Specters: A Monster Squad Novel - 8 (25 page)

Tufo turned his hands so that his fingers were inside the arms of the command chair and hidden from view and then tried his best to return his attention to the men on the screen. Occasionally he would steal a glance at them to ensure nothing else had grown out of his fingertips.

Using his pinky he quickly pushed the internal coms button. “Somebody call for Doc. We may need his expertise in here.”

“Aye, sir.”

Mark exhaled hard and waited for Doctor Peters to arrive. If he was lucky, the fight-or-flight effects would diminish and he would only have to describe it after the fact. He glanced again at his fingertips and shook his head.

“Could I have picked a worse time to lose my shit?” he muttered.

*****

Rufus watched from the rear of the pack as the griffin performed his ritual. He made sure to keep Foster close to his side as they worked their way down the mountain and kept the Gatekeeper in view the entire way. Now, as the group’s attention was focused on the majik taking place, Rufus and Foster made their move.

Rufus slipped in beside the Greater Elf and nudged him to get his attention. “I must beg your forgiveness, but I am in need of your assistance.”

Kalen gave him a confused stare and noticed that Rufus gave a slight nod to the side. Kalen followed his gaze and saw the other vampire standing behind Brooke, a silver bladed dagger in his hands and hovering close to her spine. She had no idea as her attention was focused entirely on the griffin.

Kalen spun on Rufus who held a finger to his mouth. “Please, we wish no harm. Only an exit.”

“What do you mean, undead abomination?” The hatred in his eyes was apparent.

“We need you to open a gateway.” Rufus handed him coordinates. “To here.”

Kalen stared at the coordinates and shook his head. “It is daylight there. You’d be dead as soon as you stepped through.”

“At these coordinates, the stone is
inside
. It is safe, I assure you.”

“You fear dying by Lilith’s hand.” Kalen squared his shoulders as he glared at the vampire.

“
Non
, but I know that even if I were to wield the blade that carved out her heart myself, the council would not lift the edict they have placed on my head.”

“So you run?”

“I go to face them while you and your army defeat her.” He lowered his voice even more, “They will be watching this battle, I assure you. My brother will remain and fight as my Second. This satisfies their decree. But I will go and face them while they are distracted.”

“And what is to stop me from killing your brother the moment you’ve left?” The venom dripped from his voice as his eyes bore into the other man’s.

Rufus shook his head softly. “You are a man of honor, a warrior, and you value another warrior in a battle such as this. Every warrior…” He glanced at Paul then back to Kalen. “Even one whose only purpose might be as a distraction, is still a plus.”

“Or I could simply kill you both where you stand.” His hand hovered over the blade strapped to his waist.

Rufus nodded. “You could. And you would have every right. Or you could follow me back over that small rise and open a gateway for me so that I can destroy the Council.” He looked to Foster and shook his head. Foster slid the dagger back into the sheath on his own belt and stepped back from Brooke. “I wouldn’t have let him harm her. But I needed you to know the importance of this.”

Kalen narrowed his eyes on the vampire. “I cannot trust you.”

“Then send me away. To here.” He handed the coordinates back to him. “If it is daylight here, and I am lying, then I will be dead as soon as I step through. Or you could open a pathway to another location and place me in a meadow with no shade to protect me. The decision is yours.”

“You would go blindly?”

“I would have no choice. I need to get to the Council while they are distracted. My man, Viktor, will be arriving there shortly. I cannot ask him to do what I must.”

Kalen glanced at the crowd then took a silent step backward. “We must be quick or I will be missed.”

“Thank you,
mon ami
.”

“I am not your friend. I am only doing this because I fear you would double-cross us in battle if I did not.”

*****

Mick played out numerous scenarios in his mind. Attacking and killing Bigby, bringing the bloody corpse to Jenny and she’d swoon, accepting his gift and wrapping her arms around his neck, kissing him, telling him how she had been wrong and proclaiming her undying love for him. He sighed as reality set in and he remembered the last time he’d actually seen her.

She didn’t care two whits about him. She was mated to the leader of the human hunters now. She wanted nothing to do with a werecat. Her father wouldn’t allow such a mating even if she had wanted it. He would stop at nothing to hunt them both down and end his bloodline with their own deaths.

He felt his eyes watering up and he sniffed back the tears that threatened to streak his cheeks.

“What’s your problem?”

Mick looked up at saw Bigby staring at him from across the open office space.

“Allergies.” He wiped at his nose and turned away.

“Yeah, right. You’re a were. You don’t get allergies.”

“I’m allergic to dogs and bullshit. And, oh look…the room is full of both.” Mick got to his feet and marched toward the door.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

“To take a piss. Want to come and hold it for me? The doctor says I shouldn’t lift anything heavy. Bad for my carpal tunnel syndrome.” He hiked a brow at Bigby who flipped him the bird.

Mick pushed through the door then stuck his head back out. “If you change your mind, wash your hands first.”

Mick walked into the third floor lavatory and stared out the window at the same hangar that Bigby had been studying since he stumbled upon the lair. He sighed and pressed his forehead to the glass. He felt the window give slightly in its frame and he pulled back, studying it.

Applying a bit of pressure, he felt the window give a bit more. An idea sprung to life, and he quickly guesstimated the height of the window and assessed the ground below. Concrete sidewalk and hard-packed earth. He took a deep breath and tried to remember the longest jump he had made as a cat and the hardest ground he had landed on. He was certain he could make it.

But then what? How to alert the human hunters without being killed first? How to do it without Bigby dropping him in his tracks before he could clear the hundred and fifty yards to the hangar?

He glanced at the night sky and the moon above. Barely a sliver of silver hung in the air and the night was as dark as pitch. If he was lucky and darted wide, he might could stay outside of Bigby’s range.

He felt his body begin to shift before he made the decision to do so and his hands pressed against the edges of the window frame. His sensitive ears picked up every grain of grit as it ground against the metal frame. He felt one side break loose, and he instantly thrust his arms outward, pushing the window as far away from the building as he could.

In a flash, he shifted, mounted the narrow opening, and planted his feet along the concrete edge of the window opening. He heard Bigby stomp across the floor toward the bathroom and just as the door burst open, he pushed off and out from the window with all of his might.

For a brief moment he felt the cool night air as it rustled through the hair covering his body. He felt his thick tail trailing behind him and the world slowed as he sailed through the air like a giant, striped bird.

As the ground came rushing to greet him, he tucked and rolled then gathered his feet under him. He could hear Bigby’s cursing from high above him and the slamming of surplus office equipment as the man rushed back to the main floor.

Mick did his best to zigzag across the open terrain toward the hangar. He wanted to be the most impossible target possible for the SAS sniper. His mind raced as he tried to calculate where the man might expect him to be. He’d leap right, then left. Then he’d leap left again, then right, constantly moving, constantly putting as much distance as he could between himself and the man that he knew was trying to paint crosshairs on him. Tufts of dust, rock and debris erupted from the ground around him as Bigby’s shots went wild.

He saw men in military uniforms rush from the dual guard shacks and rapidly close ranks, weapons at the ready. Mick had to make a decision…stop and try to explain why he was there and hope they didn’t shoot him, or do his best to evade them
and
Bigby.

He chose the lesser of the two evils and leapt toward the guards, sailing over their heads in a long graceful arc. He didn’t hear the shot that ripped through his midsection, but he felt the bite of the bullet as it shattered ribs. Shell fragments and bits of bone destroyed the lower portion of his lung, a lobe of liver and several feet of intestine.

Mick fell, sliding to a stop just inside the open door of the hangar, blood pooling around him as he slowly shifted back to his human form. He knew he was going into shock because the mad rush of activity around him dulled to an annoying buzz in his ears and his eyes began to lose focus as he stared toward a lone Humvee.

One of the guards pressed a knee against his legs and pulled his hands behind his back, cuffing him before rolling him back to his stomach. Mick grunted with the pain and spat a mouthful of blood as he tried to cough and clear his chest of the precious body fluid that  was choking him to death.

He lifted his head and stared at the guard beside him. “Bigby…across the road. In the office building. He’s going to gas the whole lot of you…”

“Say again?” The guard lowered himself and placed his ear closer to Mick’s mouth as he gasped, trying to force air into his ruined lung.

“Big…Bigby. Across…the…road. Gas. Wants to…gas you all…” Mick’s eyes glazed over as his heart stopped beating and he stared into the great nothingness that only death can bring.

His last coherent thought was,
Please let me save her.

*****

Jameson folded his trench coat and draped it over his arm. “Robert, as soon as we can figure out the logistics, we’ll make arrangements to fly the entire Spartan program overseas and…”

“Sir? Something strange just came over the wires.” A man in a white lab coat and holding a clipboard interrupted. “I think you might want to take a look at this.”

Jameson glanced at his watch then laid his coat back down. “Make this quick. If I hurry I can still meet my wife for after dinner drinks.”

Ingram fell into step behind the older man and the trio re-entered the command center. “Sir, we intercepted a NORAD request for a Reaper drone.”

“NORAD? Why the hell would they want a Reaper?” Ingram reached for the report and scanned it.

The technician in the lab coat shook his head. “That’s just it, sir. They didn’t. I mean, it is their codes, but it wasn’t NORAD. I contacted their command duty officer and he denied any such request.”

Jameson pulled the sheet from Ingram’s hand and glanced at it. “This drone is domestic. Pull the video feed from it.” He handed the sheet back to Ingram who ignored it as the screen came to life.

“What frequency are they on?”

“It’s a scrambled military channel, sir. Shouldn’t take a moment to decrypt.”

“Well do it then.” Jameson took his seat again and watched as the drone slowed and began making lazy circles in the sky, its visual record fed to their monitors. “Can we switch to thermal?”

“Yes, sir. Whoever is utilizing this bird will have no idea that we’re piggy backing off their feeds.” The tech tapped in a few commands and a moment later thermal imaging appeared on the next screen.

“Good heavens. What is that? A protest?” Ingram whispered.

“In Bumfuck, Oregon? I highly doubt it.” Jameson scoffed. “I want high resolution images. Focus on this smaller group outside the perimeter.”

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“If you’re thinking that it’s the Monster Squad and that they’ve commandeered a domestic drone, then yes.” Jameson leaned back and watched as the image enlarged then focused, enlarged and focused and continued to clarify until he could see men in uniform. The camera panned and Jameson nearly choked.

“What in the holy hell is that thing?”

“A sphinx?” the technician guessed.

“Get me hardcopies of every heat signature in this perimeter group, understood?”

“Understood, sir.”

Ingram leaned in to Jameson and whispered, “What in the world are these guys doing? Now they’ve got a sphinx working with them?”

Jameson shook his head. “I have no earthly idea. I know that they had a fanger helping them, but this?” He glared at Ingram. “This is just…wrong.”

“Uh, sir?”

“What now?” Jameson barked then swallowed hard as the camera focused on what appeared to be a giant winged man. He spread his wings and leapt high into the air, his bat like wings scooping air until he reached altitude, allowing him to glide. “Jeezus H. Johnson…what was that?”