Forged From Ash (19 page)

The hallway was filled with werewolves now. Outside, gunfire cracked, and a few explosions ripped through the air. Jack could only imagine how badly his house was being torn apart. When he thought of home, his mind drifted back to his family.

Shaking Jack’s face with enough force to rattle his entire body, the creature said, “Stay awake, and answer my question.”

“This is Millhouse,” the radio announced. “Falling back to the theater. Anyone who can hear me, fall back to the theater!”

Grinning, the creature asked, “What theater?”

Jack shook his head. “You’ll kill us no matter what. I’m probably just imagining this anyway. Right now….”

“You think you’re dying now? You are. Just not the way you expect.” The creature tapped Jack’s chest with one clawed finger. “Your heart doesn’t have much longer. It’s about to burst. I can hear it straining.”

“Then what the hell…do I need to talk…to you for?”

“Because I’m the one holding all of them back,” the creature said while nodding over its shoulder toward the Half Breed pack. “And not just these. ALL of them. Go on,” it said while handing the radio to Jack. “Check for yourself.”

After seeing what he’d already seen, Jack couldn’t think of a reason he shouldn’t indulge the whims of a speaking nightmare. Part of him simply ached to hear a human voice so he keyed the radio and broadcast his name to anyone that was listening.

“Where are you?” Carly asked.

Jack wore a tired smile. “Thought you were dead.”

“So did I,” Millhouse said. “What’s your status?”

“Fell back to the reserve command post,” she replied.

Smugness was just as ugly on the creature’s face as it was on anyone else’s, and it made sure Jack saw it when those words came through the speaker.

“Your building is swarming with those things, Jack,” Carly said. “All of downtown is swarming with them. How did they get so close?”

Seeing the insistent nod from the creature, Jack voiced the question he was being nudged to ask. “What are the packs…doing now?” His voice was getting weaker and his ears were filling with a high-pitched ringing that only came during the dizzy spells he’d gotten during his days training in the boxing gym during his teens.

“We were barely able to make it two blocks to the fallback spot, but we got here,” Carly said. “What about you, Millhouse?”

“Thought I was dead, but then they pulled back.”

“They pulled back? Repeat, Millhouse,” Carly insisted. “Did you say they pulled back?”

“Affirmative. They’d ripped through the barricades outside my position and had free rein from there. Then they just stopped and backed away. Damndest thing I’ve ever seen.”

“What did they do after that?”

“Hell if I know. I was too busy finding shelter.”

His vision blurring at the edges, Jack snarled into the radio, “What about the northern residential blocks? What…happened to those? Are they….”

“I can see them from here,” Carly said. “Hang on.”

Waiting for those next couple of seconds was one of the most grueling things Jack had ever done. All that time, he could either look into the eyes of the strange talking creature or at any of the werewolves that were crowding around him waiting for the moment when they could eat him alive. Closing his eyes was no help, either, since that only gave his imagination time to play with all the terrible possibilities that lay before him.

“The streets are filled with those things,” she finally reported. “There are fires burning in some houses. Can’t see which ones. None of the packs are moving, though. They’re just standing there. Some are howling.”

If he concentrated, Jack could hear the voices of the werewolves rolling in from various points within the city.

“I hear them too,” Millhouse said. “Standing by.”

The creature took the radio from Jack and set it down. “Do you believe me, or do I need to set some of them loose to prove who’s in control here?”

“What are you? Why do you talk like that?”

“I don’t get much of a chance to speak to anything that can understand me,” it told him earnestly. “When an opportunity presents itself, I guess I babble more than I need to. Tell me about the command post and this conversation can be over.”

“You have the city. Just…take it. God damn it! What more do you want from us?!”

The creature pulled in a long breath and let it out. “You’re fading. You really won’t tell me anything. You’ll be crying soon. Crying about your family. You’re useless,” it said while clamping a paw onto Jack’s chest and pressing down to strain his rib cage. “All of you are so fucking useless. You don’t even realize what’s going on in your own world as it’s happening right under your fucking noses.”

Now it was Jack’s turn to smile. His body wasn’t responding as it should, either out of fear or injury; it required so much effort to think straight and triple that to get his muscles to respond. In the time he’d bought for himself, his hand had been inching toward his pocket for another small box similar to the one he’d used to blow the water tower. The charges at the receiving end of this detonator’s signal, however, were strewn throughout the rooms all around him. As the creature sank its claws into him and the Half Breeds surged forward, Jack pressed the button on that little box to unleash a wave of fire that consumed his entire world.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

B
y the time rescuers climbed to the floor of the office building that had been damaged most from the blast, many other parts of the city were burning. Similar explosions killed dozens of Half Breeds, but even more fires had started as a result of the destruction that cracked Fort Dodge open like an egg. Gas lines had been cut. Panicked locals had resorted to burning their homes to keep the Half Breeds at bay. At some point, it seemed panic itself had become a flammable substance.

Upon reaching the center of the blast in the office building, the rescuers knocked down the stairwell door to find several burning husks lying directly in their path. The leader of the group that had climbed from street level sniffed at the closest pile of charred remains and turned to the others coming in behind her. “This one’s human,” she said in a voice that was clear and smooth despite the smoke hanging in the air.

Stepping away from the door upon four slender paws, the lead rescuer allowed its partners to file into the hallway. They were similar creatures with pointed noses, flat paws and long necks. When their chests swelled with an inhale, slits on either side of their throats opened to pull in whatever air they needed.

The creature that had been first to enter was distinctly female. Although far from human, her body had lithe, familiar curves along the breast and hips. Even her movements were graceful in a way that no male could ever hope to be. She only needed to take a few more steps before finding what she’d been after. “Here,” she said. “Beneath these wretches.”

After the leader had stepped aside, two of the other creatures moved in to pull away the Half Breed carcasses. Not one of them was whole, but their frames had withstood much more punishment than the single human that had been found. Even the radio laying nearby was in pieces. Once enough of that carnage had been moved, a larger mass was revealed.

The creature wasn’t exactly as it had been while speaking to Jack, but its face and the white-on-black eyes set within it were unmistakable. Sitting up with a sharp inhale, the creature clawed at the floor and instinctually snapped at anything in its immediate vicinity.

“Easy,” the female said. “You’re alive, Max. In fact, I think you’ve survived worse.”

“I survived Kansas City,” Max said while pulling himself to his feet. “This was nothing. Just give me a second to catch my breath.”

“You’re getting better with these wretches,” she said while the other rescuers pawed down the scorched hallway, sniffing every charred body along the way. “You calmed the entire pack in the middle of their feeding. That’s no small thing.”

Slowly, Max regained his lucidity and became steadier on his feet.

“Did you find the command post?” she asked.

Max looked around at the other shapeshifters sifting through the gruesome wreckage and started walking further down the hall to put some space between himself and the explosion site. The female caught up in a few steps, padding along beside him before stretching up to walk upon her two hind legs.

“These humans are fighters, Nishta,” Max said. “This one was alone, and still he died before parting with anything useful.”

Now that she was slightly more human in structure, features of the woman she once was could be seen beneath the beast she’d become. The skin beneath Nishta’s fur was dark, luxurious brown, and her voice was textured by a smooth, vaguely British accent when she asked, “So you got nothing?”

“Not directly, although I did hear some communications from another one. Probably a shooter in another watchtower.”

“I cleared out several of those towers personally. Only a few remain. They won’t last long.”

“If we weren’t here to guide the wretches directly, the humans could have turned them back.”

“Humans organize,” she said. “We know that first-hand. What’s important is that they fear. As long as we keep them afraid, we will always have the advantage.”

“We shouldn’t become over confident.”

Nishta sighed and crossed her arms as they reached the end of the hall. Leaning back against a wall, she appeared to be both naked and clothed at the same time. Her fur had retracted somewhat into her flesh, leaving a fine layer that did little to hide her firm hips and small, pert breasts. She wasn’t ashamed of her nudity, but the glint in her eyes served as a warning to anyone who might make the mistake of being distracted by it. “You still want to turn more of the wretches.”

“It would allow our pack to grow and strike on several different fronts without us having to be there to keep them in line. If you weren’t here with me, I might not have been able to calm the ones here today.”

“You did a good enough job.”

“But it’s becoming more difficult. They were not meant to live as long as they have. Our kind have always said that the humans became like locusts, swarming and consuming and multiplying. Now that the wretches have room to run, they might become something similar.”

Nishta shook her head. “The humans, themselves, are keeping that from happening. They’re the ones culling the packs and keeping the wretches’ numbers within tolerable limits. Once we find what we need here, we’ll be able to put the humans to work in an even greater capacity. Now, tell me what you learned about the command post. You are too good at your job to have not learned anything.”

Max turned to watch the Half Breeds that had gathered further down the hall. The creatures were feasting on burnt flesh of the lone human while some even fed on more familiar cuts of meat. “They have started devouring their own dead,” he said with disgust.

“Some have always done so. They are animals.”

“It is becoming worse with every new generation. If it gets worse, they will be clawing to feed on each other and will no longer function as a pack. Then they will be impossible to control.”

“We’ll worry about that if it happens. We came here for a reason. Don’t make us remain in this human city any longer than necessary.”

“I don’t know exactly where the command post is,” Max said. “But I did hear some of the other soldiers reporting in before this one…” As he said that, Max’s hand brushed against a wound that stretched from the base of his neck, down his chest and curved around to snake along his right leg. It had been an open, gruesome sight moments before Nishta and the others had arrived but was healing ever since. Even now, it sealed shut to become nothing more than a line of scar tissue. By morning, it would be a faded memory written upon his skin. “Before he set off those charges,” he continued, “this one was talking with some of the others posted nearby. They spoke of falling back to another position. I believe their leader was among those meeting there.”

“Meeting where?”

“A theater. That’s all they said.”

Nishta closed her eyes for a moment and then started to nod. “I think I might know where to look. Come. I will take you there. That is, unless there is anything else here of interest?”

“No. Let’s go.”

With that, both of them dropped to all fours and shifted into subtly different forms. Their bodies didn’t change drastically apart from limbs growing longer and fur thickening to cover frames that grew heavier with muscle. As they walked down the hall, Max looked toward the Half Breeds to give them a short, snuffing bark which caused them to move quicker and with more urgency. Those still feeding did so as if they’d been starved for a year. Those who ran into the other rooms or down the stairs skidded and clawed at the floor as though they barely remembered how to walk. No longer a single body of beasts, some even growled at Max and Nishta who ran into the room where Jack had been keeping watch.

When they got to the broken window, both of them leapt out with their front legs extended to form their bodies into a smooth arc. They impacted against the side of the building across the street, gripping onto the edifice with scrambling claws to slow their descent as they dropped toward the street. Broken glass cut them open, and concrete edges shredded their paws. All of that damage was healed by the time they were on the ground. Nishta turned to run down the street and cut through an alley in an easy, loping stride.

“When I was coming to you,” she said in a growling voice that all but chewed up the accent coloring her words before, “I saw several humans retreating to a specific corner. I thought they were simply running for shelter and left them to the pack.” Emerging from the alley, she leapt over a chain link fence and effortlessly scaled a brick retaining wall to land on the other side. Max stayed right alongside of her and crouched down low at the sound of gunfire in his immediate vicinity.

“That,” she said, “is the corner.”

Like much of the city, the corner was a mess of cracked brick, splintered wood and shattered glass. The largest structure that was still intact took up most of the real estate at the intersection of two streets. Parts of a large sign remained at the edge of the parking lot, and a row of shadow boxes was attached to the front of the building. Even though the posters were torn away and the sign was partially destroyed, it was obvious that the place had been a large movie theater fitted with rows of stadium seating. The gunfire Max had heard came from that building’s roof, accompanied by muzzle flashes erupting from three spots to fire down at the Half Breeds attempting to make their way across the parking lot.