Seven Deadly Sons (7 page)

CHAPTER TWELVE

Laura Olson was definitely liking this. Her new body was far more powerful than it had been before. And faster.

She was a blur as she raced through the building. Steel security doors gave way before her with little resistance, allowing her to race up the stairs to the first floor. She emerged in the main lobby, quickly glancing left and right to get her bearings.

The security teams were all charging toward the west doors, sprinting for the parking lot. Laura wasn't sure why, but it seemed like a good idea. She dashed off after them, streaking by the slower moving men, a flesh and white-colored blur in her flapping labcoat.

She crashed through the glass doors of the lobby, ignoring the many cuts and scrapes. She knew she could heal such minor injuries before she'd gone more than a few feet.

Outside, she quickly located the source of concern—the biggest werewolf she'd ever seen was pummeling one of the stone soldiers. With a car.

Laura raced on, leaping and throwing her shoulder into the beast's back as it raised a mangled convertible car over its head again, ready to smash it down on the stunned stone soldier laying on his back on the ground.

The impact of her charge staggered the beast and it dropped the car, barely able to keep its footing. It spun in place to face its attacker. Laura raked a handful of her own claws across its face, shredding flesh and removing several teeth from torn gums.

The blow nearly spun the werewolf in place. It staggered to the side, but quickly recovered.

Laura smiled and raced in. Even before, when she was just a vampire, she'd have been fast enough to filet the beast. But now, her speed was-

The werewolf was faster. It caught Laura's wrist, surprising her. It wrenched at the arm, intent on tearing it free of Laura's shoulder.

The redhead allowed herself to be jerked off the pavement, twisting around and wrapping her legs around the arm like an inhuman sleeve. She immediately began flaying the wolf's arm with her claws, rending flesh off in long strips.

The werewolf bellowed in pain and spun around, lashing out at a nearby parked car.

Laura ignored the pain as the beast smashed her against the car, caving in the roof and shattering windows. She was seeing flashes of bone now as she sliced through flesh faster than the werewolf could regenerate the wounds. In another few seconds, she'd be through the joint and the werewolf would have to regrow its left arm from the elbow down.

Hard pavement rushed up to meet Laura and the wind was knocked from her lungs. She felt the pavement give from the impact and she was almost jarred loose. She quickly tightened her grip to keep from sliding off, then sunk her long nails back into the creature's arm.

Another quick smash and this time Laura felt her head deform against the pavement. The pain from her brain compressing was excruciating.

The werewolf kept smashing Laura into the ground, beating her against the pavement on one side of its body, then the other. The fourth hit did its job and Laura's grip relaxed. The werewolf's arm was free of her.

Laying on the ground, her tongue hanging limply in her mouth, unable to see or talk, Laura struggled to rise. Her brain was still repairing itself, as were her bones and skin.

A large hand encircled her neck and she felt herself raised into the air.

Her vision cleared just in time to see the werewolf's other hand reared back, ready to punch a hole into her chest.

Then blue-white light filled her vision and every cell in Laura's body burned with an exquisite pain.

The cavalry had finally arrived.

***

Pam Keegan was completely baffled. How had the monster even found them? How could it possibly have known they were in the Tower? Had it already been to Greenberg's apartment and somehow defeated Kenslir and the team there?

Pam shook her head. That wasn't possible. Four stone soldiers, Jimmy, the Colonel and Josie would make mincemeat of any werewolf—even one as big as this one. If it was there.

Pam fumbled for the phone on her belt. She didn't have her tactical glasses with her—she hated the things, with all their annoying head up displays. If she wasn't in the field, she didn't wear them. She was going to have to reconsider that.

The smart phone wasn't exactly over-the-counter, but it was still just a phone. Pam started tapping her foot impatiently as the phone tried to connect to the Command center four floors down.

"What was that thing?" Yadid asked. The old man had recovered his wits and was slowing his breathing. Impressive for someone his age.

"Shh!" Pam hissed. At last the phone connected. "Command! This agent Keegan! I need immediate assistance on the-"

Pam's panicked call was interrupted by a noise in the hall, outside of the laundry room she and Yadid were hiding in. It was a deep grunt, a breath like something large would make. Something not normally found in Argon Tower.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

This time when Laura hit the pavement, it was far gentler—the result of gravity, instead of the werewolf's inhuman strength. It barely tickled.

Laura rolled quickly away from where she imagined the beast to be, smelling burning flesh in her nostrils. She realized it was probably hers. She finally stopped her rolling, face down, and her vision at last cleared, her vampiric healing abilities finally undoing the incredible damage she'd suffered. She rose to her feet, her strength slowly returning.

Another blue-white flash of light threatened to sear her retinas and she held a hand up to shield her eyes. When she lowered it, she saw the werewolf, charred black, smoke rising from it, as it stood on unsteady feet.

Another blast of lightning struck the beast—travelling parallel to the ground, from the direction of the Tower. Laura turned and smiled. Chad Phillips had finally gotten his ass in gear.

The stone soldier was wearing only boxer shorts—apparently roused from sleep by the alarms. He had one hand stretched out in front of him, as though he were about to catch a ball. Instead, he unleashed another flash of lightning, sending millions of psychokinetically generated volts into the large werewolf.

The beast's flesh now burst in several places, visible due to the lack of hair on its burned hide. It staggered and tried to gather its wits—not an easy feat with its brain boiled inside its skull.

Phillips struck again.

This time, the creature collapsed back onto the ground, falling onto its back. Almost immediately, Isaac Jacobson pounced on the smoking beast. He began raining punch after punch on the monster, smashing its head to a battered pulp.

"I'd offer you my shirt, but I don't have one," Phillips said, walking over to Laura Olson. She hadn't realized she was leaning against a car for support. The fight had taxed even her vampiric powers. She was feeling hungry.

"What?" She looked down and saw she was once more naked, her body covered with burnt residue that had been her borrowed labcoat and skin charred by the lightning blasts.

Security guards were running over now, weapons at the ready, as Jacobson continued to reduce the werewolf to a fleshy bag of broken bones.

"How'd you know I was a vampire again?" Laura said, trying to be nonchalant about her lack of clothes.

"I didn't," Phillips said, giving her a wide grin filled with stone teeth.

"Sir!" one of the security guards in black body armor and fatigues yelled. "Command reports a second intruder on sixteen!"

Phillips spun around and looked up at the black glass sides of the twenty-two story office building. "Dammit!"

"I can make it!" Laura said. She stepped around and grabbed Phillips and pressed her lips against his.

Blue lightning crackled between them as she drained the lifeforce from Phillips. Laura's body began to swell and convulse as she once more turned into the winged monster. As her wings snapped open, she released Phillips—who's body had turned to flesh, save for his face. He collapsed to the ground shocked at the horrific creature Laura had turned into.

"Don't be long," the monster bellowed, then snapped open its wings and took to the air.

***

The door to the sixteenth floor's community laundry room was just simple wood. It hadn't been designed to withstand anything and was for privacy and appearance above all else.

The giant werewolf crashed through it with ridiculous ease.

Pam Keegan once more fired her pistol, pumping lethal 9mm silver slugs into the creature—this time aiming for its face.

The monster recoiled, pausing half-in, half-out of the doorway. But only for a moment. The holes in its flesh sealed up, closing around the silver slugs it now carried. It seemed to almost grin, a teeth-displaying grimace.

"No! Take me!" Yadid croaked, stepping out from behind Pam.

Keegan tried to push the old man back, but the werewolf was too fast. It charged forward, stepping onto and over Keegan, knocking her to the floor. Then it was on the old man.

The former Nazi hunter screamed as the monster grabbed him and ripped him in two. But despite killing the old man instantly, the beast continued, pulling and ripping at Yadid's flesh as though he were made of clay.

Pam watched this all from the floor, were she lay, dazed, blood seeping from deep gashes in her stomach where the monster's clawed feet had knocked her flat. She was sure some ribs were broken as well, and possibly an arm.

Done with Yadid, the beast turned to Keegan. It bared its fangs once more, but not in any semblance of a smile. This was pure rage, pure hatred. Pam could see it in the beast's eyes.

"Fuck you!" Pam said, grimacing in pain as she forced the words out.

The monster reared back, preparing to rip her apart with one swipe of its enormous clawed hand.

"Hey, asshole!" a woman's voice called out.

The werewolf hesitated, then turned slowly around. As it did so, Pam was able to see a naked, soot-smeared Laura Olson standing just outside the doorway to the laundry room.

"I'm talking to you, you little bitch," Olson said, taunting the creature.

The werewolf lunged forward, intent on ripping the very ordinary-looking human woman to shreds. But Laura Olson simply vanished in the blink of an eye. She moved with lightning speed, ducking under the creature and coming up behind it. She leapt onto its back, driving her long nails into its thick skin and her fangs into the side of its neck.

Blood sprayed out in a long plume as she severed an artery. The beast howled, whirling around, trying to reach back at Laura. Then the blue energy of its lifeforce began crackling in the air, drawn out of the beast by the vampire clinging to its back.

The werewolf began to panic, and tried to crash backwards into a stacked washer-dryer unit in the laundry room to dislodge Laura. The machine crumpled and Olson threw her head back and laughed.

Blue energy now crackled around her hands as she continued to drain the creature's lifeforce. Tendrils of the same blue energy streamed out of the holes in the werewolf's neck, arcing and pouring into Laura's mouth while more energy was being siphoned out of the creature's back, into her hands.

The werewolf tried to stay on its feet, but it was weakening quickly. It collapsed to one knee, then the other. Finally it fell down, face forward.

Still, Laura clung to its back, draining the monster's life force. The furry beast began to wither and shrink, like a balloon deflating. When it was barely larger than a man, resembling a pile of furs more than anything else, Laura finally stepped off its shriveled body and wiped the blood from her mouth.

"Yuck," she said, spitting. "That's like kissing a dog's ass." She raked her fingers across her tongue. "I think I swallowed a hair."

Pam Keegan coughed. "You know, the Colonel gives me shit when my bikinis are too skimpy..."

Laura Olson knelt slowly by Keegan, examining her wounds. "Show him more next time," Laura said, smiling. She laid a hand on Keegan's bleeding stomach and another on her forehead.

Pam tried to sit up. "No—Yadid first."

Laura glanced over at the pieces of the Nazi hunter. "I'm a doctor, not a miracle worker."

Blue light crackled, pouring out of her hands, into Keegan. The FBI agent spasmed for a moment, then relaxed. Her wounds quickly healed and she felt her strength coming back.

Pam finally sat up and was about to say something. Instead she pointed, eyes wide in surprise.

The werewolf had reverted to human form—a middle-aged man, with blonde hair, tinged with gray. His face was pale, his fear showing. But only for a moment. In the blink of an eye, he was gone, racing down the hallway of the building at vampiric speed.

"Go!" Pam shouted, but Laura Olson was already chasing after him.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

In the parking lot, Chad Phillips was finally back on his feet—which were once more stone. His petrification had come back, only momentarily drained by the vampire, Laura Olson.

"Jacobson!" he yelled. "Stop playing patty cake and get your ass in gear! There's another one inside the tower!"

Isaac Jacobson stopped battering the bloody mass of fur and bone he was sitting on and looked to his team commander. His stone fists were dripping blood and the spray from his many blows was all over his face.

"Right, bo-" he started to say. He was interrupted by the werewolf underneath him.

In one quick, fluid transformation, the creature shrank in on itself, bones solidifying back into human shape, wolf fur vanishing. It transformed into a blonde-haired man in an instant.

Jacobson swung, but the man was no longer under him. The graying-blonde was a streak of speed across the parking lot. The man ran so swiftly the pumping of his arms and legs was a blur. Within seconds he was out of sight.

"Crap!" Phillips said, looking in the direction the man had fled then up at the sixteenth floor of the tower. He quickly made up his mind.

"C'mon!" he yelled, sprinting for the building.

***

The blonde man was fast—possibly faster than Laura. He sprinted down the hallways of the sixteenth floor at inhuman speed, then leapt through the splintered remains of an apartment door. Laura dashed in after him.

Inside the room, all was in disarray—the signs of an obvious struggle. But what caught Laura's eye was the large circle of white light, shimmering on the far side of the very cold room.

The blonde man looked back over his shoulder at Laura, then dove through the portal. She sprinted after him, but despite her speed, was too slow. The opening just simply ceased to exist and she smashed into the windows that had been behind it, almost falling through.

"Son of a bitch!"