The Endangered (22 page)

Crina squeezes my shoulder where the arrow pierced and I flinch. She snags the keys and mounts the bike. I sigh and swing around behind.

“Call Xan; get directions.”

I reach for my ear. No comm. Must’ve lost it in the blast. We start navigating away from the sirens. I fish a palm-sized GPS out of the bike’s pack. 

“On it. Head southwest.”

We zip around the city while I call out left or right until we reach the hotel. Crina cruises into the parking garage below street level.

“What’s your plan? Should we stake out the lobby? Back entrances?”

Crina doesn’t slow down; instead, she steers us through a pair of doors marked ‘Service Entrance.’

“Uh—Crina.”

We speed down a long hallway, pass a stairwell, and Crina slows.

“What’s the deal?”

“I smell something feral.”

I sniff the air. Maybe something faint, masked in mold.

“Not really.”

“Hang on.”

She lurches the bike forward, nearly tossing me in the process. The hallway veers to the right. We turn and head straight for a second pair of doors, these ones unmarked.

We burst through, the doors flying open dramatically, and Crina spins the bike sideways as she slams the brakes.

Before us is a podium atop a makeshift stage. The man at the podium maintains a confident demeanor as he turns to see who has interrupted his speech. He wears an expensive suit and his eyes glimmer menacingly above a smug grin that broadens by the second. Beside him stands an equally tall but substantially bulkier man with similar features. His broad shoulders and bodyguard build look less comfortable in a suit—a volcano ready to blow at a moment’s notice. His hand goes reflexively to the massive chrome gun poking awkwardly from his shoulder holster, but he stops when the man at the podium places a hand on his shoulder.

Before the stage a row of half a dozen men stand at attention. They wear plain tees and cargo pants, all very military-esque. Unflustered, they turn to face the party crashers.

“So much for a subtlety,” I mutter.

“Striden!” Crina exclaims. She looks like she’s just seen a ghost.

If the man at the podium is surprised to see us, he doesn’t show it.

“Well hello, Crina. How nice of you to join us. So you’re the one tearing up my city? I suspected as much.”

“You know him?” A rhetorical question.

Striden addresses the men before him. “Boys, why don’t you welcome them to the neighborhood.”

Already drooling at the sight of us, they don’t need any extra prompting. The group instantly begins to transform into wolves.

“Oh shit.” I slide the .22 from my ankle holster and risk a look at the clip. It is loaded, but after the dip in the Hudson I’m not sure it’ll still fire. I wish I’d bothered to bring the P90.

Won’t have to wait to find out.

Crina revs the bike and steers us quickly out the way we’d came, wolves hot on our heels.

The hallway hadn’t seemed this narrow on first run through. Our pursuers use their claws to scale the concrete walls as they morph onto all fours. The first to reach our bike gets a face full of exhaust and a head full of silver. His comrades jump over him, annoyed by the road block his body creates in the narrow corridor. I sit poised on the back of the bike, shifting my weight as I fire rounds of silver into the mess of fury bodies that fill the hallway.

Crina concentrates on driving while I do the best I can to fend them off and balance atop the rear tire. They are fast—really fast. One pounces from his position along the wall slightly above us. I have one shot left and I make it count. He takes the bullet square in the chest and balks backward midair.

The gun clicks. Empty. Damn.

The doors open with a bang as Crina accelerates through the garage.

“Take the gun off my ankle,” Crina instructs.

The pack comes barreling out after us. Full speed ahead. They pour into the parking garage and spread out. I empty Crina’s 9mm, hitting mostly cars, only managing a few flesh wounds on our attackers.

“Get us outta here; they’re trying to surround us.”

“Hang on!”

She swerves the bike around an oversized minivan and up the ramp. Within seconds we are out on the street and the wolves are forced to abandon their plan of attack. They regroup as they charge out of the garage. I’m sure it’s quite a sight for anyone walking down the street at that moment. My gun emits dull clicks.

“I’m out of ammo.”

“Side pocket.”

I turn to the side and grope the bag with my free arm. This proves quite a challenge. Crina turns and fires a few shots over my shoulder. The bike begins to teeter and she is forced to turn back to the road. I dig out a cartridge and jam it into the gun. None too soon.

Claws graze my leg. I steady myself on the bike and the creature throws its massive paw into the tire, ripping the wheel, rubber burning the flesh, tearing at his talons. He cries out and I fire two shots, one into his open mouth, the other in his snout.

Without warning, the bike veers sharply to the left, ejecting me in the process. The windshield of a parked car breaks my fall.

Covered in glass, my head throbbing, I sit up in the driver’s seat and look around. The wolves have not stopped to investigate my little accident. I find the gun in the footwell of the passenger side.
Nice.

The car is an older model and I waste no time in ripping free the wires from under the steering wheel. After several different tries, I find the right combination of wires and the car roars to life. I am back in the chase.

Crina is losing speed. Down to one good tire, she struggles to stay ahead of the pack. A couple blocks away, I gun the engine and power into the straggler of the pack. He doesn’t pay me any attention until the fender catches his back legs. His body contorts backward as he flies over the hood and into my waiting gun. I unload several shots into his back, slow the car, let him roll a little, and then plant one in his skull, painting the pavement with brain matter.

The bike swerves and Crina dismounts just as it strikes a wall and explodes against the brick. I push harder on the accelerator. Road-kill number two loses ground and I slam into him, pinning his body against the wall a few feet from where my bike lay in ruins. The beast is facing me and lunges forward with his upper body, his lower still trapped by my car.

I smile at him over the barrel of my gun and pull the trigger.

Click.

Empty.

Story of my life.

When he fails to wriggle free, he flips the car. The next best option. Once upside down, I scramble out as he jumps atop to crush me under the car’s weight. I don’t make a clean escape. The lower part of my leg gets caught and he jumps on the metal several times to seal the deal. I reach into the boot of my free leg. Fifty percent chance it holds my switchblade.

My luck has turned.

I slip the blade free and bring it up as the wolf leaps atop me. His teeth sink into my shoulder, but it is the opposite arm that holds the knife. I slice into his torso and force the silver blade upward. Bowels spill onto the pavement. I get a lapful of intestines. He releases his bite and howls. I slam both hands into the handle, driving the blade under the chest cavity and through his vulnerable little organ.

The howl becomes a whimper as he collapses beside me, reverting to human form. I sit up and lift the car off my leg.

Staggering, I catch sight of Crina fending off the last of our attackers.

They are grappling at the far end of the alley. From my angle it looks like she is losing, but it is tough to tell. I sprint toward them, ignoring the pain in my leg. The wolf, propped on his hind legs, slams Crina into the wall. She sees me approaching from over his shoulder and raises her arm to catch the knife I toss. She doesn’t waste any time putting it to use.

The first blow catches his shoulder; he retreats enough for her to make a clean strike to his heart. I scoop up her gun from the ground but don’t need it. The second blow gets him where it counts and he falls to her feet with a thud.

The alley is littered with dead carcasses and mangled vehicles.

“They go and leave us looking like mass murderers,” I grunt.

“I got news for you, Lori: we are.”

A trail of bodies leading straight to us and no one would believe our side of the story. Not that we’ll stick around to tell it.

She picks some glass from my hair. “Where’d you get the car?”

“Same place I got the glass.” I shake the rest free from my hair.

Crina looks like she’d just climbed out of a blender. I doubt I fared much better. Hell, if I entered a Halloween contest, I’d win hands down.

“I need a rabies shot after tonight.”

First an arrow, then a hungry wolf; my shoulder has seen better days. I will it to heal, but it doesn’t quite work that way. 

Sirens are heading in our direction. Took them long enough. Guess they have too many bar fights to deal with at this hour.

“Let’s get out of here.” Crina points to the fire escape to her right.

As we ascend to the rooftop, I ask the question that’s been begging for an answer: “So how do you know Striden?”

Chapter 27

Back at the base, Crina is quick to disappear. She hadn’t been willing to offer up an explanation on who Striden was or how they came to know one another. I can’t help but recall her story about the wolf from years ago, the one she figured for dead. But she is her typical shielded self and I can tell she is shaken by the surprise encounter, enough to know not to pry.

I find the others in the tech room, a carbon copy of the one back east. We are renting an office space on the top floor of a modern building in lower Manhattan. Security cameras Xan could tap into, easy access via rooftop, enough offices for us to each have a makeshift bedroom; hang a couple curtains and it’s home sweet home.

Catch had nearly lost his arm back at the docks, but after some gauze and a few pints of blood, all he requires is the help of a sling. His impaled arm is also on the mend, as he demonstrates by wrapping it around me the second I enter.

“Ooo, careful.” I grimace and he releases his embrace.

“Sorry, love, what happened? Who did this to you?”

“What, you didn’t see enough action at the docks?” Quinn chimes in.

She sits, arms crossed, in the corner of the room, her leg propped on a chair. Trent keeps fussing with her leg, trying to make her comfortable. She completely ignores his efforts.

Everyone is anxious for my report. Given my appearance, it is clear that we’d encountered something. Or someone. I confirm that Crina has returned intact, but is in no mood to share. This is getting to be an all too familiar scene. The wolves are tearing us into pieces. So far we are the ones left standing, but for how long? Odds are against us—law of averages and all…

Marcus pulls me into the conference room to recount the events in private.

“Does the name Striden mean anything to you?”

Marcus’ eyes go wide. I continue.

“Crina was more surprised to see him than he was of her. He reacted as though he’d been expecting her. He had a big guy at his side, like a body guard, but that human at the docks said two brothers are running the show so they might be related. Neither of them pursued us. Didn’t see the need since they had a small army at their fingertips. We interrupted some sort of mission briefing. I’m telling you it was like a cult the way they were lined up listening to him preach. Mindless zombies happy to do his bidding. Scary shit.”

“How many?”

“Six werewolves. All male. All muscle. Not including the leader and his sidekick.”

“Striden. Alive. And in New York City.”

“So what’s this guy’s story?”

Marcus’ eyes rage, but he remains calm. He runs his hand through his hair and whistles through his teeth.

“He’s a werewolf. A given, I suppose. Power thirsty. He had a small pack of followers in the late seventies when Crina and Dominique hunted them down and killed everyone including Striden. He was much younger back then, of course, and he did not pose much more of a threat. A group of teenage vandals, nothing more. When the war began, I remember thinking it looked reminiscent of his work. Striden certainly didn’t invent the concept of daylight burnings, but he’d been known for his cowardly tactics. If he discovered a vampire hideout, he’d burn it to the ground. He was never successful in learning the location of The Covenant. Or so we thought.

“Then the firestorm happened. That was not your typical fire either; the walls of the mansion were rigged with explosives and coated with accelerants. Naturally, I suspected Striden’s hand behind the torching. However, Crina insisted she watched him die at Dominique’s hand. And years had passed since his death so it was not a practical theory. Dominique did not survive the fire…so given this news, if it was revenge he sought, he certainly succeeded.

“The Striden I knew lived to hunt vampires. He never seemed too concerned about building werewolf numbers, but motives change in time.”

“So he’s back in a big way. More ambitious, more organized, and more powerful.”

“And he’s after something much greater than a few surviving vampires.”

“We finally know who we’re fighting,” I consider. “He travels around, starting these cults, or packs of wolves. Never having to lift a finger against us ’cause we’re always ten cities behind. Putting out the fires he’s started…You think he’s working for someone?”

“No. Not that ego. Striden doesn’t answer to anyone but himself.”

Crina appears outside the long glass window that stretches the length of the room. Marcus gestures for her to join us. Cleaned up and only limping slightly, she enters with a look that says the glass isn’t sound proof.

“I was briefing Marcus on our findings.”

She nods, her expression sullen.

“It was definitely Striden you encountered?”

Crina’s eyes harden. “Yes. He’s aged, but he still has that ugly smirk. And he certainly recognized me.”

If he started the war, then he was behind Dominique’s death. Does he know Crina was not in The Covenant at the time of the fire? He certainly didn’t look surprised to see her. Does he know who else survived?

Focus on tonight.

Tonight we came out ahead. Took out the team he’d stationed at the warehouse. Took out his new recruits. We’d gotten close. Tonight he’d surrendered his upper hand.

Crina and Marcus begin arguing and this snaps me back to attention. 

“We need to go after him now. By tomorrow he could be anywhere. Their numbers in the city took a huge blow tonight and we need to attack while we’ve got the advantage. Who knows where he’ll be by sundown tomorrow.”

“It’s not an option. It’s rash and I will not approve. You and Lori are far from a hundred percent. Catch and Quinn are in recovery. Sunrise is less than three hours away. I will not send my team out on a mission this high risk, this close to sunrise.”

Crina falls silent, her body vibrating with fervor.

“But we’re so close.”

Marcus sighs, holds up his index finger, and disappears into the hall. He reappears a moment later.

“I sent Xan to watch the hotel until dawn. If Striden makes a move in the next few hours he might be able to learn where he’s headed.”

Crina begins to protest, but Marcus’s expression keeps her quiet. Instead, she merely nods.

“Thank you, Marcus.”

“I have a suggestion.”

They both turn to me.

“Striden’s reaction said that he knew you were alive. I’m just starting to piece things together, but wouldn’t he have presumed you for dead after the firestorm? Did he have a way of knowing you weren’t home at the time?”

After some consideration, Crina shakes her head. “I cannot say for certain what he did or didn’t know. But yeah, his reaction to my presence said, ‘What took you so long?’”

“He knew you were alive, because he has allies on the inside. Vampires reporting our activities.”

“Watch what you’re saying, Lori,” Marcus snaps.

“Think. Back in Amsterdam. Vampires are responsible for many of the supplies we destroyed in that warehouse tonight.”

“Hanson.” Crina nods.

“His men were on high alert. Knew who we were. Hell, they were stocking up on crossbows, same with the crew we encountered tonight. If they knew, we can assume Striden knew. Someone’s acting as an informant. I’m not saying it’s one of us; in fact it’s more likely a rogue with something to gain. Marcus, your recruiting efforts are no secret in the vampire community.”

“So what are you saying?” His tone is even.

“There’s a missing link in the chain. And it’s a vampire.”

“Could be, but now that we have Striden, why do we need his rat?”

“Because we don’t have Striden. By sundown tomorrow he’ll be back underground and we’ll be left to pick up the scraps.” Crina tries to quell her temper.

“We don’t need his rat, but it won’t hurt if we can break up his chain of communication. Also there’s S&D Pharmaceuticals. It’s their cover. It was in Adrian’s notes. He was investigating them. Now we know why. ‘S’ more than likely stands for Striden. We find their corporate offices and we’ll discover firsthand what they’re using that equipment for. But first we need to regroup. Let’s face it, tonight was a disaster.”

“Plus, if he’s got eyes on us, we should hang low for a while,” Marcus suggests.

I am relieved he is in agreement. We were not prepared for tonight’s encounter and I am not begging for an encore. Part of me is thinking of Catch. I want to buy him some extra time to recover.

“What about these lawyers? They could provide us more intel on S&D nonsense,” Crina offers.

“So we stay in New York. We pick up where we left off, but discretely,” Marcus agrees. “We need to know what we’re up against.” He glances at Crina.

“I can live with that,” she consents.

Marcus nods. She exits.

“What a night.” I start to follow her out, but Marcus intercepts me, pulling me aside.

“Keep an eye on Crina,” he whispers.

“She won’t disobey your wishes.”

“I know. But tonight brought back memories long buried. She’s got a lot to process.”

***

The mortal world is in upheaval, taking the brunt of the aftermath from our little fallout with the wolves. The news, which had been mostly covering an influenza outbreak, now blares dramatic headlines about dead bodies in the streets, the hunt for mass murders, pleas for witnesses to come forward, cautious warnings not to walk alone at night and to report suspicious activity. If they only knew the half of it.

For us, the repercussion is silence. There is no activity at any of the island’s docks, no werewolf sightings, let alone attacks. Striden’s hotel offered us nothing. Xan had returned with little to report. We conclude that Striden had covered his tracks and evacuated in a timely fashion. Xan had spotted a chopper leaving the scene—black, unmarked, and reeking of malice. 

Catch’s target had been the best source of information. An avid Mets fan, Reece enjoyed talking in games with his clients. Prior to the night at the dockyard, Catch had been spending his nights sporting a Mets’ cap and a beer, pretending to watch the games.

He wasn’t the only one pretending.

Through snippets of conversation heard between cheers and jeers of the crowd, Catch learned that a virus had been tested on humans successfully. He caught the words antidote and vaccine, so he couldn’t be sure what exactly S&D was working on but he knew human testing was not on par with FDA regulations.

Franco, the client who frequently joined Reece at these games, would make various requests from building leases to international shipment authorizations. Reece was happy to oblige. And Franco was of the undead variety. Which brought us back to the rat hypothesis.

Now, with Striden MIA, we revert back to our remaining lead. However, Mets games are no longer an option. A terrified Reece is laying low. The recent headlines and the untimely demise of his co-workers have him on high alert. Surely he’d gotten word of our presence in his city, but with a wife and two children to consider, he does not flee. He does not go into work, either. We stake out his brownstone on the Upper West Side, a few blocks from Central Park.

As one might expect in this situation, he only goes out during the day, so we arrange a snag-and-bag plan.

We jack a windowless van and when Reece leaves one afternoon, I fire a tranquilizer dart from a window across the street.

He teeters, then drops.

Catch and Trent, covered head to toe, make the risky interception, grabbing Reece up from the sidewalk midday. The van speeds off, a cloud of exhaust left in its wake.

***

Marcus does not allow anyone in the conference room during his interrogation. I’ve heard rumors of his methods and have no interest in witnessing them firsthand. 

When the screaming subsides, Marcus emerges and shares with us what he’s learned.

Reece, being human, was easily swayed and wisely opted for full disclosure, from his client’s dealings to his associate’s discretions, even offering up his family. Stand-up guy. Then again, if a couple vampires grabbed me off the street and threatened torture I’d’ve probably offered up my first born.

But it is one name that captures Marcus’s interest.

Deacon.

The name represents the D in S&D Pharmaceuticals. Deacon is Striden’s brother and the one pulling the strings behind the scenes, at least that’s how Reece saw it. Franco answers to Deacon. Franco brought in Reece and his law firm to act as an intermediary between the government—customs in particular—and S&D. Reece had also worked with Hanson and Alex overseas. Franco had initiated the meetings.

Reece was to ensure that medical supplies passed cleanly from ship to warehouse. If a box of weapons or suspicious chemicals crossed his path, he simply looked the other way. He knew their eventual destination was to a laboratory or several, but he did not know their location(s). To keep anyone from learning too much, the information was spread among his colleagues. The ones we’d done in. He suspected they’d been performing experiments for quite some time. Developing a virus of some sort. He wasn’t privy to details. And Franco was his only contact to that world.