by C. E. Martin
The gray-skinned man ignored the two holes in his white suit and swatted at the gun, knocking it from Deb's hand and sending it flying.
"Jimmy!" a young girl with jet-black hair pleaded from the side. She was being held back by the blonde FBI agent. "Jimmy! Calm down!"
The werewolf heard the girl and turned toward her. When he did, Alvarro saw that Kenslir was injured. The left side of his face had three long furrows in it—undoubtedly from the claws of the werewolf. Oddly though, they weren't bleeding. They were just wide gashes. That were gray in color.
The werewolf stopped its frantic struggling, dark eyes fixed on the black-haired girl. It began to relax, lowering its arms. It panted wildly, chest heaving, but that too began to slow.
To Alvarro's side, Deb Harris cradled her hand, eyes going back and forth between the restrained werewolf and gray man before her.
Alvarro was about to ask just what the hell was going on, when the black-haired girl stepped forward, closer to the restrained werewolf.
The beast's panting slowed and it whined like an injured dog. Its jaws closed and the head ducked down, eyes closing as though it were ashamed. Then it began to shrink.
In just seconds, the long-limbed creature reverted to human form—a boy who barely looked out of his teens. The long hair covering the boy's body retreated into his pores, vanishing. His deformed wolf head changed shape, the elongating snout collapsing back in on itself. His body shrank back down to something closer to six feet tall. He became just a skinny young man with shredded clothes and a mop of straw-colored hair.
Mark Kenslir released him and the teen dropped down onto one knee.
"What the fuck is going on here?!" Deb Harris screamed.
CHAPTER THREE
"He's a werewolf!" Deb Harris whispered, eyes still wide. It was the first time Alvarro Sierra had ever seen his young partner surprised and anywhere remotely close to being at a loss for words. He'd have been surprised at that, if he weren't in a state of shock himself.
Agent Keegan was outside the apartment now, calming down the uniformed officers that had come charging up to the apartment when Harris fired her pistol. The young girl with black hair, who Alvarro had learned was named Josie, now sat on a couch rubbing the back of the young man who had been an honest-to-God werewolf until a few minutes ago. Something he wouldn't have believed if he hadn't seen it with his own eyes.
That left Mark Kenslir and his stony companion to talk to the Detectives.
"This is a classified operation," Kenslir said sternly. The cuts in his face from the werewolf were gone now. His face seemed as smooth and clean-shaven as it had before he'd had to restrain the creature. "We're going to need your discretion, Detectives."
"Okay," Alvarro said, drawing in a deep breath. "He's a werewolf, but what's with this guy?" he asked, pointing to the stone man beside Kenslir.
"Victor," he said. "My name's Victor."
When he spoke it was possibly more eerie than the werewolf. Victor's gray was not just his skin. The stone-like texture went inside his mouth, where gray stone teeth and a moving stone tongue could be seen. He truly was a living statue.
"He's classified," Kenslir said.
"Did he kill our victim?" Deb Harris asked, pointing to the werewolf, Jimmy.
Alvarro was surprised she was getting her wits back so soon. He wondered if the nonchalance of the Feds about their unusual friends was rubbing off on the detective. He didn't think he could ever get used to it.
"No," Kenslir said. Up close, Alvarro could see that the big man's eyes were unusual—a dark green, almost black in color.
"What is going on?" Alvarro asked again.
"I'm afraid-" the big man stopped talking. He turned his head to the left, toward some windows. "Hold on a second."
Kenslir moved to the window, pulling up a blind.
"Command," he said loudly. "We have another guest."
"Who are you people?" Deb Harris asked, bewildered.
***
His name was Mark Kenslir—Colonel Mark Kenslir—and this crime scene had suddenly just gotten a lot more complicated for him.
It was bad enough that the incident had taken place in Miami, a veritable stone's throw from the headquarters for the military detachment he commanded. The detachment whose job it was to stop supernatural threats to the United States whenever and wherever they showed up.
It had gotten worse the moment he saw the body of the victim. Definitely a creature not of this world had torn the ex-Mossad agent to shreds. Kenslir had seen enough carnage in his career to know that.
Then there were the police detectives to worry about. In one fell swoop, the Detachment had been compromised. He still wasn't sure what had caused Jimmy Kane to suddenly transform and go berserk. Jimmy had only been transforming into a werewolf at will for a few months now, but it had seemed like he had it under control. This little outburst, which nearly injured two civilians, was going to take a lot of explaining.
But first, something more pressing had just come up. A laser microphone.
As he knelt before the two detectives, watching them through the heads-up display of his tactical glasses, trying to calm them down and come up with a way to explain what was going on, the Colonel had noticed something. A small green dot glowing brightly on one of the windows.
To the naked eye, it would have been invisible. But the small strip of CCD sensors built into the frames of the tactical glasses could see a wide spectrum of light frequencies. They had immediately detected the infrared laser being played on the window and had highlighted it for the Colonel's benefit.
It was a laser microphone, aimed at the window of the apartment, measuring vibrations in the glass—vibrations caused by the sounds being made within the home. And while two police Detectives stumbling across Kenslir's unit's existence was troublesome, an unknown person or persons spying on them was far worse.
"Keep them here!" Kenslir yelled as he sprinted for the door. When he jerked it open, Pam Keegan nearly fell inside.
The tiny blonde had been leaning against the door, bullying or charming the patrolmen outside into submission and denying them entry to the crime scene they had heard shots coming from.
Kenslir caught the blonde, then effortlessly lifted her, turned and put her down on her feet, just inside the doorway. Without a word, Kenslir pressed on, pushing past the two officers and sprinting through the courtyard of the retirement apartment complex.
Nearing a locked gate, he leapt up, vaulting the six-foot high fence with ease. When he touched down on the other side, he continued his run, sprinting across the street.
"Command? Do we have a location yet?" Kenslir asked as he ran. Small microphones built into the frames of the glasses picked up the question.
Several miles away, in a gleaming black glass office building overlooking Biscayne Bay, Major Robert Campbell watched over a command center that rivaled that of NORAD or Cape Canaveral.
"Working on it," Campbell said into the wireless headset he wore. The middle-aged Major was also wearing his usual pressed and polished dress uniform. His eyes flitted back and forth from a display that showed Kenslir's point-of-view—broadcast from the tactical goggles—to an aerial view from a satellite high over the earth.
The satellite was zooming in now, focused on Miami. Its rapid zoom of the earth was almost enough to make Campbell nauseous, even after all these years.
"Got it!" he finally yelled, his voice broadcast over speakers in the earpieces of Kenslir's glasses. "We're marking your HUD!"
On the tactical glasses' lenses, a marker appeared, flashing. Beside it, the distance rapidly scrolled down as the Colonel ran toward the target.
Whoever was using the microphone was still listening to the murder scene, but not for much longer. Kenslir could hear the conversation back in the apartment through the feed from Josie's glasses. His team and the detectives were wondering where he was going in such a hurry. Which meant now his target was wondering the same thing.
&nbs
p; That target was on the roof of a small building, three stories high, with a grocery store in the first floor and apartments on the second and third—nearly a half mile from the apartment crime scene. As Kenslir came closer, now only a few hundred feet away, a pulsing red silhouette appeared around the target—their thermal image superimposed by the tactical glasses from data the dedicated satellite high overhead was providing.
Up until now, Kenslir had been forcing himself to run only as fast as the fastest of athletes—a swift pace that would draw attention but not arouse suspicion. But when the silhouette on the rooftop began moving, he knew it was time to quicken the pace.
The Colonel now covered great stretches of pavement with each stride, moving at an inhuman gait more like that of an animal's. His speed increased, exceeding the posted speed limit for automobiles in the area. When he neared the three story building, he didn't slow and look for a way up—he simply jumped.
As big as he was, Kenslir soared gracefully into the air, landing lightly on the rooftop, instead of crashing through it. His target was taken aback by this sudden appearance, and dropped the duffel bag she was trying to quickly stow her gear in.
The target was a woman.
A few inches taller than the tiny Pam Keegan, the mystery woman had long, dark brown hair and an almost-olive complexion. Her face was slender, with strong cheekbones. She wore a subdued sundress and sandals.
And she was very well trained.
The small pistol just suddenly appeared in her hand—probably pulled from the bag she was trying to pack. She fired the gun without hesitation—a single shot that sent a round tunneling into Kenslir's left thigh. Then she whirled, took two steps and leapt over the side of the roof.
The Colonel ignored the bullet that was lodged just below the surface of his tough skin. It was a minor wound, the handgun lacking the sufficient power to do him any real harm. He covered the distance to the edge of the roof in a few steps and leapt over as well.
Sure enough, his adversary was already sliding behind the wheel of a convertible. She had survived the fall with ease born of years of training and practice.
Kenslir rushed forward, grabbing at the bumper of the car, but the tiny four cylinder auto was just too quick and it shot off, tires squealing.
If anyone had missed him leaping onto the roof of the building, it would have been extremely lucky. Continuing the chase would be more than even his luck could handle. But the Colonel knew it had to be done—he had to know who the woman was, and what she was up to.
"Pursuing hostile!" Kenslir yelled, breaking off into a run after the car. The audio pickups in the tactical glasses relayed his message back to Command and he heard Major Campbell swear over the open channel.
***
"So what was that all about, Jimmy?" Josie Winters asked, still rubbing Jimmy's back as she sat beside him. His clothes were shredded—ripped and torn by his sudden, unexpected transformation.
"I don't know," Jimmy said, still dazed. "I just had this overwhelming urge to fight."
"But why?"
Jimmy looked up, then around the room. "It was that hair—the small bit I smelled." He couldn't see the clump of hair anywhere now. He'd lost it during his transformation.
"You sure it was hair?"
"Yeah, and as soon as I sniffed it, all I could do was think about fighting."
"Okay, either let me leave or give me some answers," Deb Harris said. She was back in control of her faculties now, and none too happy. "Just who the hell are you people and what is going on here?"
Victor, the stone man, turned to Josie, a questioning look on his gray face.
"Command?" Josie asked, reaching up and gently touching her tactical glasses. It was a habit from when she used to wear Bluetooth headsets.
She got no response, so she used the cybernetic controls built into the glasses to activate several virtual displays. They appeared in her field of view, hanging in the air, visible only to her, showing the progress of the Colonel as he chased after someone. Command was busy.
"Okay," Josie said, standing, hoping this wasn't going to get her in too much trouble. "We're a special detachment who investigate unusual incidents."
"Like werewolves?" Alvarro Sierra asked, looking at Jimmy.
"Like things you don't even want to know about," Jimmy said, standing. Alvarro and Harris flinched.
"Relax," Josie said. "Jimmy is in control now. He won't turn again."
"Turn? Like into a werewolf? He's an actual werewolf? Doesn't he need a full moon for that or something?"
"I've picked up a few tricks recently," Jimmy said. "But yeah—I'm a werewolf."
"And you work for..." Alvarro asked.
"Joint Interior-Defense Task Force," Pam Keegan said, walking in and closing the door behind her. She turned to Josie as she slipped on her own pair of tactical glasses. "Support will be here in a few to clean up."
"Clean up?" Alvarro asked, swallowing. He didn't like the sound of that.
"Kane. Keys," Keegan said, extending her hand.
Jimmy dug in the pocket of his torn pants and dug out a key ring then pitched it to Keegan.
"Where are you going?" Josie asked.
"Grampa needs some help," Keegan said, then walked back outside.
"Who's grampa?" Deb Harris asked.
***
Whoever the brunette was, she could drive. Her little convertible was a nimble car and in the hands of an expert driver was able to maneuver even better than a person on foot. Even a person able to run as fast as a car.
In a straightaway, Kenslir had no doubt the car could eventually outrun him—but not before he could leap and grab it. The mystery woman knew this too, and was weaving from side to side, around slower-moving traffic and taking last-second, ninety-degree turns down side streets.
Even with his superhuman pace and his ability to leap over the slower moving traffic, Kenslir just couldn't catch the car—he could barely keep up. It was getting really annoying. And every second, he was making more and more of a spectacle of himself as stunned passerby watched him sprint past faster than he should be able to. Most would just assume it was unusual, shrug and walk on. But inevitably, someone was going to video record the whole thing.
A screech of tires behind him caught the Colonel's attention. He glanced back over his shoulder and was surprised to see Pam Keegan racing up in the white panel van he and the others had driven to the crime scene in. Keegan was weaving in and out of traffic herself, blue and red lights flashing. And the side door was slid open.
Kenslir leapt into the van as Keegan passed him.
"Good timing," he said, grabbing onto a seatback to steady himself.
"You know me—always picking up strange men!"
Despite the fact that the van was larger and less nimble than the small convertible, Keegan was managing to keep up. Kenslir was impressed, even if the van was heavily modified for detachment use and had far more under the hood than it had when it rolled off the factory assembly line.
"We've got to end this, before someone gets hurt," Kenslir said. "Command, can we get a chopper up?"
"Look!" Keegan shouted.
The little convertible was running out of downtown now. The driver swerved onto an onramp and sent the car racing onto the freeway. She might be able to lose them now—what the car lacked in horsepower it made up for with its small size. It would be able to weave through traffic and leave the van behind.
"Pull me alongside!" Kenslir shouted.
Keegan nodded and gunned the engine. The van surged ahead, closing the distance then finally drawing alongside the tiny car.
The Colonel leapt from the van without any hesitation, landing heavily across the rear trunklid. He grabbed at the folded top, lowered in an accordion-like bundle. But the driver was quicker.
The tiny car's tires locked up, the driver standing on the brake pedal and jerking at the parking brake. Rubber screeched as the car slid to a stop, decelerating so suddenly that Kenslir was thrown fo
rward, still clinging to the convertible rooftop. It tore free in his grasp, fluttering along after him.
But even as the Colonel landed roughly on the pavement ahead of the convertible, the tiny car was struck by another car that couldn't stop as quickly. The mystery woman's car was savagely rear-ended and propelled forward.
Kenslir had rolled with the impact when he struck the ground, trying to regain his footing. Before he could, the convertible slammed into him and he crashed down onto the hood of the car. This time he was ready—he dug his fingers into the thin metal, punching holes in it that he used to keep a grip.
But the driver was in no shape to do anymore swerving. The impact had triggered the airbags in the car and it careened out of control, glancing off the concrete wall on the right before finally skidding to a halt.
Kenslir released his grip and climbed off the hood. He could feel a multitude of cuts and scrapes on his body. His clothes were torn in several places from his tumble along the road.
He crossed quickly to the driver's side, ignoring his injuries. With an easy pull, he tore the door free from its hinges and pitched it aside. Then he turned to the driver.
And she shot him.
This time, the mystery woman didn't aim for a disabling shot. She fired multiple rounds into Kenslir's chest. He felt the bullets thud into his dense flesh, several flattening against his bones.
He smacked the gun aside, then frowned and punched the woman in the face, knocking her unconscious.
CHAPTER FOUR
"Her name's Javan Wallach," a man said.
Javan, or Javi as her friends called her, winced at the sound of her name. It was the first thing she'd heard since coming to, and it wasn't good news. She'd been identified. There'd be hell to pay back home. Assuming she made it back home.
"She's awake," a woman's voice said.
Suddenly, the hood covering Javi's head was pulled free and her eyes were flooded with bright light that was almost as painful as her broken nose. She squinted and tried to make out her captors' faces.