Bite Back Box Set 2

by Mark Henwick

  There were two doors off the corridor where we were.

  One was locked. The other was an empty office.

  Keith went back to the first office. We wanted Jed to die quietly, as far away from the others as possible.

  The rest of us crowded into the empty office.

  Jed went by.

  The alarm suddenly stopped.

  I waited through the muffled quiet sounds of Jed dying, and then motioned Julie out through the door.

  I got to the other side of the stairwell and checked my P90. Silencer fitted, single shot selected, safety off.

  Melvin came back from the utility room. I had a clear shot out of the darkness down the stairwell. Julie and I nodded at each other. We fired. Melvin and the boss died.

  That left four of them, if Julie’s count was good, and no time.

  It was a huge risk, but we were down to two minutes away from the Sikorskys returning. This place was more complex and better guarded than I’d thought when I set up the timings.

  Julie fired again.

  Three left.

  I leaped over the railings, down to the landing.

  There was a reception desk on one side and a man scrambling to get behind it, yelling.

  I shot him, hitting him in the shoulder and spinning him around. I fired again, twice. He stopped yelling.

  The others joined me on the landing.

  Yelena and Julie shot.

  Silence.

  We had a little over one minute left of our maximum allotted time.

  Alex was trying the Pasadena cellphone number. It wasn’t answering.

  What the hell? Not even a ‘no’?

  It was going to be hard without them.

  I triggered the comms. “Empire Flight, Sky Three: objective alpha complete. Status?”

  “Empire One and Two at Rendezvous Yankee, Sky Three.” The pilot might have been reciting his grocery list.

  The two Altau commanders called out:

  “Sky One, green.”

  “Sky Two, green.”

  The voice of the pilot in Empire One came back on, only a slight increase in his Chinese accent showing his excitement.

  “Moving it up. Going dark and coming in hot, in…mark…forty seconds and counting,” he said. “Selecting Ride of the Valkyries now.”

  They watched the same damn movies in China as the rest of the world.

  Chapter 67

  The back of the building had three sets of double doors which led to the three auction halls.

  The middle doors, the ones to the hall in use, were locked from the other side.

  Through a small window in the right-hand door I could see the layout, which I relayed as quickly as I could to the Altau teams inbound in the helicopters.

  Bidders on my left, sitting in comfortable chairs, drinking and smoking. Waiters attending them. Bodyguards behind, some leaning against the wall, most gathered down at the far end. Some of them with assault rifles. That was bad news.

  All of the guards and bidders were legitimate targets, even if I could almost feel Ingram tapping my shoulder: he would want them delivered to him alive.

  “Thirty seconds,” the pilot’s voice interrupted me.

  At the far end of the auction hall, the huge metal doors had been rolled open a few feet. A group had collected around it, looking alert. Some of them were watching the parking lot. Not good.

  And on the right of the hall…

  I swallowed.

  Cattle pens. Boys, girls, young women, cowering, crying. Each wearing nothing but chains and a large purple disk with a number on it.

  In the middle of the hall, a stage. The auction block.

  Video equipment. Lighting.

  Sickness twisted in the pit of my stomach.

  “Twenty seconds.”

  Movement at the far end. A pair of guards were dragging a screaming Dante to the auction block.

  Hold! Twenty seconds more. Twenty seconds. Focus.

  Sweat on my palms. My legs were shaking.

  Dante kicked one of the guards in the groin and he doubled over.

  It earned her a punch in the stomach and a moment’s delay.

  Twenty seconds and we’re coming for you, scum.

  Yelena was beside me.

  “Boss, make way,” she said.

  She pulled me around.

  Alex had decided to use the sole ornament in the lobby, a massive metal vase. He’d pulled the ornamental tree out of it. The thing was still full of earth. It must have weighed half a ton.

  He’d picked it up.

  Huh?

  “Ten seconds.” The pilot’s voice had gone monotone again as he concentrated on flying precisely.

  There was more noise and movement from the hall. I snapped back to peer through the window.

  Guards at the far end could hear the returning helicopters. They were opening the doors wider to see what was going on.

  Forsythe was there!

  He was surrounded by a group, and they were bundling him out of the building. They had to be the bodyguards that Billie had identified as professionals.

  Shit! Shit!

  “Five seconds.”

  Alex had walked as far as the front doors and turned.

  I understood what he was doing now, but inside the auction hall, there was still too much abrupt movement. Half the people were distracted by Dante’s struggles, but the other half were becoming aware that something was happening. Not panicked, but urgent. They’d seen Forsythe’s hasty exit with his bodyguards.

  People came out of their seats, looking to see what the problem was. Handguns and assault rifles appeared in bodyguards’ hands.

  Shit again.

  “Four.”

  Alex started to run, his feet hitting the floor like hammers, the metal vase held in front of him like the prow of an icebreaker.

  I got out of the way.

  “Sky One, Sky Two, Fox 1 and bodyguards exiting building,” I said into the commset. “Targets inside alerted.”

  “Three.” The pilot’s voice overrode me.

  “Two.”

  Alex got it slightly wrong. At a flat-out sprint, the metal vase struck the middle of the locked doors before the pilot finished his countdown. The doors splintered off their hinges. The loose earth inside the vase was hurled forward in a cloud.

  And Altau security started firing down into the packed SUVs and limousines as the Sikorskys came thundering back over the ridge and swooped in toward the parking lot.

  I sprinted into the hall right behind Alex.

  I fired blindly through the dust cloud. It was easy. Everyone on my left side was a target.

  Alex had dropped the buckled vase, but he didn’t stop running.

  In the time it took the guards to turn, he’d reached the stage.

  Yelena and I were right behind. She tossed all our smoke grenades at the guards.

  Those who saw them scrambled away from the grenades—there was nothing on the casing to say they weren’t the lethal variant.

  But the group down near the doors were firing at us. Loud cracks of assault rifles. The vicious wheep of a ricochet that passed so close it tugged at my hair. That familiar nitro smell from the bullets. And the smell of blood.

  Screams from all sides.

  Alex hurled away the dead bodies of the guards who’d been holding Dante, swept her up and passed her to Yelena.

  Julie and Keith were back near the door Alex had broken. They knelt and fired down the length of the hall on the left: accurate, rapid shots. Devastating against an unprepared, untrained opponent.

  But someone down at the far end had been well trained and the warning sound of inbound helicopters had given them a moment to prepare.

  And worse, we were outnumbered inside the hall: the guards at the far end were closing the main doors and turning around to concentrate fire on us. They had no problem with hiding behind captives or hitting them with stray fire.

  Yelena backpedaled past me, clutching Dante behind h
er and firing her P90. Alex was covering both of them with his body as he walked backwards and fired down the hall.

  No more smoke grenades. Not enough ammunition. No cover. The Altau teams on the wrong side of the big rolling doors. No werewolves.

  Shit.

  Captives were screaming. Some were so terrified they stood up and tried to run, despite being shackled; others cowered as far back as they could.

  The bidders’ bodyguards were already using the cover the captives provided, and someone would start thinking about hostages soon.

  My plan had been to overwhelm the guards quickly. That had failed.

  Bad, bad, bad. Fix it. Without the Pasadena wolves. How?

  Fortunately, someone on the Altau teams had been researching the Amber Farrell approved way of entering a hostile location—a truck smashed through the steel doors and ran into the back of one of the groups firing at us.

  Black-suited Altau swarmed through after it.

  Still not enough. It was too difficult for us to get clear shots. Too many captives. Too many of the enemy in amongst them.

  Screams were cut off. Casualties in the captives.

  Shit.

  “Grab some of the children as shields,” a voice shouted at the end. I zeroed in on one of the bodyguards—tall man, powerfully built, buzz cut. Buzz One. I could see the others forming around him.

  “Keys?” someone else yelled.

  The group who’d been dragging Dante to the auction block had to have them to release her shackles.

  A couple of guards ran crouched toward where their bodies lay.

  Then a horse kicked me in the stomach and I was thrown backwards.

  Alex and Yelena were suddenly in front of me. Alex knelt down beside me.

  Thank you, Stephanie Kwolek, inventor of Kevlar and savior of my life, again.

  Think, Farrell! Do something! Work to our strengths.

  Lying there on the ground, looking up, I got an inspiration. I used my P90 to spray the ceiling lights with bullets.

  Alex joined in. Yelena took out the arc lights on the auction block.

  It was suddenly dark in the hall, and in the darkness, the Altau could see better than humans.

  It was still going to get bloody. The body count was going to rise and many of them would probably be the captives. Panicked bodyguards were shooting everywhere, a thunder of bullets punching through the metal frame of the building.

  Keith down!

  Julie helping him.

  Dante? Shit! Yelena had put her down and she was running the wrong way. Back into the middle of the hall.

  Everything going wrong.

  And then, rising out of the frenzy and confusion, like a fiery trumpet blazing through the night, a Call.

  Hunt! Kill!

  Alex beat me to call it on the commset. “Werewolves coming in. Altau teams, cease fire. Cease fire.”

  There was a screech of tearing metal as skylights were ripped from their bases in the roof, and then it was raining Pasadena Were.

  They’d kept to my instructions and hadn’t changed to wolf.

  In the darkness, it was like crows floating down from the open skylights. Crows that bounced up and flowed over the bodyguards, who thought they’d fallen into a nightmare. There were screams as men were attacked by enemies they couldn’t even see.

  I took back every unkind thought I’d directed at the Pasadena after meeting their alpha. He might still be a misogynist jerk, but he was a jerk who hadn’t hesitated to send his pack in on the right side when it came down to it.

  Buzz One was running blindly down the middle of the hall, a group scrambling to follow him.

  Smart man. The best way out was where the least enemies were, even if you couldn’t see the way clearly.

  However, his smart move was bringing them right to me.

  I met them in the middle, as they tripped and jostled to get around the auction block. Pasadena Were caught up with the ones at the back and the panic spread like flame on a gasoline spill.

  Buzz One ran into my side kick. I put everything into it, knowing his weight would absorb the momentum and leave me balanced for the next blow.

  He’d crouched lower at the last moment, some sense telling him something was coming at him. As a result, he got the full power of the kick on his breastbone and ribs. I could feel them shatter.

  He fell, and I punched the next one in the face.

  Alex roared past on my right, grabbing one bodyguard and using him like a battering ram to hit the others.

  On my left, Yelena punched two in the throat and they fell to the floor, choking.

  The fight ended quickly.

  “Drop your weapons, lie on the floor and you won’t be harmed,” I shouted hoarsely. “Shoot and you will be killed. Down! Get down now! Now! On the floor.”

  They obeyed. Our speed and the loss of light shattered any morale they had as a group of bodyguards who were working for money and didn’t even know each other. They knew they were beaten. They lay down in the dark, blind, shivering in shock, half expecting the nightmare would rip into them anyway, but unable to do anything else.

  As for the Were, they understood the words too, but restraint was a different matter for the younger ones. Pack lieutenants had to snarl and pull them back.

  Discipline held, just. No one was shooting. And only Altau and Pasadena were standing.

  Another truck nosed forward and shone its headlights through the ruined doors into the chaos of the hall.

  I took a shaky breath and looked around.

  Julie and Keith were wrapping his leg with cloth torn from his pants. Keith seemed to be moving okay. Julie glanced up, saw me looking and gave me a thumbs-up.

  Yelena stalked down the middle of the hall, P90 still sweeping over the surviving bodyguards lying on the floor.

  “Yelena. Dante? Tamanny?” I called after her.

  Yelena stopped and indicated with a nod of her head to one side, her eyes still searching for threats. She ignored the blood that dripped down her arm.

  I rushed over to where she’d directed me.

  Dante had known where Tamanny was. She’d run back inside, through the bullets, and thrown herself over the girl, protecting her with her body. She’d taken one of those bullets for her efforts. She was bleeding too, but she was lucky—it had barely grazed her shoulder.

  “Idiot,” I muttered in her ear as I knelt down beside them and wrapped my arms around them both.

  “I’m sorry, Mistress.”

  I huffed, tasting the bitter flavors of the healing bio-agents in my mouth.

  “Never mind that. This’ll help,” I said, and licked her wound, dosing her with the aniatropics and analgesics. Air hissed between her teeth.

  Tamanny had her eyes squeezed shut, tears leaking from them. She was trembling.

  “Told you she’d come. Told you,” Dante whispered to Tamanny. “You’re okay now. You’re safe.”

  I took off my Kevlar jacket and wrapped it around the pair of them.

  “You’re both safe. I’m going to be busy. Just stay down,” I said. “We’ll get the shackles off Tamanny and get you…away as soon as we can.”

  Away. Would I have to give Tamanny back? Her mother was dead, not that I’d have let that bitch get her daughter back. Did Tamanny have other family?

  No. Mine.

  My Athanate had made another adoption, absolute and unwavering. How that might play out against the Californian legal system, I wasn’t sure. I didn’t care at the moment.

  Yelena didn’t look pleased that I’d taken off the Kevlar jacket, but she followed suit, wrapping up another couple of youngsters.

  When she’d done that, I pushed her sleeve back and licked the wound on her forearm to stop the bleeding. To hell with what the bodyguards thought of it, if they were watching.

  It wasn’t a bad wound. My House had come through almost untouched.

  Tamanny and Dante were safe.

  But Forsythe had run.

  I needed
to find him so much my legs started to shake.

  Deep breaths. Slow. Slow.

  Concentrate.

  “Team leaders to me, please. Sky One team, keep guard. Sky Two team, secure the weapons and find the keys for these shackles,” I called. “And some clothing if you can.”

  Altau security split up and got to their tasks, not as slick as Ops 4-10, but they’d do fine.

  The two team leaders appeared in front of me, and a Pasadena wolf joined them—the lieutenant I’d met at the concert.

  “Casualties?” I asked.

  “One dead, sixteen wounded, eight seriously, including three hostages,” Sky One said. He knew which casualties I meant, too. Ours. The casualties among bidders and their bodyguards I could find out later. “Already in hand, Gunny,” he finished.

  Once a marine…

  If it hadn’t been for the death, I would have smiled. We’d been lucky. That and Athanate emergency life support, no doubt.

  I turned to the Were. “Pasadena?”

  He smiled. “Just a lieutenant, Ms. Farrell. We got one ass broke his leg. Nothing much else.”

  I snorted.

  “Thank you for coming,” I said. “You really made the difference, saved a lot of innocent lives.”

  Especially considering I broke your alpha’s shoulder.

  “New times. Y’know, part of all us paranormals sticking together.” He seemed almost embarrassed. “This kinda thing needs doing anyway. And, well, you helped Paige change. Gotta lot more of that.”

  Ah. The young halfy from Denver.

  “Helping halfies doesn’t come with a price tag,” I said. “You need to call Denver and arrange with them for your other halfies to turn up at the next ritual. They’re handling all the admin.”

  He nodded, ducked his head. “Thanks, Ms. Farrell. Anyway, we’re glad we could help. We couldn’t get the whole pack here, but we got a couple more guys in the parking lot and around the front of the building, some off searching the ranch house an’ other buildings. Probably got a few late arrivals coming up the road if you need anything more.”

  They’d mobilized a lot of the pack in a short time. That was probably why we hadn’t been able to get through.

  “There was one group of men who got spooked and ran early,” I said. “Did you see them as you came in?”

  Please. Tell me you have Forsythe.