“Fucking shit!” I scream like a true master of covert discipline.
Meat scoops me up and tosses me over his shoulder without missing a step. Three more shots ring out and strike the building ahead of us before we race around the corner out of sight.
Meat dumps me on the ground. “Malone, how bad is it?”
“I’m fine, but now I’m pissed.”
I send an army of super platelets to stem the bleeding and clamp off some of the nerve endings to reduce the pain. I can’t numb it completely without losing control of the limb. Bullets whizz by in suppressing fire.
“Where are the shots coming from?” I ask.
Meat pokes his head around the corner and nearly gets a bullet between his bushy eyebrows. “Northeast corner of the building near where we came over the wall.”
“Fifty yards of open ground with direct line of sight. Super. Lesile, we’ll skirt around the small building here on our right and charge him. I need you to provide suppressing fire from here. Can you do that?”
“Of course.”
“Watch out for his buddies. They aren’t far away.”
Lights are already flaring to life as the unholy commotion outside rouses people from their beds. Meat and I sprint around the north side of the small building and wait until Lesile starts popping off controlled, single shots in the area where our sniper is hiding. Meat kicks off his boots and shifts into full wolf man form.
Bullets zing past our heads and kick up dirt as we serpentine across the fifty-yard kill zone. Meat and I shoot and move, forcing the rogue to keep his head down and to throw off his aim. We make it to the building, and the sniper tries to leap away onto the roof. Faster than I would have given him credit for, Meat surges forward, jumps up after him, and snatches him out of the air by the ankle like a cat catching a bird.
Meat gets a two-hand grip and flings him ten yards into the curtain wall. The rogue hits, bounces off, and comes up with a combat knife in one hand and a Beretta in the other. Meat spins and jumps away as the 9mm slugs spew out of the barrel. I hear him hiss in pain when one catches him in the side. I can’t spare the time to be sympathetic with his plight as the soldier-made-monster slashes at me. I block the cut with my MP-7. The rogue kicks the weapon from my grip and lunges in.
I push away from him and draw my blade. Meat tries to rush him from behind, but the rogue jumps ten feet to the side and pops off three more rounds from his Beretta, forcing Meat to take cover behind the building. I rush in and swing my blade in hopes of taking his head off. The SEAL may not be the swordsman I am, but he’s a skilled warrior, and it’s obvious he has not been slacking off in his combatives training.
With his combat knife running down the length of his forearm, he intercepts my blade and tries to bring his pistol around to put one in my brain. I grab the weapon along its slide, give it a twist, and strip it from his hand. Before I can try to bash him with it, he kicks me in the chest and sends me sprawling to the ground. The Beretta skitters off into the darkness somewhere.
I hear Lesile shout, and gunfire erupts all around us. The other two vampires come out of hiding and alternate between shooting at Lesile and the Yemenis storming out of the buildings. Lesile is shooting back while trying to avoid being caught in a crossfire, and the locals are shooting fucking everything. Bullets are flying through the air chipping off chunks of brick from the buildings, kicking up sand in the courtyard, and sailing off into the night sky where they will probably come down and kill some poor Bedouin’s goat a mile out in the desert.
The SEAL rushes in, and I block his thrusting knife out to the side. He slips inside my guard, grabs my sword arm with his right hand, and flips me over his hip. He raises his blade high and is about to plunge it into my skull when Meat’s furry, clawed paws envelopes his head. Meat lifts him off me, slams and pins him to the ground with his foot, and twists. The sickening crack of bone is distinctive even over the constant rattle of gunfire. Meat heaves up and tears the rogue’s head not so cleanly from his torso.
I dive, roll, fish out my MP-7 from beneath the fucking costume dress I have to wear, and start capping off rounds at the Yemenis closing in on us. A hail of bullets chases us behind the building. I see Meat has recovered his weapon as well, and we rush out from behind our cover and return fire. Ten shots drop three locals in seconds as we sprint along the wall and try to circle to where Lesile is under a lot of pressure from two opposing sides.
We’re about to rush the largest concentration of resistance when Lesile appears to lose her patience. With a feral shriek audible over the automatic gunfire, she leaps onto the roof of the small building to her left and unloads her submachine gun’s magazine into a group of locals. Hurling her weapon at their bodies, she vaults to the roof of the larger building, drawing her sword in mid-flight, and rushes the two rogue vampires so fast she is little more than a blur.
Multiple rounds from the former SEALs’ Knight’s Armament PDW tug at her flapping abaya. She plunges her rapier into the chest of one of the vampires and kicks the other one off the back side of the roof. The stuck rogue tries to punch her in the head, but she grabs his wrist, lifts him up over her head by the arms and the sword piercing his body, and slams him onto the roof.
The SEAL flings a handful of sand and gravel at her face and performs a leg sweep. Lesile falls onto her back, and the soldier pulls out a knife and throws himself atop her. Supercharged rogue or not, Lesile is an elder and terrifyingly powerful. She grabs the plunging wrist, rolls them both over into a standing position, and smashes him into the rooftop like he’s a hammer driving a giant nail.
Dozens of new voices shout through the darkness. Within seconds, the whumping of several helicopters hovering overhead competes with the shouting and gunfire. Bright lights cast the entire courtyard into unnatural daylight. Dozens of men repel from helicopters, landing in the courtyard and onto the roofs, ready to gun down anyone who does not surrender immediately.
I look back to the rooftop at Lesile. At least a dozen men in uniform point Russian-made automatic weapons at her. I don’t see either of the rogues and assume they fled during the few seconds of confusion. I look around for an opportunity to do likewise, but they have the entire complex surrounded and, despite my hatred for Lesile, the thought of leaving a team member behind is more repulsive to me than she is.
Realistically, I know it’s a poor option at best anyway. There are so many guns on us; it’s unlikely even I would make it through. I know Meat wouldn’t. His body has an amazing ability to heal like mine does, but it isn’t as efficient and is far more limited. We both throw down our weapons. Lesile looks ready to fight it out, but she apparently comes to the same conclusion I did and surrenders.
Not knowing what they are shouting, I follow Lesile’s lead, get on my knees, and put my hands behind my head. Within seconds, someone twists my arms behind my back and zips them together with plastic disposable cuffs. If it weren’t for all the guns it would be laughable. Meat and I can both tear these things apart. I lose what remains of my humor when some asshole drops a heavy cloth bag over my head. I’m beyond sick and tired of people bagging my head like groceries.
Discretion being the better part of valor, I let them shove me into the back of an armored APC. These guys aren’t taking any chances and lock me up all by my little lonesome. I liked it better when I thought they were all idiots. Escaping may not be as easy as I had hoped it would be. Easy or not, it’s going to happen unless they kill me right off, which I doubt.
The APC rumbles down the road, and I have to give credit to the driver as he manages to hit every pothole and piece of debris in the street while still making good time. I replay my options in my head about ten times during the minutes-long ride. The driver’s compartment is sealed off, so breaking loose and stealing the vehicle is out of the question. I could snap my bonds and come out swinging the moment they open the door, but I doubt I’d get very far given how many guns I expect them to have trained on me at all times. You gotta lo
ve paranoia. My best bet is to play dead, which I can do very convincingly, and walk off from wherever they toss my corpse, but Meat can’t perform that little trick, and I don’t want to leave him in their clutches just yet. I can always fall back on that option later. For now, I think my best bet is to see where this goes.
The vehicle rolls to a stop, and I hear the sound of heavy doors sliding shut. Someone opens the back hatch and pulls me out. I can’t see shit, but my escorts are kind enough to shove and kick me in the direction I need to go. At this point, you would think they know I don’t speak a lick of their durka durka language, but they keep yelling at me as if volume will translate into meaning. Idiots, don’t they know that only works when you’re speaking English?
I sit when someone puts pressure on my shoulders and promptly fall on my ass. I thought this was a humorless society but, apparently, stoning and pratfall are quite the rib-ticklers. Someone yanks me to my feet and sits me back down, this time placing a chair under my ass instead of the floor. A guard tears the hood off my head, and far too much light assaults my eyes. I command my pupils to all but close, but it’s still uncomfortably bright.
I’m in a solid room obviously built for containment and interrogation. There are six men armed with submachine guns, but they stand to the farthest edges of the room. I figure I can kill two, maybe three, before they fill me with more holes than even I can endure. There’s one guy in the room I mark as my torturer. Not only is he not carrying a gun, he’s a little, rat-faced prick wearing a sadistic smile. Torturers are always the smallest guys. They can’t fight for shit, so they make up for it by being the cruelest and are only courageous against a helpless foe. I guarantee that if I snapped the chain to my cuffs right now he’d be the first one out the door and wouldn’t stop running until he reached Mecca.
“You answer questions and this goes easy. You don’t answer questions and this gets fun—for me.”
“Good, you speak English. I was afraid you were just going to yell incomprehensibly at me the whole time.”
“Trust me; you will understand everything I want from you. I will be very clear. What is your name?”
“Goenn.”
“Goenn what?”
“Goenn Fuckyurself. It’s Slavic. Loosely translated, it means go and fuck yourself.”
Torquemada laughs but not in the way someone laughs when they think something is funny. “You are funny guy! I like funny guys. Maybe if you are so funny you can get job on Saturday Night Live. You can be funny with Chris Farley.”
“Buddy, you’re a bit out of date with your prime-time programming lineup. You might want to check your VCR and have it record something a little newer than 1995.”
“No need. I just change the channel to something more entertaining.” Torquemada punches me four or five times in the face then steps back.
I spit out a bit of blood and grin. “That all you got? I dick-slapped your mother harder than that.”
That one struck a nerve. Torquemada starts going to town on my poor face. I shut down my nerve endings and barely register the blows. I laugh aloud when I hear the bones snap in his hand. He takes a few steps back and cradles his injured dick beater. Amateur. You never beat a person’s face with a closed fist. It’s torture 101. Torquemada is looking pissed, so I egg him on by hawking a bloody wad of spit halfway across the room. The gory mass hits him right between the eyes. My brain pictures Apu from The Simpsons and I can’t keep from laughing.
Angry Apu flicks out a collapsible baton and goes berserk. Okay, now it’s starting to hurt a bit. I cut off my pain receptors and flop to the ground. Angry Apu keeps beating on me a minute to see if I’m faking, but even his best efforts can’t break through my façade. There’s little they can do to me that hasn’t been done before, and I’ve learned to mitigate all kinds of brutality. I’m in little danger unless they set me on fire or start putting bullets in me, which is unlikely.
My torturer shouts what I must assume is a stream of curses in Arabic and storms out of the room. The guards leave me on the floor and follow him, locking the steel door behind them. I lie there unmoving and take what for my kind constitutes a nap, while my body heals the bludgeoning injuries inflicted upon it.
The seconds tick away and the hours drag by. I look up when I hear the door open and several Arab stormtroopers shamble in. Two of them grab me under the arms and drag me out. They don’t bother with the hood, so I get a good look at my surroundings. The cinder block walls and barred gates give credence to this being some sort of police station or military detention facility. It’s probably both, given the limited separation of duties in this country.
They march me into a slightly larger room and set me down next to Meat who is sitting next to Lesile. Meat looks a little more beat up than me, due to his slightly slower healing ability, but he still looks to have his sense of humor. Lesile’s hair is mussed, but it doesn’t look like she was worked over as much as me and Meat. Either that or she put discretion to the wind and cured all her ails, but I doubt she is that careless.
No one says anything as the minutes tick by. I imagine there is some kind of staring contest going on between us and whoever is watching through the two-way mirror set in the far wall. My hands are still bound, so I can’t make rude gestures at them, so I content myself with mouthing unkind statements about their parentage and sexual perversions. I’m not sure if they have a lip reader or if they just got tired of their voyeurism, but the door opens to announce the show is about to begin.
“Aha!” I exclaim. “Jafar, I knew it. I can smell a fed a mile away.”
Meat gives me a sidelong glance. “Explain to me how it is you came to be here again?”
“Fuck off. My sense of smell was thrown off by the stink of psycho whore.”
Zaim takes a seat across from us and flips open a folder. “So, we have Goenn Fuckyurself…”
Meat grins at me. “Nice one.”
“I do aim to please.”
“…Paul Madique…”
“Nice twist on the classic,” I say.
“I like to keep it simple yet fresh,” Meat replies.
“…and Lesile Savard.”
I give Lesile an annoyed look. “You told him your real name? Why would you do that when there are so many delightful options like Sofonda Cox, Amanda Doomy, Connie Lingus, Edith McCrotch, Enorma Skank, or Frieda Banger? The list is practically endless.”
“Because I am not a child, and I wish to get this over with as quickly as possible.”
“There’s something you never hear a woman say in the bedroom.”
“Right!” Meat says in agreement.
“If I might redirect this conversation back to its original course…” Zaim says.
“You mean the course where Lenny limp wrist slaps us around some more?”
“I must apologize for that. I am afraid I did not leave clear instructions before I left to attend to another matter.”
“Hey, it’s procedural, I understand.”
“You two are American. Ms. Savard is French, if I place her accent correctly, but I am betting she too was sent by the Americans.”
“Technically, I’m Canadian,” Meat clarifies.
“Seriously? I knew there was something wrong aboot you,” I say.
Zaim clears his throat. “You are spies sent from the American government regardless of your nationality.”
“Wrong and wrong. We’re independent contractors sent to deal with a problem before it creates an international incident. And why do you, or any of these third-world morons think the U.S. is spying on you? What do you possibly have that we need to find; your sand weaponization program, stealth camels?”
Lesile cuts in. “Zaim, what I told you in the café was almost entirely true. You have a problem in your region, and we’re here to make it go away. That is all.”
Zaim’s steely façade slips, and the stress he is under rises to the surface. “I also spoke truly. I was not convinced of the existence of ghuls and attributed
the killings to an American plot, but I have just returned from our medical examiner’s office, and his preliminary reports and my personal observations are…unsettling. You show up and now I have two problems. I have killers running free, and I have three American spies who are going to ask to be set loose within my country as well.”
“Setting us loose solves both your problems,” I tell him. “We will kill these ghuls, and then we’ll go back to where we came from. Let us do what we came here to do, and all your problems go away.”
“How do I know you will leave?”
“Because I don’t want to be here! This isn’t exactly Laguna Beach. It’s hot, it’s filthy, it smells, and it has all the charm of an apocalyptic wasteland without the endearing, flesh-eating mutants. It’s more like Daytona.”
“This is my country.”
“That’s not my fault, and I shouldn’t have to suffer being in it with you. I don’t want to be here anymore than you want me here.”
“You speak as though we cannot kill these creatures ourselves. We almost got them tonight.”
“Only because you used us as bait, and you still lost them. You’ve been stepping on your own dicks since this started. Your government has been fighting Al-Qaeda for years, and you still can’t throw a rock without hitting one. You’ve got two, thanks to us, infiltrators with more training and abilities than you can imagine. We’ve been here for exactly one day and cut their numbers down by a third. Maybe you can get them on your own and maybe butterflies will fly out of my ass and sing ‘Yankee Doodle Dandy.’”
Zaim sinks into his chair and cradles his head. “What am I supposed to tell my superiors? How do I explain that the killers are creatures from folklore, and I let three American spies go, to hunt them down because I am incapable of doing so, despite having a battalion of soldiers and police at my disposal?”
“That sounds like a you problem.”
Blood Conspiracy (Brooklyn Shadows Book 2) Page 9