’t tell them shit. Not because they wouldn’t believe, but because he didn’t owe them a thing. Let them have a hand in killing the person they loved, have them pass away in their arms, tears dripping from their cheeks and sorrow feeling their hearts, and maybe he might budge.
No, not even then.
The door opened.
A woman with a black suit jacket, short blond hair, and a light tan collared shirt came striding in confidently, a cup of coffee in hand. “Sorry to keep you waiting Mr. Crawford.”
“No, you’re not,” he grinned, and nodded at the glass window across from him. Not for a moment did he believe there was no one on the other side of it monitoring their conversation, they rarely worked alone. That gave him an idea, they should call up Richard Castle, get him in here, then they might actually have a chance at him telling the truth.
Fat chance of that!
She smirked, as if that would ease the tension that had suddenly cropped up in the room. “Mr. Crawford, we don’t know how you got entangled with this group, but you’re not the one we’re interested in. If you could answer a few questions for us, make a statement, I’ll be happy to undo these cuffs and get you out of here. Up until this point, you have been an upstanding citizen with no c
riminal record to speak of. Some light civil traffic incidents, one minor car accident, and one altercation at a bar, which you only witnessed but did not participate in. I don’t know why you’re involved with these other people, but surely you’re just another bystander in all of this, an innocent at the wrong place and time.”
“Lawyer.”
Her smile grew bigger. “I’m sure that’s exactly what they told you to say,” she said, taking a seat across from him and taking a sip of her coffee. “But once we go down that path I’m going to have to book you. If we go there, there’s no getting off this train until the end of the line. Considering the litter of dead bodies down in our morgue, I imagine that will be with a needle in the arm or in a cell being someone’s bitch until your teeth are all gone, and you die of colon cancer. Don’t fall on your sword. You don’t owe these people anything. Talk to me, tell me what’s going on, and I promise you that you will leave here a free man.”
“Nice speech. How many people fall for that?” he inquired curiously, not to mention calmer than his soul actually felt.
“It’s not just a speech, Mr. Crawford. I mean what I say. We aren’t interested in you. These other two though? Their compatriots? They have popped up on the radar on more occasions than can be coincidental, and I believe there is a lot more to this than just the five dead bodies they were caught standing over tonight. When the shadows are dispersed, and the light brings forth the truth, there’s going to be more than tonight’s bloody massacre to hang about their necks. Don’t go down with them.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. My wife recently died. I buried her two days ago. I’m in mourning. Please contact my lawyer and leave me be, I have nothing further to say,” he answered and looked away.
The Legacy Series (Book 1): Legacy [Sanguis] Page 16
