by Jessica Snow
Chapter 50
Kim crept slowly over the rooftops of the War Zone, thinking back to the last time she had been in the corrupt, crime-ridden neighborhood. It had been the night, soon after Keith and Melanie had Mated for the first time, when she had watched from the rooftops as Melanie had first broken the kneecap of a pimp before knocking him out, then giving over five hundred dollars to an underage prostitute in an attempt to give the girl a chance at a fresh start. She had tracked the girl to at least the shelter that Melanie had suggested, but had lost track of her there, hopeful at least.
Now, she was back on the very same rooftops in pursuit of her target for the night. After the death of Lieutenant Yankowitz, the silberjagger had been forced to transfer in another member of their Order into the area. The need to keep eyes and ears on Clan Lockwood was too great, especially after the attack on Lockwood Manor and then the rescue of Melanie from the Mexican facility. In fact, according to the information that House Melior had passed along, the Order had transferred in five silberjagger, which by most accounts was a very large force. Thankfully, none of them had been placed within the police or other public service departments, which meant that Kimberly could strike them more openly than otherwise. Okay, I'm approaching their safe house.
All right. Our drone is currently reading four heat signatures inside the tenement, Edward replied back. He had shown a remarkable adeptness at piloting the tiny remote control craft, which was barely a foot wide from rotor tip to rotor tip. He was Kimberly's backup, the muscle if it was needed. His approach was from the opposite direction, cutting west from the warehouse district before entering the War Zone again hopping rooftop to rooftop. He was three blocks away, ready to aid if needed. How are you feeling?
Ready. Are you sure that the tenement only has the four signatures? They’re supposed to have five.
I know, but I've circled around continually. There's only four signatures. If you want, maybe you can get on the roof and do some verification?
I'll see what I can do from the rooftop across the street first, Kimberly replied. I don't want to give them any hint I might be coming until they feel my teeth on their throats.
You're still sure that you want to do this in wolf form? You won't be able to use any firearms.
Kimberly nodded her head. Yes. It's a small tenement, tooth and claw will be just as deadly as firearms. If I can use surprise effectively, I have the advantage.
If you don't, even if you think you haven't, you tell me. Two on four is a lot better than one on four.
Okay.
Kimberly leapt the final alleyway to her target building and crept towards the edge. She knew she had to be careful, the building didn’t have any sort of wall masking the pipes or air conditioners on top, but was instead a sharp-edged cubical structure. She was pretty sure that such construction was against the building code but doubted the city inspectors who were responsible for the War Zone did much more than collect their kickbacks, issue out warnings that were never followed up, and went on their way.
Getting down on her stomach, Kimberly crawled towards the edge of the building, glad that she was wearing old jeans and a brown shirt. She hadn't expected the roof to be clean, but the level of filth was slightly nauseating. Twice she had to detour around gigantic piles of pigeon droppings, most likely the remnants of some tenant's attempt at a coop, and once she had to stop when she realized the smell she was catching was the rotted corpse of what looked like it had maybe been a poor house cat at some point. Reaching the edge of the building, she looked over and across the street.
She was thankful that due to the rush the Order had to go through to get their new team into town, they hadn't had a chance to fully integrate them yet. As such, while the team lived in individual apartments, they still met here, in a place where clandestine meetings between heavily armed men with foul intent were routine, and not worthy of curiosity by the local populace.
The building, however, had been long abandoned, and was technically still owned by a charity that stated they had ties to various "faith-based activities." It had stood empty for nearly a decade, other than the occasional homeless tramp who would sleep within the musty walls. The Hunters, soon after their coming to the city, had cleaned the building of that at least. Kimberly had been tempted to just firebomb the building, but with overcrowded apartment buildings on both sides, she was afraid that she would start a conflagration that would kill innocents. A more direct method was needed.
She could hear the light buzz of Edward's drone high above them, and had to give him credit. Even with her hearing, she could barely hear it, and against the cloudy night sky, it was practically invisible. Looking across the street, she could see the third floor room where four men were gathered. All of them had the same sort of hardened look she had come to expect from professional killers, despite the lack of visible weapons. She strained her hearing, trying to listen in to their conversation.
"Where the hell is Andre?" asked the tallest of the men. "He was supposed to be here twenty minutes ago."
"Who knows?" another of them answered. "Most likely he's just making sure that he can get here unnoticed. Those fucking wolves are wily."
"Brothers, we should not be using such foul language," a third admonished, looking around at his compatriots. "We are better than those we hunt, remember?"
"I watch my mouth around the Monsignor and the Bishop," the second man replied. "In the presence of you, I have no such concern. Considering our day jobs, think of it as practice. Or do you not use foul language when you’re selling Ice on the street?"
"Probably less than you did when you were attacking the Manor upstate," the third man retorted. Kimberly bristled but held her temper in check. "Oh, wait, I forgot. You dropped your rifle and ran like a woman while I stayed and fought with honor."
"I killed seven of the fuckers with a rifle while you got to sit inside the goddamn Bradley. Surround me with twenty tons of armor, and I'd be talking shit too."
They both stared at each other, and Kimberly wondered if they were going to fight, perhaps giving her the distraction she needed, when suddenly a blue truck pulled up in front of the tenement, and another man got out. The first Hunter looked out the window and down on the street. "Both of you, shut up. Our brother is here."
I'm moving, Kimberly told Edward over their Link. I'll change on the other side.
Understood. I'm coming closer, I'll be next door if you need me.
Kimberly waited until all four men's attention were turned away from the window before jumping across the street, landing on the roof in a rolling flop that minimized the amount of sound she made as she landed. Standing quickly, she pulled her shoes and clothes off, her skin tingling in the night air before she closed her eyes. For every Lycan, it was different she knew, but inside her, down deep in her mind below her conscious thoughts lay, she felt her wolf side, grinning its deadly smile and ready to come out.
I'm always here, Kimberly. You know that. Without me, there is no you. I am you, the side that is going to enjoy what you're about to do. In Mexico, you flew the helicopter, but I was the one who squeezed the trigger on the machine guns. We complete each other.
Then come out, and let us do what needs to be done.
Kimberly winced as the pain washed through her body, the tearing of her muscles, bones, and skin as she grew by over a foot and her shoulders widened by nearly as much. Her skin itched like a million insects were crawling over her as her pelt came out, but it was nothing to the internal changes. Still, there was a thrill of it, knowing the power that was now at her fingertips. In her wolf form, she was faster than ever, stronger than ever, with a beautiful purity to her form and her purpose. There was no compromise in the wolf, no need to worry about Clan politics. There was just the snap of the jaw, the flash of the claw, the salt of the blood, and the light of the moon.
Are you ready? Edward asked. It was funny how in her wolf form, even the sound of his thoughts over the Link were different.
Ready. Are they all together in the same room?
Yes. I confirmed it visually and by drone. Five Hunters, nobody else. Same room.
Then time to hunt the Hunters.
Despite her increased size, Kimberly moved silently over the rooftop, dropping to all fours and walking as comfortably as she did on her rear legs alone. Reaching the fire escape, she was faced with her biggest decision. If she crept down the stairs, she might be able to get a view of her prey before she burst in on them. On the other hand, if she leapt and used the metal of the stairs to redirect her fall, she could be halfway across the room and slaughtering them in a blink of an eye.
In the end, she decided that speed was her ally more than visual checking. She could move almost faster than even the Hunter's trained eyes could see, and she wanted to take advantage of it. Resisting the urge, there would be no howl, at least not until her thirst was quenched.
Grabbing the railing of the fire escape, Kimberly jumped, trusting in fate that the fire escape was solid enough that it wouldn't just tear off the side of the building as her weight yanked on the metal. There was a squealing creak, but it held, twisting her through the air to crash through the window, the glass cutting her, but she knew she'd be healed before the fight was over.
She had a glimpse as she went through, and saw that she was pointed at the back of one of the men, who was wearing a New York Yankees jacket. Pointing her toes, which were capped with inch long claws, she shredded his back while at the same time she drove into his spine. She could hear the snap near his pelvis, and he went shooting across the room, crashing into a folding chair that flipped over before landing on top of his paralyzed body. Snarling, she whirled to her right, her left arm extending to strike a second Hunter in the head, caving in his temple. Less than a quarter second had passed.
The three remaining silberjagger were starting to react as Kimberly pounced towards the next two, one of whom was starting to reach for the gun on his hip. Her paws caught them around their throats, squeezing and crushing their windpipes even as she lifted the two men high in the air and slammed them skull first into the cheap vinyl tile flooring. By the thud and bloom of blood from the backs, she guessed the floor was reinforced concrete. Four down.
The fifth hunter, the shortest of the men and the one she had identified as the one who had bragged about his prowess during the attack on the Manor, had dove towards the far corner of the room, reaching into his jacket for his weapon even as Kimberly tuned. She saw a flash of light and realized that despite his braggadocios words earlier, he was no cocksure idiot.
It's a common fallacy today that the best weapon for close combat is the handgun, especially the automatic or semiautomatic pistol. In some ways it makes sense. Compact, the handgun doesn't take a lot of power to use. Even a child can create the required force to squeeze a trigger, as the news shows us sadly far too often.
However, the gun has many drawbacks. First of all, drawing it takes time. Studies done by police departments showed that even trained operators often cannot draw their firearm in time to effectively use it if their attacker is less than twenty feet away. This is why police are taught to approach with guns drawn, they won't have a chance otherwise. Secondly, even a supposedly calm shooter can miss wildly when stress is involved.
This and many other reasons meant that when things got close, the best weapon was one of the oldest. The knife can be used by almost as many people as a gun. It requires no reloading, relatively minuscule maintenance, and the close range insures that something is going to get hit.
All of these thoughts went through Kimberly's mind as she saw the final silberjagger pull the knife from its shoulder sheath. A quick glance confirmed to her that he knew what he was doing as well. A beautiful blade, it glimmered with the muted shine that told her the knife was infused with silver. With a double edge, he could cut with either direction of his swing, and the needle point of the seven-inch blade could slip into her body with only the lightest amount of pressure.
"Come on, motherfucker," the foulmouthed Hunter said, keeping the blade in front of him. "I die, you die too."
Kim growled deep in her throat, her eyes flaring in the light of the room, and made her decision. Swiping up with her left paw, she caught the naked bulb that was dangling from the ceiling, shattering the only source of light in the room. The sudden change didn't affect Kimberly, whose sense of smell and hearing would allow her to track the man in pitch blackness or through a whiteout snow storm if she wanted.
Sidestepping quickly to her right, she pounced, her left arm up to protect the side of her face, moving across his body. She could feel the Hunter's shoulder in between her jaws, and she had to give the man credit for guts. Even with the knowledge of what was going to happen, he twisted his arm and stabbed, the blade plunging into the swell of muscles near her neck, missing her spine by less than an inch.
She didn't give him another chance, clamping down with her jaws. A normal wolf can bite down with between four hundred and a thousand pounds of force. A low-level Lycan wolf can bite down with double that. Kimberly, on the other hand, was an Alpha Lycan in the prime of her life, stronger than she'd ever been. Her jaws sheared through the man's arm like a hot knife through butter with nearly five thousand pounds of force behind the razor sharp teeth. She didn't even need to pull, the arm was cut off so neatly.
Pulling back, she swiped at the arm, which was still dangling from her jaws by a shred of the man's jacket before stepping back to watch. The shock was so great he didn't even have a chance to scream before blood loss and surprise drove him back a step to bounce against the wall, where he finally gathered a lungful of air. Before he could scream, however, Kimberly punched him in his sternum, driving the wind out of him again.
"I didn't kill you outright so you could know the truth," she growled at him, his eyes still aware even as he knew he was dying. "That attack was on my house. But don't worry, you won't be lonely in hell for long. I'm going to send a lot of your friends after you."
The man sagged to his knees, his eyes finally glazing over before he fell face first onto the ground. Kimberly watched as the jet of arterial blood from the severed stump of his arm weakened before becoming a mere oozing trickle. Reaching inside herself, she partially caged the beast inside her enough to let her paws retract to something approaching normal size. The left side of her neck was already stinging as the adrenaline of the attack wore off, and the pain receptors started working again. Going over to the body of the man she had kicked first, she saw that he was still alive, although unconscious. Reaching into his jacket, she found his gun and pulled it, flicking off the safety. She found the gun from one of the other men and picked it up in her right hand. Squeezing the triggers quickly, she put a total of fifteen rounds in the bodies before spraying the rest of the room with the remaining twenty rounds left over. Since she was in wolf form, she wasn't worried about leaving behind DNA or fingerprints, even in their current state, her hands were too large and didn't have fingerprints or palm prints that could be traced back to her. Tossing the guns next to the bodies, she scrambled out of the same window she'd crashed through less than thirty second prior and ran to the roof.
The cloud cover broke just as she stepped onto the roof, a full moon beaming down from the night sky. She let herself go, shifting back into full wolf form before lifting her bloodstained head to the sky, spreading her arms, and letting loose the long, sonorous howl that had built within her. The residents of the War Zone that heard the cry remembered the scene that had greeted them the last time such a howl had echoed through the neighborhood, with two reactions happening. Those who did evil or took advantage of the weak and downtrodden quickly retreated indoors, hiding in whatever bolthole they could find for the night. Meanwhile, those who had been taken advantage of, the victims and downtrodden felt a sense of cold security. There would be no more criminal activity that night in the War Zone.
* * *
"How's that feel?" Keith asked as he pressed the ed
ges of the wound together. His fingertips were bloody, but his grip didn't slip as he waited for the glue to finish working. It had seemed strange to him for wounds to be healed with glue, but Kimberly had sworn before the mission that the newest generation of surgical glues would be better than trying to stitch it closed.
Kimberly winced and sucked in air through her teeth as the sting of the wound subsided slowly. Her feet were healed, as well as a gash that she had picked up on her leg from going through the window that she hadn't even been aware of. Only the knife wound on her upper back was still painful. "It'll heal up soon enough," she said.
"You know Edward is pissed that you went in the way you did. He feels he should have been there backing you up." Keith relaxed his fingers slightly to see if the edges of the puncture would hold. They did, and he went over to the kitchen sink to wash his hands. "Melanie's concerned more than anything else, but she's seen you in action. If you had told her you were taking down a platoon of Army Rangers, she'd put money on you in Vegas."
"Yeah well, I think that's the last time I go tooth and claw on someone until after the baby," Kimberly replied. "I'd rather risk my life behind the control stick of the Wolf or maybe behind a rifle than that. I'll be honest Keith, that last one was scary. An inch to the side, and you'd be an Alpha Male without a Female."
"I know," Keith replied quietly. He finished washing his hands and brought over a damp cloth to dab gently around the wound, cleaning up Kimberly's skin as much as he could without disturbing the wound. "And while I understand Edward's opinion, I think you did the right thing. At the same time, I agree with you that I don't want you getting so up close and personal unless you have to until after your baby is born. When Edward told me you'd been injured, it scared the hell out of me, Kim."