Retaliation

by Charles Tillman

  Satisfied, he dug through the bag of clothes he had tossed on the floor the day before until he found a shirt that was serviceable. He had discovered that the opportunities for food and clothing were becoming limited in the town nearby. The number of missing people had caused the residents to stay inside at night, forcing him to either risk alerting others if he entered a home, or to range farther each night to find prey.

  He had determined it was time to move on tonight. Miko wasn’t sure where he would go, but he knew he had stayed here too long already. With several people missing from the local population, there was sure to be a search soon. The last thing he needed was anyone finding him asleep here. Not that he was helpless during the day, but he couldn’t escape as long as the sun was up.

  He had reached the conclusion over the past two nights that he should head for the sea. His plans were incomplete, but he was thinking he would go to Korea or maybe even Japan. Heinz had not had contact with any other Forsaken, and Miko had no memories of his life before he was turned.

  Heinz had told him that some, not many, lost the memories of their past life and that he was one of that fortunate number who didn’t have the baggage of human memories. Miko had never questioned that, and now that Heinz and everyone else he knew was gone, he found himself without purpose.

  He did know that wherever he went, he had to be more careful not to call attention to himself. Heinz had warned him for the last twenty years about a Forsaken who hunted other vampires. Akio, the Bitch Queen’s assassin, Heinz had called him with derision when he said it. When word that he was being called the Dark One by members of the UnknownWorld reached him, he went into a rage.

  Miko never asked what history Heinz shared with this vampire. He had asked Chang once and was told not to ever mention that name to Heinz. For some reason, he had found himself dwelling on that name recently. It made him feel a strange sense of kinship, a lone vampire against the world, not that he had any intention of seeking him out. One thing that was very clear from all the sources Heinz had: Akio was dangerous and hated all Forsaken.

  Miko shook himself, forcing the odd thoughts away as he gathered his few belongings and headed for the stairs. He pushed against the stone that anchored the door above, straining under the heavy weight. The stone moved slightly and then faster as he pushed until the chain was slack.

  He pulled the rope that hung down from above, and a soft click signaled the release of the freezer above as he ascended the stairs. He pushed against the door, and it pushed the freezer that concealed it aside enough for him to slip out onto the heavily damaged first floor.

  Miko extended his senses outward—another perk from the last serum—and determined no one was near. He moved some debris to reveal a coiled cable under it. One end of the cable had a loop in it and the other went through a hole in the floor. He grabbed the loop and pulled, straining as he did, and a scraping sound came out of the open stairway door until it was pulled closed from below. He concealed the cable and pushed the freezer back in front of the door until the hidden latch locked it back in place, sealing the room below.

  He worked his way around the fallen beams and concrete, careful not to leave any sign that he’d been here in case he ever needed this hiding place again. When he stepped out into the twilight, the sun glowed a faint red over the far mountains.

  He turned toward the southwest and started to run.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Unknown location, Australian Bush

  Kelly came to slowly, her stomach lurching as her head bounced against the hard surface she was on. She pushed herself up on her arms and opened her eyes, a blinding headache causing her to cry out. Her body swayed as the surface under her moved again, and a wave of nausea overcame her. Although she retched violently, nothing came up, but the heaving gave her tunnel vision and made the pain in her head pound harder with each beat of her heart.

  “Easy, Kel,” a voice called softly as hands gently lifted her long black hair from around her face. “I’ve got you.”

  Kelly tensed at the touch and started to lash out until her brain registered that she knew that voice. “Jenni? Is that you?”

  “Yes, and don’t move around too much. You have a nasty bump on your head, and you’ve been fading in and out for hours. You scared me, Kel. I thought you were dying.”

  “What the fuck…” Kelly started, then the events of the night before came rushing back to her and she realized they were in a moving vehicle. “Where are we going?”

  “I don’t know where,” Jenni told her. “But we’re in the wagon we use to trade with the other farms. The men who attacked the station last night herded us in like cattle and covered it with tarps. We’ve been traveling all night. I could see out a little when it got light but not enough to recognize where we are.”

  Kelly heard movement and looked up to see several young women from the station, and two others she recognized from a neighboring station. There were a couple of children who were barely out of diapers, but no men present in the tight confines. “So, I take it we’re prisoners? Where are the men?”

  “Pulling the wagon from what I could hear,” Jenni answered.

  They traveled all day. The heat in the wagon rose as the day wore on until it was oppressive and hard to breathe, not helping Kelly’s queasy stomach or her head. She thought she might have a concussion from the head injury, but she wasn’t skilled enough to make an accurate diagnosis.

  Any attempt to communicate with their captors was harshly rebuffed. When one of the women pulled the tarp off of the back and tried to climb out, she was violently knocked back, her body sprawling across the legs of her fellow prisoners.

  “The next one that tries gettin’ out dies,” a rough voice yelled into the wagon.

  None of the others attempted to escape. They continued to bounce along for the rest of the day and on into the night. They all suffered in silence, Jenni keeping watch over Kelly, who had a walnut-sized lump on the side of her head that she didn’t remember how she had gotten.

  Apparently, her attacker from the night before had slammed her head into something before he brought her out and threw her into the wagon. Jenni had kept her awake the entire day, nudging her or talking whenever she started to drift off. Kelly fought the urge to lash out verbally as her head pounded and her stomach continued to rebel. The only thing holding her back was the special bond the two shared.

  One of the youngsters started crying after several hours in the rough-riding wagon. The poor child needed to relieve herself badly, so Kelly shifted the other captives away from one corner where she knew a floorboard was broken and had been hastily patched. She carefully and quietly worried at the patch until she had removed a section of the floor. The opening was only the width of the planks that floored the wagon, but it let in some air. More importantly, it made a functional opening that could be used as a makeshift toilet. After helping the child use the area, Kelly moved aside, accepting grateful murmurs from several others who worked their way over and around the others to make use of the hole.

  When the wagon finally came to a stop, it was dark, and the heat was starting to dissipate. The smell of sweat was stifling under the heavy tarp, but Kelly welcomed the lack of motion. The fresh air that flooded in when the tarp was pulled away was a relief, but it didn’t last long. As soon as the tarp was off, men began shouting at them to get out.

  The ones who didn’t move fast enough were grabbed and roughly pulled from the wagon, and they were all herded through a gate into a large fenced area.

  Kelly shuddered when she saw the crudely painted sign above the gate.

  WELCOME TO HELL

  Stockade, Adelaide Oval, Adelaide, Australia

  Three weeks passed. Three weeks of seeing their captors bring in more people every day, of not being told anything—or worse, being told by one of the guards to wait and see. Something about that held more menace than no answer.

  Kelly had wasted no time enlisting the assistance of the few men who’d
worked for her and some she knew from neighboring stations to set up a shelter inside the compound. They had made use of some rusted metal sheets that one of the older men told her resembled the skin of an airplane. Whatever it was from, it served to block the harsh sun that hung overhead and provided an illusion of cool in the shade.

  Their captors ignored them for the most part, only bringing them meager rations and water every day or so after they had been there four days. The first time they did this, there was a free-for-all as soon as the gates closed—people fighting to take whatever they could. Their captors stood outside, laughing at the pandemonium they had caused. Kelly had spent the next day going to everyone, convincing them that it was in their best interest to work together. The fact that she had six of the biggest men there backing her went a long way toward convincing some of the holdouts it was a good idea.

  The next time the food was brought in, Kelly and her group were the first to approach when the gates had closed. She supervised the distribution and made sure everyone got their fair share. The water container was placed under a shelter, and someone monitored it all day. It was never enough, but her planning made sure no one died.

  She made it a point to greet the new people when they arrived from then on, helping them get settled and providing them with food and water while she explained what she could. She couldn’t answer all their questions, but the sense of authority she projected kept most of them from causing problems.

  A group of five that came in the middle of the second week they had been captive laughed when she explained the process. It was a mismatched group who told her they didn’t take orders from anyone, especially a slip of a girl. When one of them grabbed Kelly to kiss and paw at her, much to the amusement of his fellows, two of her men pulled him away from her and tossed him into the rest of his group after a few well-placed punches and kicks. His friends made noise, but they were quickly surrounded when the others saw what was going on.

  It would have gone a whole lot further than that if her men had had their way, but she stopped them before any more violence could occur. The next time the gates opened, that same group decided to rush the two teens who brought the food in. What happened next was the reason everyone moved away whenever the call of “gate opening” went out now.

  When the five men were a few feet from the two teens, who watched them dispassionately with no sign of fear as they rushed toward them, five huge wolves raced into the enclosure. The screams of the ruffians brought everyone out from under their shelters to see what was happening.

  Most wished they hadn’t when it was done. The five were all down, either dead or wounded, and the wolves stood between them and the watching people as the teens went to the surviving men and calmly cut their throats one at a time.

  The bodies were left there until nightfall the next day when a lone man came through the gate flanked by two huge wolves. He explained that because of the incident the day before, from then on, anytime the gate opened, everyone was to move to the far end of the stockade. Anyone who failed to do so would meet the same fate as the five.

  After three weeks, there were a hundred and forty-six people crammed into the enclosure. The captives continued to work at survival as the number of new people coming in dwindled. Kelly made it a point to speak to everyone daily, doing what she could to keep any of them from falling into a funk or worse, something they couldn’t come back from.

  Adelaide Oval Corporate Suite, Adelaide, Australia

  Decklan Walsh scowled from the plush chair he was reclining on as the man in front of him stammered through his report.

  “We, uh, we-went out, like you said, Dee. T-there just ain’t anybody l-l-left out there. That l-last b-batch was a f-f-full day’s run ou-ou-out from here, and we only managed to catch th-th-thirty.”

  “Just how many did you flea-bitten shitstains kill, Flynn?” Decklan demanded.

  Flynn’s face reddened further. “C’mon, Dee. You know they fight back. Hell, Owen got shot by that little black-haired minx on the first run. You saw that for yourself.”

  Decklan’s scowl turned into a low growl as he looked at the man, his patience, which was already thin, almost gone. “Get out and take your men back out into the bush. Don’t come back until you have rounded up any other humans within one hundred kilometers of here. Rounded up and captured, not killed. Do you understand me?”

  Flynn blanched, realizing how close the Alpha was to losing it. The last time that had happened, it had taken the poor bloke a week to recover, even as a werewolf. “Yeah, ah, yes sir,” he answered as he backed out of the door hastily.

  A low giggle from the bar caused Decklan to snap his angry gaze there.

  A tall redhead wearing short-shorts and a too-tight halter top grinned over the top of a bottle.

  He scowled at her. “What’s so funny, Nikki?”

  She chortled. “You had poor Flynn about to roll over on his back and piss himself.”

  He stared at her, an angry look still on his face, and she laughed harder. His grimace turned up into a smile, and he barked a laugh. “Poor Flynn, my hairy arse. He wasted too many on that last run. Besides, I think he did piss himself a little.”

  “Why does it matter if he kills a few?” she asked. “It's not like any of them are going to live anyway.”

  “Because I told those idiots I wanted them alive,” Decklan told her. “Just because I intend to kill off the vermin, it doesn’t mean it can’t be entertaining. The more they kill, the less entertainment I have.”

  Nikki stood up and sauntered sexily over to where he sat. She dropped into his lap and ground her rear against him as she settled in. “Come here, my big, scary Alpha,” she cooed. “Let Nikki make it all better.

  He pushed his nose into her curly red hair, breathing deeply of the scent of woman and wolf.

  Chapter Fifteen

  TQB Base, Command Center, Tokyo, Japan

  Akio had spent many hours poring over hours of drone footage in the command center over the past weeks. His search had been unsuccessful so far, so he now had Abel checking everywhere the EI could access for any news from the specified search area.

  Although there was still a government presence in China, their working computer systems were still few thanks to Chinese companies using the same corrupted chips they’d sold to the other governments in their own systems.

  Akio was one of the few people outside China to know how bad the breakdown in communications there had truly been. His ability to monitor UnknownWorld issues there had been severely limited, along with every other country except Japan. It had taken several years after the WWDE for the Chinese to reestablish an information network. It had taken Eve seconds to infiltrate it. Even with total access, information first had to be entered for it to be useful. That was another problem entirely.

  “Akio, I haven’t located anything that would indicate Forsaken activity anywhere near that area,” Abel reported. “There is a report from Shanghai about a suspicious animal attack. The report indicates it was a large cat believed to be a tiger, but the investigator’s notes show that the cat would have been much taller than normal.”

  “Probably the Sacred Clan again. They’ve been getting more active in the past few years. Shanghai has a decent port, and many ships destined for foreign lands dock there. Some of the Clan members who came here traveled through there. An isolated attack is not a serious concern. Flag that area and alert me if there are any similar attacks there. If there are more, I will go there and deal with it.”

  “Shanghai and the surrounding areas, flagged,” Abel confirmed.

  “What’s happening in Shanghai?” Yuko asked as she walked in, a cup of tea in each hand.

  “Domo, Yuko.” Akio nodded gratefully when she offered him one of the cups. “An attack that is probably Sacred Clan-related,” he answered after taking a sip. “There is only one report so far.”

  “Didn’t you tell me that some of the Clan members you found here had arrived on ships from there?”
Yuko asked.

  Akio nodded. “Hai. If they’re sending out more of those groups, then we will have to deal with them eventually.”

  “Perhaps it would be prudent to have some of Eve’s new toys there to keep an eye on things,” Yuko suggested. “The larger ones have proved to be useful in monitoring urban areas.”

  Akio grimaced, thinking how they had failed to find what he was looking for. “Hai, that is worth trying.”

  Yuko noticed his grimace when she mentioned that and decided it was time to push her friend a little. She respected his privacy, but the more time he spent sequestered, looking through data, the more she and Eve worried. Eve had queried Abel about what was going on, but he couldn’t explain why Akio was so fixated on finding one vampire in all of China.

  “Akio,” she called softly.

  “Yes?” He didn’t look up from the screen he was viewing. Video streamed across it so quickly that it was a blur if she didn’t use her vampire powers to watch it.

  “Would you stop for a moment, please?” she asked in the same soft voice.

  He paused the video and swiveled his chair to face her with a puzzled look.

  Yuko drew a deep breath, hesitant to intrude, but she knew her friend was going through a crisis and wanted to help him. She raised her hand, making a gesture that encompassed the entire room. “You’ve spent a great deal of time in here over the past few weeks. I am concerned for you. It’s not like you to focus so intently on finding one Forsaken, especially one who isn’t causing a great deal of harm to humans.”

  Akio grimaced before he blinked and resumed his normal stoic expression. That small reaction spoke volumes to Yuko. She had lived with him for many years and knew him as well as any person could. He had gone from being distant and closed to close and caring. She had never seen him this…emotional, for lack of a better word, in all that time.