It was what he always did before a deployment, because when the FDG deployed, it was to fight an enemy. Sometimes the enemy surrendered, but most of the time, they decided to fight. Combat was the worst time to find out that the warriors were missing something they needed.
Mark flexed his trunk, grimacing as the old wound acted up. He clenched his teeth to power through the pain.
“Still hurt?” Sue asked. She’d been there when it happened. Adams had jumped in to carry the lieutenant out of the line of fire.
One of the warriors had bandaged his wounds. He refused Cory’s help, because there were those who were worse off and her influence was limited.
Mark nodded.
“Honor, before all things,” he replied proudly. Terry Henry Walton had made him and the Force de Guerre the symbol of the oppressed, the bane of would-be dictators. “When do we leave?”
“I don’t know, but Mom wants you to be ready to deploy,” Kae responded.
“We’ll meet you in Mayor’s Park in fifteen minutes. All of us,” Mark said. He followed them out of the armory, making them jump when he yelled down the hallway for an emergency callout of the entire Force.
“What’s up, Captain?” someone called.
“We’re going to war, ladies. Out in front in ten, now MOVE!” Mark bellowed.
CHAPTER FOUR
Terry’s Prison
Terry breathed slowly and rhythmically, feeling the strength returning to his body. He squinted and concentrated, finally able to make out the crack under the door where one or two lumens crept past. Despite his best efforts, he could see nothing else in the room.
He kicked at the dead body, now shriveled to a mere husk of its former self. Terry kicked it away from him so he wouldn’t have to touch it.
In the silence, he heard footsteps, hard soles on a hard floor, clickety clack.
It wasn’t Kirkus, unless he’d swapped his soft-sole slippers for cowboy boots.
The door was thrown open and the light turned on. Terry blinked and squinted against the brightness. Kirkus stood next to an incredibly beautiful Chinese woman, tall and shapely, skin like alabaster. Her oversized almond-shaped eyes were dark as she visually explored the body of Terry Henry Walton.
“How nice of you to bring your pet kitty,” Terry said in a low voice, tensing with the expectation of what she was there to do.
Kirkus stepped aside without a word. The young-looking woman started to undress, slowly, seductively. A lesser man may have been lulled into enjoying the show, but with each article of clothing removed, she was one step closer to turning into a Weretiger.
TH couldn’t defend himself. He’d seen Aaron in Were form too many times to count and knew the damage that would be wrought by a Weretiger’s claws.
Kirkus chuckled softly to himself, but didn’t tell the woman to hurry. He was enjoying the anticipation of pain that filled Terry’s mind.
Once fully naked, she turned one way and then another to show her curves and her pride in her body. Terry only saw the muscles of a fighter. He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to block her out while all the muscles in his body tensed.
When he felt hot breath on his face, he opened his eyes and found himself face-to-face with the orange-furred Weretiger. He didn’t try to head-butt her; she was just out of range. He remained still while she sniffed him.
He saw her eye twitch as a paw blurred in how quickly it raked its claws across his stomach. He didn’t feel it at first, then it was like fire burning through his skin and into his very soul.
The Weretiger stalked back and forth, sizing up her prey while TH worked through the pain. He chanced a look, saw the shredded skin and torn muscle beneath.
Terry consoled himself with believing that Kirkus needed him alive for some reason. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be playing games.
“Damn, kitten. Look what you did to my beach body?” Terry taunted, flexing himself in anticipation of another slash. She jumped up and he flinched.
She landed with the pads of her paws on his shoulders. She was heavy and his shoulders screamed with the strain. The shackles dug deeply into his wrists.
The Weretiger leaned close. Her feline eyes studied him. She licked his face from chin to forehead with her wide and raspy tongue.
“Come on, kitten. You’ve been eating too much ass lately. Maybe try a breath mint every now and again,” Terry grumbled.
She sniffed and nuzzled his face, then nibbled his ear. He froze. She clamped down, driving a fang through the cartilage.
Terry gasped, but didn’t cry out. His stomach hurt more than his ear. He decided not to taunt her further and forced himself to relax.
She spun and slapped his knee with a paw, then did it again, much harder the second time and with her claws out. He lost his balance and hopped on one leg to take the weight off his shoulders.
She stalked away, changing into her human form. She bent at the waist to put her shoes on, then gathered her clothes, carrying them in her arm as she walked naked from the room, clickety-clacking into the hallway beyond the door.
Kirkus held the door for her. Neither of them had said a single word.
Blood ran down Terry’s stomach, drenching his shorts. Drips were starting to build into a puddle on the floor.
“I suggest you not kill this one if you wish to eat and drink,” Kirkus said over a shoulder as he walked away. The light was still on in the room. TH would have wondered except moments later, a minion entered. Female, Terry thought, but not completely certain.
She brought a tray of food and a pitcher of water. He smacked his dry lips, barely able to keep his eyes open as his nanocytes were taking energy from anywhere they could find it, making him unnaturally tired.
The minion held the pitcher to his lips and he drank, swallowing heavily as it had been awhile and his throat was parched. She was much shorter than Terry and held the jug at arm’s length over her head, trying to control the flow. The water dribbled over his face when he couldn’t keep up.
“Food, please,” he said, but she shook her head. He didn’t know where she came from, but she looked Asian. He suspected she didn’t speak English so he pointed with his chin and eyes. She handed him the first bite, then the second, until the tray was empty.
Terry felt like he could have eaten a horse, but what she gave him was all he was going to get. She poured the rest of the pitcher into his mouth, bowed and started to leave.
“Thank you,” he said, before digging into his mind and pulling out the Mandarin words and then the Cantonese words. “Xie xie. M goi.” She nodded slightly as she walked out, closing the door behind herself. She did him the courtesy of leaving the light on.
Beijing
Akio saw four humans coming toward him. They carried short spears. He pulled one pistol and shot them, one by one. They never knew that they didn’t stand a chance. Akio holstered his pistol, one of two that he always carried and rarely used.
The Forsaken stepped into the hallway on the first floor of the building. He was the last, and he knew it. Like the rest, he was arrogant enough to believe he had a chance against the sword master.
The man pulled two short blades from behind his back. They looked like the Elven blades from Lord of the Rings. Akio cocked his head, wondering if they were real.
The man sauntered past the human bodies. He didn’t waste time looking at them as he sized up his enemy. He whirled his blades and moved close.
Akio waited while the Forsaken continued his intricate sword dance.
The katana whistled past the Forsaken’s dipped blade. The curved blade bit deeply into the creature’s neck. A second swing cleanly removed the Forsaken’s head.
Akio crouched in the ready position, weaving his blade through the air around him as he explored the etheric looking for more enemies. None remained.
He wiped his blade clean on the clothes of his enemy, examined its length for nicks, and then sent the blade home.
Akio walked with a purpose to the room
where the prisoners were being kept. He opened the door, walked in, released them, and left. He didn’t say anything as he left them to themselves.
Akio strolled from the modern building on the outskirts of what used to be Beijing, stopping to look at the city’s lights in the distance. Power had been restored in enclaves around the world, serving the city-states in which the plants could be found.
City-states had been combined to form loose nation-states. Transportation was still iffy at best, but the trains were running in many areas and made up the only form of long-distance travel. The people still did not have high-speed air travel fifty years after the world’s worst day ever (WWDE).
On rare occasions, blimps could be seen making their way through the skies. Akio had almost hit one as the pod flew itself to the designated landing coordinates on this trip.
He looked up into the darkness. The stars winked back at him. The air had cleared after the WWDE as pollutants stopped being sent skyward. Beijing had been one of the worst cities on the planet. Now, it was like the others, boasting clean air and crystal clear skies overhead.
There was minimal light pollution to cloud the view.
Almost like home, Akio thought. Almost.
The pod opened as Akio approached, his mission complete. It was time to go home.
He stopped and looked back at the building, wondering why this bunch had exposed themselves as they did, becoming a flashing red light on his map of emergencies.
He sat down within, pulling out his communication device and turning it back on. Char had tried three times to contact him, which was three more times than she’d called in the past twenty-five years.
He immediately activated a call to her.
“Akio?” a young-sounding voice replied.
“Cordelia? You called me?” Akio asked softly.
“No, it was my mother. You must come at once and bring all the pods! Forsaken have taken Father. They took him away in an aircraft of some sort. We need to find him!” Cory pleaded, her detached voice coming through the device loud and clear.
“When?”
“Maybe two hours ago? Maybe a little longer,” she replied.
“I will be there shortly. Be ready,” Akio told her before signing off.
North Chicago
Ted stood in the power plant’s parking lot. He had run from the center of North Chicago, past the perimeter of the community. He’d continued all the way to the plant.
There were too many people doing too many different things in the town. It was crushing him, and he panted in distress.
He had to get away, even though he expected his alpha would be annoyed. His pack was with him. Several generations removed from his original pack, the timber wolves had all grown up knowing Ted as their alpha. They lived their lives and they passed on. The latest pack had wolves up to eight generations from the first pack he’d taken over near the Rocky Mountains.
The pack had split a few times when it had grown too large. As it was, the current pack of twenty-three wolves ate a great deal of food, but big game was migrating from Canada, close enough to keep everyone happy without the wolves digging into the herd of cattle. Or waiting on the shore for one of the fishing boats to return.
Ted absentmindedly walked among his pack, not having to bend over to scratch their heads. An outsider would have had a heart attack from fear, but Ted and the insiders of North Chicago considered the wolf pack to be family.
He moved through the meandering beasts to his baby, looking shiny and new.
The Mini Cooper modular nuclear reactor. They’d only had to refuel seven times in twenty-five years. The original design called for refueling every two years, but Ted knew they could get more mileage from the system. At the beginning, they didn’t need to burn so hot that they expended the rods in two years. He’d been able to stretch the operation to four years on the original fueling before they had to search for more fuel rods.
With Akio’s help, they found replacement fuel rods in cold storage. With a minimal number of reactors running in the new world, there were sufficient rods for hundreds of years of operation. Ted thought beyond that and had talked with Terry about establishing a new uranium mine and fuel processing facility.
Terry had nodded but refused to work with the mayor to commit any resources to such a venture. He told Ted that it was added to the long-term needs list.
Ted smiled, thinking of how he’d managed the reaction over the years with limited computer resources. He’d done many of the calculations in his head, because he could. No one could do what he could, but he didn’t brag.
That wasn’t what Ted was about. His was a constant internal struggle with the math. Equations bombarded him like he was standing in a pouring rain. He needed to answer the problem, and then move to the next. There was a never-ending stream.
Ted saw the flare arc into the sky over North Chicago. He saw it but it didn’t register. The Mini Cooper was calling his name. It needed an adjustment. He climbed the ladder that he’d climbed thousands of times before. He closed his eyes as he caressed the control panel. He could see everything within his mind.
He opened his eyes to look at the numbers. He tweaked a couple settings, estimating an efficiency improvement of a thousandth of one percent. Not much, but better.
Ted always did better, especially when it came to math.
The wolves were scattered in a parking lot devoid of vehicles. They lounged on the concrete, soaking up the heat. Ted was tired. He climbed down the ladder and laid down with his pack, making himself comfortable against their shaggy coats as he went to sleep.
CHAPTER FIVE
Chicago
Char sensed something behind her. She turned her Werewolf head to see a flare rocketing into the early morning sky. The green light slowly descended, the parachute above it invisible.
She was both relieved and angry. She had not yet found Joseph and she wanted to talk with him, recruit him to go along.
The flare meant that Akio had been in touch, was maybe even on his way. Char hadn’t told Cory to wait for her, an oversight on Char’s part.
She had to decide.
Char turned and ran toward the tallest building of the downtown, picking up speed with each stride. She didn’t care if she was seen. None of that mattered as long as Terry Henry Walton was missing.
She reached out with her senses as she ran, looking for the Forsaken that she grudgingly called a friend. Terry had seen the potential in Joseph when they first met. He’d given Joseph a chance and from then on, the Forsaken had been one of Terry’s team.
He’d been one of the pack, the ultimate tactical team. They’d never failed in a mission, although they’d left bits and pieces of themselves behind. They’d even lost one of their own. In Cheyenne Mountain, Xandrie died at the hands of a Forsaken. In China, Gene almost died after a fight with a Weretiger.
Since then, Terry had spent a great deal of time turning the wrestler into a fighter, helping him understand how best to use his strengths while limiting his weaknesses. He no longer allowed an opponent to get close.
Char couldn’t help thinking about him. Her mind started to drift.
“As big as that fucking melon is on your shoulders, you’d think there’d be a fucking brain in there bigger than a fucking walnut!” Terry had yelled. No one wanted to see Gene injured like that again.
Char realized that she was trotting. The flare was long gone. She bolted forward, picking up speed.
She was relieved when she sensed the Forsaken. He was a few stories below ground and that had been blocking his presence. She stopped in an alley, changed back into human form, and dressed.
When she walked back into the street, three young punks were there, knives out, and ready to go after the big dog they’d seen just a few moments earlier.
Terry’s Prison
Terry’s mouth was dry again, but the food and water he’d been given earlier was providing the energy his nanocytes needed. He flexed to lean down and look, fi
nding that the wound on his stomach had closed. His muscles were still sore, but he was recovering.
“How long are we going to keep this up?” he asked the empty room. Terry flexed his knee and found that it could support his weight again. He started working his shoulders and pulling on the chains, rocking back and forth.
His wrists were sore, but he pushed the pain out of his mind. He thought about the history of prisoners of war, those who were taken in Vietnam and returned alive after up to nine years in the harshest of conditions.
They were emaciated, but they smiled as they walked toward freedom. Terry recalled the video footage in great detail. He remembered every word of the biographies--Captain Floyd Thompson, the longest held American POW ever. Nine years in captivity. How much of his life was wasted behind the bars of a North Vietnamese prison?
Terry chased the thoughts away, gritting his teeth to strain against his chains. Work them a little at a time. Every minute of every day, he would pull on the eyebolts until they started to give, then he would redouble his efforts and tear them from the wall.
He thought back to the images in his mind of the survivors. He decided that he would rather die trying to escape.
Terry Henry Walton was okay with disappointing his captor. Stockholm syndrome? No. With each passing second, he only wanted to kill the Forsaken that much more.
North Chicago
“Where’s Mother?” Cory asked impatiently. Felicity shook her head. Billy tried to calm her down.
“She’ll be here when she needs to be here,” Billy said slowly in his rough, gravelly voice. “Your mother isn’t going to abandon TH. You know that she’s doing what she needs to be doing for your father.”
Cory looked at the old man seated in a rocking chair. The sound of dogs barking filled the air.
Dogs were always barking in North Chicago. Clyde’s descendants were every bit as vocal and happy as the old coonhound had been. The dog guaranteed his legacy when he had taken over the pack left behind by the circus-wagon Forsaken.
Nomad Omnibus 02: A Kurtherian Gambit Series (A Terry Henry Walton Chronicles Omnibus) Page 61
