Blood Apocalypse - 04

by Heath Stallcup

  “Yes, and I thought you would have ended him after the second blow.” Max shot him a silly grin. “You’re so strong.”

  “Did you not see the size of him?” Viktor turned to face his father.

  “Bah! The bigger they come…”

  “The harder they hit!” Viktor exclaimed.

  “Stop whining, pup. You won!” A laugh bursting forth.

  “He’s teasing you, father,” Nadia said as she moved in for a hug. “Does this mean that we will have to leave the island?” Sadness touching her voice.

  “No. We will not be,” he informed her. “I’ll choose a second to act as my proxy for the pack.” He stared down into her eyes and saw them fill with joy. “I have a duty to Rufus to fulfill. I’ll not be deterred.”

  “We need to speak.” Victoria’s voice was soft and barely rose loud enough to be heard above the festivities in front of them.

  Viktor turned and saw his mother standing behind him, hands crossed in front of her, head slightly bowed. “Yes, I believe we do.”

  Max stepped forward and gestured to Tasha and Nadia, “Perhaps we can give them a moment?”

  Tasha shot him a stern look. The last thing she wanted to do was to leave her husband alone with the traitorous bitch, but Max ushered them away before she could protest.

  Victoria watched them walk away and smiled sadly. “Nadia is so beautiful,” she said absently.

  Viktor would not be swayed by her distraction. “You wished to speak. Speak.”

  Victoria sighed and glanced over her shoulder. “I can only imagine what you must think my son, but things are not as they appear.”

  “Enlighten me, mother,” he growled.

  “I did what I did to protect you all,” she whispered, advancing on him. Her eyes pleaded with him to believe her. “You must accept that as truth if you believe nothing else.”

  Viktor stiffened as she got closer. “From whom?”

  She looked over her shoulder again, toward the stairwell and then up to her son. “There are forces at work here that I can’t discuss.”

  Viktor glanced to the stairwell and then back to her. “If somebody is threatening the pack, then I shall deal with them.” He made to move for the darkened stairwell.

  “Viktor, NO!” Victoria yelled and grabbed at his arm, pulling him back. “You mustn’t interfere.”

  “If it affects the pack, then it is my duty.”

  “It doesn’t affect the pack…it affects the family.” Her eyes pleaded with him. “ONLY the family.”

  “Speak plainly.” He clenched his teeth so tightly they threatened to break. “And quickly.”

  Victoria sighed and stole another glance toward the stairwell. She shook her head and lowered her eyes. “It is a very long story, my son.”

  “Then tell it quickly.”

  She looked up at him and he saw her eyes filling with tears. “What do you know of witches?”

  19

  Jack, Apollo and Sheridan went over the logistics again, then the proposed battle plan. With the placement of the POD stations that Adolfo brought, the middle section of the dry lake bed would be a killing field. The plains leading into the lake bed was where they planned to use the drones and the C130. The squads would direct the ground troops between the PODs and the command center, where the controls for the satellite were. The satellite was their main weapon of mass destruction and would be defended at all cost. They also knew that once it was fired up, the Sicarii would send his forces after the controls en masse.

  Sheridan wanted to place his own men at the OpCom but Mitchell insisted that First Squad and Third Squads would defend OpCom personally. He directed Second Squad to act as a diversionary team and be a defensive line for the HQ building. The Headquarters building was the only building on the facility that was clearly marked and with the flag poles out front of the steel reinforced concrete structure, it looked like an easily defendable structure. He wanted Sheridan and his men to coordinate with Second Squad and become the diversion from Hell while defending the empty building. The vamps would discover the HQ before they ever got close to the bunker and if there were enough troops defending the building, they would think that it was a high value asset.

  Jack and Apollo thought the idea held a lot of merit, but Sheridan fought it. He felt that using his men as a diversion was a waste of talent and could get them all killed. He was almost adamant about being in the OpCom during the attack.

  Finally, Jack rolled up the maps and turned to Apollo. “Do you think you and your squad can light up the HQ enough to make it appear as a high value asset to the tangos?”

  Apollo thought for a moment then shook his head. “Not without some kind of support. We’d need at least one more squad,” he replied honestly. “I’d prefer two.”

  Jack sighed. He shot Sheridan a sideways glance and shook his head. “Well it seems that Sherry isn’t on board with the idea. The only other thing I can think of is maybe the Brazilians?”

  Apollo nodded. “I’ll take ‘em, man. At least they got the guts to stay in a fucking fight.”

  Sheridan turned on the larger man and pointed a finger at him. “That’s not the point, mate, and you bloody well know it!”

  “Then why don’t you explain it to me to where I might can understand it, mate?”

  “Enough!” Jack yelled. “Both of you.” He turned to Apollo and explained, “It’s his team, and if he doesn’t want to use them as support for this op, then so be it.” He turned to Sheridan and added, “But personally, I don’t see what the problem is with this. You draw them to the building and the PODs light them up before they ever get there. If there’s any breaches, you cut ‘em down. Easy peasy…”

  “Because I think the risk is too great.” Sheridan stared at the man he called a friend.

  “The risk?” Apollo repeated. “Christ on a fucking cracker! We’re talking about a million fucking vampires charging down our collective throats here and you want to talk risk? Man, you are so full of—”

  “Can it!” Jack warned.

  “Tell me he ain’t full of shit!” Apollo pointed at Sheridan.

  “Go find Pablo and see if he’ll provide his boys for this op.”

  “For this meat grinder, is more like it,” Sheridan quipped.

  Jack turned to him and stared him down. “What the hell is your problem, Sherry?”

  “Why don’t you tell me, Jack?” He crossed his arms over his chest.

  “Seriously? Did you come here to assist in this operation or not? Because if you came here just to observe, you may as well pack your shit and go back to Newcastle.” Jack gritted his teeth as he stared his longtime friend down.

  “Oh, now you want to send us home? After you called and begged for our help?” Sheridan prodded.

  “I don’t need this. Not from you.” Jack scooped the maps up from the table.

  “Yes, you do, Jack.” Sheridan moved to block the exit. “You bloody well do.”

  “Move,” Jack warned.

  “No. You and I need to clear the air.” Sheridan crossed his arms again.

  “Move, or by God, I’ll move you.” Jack glanced to the side.

  “You lost men, too, Jack. Good men. Don’t stand there and tell me—”

  “Shut your goddamn mouth!” Jack’s finger jutted out and was poking Sherry in the chest. “You’ve lost your fucking nerve and now you’re using their memories to justify your not jumping into the muck.”

  “That’s a crock and you know it.” Sheridan braced his hands on his hips. “You can’t expect me to sacrifice my men…”

  “What sacrifice? I’m putting my second best man and his entire squad in there with you!” Jack yelled. “The only fucking reason I’m not in there with my own squad is because the colonel ordered us into the command center. So don’t stand there and tell me I’m ordering you to march off a fucking cliff.” Jack’s face was red and his temper had flared beyond normalcy. He knew it was the effects of the coming full moon, but he didn’t want to f
ight it. He wanted to reach out and rip Sherry’s head off for being a pussy.

  “You’re so full of yourself, aren’t you, mate? Ordering around an officer and his men. I bet it gets you off at night, doesn’t it?” Sheridan baited.

  “What?!” Jack was taken aback by Sheridan’s accusation. “This has nothing to do with rank and you damn well know it!”

  “Oh, sure it does, mate. You enlisted types…you’re always looking for the first opportunity you can to one-up a commissioned officer.”

  Jack shook his head. “I’m done with you, Sherry. You’ve lost your nerve.” He headed for the doors. “My men and I will use the other squads to do this. At least they have balls!” he yelled. He paused at the door. “Why don’t you and your ladies fight this thing in the cafeteria, hmm? You can sip lattes and have some half-fat, double mocha whatever the hell they are…no! Wait. You’re a Brit. I forgot. You bastards drink TEA. So go soak your sack in some hot water and then sip on that for a while. Maybe it will loosen you up a bit.”

  “You insolent bastard.” Sheridan started to advance on him.

  Jack dropped the maps and started to take a defensive stance when Tufo stepped into the room. “What the hell is all the yelling in here?” Both operators froze and eyed each other. “Is there a problem in here, Chief?”

  Jack stared at Sheridan a moment before he shook his head. “No problem, Major. Just a slight disagreement on where Major Sheridan and his men should stage themselves during the upcoming battle.”

  Mark nodded and held his hand out for the maps. “I thought Colonel Mitchell already made those decisions?” He unrolled the maps and laid them on the table.

  “It seems the major thinks it a waste of his squad’s time.” Jack’s eyes never left Sheridan who still stared him down.

  Mark nodded again, still studying the map. “Okay then. Major, care to tell me where you think you and your men could do the most good?”

  “I’d like to stage my men and I in the Operations Command Center.”

  Mark gave him a look of shock. “It would be awfully crowded in there. We’ll have two squads in there already, a helluva lot of support personnel…while I appreciate the offer, I think it would be overkill.”

  “That satellite is our best—” Sheridan began.

  “I know exactly what that satellite is, Major. But if you absolutely refuse to stage your men at the HQ, I’ll take it to Colonel Mitchell and let him know. And I’ll be gracious enough to allow you to pick a secondary staging area,” Tufo added. “But it won’t be the OpCom.”

  He rolled the maps up and handed them back to Jack. “I strongly suggest you boys learn to play a little nicer. Don’t make me go full-out Marine on your asses.”

  Mark walked out of the room and left the two operators standing alone. Jack shook his head and grunted a laugh. Sheridan motioned toward the departing major. “Who does he think he is?”

  Jack snorted. “The XO. And he knows it.” He looked out the door at the man marching across the compound and shook his head. “And I wouldn’t fuck with him. Augmented or not, he’s tough as shoe leather, meaner than a snake and can fart like a freight train.” Sheridan did a double take and stared at Jack as though he were crazy. “Oh, trust me. You do NOT want to be trapped in a car with him.”

  *****

  Dominic saw Mark crossing the compound and hustled to catch up with him. “Major!” he yelled. Mark still wasn’t used to the title and it took him a moment to realize that Dom was yelling for him until he called him ‘asshole’. Stopped him dead in his tracks and giving Dom a chance to jog up alongside with a smile on his face. “Works every time.”

  “Yeah, and if anybody asks, you said, XO, okay?” Mark added as they took off in the direction of his office again.

  “You got it, boss.” Dom nodded. “Hey, look, I needed to ask you something.”

  “You just did,” Mark grunted, the daily reports running through his head, the requisitions he needed to go over still waiting, the duty rosters that he hadn’t approved and the training reports that required his attention at the front of his mind.

  “The dirt,” Dom said, stopping next to him. Mark kept walking then pulled up. He turned to Dom and gave him a quizzical look. “That I told you about? That the Sicarii stuck in my head? That dirt?”

  Mark’s eyes widened as he remembered. “Oh, shit. Dom…”

  “You forgot, didn’t you?” Dom looked totally disappointed.

  “Not completely, just…” Mark began, then sighed. “Yes,” he admitted, “I did…sort of.”

  Dom shook his head. He felt almost betrayed because he trusted that things would be different since the new Executive Officer had told him that he would look into it and together the two of them would figure it out. They had worked so closely together on the training grounds and the new programs that Dom just knew that there was a kinship built there, a friendship that went beyond the workplace.

  “Follow me.” Mark turned and they headed to his office. Dom almost turned around and left, but something inside him told him to do it. He found his feet falling into step behind the man and before his brain could stop him, he was standing in his office. “Shut the door.”

  As Dom shut the office door, Mark shuffled through a pile of folders on his desk. He dug until he found the one he was looking for and tossed it across the desk to him. “Here. Take a look at this and see if it rings any bells.” He then went around his desk to pour a cup of coffee.

  Dom opened the folder and found tons of information in there. Old literature references to ancient vampires and their need to sleep on their native soil. Articles on how the earth that the dead are buried in is tied to them forever, even if they are reanimated. Dom flipped through the numerous articles and copies of old books. “Where did you get this?” he asked, realizing that his boss hadn’t forgotten and feeling like a clod for thinking it.

  “I have trouble sleeping some nights. I researched it for you.” He blew at the cup of hot coffee. “Some of it, Evan found for me. The stuff in the really old books? Yeah, that came from him. The rest I pulled off the net.”

  “So what does it mean?” Dom flipped through the pages, his eyes scanning everything.

  “Beats the living dog shit out of me,” Mark snorted. “You’re the one that dreamed it. Or...lived it? Got injected with it? Whatever.” He shrugged. “I just looked up what I could find.” Tufo sat down and sipped at the bitter nectar. “It still doesn’t help us figure out the importance of the soil to the Sicarii, OR what to do with it, IF we can find it.”

  Dom sighed and placed the folder back on his desk. “So now what?”

  Mark shook his head. “Now…we keep planning this battle.”

  “But what about the dirt, boss? I know this is important,” Dom pleaded.

  “I have no doubt.” Mark leaned back and met his gaze. “And this research suggests it could be VERY important, but we are still right back where we were. The only thing we know for sure is there are a lot of trucks headed this way, most likely loaded with vampires, and they’re all running parallel to a stolen freight train.”

  Dom looked at him sideways. “You’re shitting me. They’re on their way now?”

  “Duh.” Mark took another sip of his coffee. “Dom, the full moon is, what? Two days off?”

  “Judging by my nerves, I’d say that’s about right.”

  “Then yeah. They’re on the way. And those are the ones we now about.” He leaned back in his chair and studied Dom, waiting for him to put the points together.

  “Hey…wait a second.” Dom snapped his fingers. Mark could almost see the light bulb above his head grow brighter. “If the Sicarii is on one of those trucks…”

  “Or the train…” Mark added.

  “Yeah, or the train…”

  Mark nodded, urging him onward, “Then…”

  “Then the dirt will probably be with him!” he exclaimed.

  Mark smiled at him and sipped his coffee again. “I would think that’s a saf
e bet.”

  Dom kept thinking. “And if he’s as conceited as he seemed, he’s probably riding on the train. In a private car.” Mark nodded along. “And he’ll park that stolen train as close to here as he can,” Dom continued. “And probably leave the box of dirt…on the train!”

  “Elementary, my dear Dominic!” Mark slapped his thigh.

  “So when can I go get it?”

  Mark’s face fell when the words hit his ears. “Do what?”

  “When can I go after the box of dirt?” Dom asked again.

  Mark leaned forward and gave Dom a stern look. “You want to go TO a train that is crawling with vampires, that is surrounded by trucks FILLED with vampires…so you can steal a box of dirt?”

  “Yes. When can I go?” Dom asked excitedly.

  Mark sat forward and smiled. “The night of the full moon.”

  *****

  “Can you feel his power, lover?” Rachel purred in Damien’s ear.

  Damien sat in the darkness below the underground facility and had to fight to keep the meat down. The surge of energy that kept flowing through him was upsetting his delicate disposition and he feared he would throw up. “I think he was older than two hundred years…” He fought another wave of nausea.

  “Maybe a little. But doesn’t the power feel good?” She licked at his ear and he felt chills run up his body.

  “Yes, it does,” he moaned as his stomach finally calmed. He ripped another piece from the muscular arm and slipped it into his mouth. She slipped her mouth around the dangling piece of flesh and suckled it until their tongues were intertwined. As he swallowed the flesh, he got another surge of power that settled in his groin and he didn’t know if it were from the vampire he was eating or from her.

  She laughed in his ear and straddled his waist. “Ooh, somebody’s ready for me.”

  “I’m always ready for you, my love.” He fought with her dress. He pulled at it and freed her breasts, but she playfully swatted his hands away.