Retaliation

by Charles Tillman

  Kelly looked toward the rear of the shed, her memories taking her back to the events six months past.

  It was getting close to dark, and she was checking that everything was secure for the night. She had done it just like her dad had every night since the day he was killed and she became the owner of the station.

  The door to the shed was unsecured. When she was closing it, she heard scuffling and a muted scream from inside. She pulled the old military Browning pistol from its holster and went in to investigate. Jenni was struggling in Hawthorne’s grasp, an angry red mark on her face and blood leaking out of her nose where he had hit her. One hand was clamped tight over her mouth to stop her screams and hold her in place while he ripped her shirt off with the other.

  Kelly’s body went numb when she saw what was going on. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing, arsehole?” she yelled. “Let her go!”

  What she did next would become legend on the neighboring stations.

  His head jerked around at the sound. He released Jenni and started toward Kelly, pulling a large knife from his belt as he did. The leer on his face as he looked her up and down told her exactly what his thoughts were. “I’ll do both of you. You think you’re so much better. See how you like it when—”

  Before he could take another step, Kelly raised the pistol in her hand and smiled coldly at him as she pulled the trigger once. He went down with a scream of absolute agony, his hands holding his groin as blood soaked the front of his pants.

  Kelly stalked toward him with slow, deliberate strides, still wearing that same cold smile that didn’t reach her eyes as she watched him writhe on the ground. She motioned Jenni to her and pushed her lightly toward the door after the young woman had warily skirted the thrashing man.

  His agonized screams continued as two of the men from the bunkhouse ran to the shed, stopping short when they saw Jenni in her disheveled state leaning against the wall outside the door.

  They heard Kelly, her voice as cold as death, say, “I told you I would shoot your prick off, you fucking bastard.” Then a second shot rang out from inside and the screams abruptly cut off.

  When the men rushed in, they saw Kelly, gun in hand, standing over Hawthorne’s body. He was bleeding in two places—his mangled crotch, and a single hole in his forehead. Kelly walked past the two as they stared open-mouthed at the carnage.

  “Get that rapist piece of shit out of here and burn his fucking body,” she snarled as she stalked past them. “That son of a bitch doesn’t deserve a proper burial, and he’d probably make the damned pigs sick if they ate him.” When she reached the frightened young woman, she put her arm lightly around her shoulders and led her into the main house.

  After that day, Jenni had lost some of her innocence and spunk, and she’d become timid and distrustful around anyone but Kelly. It had taken several months, but she was coming out of her shell and starting to act like the vivacious young woman she had been before the attempted rape. She still stayed close to Kelly most of the time, but would occasionally spend time around the fire at night. The other families who lived and worked on the station made sure she felt safe and welcome when she did. The men all treated her like a little sister, even though she was a beautiful young woman who would make a fine wife.

  Kelly shook her head to dispel the dark memory and set out to find the workers and thank them for their hard labor before making her final rounds for the night.

  Kelly had fallen into bed and was out almost before her head hit the pillow. Sometime later, she groggily woke with a feeling that something was off. The next thing she heard was her bedroom doorknob rattle, followed by a loud crash as it slammed into the room seconds later.

  She grabbed the pistol she had kept under her pillow every night for the past six years. When a dark figure stormed into her bedroom, she put two rounds center mass like her father had taught her. The figure fell to the floor with a grunt and stayed there.

  She slid out of bed, keeping her pistol pointed toward the body as she reached for the oil lamp on her nightstand. One hand felt around for the worn lighter she used. It had been her father’s, and he had told her how he’d found it and several cases of fuel and flints shortly after the WWDE. He had only used it to light this lamp. More than twenty-five years later, it still worked like a charm.

  The vicious snarl of a wild animal followed by a blood-chilling scream from somewhere outside startled her, and she knocked the lighter to the floor. She bent down, fumbling to pick it up. As her hand closed on it, someone grabbed her hair and jerked her back.

  “Shoot me, will you, you bitch?” a harsh male voice snarled in her ear as the person lifted her off her feet.

  Kelly screamed as her attacker jerked her back and forth, her gun flying from her fingers as she reached up with both hands to try to ease the pressure on her head. The man laughed as he threw her onto the bed with enough force for her to bounce and slam into the headboard.

  She lay there, stunned, as rough hands fisted into the front of the t-shirt she wore and pulled her off the bed, only to slam her down again. This time, he drove a fist into her chest and knocked the breath out of her.

  “Owen,” a voice called from the hallway, “are you all right, mate? I heard shots.”

  “Bitch shot me,” her attacker snarled. “I’m in the process of explaining how displeased I am. That shit hurt.”

  “Well, hurry up and bring her. Decklan is ready to move out, and you’re holding us up. I know he’s your brother, but that won’t stop him from kicking my arse.” The voice faded as the man walked away.

  Kelly was still in the process of getting her uncooperative lungs to take in enough oxygen when she was snatched up by the shirt again.

  “It’s your lucky night, bitch, but don’t think I’ll forget this,” was the last thing she heard before everything went black.

  Chapter Five

  TQB Base, Tokyo, Japan

  “Abel, guide the Pod back to storage, please.”

  “I have the information you requested queued in the command center, or I can route it to wherever you want,” Abel replied.

  “I need to clean up before I do anything. I had a run-in with some Weres in Czechia and need to get the blood off before I touch anything here.”

  “Acknowledged, and the Pod is away.”

  “Thank you, Abel.”

  Akio went straight to his rooms and stripped out of his bloody clothes. The encounter with the Weres in Rasov had left him with arterial spray splashed across his chest, and the smell was starting to bother his enhanced senses.

  The Weres around the world are getting bolder now, Akio mused as the hot water from the strong jets coursed over him, washing away the grime, and more importantly, the acrid smell of Were blood. If they aren’t kept in line, they will be as dangerous to the survival of humanity as the Forsaken. Both the Wechselbalg in Europe and the Sacred Clan in China have become empowered without the threat of Michael and his family keeping them in check. I will need to increase the surveillance on both groups, as well as searching out any others who are going down that path.

  He dressed quickly and made his way to the command center to see what Abel had found on the sensors he had asked Eve to position around the destroyed lab in China. They had monitored it closely for the first few days, but when all that was detected were humans from the local area checking to see what had caused the explosions and huge cloud of dust, the lab site had been put lower on his list of priorities.

  It had been a busy few days, between the opening of the Palace and the Japanese police asking for surveillance support when they went after the Yakuza gangsters Sero had “willingly” turned over. Eve and Yuko were both spending a good deal of time with the opening, and Yuko had asked Akio to work with Inspector Yonai to use their drone technology to locate and take down the criminals. The information had allowed Yonai’s Special Investigations Unit to capture or kill numerous high-ranking criminals without exposing the team to any unnecessary dangers. There had
been no fatalities and few injuries to the police teams, thanks to this help.

  “What do you have for me, Abel?” Akio asked as he walked into the command center.

  Abel had a video feed paused on the main screen. It showed a shot from the valley where the hangar had been. The video started, showing a lone figure making their way up the side of the mountain. Akio stood watching as they took several steps and then slid back on the loose rock.

  The figure struggled, apparently injured or ill, as it made its way slowly to the ridge above. When it reached the top, the figure collapsed in an exhausted heap.

  “Abel, please zoom in.”

  The feed switched to another view, this one at the top of the ridge. The focus zoomed in until the screen showed the dirt- and blood-covered face of a man. It was after midnight in China on a moonless night, and too dark to make out any of the features.

  “Enhance lighting,” Akio instructed.

  The picture slowly became lighter. The face was undeniably that of a man, but the angle showed only the blood-covered side. His head turned slightly, bringing the other side into view.

  Akio’s legs went weak, and he slumped into a chair as he stared at the screen. He looked like he’d seen a ghost. His mouth worked, but no words came out. He finally croaked, “Kenjii?”

  Akio felt numb all over as he watched the video. He saw another man approach from out of the camera angle, and his shocked expression never changed as he watched the unsuspecting man turn the body over after prodding it. His eyes widened as he watched the attack and how the body was callously disposed of when it was drained. When the vampire walked out of the frame, Akio blinked several times, a red trail running down both cheeks from them.

  “When…when was this, Abel?”

  “This was recorded this morning at 2:43,” Abel replied. “The feeds from here as well as several other sites that have been deemed low interest are on a scheduled data dump each day. This one wasn’t flagged, so I handled it with the routine data.”

  “Is there any more footage available?” Akio asked. “Did a drone continue tracking?”

  “There was one more sighting of this individual as he left the area,” Abel confirmed. “The carriers have been recalled, and there are only a dozen drones around the complex now. They are set to record and report but are not tasked to track anything at present. Eve removed that requirement when we discovered we had been tracking local humans who were just curious about the destruction.

  “What direction was he headed when he left?”

  “Southwest. Is this person of particular importance?”

  Akio was silent for almost a minute before he answered. “He was at one time.” He called Eve over his chip.

  “Yes?” she answered.

  “Do you have a drone carrier ready to deploy?”

  “Not now,” Eve told him. “I can have one ready in a few hours. I’m still at the Palace with Koda and Asai. We have a minor glitch in the new sim that’s launching tomorrow. I will be back at the base in about an hour unless you need me sooner. What’s wrong?”

  “No, that will be fine,” Akio assured her. “I need the carrier sent to the area around Acheng. Abel found something, and I would like to see if the drones can locate someone in the area.”

  “I’ll take care of it soon as I get back,” she promised.

  “Thank you, Eve.”

  “Abel, when Eve gets the carrier ready, I want the drones deployed in this area.” He touched his finger to the screen and drew a cone-shaped area on the display that extended roughly fifty kilometers out and widened to one hundred kilometers at its end. “From the way he was moving, he is not at full strength. I would like to locate him before he kills again.”

  “Understood,” Abel replied. “I will set the drones to report any contacts to me immediately. If he is still there, I will find him.”

  “It’s very important to me to locate this person,” Akio told Abel. “Keep a Pod in stationary orbit above us and call me as soon as you locate him.”

  Chapter Six

  Ning Jing Temple, Dabie Mountains, China

  Peng Kun made his way through the dimly lit cave, his steps sure as he trekked down the same path he had traveled daily for many years. His bare feet made no sound on the stone floor worn smooth by centuries of feet taking the same path through the Ning Jing Temple; first Buddhist monks and then Peng Kun’s subordinates and students. The clash of steel on steel echoed down the hand-carved cave as Kun came into an area where the light grew brighter. He turned through an opening covered by a heavy canvas curtain into a torchlit room that had been painstakingly chiseled out of the solid granite mountain in centuries past.

  When Kun entered the room, a monk in black robes called out a sharp command. All the combatants stopped where they were and went to their knees, lowering their bodies until they were prostrate in supplication to the Master.

  Kun nodded at the gray-clad monk and another command rang out, causing all the supplicants to rise and resume their battles. Kun walked to a raised dais at the end of the room and climbed the three steps to the top, where he lowered himself into a lotus position on a thick cushion. He smiled as he settled, reveling in the softness. It was a perk he allowed himself as a nod to his position as Grand Master of the Serenity Temple, which was a holdover from the days before the Communist takeover when the Chinese government had evicted the Buddhists.

  The training area was filled with one hundred pairs of black-robed monks engaging in multiple forms of combat. Some used swords, staffs, or weighted strings, and others fought with bare hands and feet. The combatants reminded Kun of dancers, each move mirrored or countered by their partners. He watched them in silence for about a quarter-hour, evaluating each pair and the gray-clad instructors who moved among them making corrections as needed, which were very few that Kun saw.

  Kun slowly unfolded his legs and stood. Just as he reached his full height of one hundred sixty centimeters, the same gray-clad monk as before called out to the combatants. All of them froze in mid-move and dropped to their knees again.

  He slowly paced across the first step of the dais, looking at the students with a calculating gaze. His eyes flitted from one to another, like a lord weighing the worth of his prized stock. He cleared his throat and began to speak.

  “You have all worked hard to arrive here today, some of you for many years, others for less. Today you stand before me not as acolytes, but as warriors. Each of you came here for your own reason, some because of family tradition and others for the honor of serving the Clan. No matter your reason, the day has arrived where each of you will go out into the world as forerunners to what has been prophesied for centuries by our most Sacred of Masters. Today the ascent of the Sacred Clan to its rightful position in the world begins in earnest!”

  As he said the last word, his body morphed, and the sound of ripping cloth followed. Seconds later, where a bald monk of average height had stood was a giant of over two hundred centimeters. His body was covered in short orange fur with black stripes, and his heavily muscled arms bore razor-sharp claws on the end of each finger.

  He was silent for a moment, then in a deep guttural growl roared, “For the honor of the Clan.” That was followed by the sound of ripping cloth throughout the room, and where the monks had knelt, the room was filled with huge, sleek, black and orange tigers.

  All of their eyes, like their master’s, looked alarmingly human.

  Kun leapt from the dais, landing smoothly in an open space halfway across the floor. He stood there listening to the roars coming from the throats of two hundred Sacred Clan warriors ready to spread the reach of the Clan first across China, and then the rest of the world. The rumor was that Michael was missing and presumed dead. His strictures no longer applied, and the Clan was ready to take its place as the uncontested rulers of all the world.

  Kun raised his hands, and the noise stopped immediately. Only the sounds of excited panting could be heard. “Break up into your teams and prepa
re to travel, you all leave at sunrise.”

  The cats silently formed into teams of four and padded from the room, leaving Kun and four other tigers who also stood on two legs alone in the room. When the last team had departed, Kun morphed back into a nude man, followed closely by the other four. “Li Song, attend me. We have things to discuss before the teams depart.”

  One of them, a young-looking muscular man with long black hair, nodded and followed Kun as he exited through the same curtain he had entered earlier.

  “I have received no reports from the advance scouts we sent to the Japanese islands,” Kun told him. “All other teams have checked in and reported that it is time for the Clan to rise. Have you been able to make contact with any of the lost teams?”

  “No, Grand Master,” Li replied. “They all reported that they had arrived and were moving into the remote areas as assigned. Each team is equipped with one of the satellite phones that works through what’s left of the Chinese military network. We have heard nothing more, and they do not answer the calls.”

  “That is extremely irregular,” Kun mused. “To lose contact with one or two teams is to be expected, but we sent twenty teams comprised of two to three members each to Japan. To lose contact with all is impossible. Are you certain the equipment is still working?”

  “Yes, Grand Master. I personally spoke to one of the advance teams in Korea this morning. Unless the Japanese Government has discovered them or devised a way to block the signals across Japan, we must assume all those teams met with some unexpected mishap.”

  Kun considered that for a moment, nodding to himself he continued, “I want you to take your team to Japan. Find out what has happened to our scouts and report back. With your warriors departing on their missions, your duties here will be passed on to Cui Yong. He has done well as the under-master of his group of acolytes, and it is time he expands his role within the Clan.”