Winter's Wrath: Sacrifice (Winter's Saga #3)

by Karen Luellen

  Meg wanted to vomit.

  She felt strapped down, eyes tapped wide open, forced to witness the atrocities of the demonic soul from the time he first acted on his vile impulses.

  The was no sanctity of life to him.

  There was nothing precious or beautiful to be held sacred.

  There was only his psychotic need to cause pain, thinly disguised to the outside world as his quest for scientific advancement.

  She was subjected to the start of his sadistic behavior; his psychopathic spiral escalated over time. After the baby birds and the kitten, he just needed bigger and more interesting victims to abuse. His sick mind moved on to the neighbor’s dog, which he buried alive and timed how long he heard it struggle. Then countless more dogs and cats were laid to depraved waste through torture, amputation and dissection.

  Meg’s mind tried to hold Maze—crying tears of angry vengeance for all the precious creatures this born psychopathic monster didn’t just kill. Then his emotional memories fast-forwarded, following some strange autobiographical timeline she was forced to experience, to when Williams was in medical school, working on human cadavers and feeling utterly unsatisfied in their already dead, frozen tissue.

  On the surface, he worked to take care of his appearance. Though still slender, Kenneth Williams worked out, developing his physique. His intellect astound his professors at the Ivy League university and he was thought to be a high valuable asset to the scientific community, an up-and-comer the society’s wealthy introduced their daughters to in hopes of a good match.

  All the while, Kenneth was hungry for death. He would travel far from his home, seeking vulnerable human souls to deceive into trusting him. Once it was a hitchhiker, another time he befriended a lonesome divorcee, then there was the homeless preteen. He wasn’t picky about his victims, except that they now had to be human. Any gender, age, condition would do. The bastard got off on it.

  Oh, my dear God. Williams’ soul was so sick, Meg thought, terrified she was infused by his demonic essence, but there was nothing she could do. She was too far lost in his macabre mind. It was a labyrinth of violence.

  So traumatized was she by what she was subjected to, she couldn’t even breathe. The longer she was exposed to his sick world, the deeper she sank into him. She didn’t know how long she was exposed, but it was beginning not to matter.

  Meg knew what was happening each moment she was trapped.

  Every passing heartbeat, there was less of her and her own memories and thoughts. As their heartbeats began to synchronize, she was losing herself inside the monster.

  She saw the duplicity in Kenneth’s eyes when he asked Charlotte to marry him. She saw how he treasured her more as a political pawn in his game. His version of love was sick, though he did love her. The very few nights he allowed her into his bed miraculously created a child. At first he didn’t believe the child was his, so sure Charlotte had sought another’s comfort as he was always so busy building his scientific career.

  Moments after she was born, Williams performed a paternity test on June himself and couldn’t decide whether or not he was pleased to find she really was his daughter.

  Becoming a father didn’t change Kenneth’s psychotic thirst, just redirected it. He continued his double life, killing “nobodies” on the side and coming home to lightly kiss his Charlotte on the cheek even as she held the baby.

  Something in Kenneth knew to push himself further away from his wife and daughter. Something inside him knew he was dangerous to them, so he buried himself in his work. He kept his family in Germany now, to force Charlotte into seclusion so she wouldn’t compare him to normal men. He couldn’t stand the thought of her leaving him. He built the entire compound in Furth for her.

  Williams himself lived much of the year in California at his Institute performing the research that eventually created the Infinite Serum.

  And then the doctors suspected something was wrong with his seed; his June.

  Half sure it was some form of punishment because of his secret life lusting death, Williams refused to believe he couldn’t cure his daughter.

  The more out of control he felt in life, the more he craved to bestow cruelty. He never denied himself his need for the macabre. He reveled in it. The more pain he saw in his victims’ eyes, the more gratifying it was to him.

  Meg started to curl into a ball—just a small speck that was her enveloped in the blackness that was him—and prayed for some miracle that would help her escape.

  Chapter 5 Who Says Miracles Don’t Happen?

  “Meg!” Margo was desperately shaking her daughter by the shoulders. “Meg! Come back!”

  “Oh, dear God! What do we do?” Margo cried frantically.

  The whole family was around her, terrified for her.

  Acting on pure instinct, Creed protectively lifted Meg’s limp body and ran out of the lab. Bolting down the hallway, he kicked the door open to her bedroom knowing her coyote would be there waiting.

  Maze barked frantically as Creed laid the girl on her soft bedding. Meg’s best friend knew something was horribly wrong. His wet nose nuzzled her neck and his rough tongue licked her face relentlessly. He crouched over her body and whined between bouts of deafening barks. He howled loud enough for the cows back home to hear, and just when he started to panic—curling up beside his Meg, wedging his nose under her hand begging to be petted, Meg felt herself soaring back into her body.

  She touched the soft fur between her coyote’s ears and rubbed quietly before willing her eyes to open.

  “Meg?” Creed’s worried face was the first she saw before Maze smothered her with happy kisses.

  She moaned, “Maze, my knight in furry armor. I love you, too.”

  “Oh, thank God, Meg!” Margo was at her bedside, face glistening wet with tears. “Don’t you ever do that again!” she scolded gently.

  “You scared the hell out of us!” It was Alik’s voice coming from the foot of her bed.

  “What happened, Meg?” Evan was desperate to understand.

  “I tried, Mom,” She said, apologetically to the room. “I tried to find a way to pull the evil away from Williams, but it was too much.” She choked back a frustrated sob. “Everything inside him is evil. There isn’t a speck of light left in him; nothing but blackness.”

  She sat up and let her sixty-pound coyote climb into her lap affectionately. He let her talk, but would interrupt occasionally to lick the tears off her face or nuzzle his head under her hand needing a reassuring rub.

  “He trapped me inside his blackness,” she whispered. “I was too weak to get out.”

  Meg couldn’t stop the tears now. “I feel useless and stupid. The poison that was Williams’ heart left vile echoes in me. I feel violated and dirty with his hatred, and…” she shook with anguish, “I have this desperate need to stand under the hottest water I can find and scrub myself raw with bleach!” she blurted.

  “No, Meg.” Creed reached around and held her, gently scooting Maze aside and forcing him to share. “You’re the white light. There is nothing ugly or tainted about you.” He stroked the curls that hung wildly down her back. “I felt you inside me. I know what you are. You are the same shimmering white blanket that wrapped around my anger and saved me from it.”

  Meg let him hold her and rub her back while she buried her face into his large chest and clutched the fabric of his T-shirt with both fists. He kept offering softly whispered reassurances until she started to breathe more than sob. Someone thoughtfully handed her a fluffy wad of tissues. She hiccupped a few times before her breathing steadied. She pulled away from her rock, her Creed, just enough to look into his eyes, and saw only love there. She allowed herself to bask in its glow for a moment before turning to look at her mother.

  “Okay, so what’s plan B?” Meg asked with a forced smile. She knew something had changed in her because of her exposure to Williams, but she didn’t share it with her family. There wasn’t time, and she wasn’t even sure how to put into wo
rds the shift she felt. She would have to deal with it later, she was sure of it. But now, that sadistic monster was hunting her family and she needed to put her own pain aside.

  Margo patted Meg’s hand, oblivious of the true extent of her daughter’s damaged psyche, and turned on her soldier voice. “We need a weapons and ammunition count. Think outside the box here guys; what do we have that we can use against them?”

  “I know we have plenty of ammunition for the four handguns and there’s a half dozen hunting knives in the front closet,” Alik offered.

  “We still have the smoke bombs we made a few nights back that we never got to use because of the rain,” Evan added.

  “I have a hunting rifle,” Paulie said with a shrug. “I never was very good at using it, but in one of your hands, it could be useful.”

  “I have a couple large duffle bags full of weapons in the guesthouse,” Creed started counting them aloud. “There’s a Beretta 92FS Inox handgun, an AKM assault rifle, a Colt Model 723, one SVD Dragunov sniper rifle, a Micro Uzi, loads of ammunition for all of them and, oh, yeah…a dozen or so M67 hand grenades.”

  Everyone stared at Creed wide-eyed.

  “What?” Creed asked the room.

  “What the heck are you doing with all that stuff?” Evan squeaked.

  Creed blushed deeply, realizing the sudden change in the room was because of him. “I couldn’t decide what to bring when I came from Germany, so I brought everything. I was supposed to be an assassin, remember?”

  “Dude, you have a freaking arsenal! I’m damn glad you’re on our side now,” Alik breathed.

  Creed continued blushing, so he did what came naturally to him and redirected the conversation to less embarrassing topics: battle tactics and guerrilla warfare.

  “First objective is to disengage the enemy, to hit them hard so they retreat long enough for us to evacuate. I still have the number to the pilots we used the other day: Jacobi and Trainer. I’ll contact them and see if they can drop what they’re doing to fly our asses out of here. We’ll need to get the cars ready for a fast getaway. Bring only what you can carry in one small bag. We need to go underground for a while to regroup.” Creed stopped to look around the room for any signs of agreement.

  “There are so many holes with that plan, but we don’t really have time to deliberate and draw schematics,” Alik spoke up. “What I’m saying is: I’m in.”

  “It could work,” Margo added thoughtfully. “Get on the phone now to call those pilots. They’re going to need time to ready an aircraft for us. Tell them money is not an issue.”

  Creed nodded and pulled his phone out of his back pocket, already searching through its address book for Jacobi.

  “Alik, can you run out to the guesthouse and get Creed’s duffel bags? Evan, you gather the other weapons we have around here and everyone meet back here in three minutes,” Margo ordered.

  “Meg, you keep tabs on Williams while packing a bag. Be sure to throw in some extra clothing for Farrow,” Mom called to Meg’s back as she was already headed to her room. Meg’s shoulders shivered in physical rebellion at what her mom so casually threw into her lap. She kept her mouth shut, though. There was nothing she could do. Her family needed her like this.

  “I know, I know—go pack,” Theo said to Margo as he hurried out of the room stopping to kiss her lips briefly as he passed her.

  “Paulie,” Margo sighed deeply. “This isn’t your fight. You can take a car and get out of here. We’ll try our best not to leave too much damage on our way out, but you don’t need to be here for any of what’s about to happen.”

  The old scientist raised his white brows and scoffed, “Are you kidding, Margo? Having you and the kids and Theo with me over these months has been the happiest, most fulfilling time in an otherwise uninvolved life. This is my fight because you are all like family to me now. Anyone who wants to hurt you, has to go through me,” he said the last with a slight puffing of his aged chest.

  In that moment, Margo understood this man’s attachment to her family was real. He never thought of them as a charity case, or friends going through hardships. Paulie, the doctor who was always too busy with his own research and science to settle down and have a family, had adopted hers as his own.

  She walked up to the gentleman, who stood proudly in his floral shorts, black socks and sandals with a striped button-up shirt and wrapped her arms around him. “Thank you, Paulie. You are absolutely family to all of us.”

  “Oh, geez, lady,” Alik teased as he walked back into the room carrying two giant black bags weighted with firepower. “Enough of the love fest!”

  Paulie coughed emotion out of his throat before shrugging. “Women! They’re always needing reassurance during the worse times.” He winked affectionately at Margo before turning to leave the room, presumably to pack his bag, and maybe even dry the mist from his eyes.

  As ordered, everyone was back in the living room inside of three minutes.

  “Mom, are we really going to shoot to kill?” Meg blurted the question she knew weighed heavily on everyone’s mind.

  After taking the emotional temperature of the room over the last twenty minutes, it was clear to Meg that no one was comfortable with killing these mutant metasoldiers. Personally, Meg was starting to warm to the idea of ridding the world of Williams and his evil.

  Her mother sighed deeply. “When I was in the military, I was trained to kill. I was given orders by my superiors, and I trusted those orders to be the lesser of evils. If I did not accomplish my objective, many more innocent lives would be lost. When in the heat of an assignment, there is no time for hesitation. Hesitation gets you or your teammates dead.”

  Meg had never heard her mother talk like this before. This was a completely different side to her; one she obviously put away, to a certain extent, once she became a civilian.

  “I never wanted this for you,” Margo continued looking around the room at the metas she raised as her own children. “I am sorry it has come to kill or be killed.” Then her eyes flashed red with anger, “You are not expendable,” and then she locked stares with Creed, “none of you is expendable.”

  Creed nodded solemnly, even as thoughts of his brother swam in his emotions.

  “It is a moral dilemma, to be sure,” Paulie agreed. Having served in Vietnam as an army medic, he had his own haunted memories of war.

  Though the words were never explicitly said, they all understood. They would pull the trigger to protect themselves; it was the lesser of two evils.

  Changing the subject, Creed spoke as he unpacked his duffle bags and laid the weapons carefully on the wide coffee table. “Jacobi agreed to fly us back to the states. He was already at the airport working on paperwork, so he’s readying a plane large enough to hold all of us. He said he thought he could get his copilot to agree to the last-minute flight, too.” Creed stopped to look up at the room. “We lucked out with them. They’re good guys.”

  Meg breathed a sigh of relief that Creed was able to find a plane and pilots to get them out of there. “That’s excellent news; now how are we going to get to the airport when we have,” Meg stopped and rechecked, then swallowed the lump of nerves choking her, “about thirty minutes before the rabid dogs arrive?”

  Creed nodded, acknowledging her worry. “I know you three can fight hand-to-hand since I saw you spar back in Kansas, but I really don’t want our fight today to get that close. I think we should barricade all the windows and doors, leave only enough room to shoot and position ourselves around the house. Each of us needs to have a pile of ammo at our ready. The humans—no offense Dr. Andrews and Paulie….”

  “No, none taken,” both men stammered knowing full well their skills were not military-based at all.

  “They can be our runners in case someone needs backup or ammo. I say we just tick them off one at a time as they pop their bloody heads out of the bushes. The faster we do that, the more fear we’ll strike in the group and hopefully we can get them to retreat long enough f
or us to run. If they don’t retreat, then I’ll just have to take them all out so there will be no one left to hunt us.” Creed shrugged nonchalantly as if he had just suggested they all go for a stroll on the beach after dinner.

  More wide-eyed staring came from his enrapt audience.

  “Oh yeah! Now, that’s what I call a plan!” Alik grinned and smacked Creed on the back.

  “You mean we’ll,” Meg said coolly, eyes never leaving Creed’s chiseled face.

  “No, I mean I’ll.” He knew exactly what part of his speech she was stuck on. He reached out and handed Meg a headset he had pulled from one of the bags. “You wear this and give me any hints you can as to where the rabid dogs are, and I’ll take them out.”

  “How do you plan to do that?” Meg asked, already fearing the answer.

  “With this,” Creed held up his Dragunov sniper rifle, “I’m going to be up in one of the trees out there, ready to eliminate them one by one.”

  “Creed, no!” Meg gasped, sure he was living out the fatal devotion she already sensed in him.

  “This is what I’ve been trained my whole life to do, Meg. I’m the best. You don’t need to worry about me. Besides, I’ll have an extrasensory set of eyes helping me know where my targets are.” His deep-blue eyes connected with hers and in them, she saw her world. He offered his disarming crooked grin as he put his own headset on. “It’ll be okay,” he nodded and sent Meg waves of reassuring emotions down an emotional tie she didn’t even know she had with him.

  “Okay, the clock is ticking,” Paulie called from the corner of the room as he clutched his hunting rifle.

  Chapter 6 Plan B

  Over the next thirty minutes the house was tense with work. The windows and doors were barricaded shut with anything the family could get their hands on. Even Dr. Paulie’s surf boards didn’t escape use as they were hammered into place across doors. (All except his favorite one. No one had the heart to do that to the old guy.) Furniture was shoved against windows, offering both protection from incoming fire and a way to obscure a shooter from inside. Each meta was assigned a position facing the most likely angle of attack. Farrow and Cole were moved to a small room in the center of the house that had no windows—assuring them the best protection. Neither of them had awakened, but there wasn’t time to worry about that now.