by JJ Jones
We parted and Logan walked confidently back to his sniper rifle and readied himself. I knelt back down in front of my gun and stared down the scope looking at the two shifters calmly smoking their cigarettes. I placed my target on one of them and concentrated.
“I’m ready,” I said quietly.
“Okay, I’m going to count back from five, we shoot after one. Got it?” Logan asked.
“Yes,” I replied mechanically feeling myself enter a different state of mind. I could hear Logan counting down. When he reached three, I inhaled and stopped breathing, holding my breath like Logan had taught me. Then I realized I wasn’t listening anymore.
I panicked for a second, and then heard Logan’s first shot. As a gut reaction, I pulled the trigger, too. I watched in my scope, hoping to see the shifter collapse to the ground. It wasn’t instant, but within a few seconds, he fell to the ground, obviously dead. I wasn’t sure what to do next. Logan hadn’t given me a second instruction after I had shot the first shifter. But I decided that I should probably try for the second shifter. I moved my target to the second man, but he was already falling to the ground, shot dead with Logan’s shot by the time my target was fixed over his heart.
I took a deep breath scanning my scope across the mansion. All the guards’ bodies were scattered on the ground lifeless. There was no movement; our presence was still unknown to anyone inside. We had been successful in killing them fast enough that they had failed to sound an alarm or raise a warning to the rest of the house. I knew that would make Logan happy.
I jumped as Logan touched me on the shoulder. “Come on,” he said smiling. “There’s nothing left to see through that scope. It’s time to head inside the gate.”
“We were successful then?” I asked confirming my own thoughts.”
“Yes, we were,” Logan agreed with me. “The guards were unprepared for us,” he continued. “They were easy to take out.”
“I lost track of the counting,” I admitted, “I’m not sure I shot when I supposed to.”
“We took care of them, and they weren’t able to raise an alarm. That is what matters, Tanisha.” Logan said putting his sniper rifle back into the car.
“Did you shoot all five of them?” I asked wondering if that was why the man I was shooting at hadn’t collapsed instantly when I’d shot at him.
“It doesn’t matter, really. I shot at them, and so did you. We aren’t in a competition are we?” he turned and smiled at me.
“Well no, of course not,” I said kicking the dirt, “I just want to be useful, that’s all.”
“And you are useful, regardless of if your shot or mine delivered the death shot,” Logan tried to comfort me. “I need you here with me. I need you next to me as we go inside.”
I felt frustrated that he wouldn’t answer me straight, but I knew we couldn’t argue about it now. We needed to remain focused and strong for the task ahead of us. I let my anger subside and moved forward handing Logan my sniper rifle and jumping back in the front seat.
*
Together we drove down to the gate. We ditched the car on the side of the road and walked the last few hundred feet to the gate. Before leaving the car, Logan had me suit up with a few guns holstered around my body. We also both stopped to put on the bulletproof vests. I noticed that the one I wore, easily covered my chest, but his was a little small for his upper body. There were areas that were easily exposed and not well protected. I knew we didn’t have any other options, but it made me worried for him.
I carried the Little Doctor and The Eliminator slung around each shoulder as well as two small handguns holstered at my hips. I was feeling pretty weighed down with weapons. I felt the overwhelming presence of shifters as we got closer to the gate. I swallowed hard trying to keep my nerves steady and remind myself that I was strong and confident.
“How are we going to get inside?” I asked hoping my voice was steady.
“What do you mean?” Logan asked staring straight forward.
“Well there is a huge gate blocking our way,” I said pointing to the gate. “Do you plan to ring the doorbell and ask the Big Dog to open the gate for us?” I laid the sarcasm pretty thick. “Or are we going to climb over somehow?”
“Oh, I don’t plan to climb over anything,” Logan said with a smile, “And as for ringing the doorbell – this ought to do the trick.”
Without waiting for a response, Logan shifted into his full polar bear form. After he had shifted, he roared loudly rearing up on his hind legs. I had to cover my ears his roar was so deafening.
I saw lights immediately turn on throughout the mansion and other distant roars could be heard from within the walls. I didn’t know what the roars meant, if they were some sort of communication, but one thing was for sure, we weren’t done with our fighting just yet.
Logan came down off his hind legs and ran toward the gate. Every time his paw hit the ground, the ground vibrated almost throwing me off my feet. I balanced myself on a nearby tree to keep myself from falling over. He hurled his body at the gate and it collapsed easily under his immense weight. He roared again as the gate clanked behind him, demonstrating his domineering presence.
Just as he passed the gate, two wolves sprang at him from the front steps of the mansion. I barely saw them shift as they leapt toward Logan. I felt a scream escape from me as I tried to warn him.
Logan turned just in time and saw them. The first he swiped with his front paw, throwing him to the ground and keeping him pinned there. The second wolf lunged at Logan’s neck, but Logan moved easily to the side and the wolf missed Logan completely flying awkwardly behind Logan.
It quickly regained it’s footing and squared again for a second attack. In the meantime, Logan finished the first wolf by crushing his neck and throwing him aside. Logan turned to face the second shifter face to face. That was when I saw Logan pull back suddenly and look at his shoulder and then up at a tower in the mansion.
I saw that two towers at the front of the mansion were manned with two other wolf shifters and they had guns. One of them had shot Logan in the shoulder and was preparing to fire another shot. Logan roared in anger up at the wolf and moved quickly to avoid being shot again.
I knew he needed me to help him. I pulled the handgun from my hip and ran forward trying to keep my presence unknown to the two tower guards. They were so focused on Logan that they didn’t see me zigzagging my way toward the group. I positioned myself beneath the tower as close as I dared without being seen and aimed my gun up at the shooter. He wasn’t too far away, and the tower wasn’t very high.
I knew that I would only have one shot at him before I gave myself away, but Logan needed my help and that was what I had come for. I aimed carefully, took a deep breath and pulled the trigger. This time, the shifter fell instantly to the ground. I wasn’t sure what kind of bullets were in my handgun, but they must be pretty powerful.
All the attention in the fight turned my direction. Logan stared at me and I couldn’t read the expression on his face. I couldn’t tell if he was angry or grateful, but I didn’t have time to think about it. The shifter that was in the other tower was taking aim on me, so I quickly ducked behind a statue of a lion in the front garden that would block his shot on me. I noticed the wolf that Logan was fighting was also turning his attention toward me.
I pulled out the Eliminator, knowing that it would take care of the wolf if it came close enough to attack me. And I was safe from the shooter behind the statue. But I worried for Logan. He could easily be shot by the tower guard and he still had to fight the remaining wolf shifter.
I knew I didn’t have the skill to turn and shoot at the tower guard, but I thought maybe I could keep him distracted enough to allow Logan to finish off the wolf on the ground. I kept the Eliminator close, but pulled out my hand gun and blindly fired up at the tower guard.
He fired down at me taking off a chunk of the statue above where I was crouched. I heard Logan roar up at him, but I stole a glance over at him, and
saw that my plan was working. He quickly had turned his attention to the wolf on the ground and they began to battle. I knew it would be over quickly.
I shot again up at the tower, and again I felt a part of the statue taken off as he shot at me. I looked again over to where Logan had been fighting, but he wasn’t there. Instead, I saw the dead body of the wolf shifter, lying lifeless on the ground.
I craned an inch or two further to see Logan climbing the tower quickly to get the tower shifter. I waited behind my statue until I knew it would be safe for me to move. Logan jumped from the tower, the wolf shifter still clutched between his teeth. It wasn’t particularly a sight I would have liked to see, but I think it was Logan’s way of saying, “This is what happens to people who attack those whom I love.”
I couldn’t help but smile a little.
*
Logan threw the body to the side and shifted back into human form. “Come on,” he said quickly grabbing my hand.
“Your shoulder,” I said seeing the blood dripping down his arm. “We need to stop and heal your shoulder.”
“I know,” he said, “but we need to get out of the open, too. There may be more guards.”
We walked stealthily around the outside of the mansion. I tried to be as quiet as possible knowing that around any corner there could be more shifters waiting for us, but as it turned out, we were alone. After we had made it all the way around twice, Logan was convinced we had at least a moment to catch our breath before the Big Dog would send his next wave of shifters.
We stopped in the most secluded area of the garden we could find and tried to re-group. “I’m going to need your help again, Tanisha,” Logan said indicating his shoulder.
“I thought you would,” I said scooting closer to him. I remembered how weeks ago, I had dug a bullet from his shoulder. It felt like a lifetime ago, but here I sat in the same position ready to do it again. He pulled his arm from his sleeve and wadded up something to bite down on.
“Make it quick,” he said his eyes pleading.
“I’ll try,” I said remembering the pain from last time.
I stuck my fingers into the wound and searched quickly for the hardness of a bullet. His body was warm and the tissue felt like it was melting around my fingers. I tried to ignore the sickening feeling in the pit of my stomach and instead focused on finding the bullet, which was much deeper than last time. My fingers were in further than my knuckles when I finally felt the hardness and cold foreign feeling of the bullet in his body. I wrapped my two fingers around the bullet and removed it from his flesh.
I finally chanced a look over at Logan to see the tears streaming down his face. I was glad I hadn’t looked at him sooner or I may have been unable to finish pulling out the bullet.
“Thanks,” Logan said removing the wad of fabric from his mouth.
I reached over and wiped the tears from his face. “You’re welcome.” I moved slightly away from him knowing that he would shift at least partly into werebear form in order to finish the healing process.
He shifted slightly and then placed his hand to his shoulder. His shoulder burned red as it healed until finally nothing remained of where the bullet hole had been. Even though I had seen him heal himself a few times before, I was shocked at how simple the process really was. And Logan made everything seem so effortless. Aside from pulling the bullet out of his wound, he made getting shot seem like it wasn’t really a big deal. I couldn’t even begin to imagine living in a world where injuries like that didn’t really matter. Once he was finished, he shifted back to full human form and looked over to me.
“Well we better finish what we’ve started, pass me my spare clothes..” he said reaching over and helping to wash away his blood from my hand.
“Yes, I suppose we still have some fighting to do.” I stood with Logan helping me to my feet.
Chapter7
We decided the easiest thing to do was to walk right in the front door. It was just as easy to walk in the front door as any other. So we cautiously walked up the front steps and tried the large oak door. Surprisingly it was unlocked.
Neither of us spoke, but we both knew that having the front door unlocked probably wasn’t the best sign for us. In my mind, having the front door unlocked meant one of two things. The first was that there would be more security to battle once we were inside, of which I wasn’t excited about. The second was that the Big Dog was so confident in his outside security that he didn’t feel the need to keep his doors locked.
Since we had defeated the outside security, I worried about the first more. Any security that existed on the inside could be far worse than what we had faced outside. If I were in the Big Dog’s shoes, I of course would save the best security for inside my home. It would only make sense to keep it that way.
We waited carefully for the next attack, knowing that it could come at any time or any moment. Both of us stood with guns out and in the ready position, unsure of what we might face. I had the Eliminator ready, and I wasn’t sure what kind of gun Logan was using, but it wasn’t any type of gun I had ever seen him use before.
We checked every room and every hallway of the first floor – nothing. Most of the rooms in the house were empty. I wondered why someone would have a house with so many rooms only to leave them empty. Others were sitting rooms with nice furniture that looked so uncomfortable that I thought I would never want to visit with anybody for any length of time sitting in something like that. And then there was a dining hall, kitchen and other typical rooms like that.
But overall, I was beginning to think that maybe there wasn’t anything else. The prospect of nothing almost scared me more. Was the Big Dog so powerful himself that he felt he didn’t need any security in his own home?
Who was this guy? I thought to myself.
Logan seemed to know the house pretty well as we continued to comb through the rooms and hallways of the mansion. The more we looked, the more convinced I became that there was nothing else in the house. But I also started to wonder more and more about where this guy was hiding. How big could this house really be?
“Come on, let’s check his study and his office,” Logan suggested. “That’s where he usually is.”
I didn’t have any objections or reasons to argue against it, so I followed along.
Logan grabbed my hand and we quickly moved up a flight of stairs. As we ran up the stairs and down the hallway, I pulled him back toward me.
“Now wait, Logan,” I said panting from the running. “I need to get one thing straight before we continue here.”
“What?” he said obviously confused.
“We aren’t heading into some sort of suicide mission again are we?” I asked smiling, but still part of me was asking seriously.
He started laughing.
“I am asking in all seriousness,” I said. “You don’t have some plan behind my back to tell me to go running back to the car and save myself this time while you blow up the house with you and the Big Dog in it? Or some other random explosion?”
“I don’t really have a plan at all at this point,” Logan said. “So I guess I can’t make that promise completely, but in all honesty, no, Tanisha, there is no suicide mission in the works this time.”
“Well I guess I will have to accept that, and be okay with it. But I guess no plan is better than a suicide plan,” I tried to smile knowing that we could heading into real trouble.
I let go of Logan and we continued walking down the hall.
Logan didn’t hesitate when we reached a door that obviously led to somewhere important. He opened the door and walked right in. The room was adorned with beautiful wall hangings and floor to ceiling bookshelves. I assumed this was the Big Dog’s study. It was empty and only a small lantern burned in the corner, which lead me to believe that someone had been there recently. A cigarette also sat in an ashtray on the desk, smoke still swirling up from its butt. Its owner had obviously left in a hurry. I whirled around the room to see if there was any other way
out of the room except through the door in which we had come.
I couldn’t see an alternative exit, but for all I knew one of the bookcases swung open like in the movies. The Big Dog was probably watching us from somewhere, hidden in a secret tunnel.
“He was here,” I said quietly.
“Yeah, I know,” Logan nodded his head. “But he’s not here now. He obviously doesn’t want to meet us here. He wants to determine the location of our meeting for some reason. The bastard. Come on. Let’s keep looking.”
We both walked out of the room and Logan pulled the door shut behind him. I started to walk back down the hall, but noticed that Logan was following me. I turned to see him standing next to the door with his ear up against the door. I waited knowing that he was listening to see if the Big Dog re-entered the room after we left.
After a full minute, Logan walked away from the door, obviously convinced that the Big Dog wasn’t going to return or if he was it was going to be after we had truly left.