Wayward Son (5 page)

“I’m hoping you’ll come with me. We may need to regroup, but for now, the threat from the council isn’t over. I’d rather have a ready force than none at all.”

Kalen nodded in agreement. He turned and glanced to the parapet of the castle. “Perhaps we should wait until nightfall then. I fear that attempting to move them might be hazardous.”

“Where is Rufus?” Nadia asked, her eyes betraying the fear growing within.

Jack turned and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “About that.” He gently directed her toward the castle and to a place where she could sit and rest. “We need to talk.”

*****

Laura placed the phone carefully back into the cradle and rested her head on the desk. “Still can’t get through?” She lifted her head and noted the concern on Jennifer’s face as she leaned against the doorjamb.

“It’s like they just disappeared.” She sighed and rubbed at her eyes. Pablo stepped briskly back toward the duty office and Laura raised a hand to catch his attention. “Can I ask another favor?”

He smiled an easy, carefree smile and nodded. “If it is within my power, Ms. Youngblood, it is yours.”

“Is there any chance that you have satellite access?” She quietly prayed that there was still a way that she could at least ensure that the hangar building was still standing and not a fiery inferno.

Pablo hung his head. “I’m afraid that is not within my power. We do not have such luxuries.”

Laura exhaled a long, slow breath and leaned back in her chair. “If only there was some way I could access our own satellite.”

“What would you need?” Pablo stepped inside and sat down at the computer console across from her.

Laura shook her head. “Honestly, I’m not sure. We were given an old satellite to use, but…” she stretched her neck as she tried to find the right words, fatigue eating away at her ability to think. “But I just didn’t take the time to learn anything about it. I was supposed to have been gone by now.”

Jennifer placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “I’m sure they’re fine. Remember what you told me?”

“We still don’t know who…or
what
may have attacked them.”

Pablo rolled closer and lowered his voice, “There is still the possibility that it was simply an attack on their communications. Just because they lost the ability to communicate does not mean that somebody was foolish enough to attack them head on.”

Laura had an uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach and shook her head. “I don’t think it’s that simple, Pablo. Would you simply take out somebody’s coms and not attack them directly?”

Pablo lowered his eyes and shook his head. “No.”

“Yeah, I didn’t think so.” Laura picked up the phone again and began dialing again.

“Did you think of another number?” Jennifer asked hopefully.

“No, I’m just going to keep trying the ones I know until somebody picks up. Surely if…” she paused and stared off at nothing. “I mean,
when
the survivors of the attack realize their communications are down, they’ll want to get them back up ASAP.”

*****

Apollo weighed his options and debated on how best to deal with Sheridan when he finally stepped off the helicopter and confronted the man. Did he pull him aside, put him in a choke hold and squeeze every last drop of information that he could from him or did he continue to play along, milking him for every drop of intel that he could? As much as it might please him to feel the man’s trachea turn to mush under his probing fingers, Apollo knew that nobody could speak if they couldn’t breathe.

He jumped from the hovering chopper and strode purposely toward the warehouse, his mind still bouncing between his two options. As soon as he entered the gloom of the warehouse, he saw the drastically reduced forces packing their meager gear. He had to force himself not to smile as he realized that the crew at the hangar did more than just hold their own against the attack.

Bigby lay back on a cot, his shoulder bandaged and soaked with blood. Apollo grabbed the nearest wolf and pulled him aside, “What happened?”

“We thought we had them. Bastards opened a hole in the floor and brought up this big black truck with a chain gun in the back. They sliced through our offensive line in no time. We had no choice but to retreat.”

Apollo shook his head, feigning concern. “That must be something new.”

“Or some secret machine they hadn’t told you about.” The wolf turned back to the gear and continued packing.

“Why are you packing? Planning to bug out?”

He cast a furtive glance over his shoulder toward the office then looked back to Apollo. “Our boss ain’t too happy with Sheridan. We’ve been called back home.”

Apollo nodded. “And where’s that?”

The wolf stiffened slightly and gave him a cautious stare. “You weren’t told when you were recruited?”

“I didn’t care to know then.” Apollo motioned around him, “But it’s not exactly like I’m qualified for much else. I’m gonna need some kind of job.”

The wolf considered his logic then rubbed at his chin. “Belize for the most part, but Mr. Simmons has properties all over. We might get assigned to any of them. He likes his security like he likes his women.”

“What? Burly and covered in hair?” Apollo laughed at his own joke.

The wolf shook his head. “No,
thick
.”

“Ah.” Apollo glanced toward the office and dreaded the next part. “I guess I better go pack what little I have.”

“Make it quick. We leave tomorrow.”

He entered the office area to find Sheridan slumped in a chair, rubbing at his temples. He lifted his rummy eyes and looked to the large ebony man hopefully. “Please tell me you had better luck than we did.”

Apollo straddled a stool and spun around to meet his gaze. “It was almost as if they were waiting on us. I was hoping we’d get there before my team did, but they were already there.” Apollo ground his teeth as he recounted the battle and the bitch-slapping wakeup call that Jack gave him. “Plus, the man had a bunch of
others
there. They sliced through my team like a hot knife through butter.”

“Fuck!” Sheridan slapped a pile of papers from the table and hobbled to his feet, his anger forcing him to try to walk off the nervous tension. “What are ‘others’?”

“You know…supernatural beings? Elves and shit. He even had a bunch of flying fucking gargoyles. Tore shit out of our chopper.”

“How did you get back so quickly?” Sheridan glanced over his shoulder and out the dirty window to the warehouse.

“We stole another one.” Apollo glanced over his shoulder to see what the man was trying to look at. “What?”

“How many men did you lose?”

Apollo grunted and pushed off the stool. “Nearly all of them. I think we came back with eight plus me.”

Sheridan’s eyes bulged and he had to lean against the counter. “Bloody hell.”

“Oh, it was bloody all right.” Apollo allowed a slight grin. “I ain’t for sure, but I think we took out the vamp that owned the place, though.”

“Thorn?” Sheridan shook his head and slowly sat back down. “It was his forces we needed to take out. Anybody that had to do with the squads. Your Team Leader and my ‘best friend’ Mr. Thompson was number one on the hit list. Any chance he was fragged in the attack?”

“Nope. Lucky fucker is still breathing.”

“So he knows that you’ve switched sides?” Sheridan’s voice was cautious as his mind tried to devise three different ways to use the information as an advantage.

“Oh yeah. And he knows that you’re involved as well.” Apollo pulled a toothpick from behind his ear and stuck it in his mouth.

“He…he
what
?” Sheridan paused and stared at the man as if he had grown a second head. “How could he have found that out?”

“Because I fucking told him.” Apollo turned a defensive stare to the man. “They got the drop on me, had me dead to rights, and instead of killing me, he took me prisoner.”

“And you had to spill your guts!” Sheridan shook with rage as he took to his feet again. “You realize that you’ve just signed my death warrant? Not just mine, but every man that used to work with me. They’ll all be hunted down and…”

“You wanted a war!” Apollo was on his feet and closing the distance between the two. “Well now you got it, sweetheart. Jack knows everything. Well…not
everything.
He don’t know who’s financing this little army of yours.”

“Why in the hell did you tell him that—”

Apollo interrupted him again, “And I hope the son of a bitch goes running to the squads and rats me out. Rats YOU out. That way, instead of gunning for them, they’ll come hunting for us. We can set traps, we can prepare. Rather than trying to attack them in their fucking
strongholds
, they can come after us on our terms.”

“You’re an imbecile.” Sheridan shook his head as he stared at the man. “Our anonymity is the only thing that was keeping us alive.”

Apollo waved him off. “Fuck anonymous. I want them to know.” He stared out the window at the handful of wolves packing their gear for their trips home. “You need to call your boss and order us some new soldiers.” He turned on Sheridan and glared. “This time have him send some REAL soldiers. Not just knuckle-dragging grunts that can shift. We need people who are trained how to fight. Between the two of us, we sacrificed over a hundred men, and for what? To ring their fucking doorbell and announce that we wanted to punch them in the nose?” He threw the stool across the room and let it clatter to the floor. “Fuck that. We need men who can fight. If he can’t do that, then he ain’t serious about his revenge.”

Sheridan watched the mountain of a man stomp out of the office and grinned wickedly as he picked up the satellite phone. He knew that Mr. Simmons wouldn’t be happy, but with a force like Apollo on their side and angry? He’d be a fool not to take advantage of that weapon.

*****

John helped where he could, but the technicians were thorough and needed little help in repairing or replacing the equipment damaged or destroyed in the attack. He felt like a third wheel as people all around him scurried about, performing their duties as he simply stood and watched.

Finally he found a group of men bagging up the dead wolves that were slowly shifting back to their human form. “Can I give you a hand with that?”

The men in the HAZMAT suits shrugged and offered him a pair of rubber gloves. “You may already have the virus, but a lot of them are still messy as hell.”

John pulled the gloves on and went to work bagging and tagging the bodies. They were quickly stacked on a push cart so that they could be fingerprinted before cremation. As John was tossing the last of the bodies onto the cart Dave Marshall trotted back into the hangar. “Little John! Give me a hand out here.” He waved the large man over toward the door.

“What’s up, Dave?” John stripped the gloves and dropped them in the garbage on his way.

“We’re trying to get the dishes back up and operational. We have the smaller ones back up, but we need someone big to help push the larger one up and help hold it in place while Hammer anchors it.”

The duo trotted to the rear of the hangar and lifted and pushed the large dish up while Hammer ran stabilizing cables out to anchor the larger mesh dish. Marshall lifted along one side while John lifted the other and kept the dish upright. Dave finally caught John’s attention. “Hey, I heard you were in the back of the truck and sliced through their front line. That’s heavy fuckin’ duty, man.”

John chuckled to himself. “You heard wrong. I was safe and sound in the armored cab with Spanky. Doc installed a remote trigger in the console. There’s a real nice crosshair TV screen mounted in the dash.”

Dave rolled his eyes. “I should have known. The way stories get stretched around here…give it a week and you’ll have
thrown
the truck up to the main deck, then climbed in the back and breathed fire from your nostrils while you were shooting them down.”

John broke into laughter which brought a stern stare from Hammer. “Please hold it steady.”

“Sorry.” John kept snickering as he thought about Marshall’s warning. “Any advice for when that happens?”

Dave gave him a toothy grin. “Just ride the wave, baby. Nod your head, tell them ‘hell yeah, that’s exactly how it happened’ and ride the wave of fame while you can.”

“Really?” John couldn’t see himself being a glory hound.

“Hell yeah. Because next week it will be somebody else, and you know they’ll do it.” Dave hiked a brow at him. “Especially if it’s me. I’ll blow that shit up ‘til they think I’m Superman.”

“Well, if it’s all the same, I think I’ll stick with the truth.” He saw Dave’s face fall. “No offense, I’m just not the embellishing kind.”

“Hey, whatever floats your boat, baby. I’m just saying we all do it. More to blow off steam than anything.” Dave felt the dish shift and he quickly adjusted his grip and realigned it. “So no offense taken.”

Hammer stepped back and eyeballed the work. “I think that’s it. Let it go so we can see if the cables hold.” Both men gently released their grip and the dish remained solid. Hammer nodded as he turned back toward the hangar. “We should have coms again and I’ll order up some concrete so we can get these posts reset.”