“He’s a character isn’t he?” Logan grinned as Bryant went back to shouting his orders from across the courtyard. “Do you want to go meet him?” he asked quietly. I really didn’t, it was too early in the morning to feel any kind of want or desire to be screamed at but basic courtesy told me that the polite thing to do would be to greet our guest despite my apprehension at the volume of his voice.
I nodded and followed him quietly as we made our way past the tired troops and toward the shouting general. He continued giving his orders despite the groans and protests that filled the air and as we stepped closer to him I could see the look in his eyes soften slightly, if only for a moment. His face held the evidence of time, every line and every deep wrinkle sat proudly in his features as if each had its own story to tell. His eyes were tired, worn and battle weary but behind all that sat a glimmer of excitement at being back in the middle of it all.
“Can I help you, son?” he asked gruffly as I approached him, a slight smirk on his lips as I looked to Logan.
“This is Ethan, the guy I was telling you about.”
“Oh, the little shit that pissed off Malik,” He looked back to me and thrust his hand at my chest with a smile. “It’s nice to meet you.” I took his hand in mine and shook it firmly. The last thing I wanted to do was to hurt him but somehow it didn’t seem like that would be an easy thing to do.
“You!” He screamed, turning his attention back to the crowd as he ripped his hand from mine violently. “Don’t turn your back on the enemy! How many times do I have to tell you!?” The kids turned their faces toward him in unison and shook their heads before going back to the task at hand. It wasn’t hard to see that they were exhausted and tired of his demands but despite the harshness in his approach even I could sense his desire to make a decent army out of them.
“Bryant, how about we give them a break and you can tell Ethan what you told me this morning.” He looked up at us quickly and nodded.
“I suppose these kids do need a break.” He chuckled as he turned his eyes back to them.
“That’s probably not a bad idea.” Bryant nodded as he reached down and moved his chair closer to the crowd.
“Alright girls, take five and we’ll get back to this later and for God’s sake you all better not come back as dense as you are now!” he shouted before quickly turning his wheelchair around and moving past us into the factory and out of sight. I watched for a moment as the group before me changed back into their human forms, each one tired and struggling to catch their breath as they scattered to quieter places.
I followed Logan into the building and took my seat next to him at the large round table that sat in the center of the room. I could hear gunshots ringing in the field outside and my attention quickly turned toward them, a hint of fear rising up in me.
“Relax, it’s just that sister of yours getting some practice,” Bryant muttered as he snatched a red plastic cup from Mack’s hands. He looked to me and smiled before taking a quick and what I imagined was a much needed drink. “Unlike that bunch of idiots,” he nodded toward the courtyard as he placed the glass on the table. “she actually knows what she’s doing.” He smiled.
“So you think she can hold her own in a fight?” I asked curiously. He scoffed lightly and shook his head.
“God no, she’ll get herself killed faster than anyone here but she’s a good shot and she’s got a lot of heart.” I groaned that was not what I wanted to hear. I supported Cordillia in her attempts to make herself useful, hell I was proud of her for wanting to fight for something but the last thing I wanted was to be reminded of her mortality and her insistence on ignoring it. “Relax.” Bryant sighed as he turned his wheelchair to face me. “The last thing you need to be doing is worrying about her at a time like this.”
“I can’t really help that.”
“Sure you can,” he spoke quickly. “As far as I can tell, worrying about her is what got you in this mess in the first place.”
“I didn’t mean-”
“Doesn’t matter.” He shook his head as he raised his hand to silence me. “It was bound to happen eventually, if it wasn’t you it would have been some other poor bastard to break the treaty.”
I nodded as Mack took a seat at the table, his eyes flickering back and forth between the three of us.
“Change of subject.” I smirked. Bryant nodded and folded his hands on his lap. “Tell me something about yourself?” I asked quietly. Bryant shook his head and moved himself closer to me.
“Not yet, son, I want to get a look at you.” He took my face in his hands and began moving it to either side, sighing and nodding as he took me in. What he was looking for and what purpose this served I didn’t know but as he looked me over I could see a kind of hopelessness growing in his eyes. As quickly as he started he let go of my face with a look of disdain and leaned back in his chair.
“What’s wrong?” I asked against my better judgment. He shook his head and shrugged heavily before crossing his fingers on his lap.
“You look like an idiot.”
“What?” I asked quickly.
“Are you deaf too, son? I said you look like a damn fool and if it’s true what these young men have said.” He pointed toward Mack and Logan and smiled. “Then you act the part just as much as you look it.” I didn’t know what to make of what he had just said to me, he was right in a way but even then it was still hard to stomach the insult he had just thrown at me.
“I didn’t-”
“Didn’t mean to I know,” he cut me off with a grin. “But you still messed up big and now I’m here to help clean up the mess you created.”
“I’m sorry,” was all I could say as he shook his head and groaned.
“That’s your first problem, boy. Don’t be sorry only losers are sorry. You did what you had to do like an idiot but I’d be lying if I said I would have done things any different.”
“So how is it that you know about us?” I asked curiously, desperate to change the subject.
“The war, didn’t your buddy Robert tell you?” The sudden memory of the reservation and the pain I had caused welled up in me and tore at the edge of my thoughts. I shook my head quietly as I struggled to push the memory down and concentrate on the man in front of me rather than the ghost of friends passed.
“Sorry, I didn’t know you cared so much about him.” He sneered, shaking his head and taking another drink from his cup. I looked up at him, glaring slightly at his insinuation.
“He was a friend. He saved my sisters life more than once.” I sighed heavily. “He died trying to save her. I owe him a lot for that.” Bryant sighed deeply and shrugged.
“I’m sorry. Robert was a good friend of mine too.”
“I didn’t get him killed if that’s what you’re thinking,” I added quietly as I stared down at the dusty ground beneath my feet.
“I’ve got no such thought, son. I knew him well enough to know he wouldn’t do a damn thing he didn’t want to. If he gave his life to save her then she must be pretty important.” I nodded. We sat in silence for a moment, a homage to the dead as we kept our eyes low.
“Alright back on the subject of how I know about you,” he spoke loudly, breaking our silence and bringing my attention back to the world of the living. “I was a dumb kid that signed up for the war before I took the time to think right about what that really meant.”
“That doesn’t-”
He snapped. “I ain’t done yet. Do you have a fascination with the sound of your own voice, son, or do you just like interrupting people for the hell of it?” I lowered my eyes and leaned back in my chair. “As I was saying, I was nineteen years old when I signed up. I had no idea what I was getting myself into and in my mind serving your country was just the thing to do. Didn’t take into account that I could have been killed or that I had a baby on the way and a wife that needed me. I was stupid and selfish but that’s why we’re here isn’t it.” He smiled weakly. “I signed up and got myself deployed just in time
for D-day.”
“You were there?” I asked as a growing excitement and curiosity welled up in me. He rolled his eyes and shook his head.
“Only in the loosest sense of the words. I wasn’t there to storm the beach, I got sent out along with a bunch of other scared kids to take the place of any son of a bitch dumb enough to get himself killed in the trenches. The military, the government hell even our own commanders didn’t give a rat’s ass about us, we were there to put a bullet in as many people as we could before getting gunned down and that was just the way things were.” He shook his head and lowered his eyes to the ground, the memory of it all pained him and I could see it spelled out on his face as he told his story.
“I was given a gun and told where to go, so like a good soldier I listened. Six months I was down in those trenches taking down those Nazi bastards in the name of my country and did I get a damn thing for it?” He looked to me questioningly. “No I didn’t.” He sneered before I had the chance to respond. “Anyway, I’ll spare you the details and get right down to it. There’s too much that needs to be done if you’re sorry asses are going to survive this.” He eyed me knowingly.
“Now I imagine what you’re wanting to know is how I came to know that your kind exists am I right?” I nodded. “Thought so. Well, long story short, I was out in the trenches one day in August I believe, me and a few men just barely younger than myself armed to the teeth and fighting against a hoard of Germans that just kept coming like the plague. We had the upper hand for a short time but before we had the chance to enjoy that one of your kind came barreling through the trenches ripping my men apart.” I gasped slightly, my curiosity growing as he spoke.
“It was raining that day, I remember because my gun was slick and I dropped it in the mud trying to run away from that thing. I had no idea what it was but I knew it wasn’t something I wanted to be messing with. It came in from the west and charged my men, they didn’t have a chance.” He sighed as he lowered his gaze once again. “Sometimes I still hear their screams at night, can’t get that sound out of my head. I watched it.” He turned his face back to me. “I watched it like a coward as it threw them around and tore them apart. I couldn’t lift my gun, I swear I tried but I just couldn’t so I dropped it and took off.”
“But it was fast,” I added. To my surprise Bryant didn’t scold me for my interruption. He only smiled and nodded.
“Faster than anything that big should move. Once I realized that I couldn’t outrun it I ducked behind a pile of my own men and began pulling bodies on top of me. I figured if it thought I was a corpse I might have a chance. I laid there for a good long while, scared out of my mind as I watched it come after one of my best friends, a man I was sworn to protect and pulled him inside out. Just like that.” He shook his head lightly.
“The thing took off but after that I saw more and more of them being sent into the trenches to wipe us out like weeds and when a man is put into a situation like that he learns to fight or dies quick and that’s just the way things are. I wasn’t much for dodging or outrunning them so I learned to aim quickly and aim for the head.”
“How did you find out about Malik?” I managed to choke out, my curiosity getting the better of me.
“Well, men get lost in the trenches, soldiers listed as dead when they’re not and living when they’re six feet under. I was one of those men. I took the chance and got in touch with some people who knew things over there, apparently in those parts seeing a werewolf rip thirty men to shreds is just a typical Sunday so it wasn’t tough and with the war going on I had the chance to learn a few things that would have otherwise been lost.”
“Like how the Nazi’s were making soldiers out of them?”
“Not the Nazi’s,” He smiled at me. “Malik. Yes Hitler liked the idea, yes it was a blacklisted project as I understand it but it never really worked out. He started giving his men these shots, told them that they were steroids and that it would help them remain healthy and alert in battle but what it was, was this serum that Malik had developed while experimenting. He wanted to give his men all the perks of being a werewolf without having to actually change so they were still men like you and me just stronger, faster and able to heal massive wounds in record time.”
“But the human body can’t handle that kind of change.”
“You’re right, no it can’t. Most of the men died shortly after being injected and Hitler himself sent the order to end the project but Malik didn’t stop, he kept trying for that perfect soldier.”
“Did he ever find it?”
“Well now that’s something I don’t know. I found out about these experiments because of your little friend, Jonathan.”
“How did you-”
“You know if you let people speak you might not have to ask so many stupid questions,” he barked with a smile.” When I started asking questions I got lucky and met some of the right people, one of those people happened to put me in touch with a man that worked close to Malik and had some information about the experiments. Problem was he didn’t want to talk, sworn to secrecy that kind of thing. So I posed as a Nazi soldier and took him out for drinks one night, it took a while to find the magic number but once I did, boy that man spilled every last detail I asked for. Told me about Malik, the experiments even told me that he was going to become one of them after the war. It cost me a fortune but what he told me that night was worth all the gold in the world if you ask me.
“Poor drunken bastard told me everything he knew and as soon as he passed out I took off.” We sat in silence as I digested his tale. I couldn’t imagine what it must have been like for him to learn things the way he did but it made some sense of the man in front of me to understand what he went through before his life ever really began.
“What about your wife and kid?”
“Never saw them again,” he spoke gruffly. “They were told I was dead and I intend to keep it that way.” He sighed heavily and grabbed his cup from the table, taking a long drink before placing it back down and turning his eyes to me. “So Sam tells me you started this war?”
“I guess.” I chuckled lightly. It was funny to hear it put that way but he was right. He nodded at me lightly a slight sound of approval escaped his chest as he smiled.
“Well good for you, son.”
“What?” I laughed loudly.
“It’s about damn time we get rid of this son of a bitch and I intend to help you do it. Now come on, while we’re in here talking that bunch of idiots out there is getting soft.” He smiled as he turned his chair around and began toward the door. I watched him disappear into the light of the courtyard, the sound of his shouts filling the air quickly as he rallied the troops back into position.
“Do you really think this guy can help us?” I asked Logan quietly. He shrugged and stood from the table with a grin.
“Well, were going to find out aren’t we.” He smiled. I followed him out of the building and into the garden to face the tired eyes of the kids that were forced into the mess that I had created.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Our days passed quietly but not without insult or complaint. Bryant had made his place at the head of the troops but his particular brand of training didn’t exactly inspire love and admiration in his men. If the constant level of complaints being thrown around while his back was turned was any indicator to how he was perceived then Bryant may well have earned his place as the most hated man among us.
“I swear if that old son of a bitch calls me a retard again-”
“That old son of a bitch is trying to make sure you don’t die when shit hits the fan,” Sam chimed in from behind the bickering pair.
“I know but that doesn’t mean he has to be a jerk about it.” The smaller of the two sighed as Sam patted his shoulder gently.
“Well he also doesn’t have to be here but he is and as far as I’m concerned you all are getting better.”
Wolves among men Page 26