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Chapter Eight

 

  The pair twisted away as the small canister sailed through the air and landed with a hop, skip and a jump by the campfire. Andy clapped her hands over her ears as it went off with a balance-destroying bang, and lit the night sky up like a sunny day.

  There was no rest for the wicked though. Immediately she and Mason were on their feet and moving. Adrenalin surged through her body as they covered the distance between their hiding place and the camp.

  The wolves caught in the grenade's radius staggered around as though drunk, blinking as they tried to regain their vision. In wolf form Lycans could see a mouse taking a shit at six hundred meters, but shine a big enough torch in anything's face and it was blind as a bat for a couple of seconds.

  They were still as dangerous as hell, probably more so when blinded and panicking. Leaving the worst affected to the humans, she went for the Lycans who'd been on the edge of the blast radius. Stun grenades were non-lethal; a percussive explosion and a bright light enough to render most incapable long enough for the attacking force to control whatever was going on. For humans it was sufficient but Lycans recovered fast.

  A feral howl of fury erupted from the center of the camp, the sound peppered with the sound of gunshots as Mason's teams picked their targets. The human forms of the Lycans were swallowed up as their wolf forms exploded from them faster than the eye could see. Instead of a group of teenagers out on a camping trip, they were faced with a pack of snarling and angry predators.

  She grinned to herself, an expression without either humor or mercy as her blades cleared leather and lined up her first target, a scraggy-looking wolf already turning towards her. Its lips curled into a snarl as it gathered itself to leap.

  "Com'on then, fugly," Andy taunted, waggling her blades in warning. She fought with them in opposing grips, one blade up and one with the blade curved along her forearm. Matched with a healthy dose of martial arts training, it was a lethal combination. "Let me give you a good belly scratch. "

  Massive paws skittered in the dust as it launched at her. The thrill of the fight singing through her, Andy waited until the creature was almost upon her then leapt into action. Time slowed to a crawl as a hop put her in the air, and her back foot lashed out. Her steel-toe cap caught the wolf under the chin, and slammed its mouth shut over the vicious canines within. Satisfaction surged through her as she felt bone crunch. Even if she had busted the creature's jaw, it wouldn't make much difference. Already its freaky physiology would be repairing the damage.

  "Awww, does that hurt? Lemme give you something for that. "

  It staggered away, trying to put some distance between them so it could heal the damage. She didn't let it and followed. Her blade flashed in the light of the campfire as she slashed it through the air towards the furry throat. The razor-sharp edge cut through fur, skin and muscle like a hot knife through butter. Gritting her teeth, she rammed the blade deeper until it scraped against bone. Triumph surged as she felt her blade hook the edge of the soul. With a vicious yank she pulled it back, and severed the soul from the body. Blood spurted as the beast shuddered, and slumped dead at her feet.

  Other howls filled the air as the human teams picked their targets, and overwhelmed the Lycan pack. Mixed amongst the furry death-calls were human screams as the creatures defended themselves. So many lifelines lit up that Andy was almost blinded. Knowing she was going to have her work cut out for her later, she flicked her vision firmly to human and looked about for her next victim.

  To her left a group was baiting a big wolf. It was bleeding from numerous bullet wounds, but was still on its feet and lashing out with razor-sharp teeth. A body lay under the massive paws, throat a bloody mess and sightless eyes staring up at the night sky. Donny. Try as she might, Andy couldn't bring herself to feel sorrow that the mouthy human had met his end in such a violent way, just annoyance that his lifeline had been cut short unnecessarily.

  "Oscar. . . left knee. Now!" Valerie yelled the order as she lifted her rifle. In concert, shots rang out. The wolf ate dirt as its front knees disintegrated in a shower of blood and bone. Without a word Andy slid between the humans, and slashed her blades across its neck to free the soul.

  "Nice move. "

  She nodded at the other woman as she danced back, impressed by the teamwork. Pity this lot had tried to kill Mason, she might have actually grown to like them at some point.

  Valerie just smiled in reply, a small tight nod as she looked around at the cage the children were being kept in. Three wolves surrounded it, guarding their captives. The team who was supposed to be freeing the children was dead, scattered in pieces around the wolve's paws.

  The two women locked eyes as understanding flowed between them. The children were paramount. Without a word, both women, human and reaper, turned on a dime and stalked towards the cage and its furry guards.

  Andy was impressed all over again. Unlike her, Valerie was just plain old human. Easily caught, and just as easy to kill. Despite that, she had a look of grim determination and hard vengeance on her face. Left to herself, Andy had no doubt that if anything happened to her kid, the woman would spend the rest of her life tracking those responsible and taking them apart piece by piece. Slowly.

  She could admire vengeance like that.

  "Yo, heads up. "

  Andy grinned as she approached the cage, calling out to attract the wolves' attention to herself. However you cut the cards, she was the one who could hold out longest against the creatures, and when it came to it, survive a wolf attack. She might wish like hell they'd kill her, but at some point the pain would end and she'd heal. Then hunt herself some wolves and make a nice winter coat from their hides.

  The three wolves turned their attention on her, eyes picking up the light from the fire as she walked past it and shining brightly. Lips curled back from their teeth as they snarled, drool dripping on the dirt beneath them. Unlike the kid in town the other day, these were fully shifted Lycans which meant any human survival instincts they had were buried under layers and layers of predatory desires. Desires and needs that marked the two-legged, soft-skinned creature walking towards them firmly as prey.

  "How many wolves does it take to change a light bulb?"

  From the corner of her eye she saw Valerie step back into the darkness and work her way towards the cage. Good girl, she'd gotten the message. The three wolves looked at each other and back at her. Puzzlement crossed their furry faces as they tried to figure out why she wasn't scared or running away.

  She deliberately didn't look behind them to where Valerie was freeing the kids. The cage door was secured with a length of rope, the knots too tight for young fingers but no match for the knife Valerie carried.

  "Com'on. . . it's a killer. "

  She hid her grin and walked closer, waggling her blades to make them catch what little light there was. Reading them was like reading a book. They weren't used to someone who looked human, and more importantly smelt human, not running the other way in terror.

  The trouble was, at some point in the next minute, that puzzlement was going to turn into irritation, which was then going to turn into violence. By the time that happened she needed to be within range. Calmness filled her, radiating out from her core to fill the rest of her being. Input from all of her senses was heightened, and sharper.

  She could hear the rasp of breathing as the massive chests rose and fell, the stink of their fetid breath as they bared their teeth and the smell of unkempt fur, like they hadn't groomed properly for weeks. She'd seen Lycan packs before and this wasn't a pack. This was a bunch of filthy scavengers who were a disgrace to their species.

  Without warning she slipped into the Shade fully, leaving them staring at empty space.

  "Actually, who gives a shit?"

  Her voice was conversational as she re-appeared less than a heartbeat later between the largest of the wolves. Both turned and lunged at her in the same instant, their
teeth slicing the air where she had been. Instead of the soft target they had been expecting though, she was gone back into the Shade, and two sets of teeth encountered only the furred hides of their pack mates.

  Ignoring the howls of pain and fury, Andy stepped from the Shade again by the third Lycan. Slightly smaller than the other two, she'd guess it was female, but that was only a guess. She'd never been sufficiently interested in the different forms Lycans took to learn to identify their genders. As long as they bled, that was all she cared about.

  It sensed her by its shoulder at the same time she raised the wickedly curved sickle, and froze. The eye nearest to her rolled back in the socket to try and get a bead on her, but it was too late. A soft whimper escaped the creature's lips as Andy slammed the blade down hard. The point parted the fur and popped through the skin with a small snick. Using her weight and momentum the sickle powered through the Lycan's throat, and exited the other side in less time than it took to think about it.

  Blood pulsed from the ruin of its throat to splatter the dry dirt below. With something almost akin to grace, the creature's knees folded and it collapsed to the ground. Deftly Andy reversed the blade as she dropped into the Shade and dispatched the soul on the way back in.

  She turned her attention to the other two wolves, nipping in and out of the Shade to harass and harry them. They whirled and danced, trying to catch her as she appeared and disappeared. Their extra abilities were no use against a creature who could simply chose not to be in their plane of existence. She kept an eye on how Valerie was doing rescuing the children, and as the seconds ticked by, the gray lifelines active to her reaper senses started to wink out one by one. A signal that some of those kids would survive.

  For tonight at least.

  The shit had well and truly hit the fan. As Mason pounded across hard dirt, his teams unleashed seven levels of hell on the Lycans. They didn't have long until the creatures recovered from the flash-bang, so he'd told them to make every second count. Advice he was taking to heart himself.

  They hit the outer perimeter of the camp, and he paused for a second as Andy peeled away. Pulling his rifle tight into his shoulder, he selected his targets rapidly and fired in short, economical bursts. Each time his muzzle spat bullets he hit his target. A knee here, through a throat there, even taking the teeth right out of the mouth of one wolf as it lunged at one of the humans. Suppressive fire, designed to put as many wolves down as possible so the others could get close.

  His aim was lethal, punching holes through furry hides and making the turned Lycans bellow with pain. Without silver shot though, any damage he inflicted would be temporary. Where was a fifty cal when you needed one? He could really level the playing field with something like that.

  His rifle clicked, the bolt holding open in a warning that his magazine was empty. No time to reload. Casting it aside, Mason pulled the Glock from his shoulder holster and moved further into the camp. He skirted between the groups already fighting, his eyes peeled for one figure. Screams from his left distracted him for a moment, as the group attacking the cage went down. Grimly he ignored them. They'd all known the risks before they'd come on the mission. He'd made sure of it. And he was damned if, after trying to kill him, he was going out of his way to cover their asses anymore. Nope, he was back into mission mode. He'd complete the objective, and then he was out of here.

  "Jed. Get your furry ass out here and face me like a fucking man, rather than a whipped puppy," he yelled, trying to taunt the alpha into the open. Truth be told, he had no fucking clue what the guy looked like, as a man or a wolf. None of them did, a fact Mason hadn't been too happy about. Going into a hot situation without intel was usually a good way to get people killed. However, so was taking on a pack of Lycans on their own turf. But then, Mason had never claimed to be sane, Andy wasn't even mortal and the people of Sanctuary were just plain desperate.

  He didn't have to wait long. A rumbling snarl sounded behind him, the sound full of menace. Of course, any Lycan snarl was full of menace but this was a very personalized sort of malevolence. Mason whipped around, the Glock already leveled and aiming right between the eyes of the large wolf behind him.

  "Jed, I presume?" he asked, as though this was a society dinner, and they'd just been introduced. Regardless of his nonchalant attitude, the muzzle of the gun didn't waver. If Jed looked like he was going to leap, Mason would double-tap him right between the eyes before taking his next breath. Unfortunately, now he'd actually seen Jed, Mason didn't think that would put the bastard down for long.

  He was huge. Possibly the biggest wolf-type Lycan Mason had ever seen, and he'd hunted more than enough of the creatures. Gray and black fur covered a frame straight out of a pre-war horror film, and his teeth wouldn't look out of place on a sabertooth. Amber and black eyes fixed on Mason, hatred and anger burning in their depths. A silver bar cut through the creature's eyebrow.

  Mason's brow winged up in surprise. One of the only things the old films had gotten right about Werewolves was silver. It burned them, ate at their skin like acid. Most avoided it like plague, or like the average Vampire did sunlight. It took a twisted SOB-Were to actually pierce himself with the stuff. Jed dropped his head lower to the ground and curled his lips from his teeth.

  "I'll take that as a yes then. Christ, you are one ugly fucker, aren't you?"

  The lips curled back further, the massive paws shifting in the dust. It was all the warning Mason got before the massive Werewolf leapt. He pulled the trigger before his eyes and brain got their action together, his instincts kicking in. The Glock spat fire, but Jed was faster. He twisted to the side as the 9mm rounds tore through his shoulder instead of going through his brain.

  Mason's heart pounded, driving adrenalin around his veins in a survival-driven chaotic race. It galvanized every cell in his body as the age-old fight or flight instinct took over. Time slowed to a crawl as the Lycan launched towards him. Its jaws opened wide, giving him a good view of toothy death as it came for him.

  He bellowed an incoherent war cry, falling backwards and still firing at the oncoming behemoth. His shoulder hit the dirt, barrel tracking the creature's head as it sailed over him. His finger carried on, pulling the trigger independent of thought until the magazine was empty. The bullets slammed into Jed's body, punching holes through his skin on the way. He snarled in fury and pain, landing on paws bigger than dinner plates and stumbled, face planted in the dirt by the still blazing campfire.

  Mason was on his feet in the blink of an eye. He tossed the useless Glock aside. He wouldn't get a chance to reload it anyway and went for the fighting knife on his leg. Most people, if they knew Mason had been a soldier at all, assumed he was American. An infiltration expert, he only had an accent when he wanted, and he could choose which accent that was.

  Only those who had seen the winged dagger tattoo on one arse-cheek, done by his squad-mates whilst he was insensible, and clocked the Fairbairn-Sykes knife he carried, realized he wasn't only not American, but also something a cut above normal for the British army.

  Man and the beast who'd once been a man eyed each other up. Mason had always wondered, would he have become something like this? If his DNA had been slightly different? It was a thought that had plagued him for years. At first, in the first bloody years after the war, when those who had turned preyed on those who hadn't, he'd gone to sleep each night expecting it to be his last. Expecting to wake the next morning as something else, something not human.

  It had never happened. Whatever evils he'd done in his former life, they hadn't been visited on him in this version of hell on earth. Something Mason wasn't sure whether he was grateful for or pissed off about. Was it reward or punishment to live in a world gone mad?

  "Come on then, you fucker. Let's be having you," he roared, his native accent out in full force.

  The hilt felt good in his hand as he faced down Jed. The familiar grip fit his palm like a glove, the weapon an extension o
f his being as he circled Jed. Everything else. . . the sounds of the other groups fighting, the pitiful whimpering behind him as a team finished off one of the Lycans. . . all fell away as he concentrated on one thing, and one thing alone. Killing something considered unkillable.

  There was nothing Mason liked more than a challenge. He grinned slowly, the expression making Jed blink and falter a little in surprise.

  Jed feinted to the left, paws kicking up dust, and then to the right. Mason kept to his low crouch, knife held along his forearm and glinting dully in the light cast by the fire. He was only going to get one shot at this, so he had to make sure it was a good one. His gaze focused in on a small spot on Jed's broad, lupine chest. Any second now, confident that Mason didn't have another gun on him, the wolf was going to go for the kill, then Mason had him.

  His FS was dipped in silver nitrate, something guaranteed to give any Were a bad day for all of ten seconds. Unfortunately for said Were it would be the last ten seconds of its life. Unfortunately for Mason, getting close enough was also close enough to get his throat torn out. Something he hadn't planned on doing this morning but, hey, shit happened.

  His gaze still locked with Jed's, he saw the moment the Lycan made the decision. Then the air was full of pouncing wolf, fur and sharp teeth. He didn't even try to avoid the creature as it bowled him over. His breath was knocked from his body in a savage whoosh as he hit the deck hard. A grin of fury and triumph crossed his face as his head slammed against a large stone near the campfire and stars filled his vision.

  Teeth clamped around his throat, the sharp points popping through the skin like fingernails though a balloon. Warm blood streamed as they drove in, but Mason was already there. Even as he felt his jugular and more tear, he rammed the knife between two ribs and right into Jed's heart.