Blue Shadow

by Brad Magnarella

  “There aren’t enough to move thousands of people,” I replied. “And even if there were, I don’t know how safe that would be. If the Chagrath can maneuver underground, it can probably do the same in the air. The only certainty right now is that it can’t penetrate Chepe’s barrier around El Rosario.”

  I left out the additional point that Centurion had terminated the mission, meaning I had no authority to call in additional helos.

  “But here’s the thing,” I went on. “We know where the children are now. We know what the creature is. We know where to find it. And we know how to destroy it. Our most limited resource is time. With a midnight deadline, we don’t have much. Chepe, can you point out the ceremonial cave on the map?”

  I was already planning to use the cargo van to take us at least partway to the site, cutting down on travel time. But as the mayor completed the translation, I watched Chepe shake his head.

  “He doesn’t know,” she said.

  “He was just there last month!” I shouted.

  “Yes, but he says Maximon guides him to the site.”

  I looked at the shaman’s cloudy eyes and nodded. The old man could barely see. “Will Maximon be able to lead him now?”

  “Maximon would not have shown him the dream vision if he could not,” the mayor answered.

  “All right,” I said, calming my breaths. “So we’re still looking at a day’s journey on foot. Once we arrive, Takara and I can go in for the children.” I turned to her. “You know how to navigate that realm?”

  “Yes, but…” She scowled at having to admit weakness. “I haven’t recovered my strength.”

  “You’ll have the rest of the day,” I said, but she continued to look doubtful. “Once we’ve gotten the children safely out, Chepe will hit the Chagrath with his herb. My consultant believes it will be enough to destroy the Chagrath. He’s working on getting a powerful magic-user down here to help us. They may not get here before the deadline, but they’ll seal the hole it arrived by.”

  “And El Rosario will be safe?” the mayor asked.

  “Yes,” I said, feeling confident in my ability to say that now. Even though we were at half strength—Sarah and Olaf out of commission, Takara without her full powers, and Yoofi without his god—we’d gained a powerful member in Chepe. The rest of us would be armed to the teeth. The Chagrath hadn’t liked the taste of grenade very much, and there would be plenty more where those had come from. But most importantly, we knew how to kill it.

  “I just need to make a quick call,” I said, stepping into the storage room, where I’d most recently spoken with Prof Croft. This time, though, I tried Reginald Purdy. I wanted to be working with Centurion, not against them.

  My jaw tensed when I reached his voice mail again.

  “Reginald, it’s Wolfe,” I said. “You’ve shot straight with me, so I’m going to do the same with you. I know Centurion wants to pull out, but I’m going ahead with the mission. If you can work it out with the pencil pushers, great. If not, we’ll deal with the repercussions when I get back.”

  I hung up and emerged back into the main room. “Can I meet with the team for a minute?” Yoofi and Takara followed me into the office, while Rusty swiveled in his chair to face me.

  “What’s up, boss?” he asked.

  “I got a call from our interim director today,” I told the team, closing the door behind me. “Because of this morning’s casualties, Centurion feels the mission is too risky at this stage of the program’s development. They want to pull us. I’ve been trying to get a hold of someone higher up the chain, but no luck so far. Which means going ahead with the mission will put us in violation of our contracts.”

  “Screw ’em,” Rusty said.

  “Sort of my thoughts, but I’m not going to pretend to speak for the team. If anyone would prefer to sit this one out, I’ll understand.”

  “I’m in,” Takara said without hesitation.

  I expected Yoofi to say the same. He had gone along with everything enthusiastically since day one. But instead of nodding, he dropped his gaze to the floor and puffed pensively on his cigar.

  “Yoofi?” I prompted.

  “I will just be in the way,” he mumbled.

  “Your god has been an unreliable pain in the ass,” I said. “But even so, you detected the magic in our building that first night, you put a sizeable dent in the undead dog population last night, and just this morning you saved me from being hauled into one of those godforsaken holes and having tubes crammed down my nose and throat. Point is, you’ve been an important contributor. You’re more capable than you realize.”

  “The boss man’s right,” Rusty said, clapping Yoofi’s shoulder. “We need you.”

  “I don’t know…” Yoofi hedged.

  “You dragged your god kicking and screaming back once,” I said. “You can do it again.”

  Though his smile betrayed uncertainty, Yoofi said, “Okay. I come.”

  Rusty turned to me. “I’d come too, but I’m guessing you want me manning the store?”

  “Yes and no. I want a drone going with us.”

  “You got it, boss,” he said, though I could hear his disappointment. He wanted to be with the rest of us for the final assault, not a drone in the sky. “I can help you guys pack and prep in the meantime.”

  “That would be a big help.”

  When we emerged from the office, I addressed Mayor Flores. “We’ll be moving out shortly. As the deadline draws nearer, there’s likely to be more tremors. Keep the town calm. Don’t let anyone leave.”

  “I’ve never seen your face,” she remarked as I walked her to the door. “But I trust you.”

  “We’re going to do our best,” I assured her. With or without Centurion.

  “That is all we can ask. Take care of yourselves.”

  She said something to Chepe in Spanish that prompted him to press his hands together and bow toward her: their farewell. I closed the door behind the mayor and turned to the shaman. He seemed to understand enough English that we could get by without an interpreter.

  “Will you be ready to go in the next half hour?” I asked him.

  “Yes, but first a ceremony.”

  “I’m not sure there’s time.”

  “To protect,” he said. “So the evil does not see us coming. Will not take long.”

  Given that the Chagrath seemed to know every time we stepped into the woods, stealth would improve our odds. “All right,” I said, “but after everyone is packed and ready to go.”

  Twenty minutes later, Yoofi, Takara, and I stood around a circle Chepe had created on the floor of the storage room. The Mayan shaman paced around us, waving his staff in one hand and several lit incense sticks he had produced from his purse in the other. As the familiar peppery-sweet smell rose in the room, subtle currents of energy began to swim around us. It reminded me a little of the magic Prof Croft had performed a few weeks before to create an apparition of me. I listened to Chepe’s low chants, which seemed to bend and shape the energy.

  I’d had Rusty remain apart from the ceremony, mainly because he wasn’t going, but also as a precaution. Prof Croft seemed to believe Chepe was who he claimed to be, but there was no way to be a hundred percent certain. By his own admission, he’d been out in the woods with the vampires and Chagrath for the last month. And we were putting ourselves at his mercy right now.

  After several minutes, the shaman stood back. “It is done,” he said.

  As I stepped from the circle, the protective energy lingered over me like a haze. It distorted my senses, particularly my hearing and smell. The wolf in me felt handicapped. I didn’t like it.

  “How do you feel?” I asked Takara.

  “Like I suddenly have water in my ears and am near-sighted.”

  It was having the same effect on her. I brought up the concern to Chepe.

  “You will get used to it,” he said. “Important thing is the evil cannot sense you.”

  “Would’ve been nice to have kn
own about the tradeoff before agreeing to this,” I grumbled, but he was right. Arriving at the site without detection was more important than being able to hear something a quarter mile away.

  Chepe returned the incense sticks to his purse and placed one end of his staff against the ground. He closed his eyes, pivoting one way and then the other. I wasn’t sure what he was doing until he stopped suddenly and his eyes popped open. He was divining the way to the sacred site.

  “Come,” he said, and led the way out of the compound.

  Takara shot me a skeptical look. I jerked my head for her to follow. She did so grudgingly, M4 in hand, blades concealed in the forearms of her sleek black leathers. Yoofi followed her in his large, clinking coat, his staff propped over one shoulder. I took up the rear with my MP88 and a loaded tactical vest. We weren’t exactly the high-speed unit I’d envisioned a week before, but the only thing that mattered was whether we could finish the job.

  “Go kick some Chagrath ass for me,” Rusty called.

  I gave him a thumb’s up before he closed the door behind us.

  As the four of us proceeded down the street, the people of El Rosario watched from doorways and windows. A man and woman approached us, a young girl at their side. Takara tensed, but I recognized them. They were the parents and sister of Miguel Bardoza, the first child abducted. The father spoke to Chepe, before walking up to each of us and clasping our hands in both of his.

  “Thank you,” he said in broken English, his tortured eyes imploring us to bring back his son. I looked at where his wife held tightly to their daughter, the girl whom Miguel had broken away from the night the vampire Baboso took him. She watched us with pensive eyes.

  I held up a hand: my solemn promise that I would do whatever I could to return her brother to her. The girl brushed a strand of hair from her face and raised her own hand. The father backed away with a final “thank you” and joined his family.

  As we moved on, I remembered something Nafid had told me shortly before I’d left Waristan. In the moment before her grandmother’s death, she said the old woman had declared that the Blue Wolf would protect all. Nafid hadn’t known what she meant by that, but now I did. Despite having no connection to the people of El Rosario, I felt a deep and undeniable responsibility for them. They were the victims of a creature who had no business in this world—a creature I could help stop. As long as I remained the Blue Wolf, that would be my role. Not a mercenary, but defending those who couldn’t defend themselves.

  We were almost to the soccer fields when my hearing picked up the thump of rotary blades. I craned my neck around. Though I couldn’t see them, I recognized the sound: the same Centurion helos that had arrived and departed that morning. Only this time, they weren’t coming to help us.

  Son of a bitch.

  They were coming to intercept us.

  24

  We turned and watched the arriving helos. Four UH-60 Black Hawks. The lead one swooped low and turned, setting down in the dirt road ahead of us in a storm of dust. Another landed behind us, blocking retreat. The other two descended to our right and left, over a soccer field and a fallow cornfield.

  Purdy must’ve gotten my message, I thought bitterly.

  Yoofi looked around in alarm as the helos boxed us in, while Takara appraised them coldly. Chepe seemed more concerned with keeping his leather necklaces from flipping around in the roto wash.

  “Let me do the talking,” I told them.

  As the blades wound down, a voice came over my earpiece. It was Sarah’s. Though I was glad to hear her recovered enough to be talking, I was not looking forward to our conversation. There was no way in hell Miss Policies and Procedures was going to be cool with this.

  “Captain Wolfe,” she said stiffly.

  “Sarah,” I replied, walking a few steps from my team. “How are you feeling?”

  “My blood count is back to normal, and I tested negative for vampire. I’m still in the infirmary. Where are you going?”

  I imagined her watching our movement on her tablet. “We have the final pieces,” I said. “We know where the children are, where the creature is, and how to destroy it. We’re finishing the mission.”

  “There’s no longer a mission.”

  “According to Centurion,” I said.

  “An assessment team has deemed the risk of continued engagement here too high.”

  I glanced around at the helos, half-expecting to find rifles aimed from bay doors, but the machines were simply parked like sentries. “What about El Rosario?” I asked. “We leave and everyone dies.”

  “I read the SITREP you sent Director Beam,” she said. “I know about the latest threat.”

  “A threat that’s since been verified.”

  “By whom?”

  Remembering our argument over consulting Prof Croft, I said, “It doesn’t matter. The point is that if we don’t stop this thing, the town is history.”

  “Did you find the Mayan shaman?”

  “Yeah, turns out he’s on our side. We haven’t been dealing with a magic-user, but an extraplanar entity. One that was using the vampires and children to gather power. It’s trying to break into our world. Chepe protected the town and our building, but that only bought us time. We don’t destroy this thing by midnight, and we can kiss El Rosario goodbye.”

  “Was he vetted?” she asked.

  “Like we have that luxury,” I growled. “At this point it’s Chepe or nothing. He knows where to find the creature, and he knows its weakness. If he’s bullshitting us, we’re no worse off.”

  The silence that followed sounded thick in my earpiece. When Sarah spoke again, she said, “That doesn’t change the fact there’s no longer a mission. The helos are there to take you out.”

  “Then they’re wasting fuel.” I signaled to my team that we were continuing.

  “Hold on,” Sarah said, after we’d gone a few steps.

  From the helo parked in front of us, a figure jumped out and hustled toward us, a huge gun in his arms. Bandages covered half his head while a thick brace bracketed his neck. As Chepe and my teammates gathered around me, I could only stare. I didn’t fucking believe this.

  “You’re using Olaf to enforce our evac?” I said to Sarah.

  “He requested to be included.”

  “What do you mean, ‘requested to be included’?”

  “He’s almost recovered from his injuries—the brace is a precaution. That will increase your fighting force to four.”

  “Wait a minute,” I said, shaking my head. “Are you saying…?”

  “I’m not saying anything. But unless and until the backup team hears directly from Director Beam, the chain of command goes through me. By then you should have a good head start.”

  Our connection cut out for several moments during which the helos’ blades started up and their big bodies began to lift off. They were leaving. I didn’t think it was possible, but Sarah McKinnon had surprised me. I wondered how much of her decision had to do with the vampire attack, or the fact I had saved her.

  Olaf arrived in front of me. “I come,” he said.

  I extended a hand. “Good to have you back.”

  But instead of shaking, Olaf dug into his vest and pressed several test tubes into my palm.

  The connection with Sarah returned. “Any material you can collect from the creatures you encounter, including the extraplanar entity, will help us combat Prodigium 1s in the future,” she said. “Just don’t forget to label them.”

  I snorted and slid the tubes into a vest pocket. That hadn’t surprised me.

  “Thanks,” I said as the helos thumped away. “But what are you going to tell Centurion?”

  We were both jeopardizing a lot.

  “Beam’s going to have a shit fit when he finds out, but if you succeed, it won’t matter.”

  “Is that an order?” I asked with a smile.

  “Yes. Now go succeed.”

  For several hours we climbed a torturous path through the woods, p
ausing occasionally so Chepe could consult Maximon. I stayed close to the shaman while the rest of the team moved behind us in a column, Takara at the rear.

  I’d given Yoofi my M9 again, and as I’d feared, he whipped the Beretta toward every sound. But there weren’t many sounds to begin with. Trees that would normally have been full of birdsongs and the rustlings of small animals were eerily quiet. We seemed to be the only things moving.

  “Take it easy,” I told Yoofi. “Remember your training.”

  At one point I signaled a stop so I could listen, but with my wolf’s hearing largely muted, it was a pointless exercise. For good and ill, Chepe’s magic seemed to be doing its job of concealing our presence.

  It couldn’t protect us from the rain that began to fall in the late afternoon, though. Camouflage ponchos appeared from packs, while Yoofi pulled the hood of his coat over his head. The shaman covered himself with a sheet of plastic that should have made a racket with the rain striking it, but the magic he’d cast absorbed the sound. We trudged on as a deep rumble sounded.

  “Ooh, I don’t like thunder,” Yoofi remarked.

  “Not thunder,” I said. “That was another tremor.”

  A second one, even stronger, rocked the ground underfoot.

  Yoofi clamped a hand over his mouth to keep from screaming.

  I radioed Rusty. “How’s it going down there?”

  “Whole lotta shaking,” he answered. “You close?”

  When I posed the question to Chepe, he turned testy. “It is ahead, just ahead.”

  Seeing as how our destination had always been ahead, that didn’t tell me anything. “How far ahead?”

  “Yes, it is ahead,” he repeated, speeding his pace.

  “I’m not sure,” I told Rusty. “But we still have six hours.”

  Another tremor, the most violent one yet, made the five of us come to a stop.

  “Well, don’t go all commercial fiction on me and cut it to the last second,” Rusty said. “We’re fixing to lose buildings down here—” He grunted as though trying to keep all of his computer equipment from rattling off their perches. A crash sounded. “Well, dadgummit.”

  “What was that?” I asked.