He picked up the phone cradle and moved around his desk to his door. Pausing in front of it, he hesitated. Then opened it.
Into chaos.
The sounds he had heard were people screaming. Screaming and running. There were countless men and women running about the cubicled central space. They tried to open office doors; some were still unlocked and those they disappeared in, but others were locked and refused entrance to those screaming and pounding on the outside.
“Sir? . . . Sir? . . . Sir? . . .” The voice on the line was insistent. Apparently, where he hadn’t been convincing before, the sound of screaming in panic and fear had been convincing enough.
He stood in the doorway to his office, staring out at the maelstrom of panic right outside.
“Send someone,” he told the dispatcher. “Now.”
He let the phone drop and stepped out into the storm.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Elias was relieved to know his team would have already taken cover in one of the offices. He began motioning to those scrambling through the cubicles and the hallways. “Over here!”
Men and women peeled away from the rush to barrel past him into his office. After the fourth person ran by, he reached out and grabbed a young tech as he tried to enter his office.
“What is going on?!”
The young man turned to him and Elias could see the horror in his face. His eyes were wide, his pupils dilated. The man shook in Elias’ grip.
“A monster!” He wrenched his arm, breaking Elias’ hold and ducked into Elias’ office.
A monster? What the hell was he talking about?
At that precise moment, the door leading to the outer hallway slammed open so hard, the knob punched through the drywall holding the door fast, and in walked a monster.
Ducking under the outer doorframe and turning its body slightly to fit, the beast towered into the office. With its ridged back it almost brushed the ceiling tiles. A wide, boarish face, large yellow tinged tusks thrusting up from its lower jaw, and beady eyes under a sloped brow, stared at him from down the hall. Blood-soaked clawed hands, clenched and unclenched, causing the bulging muscles in the creature’s arms to swell and flatten, like the roll of the tide.
Elias ducked back into the office, shut and locked the door. For all the good it would do them. They were all going to die.
Blain, Taylor and Gordon arrived at the Yulchik Petroleum refinery right after 7 A.M. They drove up to the gate and the security guard had stepped out of the guard booth.
Blain attempted a smile.
“Hello. Can I ask what your business is?” The security guard examined Blain, then glanced at Taylor in the backseat and peered across at Gordon.
Gordon stepped out of the car and started to move around it toward the guard booth.
The security guard straightened from leaning over to look at Blain and eyed Gordon.
“Sir. I’m going to have to ask you to remain in the vehicle.”
Gordon didn’t slow.
“Sir.” The guard rested his hand on the pummel of his gun. “Please return to the car.”
Gordon began to shift.
“What the . . .?” The guard managed to get out his gun and fire off three shots before Gordon was on him.
Reaching out with one of his massive claws he grabbed the guard’s weapon hand and squeezed. Bones snapped and popped inside as Gordon crushed fingers and palm. The guard cried out in pain and arched his back, lifting on his toes. His hand, trapped between the crushing force and unyielding metal of the gun, was too much. Like a fleshy sack of marbles, they had lost all their cohesion.
In a wide arc, Gordon’s other clawed hand swept down, slicing the man’s chest from clavicle to groin, leaving deep tears in the flesh and cloth, like a freshly tilled field. Bright red blood welled up from those wounds and the man staggered back.
Surprisingly, he had the audacity to attempt to taser Gordon, which only angered the man. Roaring as the electricity from the little handheld weapon burned the side of his torso, right below the ribs, Gordon lashed out with a vicious backswing. The guards head snapped sideways, and blood sprayed out from his torn face, decorating the window of the guard shack, as Gordon’s scaled hide on the back of his claw tore through skin, muscle and tendons. Following a popping noise, the guard fell back into the shack, his head flopped at an awkward angle.
Gordon stared down at the guard for a moment and moved to get back in the car, shifting back as he went.
Once back in the car, Blain turned to him.
“You do remember she didn’t want us to kill any of the workers, right?”
“Fuck off, Blain.”
Blain chuckled. They had managed not to come to blows yet, remarkable, considering how much Blain pushed the man. He had wanted to get a rise out of the pompous ass, but Gordon was nothing, if not calm and collected. No matter what Blain threw at the man, he would not take the bait. It didn’t stop Blain from trying though.
Blain drove the car forward and brought it around in front of the main entrance to the refinery offices. According to Kestrel’s info, the president of the company was here, in town from Russia, and expected to be touring the facility today.
Their task was two-fold. Kestrel wanted this refinery essentially rendered inoperable and they needed to increase their numbers. To do this, they were to sweep through and injure as many workers as possible, creating potential Pures, or Weres in Taylor’s case.
They were not to kill any of the workers, if they could avoid it, but as for the president of the company, the CEO and all the other higher ups within the company, she wanted them slaughtered.
They exited the car. Blain moved around the car to join Gordon and Taylor in examining the building. Blain turned to the other two.
“Gordon. Go around to the back. My guess is when the shit starts to hit the fan, the president is going to try and make a run for it. He’s all yours.”
He sneered at Taylor. “You. You can cover the side entrance.” He pointed to the left of the building. “There should be a few who will try and make it out from that direction. I get you don’t really have the stomach for all the fun stuff, Taylor, but you will injure as many as you can who try and get past you.”
Taylor ignored him and instead began making his way toward the side of the building.
Gordon crooked an eyebrow at him. Blain shrugged. “I need to put him somewhere and I want the front. He will do what needs to be done.” Blain returned his focus to the front of the building. “He doesn’t have a choice.”
Gordon nodded. “See you on the other side.”
“Try not to stop for a snack.”
Gordon gave him an unreadable look and Blain flashed what was left of his teeth. Gordon turned and began to make his way to back of the building.
Well, you do like to eat them. Just saying. He watched Gordon go for a moment before heading toward the front door. As he approached it, he decided to start the panic immediately. Jogging toward the front door, he shifted as he approached, gaining momentum.
When he hit the front door, it was at a devastating charge. The glass door shattered into a thousand pieces. Shards of glass flew inward, followed by twisted pieces of metal from the door frame.
There were four people in the lobby when he struck. A woman had been approaching the front door and took the brunt of the shrapnel. Streaks of red seemed to appear out of nowhere on her face and bare arms. Long thin cuts tore paths through thousands of puncture wounds as pieces of glass hit her with enough force to bury themselves deep within her skin. Like a night sky filled with stars of blood, her body shimmered as it flowed to the surface, glistening.
Screaming, she clutched at her eyes, their tiny orbs perforated, their viscous fluids mixing with tears and blood to leak from beneath hard-pressed palms.
The secretary had managed to dive behind the welcome desk by instinct and had yet to rise as Blain took in the rest of the scene. Of the two others in the lobby, one, an older man, had tak
en a sizable piece of bent metal in the throat and was now dying a slow and painful death as he bled out onto the tiled floor of the lobby. His gurgling breaths could barely be heard over the other woman’s screaming.
The other man had taken a wound to his leg, or so Blain surmised, as he tried to drag himself across the floor and get around a corner into an adjacent hallway.
Blain strode in. With a casual flick of his hand, he dragged his claws across the huddled back of the woman clutching her destroyed eyes, gouging her flesh before passing right by as she screamed again, sprawling onto the ground.
With a measured pace, he moved toward the welcome desk. His cloven feet clicking on the tile as he moved. He knew she could hear him approach. Her fear, almost palatable. Manic whimpering whined from behind the desk.
As tall as he was, when he reached it, he could see her huddled down behind it. Reaching down he grabbed a fistful of hair and yanked her upward.
Screaming in pain and fear, she clutched at his wrist to take the weight off her scalp. Kicking her legs wildly in the air, all she managed to do was to set herself on a slight rotation, spinning her face away from him.
He waited.
When she rotated back around to come face to face with him, he smiled. The corners of his lips peeled back, revealing protruding canines and his yellowed tusks.
She screamed again.
He punched her. Hard. Not so hard as to kill her, but he could hear the crack of broken ribs. He had made sure to clip her with a claw as he hit her. The force of the impact flew her backward. Her hair ripped away from her scalp leaving him with a pelt of hair attached to a bloodied slab of flesh. With a solid impact against the far wall, she slumped.
Tossing the mangled, hairy piece of scalp at her motionless body, he didn’t give her another thought.
The man who had been dragging himself away to hide was no longer visible, but the streaks of blood left an easy trail to follow and he made his way to the hallway. He found the man, his back against a wall talking on his cellphone, sobbing.
“Honey, if you get this. Just know that I love you. Tell Rachel that I love her too, and that daddy will always be with her.”
He caught sight of Blain.
“No. No. No. Please. Don’t.”
Blain moved closer. The reek of piss in the air reached him and there was a dark stain at the man’s groin.
Blain growled.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, pussy. Stand up and face this like a man instead of lying there, pissin’ yourself and blubbering like a woman.”
Blain reached down and grabbed the man by the collar, hauling him to his feet, lifting him up higher into the air till they were face to face.
The man whimpered. Blain sneered at him in disgust. Moving closer so his snout was almost touching the man, he angled his tusk and forced it into the man’s mouth. Try as the man did, there was little he could do to avoid his mouth being penetrated by the daggerlike protrusion. Once inside the man’s mouth, Blain jerked his head to the side, tearing his tusk out through the man’s cheek. The man wailed and grasped at his ruined face.
Blain tossed him aside, not caring how or where the man fell.
There was a loud, ‘ding’ and Blain whirled around in time to see an elevator open. There was a clutch of people inside. Upon seeing him, standing there, claws and tusk stained and dripping blood, they screamed and backed up in the elevator as if it would give them some sanctuary.
Inwardly, Blain smiled and crowded into the elevator. Turning once he was inside, he dragged his claw up the row of floor numbers, lighting each floor before pressing the ‘close door’ button. He could feel the press of bodies behind him, scrambling over each other in an attempt to get as far away as the confines of the elevator would allow.
As the doors closed, Blain turned around. “Going up?”
Then the horror began.
Taylor wanted nothing to do with this madness. He hated killing. He hated what it did to him. How it made him feel. The disgust. The thrill! It didn’t matter though. He had no choice. Blain’s will enveloped him, choking to death any resistance Taylor might try to bring forth. Right. When have I resisted anything in my life?
As Taylor waited in front of the side door to the office complex, he thought back to that fateful day when his life went to shit. Ha! Which time? Well, the last time, he guessed. He had entered that hotel with thoughts of being a hero, and instead left a villain.
It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right. He had spent all his life a nobody. And now he was somebody. Somebody he didn’t want to be. Someone he wished to never have been. He thought to leave. To walk away. He had tried to leave once and felt Blain’s force of will slam him back into place. He was a prisoner. A prisoner within his own body with no hope of escape. His captor was all but immortal. He wondered when the real resistance would come. When would they get serious about stopping them? Perhaps then he might find his freedom?
These bodies could only survive so much, couldn’t they? At some point, they would be put to the test. It won’t be merely handguns and assault rifles. No. There will be grenades, smart bombs, hell, maybe tactical nukes when they realize the other stuff wasn’t working.
He started to hear screams from inside the building. They were headed his way. With a shake, he shifted. Body expanding. Bones breaking and reshaping. In moments he stood before the door in all his dreadfulness.
The door flew open and the man who came through was looking back over his shoulder, so he didn’t see Taylor. He slammed into Taylor’s body, and bounced off falling to the ground. The door, which had closed again, tore open and took the man full on the side of the head as he tried to scramble away from Taylor.
A wet thud, and the man’s head was knocked to the side, where he collapsed. The door, stained red near the base, started to close again. Another man came through it, but this one, with his eyes open wide, saw Taylor clearly and tried to veer away from him. Taylor reached out with one hand and shredded the side of his face. The man screamed and went down.
When the door opened for the third time, a stream of people poured out, like a dam bursting, only to be met with a larger, more imposing dam. The ones in front were brought up short as they took in the scene. In front of them on the ground lay an unmoving man, the side of his head bleeding from a long straight gash. Another man writhed on the ground, clutching the side of his face, screaming.
Unfortunately for the ones in the front who wanted to stop, the tide of people behind them hadn’t seen what had halted them and pushed them forward.
Right into Taylor.
Taylor began to lash out indiscriminately. Tearing flesh here. Goring another there. A score of people went down before panic and terror forced those who were still standing to scramble back into the building.
When the last person had disappeared back through the door, Taylor walked around and took stock of those who were still here. Roughly twenty or so people lay about in a tangled mess. Many were sprawled out on top of others as they had attempted to flee Taylor’s attacks.
None had made it past.
Only one looked like she had been wounded beyond recovery. He had done his best to only wound, not kill, as he had been instructed. Dragging the people off to one side, he took up position in front of the door and waited.
There would be more. Gods, there would be more.
Chapter Twenty-Three
When Gordon arrived at the back of the building, he dashed to the back exit and waited. He didn’t have to wait long. Out from the door came a burly looking man — broad of chest and tall. He looked like a professional wrestler, only in a fine suit.
He was followed by another man, this one an older gentleman. His black hair was peppered with gray, though still thick and full. He was a solidly built man, not as solid as the man leading, but he appeared like he had been a fighter in his youth, maybe not only in his youth.
Two more fierce looking men came out behind the older man and flanked him. Ah. He is the one I’m look
ing for. Gordon moved to block their path. They stopped. The one in the lead brushed back his coat and put his hand on the hilt of his holstered gun at his hip.
In a thick Russian accent, the man said, “Get lost.”
All four of them were watching him suspiciously, which didn’t surprise Gordon. Afterall, he looked a wreck. He had already shifted once, and despite the bulkiness of his clothes, they still never handled the transformation completely intact.
He smiled his winning smile. “I’m afraid I can’t do that. You see, I’m here for him.” He pointed at the president.
All three of the bodyguards drew their weapons and trained them on him, and the one in the lead spoke again. “Afraid that won’t happen. If you don’t want to get shot, leave.”
Gordon kept his smile.
“Counter-offer. If you don’t wish to be torn to pieces,” he shifted before growling out, “then walk away.”
He knew their response and readied himself for what would come his way. There were dozens of loud bangs, and he was perforated with bullets. He had put one clawed foot to the back in order to brunt the impacts and stand his ground, turning his head to the side, closing his eyes.
When at last, the weapons were empty, he opened his eyes and turned back.
“Ty che, blyad!” one of the other bodyguards exclaimed.
Gordon parted his jaws slightly, his maw of sharp teeth revealed in the sunlight.
“Oh well, I wasn’t going to let you live anyways.”
He waded into them. Moving startling fast, he closed the distance to the front guard and his head snapped out, closing his maw on the man’s head. Twisting his body away from the group, he pulled the man off his feet in a swinging motion. When he had turned around completely, he stopped his momentum. The head, trapped in Gordon’s mouth, came away with a sickening ripping noise, and the now motionless body fell to the ground.
His spinning motion had brought his long crocodile tail around, taking another bodyguard at the hip. Gordon, with his acute hearing, could hear the hip bones shatter, and the bodyguard, who had been attempting to reload was thrown a short distance away, screaming in pain.
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