City Under the Moon

by Sterbakov, Hugh

  “Come on, come on…” Mantle cried. “Mongoose, can you hear me?”

  “Donut Hut!”

  “This is Tildascow, patch me through to the AG!”

  “I did—“

  “Do it again!”

  More clicks and connections.

  The Black Hawk went muffled as it dipped below the terrace. A sickening moment later, the heat and fury of the crash roared upward.

  “The fuck is going on?” Mantle screamed.

  And her BlackBerry went dead again. Fuck!

  “Silver Bullet,” she radioed, “This is November. Our limo went down, Beethoven, we need you here now.”

  “Say again, November. What happened?”

  “I don’t know. ‘Crash Hawk’ happened. It took a nose dive somewhere on 42nd Street. Lines are down and I can’t get through to anybody. I know where he is, man, you’ve got to come get us.”

  “He can’t pick five of us up in an Apache,” Mantle said. Jaguar shook his head to quiet Mantle.

  A minute felt like an hour as they watched her radio for a response.

  “We are en route, November,” Beethoven radioed. “ETA three minutes.“

  “Roger that. November out.”

  Tildascow went to dial her shitsucking BlackBerry again.

  But the phone faded away, and the ground and the building darkened, and she was in the forest again.

  The wolves weren’t alongside her anymore.

  Now they had her surrounded.

  From somewhere in the thicket, Ilecko called out in Romanian.

  They’d stopped beckoning.

  Now they were growling.

  And then she heard Lon. “Tildascow!”

  Now she was their enemy.

  She felt a tug on her arm, and then Lon was in front of her, pulling her through onrushing snowflakes. They crossed the terrace toward the ledge, where the others were looking down and yelling about something. She reached the rail and looked over the side.

  The werewolves were climbing the side of the building, digging their claws into metal and masonry.

  Hundreds of them. No—

  Thousands.

  PART SEVEN

  One

  Situation Room

  6:02 p.m.

  The werewolves could have overrun the central command post in Columbus Circle whenever they wanted; that much was clear when they finally did. Their strikes were coordinated from odd directions, giving the soldiers whiplash as their own ranks were thinned.

  The final, decisive push came from all sides, laying waste to the men and their machines. If the soldiers had any chance, the shaky CNN footage missed it.

  “Reports!” Truesdale yelled over the din.

  Everyone was on the phone, but nobody knew anything. They hadn’t heard from any of the command posts, and after the assault they’d just witnessed, Weston didn’t expect that they would.

  “Helicopters are down everywhere,” said Shinick, the AG.

  “How are they taking out helicopters?” yelled Leslie.

  “We lost the MetLife landing zone,” an aide called.

  “Northeast command is down!” yelled another. And the hits kept coming, on top of one another, as news filtered in from the Watch Center.

  “Have all units fall back. Lock down the exits,” Truesdale ordered, and his men sent out word. “Get on the line with Andrews, get them in the air.”

  The jittery CNN camera panned down to Broadway, where countless werewolves ran on all fours, marching with an eerie single-mindedness toward Columbus Circle, like an army in extreme fast-forward.

  When the shot panned over, the command post was just a memory. In fact, the werewolf marathon trampled right over the remains and continued southeast down Broadway.

  “Looks like they’ve got somewhere to be,” Weston thought out loud.

  Two

  Chrysler Building 61st Floor Terrace

  6:03 p.m.

  “Back back back!”

  Tildascow grabbed Lon by the collar and dragged him back to a safe distance. As the others fell in beside them, she fished out that silver-loaded Glock and closed his fingers around its handle. “Both hands, elbows locked.”

  His eyes were fear-struck, but he nodded and firmly grasped the weapon.

  She flicked her Colt 9mm SMG’s switch from SAFE to SEMI. Ilecko drew his Anelace in reverse grip. Jaguar and Mantle steadied themselves.

  “Beethoven, we need you down here right now!” she radioed. “Enemy targets on the side of the building! I repeat—enemy targets on the side of the building!”

  The first werewolf caught their spotlights like a rock star. Its human features were completely lost behind its canine snout, swept-back ears, and thick grey fur. It even moved like a wolf, creeping over the ledge and skulking on all fours, head below its hunched shoulders.

  Mantle put two shots into its forehead. Three more sets of claws poked up.

  “We gotta fall back!” Jaguar yelled.

  “They’ll trap us in the building,” Tildascow said. “Stick to coverage zones.” She directionally assigned Mantle, herself, and Jaguar. “Conserve ammo; one silver shot puts them down.”

  The put-put-put of their rifles staggered as they dropped the wolves, but they only came quicker and thicker.

  Tildascow emptied her twenty-round magazine in less than a minute. “Reloading!” she yelled, and the others picked up her slack as she slapped in a fresh 32-rounder.

  Faster and faster the werewolves came, up to eight across, fearlessly rushing into the firing squad. Mantle’s rifle went silent as he reloaded. Lon squeezed off intermittent bangs on top of their put-puts.

  Ilecko crouched with his sword arm at his side, pre-empting the creatures’ ability to attack low. Tildascow hoped it wouldn’t come to hand-to-hand, but—

  “Behind!”

  Mantle swung and shot a pair of werewolves rushing through the open door. They tumbled into the snow, screeching from the silver infection. Gunfire lit up the hallway inside; the Green Berets were making a stand against the creatures coming up the stairs.

  Tildascow clicked empty and patted herself down for another magazine.

  “I need a magazine!” she called, but Mantle and Jaguar were too busy sweeping side-to-side, firing single shots.

  And the wolves kept coming, scrambling over their fallen pack mates, reaching ever closer. Tildascow could feel their singular hunger. Valenkov was in their minds; every one of them sensed a pentagram on her palm.

  A werewolf soared over the others, hurtling toward Tildascow, claws outstretched—

  Ilecko swept upward with his Anelace, rising under the creature and meeting its chest with his blade. He carried its momentum into a backward toss and the werewolf landed in the snow, rolling in a death shriek and reverse transformation. Then Ilecko returned to his crouch, silently waiting for his next victim.

  “I’m out!” Jaguar yelled. As he replaced his cartridge, Mantle emptied his own even faster. The pile of bodies at the balcony had grown higher than the guardrail and there was no end in sight.

  Mantle’s rifle emptied and Lon’s last shot went wild. And then there was silence. The emerging wolves padded onto the terrace, stepping over their fallen brethren and spreading out to flank, always watching and snarling.

  Jaguar reloaded—“Last mag!”—and sprayed the wolves with quick, precise shots. But each one only delayed the inevitable. One, two, three—

  “Silver Bullet, we need you right now!” she yelled into her radio.

  —four, five, six—

  Another werewolf came galloping from the building behind them. As it cleared the sliding glass door, Ilecko threw his Anelace. The wolf tried to leap out of the way, but it caught him nearly flush with his chest, sending him rolling head over tail to stop right at their feet. Ilecko wiped his sword on the creature’s retreating fur.

  Jaguar’s shots kept coming. Seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve—

  —thirteen, fourteen, fifteen—

&
nbsp; She could taste their hunger on her own tongue, so strong that she could easily have bitten into her own flesh.

  “That a 32?” Mantle asked.

  Jaguar shook his head, his smoky breaths firing from his nose.

  Twenty shots. Five more and they were hand-to-hand.

  Tildascow dropped her empty rifle and entered fighting stance: left leg back supporting her weight, up on the toes, knees bent, elbows in, arms up, and an icepick-gripped dagger in each hand. She didn’t have a cute name for her style, which she’d cobbled together with help from DARPA’s combat scientists, the FBI’s martial arts experts, and her Modern Army Combatives training. She’d assimilated large chunks of Krav Maga and semper fu, but her primary concern was weight distribution, observant countermoves and appropriated momentum. She didn’t beat people up, she kept them moving until they exposed a weak spot in their skeletal or muscular structure. The rest was up to her.

  Still, with so many swinging claws, it’d only take one hit to a major artery to end her fight.

  —sixteen, seventeen—

  Saliva rushed across her tongue. It was so tempting to drop to all fours, to fight with her jaw.

  —eighteen, nineteen—

  “Last shot!” Jaguar yelled, scanning the ledge, choosing among three targets as they slinked onto the balcony, leading with their bulging forearms.

  “Save it!” she yelled. “We go hand-to-hand!”

  Jaguar strapped his rifle and drew his own knife. Mantle had already done the same. Ilecko was in his crouched position.

  Still more reinforcements cresting the balcony.

  They held their breath.

  Time stood still.

  And then the Silver Bullet roared around the Chrysler’s crown, yawing into an airborne skid, unleashing hellfire from the 30mm chain gun mounted beneath its nose. Rat-a-tat-a-tat-a-tat, ten rounds per second plinking as the armor-piercing rounds tore through the balcony, shattering the werewolves’ bones.

  As the werewolves that had already reached the balcony turned in surprise, Jaguar and Mantle pounced with their knives.

  Beethoven saluted from his rear, higher seat in the Apache’s cockpit.

  “Let’s make this quick, November,” Beethoven radioed. “They look hungry.” The gunner in the lower front seat shifted the cannon toward the face of the building and opened fire again, picking off climbing werewolves while punching through masonry and glass.

  “Be advised, you are going to sit on the EFABs and attach yourselves to the fuselage. I’ve jettisoned the wing stores to compensate for your weight.”

  “Five to fly bitch?” Mantle yelled. “Gotta be fucking kidding me.”

  “What does that mean?” Lon asked, flinching as the chain gun let loose another barrage.

  “The outside,” Tildascow said. “It’s okay.”

  “The outside? The outside you mean the outside?”

  “Drop your backpacks,” yelled Jaguar. “Any extra weight’s gotta go.”

  “How do you ride on the outside?”

  Jaguar yanked Lon free of his backpack and pushed him into Tildascow’s back. Using straps from his stores, he linked them together via D-rings in their vests. As he crossed Tildascow’s front, he gravely looked into her eyes. “This is going to be a rough ride.”

  Mantle took over with Ilecko, wrapping buckles around his chest in preparation for attachment to the left side of the bird. Ilecko muttered in Romanian and Mantle hopelessly shook his head.

  “Hang in there,” Tildascow whispered to Lon.

  “Is that supposed to be funny?”

  The Silver Bullet inched forward and rotated. Beethoven eyed the blades as they crept dangerously close to the tower’s edge. The gunner opened his cockpit window and handed fresh rifles to the Shadows, and Mantle immediately opened fire on the next wave of werewolves, now coming at an equal rate from the building and the ledge.

  Jaguar directed the linked pair of Tildascow and Lon to sit on the Extended Forward Avionics Bay, a tight jutting panel beneath the right side of the Silver Bullet’s cockpit. They only had a few inches of perch for their left ass cheeks.

  “Are you kidding me?” Lon cried.

  Jaguar fastened Tildascow against the fuselage and interlocked her bindings with Lon’s. Her right foot could reach the wing for support, but the left would dangle.

  Dangle.

  “No, no,” Lon said as Jaguar strapped him in. “We can’t do this.”

  Jaguar waved an “okay” signal at the pair and threw a circular motion at the cockpit. Tildascow tightened her hold on Lon.

  “Close your eyes,” she whispered.

  And her guts swung free as the helicopter rotated to allow Mantle and Ilecko access to the other side. She and Lon were suspended over infinity, looking up into the sky as Beethoven compensated for their extra weight.

  They could feel the chopper buck as Mantle and Ilecko put their weight on the fuselage, as if they’d climbed onto the other end of a seesaw.

  She felt a pat on her shoulder and looked up into the wind shear. Beethoven leaned through the side door of the cockpit, passing her a SIG 226 semiauto loaded with silver. She took the weapon with her one free hand. Beethoven gave her a “thumbs up” and closed the door on the cockpit.

  Lon screamed as they abruptly swung again, back to where they’d started. Jaguar was the last man on the balcony, and he was still picking off incoming werewolves. When they came to a stop, he dropped his rifle and hastily secured himself in front of Lon, banging on the cockpit just as the last ring locked.

  They lurched backward and dropped harshly as the helicopter protested their weight. Tildascow looked down—far down—on East 42nd Street, where toppled military lights illuminated Lexington. A fire burned further east, probably from the second Black Hawk.

  “Incoming!” Jaguar shouted.

  A werewolf loped across the terrace, fearlessly barreling toward them. Tildascow fought to slide the rack on her pistol with only one free hand.

  The wolf raced onto the eagle gargoyle and took a kamikaze leap, hurtling itself across the 60-story chasm. Tildascow and Jaguar both shot at the beast—no way to tell if their aim was true—but there was no stopping the living missile’s momentum. Tildascow shielded Lon’s body as the monster crashed into them. Her head cracked against the fuselage, but the brunt of the impact missed them.

  The Apache bucked hard. Its main and tail rotors battled for control as the bird seesawed on every axis, skidding lopsided through the air. Tildascow clenched Lon tight as their insides were thrown about. The dark monoliths on either side of 42nd shot upward as if they were freefalling. Snow and wind attacked from every direction.

  Finally Beethoven regained control of the chopper. Tildascow felt her internal organs settle back into place, and she dared to open her eyes.

  Jaguar hung limply from his bindings, his shattered body swaying in a rag-doll fashion. Lon’s head popped up from behind his shoulder. His nose was bleeding and he might’ve thrown up, but he managed to nod that he was okay. He turned to Jaguar, but she squeezed him back to her: Don’t look.

  Scanning for a landmark, she recognized the intersection at Third Avenue. Good news was that they were moving toward the UN Plaza. Bad news was that they were losing altitude.

  Not quite dropping… but not quite not dropping.

  At Third, a vehicle fire illuminated the face of the Mitsubishi Building. Thick packs of werewolves were scaling the tower comprised of irregularly stacked blocks. Many were already perched on the roofs, ready to leap. She could feel their hunger.

  She banged on the gunner’s window, alerting him to the ambush. The Apache’s cannon roared to life, punishing them with heat and volume. Arcing bolts sprayed the Mitsubishi Building, pulverizing werewolves or knocking them loose.

  Still dropping, the Apache pitched forward and took up speed, traveling east on 42nd toward the river. Beyond Third, the street was pitch black until it terminated at the United Nations Plaza. They crossed Second Avenue,
which Tildascow marked only by the gap between the buildings.

  The iconic “Tudor City” sign sat atop the last skyscraper on their left, marking the finish line at First Avenue. A Shithook passed above it, en route to the UN Plaza and carrying some kind of—

  A wolf flew in from the darkness, appearing suddenly in the Apache’s light. It fell inches short—its claws just scraped the wing—and then it plummeted, limbs flailing. Lon was still so clenched that he hadn’t even noticed.

  They cleared the city cluster and broke left to diagonally cross First Avenue, the quasi-highway between Manhattan and the United Nations.

  She sighed with relief when she saw that the Plaza was under a massive siege. Someone had heard her over the radio.

  The front lawn was lit up like a baseball stadium as helicopters swarmed overhead, raining rappelling soldiers onto the sloping roof of the General Assembly Building. Rocket-propelled grenades shot from the rooftops, lighting up the ground amid plumes of smoke. The massive rectangular Secretariat Building glowed at its fringes, backlit by a legion of boats in the East River.

  The domed turret poking from the top of the GA Building seemed to look back at her, as if it were Valenkov’s eyes.

  He was close now.

  As they closed in, they could see that the amalgam military forces had staged an airhead on the plaza’s lawn, a square city block at the northern end of the international territory. Chinooks were jumping from Roosevelt Island, dropping Humvees with roof-mounted M2 (“Ma Deuce”) .50 Caliber machine guns that were firing before they hit the ground.

  Ma Deuces were earth scorchers, the meanest penises Tildascow ever had the pleasure of stroking in her army days. The trees trembled under their punishment, dropping leaves and branches amid pulverized werewolf bits. The M2’s six-inch bullets had no silver, so the enemies kept surging with whatever limbs they had, shambling in the flickering red light cast by flares.

  The werewolves had a rally point of their own. They were massing at the fountain dominating the southern end of the campus, hiding in the shadow of the Secretariat Building as they stormed the narrow back entrances to the General Assembly Building.