Hunter Wars Omnibus Edition (Books 1 - 3)

by SD Tanner

  ‘Exactly!’ He replied, grinning back at Pax. ‘If we hadda paid more attention to the weird, that asshole would never have gotten on the island. Ip woulda picked him and she did. I remember she was starin’ at him at the party and we ignored it.’

  ‘We made a mistake,’ TL said morosely.

  ‘Nothin’ wrong with makin’ mistakes, TL,’ he said honestly. ‘It’s only a problem if we don’t learn from ‘em.’

  ‘How do we do this?’ Pax asked.

  He shifted his position on the recliner and felt his stitches pull slightly. Feeling tired to the bone, he said, ‘We need more people willin’ to be infected. We need to understand what they can do once they are. We need to change how we fight. We gotta stop denyin’ the weird and embrace it. Bring it into the equation.’ Wearily rubbing the scar on his face, he added, ‘Plus we gotta keep doin’ all the other stuff. Gatherin’ survivors. Settin’ up more bases. Gettin’ the food supply stabilized.’

  When neither of his brothers spoke, he added, ‘And we gotta get on the front foot. Get more aggressive. Hunt down the super hunters. Destroy the hunters. Get rid of the hunters and the super hunters don’t have an army, and without an army they’re fuckin’ useless assholes.’

  ‘You need to get better first, Gears,’ TL said seriously. ‘You’re not on your feet yet.’

  ‘I know,’ he replied honestly.

  Pax batted his shoulder and said, ‘We took a month down at the start of this and we oughta do that again. We need to plan anyway.’

  TL grinned and said, ‘And we do own our own resort now.’

  Ip walked onto the balcony and she took his hand, tugging him gently. He smiled at her and said, ‘Think it’s time I went to bed, honey?’

  She answered by smiling at him and tightening her grip on his hand, she gently pulled him towards her. Before he obeyed, he asked, ‘Is he comin’ back, hon?’

  Ip tilted her head to the side and then, sighing deeply, she looked out to the sea with a worried expression. He was learning to read her better and he knew the answer. Ruler was not gone. He’d been here before the virus and he was still here. He no longer believed the super hunters or Ruler had anything to do with the virus and his gut told him they’d merely taken advantage of it. He didn’t know what they were or why they were here, but he did know what they intended to do and he did not agree. This war was not the one he expected, but he’d met that little shit now and he had no intention of standing down.

  EPILOGUE: Jus’ come on back if you ever wanna try again (Ruler)

  What the hell is this, he wondered and he tugged at the loose skin that hung in folds all over his body. Picking up a long flap of skin that hung down from his torso, he stretched it out in front of him and it spread out like an apron at least a foot from his body. Holding it in both hands, he waggled it and watched it flap wetly. Interesting, he thought, I wonder what it’s for? Looking in the mirror in the bathroom he was standing in, he inspected his newly acquired face. He had big brown eyes, shaved bald head and, he decided, a distinctly Roman nose. Not too bad, he thought. Standing side on to the mirror he sucked in his stomach, still holding the apron flap of loose skin out and noticed he had a tattoo of a busty curvaceous woman with the head of a rabbit on his shoulder. He smiled and thought, nice. Also nice, he decided, was being so tall. Dropping the flap of loose skin, he reached above his head and easily put both hands on the ceiling.

  Tucking the flap of loose skin into his jeans, he walked out of the bathroom. He passed the people sleeping in the bunker and thought the place smelt of sweaty humans and asses. I should open the door, he thought happily, it’s not healthy being cooped up underground like this. Deciding he was just being helpful, he walked out of the sleeping quarters and down a long, dimly lit corridor. There was a small sign with “EXIT” written on it. How thoughtful, he decided and followed the signs until he saw a door with a large handle. The door was not designed to be locked from the inside and he flipped the handle up easily and pushed against the door until it opened. He was confronted by a long dark concrete corridor and making his way along it, he eventually ran into another door with another large handle and he flipped the handle and opened the door. He couldn’t see anything ahead of him and he felt his way around the wall until he found another door. Feeling along the door until he found another handle, he flipped the handle and pushed the door open and was rewarded with moonlight and the smell of grass.

  Oh goody, he thought happily. Walking out onto the damp grass he saw hundreds of hunters standing quietly and swaying slightly. A hunter wearing armor walked out from the crowd and he put his arm out to it. Taking his arm, the armored hunter leant down and bit deeply. Ah, now the good stuff, he thought as the virus coursed through his body. He felt his brain cells rearrange, his blood burn through his veins and every muscle in his body tighten. Opening his eyes, the night sky became clear as day and he could hear every noise, smell the undercurrent of every scent and see all movement around him. I do love being alive, he thought absently, as his parts of his mind came alive and he became aware of every other being in his world. With his mind, he wanted to find that imp, but he resisted the urge to tell her he was back. That would be boastful, he decided.

  Turning abruptly, his hordes of hunters followed him back into the bunker. He’d chosen this body to be tall and he’d chosen this bunker for a reason. Walking back down the corridors he had just come from, he stood at the end of the long dimly lit corridor as his hunters ran snarling through the bunker. He took the corridor to his left and entered a door, walked to the back of the room, and stood at far end waiting. Listening to the people screaming and crying, he heard the occasional burst of gunfire that quickly died. New freshly born hunters were appearing in his mind and he reminded his hunter dogs to play nicely. While he stood waiting, people began to stagger into the room and some were crying, others were cursing and all were in shock. A line of hunters stood snarling between him and the people who were now standing and staring open mouthed at him.

  ‘What are you doing, Barry?’ A woman asked plaintively.

  He ignored her. Eventually the room had about fifty people standing around, looking frightened and confused. Once he was aware there was no more human life in the base, he took a deep breath and smiled benignly at the people who were staring at him. He thought they looked as stupid as they always did and he coached his rage to stay in check. He slightly preferred these humans alive.

  Spreading his arms wide, he boomed loudly, ‘Welcome!’ He was immediately pleased with the deep baritone of his voice.

  ‘Barry?’ A short man wearing glasses called. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘A demonstration please,’ he said, with an imperious wave of his arm. Unfortunately the wave made the loose skin on his arm flap and he waggled it a few more times listening to the slapping noise it made.

  While he flapped his arm one of the hunters detached from the line in front of him, reached out its dirty hand with torn nails and took the short man with glasses by the throat. With its other filthy hand, it formed a claw and slowly opened the short man’s chest. Blood poured from the ragged wound and the short man howled in pain while the hunter plunged its hand deep into his gut and pulled an organ from the his body. It dragged the still live and bleeding short man to the front of the room next to him, where it settled at his feet and blankly chewed on the bloodied organ. Other than the whimpering of the short man and the sucking and chewing noises of the hunter, the room was silent and motionless.

  ‘Now, don’t piss me off,’ he said amiably. ‘Or I’ll kill you.’

  When nobody spoke and sounding slightly bored, he continued, ‘You will call me Ruler. You will obey me or I will kill you or do some other horrible thing you won’t like.’ He paused and looked at the frightened people. The little man at his feet was still whimpering and he smiled happily, clapping his hands and making his arm flaps clap. For some reason that amused him and he giggled. Still feeling very pleased with himself, he said delightedly,
‘You have toys! Big toys! We’re going to have just the best fun!’

  Another man with a buzz cut stepped forward and said, ‘This is a military bunker. We have nuclear missiles, but you can’t use them.’

  He looked sulkily at the buzz cut man and said, ‘Don’t tell me what to do.’

  The buzz cut man shook his head and said without fear, ‘You can only kill us once.’

  That’s not true, he thought and he reached into the mind of the buzz cut man and saw images of people and places he’d been. He could see the life of the buzz cut man laid out before him and found a memory of pain. In this memory, the buzz cut man was leaning over the body of a small child and weeping. He could feel the intensity of the loss, the depth of the man’s grief, the feeling of being utterly lost and how his soul had felt broken. That’ll do, he thought and he put the buzz cut man’s consciousness into that tragic moment in time and left it there. He watched as the buzz cut man’s face fell and tears streamed from his eyes, the man dropped to his knees, shaking and sobbing and his mind was frozen in a moment in time that had torn his soul.

  Looking back at the confused group, he said, ‘He’s right. I can only kill you once, but I can make you suffer forever.’

  People stood silent, nobody moved and, smiling benignly, he asked, ‘Now, where was I?’

  ARMY

  OF

  ANGELS

  (HUNTER WARS BOOK THREE)

  SD TANNER

  PROLOGUE

  The woman sat up and looked around the room. She was sitting on a hard bed and covered in a soft blue blanket. Pushing the blanket away from her body, she stretched her legs over the side of the bed and unsteadily climbed onto her feet. Feeling light-headed, she caught her reflection in the wide mirror opposite her. She was wearing a blue gown, her long blonde hair was braided and tendrils framed her thin face. Looking at her hands, she saw long graceful fingers with perfectly manicured nails. Touching her face, she felt the sharp contours of her cheeks and noticed her skin felt warm and smooth. Running her hands down her body, her breasts felt soft and her small waist flared into wide hips and lean legs. Her eyes were blue on blue and even the whites of her eyes were blue, when she blinked a blue third eyelid almost invisibly flicked across her eye.

  There was a thin plastic tube taped to her cheek with one end dangling and the other end seeming to disappear up her nose. She tugged at the tube, loosening the tape and pulling the tube out, it seemed to come from deep inside her body and the sensation made her sneeze. Casually dropping the tube to the floor, she turned and looked around the room.

  The room was white and other than the bed she’d been lying on, it was empty. She walked to the door and opened it, peering down the corridor. There were more doors leading off the corridor, but they were closed and the corridor was empty and quiet. She walked down the corridor until she found a large, heavy looking door with a bar across it. Puzzling, she lifted the bar and twisted the handle on the door, pushing it open. Entering the next room, she walked quietly until she found another door with a bar across it and, lifting the bar, she opened the door and stepped through. Suddenly her mind exploded with the sound of rustling, chirping, scratching and breathing. The noise welcomed her and she wanted to join it.

  Smiling, she stepped barefoot onto the grass and walked towards a fence that led to a field. While she walked, several bald hunters ran up and fell into pace with her steady walk. Climbing over the fence, the woman walked across the field and more bald hunters joined her. Very quickly, the woman was surrounded by an army of lean, muscular and tanned creatures marching in time to her step.

  Who am I, she wondered?

  CHAPTER ONE: For whom the bell tolls (Mackenzie)

  The pucker pucker sound of helicopters rang out from every direction. The birds were circling crazily and uncoordinated above the convoy of almost a hundred vehicles. From the ground, the birds looked like they might collide. Below the birds, vehicles were slowly moving around, between, in front and behind one another. Neither the movement of the vehicles on the ground nor the helicopters above would have made much sense to a casual observer.

  Large and imposing, Gears stood on the roof of a Stryker shouting down his mike, ‘Hatch! Get your fleet in formation!’

  ‘It’s not a fleet, Gears,’ Hatch replied dryly. ‘It’s a bunch of people who can almost handle a bird.’

  ‘I don’t goddamn care whatcha call ‘em, Hatch,’ Gears replied bluntly. ‘Jus’ get ‘em under control.’

  Gears returned his focus to the untidy collection of vehicles that included two Strykers, twenty assault vehicles, thirty HUMVEEs and twenty-five seven ton lorries. Every vehicle was armed with MK19 grenade launchers and M2 .50cal machine guns. Above them were three Black Hawks and seven Knighthawks taking positions at all points of the compass around the vehicles on the ground. Ip stood next to Gears on top of the Stryker and, with her face impassive, she too surveyed the situation. Around them were over one thousand combat shooters, all wearing tactical vests, heavily armed and ready for combat.

  Captain Ted was also on top of a Stryker and Pax was standing on top of an assault vehicle. Both men were shouting orders through their mikes. As their orders were received and understood, vehicles were moving and slowly it became obvious they were forming a rough perimeter around a large rectangular slab of concrete about thirty yards by twenty yards in size.

  Appearing to be satisfied with the progress, Gears called, ‘Hatch. Get your ass down here. I need to get aboard and take a look from the air.’

  ‘Roger that,’ Hatch replied. ‘But ya ain’t gonna like it, Gears.’

  From high in the air, it became obvious Hatch understated the magnitude of the problem. The convoy, looked to be a considerable force on the ground, but it was dwarfed by the ring of hunters surrounding it. Nearly three hundred thousand hunters stood, side by side, shoulder to shoulder, row upon row with barely a foot between each. Looking like a badly organized queue at Disneyland, with their heads vibrating, hands pumping into fists, the hunters were angry and agitated. Although the hunters were not advancing, they stood facing the comparatively small fighting force waiting orders and ready to attack.

  ‘What are they waitin’ for?’ Nelson asked.

  ‘No goddamn idea,’ he replied grimly. ‘But we need to cut a hole through the pack.’

  ‘There’s no way we can do that,’ Nelson replied. ‘They’ll swarm us and, even if we got through, they’d chase us. There’s no way out, Gears.’

  With row upon row of densely packed hunters, any hole they managed to cut through the crowd would be quickly filled by the next row of hunters in the queue. Even in a heavily armored vehicle, entering the rows of hunters would be like walking through quicksand and initially easy, but eventually they’d be stopped. Attempting to kill that many hunters, would result in their corpses piling up and creating a barrier of bodies that would act like a sludgy wall.

  Gears sighed deeply and said, ‘I know, but we’re outta options unless ya have a nuclear bomb, Nelson.’

  Nelson frowned and asked, ‘How would that help? We’d be blown to hell too.’

  ‘It wouldn’t save us,’ Gears replied pragmatically. ‘But at least they’d die with us.’

  ‘That’s it, Gears?’ Nelson said calmly. ‘We’re all going to die today?’

  ‘Looks like it,’ Gears replied steadily. ‘Hatch! Take us down.’

  Landing back on the field in the middle of their newly formed perimeter, Gears and Nelson climbed out of the bird. Ip tried to climb out with Gears, but he pushed her back on board and as she tried to wriggle past him, he said, ‘No, honey.’

  Ip glared at him, but holding her firmly, he said, ‘I need ya to stay with the bird. I can’t do what I gotta do if I’m watchin’ out for ya. Will ya do what I’m askin ya to do? Please.’

  Her expression turned from anger to utter dismay and she reached out her arms, wrapped them around his neck and slipped off the platform of the bird.

  Returnin
g her hug, Gears sighed and said, ‘The hunters can’t hurt ya, honey. Make sure ya know when to leave this shitfight.’

  As usual, Ip didn’t reply and she and Gears walked back with Nelson to the middle of the perimeter where they were met by Pax, TL and Captain Ted.

  ‘Screwed again are we?’ Pax asked conversationally.

  TL asked, ‘So what’s the plan this time, Gears?’

  ‘Gonna have to cut our way out,’ Gears replied steadily.

  Snorting, Captain Ted said, ‘That won’t work. We’ll be fuckin’ swarmed.’

  Gears sighed and said, ‘I know that, dumbass. I’m not stupid.’

  ‘Ya gotta plan where we get to live?’ Pax asked plainly.

  ‘Nope,’ Gears answered. ‘I don’t got one of those today.’

  ‘Awesome,’ Captain Ted said happily.

  ‘Yer some kinda freak, Ted,’ Pax observed. ‘But we love ya anyway.’

  Pax and Captain Ted ordered the vehicles to form two columns using the armored vehicles with the heavy weapons to top and tail the convoy. Shooters were taking position on the roof of each vehicle. Nelson waved at Gears and jogged over to his position at the front of the convoy.

  Blocking his radio mike, Nelson said, ‘You need to say something.’

  Blocking his own radio mike, Gears asked, ‘About what?’

  ‘We won’t survive this without divine intervention,’ Nelson replied bluntly. ‘You need to talk to them.’

  Gears frowned and asked again, ‘About what?’

  ‘Tell them what you believe, Gears,’ Nelson said plainly.

  Nodding curtly, Gears unblocked his mike and said, ‘Let’s kick ass!’

  On Gears’ signal, the convoy slowly rumbled forward. It drew closer to the line of idle but agitated hunters and the shooters opened fire. Hunters dropped, line by line, to the front and to the left and right of the convoy. Still in the two-column formation, the first ten pairs of vehicles entered the densely packed horde of hunters. Hunters were falling around them under the barrage of continuous fire, but for some reason the hunters didn’t retaliate.