by Chris Fox
The familiar staccato sounds of a weapon sounded behind her. Pain flared in her back and leg as bullets punched through her. She staggered forward, dropping her quarry and disappearing into the darkness. She was bleeding badly. How much more could she heal before she ran out of energy?
Your strength wanes. Leave these fools and rejoin your pack. They will be in need of your aid. We are the protectors, Ka-Ken. The males are lost without us, children before the storm.
To leave the fight galled her. She burned with the need to kill the man she’d just fought. He was vulnerable without that helmet. Yet she had to find Trevor and Blair. She scanned the area around his house. A haze of smoke from the near constant spurts of gunfire pooled around the still-functional lights on the back porch. The haze lent the house a muted odor like that of a funeral shroud.
She had to get down there.
Chapter 58- Mind Ride
Wonder and terror mixed in equal parts surged through Blair. The indefinable wave crashed over him, jarring but incredible. He was more. Greater. A vast array of instincts overlaid his senses, a set of tools honed through hundreds of generations. He knew how to fight. How to kill. He became one with the beast for the first time, mingling his consciousness with that of the strange presence he had resisted for so long.
Blair blurred, whipping down the pathway next to the shattered house. His passage kicked up a wind that rustled rose bushes and gravel, thankfully drowned out by the whirring rotors of the helicopters and the occasional bark of gunfire. He couldn’t disappear like Liz did, but he stuck to the shadows with the grace of a practiced predator. Prey no longer. That distinction was important because it took away the fear. He would kill these soldiers, not run before them like a startled rabbit.
He dropped into a low crouch, sifting through heartbeats in the thick cacophony. Two in the house. Two more approaching from beyond the fence, somewhere out in the darkness. The latter were strangely muffled somehow, though neither he nor the beast understood why. It didn’t matter. They were still distant. That gave him at least a little time.
Blair blurred into the air, time slowing as he leapt through the space that the window over the kitchen sink had once occupied. He twisted his furry body, bringing his legs around so he could land in a crouch on the linoleum. A soldier stood within arm’s reach, mouth open comically as his eyes widened. The soldier made the next move in slow motion, the barrel of his rifle inching down toward Blair’s face as if the air had become thick jelly.
The man probably had thousands of hours of training, and he bore the physique of a devoted athlete. Blair’s hand shot out, seizing the soldier’s neck and slamming the man’s head into the refrigerator with a sickening crunch and a splatter of warm blood. A hot rush of need surged through Blair, fueled by the surety that feeding would increase his strength. That could come later. There wasn’t time.
Blair jerked the corpse away from the refrigerator, positioning it between him and the second soldier. This one was slightly shorter, with wide blue eyes and a smattering a freckles. Her rifle spun into position, coughing a trio of rounds in his direction. They impacted against the corpse’s Kevlar vest, sending vibrations up his arm.
A contemptuous growl rolled from his throat as Blair slowed time even further. The fourth bullet left the muzzle in a hot flash of burning powder, two inches of brass moving toward him like a rock tossed by a toddler. Blair’s free hand shot out, cupping the bullet in his palm. It was uncomfortably warm, but he only held it for an instant. Then Blair hurled the bullet in an underhanded throw.
It caught the woman in the knee with nearly the same velocity it possessed when fired, shattering bone and cartilage and spilling her to the kitchen floor. Blair tossed the corpse of her companion atop her, kicking her rifle away from her as he prepared to feast on the helpless soldier.
Light flooded into the kitchen from the backyard. Blair shielded his eyes with an arm as he squinted out. He crouched low, nostrils flaring as he sought the data his eyes couldn’t provide. The strangely muffled heartbeats were close now, four of them. The way the lights moved made what he was seeing clear. There were four of them, each affixed to one of the figures advancing into the backyard.
One of those figures took a further step forward, raising an arm. The lights vanished, plunging the yard into near darkness. Blair could still see his opponents clearly under the light of the moon. Each wore a bulky armored suit straight from Heinlein’s Starship Troopers.
Clearly the leader, the figure with the raised arm was a bit taller than the other soldiers. His faceplate locked on Blair. Then a familiar voice boomed from some sort of amplifier. “This needs to end, Professor Smith. We’ve already caused too much collateral damage, and I know you don’t want that. It’s time to return to Peru. This only has to be as difficult as you want to make it.”
Blair would know that voice anywhere. Commander Jordan. A torrent of emotion raged through him. Yet curiously the one he’d most expected was absent. Fear.
“I know you’re just doing your job,” Blair roared back, flexing his claws and taking a step closer to the window’s shattered frame. “You don’t have all the facts, though. Werewolves were created for a reason. Something bad is coming, Jordan. Leave now, or the lot of you are going home in body bags.”
“I like you, Smith. I don’t have any doubt that more of my men will go home in a box if we keep this up. Thing is, we’ve got you covered from the air, and I have even more backup on the way. There’s nowhere to run. I’m holding all the cards. Be reasonable. Why don’t you surrender, and we’ll head down to Peru and talk about it with the Director? If you have facts we need to know, then share them,” Jordan said, tone hardening as he moved the rifle resting against his shoulder into both hands. “You don’t want to make us come in there, Professor. I respect you. I don’t want to embarrass you in front of your new girlfriend. Liz, right? That’s her name, isn’t it? Liz Gregg, a medical doctor you infected.”
Blair’s resolve hardened. Jordan had brought her into this intentionally, hoping to goad him into rash action. A part of him very nearly obliged, wanting to leap out the window, heedless of the danger. The rest of him reined in. He didn’t suppress the fury, but neither did he give in to it.
“I respect you too, Jordan. You’re just trying to do the right thing, but ‘thing is,’ you’re inadvertently threatening the human race’s survival. I know you aren’t going to walk away, so let’s get this over with.” He said, pausing to give a low, deep howl. It reverberated through the night with all the power and fury he could muster. A war cry, fierce and undeniable.
Blair blurred, twisting through the window with feral grace. Motes of debris danced lazily through the air, spinning crazily under the weight of the rotor-driven wind. He landed next to the soldier on the far right, by the squat palm tree in the corner of Trevor’s yard. Posture was hard to read through the rigid suits, but this soldier was the most relaxed of the lot, clearly waiting for what he considered to be cornered prey. It was a fatal mistake.
A fierce bolt of clean blue energy arced from Blair’s hand, coruscating around the figure’s helmet. Blair had no true understanding of what he was doing, but he trusted the beast as it guided his actions. Only a very small part of him was surprised as he slipped past the man’s defenses and into his mind. Blair was the soldier. He could feel the man’s thoughts and memories, his horror at being a bystander in the passenger seat of his mind. It was a horror Blair understood intimately. He experienced a moment of guilt at inflicting such helplessness on another but tossed aside the regret.
The soldier spun to face his companions, rifle unleashing a hail of slugs even as the caps to the launcher tubes popped open. All four burst into the yard on fiery contrails, still faster than a baseball pitch even with Blair slowing time. The closest suit took the brunt of the damage, missiles blasting it into the closest companion. That actually worked in the second suit’s favor, providing a measure of protection from the blast. The pair landed in a hea
p, billowing smoke from the missiles mostly obscuring Blair’s view.
Only Jordan was able to react in time, somehow launching himself backward and landing in a roll as the detonation hurled his armored form through the fence and into the field beyond. Somehow Blair had expected it.
The poor soldier Blair mind-rode shrieked impotently in the chambers of his own head, horrified by his attack on his own companions. Blair reached up with both hands, forcing the man to key in the code that removed the helmet. Then Blair released him. He returned to his own body, blinking rapidly at the sudden shift in perception as time returned to its normal flow. The horrified soldier hadn’t reacted yet. Perfect. Blair seized the armored shoulders in both hands, lunging for the man’s throat. He tore it out in a wash of hot blood.
A sharp hiss triggered a surge of alarm, the instinctual reaction one has to a coiled serpent. Blair’s conscious mind took a moment to catch up, and he went cold when he identified the sound. It was the same sound his victim’s missiles had made when fired. Blair tried to spin, tried to blur, tried to do anything. It was too late. Four missiles streaked in his direction, and he was helpless as they found their target. Him.
The first pair detonated against the unfortunate power armor Blair still gripped, but the latter found their mark. The first caught him in the leg and unleashed a wave of fire and pain. A second caught him in the shoulder. The combined explosion picked him up like a terrier, hurling him across the yard and through the fence in a rough parody of what he’d just done to Jordan. Bones cracked with the impact, and the scent of his own burned flesh competed with white-hot agony for his attention. He lay there broken, unable to even contemplate rising.
We have reached the end of our power, Ka-Dun. I can aid you no further. I must sleep.
Blair couldn’t make his body work. It was simply too broken. He struggled with everything he was, everything he had become. All that effort, and he barely managed to roll onto his stomach. It wasn’t much, but at least he would die facing his killer.
Jordan’s armored form strode boldly through the hellish yard, passing through flaming bits of debris where the palm tree had once stood. He aimed a wickedly large rifle at Blair’s face.
“I’m sorry it had to come to this, Smith. Your DNA is needed in Peru. Know that it brings me no pleasure to end your life. I’d prefer to capture you, but you’re just too dangerous to live,” Jordan said, surprisingly somber. The statement was much more honest than he’d have expected from the man. It sounded…respectful.
Jordan raised the rifle, finger tightening on the trigger. Blair closed his eyes, ready for what would come next. He’d done his best.
Chapter 59- Final Hour
Ahiga’s final hour had begun. He knew this was so, knew it with a calm certainty that elicited mild surprise from himself. The moment provided another glimpse of the Mother’s wisdom, and he recalled a conversation he hadn’t understood in his youth. The Mother had explained to her pupils that the day might come when they needed to sacrifice themselves, to give their lives in exchange for a necessary outcome.
At the time he’d argued vehemently against such a course. Champions were so long lived that they were effectively immortal. Given that, survival at any cost made sense, for surely their worth to the world was greater than anything that might be purchased with their deaths. Only now did he finally understand the truth of her words. Some goals were worth the cost.
Blair must reach the Mother, no matter the cost. Ahiga closed his eyes, touching the minds of the coyote pack he’d gathered. Dozens of feral minds were united in purpose, each coyote cunning and silent as they prowled the night. They were less powerful than wolves, smaller and not so bold. Yet they were what he had.
Harry the men with guns. Nip. Then fall back to the shadows. Keep them from following the whelp and his pack.
Howls and yips came from all directions as the coyotes leapt to obey. Like wolves and foxes they were social animals, and they were thrilled at the inclusion in so large a pack. It gave them a purpose greater than before, a unity they’d likely never experienced and would never experience again. Though, Mother willing, perhaps they might now that the champions had returned.
The pack flowed down the hillside, bursting into Trevor’s yard through scorched gaps in the fence. The tiny creatures leapt at the men in their powerful armor, nipping and dancing away. They did the same to a group in the front yard who were prepared to storm the house. The pack could do nothing about the helicopters, but at least the men who reached the ground would be confused and slowed. It would buy time for Ahiga to do the real work.
He blurred down the ridge, wind tearing at shrubs and kicking up dust as time slowed. He leapt over the fence and rolled to his feet in the charred wreckage of what had been a lush garden just hours before. Of the four men clad in strange armor, two still fought. Both were focused on Blair’s shattered and broken body lying in a heap near the smoldering remains of a palm tree. Neither was aware of his presence.
Ahiga dipped low as he sprinted, grabbing the closest foe by an ankle with both hands. He swung the man around in a powerful arc, increasing the blur for a split second to increase his momentum. Then he flung the man with all the considerable might he could bring to bear, flinging him toward the closest helicopter. The confused warrior accelerated wildly through the air as Ahiga released his blur. Sporadic gunfire drowned out a harsh scream. Then he impacted with the pane of glass at the front of the vehicle, peppering the pilots with shrapnel and the mass of the soldier’s own armored form.
The helicopter tilted drunkenly, dipping low before it descended from sight to the front of the house. Moments later a fireball mushroomed into the sky. The remaining helicopters gained altitude, scattering like startled birds as their weapons silenced. Recovery wouldn’t take long, but at least the explosion gave them pause. The soldiers knew they were vulnerable now.
The remaining soldier spun to face Ahiga so swiftly that he could have been blurring. Once, Ahiga would have easily dodged such an attack, but he’d grown old and weak during his slumber. Burning so much energy so quickly taxed him mightily, and he lacked the strength to blur away from the rifle as the ugly black barrel came up. He staggered away, rolling out of the path of the bullets as they barked from the muzzle in little puffs of flame. One tore through his shoulder, pulverizing bone and shredding flesh. It burned like the sun, but he forced the pain down.
He staggered to his feet, weighing his options. The whelp was paramount. So Ahiga made his choice. He gestured at the mangled body, forcing much of his remaining strength toward the whelp in a crackling arc of silver light. That energy wouldn’t be enough to fully heal him, but it would return him to consciousness and allow him to flee.
The choice cost Ahiga dearly. Black blades, each wickedly sharp and as long as Ahiga’s forearm, snapped from the soldier’s wrists as he tossed aside the rifle. The blades lashed out in a pair of vicious strikes. The first carved scarlet furrows into Ahiga’s chest, sending him stumbling backward to one knee. He caught the second, wrapping both hands around the armored wrist. He used the man’s momentum against him, throwing himself to the ground and flinging the soldier through the remains of the fence and into the shrubby hillside beyond.
“Flee, whelp. I will delay them,” he roared, flipping back to his feet. Already he ached from the fire of a dozen tiny wounds, but he must persevere just a little longer.
To his shock, the whelp used a sending, something he’d thought beyond the inexperienced Champion. Ahiga felt the whelp’s gratitude for the rescue and his shame for rebuffing Ahiga’s teachings back in Acapulco. Also determination. The whelp would escape. He would find the Mother. He would set this right. Ahiga swelled with pride and relief. The whelp accepted his responsibility. The world had a chance.
There was movement at the edge of his vision, two men in the house, each training weapons on him. A coyote leapt from the shadows, ruining the first soldier’s aim even as his gun belted a hail of death. The shots wen
t wide, ricocheting off one of the fallen suits of armor. The second soldier fired uninterrupted, but Ahiga was ready. He blurred, just for a moment.
The motion carried him to the roof, affording him a vantage of the combat. Would that he could walk the shadows like a female. He felt exposed up here despite his crouching in the haze unleashed by the strange warriors and their never-ending hail of death. Such wishes were futile, of course. He must work with what he had.
Ahiga watched as the whelp sprang to his feet and bolted into the house, disappearing from view. Ahiga shifted his gaze to the soldiers massing in the front yard. The loss of the helicopter and the sudden attacks by coyotes had forced them to be cautious, but already they were regrouping.
Movement from the yard. Ahiga turned back to see the last suit of black armor leap to its feet and sprint toward the house, where the whelp had disappeared. The man in that suit was the gravest threat. He must be stopped.
Ahiga fell from the sky like a bird of prey, tackling the armored soldier and sending them both into a rolling tangle of limbs. This opponent was faster than the others, cleverer and more willing to adapt. He must be their leader. Their Champion stabbed down with those wicked blades, pinning Ahiga’s foot to the ground. He rammed the other set of claws into Ahiga’s groin, flooding his manhood with shards of fiery agony.
Ahiga battled past the pain, for hesitation was death. He needed to buy Blair more time. He could not set down his heavy burden, not just yet. Ahiga wrapped his opponent in a tight embrace, ignoring his wounds as he summoned the energy for a blur.
The silvery energy moved sluggishly, mostly gone after his gift to speed Blair’s healing. Yet enough remained for what he intended. He blurred away from the combat, carrying the soldier up the hillside. He bounded over boulders and around shrubs, eating up the distance and carrying the primary threat far from the whelp.