“Olaf, head south,” I said. “I’ll take the pack coming in from the north. Rusty, send the other drone with Olaf.”
“What about you?” Rusty asked.
“Rearm the first drone if you have time,” I replied. “I may need the support.”
I switched my trigger finger back to the rifle and covered Olaf’s retreat over the bridge, then followed him at a backward run. When we reached the town side of the river, I turned to Yoofi.
“Blow the bridge!”
He nodded and aimed his staff. A growing ball of black energy swirled around the blade, then cannoned out. The impact didn’t so much blow the bridge as dissolve it, the span of wood and earth crumbling into the thrashing river. Several dogs that had started across the bridge plummeted and were swept away. The rest skidded to a stop at the far bank.
“Light ’em up!” I called.
A four-foot flame belched from the barrel of the .50 cal as Sarah worked the thumb trigger. Her aim with the heavy gun was true. I watched long enough to see three dogs explode before I turned and began sprinting to head off the south-bound pack. Above the hammering of the .50, I could hear savage barking ahead—along with the sound of thick nails scratching over wood.
“How are we looking?” I asked Rusty.
“They’re in town and spreading out, trying to get inside the houses.”
“Hear that, Olaf?” I said. “They’re mixed in with civilians now, so careful with your fire.”
Between grunted breaths, Olaf answered, “Yes, sir.”
I’d gone five blocks when I spotted several dogs around an adobe house. They stood on hind legs, front paws digging at the door and bricks of dried mud, teeth tearing at the wooden frames. Voices screamed inside the house, and now I heard the bawling of a child. When the wood of the front door splintered, the bawling turned to a piercing shriek.
Shit.
I knelt and sighted the dogs throwing their weight into the door. I squeezed off single shots, careful to keep the rounds from impacting the house. The three dogs that represented the most immediate threats went down, skull fragments and brain stuff littering the dirt road. The remaining dogs swung their heads toward me and narrowed their glowing green eyes.
I switched to the flame thrower, igniting them as they launched themselves at me. I then dropped them with short bursts of rifle fire until they were flaming corpses.
I proceeded block by block in this manner, picking off the dogs I could, baiting others into the street and hitting them with napalm before finishing them. Rusty directed me to the most immediate threats. Fortunately, no homes had been breached so far, and I noticed the dogs were staying away from the church, where a number of townspeople had taken refuge earlier in the day.
“How are the others doing?” I asked.
“Yoofi and Sarah are handling the west side,” Rusty answered. “And Olaf … well, he’s still standing. Not sure for how much longer. I’ve got his dogs in the drone’s sight but can’t get off a clean shot.”
“Olaf?” I said.
“I am all right,” he grunted underneath what sounded like a snarling pile. I could hear his blade crunching into their bodies. The man had the power to regenerate from bites and scratches, sure. But if the dogs managed to tear an arm off, there would be little to stop them from finishing the job. I doubted Olaf would be able to recover from total dismemberment.
“Call if you need backup,” I ordered.
“I will,” he managed.
“Boss, you got another pack coming up on your six,” Rusty said. “Like, right now!”
I’d mistaken the sounds behind me for those coming through my earpiece. Stupid. I wheeled as the first dog plowed into me. The dog wasn’t big, but his power surprised me. I fell back several steps. Before I could raise my weapon, half a dozen more dogs piled on until I felt like I was back in Waristan, challenging the Kabadi wolves for control of the pack.
Only this time I was armed and armored.
Jagged teeth dug into my arms and legs but couldn’t punch through the Kevlar. Another dog had its jaw around the front of my helmet, foam smearing the visor as the dog’s teeth worked madly for purchase.
I dropped my MP88 on its sling and tore my gloves away. My talons freed, I let my wolf take over. In a flurry of slashes, hair and flesh flew everywhere. When a dog went down, I crushed its head beneath my boot. My other boot broke through a rack of ribs. Within moments, I was the only canine still standing.
“Whoa,” Rusty said. “Bad. Ass.”
Panting, I cleaned my face shield off with a sleeve, retrieved my gloves, and brought my weapon back into firing position. “Where are the rest?” I asked.
“A few lone mutts to your east.” Rusty directed me to them, and I finished them off with precise shots to the head.
From there, I sprinted south to help Olaf. Sarah and Yoofi had taken care of the dogs at the river, and I ordered Yoofi to join me. I met him near the town square. We found Olaf two blocks later. He had fought his way from beneath the pack and was torching more dogs with napalm. With half his shirt ripped away and his left arm soaked in blood, he was a mangled mess, but he insisted he was all right. Together, the three of us put down the remaining undead mutts.
As Olaf and Yoofi peered around, I listened for any more padded footfalls or frothing breaths.
“That’s all of ’em,” Rusty informed us.
“Nothing more coming from the woods?” I asked.
“That’s a negative.”
For the first time I let my shoulders relax slightly. “Let’s head back to the river. We’ll have Sarah take a look at you, Olaf, and then we’ll regroup.” I couldn’t imagine the vampires had spawned any more undead dogs—we had put down more than a hundred. But the canine assault could have been intended to soften up the town’s defenses for their own arrival.
“Uh, boss, scratch that,” Rusty said. “We’ve got something else.”
I looked all around. “Vamps?”
“No, a frigging bull. At first I thought the shooting had spooked it from a nearby field, but the damn thing just buried its horns into a house. And it’s backing up for another charge.”
“Nicho’s bull,” I said in realization. “Do you have a clean shot?”
“Not without taking down some infrastructure with people inside.”
“Get me there,” I said.
Houses blurred past as Rusty steered me through the streets. I had started off a half mile from the attacking creature, though, and Rusty’s updates weren’t encouraging: “He’s broken inside the home … Okay, he’s back out in the street … Shit, he’s got something in his mouth.”
“A kid?” I panted, trying to push myself harder, faster.
“Yeah, bull’s got him by the arm, and he’s hightailing it towards the woods.”
Streaks of light darted around the edges of my vision as I tried to find another gear. The undead bull was taking the child to the vampires. I couldn’t let him. Seconds later, I was passing the breached home. A man and woman had emerged into the street, staring in horror down the dust trail left by the departing bull.
“Mi hijo!” the woman screamed. “Mi hijo!”
We’ll get your boy back, I thought. One way or another.
I struggled to recall my high school Spanish as I jabbed a finger at the neighboring house. “A dentro!” Inside!
I was past them before I could see whether they complied.
“Bull’s about two blocks from the woods,” Rusty said. “And man, is he moving.”
I skidded around a corner. Ahead I could see the bull’s tail lashing back and forth between a massive pair of flanks. Through the dust, I could just make out the child—or his dangling legs, anyway. He was short enough that his feet weren’t dragging over the road. Still, I couldn’t risk a shot. I’d have to catch the bull and bring him down.
I had closed to fifty meters when the bull broke into the trees and began churning uphill.
No you don’t, you son of a bitc
h.
Headlights flashed from behind me, illuminating the line of trees in pale light. I recognized the sound of the engine: our van. It ground to a skidding stop as I entered the woods. The doors cannoned open and my teammates piled out. I was about to warn them not to fire when Yoofi let out a familiar scream.
And just like that, the bull and the boy disappeared.
15
“They’re winning, dammit,” I growled as I paced the room.
Sarah, Yoofi, and I had returned to our compound, where I sent Yoofi to bed. He was still trembling from whatever Dabu had felt before the bull disappeared, and he was in no shape to assist us. Rusty monitored the surveillance system, with orders to report any and all activity. Olaf had recovered fully from his bite wounds and was now patrolling the streets, leaving Sarah and me to strategize. But Sarah was absorbed in her laptop, which she’d set up at what had become our planning table downstairs.
“I wouldn’t use the word ‘winning,’” she said absently. “They didn’t make the town know death as they promised.”
“Yeah, because they got their kid.” I remembered the horrible image of the boy dangling from the undead bull’s mouth.
“It could have been worse.”
“And it could have been a hell of a lot better.”
I stopped in front of the wall map. Zeroing in on the parade ground at the old military base, I reviewed the mission in my mind for the umpteenth time. The weaponry, positioning, and communication had been sound. The rest of the team had performed capably, which I had been sure to commend them for. The failure was on me. I had underestimated our opponent. I believed Yoofi’s apparition would work because a similar spell cast by Prof Croft had gotten us past a pair of soldiers into a military base a few weeks earlier. But we weren’t dealing with humans anymore.
“Maybe we should have used a real child,” Sarah said.
I looked at her in disbelief. She was still staring into her laptop screen. “A child isn’t bait,” I said.
“It would have improved the odds of success.”
“So would nuking the entire province.”
She glanced up. “We’re talking about one child. We had the parade ground covered.”
“We’re talking about one child with two parents,” I said, my voice growing a surly edge. I was thinking of the parents of the just-abducted child, the way the mother had screamed. “Legion could never have guaranteed that child’s safety, covered or not. Don’t bring it up again.”
“I’m just suggesting that at times we need to consider taking calculated risks.”
“How can any risk be ‘calculated’ when we still don’t know what in the hell we’re up against?” I shouted.
I had rarely lost my temper as a Special Ops Captain, but that was before the Blue Wolf had become my copilot. Prof Croft warned that I could lose control in times of stress, and right now my needle was in the red. I was angry, mostly with myself. Underestimating our opponent, losing another child to the vampires, losing a teammate earlier in the day. Though I’d held deep reservations about joining a mercenary squad, I had believed in my ability to lead them.
That belief was being challenged right now.
“What do you think I’m trying to do?” Sarah replied, her own voice developing an edge. “We need to expand on what we know so we can act accordingly. We need more information.”
“From where? The internet?”
The frustrated pinch of her lips told me that was exactly where she had been looking. I took a calming breath, walked up to the table, and closed her laptop. She tensed as though she were going to flip it back open, but then she sat back.
“Centurion has nothing on what we’re facing,” I said, “and anything you find on the internet is going to be suspect at best. I know someone we can contact, an expert in the field. He may be able to help.”
“Who?”
“His name’s Everson Croft. He lives in Manhattan and consulted for the mayor’s eradication program. He was in the clip you showed us on day one, wizard versus ghoul. I happened to work with him a few weeks ago. I have his contact info.”
“No,” Sarah said.
“No what?”
“No, you can’t contact him.”
Anger spread hot over my face. “Why not?”
“Centurion has to vet outside experts, and there isn’t time.”
“Given the urgency of the situation, I’m sure they’ll make an exception.”
But Sarah just shook her head again. “Even though we’re on assignment, the Legion Program is technically still in beta testing. The workings of the program remain classified. Even El Rosario’s officials had to sign nondisclosure agreements.”
“Croft has no interest in stealing Centurion’s trade secrets and selling them to the highest bidder.”
“The policies and procedures are clear on the matter,” she continued. “I’m assuming you’ve read them?”
I ignored the not-so-subtle dig. “How about we call Purdy then?”
“He’ll say the same thing I did. He’ll just do it more nicely.” She reopened her laptop and leaned forward, her lenses glowing white again.
“And if I call Croft anyway?”
“I’ll have no choice but to report you.”
I stared at her for a few seconds. “You’re a real piece of work, you know that?”
“I’m just doing my job,” she replied, hammering the keys. “A job I’ve worked most of my life to get to. I’m not here to be anyone’s friend.”
Though I attempted another calming breath, my voice remained thick with emotion. “We’re running out of options. By refusing to seek outside help, you’re crippling our chances of ever seeing those kids alive again, not to mention Takara. Same with ending the threat. What happened to your talk of calculated risks?”
“I meant risks not covered in Centurion SOP.”
I barked out a laugh. “Written by compliance officers who have never been shot at much less had to face down a vampire or a pack of undead dogs. Maybe that’s your problem. Maybe you only have an encyclopedic understanding of what these things are, but no firsthand knowledge of their true evil. When I was twelve, three vamps killed my friend. You’ve read the account—it’s in my file. What you didn’t read was how they laughed while they were doing it.”
Sarah raised her face, eyes hard behind her lenses.
“Maybe that should go into the policies and procedures manual,” I said. “A requirement that all future members have had at least one encounter with the kind of monsters they’ll be facing.”
“I do have experience,” she said quietly.
I’d been prepared to dismiss whatever she said next, but Sarah’s eyes had changed. For the first time they glimmered with emotion. I felt my breathing cycle down. “What happened?” I asked at last.
She averted her eyes and shook her head. “It’s not important.”
I took the seat across from her, Captain Wolfe again. “I want to hear it.”
She stared at the laptop screen until I thought she was tuning me out. “I was fourteen,” she said after another moment. “My parents were missionaries, and we were living in a remote village in the Philippines. We had been there for almost a year when we heard rumors of a disease outbreak in a neighboring village. People contracting fevers and dying. My parents didn’t seem too concerned for us, or maybe they just hid it well. We had been immunized against most tropical and communicable diseases before arriving. My parents had my younger sister and me wear surgical masks as a precaution, though.
“One night, I was awoken by screaming. I looked out my bedroom window and saw a woman facedown on the dirt road that ran past our house. She looked like she’d fallen. I remember seeing a red high-heeled shoe a few feet behind her. People were crouched over her as she screamed. At first I thought they were trying to help her up, but then I realized they were eating her alive.”
“Jesus,” I whispered.
“Lights went on in the houses around ours. V
illagers began to emerge. They shouted at the people attacking the woman like they knew them, but the people never looked up from her. And more of them were coming, shambling down the dirt road. They didn’t look right. Dressed in dirty suits and dresses. Sores on their faces. Some of them carried machetes.”
“Zombies,” I said.
Sarah gave a small nod. “The Filipino word is sombi, and that’s what the villagers started to say. My father burst into the room and pulled me from the window and my sister from her bed. As he rushed us to the back of the house, I could hear more people screaming and then the wet hacks of machete blades. My father led us down into a canned food cellar, where he told us to stay. We weren’t to turn on the light or make a sound. He said a quick prayer, his voice raw in a way I’d never heard, then kissed our foreheads. When he left, he closed the cellar door and padlocked my sister and me inside.”
“Listen, you don’t have to go on,” I said. “I get the picture. I’m sorry I questioned your experience.”
Sarah continued staring at the laptop screen as if the events were playing out in front of her. “The screams went on for a long time. I covered my ears and told my sister to do the same, but I could still hear them. And then windows began to break in our house. Something grabbed the cellar door. I remember the sound of it rattling in the frame. With my ears still plugged, I started chanting, ‘Go away. Go away. Go away’—loud enough that I couldn’t hear anything else. I must have done that for hours, waiting for the moment a hand would close around my neck, and my sister and I would end up like the woman in the street.”
I noticed that Rusty had edged closer to the door of the office to hear better.
“Finally, a light flared over my closed eyes. A hand grabbed my wrist. I knew it was either my father or a zombie. I wished for the first, but expected the second. The hand was wet. When I opened my eyes, I saw a man in an olive green uniform, the front of his shirt spattered with blood. He was shining a flashlight at me and eventually worked my finger from my ear so he could talk to me. He was a member of the Philippine National Army. He was going to take my sister and me someplace safe, but he needed to blindfold us first. He didn’t have sores like the zombies, so I trusted him. He covered our eyes with bandanas and knotted them behind our heads. As he led us up the stairs and into the morning light, I realized I could see through a small seam at the bottom of the blindfold. Around our feet was blood and broken glass. I smelled smoke. In the distance I could hear bursts of automatic gunfire.
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