Ghost Soldiers (11 page)

He didn't need to be told twice. He grabbed the rifle and started to run.

Behind him, the werewolves howled.

Chapter Twelve: Fox Run

Karl sprinted through the trees. The aerial drone buzzed overhead, and he caught a glimpse of its shape against the night sky. The tree trunks blurred past. Branches lashed him, scratched at his skin, but he healed almost at once. The rifle was awkward, heavy and long. It slowed him, but he wouldn't toss it yet. Without a secondary weapon, the rifle just might end up saving him.

“Karl, I've got you on the overhead cameras,” Bailey said through his earpiece. Her voice had returned to calm professional, and he was grateful. He didn't need to hear panic right now. Another chorus of howls filled the air behind him. Close and drawing closer.

“Turn south,” Bailey said. “You're headed too far east.”

He leapt off a jagged cliff edge, dropped twenty feet to ground carpeted with a layer of pine needles, and kept on running.

The rapid tap of keystrokes sounded faintly over the com. Bailey spoke again. “You're less than two klicks out.” The drone swept back around, the sound of its propellers growing louder.

“How far back are they?”

“Those wolfbreed shifted to pure wolf form, and they're right on your ass. A whole bunch of others scattered out behind them, but they're farther back. Don't slow down.”

He leapt a downed tree, came down on a patch of moss and mushrooms, slid, but regained his balance despite the awkward weight of the rifle. Things crashed through the undergrowth behind him. Werewolves in wolf form ran faster than vampires. They'd been steadily eating up the distance since Cojocaru had sicced them.

“Where's Cojocaru?” he asked.

“He retreated southward, moving toward the road with his acolytes and about half his slaves. He sent the rest after you.”

Wonderful.

The terrain was especially difficult, throwing up barriers of trees and deadfalls and uneven ground which sometimes fell in treacherous slopes. He traveled fast, but part of him had to hold back, lest his speed downhill cause him to lose control and he ended up tumbling down the mountainside.

A dark shape swooped overhead. He changed direction to avoid the succubus and cut toward heavier tree cover. A few seconds later he heard a loud metallic crunch, followed by the dying whine of propellers. He risked a glance upward and glimpsed the drone spiraling down toward the forest. There was a cascade of breaking branches and leaves whipping against metal, climaxing in another breaking crash.

“Shit,” Bailey said. “I just lost the drone. That bitch with the smoke wings. You've got two airborne right over you. The girl and that raven thing.”

He pushed himself even harder and spotted the game trail he'd first followed. He angled toward it. Something black dropped in front of him in a whirring flutter of feathers. He caught a glimpse of a huge bird's eye before its beak slashed toward his throat. He twisted, losing balance as the shifting weight of the rifle wrenched him off his stride. The beak barely missed. One of the wings flapped against Karl's face, filling his nose with the stink of feathers, a wild musty smell. The raven creature turned to follow his fall, drawing back for another strike.

He turned in midair and leveled the long rifle. At this range he fired from the hip, bracing himself against the recoil as he pulled the trigger. The gunshot echoed off the mountains. Dust, pine needles and an explosion of black feathers swirled around him as the gun nearly jerked from his hands—only his strength allowed him to keep hold. He hit the ground on his shoulder, almost lost the rifle again and slid down the slope on his back for a dozen feet before fetching up against a tree trunk.

The raven thing fell to the pine needles as feathers drifted down around it. Its head was cocked to the side, its large bird eye blank and staring. The gunshot wound began to spit and sizzle as the spell matrix on the bullet ate into the creature's flesh. The charred stink of burned meat filled the air. He clambered to his feet and began to run again, cursing the lost time.

“Hold on,” Bailey said, as if he waited in line at the local convenience store. “I'm getting incoming priority messages.”

He jumped through two fir trees that had grown apart from one another in a huge V. Still, nothing but silence over the com. The werewolves howled again, disturbingly close.

“Karl, they want me to leave you.” Her voice was little more than a whisper in his ear.

He didn't stop running. Nothing surprised him. Nothing.

“It's an order,” she continued, almost too softly to hear over the pound and crackle of his feet on the uneven ground, impossible to keep silent at this speed. “A direct order from Lord Sokoll…”

His mind whirred through alternatives. If the creatures pursuing him caught up, he was finished. If he could make it to the town of Sinaia, then maybe he could steal a car, head west—but the sunrise… Could he make it in time?

Damn it.

“I'm not going to just abandon you.” Bailey's voice vibrated with a resolve that hardened with every word. “Fuck Sokoll—he ordered us into this shit. Now get your pale ass back here and let's get the hell out. Jesus, I should've listened—”

Her mike cut off, and Karl ran on. Perhaps there was hope he'd see Maria again after all.

The wolf pounced on his back. Its claws shredded through his clothes and tore into his flesh. He ducked forward and rolled, letting his momentum send him tumbling through the air. The wolf's jaws snapped shut where his neck had been an instant before. Its hot carrion breath blew against his cold skin.

He hit the ground hard. The rifle clattered into a patch of needles and moss. He rolled back into a crouch, his own claws cutting out of his fingertips as the wolf righted itself and circled around in a wide arc. It was huge, bigger than a mastiff, with muscles rippling beneath a brown and gray pelt as it stalked him. A low growl rumbled from a snarling mouth full of teeth.

He feinted to his left, toward the rifle. The wolf angled to cut him off. Instead of leaping for the gun, Karl launched himself at the wolf. He caught it as it turned back toward him, snatching it by the throat just above its slave collar, squeezing, feeling his claws slice past its fur into its neck. The werewolf snapped at him, nearly sinking its teeth in his face. He slammed it into the ground with all his strength. His head darted forward to drive his fangs into the wolf's mangled throat, but a gray furry blur filled his field of vision. Only his vampire reflexes allowed him to get an arm between the second wolf's fangs and his neck in time.

The gray wolf clamped down on his forearm, tearing away muscle as its weight and momentum sent it sailing past him. Pain flared bright and hot. His dark vampire blood pattered to the soil and began to curl into vapor like morning mist.

He staggered to his feet again and flexed his wounded arm to test how much functionality he'd lost. He didn't need fear the infection of a werewolf bite, but a supernatural wound wouldn't quickly heal. The brown wolf lay on the ground where he'd slammed it, and blood gushed from its throat. The gray wolf circled out of Karl's reach as a third wolf finally caught up to them.

Bailey's voice came over the com again. “Where are you? What's taking so long?”

“Busy.”

The ears of both wolves twitched at the sound of his voice. They threw back their heads and howled, drowning the forest in the mournful sound. Both of them shapeshifted, well out of his strike range, and turned back into wolfbreed form—their prime combat shape, six feet of muscle and fur standing upright on powerful, human-like thighs but still retaining the digitigrade lower leg of the wolf, clawed hands instead of paws, and long wolf muzzles with wicked-looking canines.

He jumped toward the rifle and snatched it up. He saw one wolfbreed's eyes widen as it rearranged itself, muscles tearing loose and reconnecting, the bones shifting about under its fur. The slave collar glowed, and the metal expanded right along with the werewolf's neck. He raised the rifle. It took precious seconds to shift, and they'd made a tactical error—either that or they believed the rounds in the sniper rifle wouldn't harm them.

He pulled the trigger. The barrel shot back, the gun kicked, spitting muzzle flash. The gray wolfbreed slammed into a tree as a chunk of its upper chest disintegrated into blood and bone. An instant later the edges of the wound began to spit brilliant sparks and burn with ghostly white flames. The stink of singed fur filled the air, and light from the strange fire made the tree shadows jump and dance.

The last werewolf sprinted away, slower on two legs than on four, but running hard for a thicker stand of trees. He grabbed the scope, wrenched it off the top of the rifle and tossed it aside. It was useless at such close range. He flipped up the iron sights and aimed…

Movement overhead caught his attention as the succubus swerved in and out between the tall evergreens. Her silver, braided hair snaked up behind her head like a scorpion tail, moving on its own. The braid flicked like a whip and a dozen thin needles hissed down out of the sky.

He threw himself out of the way as the needles sliced into the dirt. One stuck in a tree root, quivering there like a shot arrow. He dropped to one knee and raised the rifle. The succubus swerved and weaved back and forth as its black smoke wings beat the air. He shot, but too quickly and missed. The succubus swept up out of the treetops and vanished from sight.

He swung the rifle around, searching for targets. The last gunshot still echoed off the mountain ridges and valleys, turning one shot into a dozen.

More noise of pursuit came from farther up the mountainside, crashing branches, yelling, strange grunting sounds and pounding feet. He'd wasted too much time. He took off again, following the game trail. A long, mournful wolf howl echoed behind him, but this time a solo instead of a chorus.

Agony shivered up and down his arm every time his heel hit the ground. The claw wounds in his back burned with a white-hot pain difficult to ignore. He was losing blood, and blood was his power.

The converted ice cream truck's modified diesel engine rumbled in the distance. He heard it simultaneously over the com and somewhere down below him, a place hidden by the trees and camouflage netting but very close.

“I'm pulling onto the road,” Bailey said. “The back door's open.”

He sprinted into the clearing. The catapult equipment had been abandoned, but he saw the truck down the hill a hundred feet away. Exhaust billowed from the tailpipe, the back doors gaped wide open, and both brake lights glowed red, like the eyes of some hungry behemoth. He ran harder, tearing up the last of the ground, following the tire tracks in the pine needles and drifts of broken twigs.

He was twenty feet from the truck when the last wolfbreed came slanting down from his right, trying to cut off his escape. Three rounds remained in the rifle's ten round magazine, but the wolfbreed would be on him if he stopped to shoot, and the rifle was far too unwieldy to shoot while running and hope to hit something. He pushed himself to the limit as they both raced toward the truck. He jumped for the open doors an instant before the wolfbreed leapt at him. It missed by inches, jaws snapping shut on empty air.

His heels slapped down on the metal floor, and he spun back to face the werewolf. It ran out of view, but he could hear it circling around to come at him again. “
Go
!” he yelled.

The truck's engine roared, and it lurched forward down the dark, winding road, gaining speed. He steadied himself and lifted the rifle, ready to fire. Something slammed into the side of the truck hard enough to rock it on its springs. Karl caught a glimpse of the werewolf attacking and took a shot. The report was even more deafening in the enclosed space.

The werewolf had started to leap away, which saved its life. The bullet kissed along its back and shoulders, stripping the fur and the first layers of flesh. The flesh around the wound smoked and bubbled. The werewolf veered off and hurled itself over the slope beyond the road, out of sight.

The truck gathered more speed, rumbling down the mountain road. Karl knelt near the back-end bumper, searching for targets as the last wolf's warning howls trailed off behind them.

Chapter Thirteen: Splash Damage

Karl hurried to the front of the truck. He had to grab the edge of the computer table to avoid being thrown into the panels when Bailey took a corner too fast. The squared tip of the Barrett's rifle barrel struck the chest freezer, and a wild desire to shoot the freezer point-blank burst in his mind like an explosion of fireworks. He managed to restrain himself by ejecting the nearly empty magazine and switching it out with a full one.

Bailey gave him only the barest glance when he opened the door to the truck cab and dropped into the passenger seat. “You're bleeding. You all right?”

“Yes.”

She spun the wheel hard around another turn, pumping the brake pedal. “This is amazingly FUBAR. I hope you know that.”

He didn't answer. He scanned the tree line that pressed dark and ominous against the road. Some of the cutbacks had overhangs, ridges and small cliffs. Ripe positioning for an ambush.

She floored the accelerator when she hit straightaways and worked the brake furiously as she came to cutbacks and curves. “This piece of junk handles like a sailboat in the Sahara.”

“Be quiet.”

She glanced at him again, fury in her eyes. “Don't make me regret waiting for you. I'm neck deep in shit as it is.”

Karl shifted the rifle in his hands, careful with barrel control. “I'm going on the roof.”

“Wait! What if you fall off—?”

He opened the door and leaned out to give himself enough room to sling the rifle over his shoulder without catching it on the edge of the cab. Then he climbed onto the truck's side panels, stretched out and slammed the swinging door shut. Wind buffeted him as he clambered onto the roof and knelt with one hand on a seam in the metal, steadying himself as the truck leaned into a U-curve. The rock wall of the mountainside pressed almost close enough to reach out and touch, but on the opposite side there was no guardrail past the edge of the road, only the land sloping down into darkness. A sense of déjà vu washed over him as memories of fighting from the top of a truck flooded his mind. The night he'd lost Maria to Delgado.