The street below wound back and forth across a small field that could have been used for sporting events or maybe small carnivals or fairs. Adderson spotted plenty of bodies down there, but most of them were lying in gory pools. A few wolves picked at the carcasses and barked up at the helicopter, but the real action didn’t pick up until the grass gave way to a parking lot surrounding a small complex of three story apartments. Two Humvees were parked at right angles to each other to provide some measure of cover for the soldiers keeping their backs to the doors. The helicopter’s gunners were both still pulling the triggers of their .50 cals, which did nothing to discourage the onslaught of Class Twos pouring out of the middle apartment building.
Placing his finger to the button that would open the connection between him and the pilot, Adderson said, “Bring us in above those Humvees so we can lay down some support fire.”
“Yes, sir.”
Dusting in above the soldiers forced the troops on the ground to lower their heads and secure their loose clothing, but it also brought a few grateful shouts from the men who still had enough breath in their lungs to cheer. The copter’s gunner sighted along the top of his belt-fed machine gun and sent a stream of lead into the encroaching werewolves. Cement and dirt alike were chopped up along with plenty of Class Two flesh and bone. The wolves that weren’t cut into enough pieces divided into smaller groups and scattered. Once they got too close to the Humvees, the gunner eased back on his trigger.
“Where’s the closest place you can set us down?” Adderson asked the pilot through the helmet radio.
“On one of those rooftops. Any closer and we’re risking the bird, sir.”
The IRD might have had the support of the United States military, but NH-90s didn’t come cheap. And if this battle was going to be won, no available asset could be wasted. “Fine,” he said. “Do it.”
The helicopter rose straight up and eased over to settle above one of the apartment buildings. As soon as the gear touched down, the door was opened and troops were deployed. Last man out shut the door behind him and the bird was once again in the air and firing at another group of targets. Bing, bang, boom. Now if the rest of the day could run like that, Adderson thought, he would be a happy man. He carried his HK-G36, but some of the other troops had brought along semiautomatic Benelli M-4 shotguns. Several paces before reaching the door that led into the building, two shotgunners moved forward to take point. They kicked the door in and headed down a narrow set of stairs that led to a maintenance room at the end of a long hall. The next set of stairs was lit by a flickering set of emergency lights. Judging by the boards nailed to the interior of the frames, the residents of those apartments had tried to defend their homes against the beasts that invaded their city.
One of the lead shotgunners stopped and raised a fist so everyone behind him could see it. The entire group came to a halt and waited silently for the next signal. With a minimum of hand motions, the shotgunner told them he saw something ahead and down the next set of stairs. At least two possible threats.
A pair of Marines carrying HKs moved up to join the shotgunners, and Adderson moved back. Once the new marching order had been arranged, he ordered them to proceed down the stairs and assess the situation. It was an open, square stairwell, which allowed the shotgunners to proceed downward and the Marines to cover them from higher ground. Adderson hung back with the remaining team members and divided his attention between the soldiers ahead and behind. There was no way for anything to get the drop on them without being spotted first. Of course, considering what they were up against, spotting the enemy usually wasn’t the problem.
At the bottom of the stairwell something heavy smashed through a set of reinforced doors. Adderson could hear the doors being knocked off their hinges, followed by the loud clanging of iron bars hitting the floor. The IRD fire team remained where it was, sighting along their weapons and waiting for a target to present itself. When several rasping growls drifted in from beyond the broken entrance, he knew every one of the trigger fingers around him was tensing. He held up his hand, signaling the team to remain where it was as the scraping on the lower floors reached the bottom of the stairs. They were definitely Class Twos. Adderson recognized the mixture of hunger, pain, and rage in their rasping grunts.
He sent the two shotgunners forward so they worked their way to the next landing and dropped to one knee. By now Adderson and the Marines with the HKs had once again positioned themselves on higher stairs to look down at the shotgunners. The Class Twos were ripping at something. Those sounds, mixed with the tearing of wet meat and the lack of screaming, told him the wolves had found a dead body at the bottom of the stairwell. When one of the shotgunners looked up to him for instruction, Adderson pointed toward the rest of the team and made a sweeping motion that ended by pointing his fingers directly to the bottom of the stairwell. If the wolves decided to pick the wrong time for a snack, there was no reason that mistake couldn’t be their last.
The lead shotgunner held up three fingers, ticked them off one by one, then led a shuffling charge down the stairs. All of their steps started quietly enough, but built in pace as well as intensity as the team got close enough to where they knew the wolves would hear or smell them at any second, no matter how stealthily they tried to approach. The chomping downstairs stopped as the first werewolf grunted and then barked up the stairs. By the time the small pack started scrambling upward, they were already being met by a volley of gunfire.
The shotgunners were first, and they unleashed a twelve-gauge torrent that tore into the werewolves’ faces in a way that put a smile on the team members pulling the triggers. But despite that gloriously visceral payback for all of the blood they’d seen spilled, the IRD shooters weren’t able to put the Class Twos down. That’s where the team members on the upper stairs came in. Once the shotguns slowed the wolves down and ripped away enough of their flesh, more precise rounds drilled into the creatures’ spines and skulls from a downward angle. For any other living thing, the result would have been instantaneous. Then again, Adderson mused as he pulled his trigger to send bursts into the pack of shapeshifters, no other living thing could have withstood the shotguns. Even though his team performed by the numbers, one of the Class Twos made it to a shotgunner and clamped its jaws around his shin.
Gritting his teeth as the fangs drove in deeper, the man pressed the Benelli’s barrel against a gaping wound on the creature’s face and pulled his trigger. The shotgun round exploded out through the back of the creature’s head, but its grip on his leg only tightened. It took a few more concentrated bursts from the HKs to put an end to that reflex so the shotgunner could kick the dead beast away.
“You all right, soldier?” Adderson asked as he moved to the lower landing.
The shotgunner looked up and nodded without showing surprise that Adderson’s gun was pointed at him. “I’m good to go, sir.”
“Did the fangs get through?”
“Yeah, but just into the armor and some meat. Not the bone.” Pulling in a pained breath, he said, “The specialists said they had to get all the way through to bone before I’d turn, right?”
“Right.”
Adderson stared at the messy wound on the shotgunner’s leg. Instead of the compassion he’d felt when seeing lesser wounds in other conflicts, he could only think about whether he should take the questionable data gathered by what amounted to a supernatural militia member over the knowledge he’d gained from the battlefield. “Do we have any more of that stuff the specialists mixed up for us to clean these wounds?”
The reply came from one of the Marines above him. “Used the last of it up yesterday, sir.”
“If there’s more specialists in the city,” the other shotgunner offered, “then we could—”
“We could waste a lot of time on a gamble that they’re carrying the exact supplies we need,” Adderson snapped. Pointing to the second shotgunner and the Marine who’d spoken up earlier, he said, “You two stay here and dress the wou
nd. If he starts to turn, you’re to put him down immediately. Understood?”
“Yes sir.”
The orders were taken without resentment or a second thought. That didn’t mean Adderson didn’t feel any pangs upon issuing them, however. Referring to his own troops like animals went against every instinct in his body but was a necessary evil in a world that had been fucked up beyond his ability to repair it. After signaling for the rest of the team to go down the rest of the stairs and sweep the next room, he brought the radio to his mouth and said, “Any Ravens in the vicinity of Zone Four?”
After a brief pause, Hendricks replied, “Never got too far from you, Major. Need a lift?”
“What’s the status on that special delivery from up north?”
“Should be arriving within the hour. Over.”
“And what about that Class One?”
“Ripping the hell out of a park, but he’s awfully mobile. Doesn’t seem to want to get too far away from those specialists, though.”
“Do you have gunners?” Adderson asked.
“Down one after that last howl.”
“Replenish your supply and pick up as many troops as you can. I’m bringing one along with me, so come and get us ASAP.”
“What’s the plan from there, sir?”
When Adderson pressed the radio’s button, he felt like he was ready to crush the device in his hand. “We point every barrel we’ve got at that fucking Class One and burn it down.”
“Roger that.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Cole had never been to a therapy session.
Even when things got a thousand miles past stressful at Digital Dreamers, as deadlines crept in and forum trolls were anxiously awaiting a game they could rip apart and criticize while playing it online, he’d never felt the need to undergo any sort of counseling to exorcise his demons. And more recently, when he was introduced to what very well could have been real demons, he still hadn’t considered doing much of anything that would be considered therapeutic. Injecting the healing serum into his arm had always gone a long way toward putting him into a bleary, vaguely dizzy sense of mind that was good for a solid night’s sleep but was never enough to cool the searing heat that lanced through the base of his skull like a hot knife. That same headache plagued him now in a way that was a strange reminder of his days as a game designer. Funny how building death-match levels and running for your life from shapeshifters could trigger the same basic stress pains. And after so much practice with being spread too thin, he’d never come up with a better way to relieve stress other than the few moments of respite he found in the dark with Paige. Getting behind the grips of a belt-fed machine gun bolted to the window of an NH-90 helicopter flying in low above the streets of Shreveport was a real close second.
The Half Breeds were out in force. Packs ran down every street, exploded from every alley, and roared up at him from nearly every window along what had been a business section of town filled with strip malls and chain restaurants. He’d never been to Shreveport, so he didn’t know what that section of town had looked like before the Breaking Moon, but he knew what it looked like now: the best shooting gallery ever conceived. As soon as he saw a four-legged shape come into view, he aimed at it and fired. The machine gun rattled in its heavy frame, making a stuttering mechanical roar that filled his ears and brain with a numbing thump. Glass shattered. Bricks exploded. Cars rocked. Cement cracked. Most important, Half Breeds skidded out of control and were knocked around as if swept up in a powerful wind. As per the instructions he’d been given during his crash course in IRD training, Cole swept the gun back and forth until the Half Breeds stopped moving or fell apart into more than one piece. As the pilot banked steeply to round a corner, he eased off the trigger and caught his breath. Paige sat on one of the folding benches with two other IRD troops, all of whom looked at Cole behind cautiously raised brows.
“I needed that,” was all he had to say.
Paige gave him a quick upward nod and replied, “When’s my turn?”
“Better save the ammo,” the soldier sitting beside her said. “We’ll need it once we get closer to the LZ.”
“Will we beat the others there?” Cole asked.
“Everyone else that came in with you should be driving straight across town to meet us. They should be waiting for us.”
“Driving is faster than flying?”
The soldier nodded once. His darkly tanned face twisted into a mildly amused expression that showed good humor despite the fatigue that wore at every inch of his weathered skin. “When there ain’t no traffic or cops around to get upset if you mount curbs or drive through the occasional yard, driving is pretty damn fast. Plus we’ve got to slow down when that machine gun is blazing away. Gives you better chances to hit something.”
“Oh stop looking at me like that, Paige,” Cole grunted as he flipped the safety on and set the gun barrel into the bracket that held it in place when it wasn’t in use. “I took out plenty of those things.”
“No explanations needed, sir,” the IRD soldier told him. “Every one of those things were headed toward the primary LZ, which means they meant to put the hurt on the troops already there. We’ll need all the breathing room we can get.”
“You don’t have to call him sir,” Paige chided the soldier. “He was probably just pretending he was in a video game when he was firing that thing.”
“You specialists may not have an official rank,” the man replied, “but we all know what you guys do with them sticks you carry. None of us mind treating you with the respect you deserve.”
“Tell that to your bosses,” Paige sighed. “I have a feeling our days of going where we please are over.”
“Not if the major has anything to say about it. Ever since you left, he’s been all over the—”
The soldier was cut off when something slammed into the side of the helicopter with enough force to send it wobbling perilously close to an office building. The others tucked their heads down and secured themselves as they’d been trained to do, but it wasn’t a routine affair for the Skinners. Cole and Paige did their best to keep from falling over as the helicopter spun through two complete rotations before it was pulled back onto a steady course. Before the pilot could get them right again, the craft listed to one side as its fuselage was torn open to the screeching cries of metal meeting claws.
Grabbing onto the machine gun’s mounting, Cole pressed his back against the wall and looked straight across to the side door. Light from outside as well as streams of cool air poured in through four sets of openings created by the claws dragging through the fuselage. Another set of claws had punctured the metal a bit higher and to one side, only to curl inward as the helicopter launched into a series of tight, waggling maneuvers.
“Hang on,” the pilot shouted. “Gonna try to shake it off!”
The only reactions on the soldiers’ faces were a few closed sets of eyes and a whole lot of focus as they tried not to think about what was attempting to get at them. Cole couldn’t do much more than that because he knew if he let go or allowed his muscles to relax, he’d find himself skidding straight toward the wrong side of that cabin. Before too long the pilot straightened the aircraft’s course.
“Are we clear to fire?” one of the soldiers asked.
“That’ll just rile it up,” the pilot replied. “Let me take her down before you give that shaggy bastard a reason to kick.”
Cole didn’t take his eyes off the claws lodged in the door. He watched as they shifted so the long pointed ends dug deeper into the steel as the wide, fearsome visage of a Full Blood rose up to gaze in through the window. Its dark gray fur was matted with blood and pressed against its face by the wind. Even more blood was encrusted onto its fangs amid several smaller strips of loose meat and what looked to be part of a shredded uniform. Solid white eyes stared through the window to assess the contents of the military transport.
Cole had only seen Esteban a handful of times, none of which had bee
n the up close and personal interactions he’d had with other Full Bloods. Liam had been a hell raiser and Henry was just plain crazy. Randolph could carry on articulate conversations in between bouts of homicidal rage. Those were far from friendly faces, but at least they were familiar. Somehow, even when facing things torn from legend, it made just a little more sense when he could put a voice to the face or a method to the madness. Esteban didn’t bother stating its motivations to the insects he trampled. When Cole looked into those eyes, he knew there was no explanation coming. No time wasted in thought. There was only death to be found as his head phased into a ghostly image that moved through the door as easily as a stone through a cloud.
One claw remained solid, which allowed the Full Blood to launch his smoky body into the cabin. Before he could get all the way inside, Cole reached for the spear strapped across his back and charged at him. In its compact form, the main portion of the spear was just as long as the curved Blood Blade that had recently been attached to it. The charmed metal sliced through the air as easily as it sliced through the hazy image of the werewolf. Esteban opened his mouth in a silent expression that could have either been a laugh or a howl.
“You can’t hurt anyone like that,” Cole shouted over the thumping of the overhead blades and the whining of the straining engine. “And you’re not scaring any of us, so you might as well fight or get the fuck out!”
Anger flashed in Esteban’s eyes as he swiped at Cole with a paw that solidified halfway along its journey toward his face. Cole leaned back and reflexively swatted at the incoming paw. When the blade made contact, he felt about three-quarters of the resistance he might feel if he’d parried a normal blow. Rather than slash at him again, Esteban slammed his paw against the floor, dug his claws into the steel and willed himself to take a physical form.
“Fire!”
Paige had given the order as she freed herself from the harness holding her in her seat. Three of the IRD troops already facing the door pulled their triggers without bothering to get up. The soldiers on either side of her had more practice in disentangling themselves from the safety straps, so they were out and turned around much quicker. The gunfire exploding within the confines of the cabin was only eclipsed by Esteban’s bellowing roar.
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