SEAL Team 13 st1-1

by Evan Currie

  “Then I just need to know how.”

  Alex sighed. “The best results have always been fire. Lots of it.”

  Hawk Masters snorted, looking out the open door of the chopper at the well fires exploding from the earth like the devil’s own blowtorches.

  “Fire is the one thing we’ve got plenty of.”

  “You ever have a pet cat?”

  “Yeah, why?” Masters frowned.

  “You ever give that cat a bath?” Alex asked wryly.

  Masters grimaced involuntarily.

  “Shit.”

  Alex smirked. “Yeah, now think about how much this little kitten will scratch when you try to bathe her in those flames down there.”

  * * *

  Black smoke curled into the dark sky, only visible for an ephemeral instant in the flickering firelight as the chopper hovered low over the ground to let men and women pour out. The team dropped into the watery slush that covered the ground, boots ankle deep in the runoff from the burning wells.

  Hawk waved them forward as the chopper lifted again into the darkness, leaving them on their own as they moved toward the closest building that seemed mostly intact. It was a trailer, a cheap, prefab building that had seen its better days well over a decade ago, but it wasn’t in cinders, and that made it a good first stop.

  Hayes and Turner took the door, breaching like they’d been born doing tactical entries. For all Masters knew, they had been. Their file didn’t say much on what they’d done before joining the navy.

  “Clear!”

  He and Alex followed them in, tearing through the place quickly. There was a computer plugged into an uninterrupted power supply, and Masters dropped into the cheap desk chair in front of it.

  He tapped away at it for a minute, opening files and checking the history as well as the trash bin.

  “Nothing. Just bookkeeping files.” He snorted, getting up. “I don’t think they could fit a coffin in this place anyway, not through those doors.”

  “Storage building, then,” Eddie offered up. “There’s a couple of them nearby that haven’t been torched.”

  “Yeah.” Masters nodded. “Let’s go.”

  They could feel the heat pouring off the nearest well fire, though it wasn’t really all that close. Still, it was near enough to make them sweat as they approached the first of the storage buildings, eyeing the darkened windows carefully.

  “Looks dead,” Eddie said as they moved toward the doors.

  “I’d appreciate it if you’d use a different word; thanks so much,” Alex growled, his eyes flicking back and forth. He wasn’t only expecting trouble, he was pretty sure it had already arrived.

  The Asatru duo chuckled between themselves, seeming a little too gleeful for the comfort of the rest of the group, save perhaps Hannah.

  “Death is but another step in the journey of life, Black,” Perry Rand said.

  “Yeah. The last step,” Alex rejoined sourly.

  “I find it both interesting and ironic that someone of your stature in the communities seems to be such a nihilist,” Rand told him, honestly bemused. “You don’t believe in an afterlife?”

  “Never met anyone who could prove it exists,” Alex shrugged, “and I live in a world where I know gods exist, so frankly I find the lack of evidence all the more compelling.”

  “Come on, Black, do you want to live forever?”

  “Another sixty years would be nice.”

  “Can the chitchat.” Masters finally stepped in. “We have a door to breach.”

  * * *

  It wasn’t much of a door, as such things went. Security was lax, but there was no reason for it to be tight in such an area. Probably the worst the company expected to deal with out here was bored teenagers from Barrow, drunk and looking for something to do in the long night.

  So they didn’t bother wasting what little other ammo they did have. Mack just mule-kicked the door while Derek performed the entry, leading the group into the darkened shed.

  Lights flicked on as they swept the room, finding nothing hidden in the shadows as best any of them could tell. In fact, there was nothing there at all.

  “Empty. You’d think there would be something in here.”

  Masters didn’t like it, not at all, but then he didn’t much like anything about the entire op. There wasn’t a lot to like from where he was standing, pop culture’s obsession with zombies and their ilk notwithstanding.

  “Clear the corners,” he ordered. “We have another building near here to check, and one stone-cold bitch to put back in her grave.”

  The group nodded, clearing the area as best they could. The building was expansive, filled with junk and material that had probably been scrapped from equipment repairs on site.

  “We’re clear.”

  Masters nodded. “All right. Next building.”

  With Eddie on point, the team crossed the slush-filled terrain and made their way to the second large storage building on site. The door was locked, which Masters took as a good sign, but it was when Norton raised a hand that he knew they’d hit pay dirt. Alex cocked his head to one side as he felt along the door and then the wall with his hand, stopping and nodding slowly.

  Masters looked over at his friend and gestured, palms up, but stayed silent. Norton nodded, showing two fingers, then pointed to the door.

  Two just inside. Good, must be guards, he thought, looking over the scene. Finally Masters nodded and stepped back, waving Keyz forward. He pointed to the hinges and pantomimed an explosion with an opening fist. Robbie just grinned and nodded, white teeth gleaming against the dark of the twilit night.

  They moved back, leaving the EOD specialist to his work. Robbie managed to keep from whistling while he worked, but it was pretty clear that he was just about as happy as he ever got. He used what was left of his stash and shaped charges that weren’t intended for antipersonnel use.

  The small but powerful explosives made use of the Munroe effect to direct the force of the blast as needed. When he had finished rigging the heavy door of the storage building, he stepped a couple feet to one side, detonator in hand. Keyz glanced over at Masters, who just nodded, then turned his head away from the door and thumbed the switch.

  The explosives made a distinct crump, the low thump felt even more than heard as the concussion passed over them. The door itself remained in place, oddly perhaps, just smoking slightly around the edges as Masters smoothly stepped into place and slammed his boot into it.

  It flew inward, no longer held by hinges, and Mack and Derek stormed through, crisscrossing in front of Masters, their Heckler and Koch rifles barking sharply as they took out the sentries.

  Masters was partway through the door, a “borrowed’ ” forty-five auto in one hand and his new best friend, the equally “borrowed” kukri, in the other. The team secured the other side of the door and paused just inside as they caught sight of their quarry.

  “Well, that sure looks like a coffin, Alex,” Masters said as he walked around the object, eyes darting around the room intently.

  It seemed too empty for his liking.

  Way too damned empty.

  Norton nodded, grimacing as he visibly steeled himself and began to approach the coffin with his Bowie blade drawn. Eddie dropped a big hand on his shoulder, shooting him a look that clearly questioned his sanity.

  The master chief nodded to the others, and they all aimed their weapons at the coffin, only for Norton to grab Eddie’s gun and push it away and up.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Eddie demanded.

  “You’ll just piss her off.” Norton scowled. “This is going to be a big enough pain in the ass without making her even madder.”

  “Madder than when Hawk hacked her arm off?” Eddie asked incredulously. “You’ve got to be shitting me.”

  “You think your bullets are going to do anything useful?” Norton shook his head. “Just cover me and try to distract it if it gets the edge on me.”

  “Distract it? How
?” Eddie demanded. “You just said bullets would only piss it off!”

  “If it’s pissed at you, it’ll be plenty distracted from me,” Norton answered, heading forward.

  “Pissed at me?…” Eddie’s jaw dropped. “Oh, you bastard.”

  Norton chuckled nervously as he spanned the distance to the coffin, laying his hand on the lid and taking a breath to steady his nerves as best as he could. He shifted his blade so that he had it in a reverse grip and could stab it downward. A stake of wood might be traditional, but a Masterwork blade cleaving the bitch’s heart in two should be just as effective, not to mention a lot easier to push through her rib cage.

  He glanced back at the others, who were gathered all around him with their weapons held at the ready. He nodded to Masters, who nodded back, and then returned his focus to the battered old coffin and took another steadying breath.

  He heaved the lid up, blade hand flashing down as soon as it swung up and over. The dagger bit down hard, sinking deep into the bottom of the coffin, and he realized with stark shock and fear that the interior was empty save for a layer of dirt at the bottom.

  “It’s empty!” he snapped, jumping up and twisting around as a shadow fell from the ceiling above and landed behind Masters.

  Hawk tried to turn, but he found himself wrenched from the ground by the back of his neck. His feet kicked at the air as he dropped his blade and gun, clutching at the wrist that was grasping him, desperately trying to keep his neck from being snapped.

  “You’re all treading on my last nerve,” the vaguely female voice rasped from the darkness behind Masters. “But now I have you all in one place, so I thank you for that.”

  Norton tensed as Masters was flung across the room, slamming bodily into the far wall with enough force to make the metal surface reverberate from the impact. He winced, but couldn’t spare a glance in his friend’s direction. He was too busy watching as the team’s rifles opened fire on the thing that had clearly seen better days.

  Bullets tore through her in the darkness, spraying black gore and dried flesh into the shadows. Anything human would have long since died, but one thing every bullet made clear was that whatever this bitch was, the word human no longer described her. She charged the barrage of fire, blurring into motion as she slammed into Derek with enough force to throw the big man into a sprawling tumble on the cement form.

  “Slow her down!” Norton snarled, chasing after her with his knife held high.

  “How?” Eddie demanded as he whirled around, trying to get her in his sights again.

  “I don’t care! Just do it!”

  Eddie snarled as the shadowy figure charged the next-closest SEAL, Mack, and flung it all to the wind as he did the same. Mack tried to throw up his rifle in defense, but the steel weapon shattered under the one-armed shadow’s strike, and he found himself choking as he dropped the ruined weapon and clutched desperately at the clawed grip that was digging inexorably into his throat.

  Eddie roared as he hit both of them in a flying tackle, high and hard. The blow had to have been unexpected because the brick wall he’d expected to hit didn’t materialize. Instead the three of them were driven to the ground as they all started clawing and kicking as brutally as they could.

  Unfortunately for the two SEALs, when it came to kicking and clawing, they were at a decided disadvantage.

  Eddie grimaced as he felt a bone in his leg snap under one of the creature’s blows, but he tried to drag the thing down. He didn’t know what Alex was planning, but he hoped he’d get to it in a hurry.

  “Hold her down!” Norton screamed, throwing himself into the mix.

  He planted his free hand on the vampire’s shoulder, trying to steady both himself and his target, and plunged the blade toward her. She surged under him, however, pulling Eddie into the path of his blade.

  The master chief let out a bellow through clenched teeth as the razor sharp blade sliced clean into his shoulder. “Goddamn it!”

  “Fuck!” Norton swore, eyes wide and shocked as he realized what he’d done.

  The shock was enough to shatter his defenses, for all the good they’d likely have done him, and the creature’s kick smashed into his chest, throwing him back. Eddie was sent sprawling with the Bowie knife still sticking from his shoulder, his wound bleeding profusely onto the cement floor. Then the shadowed form rose up above Mack’s crumpled body and glared all around her.

  “You think to best me? You are all fools.”

  “That could be,” Perry Rand said, attracting her attention as he drew his sword from where it had rested against his back, “but fools make the world such an interesting place.”

  The blade was thirty-six inches long with a deep furrow down the center, its single-handed grip wrapped in leather. The Viking longsword would not have looked out of place a thousand years earlier, but against the Kevlar body armor and pistol still resting on his hip, Rand cut an odd and rakish image.

  Rick Plains drew his own blade, a similar but shorter sword, and they began to flank the vampire as they closed in on her.

  The two were well accustomed to fighting, both with each other and alone, but they quickly learned that this wasn’t an enemy like any they’d ever encountered.

  Perry lunged first, his blade swinging down sharply as he went in for the kill. To his shock, the female figure caught the edge of his blade on her forearm as though she were wearing armor and batted it away as she stepped in close to him, driving her hand into his chest.

  It felt like his ribs were cracking, and he had to hold back the desire to puke as she breathed in his face.

  “Surprised, fool?” She laughed at him. “Your pitiful excuse for a sword is no master’s blade.”

  Perry jerked back as she swiped at him, his flesh burning where her clawed fingers had drawn blood across his face.

  “He may not carry a master’s blade, you pale excuse for a Draugr,” a cold voice said from behind her, reverberating with power, “but he walks with comrades in blood.”

  The demonic figure had begun to turn toward the voice when a flash of light blinded everyone momentarily. The weight was suddenly lifted from Perry’s chest, and he blinked his eyes, wiping the blood from them with his free hand as he hefted his sword defensively.

  “This one is too strong for my skills, Per,” Hannah told him, one hand on his arm stilling his half-blind waving of the war blade. “I will need help.”

  “Anytime, Hannah,” he said, “but I don’t know what I can do. She blocked me like I was a child with a foam toy.”

  Hannah laid hands on his blade, and a glowing light flowed from her fingers and into the sword. “Tyr stands with you, Perry Rand. Tyr and his Ulfberht.”

  Perry looked down at his blade, his vision clearing as the glow faded from the metal, leaving only a trail of glowing runes, runes that spelled out the word Ulfberht. He stared for a second, then looked at his companion in wonder.

  “I didn’t know you could do this.…”

  “Only in need, Perry,” she said, turning to Rick as she laid her hand on his sword as well, repeating the intonation. Rick’s blade glowed to match, then slowly dimmed to reveal the glowing runes that had formed on the funnel of his blade. “Now there is need. Stand ready; the battle is about to begin again.”

  The two men formed up on her flanks, swords lifted and at the ready as the vampire rose from where Hannah had thrown her.

  “Priest,” she mumbled, rubbing her face where she’d been struck.

  Hannah sneered in response. “Priestess, if you please.”

  “There is no difference.”

  “Of course there is,” Hannah countered, her voice reverberating with barely contained power even as her eyes began to glow faintly in the darkness. “Priests are forgiving.”

  The trio surged forward as their foe charged them, the unspoken signal to battle clear to them all.

  CHAPTER 18

  Harold Masters was not having what he’d consider a good day.

  Hell,
it wasn’t even a so-so day.

  He was quite comfortable declaring it to be a very bad day, in point of fact. The ache in his bones wasn’t crippling, but he could tell that once the adrenaline wore off he wasn’t going to be moving anywhere very fast.

  He groaned as he got to his feet, far less steadily than he would have liked, and walked on wobbly legs over to where he’d dropped his blade. After retrieving it, he turned to watch as Hannah, Rick, and Perry danced with the macabre vampire.

  He couldn’t see what the hell was keeping her in one piece, given how many holes they’d blown into her body. She didn’t regenerate like they did in the movies, but damned if it seemed to make much of a difference.

  Bullets just seemed to flat out piss her off, even those that left gaping wounds that would have killed a bull elephant. The heavy fifty-caliber round he’d put into the bitch’s head had literally split her skull, and he knew that it had to have scrambled what little brain matter was in there, but it hadn’t seemed to have any effect. He just couldn’t get his head wrapped around what kind of thing could possibly survive a hit like that.

  At the moment she was taking on Hannah and two trained soldiers, and it was immediately obvious to him that all three of them were quite comfortably on the wrong side of the veil. Hannah’s punches were clearly stronger than they had any right to be, but he’d seen supernatural strength more than a few times since he’d set foot across that invisible line.

  The faint glow of the swords the other two were carrying was more interesting, as was the fact that they seemed to have an effect that went above and beyond the bullets. Strikes from the weapons clearly burned and hurt her, so much so that she was dodging their blows rather than blocking them. He was impressed — they knew what they were doing.

  “It won’t be enough.”

  Masters turned, grimacing as pain shot through his head. “What?”

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Norton said, nodding toward the fight. “They’re good, they’re very good…but she’s going to kill them.”

  Masters spat out blood, then wiped his mouth with the back of his wrist. “Not gonna let that happen. I need a plan of attack, Alex. Help me out here.”