"Now park your car across the driveway to block access. Once you are done, climb up next to Heavy there. You'll ride with us up the hill. You follow my orders. You do what you're told. And maybe, just maybe, you get to keep your soul."
The young deputy smiled at the words, then realized that the dour agent was not kidding. He quickly pulled his car forward to block the end of the driveway. The deputy turned on his overhead light bar, locked the patrol car, and clipped the keys to his belt.
Folsom looked shaken as he clambered up the side of the MRAP. He tightened his grip on his rifle. No matter what happened to him, as long as he took out the monsters that took his wife and children, he was sure he would find peace.
Six climbed aboard and told Spooky to move out. Spooky slowly maneuvered the massive armored vehicle up the winding drive. When they pulled to a halt at the house, they all dismounted and began to stage by the door.
Six keyed his mic again. "Spooky, Six. Any change in the house or courtyard?"
"Negative, bossman. Looks like we're clear," answered Spooky.
"Great. Launch the drone, and keep an eye on the satellite feed. You're our eyes tonight, Spooky. Back us up."
Six motioned toward the front of the house, and the deputy nodded. He walked toward the front doors. The rest of the team looked at their leader as if he were stupid for letting the deputy, of all people, simply stroll up to the house. Six shrugged, "He's now one of us, at least temporarily. Try not to let him get killed."
The deputy rang the doorbell. A deep booming gong sounded throughout the house. He then knocked on the door and heard his loud raps echo throughout the seemingly empty house. Two more cycles of the doorbell and knocking finally brought a voice to the door.
A short shadow of a man could be seen through the frosted glass inserts. An old man's weak and sickly voice spoke softly through the doors, and a short shadow of a man could be seen through the frosted glass inserts. "Yes? Who is it? What do you want?"
"Virgil? It's me, Christian Folsom," the deputy responded. "You've known me all my life. Can you come out here and talk to me please?"
The old man's voice seemed even shakier now. "Christian? Why are you up visiting me? Is something wrong at the hospital?"
"Yes, Virgil. It's Deputy Folsom. I would really appreciate it if you would come out to talk to me. Can you open the door a little so that I can see that you are ok? Some of us are getting worried about you, Virgil."
But then the voice behind the door suddenly changed.
"Hee, hee." Virgil childishly giggled. "Why would I come out there? I don't think your 'friends' want to talk to me... I think they want to hurt me."
The voice erupted in a fit of giggles.
"Virgil! Open up," Folsom demanded as he pounded on the door. "I don't want to have to come in there! Just come out and talk to us. Please?"
The giggling grew maniacal and then slightly calmed.
When the voice spoke again, it was deeper than it had been in years. "Why don't you come in, boy? Invite your friends, too. I think they'll enjoy it here."
God looked down from the roof of the MRAP and spotted shadows moving behind the windows across the front of the house. "Six, God. I've got movement behind the doors. Multiple shadows. And I see movement in many of the windows. He's not alone in there."
Six reached out and grabbed the back of Deputy Folsom's vest, yanking him back off the porch. Six nodded to Heavy, and the big man lifted the battering ram. All of the team members raised their weapons as Heavy brought the ram forward and smashed open the front doors, right at the jamb. Glass and wood splintered and flew inward, closely followed by the front doors themselves. Standing in the doorway was a creature who used to be Virgil Templeton, giggling hysterically and holding a beautiful, old double-barrel shotgun whose bores looked like cannons to Six as he stared straight down the bores.
Six and Virgil opened fire at the same time; their shots were followed closely by the rest of the team. Six placed two shots dead center of the chest, and the muzzle of his gun began to climb toward Virgil's head. The twin loads of double-ought buckshot scattered as they left the ends of the barrel. Unfortunately for Virgil, the old man's aim wasn't quite so perfect, sending both loads of shot right between Heavy and Six. One of the pellets hit the armor on Six's shoulder and bounced away, slightly rocking the DHS leader on his heels. The rest entirely missed their targets.
Behind Six, Ghost brought his rifle up to his shoulder and pulled the trigger twice. Both of the shots scored solid hits in the torso before his follow-up shots climbed over Virgil's head. Boomer stroked the trigger of her shotgun, sending the thre-quarters-of-an-inch-wide slug of silver and wood into the heart cavity. All of the metal flying through the chest of Virgil ripped through and tore larger holes out of his back. The second shot from Boomer's shotgun put the silver and wood slug through Virgil's face.
As Heavy brought his SAW up to aim ahead of him, Deputy Folsom stood there, open mouthed, with shock while he tried to comprehend the violence he had just witnessed. The team moved past him, fanning out left and right to cover their entrance. The deputy gave a strangled cry when the body of the man he had known all his life began to dissolve into wisps of smoke.
"God, Six. Go to the roof," Six said after keying his mic.
The area to Six's left opened into a very large living area with a fireplace. He barely had time to notice the fine leather furniture as a revenant screamed around the corner. Following the screaming creature was what appeared to be a human wielding a fireplace poker.
Six and Ghost targeted the gray-skinned revenant at the same time, squeezing off rounds in the chaos. Multiple rounds walked up his torso with the final four missing their marks over the creature's shoulders. The creature stopped and looked down, screamed, and ran again. Boomer stepped between the two men and raised her shotgun. She stroked the trigger twice, pumping the slide on her shotgun between shots.
Her first shot hit the revenant in the upper chest, leaving a very large hole, and momentarily stunning the creature. The second hit the creature's nose. The corpse fell as if poleaxed as the contents of its skull hit the wall with a sickening "plop."
Six shifted his aim and squeezed the trigger. He fired two rounds into the chest of the familiar, causing the target to. Ghost squeezed the trigger once; his M4 shot a three-round burst of bullets. He watched as two of the rounds went wide with the third finally connecting with the man's head. The round exited the man's skull in a furious explosion as it plastered gore on the furniture scattered around the living room.
Deputy Folsom had watched in horror as the DHS agents calmly shot and killed an old pharmacist that he had known his entire life. He had watched a body disappear into thin air. And he had even watched the leader and two of the other team members open fire on a creature that seemed straight out of a horror movie. It took two rifles and a shotgun to bring down just the one creature! He marveled to himself. But when he tried to wrap his head around how the team had gunned down Stevie Nelson, a man whom he played football with in high school, it was too much to comprehend. Deputy Folsom froze, waiting for his brain to come up with a logical explanation of what his senses were telling him.
Six and Ghost moved toward the open living room area according to their plan, and Heavy, Boomer, and Doc shifted the opposite direction. They entered a modern marble and granite kitchen wrapped around the corner toward the back of the house. Scrambling over the island was another revenant with crazed hunger in its eyes and screams of defiance oozing from its mouth. Behind the creature, another revenant with the rough gray skin and a human familiar scrambled toward the team.
Heavy and Boomer pulled the trigger at the same time. The shotgun and the burp of the machine gun mingled in the air as the revenant was thrown back across the granite island, disappearing out of sight behind the island. Heavy shifted his aim toward the other revenant. Pulling the trigger twice, the heavy gunner braced himself as his machine gun spat two bursts of fire. Each burst chewed ov
er the chest area, leaving many gaping wounds in the revenants shredded torso and causing it to stop momentarily. Before the beast could recover completely, Heavy twitched his finger twice more, sending two more bursts into the figure. The final burst climbed through the creature's shoulder, with the final two rounds striking the head and ending the creature's miserable life.
Boomer was suddenly aware that the human familiar running toward her was a young teenage girl, maybe fifteen or sixteen years old. Her black hair and olive skin spoke of her Native American heritage, but her wild eyes and unintelligible howls spoke of her status as their next target. She hesitated long enough to have the girl close the distance before Boomer could pull the trigger.
The demolitions expert regained her bearings in time to raise her shotgun across her body to stop the young girl's thrust with the carving knife she was wielding. As the girl tried to slash and stab Boomer, the agent was driven backwards. Boomer collided with the stainless steel doors of the refrigerator. While the teenager had the ferocity granted by her insanity and devotion to her master, Boomer had sheer physical muscle mass coupled with panic-driven reactions. Heaving forward, the explosives expert used her momentum and threw the girl across the kitchen to collide with the island in the middle. The familiar bounded to her feet, and as the girl came at her again, Boomer treated her shotgun as a short club and knocked the teenager across the head with the butt of the stock. The girl crashed to the floor, sliding into the cabinet base hard enough to elicit a "crack" as her head connected to the hardwoods. Judging from the angle of the girl's neck, Boomer was certain that the familiar would never fight again.
Doc approached the kitchen and knelt at the girl's side to feel for a pulse. Shaking her head at Boomer, her sorrow turned to surprise as she yelled out a warning. Boomer and Heavy spun around and watched the revenant that they shot first climb up over the island and spring toward them again. Although the creature was much slower this time, it was still growling and angrily snapping at them. Boomer casually raised her shotgun and stroked the trigger. The one-inch slug took the creatures head off, with the fragmented skull disappearing just above the eye sockets. As Boomer reloaded her shotgun, the three agents looked at the ceiling. They heard footsteps running across the roof, and then they heard gunfire.
God leapt from the top of the War Wagon and landed on the roof, rolling with the jump and coming to his knees easily. He carefully looked across the flat, tiled roof, only detecting roof vents and tiles. He noticed an open-air courtyard in the middle. Walking to the edge, he looked down into an overgrown courtyard and spied a large pair of cellar doors in the middle. Across the courtyard, he could see windows and glass doors on the other three sides of the courtyard. Looking through one of the sets of doors, he could see two men armed with shotguns standing and waiting in ambush for his teammates.
He quickly raised his rifle to his shoulder and aimed through the scope at the first one and paused to steady his aim. He settled the crosshairs over the front man's head and squeezed the trigger. His rifle barked, and the window's pane spidered from a neat hole near the gentleman's head. As the man crumpled, the sniper swung to the second man, who was looking at his partner and the large pool of blood forming around the body. God watched as the man began to turn toward the window, and the agent pulled the trigger again. Just like the hunter who leads the moving deer to make his shot, the sniper gave a brief lead on where he believed the target's head would end up, and he was correct. The man's head intersected with the trajectory of the bullet in mid-flight, and the second ambusher crumpled to the ground as the glass door exploded inward.
Six leaned around the corner just in time to see the glass door disintegrate and the second lifeless body crumple to the ground.
"Thanks, God. Good shooting," Six said after he keyed his mic.
"That's why I'm here," the sniper quipped back.
Six motioned for Ghost to move forward as they carefully walked through the living room toward a long hallway with several doors. He watched as his sniper dropped into the courtyard and then brought his attention back toward the hallway. Motioning for Ghost to cover him, Six opened the door and swung around the corner as he rapidly scanned the bedroom for hostile targets. "Clear" he muttered so that Ghost could hear him.
He moved to the next door. Again, the bedroom was clear.
Across from that bedroom was another room, used as an office, and it, too, was clear.
The next door revealed a very large and luxurious bathroom with a second exit door. Moving through the bathroom, the two federal agents approached the door. Throwing open the door, they moved into the very spacious master bedroom. When they heard a slight noise behind a door straight ahead, they both raised their guns. Six motioned for his second-in-command to open the door as he covered it with his rifle.
As Ghost reached for the knob, the door slammed outward and a piercing screech filled the room as a small creature virtually flew out of the closet. The little girl looked to be no more than ten or eleven, but the rows of vicious teeth and the blood red eyes said she was no longer human. Six pulled the trigger, catching the creature in mid-air as it leapt toward his face. The two rounds in the chest burned the creature severely as her face twisted into a contortion of pain. The third round ended the creature's suffering as it traveled through the bridge of her nose and into the creature's brain. Her body crashed to the ground just short of Six. Ghost stepped forward and drew his machete. The silver inlaid runes on the blade glowed a bright white as he brought the large knife down across the creature's neck and severed the head of the young vamp.
Ghost flicked the black ichor from the blade and sheathed his machete, grabbing his rifle again. Both men walked back through the bedroom and hallway and made their way carefully to the other side of the house to meet with their team.
Heavy, Boomer, and Doc worked their way toward the back of the house. As they walked through the dining room, they heard another howl. They quickly spun around in time to see a creature with bright red eyes leaping at them. The creature was faster than the revenants, and it was between the agents before they could fire. The vampire backhanded Boomer, and she flew across the dining room and crashed into the wall with a thud. The creature then grabbed Heavy's machine gun and smacked at it, ripping it from the agent's hands.
A bright blue glow suddenly lit the air as Doc spoke in Latin and held her cross in front of her. The light was blinding to the creature, and it cringed away from the priest, covering its eyes with its forearms. Heavy reached up and drew the massive fighting blades from the sheaths on his back. As they cleared the leather, both blades began to glow a ghostly green along their razor-sharp edges. The heavy weapons specialist swung mightily, bringing the blades toward each other. Unerringly, the blades sought out the vampire's neck. The blades came together in a mighty clash, cleaving through the upraised shoulders and arms meant to ward off the light from the cross, and completely severing the head of the vamp. The head dropped to the floor alongside the severed arms which were already beginning to dissolve into mist.
Heavy stared down at the ancient khukuri as the glow began to fade from their clean edges. Transfixed, he muttered, "Huh. I didn't know they did that."
Doc looked up at his hulking form. "What, nobody ever told you they were enchanted? Come on. We've got the rest of the house to clear."
The priest walked over to Boomer as she slowly got to her feet. "Anything broken, any injuries? You good to move on?"
The demolitions specialist looked back. "No problem, Doc. Just knocked the wind out of me. Damn things are fast." Boomer bent down to pick up her shotgun.
The three agents worked together and cleared the bathroom and hallway leading to the back porch.
Heavy clicked his mic. "Six, Heavy. This side is clear, we're coming back to the front of the house."
"Roger, Heavy. We'll meet you on the porch," replied Six.
The team gathered at the front entrance where the deputy was still standing. He was finally comi
ng to his senses and was starting to realize that he was in way over his head. Six walked up to him and said, "You ok? You just kind of freaked out on us. Are you sure you don't want out?"
Deputy Folsom shook his head. "Sorry. I'm still having trouble dealing with monsters in town. I knew these people." He pointed to the first familiar that the DHS leader and his second had killed. "I played football with Stevie in high school. What the hell do you people do?"
Six chuckled at the inadvertent joke. "Yeah. That about sums it up. We still have a cellar to clear, are you with us?"
The deputy nodded his agreement.
Six keyed his radio and said, "Spooky, we're all clear in here. Anything coming out of that cellar?"
20
UNDERGROUND
TEMPLETON HOUSE, TRINIDAD, COLORADO.
"Ok, guys, I have a little thermal leakage from around the doors. That means that they are not sealed tightly. Nothing else on the satellite." Spooky announced over the radio.
"Copy that, Spooky," Six replied. He turned to address the team. "Ok, we have myself and Ghost on one side. Heavy and Boomer, pull on the other door. God and Doc should be at the opening so that they can shoot, or dispel, anything that comes out.
"This should be just a cellar, but it would certainly make a perfect hiding place for any creatures during the day. We have not found the master yet, so we should expect him to be here. Any questions?"
No one had any questions.
The team leader continued his impromptu planning session. "If we go down in there, I will be on point. Doc will be next, flanked by Heavy and Ghost. Boomer and God, bring up the rear. Let's move out."
The team assembled in their assigned positions around the massive set of double doors, and the members on either side reached out to grab the handles. Each door was about nine feet tall, just over three feet wide, and seemed to be about two inches thick and made of solid steel. On "three," the teams pulled their assigned doors, straining with the effort that the solid doors appeared to require. Both doors flew open and sent all four team members sprawling. As Six looked up from the ground, he saw a system of pulleys and counterweights for the doors, and it looked as if one person could have lifted the doors easily. We probably should've tried the doors first.
INCURSION: Knightmare (Knight's Bane Trilogy Book 1) Page 17