Viper (Second Wave Book 1) (6 page)

“Now, all I want you to do is hand
each bag up here to me, two at a time.” Lara said before climbing the ladder. As
Lara leaned down from the roof, Viper handed her the awkward bags.

Once all the squishy bags were on
the back side of the roof, Lara had him carry weapons. He had no idea the woman
had so many weapons and clips. There were at least half a dozen rifles on the
roof, not including the eight or ten still in the cabin.

She had full, spare clips for every
weapon by the dozens. There were bows, arrows, knives of all sizes and even
something Lara had called a baseball bat. Viper had to admit he really liked
the swing of it, but the effort had caused his head to swim so fast that he
almost hit the floor.

The not so distant sound of gunfire
had both of them jerking their heads to the forest. They listened intently to
the sounds around them, desperately trying to judge the distance between the
sound and the cabin.

“Get inside! Now!” Lara said
hoarsely, her panic rising before a cold blankness settled over her mind and
body.

Viper headed into the cabin and
waited for Lara to come inside with him. Several minutes later, Lara finally
came in the door and Viper breathed a sigh of relief that was short lived.

“I need you to lock this door
behind me when I leave. Like this.” Lara took Viper’s hand in hers and showed
him how to use the dead bolt on the door and lay the board across it.

“Where are you going?” Viper asked,
scared that she might do something reckless. Keeping hold of her hand, he tried
to read her energy. He was surprised when he didn’t feel anything. It was like
she had completely shut herself down emotionally.

“I’m going on the roof. We have a
better chance if I’m up there. Now, when I go outside, I’m going to close the
shutters on the windows. There will be a small slit in each shutter that is big
enough for you to shoot through.”

“It doesn’t matter if you can see
what you’re shooting at, I just need the distraction, so I can pick them off as
I can.” Lara said leading Viper to the kitchen.

Viper looked on in surprise when it
looked like she peeled the floor up. All he could make out was a blurry black
hole in the floor.

“This is your emergency escape. I’m
going to leave it open so don’t come in the kitchen unless you need to get out.
Close this behind you when you get inside. There is a ladder leading down, or
it’s a short enough drop for you to jump.”

“Once you’re inside, then head down
the tunnel until you reach the door. It will lead you about twenty yards behind
the house. It’s not far, but it may give you the time you need. Especially if
they don’t find the tunnel.” Lara said evenly, watching his face to make sure
he was listening.

Viper reached out to Lara and tried
to grab her, but she moved out of his reach. He let his arm drop to his side,
and wished he could see her face.

“Lara please, you must stay in here
with me. With the gunfire they’ve been shooting off all day, my brother will be
close on their trail. We just need to hold them off until Dread gets here. We
can do that from in here.” Viper argued, even though he knew that once her mind
was made up, she couldn’t be swayed.

“I know what I’m doing, and I have
every intention of making sure that you make it until your brother gets here.
You’ve trusted me this far, trust me now.” Lara said staring at Viper’s
unfocused gaze. No matter what he said, she was going on the roof anyway, but
she was hoping that he would trust her.

Lara had no idea why it mattered so
much to her, but it did. For some reason, she felt as if she should have it and
as much as it galled her to admit it, she trusted him. She had no idea why; she
thought. It’s not like he’d done anything but tell her crazy stories, but when
he touched her… it was like coming home.

Just being here with him, in her
private place, the one no one had ever been to, felt right. As crazy and
screwed up as that sounded even to her. She was drawn to him, in a way she’d
never felt before, not even with John. Right now, she needed to keep him alive;
Lara reminded herself.

Viper could feel the hesitancy and
hope bleeding through her energy to him. He knew why she was asking it of him
and he would never lie to her. He never could.

“I do trust you. It is them I do
not trust, and I worry for you. Please stay inside with me?” Viper asked,
trying not to let her see how much he was concerned.

“I can’t. If we’re going to make it
until your friends get here, then I need to be on the roof, and I need to get
up there now.” Lara said watching way Viper’s face fell. She didn’t know why he
was so concerned for her, but she thought it was nice. There hadn’t been anyone
who had cared in a long time.

Lara could almost feel Viper’s
sadness, or at least her mind convinced her that she felt that way. Taking one
of his hands in her own, Lara looked up at him.

“When we get out of here, you owe
me a steak dinner. With all the trimmings! You’re not getting away cheap.” Lara
grinned for a minute before looking away from his unfocused gaze. She tried to
pull away from him, but his hand held tightly to her own. When Lara looked back
up, his green gaze held her there.

“When we get out of here, I will
make you a whole cow if you like. More importantly, I would like you to trust
me with your secret. We may be able to help.” Viper said, unable to stop
himself from using his other hand to brush her falling hair behind her ear.

Lara chuckled. “A whole cow might
not be a bad idea.” Lara looked away from him and slowly pulled her hand from
his.

“Lock the door behind me. Keep
firing as long as you can. Use the tunnel if you need to… live to fight another
day. Someone has to.” Lara said, then moved to the windows. She opened them
from the top down and popped out the screens.

Viper stood back and watched as she
pulled the shutters closed over the windows and barred them from inside. With
only the long slit in each shutter to let in light from outside, the small
cabin was cast in an eerie glow from the three lanterns that Lara had lit when
they had gotten there.

“Lara…, please be careful. Live to
fight another day with me.” Viper said as Lara opened the door to go outside.
He could barely make out the small smile on her blurry face before she nodded
and closed the door.

“Now bar this thing so I can get on
the roof.” Viper heard Lara say from the other side of the door. Making his way
to the door, Viper locked and barred it, like Lara showed him.  

As soon as the bar creaked into
place, Lara went to the side of the cabin and climbed the ladder to the roof.
Rolling onto her stomach, Lara leaned over the edge of the roof and released
the latches holding the ladder to the house and pulled it up onto the roof with
her. No one was getting up there; she thought as she quickly moved to the back
side of the roof and got ready for yet another war. This time on her turf.

*****

Dread shook his head at the dark
one that was impaled by at least a dozen arrows. “Who the hell did Viper find?”
He wondered out loud.

“I don’t know, but they’re pretty
damn good. Honestly, I’m glad these assholes are the ones finding these
contraptions.” Lt. David Jacobs said as he kicked the body with the toe of his
boot to make sure it was dead.

“Dude! This forest ninja has got
some mad skills! Did you see that?” Traze said, pointing to the dummy mechanism
on the tree that caused them to release the real spring, on the trap that had
sent the arrows flying.  

Using a light stone, Decano held
the stone to the body until it had superheated it, causing it to crumble to
dust. They couldn’t leave evidence behind for the humans to find.

“We need to hurry.” Dread said,
feeling as if time was running out for Viper. He couldn’t explain it, but he
could feel it in the air.

“We need to keep a decent pace, but
we can’t rush this. You know there could be other traps that they haven’t set
off. I for one, do not plan on ending up like that.” Niklosi said, pointing to
where the dark one’s body had been.

Gunfire erupted again, this time
much closer than the other times. Everyone turned towards the sound, expecting
it to be like the previous short bursts. It didn’t stop.

“Move, move, move!” Dread said,
running full out through the obscure path uncaring if anyone was following him.
He had to get to his brother.

Chapter Six

Lara held her breath while she
waited for the five huge men to enter the small clearing in front of her house,
grateful that Viper held off on his fire until she was ready.

Time to see if Viper is crazy, or
level the playing field she thought, throwing the first bag into the clearing.
As soon as the first shots were fired at the bag, Lara started throwing the
other bags at them as fast as she could.  

Grabbing her M16, she rolled onto
her stomach and peeked over the edge of the roof to see what she was dealing
with now. Lara gasped and slipped down the roof a little. Pulling herself back
up, she peered back over the edge.

What the fuck? Lara thought raising
her weapon to fire at the scattering people and… whatever those things are that
were writhing on the ground covered in patches of the flour, salt and water
mixture she had put in the bags. Taking aim, Lara began putting her bullets to
use at the men fleeing to shelter from the barrage of fire that Viper was
laying down.

“Kill that bastard on the roof!”
Lara heard one of them bark out, and she grinned as she slammed another clip in
her rifle.

Viper looked outside and couldn’t
help the smile that covered his face. Even with his blurry vision, he could
easily make out the white patches on the dark ones. Lara had concocted
something in her kitchen that had ‘painted’ her targets for her. His smile
faded when he saw the other shadows that had avoided getting any of the white
on them.

“Lara!!! There are four more that
don’t have the white on them! Four more!” Viper screamed as loud as he could,
so she could hear him over the gunfire. Aiming as best as he could, he fired at
the four figures.

Up on the roof, Lara barely made
out what Viper was saying. Damn, she thought, grabbing another clip. Rolling
back over she sprayed the areas where she had seen the men disappear, then
flipped back behind the roof.

The gunfire from the front of the
house was a lot more sporadic now, telling Lara that their numbers were at
least reduced from the original five she had seen in the clearing. Or they were
running out of bullets from firing at the traps. Either way, it was good news.

The bad news was that there were
four invisible bastards out there, and she had no more of her salt and flour
goop to throw and no particular direction to throw it in. Lara sighed, as odds went,
they weren’t good, but she’d had worse.  

Ignoring the fiery pain in her
shoulder, Lara flipped back over and quickly scanned the small clearing in
front of the cabin. The gunfire had stopped, and it had become eerily quiet.
There was no movement below, and Lara figured that they were waiting for her or
Viper to come out, saving their ammunition for their targets.  

How the hell do you find something
invisible? She thought with a sigh, trying to calm herself, so she could pay
more attention to her other senses. Dividing the small clearing into sections
in her mind, she scanned each section for any sign that something was there or
out of place.

There, she thought. To her left,
near the edge of the roof, she saw the drainpipe shift slightly to the side. As
if someone bumped into it. Swinging quickly to her left, Lara fired several
shots, the telltale
thump
told her that something hit the ground.

Well, it was down; she thought. She
didn’t know if it was enough to keep it down since she couldn’t see the damn
thing, but it was down for now. Lara wiped the sweat from her forehead with her
sleeve and flipped back over to re-scan her sections again, hoping that she
would be able to see the signs that another one was close.

It unnerved her a little that one
had gotten so close before she knew it was there. This invisible shit was
beyond screwed up; she thought, even for her book of bad days.

Just to the right of center in the
clearing, Lara saw one of the bushes rustle slightly. Unlike the idiots who
came without enough ammunition, she was well stocked; she thought with a grin
as she showered the bushes with bullets.

She couldn’t help the satisfied
grin when she saw an arm fall across the ground behind the bush. One more down.
She was dying to know if Viper was all right, but didn’t want to call out and
draw their attention to him. She needed to keep their attention on her until
she could eliminate the threat to him.

Lara laid down fire randomly around
the clearing, just so anyone left would realize she was still watching. She was
changing her clip when she saw the strangest thing she had seen yet.
Considering she was dealing with invisible men, that was saying a lot.

A large black blur flew out of the
forest and into the clearing right in front of the cabin. Whatever it was
launched itself at the air and began clawing and hissing violently. Screams
rent the air as Lara watched in shock as blood began to fly around the hissing
and growling black thing.

The entire clearing suddenly
erupted. Viper started screaming something about a Gibly and not to shoot him.
It finally dawned on Lara what the black thing was doing, and she began firing
at the area underneath it until she watched it slowly drop to the ground.

Her eyes followed the movements of
what she now realized was a young panther. Yeah, why not she thought to
herself. Invisible men, aliens, and now black panthers that fight and kill your
invisible enemy. Yeah, she was completely sane; Lara thought with a grimace.

She saw the sun glinting off of
something to her right and pulled the trigger the moment; she realized it was a
rifle taking aim at the little panther. She could have sworn the cat looked up
at her and grinned and couldn’t seem to stop the smile on her own face as she
nodded to the cat.

Oh why the hell not, she thought.
If this was her delusion, then she could have a nodding, grinning panther if
she wanted one. Looking to the forest where the cat had come from, Lara could
hear the sound of heavy footsteps crashing through the underbrush, and she
hoped like hell it was either a bunch more cats or Viper’s people otherwise,
they were seriously screwed.

“We got incoming!” Lara yelled out
as she followed the movements of the cat in the clearing as it stalked around
as if it were a bloodhound. She’d worry about the others when they got close
enough to be a threat.

The moment the cat launched itself
at the air again; Lara didn’t hesitate to pull the trigger. As the cat hit the
ground and shook itself, the forest seemed to part as men poured into the small
clearing.

“Viper?” One of the men screamed as
he pushed past the others.

Lara looked down and could see the
strong resemblance between the two men. Her doubts about his relation to Viper
vanished when she heard Viper yell out from inside the cabin.

“Dread?”

Lara could hear Viper opening the
barricade on the door and turned to watch the cat walk up to one of the other
huge men.

“I don’t see any more of them. She
kill them all.” Lara sat mute as the cat spoke to the man.

Oh hell yes! She thought as she
rolled over onto her back. A talking black panther. Yeah she really knew how to
up the crazy factor. Because for her mind, visible men, aliens and attack
panthers just weren’t enough. No, she had to have a talking panther in her
delusional world.

No doubt, she was going to have to
create a new book of bad days just to cover today. If she wasn’t a babbling
idiot, eating her own boogers by morning, she thought.

Lara laid on the roof as Viper, and
his brother held a mini reunion below. Not being good with people and feeling
like hell now that the adrenaline was wearing off, Lara was content to just
rest there for a while as long as Viper was safe.

The peace came to an end all too
quickly when Lara heard Viper yelling out her name. “Lara?”

“I’m here. Give me a sec.” Lara
said as she pulled herself upright with more effort than it should have taken.

She barely stood and looked down in
the clearing at all the men surrounding Viper and her small cabin when she saw
the lone man behind a tree pointing an automatic rifle at the group.

“Forest Ninja is a chick?” Lara
heard from below as she raised her weapon and fired off five shots in rapid
succession. The group turned as one to see what she had shot at and Lara
lowered her weapon.

She heard the breath behind her,
but wasn’t fast enough to react before she looked down at her stomach, her eyes
refusing to communicate to her brain the large holes that had appeared. Blood
was streaming down the front of her, soaking her shirt and pants.

Everything seemed to move in slow
motion for her. Viper screaming her name, the black cat scrambling up the side
of the roof, the shouting of men all around her. She heard the sound of her
rifle hitting the roof and looked down to see it. Viper said four, Lara thought
as she felt her knees start to buckle; damn, this was the fourth.

Lara looked down at Viper, grabbed
two knives from the front of her vest, and planted both of them into the thing
behind her just as the cat attacked it.

Strange, Lara thought as she fell
to the roof, as soon as the thing fell, she felt something come out of her
stomach. There was no pain. Shouldn’t there be pain? Lara thought. Maybe this
was another delusion like the talking cat, she said, trying to convince herself
none of this was real.

Lara suddenly felt like ice and
could feel her body trembling. She looked up as something big blocked the sun,
hoping it was one of the good guys. She didn’t think she had much fight left in
her anymore; she was so tired.

“We need to get her to a MedLab!
Get a transport here now! You hang in there. No, no, no! Fight damn it!” Lara
could see the mouth moving on the blurry face in front of her, but she couldn’t
make her mind understand what it was saying.

She was so tired; she just needed
to rest for a minute she thought, rolling her head to the side and closing her
eyes. She groaned when someone shook her roughly and yanked her shirt open.

“Don’t you close your eyes! Wake up
soldier!”

“Lara! Let me go!”

“Shit this is bad! Its claws
severed her spine and punctured her internal organs; she's bleeding out from
everywhere! Get me some help now!”

Lara had no idea who was speaking,
the only voice she recognized was Viper’s and he was screaming to be let go.
The last thought she had was that these must not have been the good guys. She
screwed up and delivered Viper to the enemy.

*****

Viper stood in the clearing and
hugged his brother tightly, grateful that he had come. He had turned to the
roof in time to see the dark one rise behind Lara and saw her rifle drop from
her hand. Even though his vision didn’t allow him to see details, he knew that
she was hurt badly.

He screamed for her as the men launched
into action around him, trying to get on the roof and get to her. He lunged
forward to try to get to her as well, when Dread pulled him to a stop.  

“Lara! Let me go!” Viper growled as
he fought his brother to get to Lara. He had to know she was all right; he had
to get to her.

“You can’t do anything for her
right now! Stop! Let them get her down.” Dread said quietly, trying to sift
through the raging miasma of Viper’s emotions that were screaming through his
energy.

Viper slumped against his brother
as he heard Decano yell from the roof. “Shit this is bad! Its claws severed her
spine and punctured her internal organs; she's bleeding out from everywhere!”

“You have to save her, Dread.
Please.” Viper begged, gripping his brother’s arm tightly.

“Who is she?” Dread asked, curious
why his brother was so emotionally volatile.

“It’s Kinara.” Viper said hoarsely.

Dread was even more confused. “What
about her?”

“Lara is Kinara.” Viper said,
lunging forward as they brought her down from the roof.

Dread was momentarily stunned by
Viper’s words and had to use more strength than he intended to stop his brother
from getting to the badly injured girl.

“What the hell are you talking
about? You know that isn’t possible! You have a concussion. You’re confused. We’ll
get both of you to MedLab.” Dread hissed quietly, hoping no one else would hear
his brother.

“I swear I will stay here, if you
go over there and make sure she is all right. Feel her energy, you are the
strongest of us; you'll recognize her. Please, Dread…” Viper begged, knowing if
his brother would just do as he asked he would believe him; and understand.

Dread looked at his brother
intently, feeling the strength of his conviction in his energy. He knew it
wasn’t possible; Viper couldn’t be right. However, he needed his brother to
stay calm until they could get him to Amun and make sure he was well.

“I will go check on her. Do not
move!” Dread warned as he stepped a foot away as if to make sure Viper would
keep his word and not move.

When he felt like he could trust
his brother not to run to the woman, he nodded to Traze and David to keep an
eye on him as he walked over to the crowd around the girl.