With herself.
She wanted to prove she could do the job, that she could still be a hunter. I just wasn’t sure who she was trying to prove it to: me or her.
She would never admit that, of course. If she even knew why she did what she did in the first place. Most people don’t. She probably wasn’t aware of it consciously and would have argued with me about it until she was blue in the face.
But in her current state of mind, all hot and bothered, she was going to get herself killed.
“You’re not thinking straight,” I said. I took her arm, but she yanked away and speed-walked. “Okay, that’s it.” I grabbed her wrist and pulled her into the woods.
She tried to pull away, but my grip was a vice. “What are you doing?” she asked.
She dropped to the ground in order to stop me. It didn’t. I picked her up and flung her over my shoulder.
She thrashed under my arm. “Let me go, Ivy.”
Far enough off the path, I threw her ass on the ground. Pulling a zip tie from my jacket, I wrapped her arms around a tree and locked her wrists together.
“Stop it,” she yelled. “Release me. Right now.”
“You’re acting like a child,” I said, towering over her. “You’re trying to be tough by making stupid decisions. You need to cool off and start thinking straight.”
“Release me. This instant!”
She wrestled against the tree trunk, but she wasn’t going to break that zip tie anytime soon. I always carried a few with me, but rarely had to use them. I didn’t think I’d have to actually use one on a member of my own team.
Maya roared and hissed like a wild animal.
I shook my head. “I would advise you to keep quiet,” I said. “Unless you want the fraternity to hear and toss your sorry ass into the pit like they did Del Toro. Or maybe your desperate screams will attract another infected host. Wouldn’t you love that? You can make a new friend.”
I paraded down the path and dragged Del Toro’s body into the woods, setting it behind a tree and out of sight. I picked up the creature and carried it over to Maya.
I pulled out my blade and sawed the creature’s arm clean off. Strange how there was no bone to cut through. Just muscle and sinew.
Maya rammed her spine against the tree and hissed. She was seething. “Arrrgh! What are you doing? You’re being a bully. Just let me go.”
When she calmed down and started thinking clearly, she’d remember she had the butterfly knife in her back pocket. With a simple snip, she could free herself. But only when she began thinking rationally. Which, for her, might be a while.
I shimmied around her, spilling the brown blood from the creature’s arm on the ground until there was a circle of blood around her and the tree. In this case, it looked more like black oil, but blood the nonetheless.
I dropped the severed arm and opened another pocket in the lining of my coat. Whenever I bought a new jacket, I instantly sewed new pockets inside the lining. Whether it was for zip ties, matches, or lock picks, I always found something useful and light to put in there that would save me in a jam.
In this case, I pulled out a very special gem. I tied it to a leather band, lowered it over the circle, and spoke out loud a simple chant. A protection spell. The stone vibrated and made a slight humming noise.
I sighed. “The circle of blood around you will protect you from any more of these creatures. They won’t see or hear you. You’ll be invisible to them.”
“What?! You’re not leaving me here?”
“That’s exactly what I’m going to do.”
“You-you can’t—”
“Whatever demons you’re fighting, you need to deal with them. Face them. You can’t master your suffering until you embrace your pain.”
“I’m not suffering—”
“Stop being a mediocre child and be a monster hunter,” I said, placing the gem back in my pocket. “If you don’t master your pain, it will master you. If you succumb, it will turn you ugly. You’ll become just another monster that I have to track down and kill. Face your dark parts, Maya.”
“I can’t,” she said, sobbing. “I have too many dark parts inside me.”
“Stop avoiding them and fucking handle it. This life ain’t for the timid, kid. I’m not here to hug you and give you cookies. Take control of yourself. Toughen the fuck up.”
“But I am tough…”
“No, you’re an emotional basket case. You’re just good at hiding it.” I crouched down to her.
I looked deep into her eyes. “You have two choices. You can go back to the life you knew, where you were homeless and couch surfing, writing worthless poems about how bad you feel about your life.”
I rose to my feet. “Or you can make the choice to be an unstoppable hunter who kills evil sons of bitches who prey on the innocent. And make the world a better place. Take ownership of yourself, Maya Hayes. You choose. Man the fuck up or go home and cry on someone else’s couch like a whiny little bitch.”
You might say I was being too hard on her. But tough love is the only love I know.
I made it back toward the trail and headed to the bunker hatch a few dozen yards away.
Maya yelled as I left her. “Don’t leave me here, boss. I’m sorry. I was a jerk, I know. Don’t leave me.”
She was still pleading as I climbed down the ladder to the bunker. The kid should keep her pie hole shut or she’d attract unwanted attention. And any attention in this place was heavily unwanted.
I know, you probably think I’m a bad person for leaving her up there alone. But I needed to teach her a lesson.
The thing was, in her emotional state of mind, she was more focused on hating me than she was of trying to grow up. If she calmed the fuck down for two seconds, she’d think like a rational person and realize the butterfly knife was in her back pocket.
I expected her to figure it out in about three minutes and cut herself free. I thought it was a fairly easy lesson at the time.
In hindsight, what happened to Maya after that was probably the worst thing that could have happened.
And it was all my fault.
Chapter 13
Countdown to Oblivion
When I got back down to the hidden bunker, Augie had the bomb from the corner opened and dismantled. Pieces of wire and bomb parts littered along the floor.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“I found tools in a room down the hall,” he said, sitting on the floor, surrounded by the ingredients of the bomb. “I got the itch to play with the bomb so I can detonate it by remote. Pretty brilliant, huh?”
“Bombs aren’t something you play with, August. How are you doing this?” I asked. “You’re innovating. The atom bomb or the tools shouldn’t let you channel the energy like that.”
“Maybe I’m just smarter than you think I am.”
“More likely scenario? The bulge in your front pocket is Tesla’s watch that I told you to put back. You’re channeling him again, aren’t you?”
He pulled out the stopwatch and glanced at the hands, even though it didn’t work. “Tesla and I go way back,” he said, stuffing it in his pocket. “It’s like I’m channeling his enthusiasm for the project. He died before the atom bomb went off, so he never got a chance to play with it. Not that he was into destruction, he was only interested in creating. But the possibility of working on an atom bomb is intoxicating.”
“Don’t blow us to kingdom come.”
“The funny thing is, this bomb has a timer inside,” he said. “I don’t think it was ever meant to fly anywhere. I think it was made to blow up the Island.”
“And the bombs in the vault?”
“Maybe they shared your paranoia of needing a gazillion backups?”
“Nobody needs that many backups,” I said. “Even I can attest to that. We need a ride out of this place.”
“Well, whatever they were planning—” He stopped and glanced around. “Hey, where’s Maya?”
“She’s
tied to a tree. She needed time to cool off.”
He scoffed with a wide smile. “Is it wrong of me to feel so much joy in her punishment? I’m practically giddy.”
“At least she’s quieted down,” I said. “She’s not far from the hatch. I’ll fetch her later.”
With a screwdriver in hand, Augie pointed down the hall. “There’s a toolbox in the jeep, if you wanted to get it working.”
“If the engine isn’t frozen, I could get it going in time. But without fresh gas, we’re not going anywhere.” I peeked at the wheels. “The tires aren’t flat…”
“Yeah, weird, right? I thought so too. So I sliced one open earlier. They’re not filled with air. Go figure. They got some kind of flexible resin in them. Pretty smart, actually. Tires that never go flat.”
I headed to the truck and opened the tank. Wiped my finger inside. It was bone dry, just like I thought. “Maybe you can rig something up to get this working, Mr. Tesla.”
I opened the jeep door and glanced inside for something useful. A handgun sat on the floor by the front seat. I picked it up.
It was a Welrod, a clunky handgun with a built-in silencer. Issued in 1939, it was used by UK Special Forces during World War II. It wasn’t the gun that bothered me. What bothered me was that there was no dead body holding it.
In a hi-tech military underground bunker with a hundred nukes, where the hell were the guards?
There should have been dead bodies lying all over the place. But there were no guards, soldiers, or workers. I found it hard to believe they would all leave a vault full of nuclear weapons behind.
That’s madness.
I scraped my hand under the seat of the truck, looking for any hidden goodies. I pulled out three empty shells from the gun. Whoever used this gun fired it at something. But I didn’t find any blood.
What I did find were scorch marks. On the walls. The floors. Even part of the jeep was blackened by fire.
I mosied to the room next door. On the wall was a hatch with a swinging door. It looked like a large laundry or garbage chute opening. I opened it and took a whiff. It didn’t smell like anything but dry, dead air. If it was garbage, the stench lost its potency decades ago. What bothered me were the black scorch marks around the room. Someone really lit this place up.
I was betting Redmann or the brotherhood frat party didn’t know about this bunker. That was a good thing. Best to keep it that way.
The last thing I needed to deal with was a bunch of lunatics getting their hands on a vault full of nukes. They’d become the largest superpower in the world overnight.
Which is why it all had to be destroyed. And if Chicago died in the process, so be it. Chicago was a hellhole anyway.
My ears perked up when tickled by a disturbing sound.
Augie said, “Oops.”
He cursed to himself but tried to keep his voice down.
I walked back into the room. “What oops?”
“The timer started.” He cast a stupid face. “By itself.” The clock displayed six hours and counting.
“Shut it off.”
“I don’t think I can. If I cut a wire, I could set it off.”
“You just gave us six hours before we blow ourselves, and all of Chicago, up in a blaze of glory, August. With an atomic bomb.”
“Actually, it’s a Hydrogen bomb, it’s thermonuclear. Much more powerful than an atomic bomb.”
“Goddammit.” I reset my watch to match the timer. My ears perked as an engine roared in the distance. I headed toward the hatch.
“Where are you going?”
“To get Maya,” I said, grabbing the ladder leading up to the hatch. “We’re getting the hell out of here.” I gave him the stink eye. “Stay here and figure out how to stop that thing. Like your life depends on it. Because it does.” I climbed onto solid ground. Walked across the path and over to Maya. But she wasn’t where I left her.
Maya was gone.
Chapter 14
Pecking Order
I stood at the tree where I left Maya, but she was nowhere to be found. The zip tie was sliced in two next to the oak. Did she finally calm her ass down and cut herself free?
The leaves were scattered around. Several branches and tall weeds were bent or broken. Boot marks scuffed into the dirt. And they weren’t Maya’s boots. At least three people were here.
Someone took her.
I followed the distressed pattern of the leaves. It led to the path. To a set of tire tracks.
Goddammit.
I slowed my breathing and listened to the wind. In the distance, I heard an engine coming from the direction of the pit. But further away.
I darted up the trail. The truck was probably not going more than 30 mph on this trail. Tops. And he’d have to slow down on the curves. And it was all curves. Eventually, I’d close the gap between us.
As I came to the fork in the road, I turned left down the trail until a Jeep came into view just over a hill.
It took me almost twenty minutes to get here. That was twenty minutes less on the atomic clock. Twenty minutes less to save Maya.
The jeep was already parked. Three guys in dark outfits and black vests milled around a bunker in the woods. They looked like military, but there was something off about them. They didn’t move like a unit. Less like soldiers. More like mercenaries.
The entrance was a large cement doorway, like an open garage door. I ran behind the Jeep as the soldiers meandered around the corner of the bunker.
There was no sign of Maya.
Two of the men entered through the doorway into the bunker. The third guy pulled out a cigarette. He apparently wanted a smoke break. He wore an M16 machine gun on his back. I waited until he lit the cigarette. Then I made my move.
I casually approached him behind the Jeep. “Excuse me,” I said. “Can I bum one off you?”
“Who the hell—?”
Before he finished his sentence, I broke his kneecap, snapped his arm, and placed him in a headlock from behind.
With my arm around his throat and a Beretta to his temple, I said, “Where’s the girl?”
“What girl?”
I banged his head with the pistol. “Don’t play stupid.”
“Okay, okay,” he said as I squeezed his larynx. “Munsher took her downstairs. To the main room.”
“Where is the main room?”
“Straight down the stairs, first door on the left.”
“Mighty kind of you,” I said. I clobbered him over the skull, knocking him out cold. I dragged him to the woods behind the bunker and zip-tied him to a tree. I removed the hunting knife from his person and chucked it into the woods. My eye caught a white patch on his uniform that said ASL.
Applied Science and Logistics.
Son of a bitch. These were Blackwell’s men.
I wasn’t sure how Redmann was tied into Blackwell, but at least I didn’t have to play nice with these assholes. I could play full out and break some skulls.
I went back into the garage area and opened the side door where the soldiers entered.
With the Beretta by my side, I crept down the stairwell, careful not to make a peep. As I approached the bottom step, voices filled the room. It sounded suspiciously like the frat brothers.
The hallway I lurked in was empty. Lucky for me. Or rather, lucky for them. I wasn’t in the mood.
I peered through the doorway. The underground bunker was set up with tables and chairs in the main room. Off to the side was a room with a glass wall. It looked like a gas chamber. Or a holding facility where they could monitor prisoners or run interrogations.
The men’s backs were turned toward me. But there wasn’t just a few of them. I counted fifteen. The one shooting his mouth off was the same voice I heard when they threw Del Toro in the pit. He was a leader.
That was probably Munsher.
Maya was parked in a chair, but she wasn’t strapped down or handcuffed. They probably didn’t think a twenty-one-year-old, fresh-faced, blonde c
hick with a temper problem would be much trouble for a bunch of armed soldiers.
Munsher interrogated her. “Are you or are you not one of Buddy Redmann’s people, little girl?” he said. “I want a straight answer this time.”
Maya cut her eyes to him. “Redmann is my friend,” she said. “If you touch me, you’re dead.” I wasn’t sure if she was trying to sound tough or just unafraid. Either way, it was going to get her killed.
The leader crouched down to one knee. “Girly, you don’t know the trouble you’re in, do you? If you think that little prick Redmann is going to save you, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, sweetheart. He never comes to the west side. He stays on the east side with all his monster playthings. You’re alone. And you’re in a heap of trouble.”
She scowled at him. “Bring it, dipshit.” The tinge of fear in her voice was barely audible. She put on a good front.
“You got spunk, girly.” Munsher grabbed a fistful of Maya’s hair. “A pretty little thing like you in here with all of us? We’re gonna have some fun with you, sweetheart.”
I didn’t know how this was gonna go down. But I knew some people were going to die today. If I waltzed in pointing my Beretta, I had fifteen armed men pointing their guns right back at me.
Military men.
I couldn’t kill them all before one of them had the chance to draw their gun and shoot Maya. Even if they were trying to get to me, she could wind up being collateral damage. I didn’t have the luxury of time to think this through and make a plan. No, I had to play it by ear. But I still needed to gather more information before I started shooting shit and bashing skulls.
Munsher raised his hand to hit Maya. She winced.
Maybe I didn’t have the time I wanted. I had to move fast. So I holstered the Beretta. And walked in.
“Gentlemen, that is quite enough,” I said. “My name is Steve. Blackwell sent me from ASL. And I…
…am your new boss.”
Chapter 15
Chain of Command
The entire group of ASL mercenaries turned to me as I stepped into the room proclaiming to be their superior sent from the big boss on high. As I paraded into the room of mercenaries, my eyes scanned the place for exits, kill boxes, and other clues as to what their mission was.
Faith of a Monster Killer: Killing Forever Book 3 Page 8