“Markham!”
“Sir!” the other man said, rushing over.
“Take a handful of breaching charges and set them up against that rear wall. I want an exit we can use when I give the word.”
“Roger that.”
Outside, Wilson was still counting.
“Six…”
“Five…”
As Markham disappeared into the cell at the back of the barn, Johns slipped out of the room and crossed to Riley’s side.
“I’ve got the girl’s chains off, Captain, but she’s pretty weak. I’m not sure if she can make it on her own if we have to make a run for it.”
Riley nodded. “I’m putting her under your supervision. Do what you can to get her safely to the rendezvous point. If she asks, tell her we’re a police task force or something.”
Johns nodded and returned to his charge. Outside, Wilson was still counting, his men hooting and hollering in support of his steady countdown. Riley was about to issue instructions to his other men when a new sound joined the fray, sending a chill racing down his spine.
It was the howl of a wolf.
No sooner had the first call begun to die away that another rose to take its place, followed quickly by half-a-dozen more. Soon the human shouts died off entirely, replaced by the echoing cries of an entire wolf pack raising their voices together in eerie harmony.
Riley felt the blood drain from his face. He and his men had come here expecting to deal with a single shape-shifter. From the sound of it, they were now facing an entire pack!
Bautista caught his commander’s gaze with his own and in the sergeant’s eyes Riley could see a reflection of the fear he was certain was in his own.
Snatching a single shifter with an eight man squad was one thing; taking on an entire pack was something else entirely. They were in trouble and the two men knew it.
Outside, Wilson had apparently gotten sick of counting. His shout of “Four” was almost immediately followed by the count of “One.”
“That’s it,” Wilson called out. “Time’s up. Turn her round boys!”
With hand signals, Riley instructed the men around him to move to the rear of the structure. When Markham blew the breaching charges and opened a hole in the rear wall, they were only going to have a few moments to reach the cover of the trees before Wilson’s men were on to them. The shifters were making a fair bit of noise right now, but it wasn’t going to be enough to cover the sound of the blast and they needed all the time they could get.
As Bautista and the others moved to do as they were told, Riley looked out through the door slot again, trying to get a sense of what Wilson was up to. As chance would have it, he was just in time to see one of the pickup trucks back up and do a three-point turn, the driver no doubt intending to end up with the bed of the truck pointing toward the front of the barn. In the midst of the maneuver, the truck drove through the cone of light cast by one of the overhanging spots, revealing a military grade machine gun sitting on a thick tripod in the back of the truck, one of Wilson’s hillbilly compatriots sitting behind it, hands on the grips.
The barrel of the gun loomed large in Riley’s sight.
He didn’t wait around to see anything more.
He tapped his mike, shouted “Blow it” over the open line to Markham, and then turned to run, hoping he wasn’t already too late.
He hadn’t take more than three steps before there was a shrill whine from outside as the chain gun’s motor spun up to speed. The whine was followed seconds later by a thunderous roar as the gun began firing. Bullets smashed through the aging wood that formed the front of the barn and filled the air around him like a swarm of deadly insects as the gunner raked the weapon from side to side in an effort to hit as many of his unseen targets as possible.
An errant ricochet caught the back of Riley’s ballistic vest and threw him violently to the floor. It hurt like a sonofabitch and he was going to have the mother of all bruises come morning, but at least his guts weren’t splattered all over the floor beneath him.
Bullets were filling the air above his head, as the other shifters added their own fire to that of the chain gun, and Riley wisely decided to stay as low as possible, crawling on his forearms and toes the rest of the way across the barn until he reached the door leading into the prisoner’s room at the back.
Thanks to Markham’s efforts, a man-sized hole had been blasted in the rear wall of the barn, allowing Riley to see through and across the clearing beyond to where the last of his men were just now disappearing into the trees. He slid over the threshold and kicked the door shut behind him, putting another wall between him and the gunfire. He rose to his feet, intending on catching up with his men, only to watch in dismay as several men stepped into view from either side of the barn, standing with their backs to him. He watched as they shrugged off their clothing and began to change, their bodies twisting and contorting in response to the call of their beasts.
Within seconds, the men before him ceased to exist and standing in their places were several of the largest wolves Riley had ever seen. They raised their noses to the sky, howled in unison, and then darted into the woods in pursuit of his men.
All but one, that is.
A grizzled old veteran with ash-grey fur and a large scar across its snout sniffed the air and then turned, looking back toward the barn.
Their gazes met and in the wolf’s eyes Riley could see the sharp glint of intelligence and a whole lot of anger.
The Templar captain didn’t wait around to see anything more. As the wolf came rushing toward him, Riley did some rushing of his own.
Straight for the couch.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Riley reached the piece of furniture and the entrance to the tunnel it contained about the same time the wolf reached the rear of the barn. The Templar captain pointed his MP5 in the creature’s direction and let loose a burst of gunfire, forcing it to take cover to one side of the make-shift entrance in the rear wall. That was all the time Riley needed. Keeping his weapon trained on the doorway, he reached out with his other hand, triggered the catch beneath the center cushion, and flung open the hidden entryway.
He caught a glimpse of the wolf coming through the hole Markham had blown in the rear wall but didn’t wait around to take another shot at it. Instead he threw himself into the opening in front of him, letting the trapdoor fall back into place as he hurried down the ladder into the darkness below.
He heard claws clicking against the wood that formed the trapdoor above, followed by a snarl of animal rage. Riley was just congratulating himself on choosing a route that the massive beast above couldn’t manage to access when a crash of destruction reached his ears and the darkness was pushed back by light from above.
Glancing up, Riley saw a massive half-wolf, half-man figure staring down at him through the remains of the couch at the top of the ladder.
The creature pulled its lips back in a teeth-revealing smile.
As Riley backpedaled away from the ladder, he let his MP5 drop to his side on its sling, and, reaching over his shoulder, drew his Mossberg combat shotgun out from the specially made holster strapped to his back.
He hoped the ladder would give the beast some trouble given its size, but wasn’t surprised when it dropped straight to the floor of the tunnel, bypassing the ladder entirely. It shifted as it fell, flesh twisting and changing in the blink of an eye, so that it landed on all fours in full wolf form when it hit the bottom.
Teeth snapping in anger, the wolf charged straight down the tunnel toward Riley.
The Templar commander fired, the shotgun going off with an ear-shaking boom in the confines of the tunnel, sending a load of silver-laced buckshot into the wolf’s chest.
The creature howled in pain, but kept coming.
Still backpedaling, Riley fired again, this time taking the beast full in the face.
The wolf stumbled and went down, sprawling in a heap in the middle of the tunnel.
Riley knew
it wasn’t out of the fight. Shifters had an innate ability to regenerate, healing their injuries in a matter of moments. Interrupting their system with silver would bring them down, but there wasn’t enough silver in his buckshot to kill it; the only way he was going to be able to do that was to separate its head from its body.
He jammed his Mossberg back into its case over his left shoulder and drew his sword from the sheath he wore across his right. He rushed forward, raising the weapon over his head as he drew closer, ready to deliver the killing blow, but the beast had other ideas.
As Riley brought the sword whistling downward, the wolf shifted, transforming the upper part of its body into the half-man, half-wolf creature seen earlier and twisting out of the way in the process. Instead of taking the wolf’s head off at the neck, Riley’s strike bounced harmlessly in the dirt. Before he could recover from the effort, the shifter lashed out with one massive paw, delivering a backhanded blow that smashed into Riley’s chest, picking him up off his feet and sending him flying through the air to crash into the wall on the far side of the tunnel.
Dazed, Riley laid there, watching as the beast struggle to get to its feet. There seemed to be something wrong with its hind quarters; if there hadn’t been, he knew he’d be dead already.
Taking this thing on in a head-to-head fight was a clear recipe for disaster. He needed another solution and he needed it fast.
Glancing around, he noticed that the tunnel had been hastily dug, recently, too, from the looks of it, as there was very little shoring in place that he could see. That gave him an idea.
Rising to his feet, he stumbled several yards farther down the tunnel, away from the light coming down from above and into the darkness. He had no doubt the beast could still see him, but it was cover he was after but distance. He didn’t want to be right next to the thing when he put his plan into action.
The shifter snarled in rage and frustration as it vainly tried to get to its feet. Riley ignored it, focused on the task in front of him. Sheathing his sword, he pulled two flashbangs off the clips on his belt. He hesitated for a moment and then added a third for good measure. He was only going to get one chance at this after all.
Flashbangs were designed to disable targets through a combination of concussive force and piercing light, overwhelming the target’s senses long enough for military or law enforcement forces to move in. Riley had used them that way countless times, but right now he had another idea in mind.
A glance showed him that the shifter had given up trying to get its legs to work and was now using its great arms to pull itself across the floor of the tunnel in Riley’s direction. If this didn’t work, Riley was going to be in some serious trouble.
It’s going to work. It has to.
Holding the flashbangs in one hand, he used the other to pull the pins and then quickly set them all down together against the edge of the tunnel wall, hoping the confined space would amplify their concussive effect.
With a final glance at the shifter still dragging itself toward him, Riley turned and ran into the darkness, keeping one hand against the wall as a guide and counting silently in his head as he went.
One one thousand…
Two one thousand…
On three he stopped and knelt quickly to the ground. Opening his mouth as wide as he could to equalize the pressure, he covered his ears with his hands and squeezed his eyes shut.
The flashbangs went off behind him, the blast shaking the tunnel and filling it with blinding light that he could see even through his eyelids. Right on its heels came another, louder, deeper, rumbling and the tunnel around him began to shake and pitch so badly that he thought it was going to come down upon his head. If the floor hadn’t been moving so much he would have tried to hurry forward, but as it was he was forced to just hold on and ride it out.
Seconds later it was over.
Riley spun about, praying he wouldn’t find the shifter standing there behind him and breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of the wall of solid earth that now filled the tunnel behind him from floor to ceiling.
There was no way the shifter was getting through that!
Riley climbed shakily to his feet, dusted himself off, and pulled the maglight off his belt. At first it wouldn’t work, but after resorting to the age-old method of fixing electronics by hitting them a few times with the heel of his hand, he got it to throw a weak beam of light ahead of him.
The red light, designed to keep from blinding him in just this kind of situation, cast a cone of illumination about fifteen feet ahead of him, lighting up the tunnel with its eerie glow enough for him to see where he was going.
As best he could figure, the tunnel ran straight ahead in the same direction away from the barn that his men had been traveling when he’d last seen them. With the other end blocked by his homemade cave-in, he had no choice but to follow this section out.
Let’s just hope they finished digging the blasted thing.
Ten minutes later he came to the end and discovered, thankfully, that they had. A ladder led to a trapdoor fifteen feet above his head which in turn opened out onto a small clearing in the forest.
He clambered out, breathing a sigh of relief that he hadn’t emerged to find a pack of shifters waiting for him, and then set off to find the rest of his men.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“Move, move, move!” Riley ordered, counting each of the men as they ran past his position, wanting to be sure they hadn’t left anyone behind. When the last of the stragglers passed him, he remained where he was, waiting with his weapon at the ready, knowing their enemy wasn’t too far behind and intent on reminding them that the prey they were hunting had teeth of their own.
He didn’t wait long.
Just moments after Christoff limped past with the wounded Bodine slung over one shoulder, the first of the wolves came into view rounding the bend in the trail twenty yards behind them. Riley sent a short burst from his HK MP5 in that direction, smiling when he heard the wolf yelp in pain as his bullets found their mark. It wouldn’t be long before the beast’s regenerative powers pushed the bullet back out of its body, closing the wound behind it as it went, but until then it would continue thrashing about in pain as it was doing now and that, in turn, would make its brethren more cautious in their approach. Every minute they hesitated was another minute his men could use to get farther away.
He sent another burst into the trees surrounding the wounded shifter, just in case any of its companions were slinking about in the shadows there where he couldn’t see them, and then turned and hurried after his men.
After emerging from the tunnel, Riley had followed the sound of gunfire to where his men were hunkered down beneath the bows of an evergreen, firing at the pair of wolves who were trying to keep them in place long enough for the rest of the pack to surround them. Riley had spoiled that plan, firing on the wolves from behind to scatter them, and he had then gotten the men moving again, knowing that their chances of survival would increase if they could stay one step ahead of the pack.
Run and live, he’d told them and made sure they did just that.
Now, to his dismay, Riley caught up with them less than ten minutes later. The team was milling about, the confusion and fear on their faces plain to see in the moonlight. Bautista was on one knee, hands cupped around his flashlight as he studied his map.
“Why have we stopped?” Riley demanded, as he hurried over.
“Runway stopped,” Bautista replied, jacking his thumb over his shoulder in the direction they’d been running just moments before.
The Echo Team commander pushed his way through the group to see for himself, only to stare in horror at the chasm that bisected their direction of travel less than ten feet up the trail. The earth just suddenly dropped away into a gorge that had to be two hundred feet deep if it was an inch and a good forty feet across. It was if some giant had slashed through the earth with his knife, leaving a deep furrow directly in their path. They weren’t carrying ropes, so t
here was no way for them to bridge it, and a glance showed the cliff stretching away to his left and his right as far as he could see. They were trapped!
As he turned away from the drop behind him, Riley caught sight of dark shapes moving through the trees below their position and he realized that the situation was getting worse with every passing second. The shifters might be holding off for now, watching them, but once they realized that the Templars had their backs to the wall they wouldn’t hesitate to try to take them in a rush.
Riley had to find a way out before that happened.
His first thought was the chopper. There wasn’t room for it to land, of course, but if Riley and one or two of the others could hold off the shifters long enough, the pilot should be able to hover over their location and pull the rest of the team off with rappel lines. If they worked quickly enough, he might even be able to save the rest of the rear guard as well. The shifters weren’t using any firearms – few actually did, preferring their own natural weaponry – so one man could conceivably hold them off long enough for the pilot to get the chopper and the men it carried safely out of reach, leaving Riley to do his best to slip away in the confusion.
The Echo Team leader wasn’t a fool; he didn’t have any illusions about his ability to get away from a pack of shape shifting wolves that could most likely sniff him out from a mile away, but that didn’t mean he was willing to just let himself be taken either. He’d fight as long as he had breath in his body; that was just the kind of warrior he was.
But first, he had to get the rest of the men out of here.
He hurried back to the others. They had formed a defensive perimeter and were staring out in the darkness ahead of them, occasionally taking a shot when one of the shifters dared to show itself for longer than a few seconds in the moonlight. Riley hustled to Bautista’s side and took a look at the map, then tapped the communications rig he wore to raise the chopper pilot.
“Nightbird, Nightbird, this is Echo Actual, over.”
Fall of Night: A Templar Chronicles Novel Page 13
