The inner door opened suddenly. A shot rang out before my bullet-killer spell could take hold, and Mike fell back into my arms.
20
Facing us on the other side of the doorway were six men in camouflage uniforms. Each was wearing a gas mask and had a weapon pointed at us. Farther away, a mixed group of civilians were huddled against the wall, trying to stay out of the line of fire.
The sound of impotent clicks as the firing pins landed on duds was sweet. My spell had finally worked.
The scent of cordite around one showed that he was the trigger-happy idiot who had shot Mike. I dropped Mike and stepped over the threshold as each man cycled his weapon again to clear the duds.
My eyes shifted as the iris expanded to push away the white sclera, turning my gaze feral. Claws extended to become weapons as my tongue slid along extending fangs. I held the transformation back just enough to leave my mouth in shape to speak.
One step brought me within striking distance of the man who had fired. He was short, like the guard outside, but didn't have the former's muscle mass. I smacked the useless rifle out of his hands, wrapped my clawed hand around his throat and squeezed. His eyes popped out of his skull and he tried to beat on my arms for release. Even at death's door, he was smart enough to know not to try to punch my face and risk my fangs. I pulled him in close, so we were nose to nose.
His last sight was my snarling face. His neck broke under the pressure of my grip and his body flopped and jerked. He voided himself as he expired, and I threw his corpse away. It landed among some desks. The group of civilians scuttled backward to evade the corpse.
The clicks continued as the remaining five tried in vain to find a live round. I stepped closer, enjoying the scent of fear, eager to finish my work.
Then I heard a groan from Mike. Thinking of Dr. Patrizia, I decided to incapacitate, not kill, the remaining soldiers. If Mike survived, the one who had shot him had already paid with his life.
But ‘incapacitate’ didn't mean I would be gentle. I pulled my claws back and went for them with fists, knees, and elbows, only using claws to cut the straps of their gas masks. They were nowhere near as tough as the juiced-up Special Forces men I had beaten before. I concentrated on damaging their joints—breaking legs at the knee joint, arms at the shoulder or elbow—and delivering stunning blows to their heads.
In seconds, the group was on the ground, most moaning and groaning in pain and shock. Only one was lucid. He had pushed himself up with his one good arm and propped against the wall.
"You should be dead!" he said. "We all fired at you."
"Too bad the government insists on getting ammo from the lowest bidder," I responded.
I stepped over to Mike and examined him. He wasn't bleeding, his breathing was normal, and his eyes were clear.
"Mike, you're alive!" I said. "Can you get up?"
"Yeah, I think so." It surprised me how quickly he got up. He held his rifle up, and we saw the reason for his survival; the single shot had struck the metal receiver. The force of the shot had knocked him back into me.
"I'm glad you're alive. Why didn't you get up sooner?"
He looked at me in puzzlement. "It was only a few seconds from the time you dropped me to the floor until they were all out of commission. I was afraid to get near while you were in a killing rage."
"That wasn't a killing rage," I said. "Wait until we find the team that tried to run our car off the road. Then you'll see how rage looks."
"These guys aren't our targets?" asked Mike.
I grabbed three of the rifles. "No, these are just a guard force."
I stepped over to the steel door. I slid a rifle barrel into the vertical gap between the heavy door and the jamb. With a grunt, I bent the barrel into a U-shape. I tossed that rifle to the ground and picked up another. I wanted to make sure that even if someone came up with fresh ammo, they would be no danger to us.
While I worked, Mike was talking to the lucid soldier. "Sergeant, this doesn't have to end badly for the rest of your team. We just want to find those responsible for trying to kill us this morning by running our car off the road."
"I don't know what you're talking about. This is a classified communications facility. We don't run assassination squads out of here."
Finished destroying the rifles, I stepped over and squatted down in front of him. "You know I can tell when you're lying, right?"
I extended a razor-sharp claw and stroked his cheek. "It's the smell. When people lie, their stress goes up and their scent changes. My nose is sensitive enough to detect that. Just like I can scent those five men who came after us today. They walked through here less than an hour ago. Just tell us where they are. We'll take care of business and we'll all go our separate ways."
"If you can sniff them out like a fucking bloodhound, then you don't need me to tell you where they are," the sergeant said.
"Yeah, I could do that. And maybe run into more of your idiots we'd have to take out. If you tell us, it'll save some lives and some time. Your team might appreciate that time, time they don't have to suffer."
"Just tell them, Rick," said a blond woman in the group of civilians.
I stood and stepped over to her. Squatting down had been a bad idea: I had a strong urge to pee but had to hold it until we were done.
I leaned in close to her and sniffed; she shuddered at my closeness, and the scent of her fear spiked. Fear and something else.
I tilted my head and asked, "Does Rick know yet?"
"Know what?" But her hands jerked to cover her belly protectively.
"Congratulations, Rick," I said. "It's a girl." Damn office romances seemed to crop up wherever I went.
I shifted my face back to nearly human to seem friendly. I rubbed my huge belly and smiled at the woman. "I have a soft spot for pregnant women. Which is why I will make sure those bastards that tried to kill me and my unborn children never do it again."
"It's a girl?" muttered Rick.
"Yes, Rick. And if you tell me where those assassins are, you'll get medical treatment. Hell, you might even heal up enough to hold your daughter when she's born."
"Tell her, Rick," his girlfriend pleaded.
But Rick shook his head stubbornly. "The entire base is on lockdown and the security teams will be here soon. There's no escape for you terrorists."
Mike nodded in agreement. "It looks like we're stuck here."
"We're all stuck here until they decide the best way to solve this is to drop a bomb on this building," I said.
"Oh, shit," said another civilian. "They're down on the seventh basement level, near the computer server room."
The new speaker was grossly fat, with an acne-scarred complexion, greasy hair, and a scruffy beard. He wore wrinkled khakis and a dirty MIT hoodie that strained around his belly.
Rick shot a look at him that promised retribution.
MIT-hoodie said, "Piss off, GI Joe. I didn't join this organization to get killed safeguarding assholes who thought it was a good idea to target a pregnant woman." He nodded at Rick's girlfriend. "You should worry about getting Janet out of here alive."
"She's a terrorist," growled Rick.
"Says who? Maybe she got shanghaied like I did."
"Ashton! You can't help them. They're terrorists," said Janet. She looked at Ashton in disgust. Janet was vacillating—she’d gone from pleading for Rick to help us to arguing with Ashton against the idea in seconds. I'll never understand humans.
Ashton shook his head and turned to Mike. "Will you promise not to kill anyone else?"
Mike pointed at me. "Ask her. She's the boss."
"I promise to exact revenge only on the five men who tried to run our car off the road." I looked around the crowd of cowering civilians. "But if anyone attacks or points a weapon at us, then they'll die too."
Ashton nodded. "Okay. I'll take you down to that level." He lifted the badge that hung on a lanyard around his neck and picked up a computer bag. "Only one of these red passes ca
n get you through the doors."
I sniffed. Ashton stank of unwashed human and leftover food, but not of betrayal. "Let's go."
Rick struggled and tried to rise, only to fall back to the ground. "If I could get up, I'd kick your ass."
"You've always been a puppet, Rick," said Ashton. "Now your strings are cut."
Ashton led us on a zig-zag course through the building. One elevator took us down two floors, then we had to cross several hallways to another elevator. That took us down three floors, then another jog to a third elevator that took us down two more floors.
Ashton was breathing heavily and sweating as we neared our destination. "Thanks for trusting me," he blurted.
"Why do you say that?"
"You followed me without asking any questions. I could have led you into a trap."
Should I tell him I could smell that we were getting closer to my attackers? "You seem trustworthy," I said.
We passed a bathroom, and I took a minute to pee. What a relief. No more revenge missions until the kids are born.
We continued our trek and finally stopped outside a vault-like door that made the ground-floor door look puny.
"Don't worry, I've got access," said Ashton.
He waved his card in front of a card reader and stuck his index finger into a scanner.
"Access denied," said a robotic voice.
"That can't be right. I have access to every section of the building."
Mike said, "They must have called ahead and then locked down from inside." He looked at me. "Can you get through this door?"
"Let me try zapping the keypad."
"It didn't work upstairs."
"Don't be so negative." I touched the keypad and gave it the slightest touch of lightning.
"Security alert, security alert, security alert," blared the robotic voice.
"Damn." I zapped it with a larger jolt of electricity and the voice died.
I rubbed my fingers around the edge of the door. "I don't see any keyholes or emergency access ports, so I can't pick the lock."
"The keyhole is under the scanner," said Ashton. "It can only to be used in emergencies."
"Underneath? I don't see any—"
"Mounted underneath the scanner box. Behind it. You have to break the box to get to it. They told us to use a fire ax in an emergency."
"Don't need a fire ax," I said. I grabbed the steel box and ripped it off the wall. Revealed underneath was a keyhole as big as the end of a Coke can.
"You think you can pick that lock?" asked Ashton. "That's the kind of lock used in missile silos."
I pulled out my charm lock-pick. "I'm pretty good at picking locks. I used to work with a stage magician."
"But that's tiny. It's too small to do anything," said Ashton.
"Mike, please take Ashton over there. I don't want to give away any secrets."
Mike herded Ashton away, and I got to work with the magical lock-pick. Just like upstairs, the charm changed shape, growing into a T-handle probe which I inserted into the keyhole.
It took a bit of time, but the handle finally gave that tingle and vibrated in my grip. I turned the handle and unlocked the vault door. I prepped my bullet-killer spell and tugged at the door.
As I started pulling, Mike jumped in front of me and held the door.
"Let's send Ashton in first, just in case he wasn't a hundred percent honest with us," said Mike.
Ashton froze and started sweating. "Go ahead, Ashton," said Mike. "They won't shoot; they know you."
"I know them. They will shoot."
I put my nose next to the barely cracked door and sniffed. "They're in here and I don't smell any weapons, just electronics."
"Go ahead, Ashton," said Mike. "It's safe."
"I'm supposed to trust my life to her nose? No way!"
I reached out and grabbed Ashton by the back of his collar and belt. With a grunt, I lifted his nearly three hundred pounds into the air. "Pull the door open, Mike. Ashton here volunteered to lead the way."
We stepped through the door, using Ashton as a shield. Inside the room was a large conference table facing a blank video screen. There was a small camera and a Polycom device mounted under the screen.
My attackers were standing around the table. Three were unarmed and two held rifles that looked like something from a science-fiction TV show. On their backs were packs with cables running from the backpacks to where a receiver would be on a normal rifle. One shooter stood to the left of the table and the rest were on the right.
"Step inside, Luna," said one of the rifle-wielding soldiers. He was the African-American man I had almost beheaded with the crushed .45. He had a lanyard around his neck with a red access card. The name on the card read Walker.
Still confident, I took a step forward, and they brought their rifles up.
My confidence ebbed as the door swung shut behind us and the video screen lit up to reveal a shaven-headed African-American man in a general's uniform.
It was the demon-ridden monster who had imprisoned my father and tried to kill me on several occasions.
"Hello, Luna," said Marcus.
21
I lowered Ashton to let his feet take his weight, but maintained my grip on his hoodie and belt, keeping him between me and the weapons.
"Well, it's funny meeting you here, you scum-sucking demon," I said. "I thought you'd never return after I chased you back to Hell." I kept a tight grip on Ashton's clothes so he couldn't see how much my hands shook. At least Marcus couldn't smell my fear over the video link.
Marcus smiled that unnerving grin of his. It was just a little too wide, and the brilliant white teeth it revealed were just a little too sharp, to be human. "Think of my recent absence as a vacation, a time away to regroup and restore. Now I'm back, better than ever."
"You set this up?" I nodded at the team around the table. "These idiots with their remote-controlled car toys and these electric pop-guns?"
"That I did," said Marcus, grinning even wider. "I think you'll find these 'electric pop-guns' will be effective even against you."
"Good thing I have Ashton here to block any shots."
"Bitch, you were just lucky your Tesla's a piece of crap that died when we took control," snarled Walker. He caressed the weapon as if it were a lover. "These rifles fire hypersonic rounds that will go through Ashton's fat ass like a bullet through a water balloon."
Ashton's legs buckled, and I had to hold him up.
Then Mike laughed loudly and said, "Go peddle your bullshit somewhere else, Walker."
Walker pointed his rifle at Mike. Mike ignored him and turned to me. "If they really had hypersonic rounds, firing one off inside this steel box would kill everyone with ricochets."
"You've seen these before?" I asked, hoping Mike would take the hint. I needed to know more about these weapons to counter them.
"My team attended a demo for these. The backpack's a big battery that feeds the magnetic coils around the carbon fiber barrel. It fires a round made from steel so the magnets can propel it down the barrel. The rounds are heavy, but have to be slow to keep from burning out the barrel. There's no way the round is hypersonic. Walker's either lying or stupid."
"Why not both?" said Ashton in a small voice, surprising everyone. "Mike's right, the specs on those rifles are for subsonic rounds with steel sabot surrounding a payload." He shook his head and muttered, "I don't know why they specified silver for the payload; that was a stupid decision."
Marcus looked pissed that Ashton had ruined his surprise: that these rounds were specially made to kill werewolves. He opened his mouth and said, "Shoot the bitch!"
Almost too late, I had enough info to nullify the electromagnetic forces around the barrels. As the fields surged, I squeezed earth magnetism around the barrels in an equal and opposite direction. There was a loud snap and a sudden silence as the hum from the electromagnets stopped.
A lone round dropped from the barrel of the weapon held by the shooter on my right. It r
olled across the floor until it touched my foot.
"Thanks, Ashton," I said as I released him. I knelt down and picked up the round, popping it into my purse as a souvenir.
"For what? I did nothing," he said as I stood back up. "The weapons overloaded and shut down. The breakers will reset in twenty-five seconds."
Twenty-five seconds? Could I recover enough to do that electromagnetic trick again in twenty-five seconds? Probably not.
I scrunched up my toes and stepped out of my shoes, flipping them back toward the door. That should keep them from getting covered in blood. I slipped my purse strap off and tossed it to land next to my shoes.
Extending my hand and foot claws felt so good. Letting the wolf kill these assassins would feel even better.
"Mike, take out the shooter on your side," I said. "I've got the rest."
My shooter froze in place, trying to reset his weapon in vain. I almost felt sorry for him as I raised my leg and used my foot claws to eviscerate him. It doused me in his blood and entrails, which excited the wolf inside me even more. We could finally unleash our true nature.
As I stepped past the shooter, already dead but still standing, I reached over and slashed the cable of his pop-gun. My inner wolf gave a silent chuff of approval at the move. Something she would not have thought of. The human side thinks ahead and plans; the wolf's side is pure savagery. Together, we are nearly unstoppable.
The other three soldiers were well-trained and very tough. They tried attacking me together, but one was a microsecond ahead of the others. I slashed his throat out with a clawed hand and pushed him into his colleagues, ruining their attack. One froze; the other bounced back several feet, then caught his balance and prepared to attack again.
Holding my victim up by his slashed throat, only the pressure of my hand keeping him from bleeding out immediately, I wriggled the claws of my left hand. Then I lifted the soldier in my right hand so he was on tip-toe and clawed his crotch, removing his genitals. I tossed the bloody lump of cloth and flesh over my shoulder and smiled my wolf's grin at the remaining soldier.
Lycan Legacy - 4 - 5 - 6: Princess - Progeny - Paladin: Book 4 - 5 - 6 in the Lycan Legacy Series Page 42