by Mina Carter
He raced back along the path, only slowing when he reached where the pack was hidden. He slowed his pace, striding across to where Nic lay and hitting the deck in a bone-jarring flop. She looked at him, concern written over her features but he shook his head. Screw this, screw fucking men. If he could, he’d go straight. Nic was much easier to frigging work out.
Leon emerged from the darkness to loom over him but Sanders turned on his front, ignoring the bigger man.
“Oh come on, Joe. That’s real mature—” Leon started, but was cut off by Jack.
“Quiet. Something’s going on down there.”
All attention snapped to the base below them, which was lit up like a Christmas tree. Alarms blared and guards streamed from the buildings. Within seconds the numbers on the perimeter doubled, grim-faced soldiers looking out into the darkness and waiting for an attack. Instantly, Sanders dismissed thoughts of the pack saddling up and storming the base in their stolen truck. They’d only get cut down by the machine guns in the towers.
“What the fuck is going on?” Jack muttered, using the binoculars to get a closer look. Without the visual aid, Sanders squinted and tried to bring more details of the base below into focus. No hordes of anyone storming the gates, so he shifted his attention to the labs. Nothing doing there either. They looked quiet and unoccupied, locked down for the night even though he knew they wouldn’t be. There would be experiments running—always were. Some of the guards milled about in between the buildings, small like ants, confusion evident in their movements. Around them, everything looked to be quiet. So what had triggered the alarms?
The answer came seconds later. A large explosion split the air as one of the hangars at the back of the base erupted into flames.
“Shit…”
Jack fiddled with the binoculars, bringing them into focus but Sanders could see pretty clearly what was going on without any visual help. The doors and windows of the hangar were out, smoke and flame billowing forth. Figures poured from every possible opening. Running from the doors, and leaping from every window, even those high up on the side of the hangar walls. Some didn’t make it—the fall too much for them—and lay unmoving. Others were cut down from behind, claws flashing and feral howls indicating revenge had been taken on the human guards. Three more explosions rocked the hangar, blowing the main doors open.
“I thought the hangars were all disused,” Jack muttered. “What the fuck are they doing…wait, hold on. We got runners.”
Sanders winced when the gun-towers went into operation, turning from the non-existent threat outside to that within the perimeter, the fleeing Lycans and Bloods right in their sights. The plink-plink-plink of the bigger guns firing was closely followed by the booms when the shots hit, drowning out all other sounds. Covered the howls and screams of pain as Lycans, Bloods and humans alike were cut down. That was the Project all over. They couldn’t run the risk of any of the subjects getting loose into the human population, so if there were any humans in the line of fire, then it was tough shit.
Sanders couldn’t bring himself to feel sorry for them. If they hadn’t known what they’d signed on for, then they soon found out when they got on base. Those that chose to stay only perpetuated the Project machine.
He tracked two runners—one a Blood and one a Lycan. The differences between the two were obvious. The long, loping run of the Lycan with its animalistic bursts of speed contrasted with the smoother, more graceful gait of the Blood next to it. Then his eye was drawn to a different movement…
“Whoa. Jack, third type.” He waved to attract the alpha’s attention. “Middle gun tower. One o’clock and closing in fast.”
“Got it.” Jack’s deep rumble answered him. “Holy shit, what is that? Never seen anything move that way.”
Sanders shook his head in the darkness, awed by what he was seeing. Jack was right. He’d never seen anything like it either. Not a run and not a lope—which cut out both Blood and Lycan. And one thing was for certain: it sure as hell wasn’t human.
The machine gun on the nearest tower fired, taking out the Lycan in an explosion of blood and guts. A pair of legs managed a step or two more, like they were unaware that the rest of their body was gone, then they too dropped. The strange figure slid to the side to avoid the hail of bullets, in a movement almost arachnid in nature.
Sanders frowned. That didn’t make sense. What the hell was the Project breeding now? Fucking spidermen?
The hangar chose that moment to explode again, but it was a smaller blast than before. The exodus from the doors and windows had stopped now, the building surrounded by emergency vehicles putting out the flames. Armed squads swarmed around them, through the doors that were clear. They didn’t seem interested in the fleeing hordes, which meant that whatever they were doing in there was more important.
“Got another one. Coming up on the left flank.” Jack kept up a running commentary as he tracked this new development. “Whatever they are, they’re fast as—holy shit.”
No one needed to ask what he meant. A collective gasp ran though the concealed Lycans when one of the figures made a flying leap onto the side of the tower. It scaled the wall in a skittering motion with the sort of ease a fly would envy. A second later, the orange flares of muzzle flash lit up the turret.
“Crap, they got him.” The disappointment that rang in Jack’s voice found an echo in Sanders. Just for once it would have been nice for someone to stick it to the Project, shafting them in the same manner that they shafted pretty much everyone they came across.
The MK-19 started up again but instead of more runners dropping, the legs on one of the other towers disintegrated. The platform at the top remained suspended for long moments, like an outcrop of rock in an old Road-Runner cartoon.
Then the firing stopped, a pause as metal groaned. The groan became a scream. The platform listed to the side, and then toppled over, taking the remaining legs and most of the fence underneath it down too.
“Yes!” Sanders fist-pumped the air, a move echoed by Nic. Without the tower stopping them, the fleeing prisoners stormed the remaining fence. It went down under the weight of bodies as the machine gun in the middle tower sounded again. The tower on the other side exploded.
“Whoever that is, whatever the fuck they are,” Jack said, standing to get a better look at the carnage now being reaped on the base forces as Project guards tried to retake the perimeter. “I like them already.”
The pack watched while men and women, Bloods and Lycans alike, fled through the broken fences. Jack threw back his head and howled, a feral sound of triumph and freedom—one picked up by others as the escapees fled into the hills.
Both invitation and statement, if any of them wanted to find the pack, they could easily track them. Especially Darce—if he was among them. Sanders clambered to the top of a nearby rock, scanning the running figures until they disappeared into the darkness. Looking for the familiar form of their lieutenant.
“Incoming,” Richards muttered, the warning only half a second before two men stepped into view.
Neither of them were Foster.
Neither of them were human, Blood or Lycan.
Sanders slid down from his perch. This was about to get interesting.
Chapter Fourteen
The pack fanned out, tension snapping taut between them as they considered the new arrivals. They were the two runners—that Sanders was sure of. They had to be. And whatever else he’d expected, it hadn’t been this.
They looked normal. Almost. No, fuck that. They looked like something out of the damn Louvre. Like they should have been carved in marble with a frigging fig leaf covering the essentials. Sanders had never been into bodybuilding, not really. When human, he’d been too lean and as a Lycan, there was no point. But he had always been into the bodybuilders themselves, and he knew a perfect physique when he saw one.
Or two.
He hadn’t realized he’d drifted closer until Jack cleared his throat in warning. Sanders’s eyes wid
ened and he stopped, shock coursing through his system. He’d almost come within range of the one on the left, who was watching him with a cold, assessing eye.
“Nice work on the towers,” Jack commented.
His posture, like that of the rest of the pack, was loose and relaxed, but only an idiot would take it to mean non-threatening. Menace and power hung in the air like smog, clinging to the Lycans as they held their changes back. They could shift and be furry within a heartbeat, Jack probably faster. But having seen the new guys in action, Sanders wasn’t sure it would be enough. There was no fear in their eyes, no concern even though they faced down nearly an entire pack. Lycans had been considered one of the Project’s most dangerous creatures, so to be looked at like they were prey was disconcerting.
The one at the front shrugged. “Thanks. It was necessary.”
Sanders narrowed his eyes, noting more about them. They had a stillness, a wrongness, which pulled at all his instincts even though something attracted him like a magnet. His blood on fire, body on edge. All he wanted to do was wrap himself around one of them and…
“Shit.”
He jerked himself back from the edge. Nic shoved herself between him and the object of his fascination. She didn’t seem affected, glaring at the two. Pain lanced through Sanders’s arm, and he looked down to find her claws buried in the muscle. Blood oozed around the punctures but he didn’t mind. It helped him to focus, dispel the strange attraction the pair held over him.
The wind changed, buffeting the two from behind and their scent washed over the pack. Sanders gasped. The scent like a rich perfume even though his mind rejected the smell as wrong. The scent was dead. That fleshy, weird scent the newly dead got. Not yet corrupt—but just after death, before the rigor mortis set in. They smelled like RAs before the things began to rot. With a side of…spider?
“Shiiiiiit.”
At least three wolves backed up, wariness written into every line of their bodies.
“What are you?”
The two men hadn’t moved, despite the clear threat from the fanned out wolves, but the leader—for want of a better word—swiveled his gaze at Jack.
“What do you think we are?”
Jack didn’t pull punches. “You smell like freaking Reanimates. But the last time I checked, you guys didn’t have quite so much going on up top. Which means the Project haven’t quit playing God yet. I’m Harper, you are?”
The RA smiled. From the remains of his fatigues, he’d been military, rather than one of the admin staff on base.
But still, the use of rank now seemed pointless. Rank had devolved into something else entirely. Into pack and other groupings. Into alphas and betas. Leadership was now determined by power and ability, not by a human based system or time in service. One of the other packs—alpha five, from memory—the section Corporal had emerged the other side of the conversion as the alpha.
“I’m Fredericks. This is Perkins. And yeah, we’re Reanimates. Stronger, faster…better. You could say we’re the T2 of the Reanimate world. They call us ‘self-aware Reanimates’. Some dumbfuck nicknamed us SARAs. Can’t say I’m happy about the female moniker but shit happens.” He sighed and ran a hand through close-cropped dark hair, anger and something else apparent on his face. “I know who you are. We were sent to St. Mary’s to bring you guys in. Needless to say, we didn’t manage it.”
Nic’s sharp intake of breath echoed the surprise and recognition surging through Sanders. If they were among the troops who’d been sent in to take them down…
Fredericks’s lips quirked into a bitter little smile.
“Yeah, you got us. Then the Project fucked us over. The first we can forgive. We were doing our jobs, you were fighting for survival. I get it man. The second…there’s no forgiving the Project for what it’s done.”
Jack jerked his head toward the base. All those on foot had made it through the fences now, and the guards were busily trying to rectify the situation. A bit like locking the barn door after the horse had bolted. Of course, it made trying to get into the base a bad idea.
Sanders nibbled his lip. Hopefully Darce had gotten out.
“What’s going on down there? We saw the hangar go up. Thought that side was abandoned.”
The low snarl from Fredericks took them all back, but not as much as the sudden movement of his head. It wasn’t a shake, or a nod, but a rapid jerk up and to the side. Like he was cricking his neck. But faster, almost too fast to see. Like a DVD on the fritz, flicking back and forth between frames. Sanders narrowed his eyes. That wasn’t a human movement. No fucking way. What had they put in the mix with these guys?
“What isn’t going on?” The second man, Perkins, spoke up. “There’s an underground section under the hangars. When they’re done up top with subjects, they move ’em down there. Make ’em fight in cages…have you ever seen a Blood and a Lycan forced to fight to the death while the guards record it? Fuckers.” He spat on the ground in disgust.
“Cages? Recording…” Jack paused and looked down at the flaming ruin of the hangar. Emergency crews still thronged about it, trying to put the flames out. “Holy shit. All of them?”
Perkins and Fredericks nodded, their faces grim. Jack didn’t ask what their roles had been. For that Sanders was grateful. Given the standard RAs’ proclivity for eating their victims, it didn’t make for pleasant thoughts. Not at all.
“The recordings were transmitted somewhere. From what we picked up, it was a money-making scam with the guys at the top. Then one of yours got in the ring and the shit hit the fan.”
Jack stilled. The entire pack stiffened.
“One of ours? You saw Foster? Did he get clear?”
Fredericks nodded, but his expression was tight. “Saw him, but he was in the ring last time any of us had eyes on. I’m sorry, but I doubt he survived. They’ve got a Hybrid in there. Big bastard.”
“Hybrid? Fuck it, I don’t think I want to know.” Jack shook his head. “But he was alive the last time you saw him?”
The SARAs nodded.
“Good enough for me. Whatever it takes, we’ll get him out.” Jack looked around the pack, who gave him small grunts of agreement. They wouldn’t leave one of their own in a hellhole like that. He turned back to the two men.
“Can we count on your support?”
Fredericks shook his head. “You don’t want us around. Seriously. There are…elements of our new natures that make us too dangerous. For you, for anyone. We destroyed the other subjects.”
He flicked a glance calmly over his shoulder as though talking about killing his own kind was an everyday occurrence and carried on.
“Flame and corruption will mean they can’t use them. We have two recovering their research and any remaining serum so they won’t be able to make more of us. Best place for us is to disappear somewhere quietly. Stay under the radar and get rid of the evidence somehow when the time comes so we don’t infect anyone or anything.”
The pack fell silent at the firm resolve in Fredericks’s voice. No gung-ho “make them all pay”, no “we are the best, the fastest, and we’ll make sure everyone knows it”. Just a quiet and dignified decision to put right what had been made wrong. Jack cleared his throat when the two men turned to go.
“Respect, man. I hope things…turn out the way you wish them too. And if you need us, you know how to find us…” The pack alpha paused. Sanders chewed on the inside of his lip in thought. Just what were these guys capable of? Could they do what the Project couldn’t and locate the pack?
“I guess, anyway?” Jack asked.
Fredericks looked over his shoulder. A set of vicious claw marks had opened the flesh, revealing the stark whiteness of bone. Sanders winced. That had to freaking hurt like a bitch, but Fredericks didn’t seem to notice. Like his skin was nothing more than another layer of clothing.
“Yeah. We can find you. Good luck finding your man.”
In the next instant they were gone, just the tall grasses swaying slightl
y to mark their passing.
“Well…hell. That was unexpected.” Jack ran his hand over his head, scrubbing at the shaved strands and he extended an arm for Lilly to nestle under. Sanders watched them for a second, a pang deep in his heart so sharp it took his breath away. He felt someone’s eyes on him—Richards—but he refused to look at the bigger Lycan, instead moving closer to pay attention to Jack.
“’Kay, this is what we’re gonna do. We’ve got no chance of getting in now, not with extra men on the perimeter. Best we lay low until they start to change the shifts and see if there’s a gap in the pattern. Then we’ll slip through in the truck.” Jack paused for the wolves to gather around. “But this changes things. Nic, I need you to peel off and find someone for me. Colonel Jamison Tanner. He was my old CO and as straight as they come. If anyone can bring this shit-storm down, it’s him.”
Nic nodded. “Sure thing boss. Where do I find him?”
“Last I heard he retired and went back home. Wilson, Arizona.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, stop your damn sniveling, woman.”
Colonel Fitzgerald’s voice cut through the foggy haze in Toni’s brain as she was dragged along yet another corridor and into an office. She was slumped between two burly guards. Her head lolled and she tried to get a look at where she was. Looked like the main admin buildings, but she couldn’t be sure with her brain off in never-never land.
Whatever they’d used in the smoke grenades, it was new and damn good stuff. Her body ached like she’d been on a three week bender with a chaser of anesthetic. Her legs weren’t working right, and her feet dragged uselessly on the floor. She’d tried to stand up, fight the guards, but her left knee had done the funky chicken while her right knee was denying the existence of the rest of her body. Coordination and the whole walking thing? Totally beyond her at the moment. Hell, thinking was enough of a challenge.
“I haven’t put your family in the RA program, what more do you want?”
The sound of soft sobbing filtered through the haze. Toni rolled her head back, blinking away the fog in her eyes to see Fitzgerald rearranging his fly while his aide, a pretty, petite little woman Toni had seen around the base, cowered in the corner. Anger surged through her, her instinctive reaction to slap seven shades of shit out of the bastard thwarted by the drugs in her system.