by Dean Murray
Smith was faster than I would have given him credit for. He managed to throw himself backwards, nearly far enough to escape Anton, but even a passing swipe from the obscenely long claws at the end of Anton's paw was enough to open Smith up from neck to stomach.
Shiver was backing away, rifle rocking back as he fought the recoil, but he abruptly ran to the end of the clip and Anton changed direction in a flash, killing Shiver before the mercenary managed to get a replacement clip into his weapon.
Ash somehow ended up the next target, but unlike the others he didn't try to dodge. He scored with at least two more rounds before Anton barreled into him, claws flashing. I saw blood fountain, some of it Ash's, some of it Anton's, and suddenly remembered that I had my pistol out.
I shot twice, but before I could line up my third shot Dieter went down, and I held off on my fourth shot because I was worried I'd hit Shadow.
A second later Shadow was dead. It only took three more shots to realize that Anton was playing with me. He'd show just enough of himself around a corner to make me fire and then disappear as I squeezed the trigger.
I should have known something was up when after a few iterations he came around the corner of the house and just sat there. I pulled the trigger again and then realized that the slide had locked back. The gun was empty and I suddenly found that I was shaking so bad that it took me two tries to eject the magazine.
He was stalking me now, slowly creeping forward as I backed away, fumbling for a replacement magazine.
The first one slipped out of my fingers as I tried to pull it from the shoulder holster. It hit the ground and bounced off into the ravine and I realized for the first time just how close I was to the edge.
My fear of heights normally would have picked that instant to kick into high gear but I was already as scared as it was physically possible for me to get. I took another step, angling my path slightly so that I paralleled the edge.
It was pointless. Anton was close enough to cover the distance in one leap now. If I actually managed to get a magazine into my pistol he'd still kill me before I managed to get a shot off. Still, something inside of me refused to just stand there and wait for him to kill me.
I got my second and final magazine out and looked Anton in the eye as I slipped it home. I could see him gathering himself to leap, but I thumbed the slide release and then all hell broke loose.
I actually saw at least three separate bullets hit Anton before I realized that someone else had to be alive. Anton was fast, but not nearly as fast as before. Apparently the bullets were finally taking their toll on him.
I had my pistol up and managed to get a single shot off myself before Anton spun around. My ears had stopped ringing enough that I heard the rifle switch to full auto. The impact of the bullets caused Anton to misstep.
My second shot actually hit Anton, but it was nothing compared to what whoever had the rifle did to him. Anton managed another step and then fell over the edge of the ravine.
Still shaking, now more from relief than anything else, I pulled out the flashlight Ash had given me days previously and forced myself over to the edge of the drop-off. I was expecting to see Anton's broken corpse lying at the bottom. Instead I found Anton, back in human form, clinging to the rock several dozen feet below.
He was moving slowly but steadily upward so I raised my pistol again and took another shot at him. I should have hit him, the shot was on target, but he let go of the cliff, dropping far enough to kill a normal person before finding another handhold to stop his descent.
I emptied my clip down the face of the cliff, managing to force him further down, but never quite hitting him. As the last shot ricocheted off of the ravine floor Anton dropped down to the ground, shifted back to cat form and started running.
He wasn't running very fast, probably not any faster than I could have, but it was only a matter of time before he got to the end of the canyon or otherwise found a way out. I found myself holstering my pistol and then remembered the rifle fire that had driven him away in the first place.
I nearly started crying when I found Ash. It was equal parts joy that he wasn't dead, and fear that he wouldn't make it. He was pretty bad off with deep gashes all over his chest, legs and stomach.
"I'm so glad you're OK!"
He coughed, but waved me away when I tried to help.
"He's not dead?"
"No. He's at the bottom of the ravine—I don't know how long we've got until he'll be back here."
"OK. You'll need to work fast then. There's a first-aid kit in the Hummer, get it and bring it to me. Then I need you to drag the others into the cabin. Use the rest of the incendiary grenades to start the cabin and their vehicles on fire. Then we need to get back in the Hummer and get out of here."
It was one of the most gruesome things I'd ever had to do. The only thing that kept me moving was knowing that if I took too long it wouldn't just be me that died. Ash was depending on me.
Half an hour later I managed to get Ash into the Hummer and then I set everything that could be used to trace us back to the location on fire.
Chapter 13
Things were both easier and much, much harder this time around. It was the second time I found myself driving who knew where with Ash nearly dead in the seat next to me. Ash handed me a phone number and then stayed conscious long enough to shoot himself full of antibiotics and tape up the worst of his wounds before passing out.
I waited to dial the phone number until I made it on the freeway. Once we were on a paved surface, I could ratchet the Hummer up to higher double digits rather than the snail's pace I'd been forced to take previously. With the extra speed I finally started to feel safe.
That was when the adrenaline finally finished flushing the rest of the way out of my system and I got the shakes again. I dropped the phone while trying to dial and then pulled over, opened my door and vomited.
The shakes didn't really subside after that, at least not very quickly, but I felt a little better. I managed to dial the number on the second try.
"What the helicopter?"
Somehow I hadn't been expecting a woman to answer. I cleared my throat.
"This isn't Ash, but he told me to say 'shut the front door' if you said that."
There was a brief moment of silence as if she didn't want to believe what she was hearing.
"He's alive?"
"Yes, but he's hurt. We tangled with a…"
She cut me off. "It's not particularly safe to go into those kinds of details over any open cellular connection. How bad is he hurt? Do you think he can make it three hours? Less? More?"
I risked a brief look over at Ash and felt the shakes starting to try and resurface.
"I'm not sure. He got himself taped up before he passed out, but it looks like he's pretty much bled through the gauze already."
"Very well. May I call you Jane? I know it's not your real name, but again those types of details simply aren't safe right now. If he's bleeding as bad as you say, then we can't risk a longer option. Please tell me where you are and what you're driving."
I consulted the Hummer's GPS, relayed our coordinates and a description of the Hummer.
"Continue on the road you're currently on for three miles then head north when you get to 93. Maintain exactly the speed limit and don't forget to stop when you see me. We should meet up in approximately an hour."
"How will I know it's you?"
"Ah, dear Jane. It's simple, I'll be the one in the helicopter. I beg your pardon but I must go now if I'm to arrange all of this in the next fifteen minutes."
She hung up while I was still trying to process everything she'd just said. I looked at the phone a couple of times and then shook my head. There wasn't anything left to do but follow her directions and hope she wasn't the crazy, but polite, lady that she seemed to be.
Once it was just me and Ash I started worrying. The fight had taken more out of me than I'd expected, and exhaustion was starting to set in. I told myself t
hat we still had to have a good lead on Anton and just focused on making it for one more hour.
Ash's mystery woman actually beat her estimate by almost ten minutes, dropping out of the sky in a black helicopter, exiting the aircraft while the rotors were still going. I'd never seen her before, so it was silly to have an expectation as far as what she'd look like, but still somehow I was surprised at her appearance.
I'd been expecting a female version of the mercenary team Anton had just torn through. Instead the figure that hurried over to me in the soft light of the dawn looked like a middle-aged lawyer. Instead of leather she wore a pantsuit and instead of a firearm she had a smartphone out. A pair of men followed her, one was obviously some kind of EMT, the other was younger, maybe just a couple of years older than me, and looked fairly unhappy to be there.
In addition to the helicopter pilot I could see one more man in the aircraft and he looked eerily similar to Shadow as he scanned the road behind us, a high-powered rifle at the ready next to him.
"Dear Jane, we don't have much time. If you would be so kind as to help me transfer the crates from the back of the Hummer to the helicopter then Peter and Mr. Ames will see to our mutual friend."
I opened the back of our truck and took one side of the largest crate and helped her lug it over to the open door in the helicopter. I kept an eye on Ash, but the other two men seemed to know what they were doing. Less than five minutes later we'd emptied out the Hummer and I was left standing next to the woman as she waved Peter back over.
"Peter, you'll need to take their car. Take care not to stop anywhere absolutely longer than necessary. I'll arrange an extraction for you in Albuquerque, probably by helicopter as well."
Peter nodded and held his hand out for the keys. I fished them out of my pocket and handed them over and then was hustled over to the helicopter.
The flight back was tense. The woman introduced herself as Anya, let me know that we were headed to Las Vegas, and then we spent the next hour or so watching while the paramedic worked on Ash.
I knew next to nothing about what was going on, but by the time we landed on the top of a fairly tall building in Vegas, I'd figured out that Ash's blood pressure was back up to something more normal.
The four of us, everyone but the pilot, carried Ash's stretcher inside and I was astonished once we got out of the elevator to find that a mini hospital took up one corner of the building.
Anya patted my arm. "I find myself needing a discreet place to fix people up more often than I'd like. I would say it was fortunate that Ash was injured so close to my base of operations, but knowing Ash he anticipated the possibility he'd be seriously hurt and planned the location of the confrontation such that he'd be able to take advantage of our facilities."
"You're probably right; he does seem to be on top of things like that."
"Of course he is. If he were not, he would not have survived for so long. Now, dear Jane. We're going back to my office where we can talk freely, and you'll tell me first, your real name and then second, how Ash incurred such great injuries."
It went against the professional paranoia that Ash had been working so hard to instill in me, but there was something about Anya that just seemed to indicate that I could trust her. Fifteen minutes later I'd sketched out the basics of the time Ash and I had spent together starting with my near abduction in Ridge and working forward until now.
Anya stood and started pacing halfway through my story, occasionally muttering something that sounded like it wasn't English.
"Thank you for your tale. You've been quite unfortunate and lucky all at once. What the helicopter indeed."
"Sorry, Anya. I'm afraid I don't understand the expression."
"It's, how you would say, an old joke between Ash and I. When he fled his pack, he came to me and I helped hide him for a time. He was little more than a boy at the time, but even then he was much too serious. Only occasionally his true nature would peek out and you'd see the prankster that lived deep inside of him. The first time I saw him laugh was in response to a commercial on the television."
I found myself smiling, not at the kind of childhood that would take someone like that and turn them into a serious adult well before their time, but at the way that Ash had never completely let them destroy his sense of humor. Anya smiled back at me and then shook her head and continued her story.
"I don't remember the commercial any more, but I remember there was a line where someone said 'what the helicopter' and another where someone said 'shut the front door.' I was so relieved when he laughed at the expressions that I've never forgotten the moment. Over the years it's come to signify, to me at least, everything that is wrong with Ash's circumstances and right within him."
I nodded, not quite sure I completely understood what she meant, but it didn't take a rocket scientist to agree that our circumstances were pretty bad.
"Now then, I think that there is very little time left if we're to get you out of here before this Anton person comes looking for you. Let's go see to Ash."
Somehow in all the craziness of the flight into Vegas I'd forgotten that Anton would still be trying to hunt us down. The walk from Anya's office to the medical wing took only a couple of minutes, but I felt like I could feel Anton getting closer the entire time.
Ash was being attended to by a surgeon as we arrived. I thought for a second that he was going to try and throw us out, but apparently Anya was the one who signed his paychecks because after a second he returned to his work without saying anything.
"Good doctor, what is the prognosis?"
"I've never seen anything like this. By rights he should be dead, should have been dead before you even got him here. Instead it almost seems like he didn't even need my help. We transfused another unit of blood into him, and I've been going in and trying to stitch up the worst of the rips in the vascular system, but over and over I'm finding that the worst of the damage already looks at least a day old."
Anya smiled and I sighed in relief.
"Very good, he'll be OK then? Is there anything remaining to be done?"
"Yes, he'll be fine, but you're missing the key point. The regenerative properties he's displaying are nothing short of miraculous. I need to run tests. If I can get this into a paper it's going to make my career."
"No, doctor, you're missing the key point. You won't be publishing anything about this operation. You won't even talk about it to your friends and family. Should you choose to do otherwise, you'll find that your career comes to a very abrupt halt."
"Are you threatening me?"
"No, doctor. I'm simply giving you a friendly warning. You've been in my employ for less than a month now, but you've shown great promise. I'd hate to miss a chance to prevent you from making a very big mistake. Please step away from your patient."
I hadn't realized that anyone else had entered the room, but at a motion from Anya, a stocky young man stepped around us, took the surgeon by the arm, and escorted him out of the room. Anya pulled a phone out of her pocket and dialed a number.
"Dear Erik. Yes, the doctor has done his job, but we need Ash to be conscious. What should we do next? Yes, I know there are risks, there unfortunately are always risks to this type of thing, but we'll just have to trust in his innate vitality and hope for the best."
Anya walked over to the cabinet and thumbed through vials until finding what she wanted. She filled a syringe like a pro and then injected him via the IV that the surgeon had run. Sixty seconds later Ash's eyes flickered open.
Ash looked around the room and then worked his jaw a couple of times before managing to speak.
"Kristin was able to get me to you. Excellent. How long have we been here?"
"Dear Ash. Never one to waste time on pleasantries. No more than half an hour. Given that we brought the helicopter here we should still have a short time before we have to worry about your rogue cat."
Ash nodded and then reached for the glass of water on the table next to his bed, wincing slightly
as the movement pulled at his wounds. He absently returned my smile, but his attention was primarily focused on Anya. She waited until he finished drinking and then sighed.
"What will you do?"
"To be honest I'm not sure. It's been mostly sheer dumb luck that's kept us alive this long. He can track and he's one of the really old, really powerful ones, the kind we don't see up here more than once every couple of centuries."
"Truly, he's that powerful?"
"Yes. At least he's seemed so up to this point. We got more than one shot into him with some pretty high-caliber rounds, but all it did was just slow him down."
Anya looked like she didn't want to say what she was about to say, which struck me as odd. I had the definite impression that she was the kind of woman who didn't let the fact that she was uncomfortable with something stop her from going ahead.
"If this Anton really has fixated on someone then there is no choice but to fight or run…"
Ash shot her a look of warning that I didn't understand, but it shut Anya up instantly.
"You have rather bluntly summed up our options. Stand and fight or flee and hope that he eventually loses interest. Whatever our choice long-term, right now all we can do is flee, which is what we should be doing right now."
Anya sighed and then nodded. "Very well, dear Ash. Josef, another of my nephews, by now will have transferred your things to a suitable vehicle. Let's get you into this wheelchair and down to the garage."
"I can make it on my own."
I slugged Ash on the shoulder. Hard enough to get his attention, but I hoped not hard enough to open up the stitches a few inches away from my point of impact.
"Ash, don't be stupid. You being in a wheelchair isn't going to slow us down, in fact it will probably speed things up. Even more important, it will help keep you from bleeding out between here and the car. You heal fast, but you don't heal that fast."
