“Fine, not Islamic! But those things at the house and that yellow nosed creature seem pretty terrifying to me!” Peter answered.
Michael allowed that he had a point before responding to the original charge.
“No, there was no rain last time,” Michael answered in a calm voice. “And definitely no Islamic terrorists.”
“What were you thinking, man?”
“I was just driving fast for the hell of it. And maybe also because my blood alcohol content was twice the legal limit. So it was actually a lot harder to see.” Michael stated calmly.
Peter stared at the crazy man in the driver’s seat.
Michael didn’t take his eyes off the road – not even for a heartbeat – but he could sense the young man’s reaction. “I was also driving faster. But I know these roads like the back of my hand. We’ll be good, I promise.”
“Were you always so brilliant in your youth?”
“Oh, some of my youthful ideas were far better than that,” he answered sarcastically.
“How did you ever survive to adulthood?”
“My grandfather used to ask the same thing.”
A family of white tailed deer jumped out into the road in front of them. Tires squealed as Michael swerved right and brought the car to a complete stop. Peter’s face turned ashen, but Michael never lost his cool. He’d trusted the German engineering, and the gigantic anti-lock brakes hadn’t let him down. He smoothly shifted back into first gear. The instant the deer gave him an opening, he pressed firmly on the gas pedal and released the clutch.
The engine stalled out.
His right foot continued to press down, but nothing happened. Something blocked the accelerator. He looked down to find that the flashlight had rolled under the pedal. He kicked it out with his foot, mashed the clutch in again, and restarted the engine. He revved the flat six engine high and popped the clutch out again. Four hundred and sixty-two horses squealed through the tires at once. When the tires finally stuck, the silver car took off like a jackrabbit on steroids.
The Land Rover was once again out of sight. Michael pushed the car as hard as he dared on the wet country roads. It was faster than Peter would have liked, but he said nothing. Instead, he resumed his scan, trying to pick up any trace of Khalid’s getaway car. Another intersection approached.
“Left!” Peter called out, pointing for emphasis.
Michael lifted the parking brake handle and twisted the wheel, throwing the Porsche into a hard sideways slide. Before they’d even slid through the intersection, he gunned the accelerator again. The wheels screeched on the wet roads, fighting hard for traction, but eventually sticking. The car rocketed out of the turn.
“I said left!” Peter shouted at him.
“I know,” Michael responded calmly. “These old roads all come out at the same spot. This way’s faster – we’ll shave off some time and catch up to him.” Without warning, he braked hard and yanked the wheel hard to the left. Peter let out a small yelp and closed his eyes.
“Hail Mary, full of grace...” Peter finished his prayer and opened his eyes again. “We’re not dead,” he noted. “I didn’t even see that road there.”
“This place was still a working tobacco plantation up until the late 1950’s. The farm hands had to get around a lot. There are Jeep trails like this all over the place out here.” He flashed Peter a quick grin. “I told you to trust me.”
A moment later, the dirt road ended. Michael took a hard right again. The smoother asphalt allowed them to gain speed, but the road wasn’t much wider than the mud path they’d just left. They drifted around another hard turn before the road opened up. Michael took advantage of the straightaway and opened up the turbocharged throttle.
He pointed across the field at a pair of headlights moving at an oblique angle toward them.
“We’ve got them now.”
They could see the SUV clearly now, even through the rain. The Porsche’s headlights illuminated it enough to be sure it was the right vehicle. As Michael had predicted, the two roads converged at an intersection ahead. Peter flinched as he saw the stop sign approaching.
“Michael, that intersection is coming up awfully fast.” The bulky Land Rover loomed before them, growing quickly in their field of view.
“Yup,” the driver replied. “Please return all tray tables and seat backs to their full upright position and make sure your seat belt is secure.”
“Huh?” Peter said, double checking his belt.
The crash came a few seconds later.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Michael pushed the airbag out of his face. The twin light wells from the Porsche illuminated walls in front of him. Khalid’s Land Rover illuminated more walls.
The old plantation house, he realized.
Peter had already left the car. The passenger door remained sealed shut, but shattered glass lined the hole that had once been a window. Peter must have crawled out that way. His own door opened easily. He wobbled a bit as he stepped into the wind and rain, but quickly steadied his legs.
He found both driver side doors of the Land Rover open, interior light pouring out from them. He found no signs of the passengers, nor of Khalid or even Peter.
“Running off halfcocked is my shtick, Peter,” he mumbled into the darkness.
A scream rang out in the night. Michael made his way toward the burnt out husk, all that remained of the old house. He stopped for cover behind one of the remaining giant marble columns.
Closing his eyes, he dredged up his memories of the layout. The original interior wood and plaster had all burned away in Sherman’s fires. But even before the War, the Covingtons had been fabulously wealthy. Where most manors of the time were constructed from wood, theirs was built from marble. He studied the remaining stone. That would be the ballroom on his left, with one of the gender-segregated reception rooms along the other wall.
Climbing in through the nearby windows would be suicide. The light from the cars would make him an easy target. He scrambled around the building clockwise, skipping the main ballroom entrance and instead circling around to the master bedroom.
He peered into the window. The room looked clear in the dim light. He quickly but quietly hopped through. Inside, he walked carefully to keep his shoes from squeaking on the floors as he made his way back to the ballroom.
Another scream came from upstairs. He could see the stairwell beyond the empty doorway. He scrambled over to it, peering around the corner, and found himself looking straight into Peter’s eyes. The younger man jumped and very nearly shot him with his loaner Glock. Michael said a quick prayer of thanks that he hadn’t and then pointed upstairs. Peter nodded in the dark and began his ascent.
Michael let him get a few steps ahead before following. A wall to their left kept them well covered. They found nothing in the room as they stepped out of the stairwell.
The third scream gave them a direction. Peter pointed. Michael concurred. They flanked the doorway to the bedroom and checked the room as the rain beat down.
Inside, Khalid carried an unconscious girl over his shoulder. The other screamed as he dragged her toward the roof of the porte-cochère. If the wall had still remained, he’d have had a struggle to get the girls out onto it. Since it had long since crumbled, he simply stepped over the rubble.
Michael popped into the room first, his left arm across his body holding the light in a reverse grip. His right arm lay across the other for stability as he aimed the forty-five at Khalid’s head. He clicked the light on as he crossed the threshold. Peter stepped in behind him, his own weapon aimed and ready.
The kidnapper held Faith by her hair as she knelt at his feet. She sobbed in her tattered swimsuit.
“It’s over, Khalid.” Michael forced an air of false confidence.
A strange noise interrupted them. Khalid laughed hysterically, and Peter let out a gasp. The thing that landed on the porte-cochère looked at him with a lizard-like face.
When it opened its mout
h, it shot a stream of dragonfire straight at him.
The thick marble saved them. Michael thanked God for the Covingtons’ crazy wealth as he dove behind the wall. He noted that Peter had pulled a similar maneuver in the other direction.
He thought about snapping off a few shots, but he couldn’t see through the flames. He couldn’t risk hitting the girls, and he couldn’t waste his last three rounds.
The intense heat smoldered even through the stone barrier. He’d never felt anything like it. He signaled Peter and ran for the stairs. Another blast of dragonfire passed above their heads as they crashed down to the ground floor.
“This place will cook us like an oven!” Michael warned.
“Yeah, but we’ll be sitting ducks outside!” Peter responded.
Michael pointed toward the back of the house, shouting. He took off. Peter followed quickly behind him. A third stream of dragonfire rushed down the stairwell, leaving a melted slag pit where they had stood moments before.
They heard another whoosh above them and felt the heat rise. Far too big to come down the stairwell, the dragon must have flown overhead. Michael looked up and screamed – the marble ceiling melted.
Peter helped him to his feet in a rush, and they ran. Burning cinders fell from the ceiling. They darted out the rear door, hugging the exterior walls to stay hidden. A warm glow radiated off of the roof of the house, giving just enough light for Michael to catch the silhouette of the dragon. He held Peter still, as the beast scanned the grounds.
When the beast turned to scan the far side of the house, Michael grabbed Peter and bolted for the portico. Harsh white light from the vehicles’ headlights flooded around them, but the marble overhang hid them from the creature as it turned back toward them. They crouched against the columns, Peter shivering in the cold. In the distance, Michael heard a noise over the storm. He thought he recognized it, but it took him a moment to be sure.
“How much do you have left?” Michael asked Peter, nodding at the younger man’s pistol.
“Six rounds,” Peter answered. “Not that it’ll do anything against that. What’s the play?”
“Give me some cover.”
“With this thing? It won’t even notice!”
“Just buy me some time.” Michael holstered his pistol and dug in. “Now!”
He ran.
Peter popped out from under the portico and let loose a pair of shots into the sky. The dragon responded with a piercing wail, whipping around to face him, but he’d already returned to cover behind the column. He counted to three silently and then repeated the maneuver, letting off two more shots at a serpentine form that was now much closer and diving right at him.
Michael ran like he’d never run in his life. He made it to the wide open door in seconds and poked his head in, frantically searching the back seat.
It wasn’t there.
He popped the trunk release and scurried around to the hatch. He struggled to force the crumpled compartment open. The long, red cylinder inside rewarded his effort.
The noise in the distance grew louder as he rushed back to Peter. Revitalized, he rounded the corner to find the snake-like head poking in at Peter. As the beast opened its mouth, he lifted his cargo high and found the controls.
Michael emptied the fire extinguisher down the beast’s open gullet.
The dragon sputtered and coughed. It let out a high-pitched whine and reared up on its hind legs, flailing. Angry, it launched back into the sky. A yell and a loud thud drew their attention to the cloaked and hooded rider as he was thrown from the creature’s back.
“Did you notice a rider earlier?” Michael asked.
“I was too busy noticing the fire earlier,” Peter answered.
The two men closed in on the figure, weapons drawn. An explosion of light caught them off guard, tossing them backward. Michael felt a fist pound into his face, then another and another. Somewhere in the light Peter grunted in pain.
Michael managed to disentangle himself from the chaos and find a clear shot. He took it.
Streaks of blue light shot through the air like a dome of lightning around the hooded figure, emanating from the spot where his bullet had been deflected. Michael’s jaw hung open in disbelief. The robed dragonrider let out a cackle of malicious laughter and raised his arms outstretched. Purple light shot out of his hands, touching points along the ground in a huge circle around the figure.
“Um, Michael...” Peter rose to his feet behind him. “This isn’t good, man.”
Bubbles formed in the ground around them. They grew and popped. Dark figures rose out of them. He could feel malice in their gaze.
Zombies, he thought to himself. Great. An entire army rose from the ground around them.
He pointed Peter toward the portico. At least they could find some kind of concealment there. The laughter continued behind them as they ran. They slid into safety behind the walls.
Khalid strode out of the ballroom, with Faith before him. He trained his pistol squarely at her head. Shivering, scared, and bedraggled, she appeared otherwise unharmed. Abby was nowhere to be seen.
“Stand down, or I’ll shoot her.” As if to illustrate his point, he snapped off a round over her head. Faith’s scream pierced the night.
But neither the scream nor even the gunshot could hide the other noise Michael had been hearing. He turned to face Khalid, hands held high, hoping Peter would follow his lead.
“You’ve got us,” he said.
The noise grew deafening, drowning out everything else, as a new, downward wind picked up around them.
Bright spotlights illuminated them from above.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Real helicopters don’t sound anything like they do in the movies. The distinctive Hollywood whomp-whomp-whomp lives on because audiences expect it. In reality, the extreme rotational speed of a helicopter blade produces a noise much closer to that of a weed eater. But where a weed eater is loud, a pair of MH-60 Blackhawks is deafening.
The GAU-19 Gatling guns mounted on either side of the first helicopter let off a stream of .50 caliber fire that made the Blackhawks seem quiet. Facing zombies in the dark armed with an empty pistol and a fire extinguisher was frightening. Facing them with helicopters and modern armament at his back, they didn’t seem menacing at all.
The dragon was another story altogether. As loud as the battlefield had become, the serpentine creature’s roar drowned out everything else. Michael pulled Peter down to the ground and covered his ears. He watched as the gunship above executed evasive maneuvers. Clearly the incoming forces had not expected the beast any more than he had. Their instinctive reaction proved well-founded. They barely dodged the first assault of dragonfire. Khalid shouted and fired off a few shots into the sky before dragging Faith back into the ruins.
The second helicopter swung low, coming in behind Michael and Peter. Soldiers hung out of the large, open sliding doors. The vehicle came to a sudden stop about fifty feet away and two feet off the deck. Twenty seconds later the entire squadron had disembarked. Half raced toward Michael and his friend. The rest rushed to deal with the zombies surrounding the house. The Blackhawk never even touched the ground before bolting back up into the air.
The familiar man leading the soldiers had shed his gray suit. He now wore the same dark uniform he’d worn when they’d first met in Afghanistan. He trotted over, giving orders with hand gestures. His men moved out to secure a zone around them, taking out nearby zombies quickly and efficiently.
“Should I call you Major Daniels again?” Michael had to yell to be heard over the commotion.
“It’s Colonel now,” the man answered humorlessly, pointing to a rank insignia. “Give me a sit-rep, Sergeant.”
“We’ve got one hostile – male, Arabic. Might be an Islamic radical, might be... something else. He dragged a pair of female hostages out here. We followed them and had things kind of under control until the dragon showed up with a few hundred zombie reinforcements.”
; The Colonel didn’t even bat an eye.
“Copy, Sergeant. Where are the hostages now?”
“Inside sir, just through –”
A sudden explosion around the corner cut him off.
In the erratic illumination of moving helicopter spotlights, erratic tracer rounds, and flickering dragonfire, they could just make out Khalid and the crazy robed figure crossing the field. Khalid carried a limp figure over his shoulder. Michael detected a hint of blue in her hair. They made their way toward the dragon. Michael strained, but he couldn’t see Abigail. The Colonel triggered his microphone.
“Kestrel 2, I’ve got tangos with civilian hostages seventy feet out from the house’s ten o’clock. I want spotlights on them at all times.” The spotlight from the troop transport swept across the field, homing in on Khalid, his robed friend, and the girls. After a quick moment of hunting, it found them and locked on.
“Let’s see what we can do about that dragon.” For the first time, Michael saw him smile. They watched as the first helicopter made another strafing run, unloading on the massive beast. The .50 caliber rounds had no visible effect. Speaking into his radio again, he continued. “Kestrel 1, light it up.”
The gunship evaded another burst of dragonfire and poured on the speed. For a moment, it looked like the helicopter fled. From previous operational experience, Michael knew better. About a third of a mile away, the Blackhawk whipped back around to face the creature. A heartbeat later, two AGM-114 Hellfire missiles rocketed toward the beast. Fired from minimum effective range, their flight proved infinitesimally short.
The roar of the twin explosions mixed with a bellow rage from the beast. Michael felt the concussive force pass over him, but kept his feet. Warned by radio signal, the soldiers fighting to reach the girls had all taken a knee right before the blast. The missiles carried enough firepower to vaporize heavy vehicles. Michael had seen it firsthand in Afghanistan. Yet somehow the dragon emerged unscathed.
His main concern was the girls – but he quickly caught sight of Faith’s blue hair, still splayed over Khalid’s shoulder. Michael’s concern, however, didn’t lessen. He watched, jaw agape, as the robed man accompanying Khalid casually outstretched an arm into the air. The red sphere of shimmering light that surrounded him sliced two nearby zombies clean through. It also deflected the blast wave around them. Khalid turned and caught his eye, flashing a vicious grin.
War Demons: An Urban Fantasy Thriller (The Prodigal Son Book 1) Page 13