Xandrie wasn’t amused. “You wanted us to stand around while you two played hide the salami?”
“Wow. You make it sound so…dirty,” Char emphasized the word, ‘dirty,’ but seeing the look on Xandrie’s face, she decided not to toy with her any further. “We go first thing in the morning and that’s when Terry will call Akio and see if there’s any magical fairy dust they can sprinkle on us from wherever the hell they are. Go get some sleep. Tomorrow’s going to be a long day, no matter what happens.”
Adams and Xandrie departed. There was a brief period of shouting as the two encountered the night watch.
Ivan. It was Nightwatch himself standing guard.
They passed the gauntlet and Terry and Char followed, presenting the appropriate challenge to enter the camp without issue.
“I guess I should have told them how to do it,” Terry said, looking away.
“So what if they got shot? They’ll heal and they’ll have learned an important lesson about messing with the FDG,” Char suspected.
“Something like that,” Terry answered. “Did you sense anything back there?”
“Nothing. The mountain is shielded in ways that nothing came through. So, that was another reason for my diversion. I couldn’t tell you what was behind that door, and it bothered me.”
Terry reached to his neck, feeling the spot where Char had drawn blood. It had healed already, but the memory of the painful pleasure remained.
And she had been right. The FDG needed to share in the victory or the failure. He needed to include them on his adventures. He needed to include Mark and make him a true lieutenant, not just a caretaker for the times Terry was gone.
That was what the morning would bring.
***
“Twenty miles?” Ted asked.
“Twenty miles. That’s what the colonel said. We’ll follow the tracks that swing inland. We don’t care about O’Hare. The railroad classification yard is next to it, and that’s what we’re looking for, people.” Timmons sounded confident.
James and Lacy rode their horses and Gerry and Kiwi were doubled up as usual. Ted and Timmons decided that they’d run as Werewolves and would run with the pack. Kiwi and Lacy turned away as the two men stripped and handed their clothes to James.
A moment later, two Werewolves stood surveying the area. With a single leap, both were off, loping toward the front gate and the railroad tracks beyond. The horses trotted after them.
They’d worked out a way to communicate while Ted and Timmons were in Were form. If the two sensed any humans, they’d stop and point, then tap a paw on the ground for how many. If they found game that needed hunting, they’d stop and point, then take the pack and go.
The humans trusted them. Conversely, if Kiwi sensed anything, James would whistle to get their attention. Then she’d tell them what she felt or if the ghost rabbit was near.
And so it went for the first ten miles—no interruptions, nothing to hunt, no humans to threaten them.
They’d slowed to a steady pace, but Timmons was in a hurry. He was determined to get there early to give them more time to search. According to Terry Henry, the yard was massive and could contain thousands of rail cars.
The group brought their usual kit, enough to remain overnight wherever they happened to find themselves. James was committed to a final determination on the existence of the Mini Cooper.
It was mile fifteen where the massive structures of the city dominated the horizon. They stood as silent monuments to a time that was and maybe never would be again, unless you trusted Terry Henry Walton, and he seemed confident that it could all be brought back.
Seeing the crush of buildings, James wasn’t sure he wanted it back. He preferred open spaces and fewer people.
Timmons and Ted stopped up ahead. One of the wolf pack started to howl. Timmons ran back, spooking the horses. He changed into human form as he approached and told James to join them while the others needed to wait.
James was intrigued, but Lacy dismounted.
“You stay,” he told her.
“Why?” she demanded.
To James it was simple.
“Because the warrant officer is in charge and he said so. I’ll tell you as soon as I know. Please.” He held out his hands to demonstrate his sincerity. Timmons told him to get up there.
The corporal jogged away, happy that Lacy stayed behind. Good order and discipline, the colonel always preached. Sometimes, just follow orders. Trust the leadership to make good decisions.
James found the two naked men studying a body on the ground. He’d seen thousands of dead bodies. He didn’t think much about them anymore. Why?
“Look here.” Timmons pointed to the man’s neck.
“Puncture wounds in a shriveled neck. So what?” James asked, leaning closer, thinking that he was missing something.
“This body’s freshly killed,” Ted said barely above a whisper.
“Fuck off!” James exclaimed.
“Ever hear of the Forsaken?” Timmons asked, standing and sniffing the air before turning to face James.
He always found it uncomfortable to talk with the Werewolves when they were in the buff. They didn’t care about being naked, but James did.
“No. I have no idea what a Forsaken is,” James replied.
“Vampires, the kind that suck blood because that’s how they feed. This was done by a vamp and not too long ago. I don’t sense anything nearby, but it might not be a daywalker. That’s to our advantage and disadvantage.” Ted and Timmons scanned the horizon, eyes unfocused as they reached out with their senses.
“Everyone needs to know this. Are we safe right now?” James asked. Timmons nodded, not looking away from the horizon.
James waved the others to join them. They dismounted and walked ahead, studying the body as they approached. Lacy had seen Ted and Timmons a number of times, but not Kiwi. She tried not to stare, but failed miserably.
“Kiwi, any ghost rabbits out and about?” James wondered.
She smirked at him. “I would have told you already if there were. I don’t see anything except clouds in the sky, a ruined city, and a dead guy.”
James pursed his lips. Timmons repeated what he’d said about the Forsaken. Kiwi became visibly shaken.
“Abominations. They insult Mother Earth.” Fear gripped her as she stumbled through the words. She closed her eyes and started chanting.
“What the fuck do we do now?” Lacy asked, fingering the selector lever on her rifle as she looked around as if expecting the boogeyman to jump out of the nearest bushes.
***
Terry pushed the FDG, getting them up before dawn and moving out at daybreak at a brisk pace that forced those with shorter legs to jog. They made quick work of the four miles to Cheyenne Mountain.
Once there, Terry ordered Mark to establish a perimeter with one squad, even though the Werewolves confirmed that they were alone.
One squad would breach the opening and move in, weapons aimed as they prepared to engage a dug-in enemy. The third squad was placed in reserve, weapons tight and ready to go where ordered, exploit a gap or heaven forbid, cover a retreat.
They lined the tunnel entrance with candles and moved into position. Terry put Mark up front. “This is where the rubber meets the road, Sergeant. All the training you’ve done over the past two years was for this moment. Remember your training!” the colonel yelled. The squad responded with a hearty ‘Oorah.’
Char lifted the covering on the panel as Terry keyed his communicator.
“Good morning, Colonel Walton,” Akio answered formally. There was no static, nothing to indicate that the connection had gone through. Terry was taken aback, but only for an instant.
“Akio, my sincere apologies for the interruption. We are at the entrance to Cheyenne Mountain and there is a digital keypad. I was hoping that ADAM would be able to share the code with me.” Terry kept it simple.
“ADAM is not here,” Akio replied. Terry had no answer to that.
“But we have someone who may be able to help. I will ask Eve if she knows.”
Terry let out the breath he’d been holding for too long. Char joined him in exhaling.
She thought they’d made the trip for nothing.
“Good morning, Colonel Walton, Akio has asked me to help you. I believe I have the information you seek,” a pleasant female voice spoke over the small device that Terry held in his hand. He gave it to Char to hold up while he focused his attention on the keypad.
“Shoot,” he told her.
“Are you in trouble?” she asked quickly.
“What? No, not at all. I’m ready to enter the code,” Terry replied.
“Yes, fifteen digits, try these…” Terry entered the digits. He nodded to Mark as he prepared to press the last number. When he did so, the panel flashed red once and returned to its former green glow.
The squad looked at each other, not understanding.
“That didn’t work. It flashed red after the last digit,” Terry said into the device.
“I was afraid of that. That was the last code on file. It had been changed after I received the information. The operators of this system changed the code using a random number generator, but in the computer world, nothing is really random, now is it?” They thought they heard the Entity Intelligence, the EI, giggle. “I have a list of possibilities based on the equations derived from the last seventy-four codes…”
Two hours later, Terry’s back was hunched and he was convinced that he’d worn his fingerprint off by punching numbers on the key pad. He and Char started taking turns holding the communication device as they punched the nearly endless string of fifteen digit codes into the keypad.
Red flash, start over. Half the breaching squad was asleep. Mark was fighting it by standing and jumping in place, but his eyes were half rolled back into his head.
“You suck, TH,” Char whispered. He couldn’t argue with that.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“He’s not nearby,” Timmons and Ted finally agreed. “Stay on mission. To the railyard.”
The two men changed into Were form, rallied the wolf pack, and started running, much faster than before.
Fear drove them. They’d run thousands of miles to escape the last Forsaken they had the misfortune to sense and they didn’t even see that one, having used the daylight to cover their retreat.
This one was in Chicago. They were in Chicago. Timmons’s mind raced. The vampires would have to make peace with the locals, but would the humans be willing to sacrifice their own to keep the Forsaken fed?
Timmons was willing because he didn’t want to die, but he knew that Terry and Char would have none of that. He suspected that those two would go to war with all Vampires rather than serve up a human.
The Werewolf stopped and looked at the humans accompanying him. Which one of them would he hand over?
He growled as he realized he wouldn’t be able to do it. They needed to be ready to fight. Timmons had gotten his ass kicked by a human and by another Werewolf. If he had to fight the Forsaken, he’d die. That was his attitude, defeatist but realistic.
It was also the worst attitude to have.
Timmons stopped and looked around. Ted hesitated and brought the wolf pack to him. Timmons changed from a shaggy gray Werewolf into human form. His shoulders were hunched and his head hung as he walked to those on horseback.
“I can’t take him,” Timmons confided. Ted wondered what he was talking about.
Timmons was a magnificent specimen as a man. Tall, well built, but not overly muscular. He was lean and chiseled. Ted looked less cut, but still appeared like the underwear models of old.
“If we run across a Forsaken, I can’t take him. He’ll kill me and then he’ll kill you all, one by one.” Timmons appeared to be talking to the ground.
“Bullshit, Mr. Ass-slappy McFuckface!” Lacy bellowed. James looked at her, wondering about her new fascination with creative cursing. “What are we going to do with these while all this is going on?”
Lacy held her rifle in the air. She pulled out two extra magazines and waved them with her other hand.
“We’re going to be pouring so much ammo downrange, he’s going to think he’s been run over by a buffalo. And what about them?” she asked, pointing at the pack lounging nearby. “I expect they’ll be right in the mix, too. And what about you?”
Lacy pointed an accusing finger at Ted. He froze, unwilling to move and incur any more of the young woman’s wrath. “Like I said, bullshit. If that lame-ass shlong-lapping night crawler comes around here, he’s not walking away. One for all, all for one, right?”
Terry had used that expression during training often to reinforce why they never left a person behind. Every single member of the Force needed to know that they wouldn’t be abandoned.
“I guess Lacy told us how it is, so Gunner McFuckface, shall we continue, on mission, as you suggested?” James interjected. He turned to Lacy, “Nicely done, babe.”
“Thanks, babe.”
Ted chuckled. “Gunner McFuckface…”
***
Char pressed the numbers that Eve called out, and when the panel light flashed green instead of the expected red, Char jumped backwards. Terry almost dropped the communication device.
The grind and squeal of oversized but rusty gears echoed through the oversized door.
“It’s opening! Get up, you bastards, and stand to!” Terry yelled. Mark was instantly alert and dropped to a knee, aiming at the overlap of the two doors, where he expected to see it crack apart. The others behind him fell in line, shaking the cobwebs from their minds.
With a hideous screech and loud bang, the doors popped and one side started sliding outward.
Adams and Xandrie stood easy behind the squad. They had no expectations for what was inside. Char waited impatiently for the door to grind open. At least they were on the side away from the opening door, until the one closest started grinding its way through the dirt. They stepped back.
The cloud of air ejected from the inside carried a stench that most wouldn’t recognize.
Adams and Xandrie ripped their clothes off at Werewolf speed and changed into Were form, growling and snapping at the darkness beyond the door.
Char pulled her pistols and stepped backwards.
“What do you sense? What’s in there?” Terry asked urgently.
“Death,” she whispered.
“I smell that, but how?”
“The Forsaken. They’re in there and very much alive,”
“Thanks, Akio, gotta go,” Terry called into the communicator before shutting it off and stuffing it into his pocket.
***
Akio looked at the screen in front of him. He stood in a secret stronghold in Japan. His pod was hidden in a small valley nearby along with three Black Eagles, the X-Wing style fighter that Bethany Anne had left behind for Akio’s use.
The screens in the remote command center carried images from all over the planet. Terry Henry Walton was not the only effort to consolidate survivors and recover. His wasn’t even the most advanced, but his was the only one that Akio trusted was being done on behalf of humanity and not solely for the individuals in power.
Europe had several factions setting up. Asia was far and away the largest. Chinese farms bordering mountain ranges were mostly untouched and accounted for the majority of the world’s population. The cities were devastated, but those in the most rural areas had stayed out of the eye of the WWDE storm.
The electromagnetic pulse had no effect on them. They continued living their lives as they had for millennia.
In nearly every enclave, a Were could be found. They were blending in as they’d always done. But the Forsaken, with the reduction in the human population, their feeding grounds had shrunk. When ten people out of twenty-five million died, no one noticed, but when ten people out of a thousand were sucked dry, people became afraid.
Yuko looked at him, ready to wish him well. The android, Eve, stood next to
Yuko. Eve’s skin seamlessly flowed as she moved. She was built by ADAM using a combination of alloys and Yollin technology. It had taken a year, but ADAM had built her specifically to ensure a long and healthy life for Yuko.
She was to remain unseen and manage the Unknown World, the survivors who would be loyal to Bethany Anne, and be ready for Michael’s return to Earth, whenever that would be.
Akio’s job was to handle the Forsaken. He was slightly put out that Terry Henry would close the channel without asking for his help. There was no way Akio could monitor them within Cheyenne Mountain. He’d have to wait, unless he went on his own.
Akio never expected that the Forsaken would all die, but had they built a stronghold within a modern fortress? He wondered.
He couldn’t fathom.
“Please, prepare the pod, just in case,” he asked Eve, before sitting on his cushion to meditate. Akio had told Terry to be judicious in asking for his help.
With Eve’s assistance, Akio had planted the seeds in Terry’s mind regarding the Cooper Mini Modular Reactor and the equipment within NORAD. He hadn’t known that Forsaken were in the mountain with the convoy.
Had he helped Terry Henry Walton, his partner Charumati, and the rest of the Force de Guerre or had he condemned them?
If the human took on the Forsaken, could he win or would he call back to summon Akio?
Akio had to be ready in either case.
***
Terry uncoiled his bullwhip and took a position in the middle of the squad. Char stood next to him. He’d only seen her this tense once before and that was the night Marcus raced across the Wastelands toward them. She had thought she was going to die that night.
This time, she was afraid she wasn’t going to see the sunset. The Forsaken had a way of dealing with intruders on their lives that didn’t end well for the intruders.
“Sergeant, the Forsaken can be held up by a certain volume of fire. You shoot them with everything the squad has to offer, and we’ll finish him,” Terry said calmly. “Spare magazines?”
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