by S Mays
“True, but he once served with you, and you gave him a home for a time. Then he went rogue and started killing humans. The Order located him, and they are aware that he was connected with your pack in the past. I had to work extra hard to keep that information under wraps. The entire incident set a chain of events in motion that leads me to be here today.”
“I should have put him out of everyone’s misery long ago,” Varulf said, looking at Tarja’s concerned face. She looked away, not willing to meet his gaze.
“I’ll get straight to the point — the reason I’m here. We have an asset who went missing. Plain and simple: your people are the best at hunting and tracking. As a matter of fact, you already know this prey. He’s the one your scouts met that night in the house in Pennsylvania. The mere human who beat them like lowly dogs.”
Varulf swelled up, scanning the village for the two scouts, but they’d disappeared back into the trees.
Varulf turned back to John. “Yes, and we had received questionable information that stated Rilus would be at this location, and all they found was a murdered human. We don’t like being toyed with, Davies. I suspect you were the one who gave us this bad information.”
“Your scouts confirmed Rilus’ scent, did they not? The dead human was killed by him. I can’t help it if your scouts were slow to arrive. The human I want you to capture is...special. He recently went missing from one of our facilities. We’d like you to locate him and bring him in. This is an omega priority. I cannot stress enough how important this mission is. This human is to be contained, unharmed, and brought safely back. If he dies, we will implement Scorched Earth on your pack, your pack’s family, extended family, and all friends and associates, in all parts of the world. Thousands dead as if they had never existed, but not before being tortured slowly until expiration. You know how long a werewolf can withstand torture.”
Varulf looked at Tarja. They had worked for the Master for decades, but they had never heard of such a severe punishment for failure.
“You can either live like kings on a private island, set up for life, or you can deal with the Order. I’d like to say I can keep hiding your pack indefinitely, but it seems to be growing, and the larger something is, the harder it is to hide,” John said, looking over at several children sitting in the dirt.
Tarja had anticipated the offer to come back to the safety of the Master’s embrace, but this was catastrophic. The wrong answer or failure meant complete obliteration of everyone. However, to never worry about food, to live in luxury again… She looked back at the hut she shared with Varulf.
She grabbed Varulf’s arm and looked pleadingly into his eyes. He often let his anger guide his decision-making. She prayed this wasn’t one of those times. Things would be so much better for everyone if she was the one in charge.
He looked around the village, holding his gaze on certain members longer than others. The preceding years had been a struggle for them all. He’d promised them a good life if they joined him in leaving. This was not what many of them had expected. Hiding from civilization, carving out a meager existence hidden in fear of being discovered. He thought back to the atrocities many of them had been forced to commit under the guidance of the Master. How many would die this time? How many would they kill to satisfy one monster’s ambitions? How much of their humanity would they sacrifice? Some villagers were fearful, some looked hopeful. Regardless, each person looked at him with trust. They trusted him with their lives. He looked once more at Tarja, gently caressing her face with the back of his hand, then turned toward the men.
“You’ll get me and two of my best hunters,” he said as a statement, not in a bargaining tone.
“I’m afraid that the deal is for the whole pack —” John started to say, but before he could finish, Varulf had closed the gap between them and wrapped his massive clawed hand around the man’s throat. He slowly lifted John off the ground, bringing him closer to his gaping toothed maw.
“You need one man found. I myself am enough for this task, and I include two others as a gesture of goodwill. You insult me by stating this is not enough?” he asked, a low growl rumbling deep within his throat.
John’s face turned red as he struggled to breathe. The men with him trained their guns on Varulf, but John would be dead before their fingers had begun to pull the triggers.
“Ggghh.” He tried to speak as his oxygen supply dwindled further. He started to kick his feet, helpless.
“Varulf...” Tarja said in a firm tone, interrupting his fury. He reluctantly lowered the man to the ground.
John gasped for air. Hunched over, he frantically loosened his tie. After a moment, he looked up, smiling again. “As you say. You are more experienced in these matters, and you’ve never failed before. I apologize for questioning you. I know our mutual benefactor will be more than pleased. I’ll start the process of preparing the transfer of your people so that upon completion of the mission, they can be relocated with the utmost haste.” He adjusted his suit, smoothing out the wrinkles, as his normal color returned.
“Davies,” Varulf said, causing the man to stop and turn from his trek back to the helicopter.
“Yes, honored pack leader?” Davies said, a note of concern in his voice.
“You tell Dragos that this is the last time.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Drake’s office was about as garish as one could imagine. Gold-lined black banners and drapes hung from every surface. Ancient Egyptian artifacts were displayed in gleaming clear glass cases lined with bright LED lights. Tribal spears and masks adorned the walls. Ancient scripts and papyrus were preserved in blocks of what looked like tinted glass. Sverre was sure there was a mummy in a sarcophagus behind a decorative pillar, but he couldn’t see from his vantage point. Maybe he’d get a chance to karate chop a mummy after all.
Mixed with all of these objects of antiquity was technology that rivaled anything he had seen while at any of the Order’s installations. Satellite images from around the globe were displayed on several monitors, while others showed every entrance to Xibalba along with numerous shots of Fur and Feathers. A few others overlooked the various boroughs of the town outside. When the interior decorator had asked what he wanted, Drake must have said, “Everything.”
Drake himself sat in a very expensive office chair in front of a desk that must have been carved by hand out of a gargantuan tree. Little characters and stories were whittled into the wood around the edges. On top of the desk was a curved monitor that must have been sixty inches long. It would be the equivalent to perhaps four monitors running in parallel and took up the majority of his desk.
Drake was a thin, sleek man, about five-foot-eight, with dark skin and eyes and black tousled hair. He was dressed in an impeccable suit and tie. He wouldn’t look out of place in a board of directors meeting on Wall Street, but he certainly stood out like a sore thumb in a saloon in an underground cave full of supernatural creatures. He was intently reviewing something on the gargantuan monitor as they approached.
Glancing up, he noticed the pair and instantly smiled. It was the practiced smile of a used car salesman who was about to overcharge for a lemon that he’d been trying to sell for three months.
“Izzy! It’s been a while. You have no idea how glad I am to see my best operative back in town. Jack, bring us a bottle of Dom. Please, have a seat, my guests,” Drake exclaimed.
“Hello, Drake. Good to see you, too,” Izzy returned in a measured tone.
“After that last job went south and T-O grabbed you, I thought that was the last we’d see of you,” he said.
“The Order didn’t grab me. Someone left me hanging while they made their way out the back door.”
“Oh? I’m sorry, I wasn’t aware that’s how it went down,” he replied, taking a glass of champagne from a servant.
“I’m sure you didn’t, Drake,” Izzy replied with a hint of sarcasm. The servant handed Sverre and Izzy glasses as well, leaving the bottle in a bucket of ice on the
table.
“There’s no need to dwell on the past, Izz. The future is full of profit!” Drake said, leaning back in his chair and propping his legs up on the expensive desk. Izzy’s eyes lit up at the mention of “profit.”
“You’ve got a mark?” she inquired.
Drake grabbed the edge of his desk and pulled himself forward, his eyes sparkling. “I’ve got a prime mark. A satellite compound. Alpha level. Just went down a few days ago. Places like this are usually cleaned out in forty-eight hours. They haven’t touched it yet, for some reason. Longest delay I’ve ever seen. Must have been something major that hit it, or something there that they are afraid of.”
“Where is it?”
“Whoa, slow down, there. First — the deal. Who’s your crew?” he asked.
She shifted uneasily, glancing at Sverre nervously. “Me and the kid.”
Drake looked at the two of them, then back and forth at each of them repeatedly, then burst out laughing. “Izzy, you know one of the reasons you’re one of my favorite among the Gatherers is that you crack me up. Two people, looting an alpha compound?”
Izzy was calm and collected. “Do you know where we were, Drake? Do you know what hellhole we crawled out of?”
“You tell me.”
“We were held at Inquest One,” she replied.
Drake’s legs swung down from the desk. “You’re shitting me,” he said.
“Nope, me and the kid broke out of Inquest One. All by ourselves, no help from the outside,” she bragged. It wasn’t quite the truth. The helicopter accident had given them an opportunity to escape, but Drake didn’t need to know that.
“I heard there was a big ruckus out there from one of my contacts. I didn’t hear anything about anyone escaping, though,” Drake challenged.
“Well, here we are. Even had to take down a Slayer to get out,” Izzy continued.
“Now, I know you’re bullshitting. Which one?”
“Reaper,” she stated.
“You expect me to believe you and this punk took down Reaper?” Drake said, looking to his guards to join him in his disbelief. “Is that true, kid? Did the two of you escape from that omega-level research prison, take down one of the top Slayers on the planet, and now sit in my office, begging for work?”
Sverre answered, “Every bit’s true. Dude with some kind of laser sword, a wispy dark sword, wears a trench coat. Left him in the rubble at my feet as I walked out the door.” It wasn’t the way things had gone down, since the rockets from the airship had actually put Reaper down, but Drake didn’t need to know that, either.
“I find that really hard to believe,” Drake said, now more composed.
Izzy tossed a plastic card onto the desk.
“What’s this?” Drake asked, inspecting the badge.
“Proximity key for a C-22 Badger VTOL. Still has most of its armaments,” she said. “I’ve got it hidden away outside the city.”
Drake stared at the key, then asked, “Did you disable the tracking and security?”
“Drake, c’mon, it’s me,” she said, offended.
“Well, shit. We don’t get too many aircraft from T-O,” he said, marveling at the card. He tossed it to one of the men beside him, who left the room.
“What do you want in exchange for a three-hundred-and-fifty-million-dollar Order-grade assault and transport aircraft?” he asked.
“For starters, I want this job. Once you inspect that craft and the stored data and coordinates, you’ll see it came from Inquest One. I wasn’t making that up, but you should know that by now,” she stated with confidence. “Number two: I’m going to need some serious equipment. Some asshole cleared out most of my safe houses,” she continued. “Number three: twenty million. Number four: I want to know where Chuck is.”
Drake chuckled, looking toward the man beside him for affirmation. “You don’t want much, do you? It’s not like I can sell a Badger down at the local car lot.”
“You and I both know you ain’t going to sell it. You’ll strip all of the tech off it first, sell some of it to Silicon Valley or to China, then take what’s left, add about twenty guns to it, and put it in your personal fleet.”
“Still not worth twenty million. How about two?”
“How about ten?”
“Three, and that’s final. Plus, you can have a choice pick from my personal weapons collection. Not any from the glass cases, though. Also, I’m not giving you any information on Chuck. You’ll have to solve your personal vendettas on your own time, and I am not one to snitch, no matter who is asking.”
“Damn it,” she said, disappointed. After thinking a moment, she relented. “Okay, deal.”
“Seems like you didn’t get a very good deal,” Sverre whispered, leaning over.
“How many millions do you have?” she whispered back.
Izzy stood up and shook Drake’s hand. It was a requirement for any deal with him.
“So, where’s this facility?” she asked.
“A little farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. Located in Virginia.”
“Where? What about this farmhouse?” Sverre said, showing renewed interest.
Drake was surprised by the outburst. “A facility disguised as a farmhouse. Satellite showed some heavy activity a few days ago. We aren’t sure what happened, but it was hit hard. Don’t know who hit it, or how they got past the defenses, but I sent a few spies out that way to check it out. It’s legit. I can’t get any of the regular teams in here fast enough to strip it. They’re all either recovering or out on other jobs.” He typed on the keyboard, pulling up a satellite image on a monitor behind him. He zoomed in. It was the Farm.
“Jess...” Sverre whispered.
“What?” Drake asked.
“Er, he just said ‘yesss.’ Yes, he can’t wait to get in there and start digging up that valuable tech and secrets,” Izzy ad-libbed.
“Okay, let me download the specs for you. Give me a list of what you want, and I’ll prep a retrieval team. It’ll take about two hours to get everything ready. You guys can walk around and do whatever you want. Just put it on my tab — within reason. And, Izz, it’s good to see you back.” He nodded to the man beside him. The bodyguard handed Izzy a large gold coin.
They were led through the building, toward the back. A huge metal vault door was encased in solid rock in the wall in a vast cavern. It was big enough to drive a tractor trailer through.
“Holy crap,” Sverre said in awe.
“Yeah, Drake’s got one of the most impressive armories out of any of the Warlords.”
“Warlords?”
“There’s a dozen places like this around the world, plus another twenty or so underground railroads run by sympathizers to our cause. Each territory is run by a Warlord. They provide protection for outcasts like us, keep dangerous supernaturals locked up so they don’t kill anyone or expose the operation to scrutiny, provide food and shelter for others,” Izzy explained.
“Drake doesn’t strike me as the Red Cross type,” Sverre remarked.
“He’s loyal to the cause, but it doesn’t hurt that he’s also a businessman. He’s made hundreds of millions off of providing safe passage for people like us. He’s developed advanced technology from the Order’s tech that he salvages, then he sells it. He also incorporates it into our security measures, which lets us stay one-half step ahead of them. He’s got his own private army made up of supernatural beings that he’s pieced together over decades. It gives us a fighting chance — the ability to at least survive. Before Drake and the other Warlords, we were slowly being wiped out. Many Underworlders were on the verge of extinction.”
“So, who’s Chuck?” Sverre finally asked as several men moved to activate the mechanisms to the massive vault door.
“Just pretend you didn’t hear anything about that, and don’t go around mentioning his name. You’re liable to get your throat slit. That’s my personal business, and you don’t need to worry your pretty little head about it.”
The d
oor to the vault lurched open. Surrounding lights in the cave dimmed as electricity was drawn to power the door’s mechanisms. A man dressed in a suave vest, tie, and dress slacks approached. He looked to be around forty or so, his salt-and-pepper hair perfectly groomed. Small-framed glasses sat at the end of his nose. He held a large, thin tablet in his hands.
“My, it’s been a while, Miss Ford. I hear you’ll be browsing our finest wares on this eve,” he said in a British accent.
“Sverre, this is the Tailor. He runs Drake’s armory. He’ll get our measurements for our combat suits. You can think of him as our Q, because I know you are going to, no matter what I say.”
“Pleased to meet you, sir,” the well-dressed man said.
“Same here.”
“Lift your arms out to your sides, please,” the man directed.
“Don’t we have to...you know, get undressed?” Sverre asked.
“How droll. This isn’t 1850.”
A small sphere appeared from over the Tailor’s shoulder, hovering in front of him. He pointed at Izzy first, then Sverre. The orb whizzed forward, following his directions. Red beams of light flashed across their bodies as the metallic orb slowly circled around them. Finished, it zoomed back into the armory. The entire process took a few seconds.
“Lasers and millimeter wave scanners. I know every inch and measurement of your body. My, my...” he said, looking at the tablet in his hands, then back at Sverre.
“I know, right?” Izzy asked, beaming.
“What? What’s on there?” Sverre asked, lowering his hands down in front of his groin. Suddenly, he felt very exposed.
“Never mind that. I assume you’ll want your standard loadout, Miss Ford?”
“Yeah, and give me Heart-Piercer from Drake’s stash as well.”
“Excellent choice. And for the gentleman?”
“Er, I have no idea. Give him the gear from Akira’s old list,” Izzy said.
“Would the gentleman prefer a katana or something like a wakizashi?”