by S T Branton
Maya stopped dead and dropped her bundle of toiletries onto the mattress. “What?” She rotated slowly to face me. “You’re joking, right?”
I shook my head apologetically. “I want to know the place is in good hands. Yours are the best we’ve got.”
She pressed her lips together. “Those are my people in Washington, Vic. I need to go. I need to help them.” A note of desperation colored her voice and flared in her eyes. “I can’t sit here and do nothing.” She sat down on the edge of the bed next to her toiletry kit, stunned.
I crossed the small room to sit beside her. “Maya, you won’t be doing nothing. I understand that Washington was your home before we met, but since then, you’ve made a home for more than a hundred refugees here. These are your people now. They’re the ones who need you the most.” I put my hand on her back. “Smitty and Amber can take care of themselves. You know that better than anyone. And once we find them, they’ll take care of their community like I’m sure they’ve done all along.”
“I know,” Maya said quietly. “But I wanted…” She trailed off glumly. I slipped my arm around her shoulder.
“It’s not that I don’t want you to come with me,” I told her. “You’re a beast out there, and I mean that on every conceivable level. You can stomp a vamp into the ground and turn and fix up the poor sucker he was trying to kill. And on top of that, you’re a born leader.”
Her eyes narrowed in thought. “I never considered myself a leader.”
“Well, you are,” I said. “And that’s why I need you stationed here. Who else can handle the fort like you can? Who will pull double duty as the doctor and as the first line of defense if something happens? I can’t do this mission while I look over my shoulder to make sure everything’s kosher at home. You’re the only one I trust to do that for me.”
“Aw, shucks,” she said and grinned. “I bet you say that to all your underlings.”
“I did say it to Dan,” I admitted. “In my defense, I was only talking about security. You’re the one who’s in charge, and he knows it. Also, you’re not my underling. I’m lucky to be your equal and your friend.”
“Whoa, there.” Maya gave me a quick hug. “I think we all know who’s the real boss here.” She put on a brave face. “Okay. I’ll steer the ship. Say hi to Smitty and Amber for me, will you?”
“Dude, of course. We’ll make sure we get their radio in working order so we can talk to them whenever we want.”
“That would be so great. Thanks, Vic.” Maya’s expression hardened with determination. “I promise I won’t let you down.”
With renewed purpose, she unpacked her bag and put things in their proper place.
I stood. “I know you won’t. I wouldn’t be here without you. You’re a beast.”
“Ha ha.” She gave me a look. “Get going, boss. The home front will be fine.”
I grinned. “Atta girl.”
Chapter Eleven
The sun still straggled up the eastern face of the morning sky as our away team marched toward the makeshift hangar at the back of the sprawling property. Deacon, Brax and I headed the small battalion. Luis trailed behind us, and a choice selection of Dan’s men and the best newly trained fighters brought up the rear.
“Vic is the ultimate authority on this mission,” Dan had said to his men and to the trainees. “She is the alpha and the omega, you understand? She says jump, you ask how high.”
“Sir, yes, sir!” was the response. It had been a concern of mine that the refugees—a lot of whom were in similar situations to Luis—would rebel against the kind of structured training we put them through, but they seemed to thrive on it instead. I assumed the strength of our common enemy was enough to calm the intrinsic fires of youth.
Up close, the hangar was ramshackle and so was the plane it housed within its single bay. I appraised the craft for a few moments and did my absolute best to hide the creeping doubt in the pit of my stomach. Luis, on the other hand, didn’t even make the effort.
“We’re flying in that piece of shit?” he burst out. Some of the soldiers snorted. Luis was unfazed. “It doesn’t look like you could even drive that thing.”
Ginger appeared behind him like a wild-eyed ghost. “Oh, you can. I mean, you can’t. But I can.” He trotted ahead of the group toward the plane. The doors were still heavily padlocked.
“Who the hell hired this guy?” Brax grumbled.
I glanced at him. While I itched to ask where he’d run off to, I knew better than to expect an answer. The demon had been more or less MIA since I had seen him with Jules in the classroom, and I wasn’t even sure if he’d show up again at the right time.
But he had and now, he pulled his great hammer off his back. “Whatever,” he said brusquely and strode behind the pilot. “I’ll take care of this shit. Stand back. Way back.”
Ginger was too confused to act fast, and he hesitated too long. In the next second, he had to fend off a shower of sparks. Brax’s hammer turned the first lock into a twisted, glowing mass. He reared back to strike again, and Ginger skedaddled to a safe distance with wide eyes.
We were certainly some kind of motley crew.
Brax kicked both broken locks off, extinguished his hammer, and put it away in one smooth motion. “There,” he said and brushed his hands off. “Don’t say I never did anything for you.”
Truly, he is a paragon of virtue. Marcus’s voice dripped with sarcasm. I wondered if he’d be that sassy for the rest of the mission. Sassy Marcus was always a lot of fun.
“Thank you, Brax,” I said and maneuvered around him to reach the plane. Without a grimy pane of glass between us, the aircraft seemed even more impossibly rickety and in bad condition. Paint peeled off its hull. I thought I saw a crack in the windshield. “Hey, Ginger. Are you sure this thing is, uh, air-safe?”
“Nope,” Ginger responded cheerfully. “But I can fly it.” He tugged at the door, which came loose with a puff of dust. Cobwebs hung from the handle.
I looked at Deacon. “I don’t know if this is such a good idea after all. I mean, I want to get to Washington like crazy, but I’d like to get there alive.”
“That’s funny,” the FBI agent said. “I thought the same thing.” Ahead of us, Ginger climbed into the plane and disappeared inside the cockpit.
My mind raced to come up with a solution. “Dan’s got access to satellite maps, doesn’t he? Maybe we could find an airport. There must be one reasonably close to here, right?” It was a shot in the dark, but it was the best shot we had. No way would we get to Washington without a plane.
Brax emitted a tortured groan. “You humans are assholes,” he said. “I’ll go tell what’s-his-nuts we need the map.” With that, he turned and stomped toward the fort.
“Did he volunteer to do something?” Deacon asked, genuinely curious.
I nodded. “Yeah. It was weird.” I kept my eyes trained on the demon’s receding figure as he approached the front of the fort. It was so unlike him to go out of his way to do anything. I had a sneaking suspicion what he was up to.
Sure enough, a blonde shape I could’ve identified in whiteout conditions met him on the lawn. They interacted for only a second, but it was long enough for me to see her hand him something. He slipped it into his long black coat. Jules turned and walked inside with him.
“What the fuck?” I whispered.
Deacon glanced at me, his brow furrowed. “What are you talking about?”
“You missed that whole thing?” I asked.
“What thing?”
I sighed heavily. “Never mind.” It was probably me being paranoid and making things up where they didn’t exist. Jules had no reason to befriend a demon, let alone anything more than that. Besides, I knew Brax totally wasn’t her type.
Still, what did she give him? I really wanted to know. The thought gnawed at my brain until he got back with the satellite mapping device in hand. I had to force myself not to look directly at his coat pocket.
“Here.” He t
hrust the device into my hand. “You’re welcome.”
Deacon came to look over my shoulder and we studied the screen together. I zoomed it out so we could see miles in every direction. “What’s that?” He pointed to a large open area with a few strips of tarmac running through it. I focused in on it.
“It looks like a private airstrip,” I said. “It’ll do.” I waved to our assembled group. “Get to the trucks, you guys. We’ll take a little road trip.”
I turned to Brax. “Could you take this b—”
“He said to keep it,” Brax interrupted in a tone that suggested I might be the dumbest jackass on the planet. “I guess he has another one.” He walked away before he finished his last sentence and left me with Deacon behind our mobilizing troops.
“Is it just me, or is he stiffer than usual?” Deacon remarked.
“It’s not you,” I muttered. “Let’s go.” I was so focused on Brax that I almost didn’t notice Ginger still in the hangar. He clambered around under the control panels in the cockpit.
“Henry!” I yelled.
His head popped up. “Don’t call me that.”
“Didn’t you hear me?” I motioned toward the rest of the squad. “We’re leaving. Come on.”
“I thought we were leaving in this.” He looked at me as though all his dreams had been crushed. “I told you I can fly it.”
“And I believe you.” I stopped and looked from him to my retreating battalion. “But you’ve messed around in there for a while now, and it looks like it’ll fall apart before we reach cruising altitude. We’ll go to a real airstrip instead.”
He brightened immediately. “Why didn’t you say so?” Like a creepy leprechaun, he hopped out of the plane and scurried past us, whistling atonally as he went. “I’ll have my pick of whatever I want. Rich people’s planes, I hope. Oh, I hope!”
“Every time I think this situation can’t get weirder.” Deacon touched my back. The heat of his hand seemed to penetrate all my layers of clothing. “Let’s catch up before that crazy loon gets behind the wheel.”
“What do you think the odds of him actually being able to fly a plane are?” I wondered out loud. We broke into a jog after everyone else.
“How honest do you want me to be?” he asked.
I smirked. “Totally.”
He cast a worried glance at the back of Ginger’s head. “Ten to one,” he said. “Against us.”
Chapter Twelve
Deacon and I split up to drive the trucks out of the fort complex. I took Luis in my passenger seat, and as we moved down the long path to the road, I glanced in the rearview mirror. Ginger had declined a seat in Deacon’s vehicle. I could see him lean out from the truck bed and grin in the open air. The sight didn’t exactly fill me with confidence.
The ride to the airstrip proved to be uneventful, which was a small consolation. The gate into the main area was already busted open when we got there. It hung on its hinges and the chain dangled freely. “Keep your eyes open,” I told Luis.
“No worries,” he answered. “I stopped closing them a long time ago.”
The airstrip was mostly comprised of a cluster of low buildings overshadowed by a lone control tower. All the windows were dark and empty. The field itself looked barren, and a couple of small planes stood in the open. I heard an enthusiastic whoop from behind us, and a redheaded streak raced past the window. I rubbed my face. “So much for a stealthy approach.”
Ginger tore across the grass with surprising vigor. At the edge of the first runway, he stopped dead and scanned the place like a human antenna. I turned our truck off and got out. The others did the same. We stood a few dozen yards behind the pilot and watched him take stock.
“What the hell is he doing?” Deacon asked. “I thought he was gonna break his neck when he jumped off the truck. That guy’s a real piece of work.”
“He’s all we’ve got,” I said. “I think he’s choosing our ride.”
Deacon’s eyes suddenly snapped to stare far down the airfield toward the edge of the property. “He better get a move on. Look.” He pointed, and I caught sight of a familiar group of ragged monsters racing directly toward us.
“Uh oh. Hey, Ginge! Pick up the pace, would you? We’ve got company.” I motioned for the whole squad to prepare. The gap between this band of Forgotten and us was closing faster than I would have liked. I could see them clearly now—a mismatched crew of mostly vamps, centaurs, and satyrs. As rowdy as ever, the satyrs shouted, discharged guns in the air, and made obscene gestures with their free hands.
Luis groaned. “I have had it with these fucking jokers,” he declared and leveled his rifle. The first volley of fire rang through the air.
“Seriously, Ginger!” I yelled over the noise. “Any time you’re ready.”
He glanced over his shoulder as if he’d only now noticed the enemy, and his eyes went wide. “Okay. Okay.” He spun and sprinted for a mid-sized craft. His voice trailed behind him. “Cover me while I steal this thing.”
It wasn’t like we had much of a choice. I plunged into the fray and sliced through a vamp and two satyrs in quick succession. The combination of the centaurs’ pounding hooves and the dust from the dead vamps churned the air into a haze. Some of the newly trained soldiers coughed.
“Try not to breathe that,” I advised them and dropped another enemy at my feet. “It’s basically corpse dust. I have no idea what it’ll do to your lungs.” They gave me horrified glances, and one of them gagged. “Hey, I’m trying to help you out.”
As far as I know, expired vampires are not a significant source of toxicity. I am not, however, an expert on the intricacies of Forgotten biology.
“We’ll notify the FDA,” I said. “Maybe they’ll label these assholes a health risk.” I shot a look over my shoulder to monitor Ginger’s progress. The door to the plane was open, and I thought I saw one of his feet hanging out. To Deacon, I shouted, “Start moving toward the plane, and get ready to run for it the second he gives the signal.”
He nodded, and we shepherded the fight carefully toward our escape aircraft but made sure to maintain a barrier between the pilot and us. The Forgotten didn’t seem to care too much about whether we tried to get away. They merely wanted to kill us.
Some of them looked like they wanted to eat us.
The beasts clearly weren’t immune to the effects of having to scavenge for food. The group was scrawny and pale, and some of the satyrs were missing patches of hair on their hoofed legs. A centaur lay near me, bleeding from the flank, and his ribcage was little more than hide stretched over bones.
They had battle scars too—whether from infighting or run-ins with other survivors, I couldn’t be sure. Lucky for us, they were easily dispatched in their weakened state. I fell back toward Ginger as Luis and the others picked off the last of the stragglers.
“Let’s go, you guys!” I made sure the pilot could hear me, too. “Grab whatever you left in the trucks and get your asses over here.” The last sentence was punctuated by a grumbling roar as the plane’s engine came to life. “That’s our cue. Time to hit the road. Or hit the sky, I guess.”
“As long as we don’t hit the ground,” Deacon said beside me where he watched my flank.
“Amen to that,” I said.
My men ran across the tarmac with their stuff slung over their shoulders. From the cockpit, Ginger yelled triumphantly. “We’re in business, ladies and gents.”
I stood back so everyone else could pile in first, which was how I saw the second group of Forgotten come around the corner of the control tower. The centaurs at the front broke into a frenzied gallop and leveled their gleaming weapons in our direction.
“Go!” I pushed the last few passengers up the stairs and through the doorway before I followed them inside. The door clanged shut behind me. I called into the cockpit, “Go now! We’re out of time.”
“Roger that!” Ginger hollered back. “Please fasten your seatbelts. This is a nonsmoking flight.” He shrugged. “I m
ean that hopefully, nothing starts smoking.”
The plane rolled forward along the runway and gradually picked up speed. I made my way to the rearmost window and gazed at the pack of monsters that hounded us. The satyrs had more or less fallen away, but the vamps and centaurs had gained. Their eyes stared at us with a feral, hungry glint.
Those guys definitely wanted to eat us.
“Step on it, Ginger!” I yelled.
“That’s not really how this works,” he yelled back, but the rumble of the engine intensified. The scenery through the window began to blur. As I felt us lift off the ground, the lead vamp lunged forward and became airborne himself.
I lost sight of him. “Oh, shit.”
A loud, scraping thump drowned out the curse.
“We’re off balance,” Ginger said. “What’s going on out there?”
I moved to check another window and came face to face with the damn vamp who now clung to the wing. The airflow swept his hair and skin taut against his skull, and his tattered clothes threatened to abandon him entirely.
Brax loomed over my shoulder. “I got this one,” he said flatly. Before I could react, he strode to the exit, pushed it open, and disappeared into the howling wind.
Common sense continues to be one of Abraxzael’s weaker attributes, Marcus remarked.
“Whatever he’s doing, I hope he does it quick,” Deacon said while he struggled to secure the door. “If we’re too high when he opens that door again, the whole cabin will depressurize.”
“Don’t say that shit out loud,” Luis hissed. He gripped the arms of his seat with both hands, his knuckles white. “It’s bad luck.”
“Facts don’t have anything to do with luck,” the agent retorted, but he kept quiet after that.
Brax entered the window’s field of vision, half bent against the wind as he made his way toward the vamp. His coat whipped ferociously around his solid frame like a dark aura. They painted a surreal picture as they faced each other on the wing, poised to do battle.
“Yo, he looks pretty dope,” said one of the soldiers. “I hope he smokes this dude.”