Ways of Darkness (Wolves of the Apocalypse Book 2)

by LC Champlin

  Thud-crunch!

  “Get him!” Esau yelled, face as red as his vehicle.

  An instant later, Jeremy barreled around the same corner Red had rounded. “Nathan, go!”

  Never let a crisis go to waste. Too far to the Genesis—Wait, the Acura! Nathan snatched the keys from the ground—and from a rivulet of blood—then swung into the SUV.

  He glanced left as he felt for the ignition. Jeremy had gone for a tackle, but Red dropped his weight and an elbow. The strike caught Jeremy between the shoulder blades. A knee to the gut followed. Flash of a tomahawk as it arced down. The spike end buried in Jeremy’s thigh.

  “Molon labe!” Nathan yelled through the open window as he gunned the engine. “Come and take it, fucker.” The devil would burn for killing Carolyn.

  Gunfire thundered outside as Albin provided suppressive fire.

  As Nathan accelerated east along Davit, toward Shell Parkway and away from the police barricade, he reached for the HT. “Sarge, do you copy?”

  “What the fuck now?”

  “Your old boss is on my tail. He wants the ReMOT. I’m about to head to Heron Court Apartments if you want a word with him.”

  “Isn’t that just fascinating. Out.”

  “Fuck,” Nathan muttered, clenched the HT and the wheel. The Acura careened around the corner, from Shell onto southbound Redwood Shores Parkway.

  A police car roared across the road in an attempt to block him. “Shit!” Brake, swerve, over the sidewalk, with a foot of clearance between vehicles.

  Next up: “Albin, do you copy?”

  “Yes, sir. Seir is in pursuit. The police are arriving at our area, per the watchmen.”

  “Good. I need you to oversee getting the injured to medical care. Have Amanda get the other people to safety and alert the authorities. I’m going to Heron Court.”

  “It would be wiser if she and I exchanged roles, sir.”

  “Albin, do what I ask. Trust me.”

  Pause. Then, “Yes, sir,” in a disgruntled, tail-lashing tone. The words couldn’t have conveyed more resistance if he’d said no.

  Radio off. “That’s why I’m getting you out of the picture for a minute, my friend.”

  Nathan swung into Heron’s parking lot—and through a line of crime-scene tape—where he’d confronted Eduardo. “Where the fuck are the police?” No cruisers, MRAPs, or barricades. “Typical. And this is who they want to protect the neighborhood?”

  Releasing the seatbelt, he reached into the passenger-side footwell for his shoulder satchel. He groped inside until his fingers brushed the flash-bang canister.

  Next, the ReMOT in its case. He flicked off the clips that held the device in its rubber shell.

  “Let there be light, says Hati.”

  Chapter 106

  A Fronte Praecipitium a Tergo Lupi

  Champion - Fall Out Boy

  Outside the late Carolyn’s residence, Albin joined Amanda as she held pressure on Jeremy Nelson’s hemorrhaging thigh. While Nelson groaned in pain, Albin undid the man’s belt for a tourniquet.

  Bridges trotted over. “I found the Sierra’s key on that big guy with the broken jaw.” Not awaiting instruction, he continued toward the truck.

  “Amanda.” Albin glanced up as he tightened the belt around Nelson’s thigh. The man hissed. “Mr. Serebus wants you to see that your neighbors remain in their homes for safety. Also, alert the authorities that he is going to Heron Court Apartments.”

  “Got it.”

  Mr. Serebus’s judgment of late left something to be desired. Perhaps the effect of the opioid, or the strain of constantly maneuvering against opponents, diminished his reasoning ability.

  After backing the Sierra up to the Good Samaritans and their patient, Bridges hopped out to assist with maneuvering Nelson into the truck’s bed. The trio manhandled Eduardo’s driver, who had yet to regain consciousness, in beside the tomahawk victim.

  While Bridges drove, Albin kept watch on the survivors. As they rode in silence, Albin’s thoughts looped the image of Carolyn falling after Mr. Serebus’s shot. He fired by a tragic accident . . . Correct?

  Then Bridges’s words echoed: He tried to kill Ken in his own Oshiro.

  Was it truly an accident? doubt asked. How can you be sure?

  ++++++++++++

  Cannibals milled in the shadows of the Heron Court parking lot, but none seemed to notice Nathan. They acted . . . fatigued.

  He edged along the central row of apartments, the course he’d taken when he left Eduardo to the Dalits. Incompetent fuckers. If you wanted something done right, you had to do it yourself. “I should have just shot him. Fuck me for being a nice guy.”

  Rrrrrrrr! Red’s Ram, right on schedule.

  On his way to the administration building, Nathan passed the playground, where dead cannibals lay as if they’d grown exhausted during playing and needed a nap. He ducked into the office as Esau trotted around the corner.

  Up the stairs, out onto the roof of the first floor.

  “You fucker!” Red roared at him from near the parking lot, heedless of the Dalits that populated the area.

  Nathan eyed the mercenary. Surely the bastard brought reinforcements. “I have the ReMOT.” Which still lacked active control buttons. “It’s hidden. Do I have your word you’ll leave me, my people, and Redwood Shores alone if I hand it over?”

  “Fucking stupid question, boy!” Looking both ways, Esau sprinted across the yard, toward the admin building and Nathan.

  “Don’t come any closer.” The Glock locked on Red. “If I miss you, I’ll destroy the ReMOT instead.” If the control options didn’t turn active soon, he might be tempted to do just that.

  That stopped the Goat’s charge. “You ain’t right in the head.”

  “I turned on the broadcast. Nothing happened, as you can see.” Sweeping gesture to the Dalits. They fidgeted in twos and threes around the apartment complex. “There aren’t any active controls on the ReMOT, either.”

  Red gaped at him. “After all that fuckery, you turned it on?”

  “I wanted to see if the claim was true.”

  “So hand it over instead of climbing onto a roof like a scared squirrel.” Red grinned up at him.

  Was Sarge going to show up or not? It didn’t matter; the authorities would arrive soon. Time for distraction B, then. Sat phone in one hand, pistol in the other, Nathan hit redial.

  “Is this still the Red Devil Goats?”

  “No, but I have the ReMOT.”

  “What do you plan to do with it?”

  “I’ll trade it for information. I want the truth about the cannibal outbreak and the frequency broadcast.”

  Below, the barrel of Red’s carbine climbed. “Hurry the fuck up! These cum-suckers are getting antsy.”

  If he meant the Dalits, then he had a point. They stamped their feet as their heads swung back and forth. Spasms rippled down their bodies, while their extremities and faces twitched. They resembled junkies in need of a fix.

  “Very well,” the buyer decided. “The Dalits did not go precisely to plan. There are differing opinions in our collective, but we are trying to rectify the mistakes of our colleagues. They have sympathetic parties in the government, even as we do. Therefore, contacting the authorities was out of the question.

  “If the ReMOT’s transmission had been allowed to synchronize with the other broadcasts, it would have stopped the cannibal outbreak as we know it. Now, as per our agreement, give our operative the asset.”

  Around the complex, the cannibals went still. Then they threw their heads back. Perversely, the myth of turkeys drowning in rain as they looked up at the storm came to mind.

  Sssssssaaaaahhhhh! From every direction, blending and rising like a gale.

  Cold washed over Nathan, and with it, realization. The broadcast had affected the cannibals. But in what way? Only the ReMOT could answer that.

  “Are you still on the line?”


  “I have no doubt it would have stopped the cannibal outbreak ‘as we know it.’ Forgive me if I don’t believe you would be benevolent overlords with an army of pseudo-zombies at your disposal.”

  “Believe as you like. But know that due to the lack of synchronization, the broadcast will have caused a heightening of the subjects’ predatory drive.”

  Call ended.

  “It’s a lie,” Nathan murmured, numb. Heightened aggression would likely have occurred with the synchronization of frequency transmissions as well. The difference? The client would have directed the cannibals’ bloodlust.

  Below, the Dalits began to coalesce in groups of up to ten.

  Attention on them, Red announced, “A’ight, that’s it. If you don’t hand it over, I’m a-gonna have my snipers blow your limbs off one by one.” A bluff, certainly.

  “Then you’ll never find the ReMOT.”

  The squads of cannibals ranged themselves around the complex. Then they advanced on the humans at its center.

  “Y’know, at this point I’m gonna just shoot you.” Carbine up—

  “Do you want it or not?” Heart thudding, Nathan eased toward the edge of the roof.

  “Stop!” Sarge. Wearing a black face shield and leveling his AR on Red, he emerged from the garage bordering the central lot.

  “Motherfucker!” Esau bawled as he turned his weapon toward Sarge, forcing the defector behind cover.

  Two squads of Dalits advanced on the Goats. The monsters spread out to form twin rows, one in front of the other, like riot police moving against a mob. They stalked with the grace of predators and the coordination of a wolf pack.

  Nathan tried to swallow, couldn’t. Then gold eyes blazed in his mind’s void.

  “Fetch!” The Goats looked up as he slung the ReMOT’s case over the edge of the building, sending it rotating like a Frisbee. Out, out—and down, directly into the cannibal lines’ center.

  Chapter 107

  Normal for the Spider

  Scream - Breakaway

  Before the ReMOT case landed, Nathan was dropping onto the lower roof. He scrambled through the window, down the stairs, then out the front door. Outside, he hugged the wall of the buildings that formed the complex’s eastern border.

  Behind, gunfire hammered. More joined it from . . . the roofs? Fuck, Red wasn’t bluffing about the snipers.

  Ssssssaaaahhhh!

  A gang of ten oil-drooling monstrosities filled the sidewalk to the parking lot, blocking Nathan’s escape route.

  Ssssssaaaahhhh! From behind, amid the gunshots.

  Surrounded.

  Bracing himself, he raised his .45. It roared as he picked off the first monster. Blood pulsing from the gaping head wound, the abomination fell. The rest ignored their comrade’s corpse as they began loping toward Nathan.

  Make a hole in the line! But as one fell, another swung into its place.

  Something dark and low to the ground dashed behind the horde. White teeth flashed as it lunged at one of the Dalits.

  “Judge!”

  The dog’s jaws closed around a cannibal’s arm, dragging the monster down.

  Arms up to protect his face, CG low, Nathan barreled ahead. One dove at him, but he spun clear.

  “Come on, Judge!”

  The conflict in Heron’s center drew other Dalits. A good thing, since it called them away from the Acura, which lay on the south side of the apartments.

  Hugging himself, he jogged between the two central rows of buildings. Forty feet separated the structures.

  BANG! Not a gunshot. It was a flash-bang.

  Nathan grinned. “Did that little firework help you see the light?”

  ++++++++++++

  At the Army field hospital tent, Albin watched medics load the wounded onto stretchers. From there, Black Hawks would airlift them to proper medical facilities. The tent served as a location to stabilize the injured while awaiting evacuation.

  After the ill-advised and ill-fated Fools’ Crusade against Heron Court’s heathens, more people than Eduardo’s henchman and Jeremy Nelson required medical aid. When the former rebels learned of the field hospital, which the military had established in Sandpiper Park’s baseball diamond, well east of the Heron Court Apartments, they brought their injured for evaluation and treatment.

  Overall, the government presence ranked as poor, but even so it proved far superior to its absence. Mr. Serebus had a point about the government’s incompetence, but he failed to understand that he could not truly protect Redwood Shores’s residents.

  Suspicion scratched at the back of Albin’s mind again. As he watched the medical personnel wheel away Eduardo’s man and Nelson, he opened the mental door. It is about power and authority. He wants the resources this location affords. He doesn’t truly care about these people. It sounded feasible. If true, it came as a twisted relief. If Mr. Serebus held little interest in these people, he may agree to depart if the resources proved unsatisfactory.

  Images of Amanda, Denver, Taylor, and Zander forced their way to the forefront of Albin’s attention. They required a protector. Remaining here, in the center of a bullseye, not only courted disaster, it signed a binding contract with it.

  “Albin Conrad, we meet again!”

  Albin returned to reality with a start to find Lieutenant Colonel James Wozniak grinning at him like a long-lost friend. “Ah, hello, Jim. I did not expect to see you here.”

  “I’m supervising, then I’m back to central command at SFO.”

  “The government has commandeered the airport?” Logical.

  Jim nodded. “So, how’s Nathan doing?”

  “Physically, he is stable. Mentally, less so.”

  The ginger-haired surgeon’s grin vanished. “He has been through a lot.”

  “It is not that. He . . .” Averting his gaze, Albin clenched and unclenched his fists in frustration. “He is obsessed with keeping Redwood Shores’s residents here while he acts as their leader. He is far less concerned about returning home.”

  Arms out, Jim shrugged. “What’s wrong with that? He can’t fly for another week and a half anyway.”

  How to word it? “I can’t pinpoint the problem, but he is not himself.”

  “Albin.” Placing his hand on Albin’s shoulder, Jim looked down to lock gazes with the attorney. “If I can be of any help, let me know. Please. You guys took out terrorists at Doorway Pharma. That earns you a special place in my book.”

  “Thank you, Jim.” A smile of relief broke across Albin’s face.

  ++++++++++++

  The instant the Acura’s door closed, Nathan leaned across to feel under the passenger seat. His fingers found cold, hard plastic. Bingo.

  “Shall we, Judge?” On the ReMOT’s screen, Nathan selected Control. “Please work, please work!” Gray? Still? Tap. Nothing. Repeated tapping with increasing force also brought nothing. “Fucking bastards!” His left fist snapped around in a hook punch into the passenger seat’s headrest. “Aah, ffff!” A grenade of pain detonated in his ribs. Hugging himself, he slumped back against the leather upholstery.

  Judge barked.

  “I know, we have to go. Maybe it just requires more time.” No need to keep the desperation out of his voice. The ReMOT returned to his satchel.

  He keyed the HT as he pulled onto the Redwood Shores Parkway. “Amanda, do you copy?”

  “Nathan! Yes, I hear you.”

  “What are the police doing?”

  “They’re set up at Marlin Park, west of Marlin. They’re finally heading for Heron Court. Listen, are the cannibals doing anything odd? I overheard that there are a lot of problems in the city. The fire in South Industrial is getting worse, too. Anyway, first responders are stretched thin. Some are already leaving here to help out there.”

  Another crisis. “Amanda, the cannibals have become more dangerous. I don’t know if the broadcast affected them, or if this is part of the infection’s course. If your neighb
ors want to go to their friends’ houses outside the Bay Area, they should consider waiting.” For at least a week and a half, anyway. This would provide him with the manpower to develop the files—and to protect Redwood Shores. With the right motivation, the sheep would evolve into wolves. His wolves.

  “All right.” No arguments. Albin would have leveled several—none of which Nathan had time for—supporting evacuation. “I think people are pretty scared after what happened.”

  “They should be cautious, not scared. Reassure them. The cannibals dealt with the Devil Goats’ leaders a few minutes ago. With the Goats out of the picture, we have a chance. Have people spread the word.”

  “I think you’re right, Nathan. I think we can do this.”

  “I know we can. Next, go to the incident commander at Marlin Park. Request a meeting outside. If you must, make up an excuse for staying outdoors. Radio me when you’re there. I want to talk to them, but I’m not in a position to come personally.”

  “I will, but what’s the matter?”

  The matter? Authorities who might arrest him for whatever trumped-up charges Washington invented, that was the matter. “Just humor me, all right?” He forced a smile to soften his tone. “Albin is across the neighborhood seeing to the wounded, so no need to bother him with the meeting.” No Albin meant no push for evacuating the citizens. “Be safe, Amanda.”

  “You too.”

  A quarter mile from the incident command center, he pulled into a deserted driveway. “Come on, girl.” After he exited, he stood aside as she leapt from the SUV.

  Through the nearest fence gate they went, over the back wall with the help of furniture, out the next gate. Rinse and repeat for the line of houses beyond. Judge treated the obstacle course like a game, sticking to his side as he negotiated the walls.

  Finally they reached the houses one row back from the command center. Shattering a back door’s window provided access to an abandoned house. Nathan and Judge made their way upstairs to a bedroom that overlooked Marlin Park’s basketball court and soccer field. Officers with weapons, rather than kids with toys, occupied the park. Around the park waited a few police cars, MRAPs, and SWAT vans. A white command-center trailer had parked beside the basketball court.