I winced. I’m a vigorous proponent of the ‘talk or fight—don’t try to do both’ philosophy but I could see what Marie was trying to do. Dannor had the edge in size and reach, not to mention those silver claws. Marie was trying to goad him into rash action.
“I don’t care about your orgasms, female,” Dannor growled.
“I know, and that’s why you were so boring in bed.”
Dannor roared. Given the manner in which he liked to rape females, ‘boring’ was a massive insult. He’d probably been aiming for terrifying. ‘Boring’? Ouch.
The roar lowered in pitch as Dannor changed. It wasn’t a pretty sight. It looked and sounded like the change was causing him incredible pain. Thick, wiry fur sprouted from his skin as his body rearranged itself. His shoulders broadened, his chest deepened, his arms became long and powerful, corded with thick muscle.
Marie, by comparison, changed effortlessly and without drama. Fur seemed to flow from her shoulders to cover her body as it grew to fill out the combat suit. Where Dannor seemed to vibrate with badly suppressed rage, Marie exuded power like a sniper rifle: quiet, controlled, benign, but flick a switch and she could destroy anyone in her sights.
Dannor bellowed a challenge and leapt forward, claws outstretched, but Marie wasn’t there when he landed. She’d neatly side-stepped, her arm in motion, her claws raking Dannor’s back in a long diagonal slash as he tried to stop his rush. He whirled and dropped into a crouch before catapulting forward again. Marie slid to the side and stuck again, her claws shredding Dannor’s ear and leaving bloody tracks down his face.
Dannor backed up and the pair circled each other. He was panting like a marathon runner, she was silent and composed. I glanced at Marcus, seeing the shock on his face mixing with something else. It took me a second but I identified it. It was avarice. He was looking at Marie like a possession he burned to own.
Marie sidestepped another clumsy rush, backhanding Dannor almost casually across the face, sending him tumbling. The four inmüt shifted uneasily. Dannor was their leader and he was being pummeled to death before their eyes.
Dannor whirled upward in a fury of movement, coming low and rearing up at the last second. Marie spun but Dannor was ready for it, his silver claws flashing, raking across her back, slicing through her combat suit and screeching over the armor plates. Marie completed her spin, dropped to a crouch and lashed out with one leg, delivering a punishing blow to the side of Dannor’s knee. She pressed her advantage as he stumbled; punching him in the kidney and laying his snout open with her claws before dancing out of his reach.
Dannor stumbled upright again, favoring his wounded knee, blood and mucus pouring from his ruined mouth and nose.
My earpiece crackled again.
“Pagan,” said Happy. “The vamps are on the move, closing on our position. One hundred and fifty yards.”
Marcus had obviously summoned his army.
“Marie,” I said. “End it.”
Marie stepped forward and slashed Dannor across the chest again and again, her claws tearing chunks from his flesh. She slammed the heel of her paw into his face, sending him flying backwards. In a second she was on him, still eerily silent. Dannor was big and strong, but Marie was a purebreed werewolf, powerful and unstoppable. As a halfbreed Dannor had never stood a chance. There was a sound like tearing cloth and Dannor screamed, a howl of unbearable pain that echoed around the countryside.
When Marie straightened and stepped back there was a bloody gobbet of flesh hanging from her claws and Dannor was curled into a ball, whimpering and sobbing.
The silence stretched until Norse broke it.
“Holy shit!” he cried in a strangled voice. “Did she just rip his nuts off?”
Marie casually flung the grisly handful of tissue away. Mercifully it landed out of sight in the long grass.
Dannor struggled to rise, both hands clamped to his crotch where the remains of his jeans could be seen around a ragged, bloodstained tear.
“Fuck, Pagan,” said Norse. “You’re a braver man than I am!”
No, I thought. Not braver. Luckier maybe. I wasn’t fazed in the slightest. Dannor deserved what had been done, and Marie deserved to be the one to do it. The female hunters seemed to agree with me. Their cheers and whistles indicated that they heartily approved. The guys had mostly turned green and one, over to my left, was being noisily sick over the wall.
Marcus looked like he’d just dropped a Faberge egg and found the hope diamond in the shattered remains, sick and delighted at the same time.
“Trés magnifiqué,” he breathed.
Dannor finally managed to get both legs under him and broke into a shambling, crouched-over run, fleeing as fast as possible. Marie, meanwhile, was staring at each of the inmüt in turn. She turned her head and made a soft, inquisitive noise in the back of her throat.
“Pagan,” said Happy over the radio. “The vamps have stopped, one hundred twenty yards out.”
I could make out the mass of figures in the darkness, the occasional glint of light reflecting off of eyes or fangs.
The inmüt were looking nervously at each other. Something was happening here and I was lost. Suddenly one took a hesitant step forward. Thirty rifles swung to point at him but Marie held up one paw. The inmüt took another step, prompting Marie to growl softly. His shoulders and head dropped and he walked to her side quietly. The other three quickly followed. One by one they sank to their knees, their heads down, acknowledging her as their new leader.
She turned towards Marcus, her claws flexing, a low growl coming from her wrinkled muzzle.
“Marie,” I said flatly.
She stopped and straightened, then turned around. She sank to one knee, acknowledging my authority. Unlike the inmüt, her head was up, her eyes locked on mine. In the pack, I remembered, the alpha male’s mate is second only to he.
“Magnifiqué!” said Marcus. “Such obedience!”
No, not obedience, you dimwitted wanker, I thought. That’s love, something you couldn’t comprehend.
Marie rose to her feet and walked back to the wall, the inmüt following her. The four moved around me and formed a line behind me, while Marie took her place to my right.
“It seems you have stolen my bodyguard, Pagan,” said Marcus. “But now we’ve had our entertainment, what is your answer?”
“Pagan, the vamps are moving again,” came Bolt’s voice. “Slowly, but they are coming.”
“My answer?” I said. “My answer is no. We don’t give our friends to the monsters.”
“You would do well not to cross me, Pagan,” he hissed.
“Or you’ll do what? Stand there being gay at me some more?”
His face darkened and his lips drew back in a snarl.
“I am Marcus Demios!” he thundered. “I am the Lord Nightbringer!”
“So what?” I said, shrugging. “So now you’ve got a poncy title to go with that poncy outfit?”
His eyes blazed with power, far brighter than any I’d ever seen before. This vamp was off the scale and he was pouring everything he had into dominating me.
“Missed me,” I said as I brought my FAL up and fired.
CHAPTER
43
The 7.62mm round left the barrel of my rifle, the strontium-magnesium compound igniting as it did so, and covered the distance between Marcus and I faster than the sound of the shot. The round entered his chest and blew about half of his spine out of the back of his body. Greasy smoke curled out of the wounds as his body toppled backwards.
A group howl went up from the vampiric army still almost invisible in the darkness.
“That’s torn it,” said Bolt. “About a third of the vamps are moving towards us.”
A third? Better than all of them I supposed. I decided that this qualified as a good reason to get the regular military here.
“Happy,” I said into my radio. “Give our friends a call and get them moving. I want backup here right now.”
“I
’m trying boss,” Happy replied. “I’m getting some junior prick of an officer telling me they’ve been ordered to hold their positions.”
I groaned. Murphy’s fucking Law. I didn’t have time to persuade some wet behind the ears Lieutenant that I had the authority to summon him.
“Happy, get a hold of Colonel Tilehurst or Captain Dent. Fuck it, get anyone with a big rank and tell them we’d be interested in finding out why our backup is sitting around playing with themselves rather than backing us up.”
“I’m on it, boss.”
I bit back my anger. I had defenses to run.
“Present arms!” I yelled. “Targets to the front!”
I spoke into my radio.
“Hacker, Siren, Spartan, full suppressive fire!”
Siren had climbed into the cupola of the Saxon APC, the GPMG already aimed into the darkness. Spartan’s Land Rover surged forward until it was against the wall. He slid over until he was sitting behind the GPMG that was fixed in front of the passenger seat. One of his team was standing in the back, aiming the pintle-mounted GPMG. All three machine guns roared into life and, a second later, Hacker started firing the RARDEN. The 30mm autocannon was slow—it sounded like a steam locomotive chugging up a difficult hill—and it only had a six round magazine; forcing Hacker to pause to reload often, but the effects could be devastating. When a 30mm shell hits a body it just keeps going. Normally the RARDEN is useless for anti-personnel work—it’s intended to be used against light to medium armor—but when the target is a gang of tightly-packed indominati, it plows through at least three or four with every shot.
It wasn’t enough, though. Their shambling, uncoordinated lope was bringing them closer. Unlike intelligent creatures these wouldn’t turn and run once they’d taken enough casualties. They’d keep on coming until the last one fell.
“Company, fire!” I shouted.
All guns opened up, the sounds from different caliber weapons merged together into one loud cacophony of sound as the indominati died. They fell and their fellows behind simply climbed over the bodies and kept coming. Had Marcus been in control of these creatures we would have been overrun. He could have thrown the entire force at us in one, unstoppable wave.
Happy was reporting that some individuals were breaking away from the main group and coming towards us, but the bulk was still milling around. Some fighting seemed to have broken out between individuals.
Cheery news in one respect, but I had no desire to go out there to track them down in the night. Dawn was hours away but when the sun rose the indominati would go to ground. Even the dumbest animal knows to get away from what’s hurting it.
The rate of fire dropped off for lack of targets, only to rise again as bloodied vamps rose from the ground to be riddled with shots. Eventually there was no more movement and silence reigned again.
“Stand fast,” I said as I activated my radio. “Happy, report.”
“They’re still waiting, boss,” he replied.
I swore softly. As long as they were prepared to mill around I was prepared to leave them be. But if they started to move off I would have to go after them. Six hundred feral vampires could do a lot of damage before dawn.
“What about that backup?” I asked Happy.
“I’m getting a bad feeling about this, boss. I’m getting the run around. No fucker seems to know where any senior officer is, nobody’s in charge, nobody’s giving orders.”
I turned to the four inmüt behind me. I wondered if any of these had participated in the gang rapes that Marguerite had mentioned and, if so, how much of it had been willing. Each had a shaved patch on their neck, revealing scarred skin where this Marcus had fed from them to keep them under his thrall.
“Can any of you speak?” I asked.
“Yes, Master,” said the biggest in a gutteral voice. “Inmüt learn speech as wolfcub. All speak.”
“Good,” I said and nodded. “First, I’m your boss, not your Master. Your days of being slaves are over.”
The inmüt glanced at each other uncertainly but eventually the big one nodded.
“Yes … boss,” he said.
“Okay, now, I need to know if I can trust you.”
The inmüt looked even more confused.
Marie laid her hand on my shoulder.
“The question doesn’t make sense to a wolf, Jack,” she said quietly. She turned to the inmüt and said, “He wants to know if you’ll fight for him.”
“You are alpha male,” said the big one. “Our lives are yours. We die to protect you.”
I nodded. For now, until I had reason otherwise, I would trust them. If I needed to take the hunters out after the indominati, leading from the front with five werewolves at my back would make the job infinitely easier.
“Pagan,” came Happy’s voice. “The main group is advancing.”
“How many?” I said into my radio.
“All of them except maybe a dozen that seem to be dead.”
Crap. Okay, back to the original plan.
“What are your names?” I asked.
“David,” rumbled the biggest.
“Phil.”
“Erik.”
“Cameron.”
“Okay, Erik and Cameron, if we get overrun, your responsibility is to get my mate to safety, understand?”
“Jack—” said Marie.
“Yes boss,” said Cameron, rather more clearly than David. “She’ll come to no harm.”
“Jack, I don’t need—”
I silenced her with a look.
“My decision, my love,” I said. “I don’t need to be worrying about you if the shit hits the fan.”
She stared at me defiantly for a second before dropping her eyes. I thought I’d hurt her feelings—and I didn’t care as long as she survived—until I saw a small smile tug at the corners of her lips.
I trusted the most precious thing in my life to a pair of werewolves I’d only just met, but I didn’t see that I had much choice. What I knew of the wolf pack structure left me inclined to trust them. They’d accepted me as alpha without question and that counted for a lot.
I turned back to the wall. The incoming hoard was barely visible.
“Company present arms! We’re about to receive visitors! Grenadiers form up!”
Twenty hunters left the wall and sprinted to the center of the compound. Each was armed with one of the H&K grenade launchers and a bag of grenades. Spartan had compared this to Rorke’s Drift. Well, I was going to borrow a tactic used to good effect by the defenders of the beleaguered mission station more than a century ago in Africa. The hunters formed two lines and loaded their launchers.
“Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more,” said Norse.
“I never liked that speech,” I replied, trying to sound more confident than I felt. “The next line goes ‘or close the wall up with our English dead’ and that’s too pessimistic by half.”
There was a burst of tension relieving laughter.
“You got something better, Pagan?”
I turned to look around, taking in the hunters and the inmüt.
“We few, we happy few, we band of brothers, for he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother, be he ne’er so vile this day shall gentle his condition,” I said, my voice rising and falling in the cadence I’d learned as a kid in the school play. “And gentlemen in England now abed shall think themselves accursed they were not here and hold their manhoods cheap whilst any speaks that fought with us upon this Guy Fawke’s day!”
The defenders cheered and I hoped nobody would point out that the original speech was given on St. Crispin’s day. Nobody did and I allowed the cheering to continue for a few moments.
“Face to the front.” I yelled. “Conserve your ammunition. Aimed shots. Hold your fire until the command.”
Norse and Spartan were on either flank. As my most experienced hunters, they would act as my sergeants. Even now they were repeating my orders on the off chance anyone hadn�
�t heard them.
The indominati were getting closer.
“Grenadiers. Volley by ranks—present arms!”
Both ranks raised their launchers.
“At one hundred yards!” my voice had climbed to that special volume only available to sergeants and jet aircraft, the orders bouncing off of the walls.
“Front rank … fire!”
Ten launchers coughed, sending their deadly explosive projectiles arcing towards the enemy.
“Reload!”
The front rank knelt and cracked open their launchers, extracting the spent shells and loading fresh ammunition as the grenades landed. The explosions scattered bodies around, tearing the closest indominati limb from limb.
“Rear rank … fire!”
Ten more grenades sailed into the air.
“Reload!”
The rear rank knelt and the front rank stood as more vamps died.
“Front rank … fire!”
Again and again I sent out loads of high-explosive death, my voice growing hoarse as each rank fired, knelt, reloaded, stood and fired again. The few vamps that made it past the curtain of grenades were easily picked off by teams under the direction of Norse or Spartan, or by Bolt and Callie in their elevated sniper’s nests.
But each grenadier only had ten rounds and, all too quickly the last grenades were fired.
“To the wall!”
The grenadiers dropped their launchers and scrambled forward, their rifles ready. I kept up with them, raising my FAL.
“Independent! Fire at will!”
The hunters opened up. So far they were obeying orders and the fire was calm and directed. Vamps died by the score but for every one we dropped it seemed two took its place. The vamps were within fifty yards when I yelled my next order.
“Frenchie! Claymores!”
“Stand by!” yelled the former legionnaire from under the cover of Rock Ape’s machine-gun nest. “Firing!”
Frenchie had spread the claymores around the perimeter, so only three were facing the vamps, but anyone who has seen a claymore go off knows how devastating they are. The three shaped explosives detonated, spraying hundreds of steel ball bearings at lethal speed towards the enemy. The closest vamps were shredded; the ones behind them were only slightly luckier.
Pagan (MPRD Book 1) Page 26