Chapter 9
Leeches on the Left, Ghouls on the Right
The St. Pete Times Forum was a massive structure in the Channelside District of Tampa. It was well within leech territory, but many lycanthropes went there to watch the Tampa Bay Lightning play. Hockey in Florida always seemed too bizarre for me, but I had to admit that it was fun watching humans bash each other around while speeding around on the ice. While the Peace was in effect, there was a kind of understanding between the TCV and Lord Vollen. The lycanthropes could attend functions at the forum as long as the lycanthropes left promptly afterward and did nothing that could be construed as hostile to the vampires. By the same token, the TCV had a responsibility to ensure that its members didn’t harass the lycanthropes or cause problems. It worked out fairly well. As far as I could remember, there had been only one problem, and I had resolved that one by removing the leech in a violent and lethal fashion. It was one of those jobs that I had been handed because I was the Guildmaster’s personal hitter.
We had infiltrated into the area without incident, which was far more difficult. The streets seemed flooded with vampires and ghouls. The job was to escort six lycanthropes that had come downtown and had stayed far too long. It seemed to be a waste of Guild resources, but Lord Vollen had asked the Guildmaster to handle the situation. The lycanthropes were in a bar across the street from the Forum, staying as visible as possible. The leeches knew that the lycanthropes were stranded and unarmed, and they were waiting for the bar to close to snatch the lycanthropes. Uptown had to get all six lycanthropes out of the bar, into the two SUV’s we had driven down, and out of Channelside without stirring up the humans too much. Unfortunately, that was a key part of the job. The shaman had been very adamant about the fact that the war was coming close to spilling out into where the humans could see it. At that point, the Pathwalkers would come down and fix the situation. Of course, none of us would survive them fixing it, so we had a vested interest in keeping the Pathwalkers as far from Tampa as possible.
The plan was as KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) as we could make it. First, I would create a distraction and Uptown and Downtown would infiltrate the bar. As soon as they made contact with the lycanthropes in the bar, Wiseguy and Trent would drive the two SUV’s behind the bar. Uptown, Downtown, and the lycanthropes would come out the back of the bar, load up into the vehicles, come pick me up, and then we would all exit the Channelside area. In addition to creating the diversion, it would be up to me to provide covering fire while the hit pack was loading the lycanthropes into the vehicles. It wasn’t going to be easy, and the hit pack would need all the help they could get. I just hoped that the Guildmaster wouldn’t be too upset that I went back out again after just coming back from a job.
I was riding with Wiseguy in the first SUV. Sitting next to me was the HK Model 417 with a suppressor. The whole thing wasn’t much bigger than an M16, but it would require the use of the trench coat I was wearing to hide it from casual view. Thankfully, it was January and finally cold enough that native Floridians were bundling up. Under the trench coat was as close to guile suit as I could get for the urban environment. I bailed out of the truck a few blocks from the Forum and moved into grassy areas that bordered Morgan Street. I found a nice spot in the shadows and brought up the Model 417. The first thing to do was to clear out the leeches in front of the bar.
The rifle quietly coughed three times. Three leeches on the far end of the block were hammered back down to the pavement as the 7.62 mm Silver Shok rounds tore through their torsos. Headshots were more effective, but with such short ranges and plenty of humans, I needed to keep the risk of overpenetration by the high-powered rifle rounds to a minimum. As I expected, the leeches in front of the bar thought someone was attacking them from the other side. After all, who shoots past the targets in front of them to hit targets on the far side. Bleeders would have figured it out the moment that they saw the wounds, but none of the leeches I was facing had the distinctive matte black nails. The leader of the leeches began ordering his leeches to begin searching away from me. So far, things were going to plan. Without lowering the rifle, I hit the speed dial on my cell phone.
“Yeah,” came the waiting voice of Uptown,
“Infil in ten seconds,” I reported, placing the reticule of my sight on the thin body of the leech leader. A few seconds later, the leech was neatly eviscerated by a fourth suppressed shot. Even before the leech hit the ground, Uptown and Downtown emerged from their hiding places and hurried into the bar. I could see that the rest of the leeches were returning to the bar. For a moment the group of leeches, about six or so, looked down at their fallen leader in stunned silence. One of the higher leeches came out of his shock first and began ordering cleanup. They knew better than to leave a corpse on the street, especially one in true form. I waited for a moment trying to decide whether or not to just take them all down. I decided against it, mostly because we did not have the time or resources to quickly clean up the ten or so bodies. With some regret, I quietly skulked out of my shooting place and moved up Morgan Street to find a spot to cover the vehicles when they came for pickup. As I nestled into a copse of palm trees, I scanned down Eunice Street. The area seemed clear, but there was something wrong. My instincts were telling me that something bad was in the area, but I couldn’t see anything. My phone vibrated at my waist.
“Ranger,” I said into the headset.
“I’ve got the passengers,” Uptown said over the substantial background noise, “Are we clear to pick up?” I hesitated. I couldn’t see anything that would prevent the pickup, but I hadn’t survived this long by ignoring when my instincts told me something was wrong. Uptown sensed the pause. He asked me again, this time with a more annoyed tone, “Are we good for pickup?”
“I don’t see anything, but I’ve got a bad feeling,” I told him, “I would advise against it until I clear the area.” I began to get up from my shooting spot to move up Eunice. I needed a better look.
“Negative Ranger,” Uptown said, “If you don’t see anything, we’re moving. Wiseguy, get those vehicles in here now.” I began swearing under my breath as the phone disconnected. Uptown was rushing the job when he didn’t need to. Yes, we needed to get the passengers out of Channelside as fast as possible, but we had another two hours before the bar would close. That was plenty of time for me to do a quick sweep of the area. I didn’t have time to argue the point because moments after Uptown hung up on me, the two black trucks roared into the parking lot behind the bar. In an almost synchronized motion, the two trucks sped into the lot and quickly stopped directly in front of the back door to the bar. The back door slammed open and an alarm sound filled the empty street. Downtown came out of the door first with his submachine gun was at a low ready. Following behind the young hunter were six lycanthropes in hockey paraphernalia. Bringing up the rear was Uptown, also with a submachine gun drawn and ready. They were ten feet from the vehicles when all hell broke loose.
I caught the movement on the roof an instant before four shotguns began raining down fire onto the exposed lycanthropes. Damn it, I had scanned the roof and hadn’t seen a fucking thing. Now I could make out the lines of a couple of targets. They were keeping low and had some sort of covering over them to break up the outlines. I placed the sight on the one closest to me and gently squeezed the trigger. He went down quickly, and the second one filled my sight picture. He had noticed that his buddy had gone down, but he must have assumed that the shot had come from the two hunters desperately bursting their submachine guns at the ambush team because he never even turned towards me. It was a Darwinian mistake on the vampire’s part. A second shot took the leech out. The other two vampires were smarter and quickly fell back down behind their cover.
“Ranger, I’m sorry, but we’ve got four critical,” Uptown said over my earpiece. I looked back at the parking lot to see the two trucks speed out of the parking lot. Warriors would have gotten pissed off that they had been left in hostile territory by their comrades. Hunters knew better. Uptown had made the right decision. The job had been to get the lycanthropes out, and the job had to come first. The job always had to come first. With four of the lycanthropes in critical condition, Uptown had no choice but to get the passengers to immediate medical attention, even if that meant he had no time to wait for me to get to the trucks. I could save recriminations for later. At the moment, I had to find a way to get the hell out of Channelside.
Normally, I would have just found a nice place to hole up for the next six hours and waited for daylight. After the sun emerged, I may have had to deal with a few ghouls, but the vampires would have cleared the streets. Unfortunately, that wasn’t an option this time. The two vampires on the roof of the bar knew that there was a sniper covering the trucks, and they had to be on their radios and cell phones calling in all of their friends. Hunters were the ones that used snipers, and hunters were big targets for the TCV. Without a doubt, the TCV would flood the area with as many vampires and ghouls as they could find. Bleeders would definitely be amongst the reinforcements. Rustling behind me brought me out of my thoughts and back into the situation. My instincts began roaring with danger.
I swung the butt of the rifle behind me. The ghoul was caught off-guard by my attack. He had tried to get to close to secure a head shot with the pistol in his hand. The butt of the rifle caught the ghoul squarely on the nose. There was a muffled crunching noise and the ghoul staggered back. I dropped the ghoul with a shot from the rifle and turned back to my target. I had a nasty feeling that the two vampires on the roof were already gone. Things had officially gone to shit-fucked. I quickly changed magazines and slung the rifle under the trench coat. I had to move quickly. Brandishing a rifle on the streets of Tampa after dark was not the best way to remain inconspicuous. Especially considering that Tampa police was starting to come onto the scene.
Usually the various law enforcement agencies that policed Tampa and Hillsborough County were kept out of our affairs by both our kin and the vampires’ ghouls. Both sides had reason to keep the humans out of our affairs. Everyone feared the Pathwalkers. The problem was that the war had created too many incidents for the kin and ghoul infiltrators to misdirect and keep from the attention of the majority of human authorities. The best that our kin had been able to do was to blame the increased violence at the human organizations known for such bloodletting. The media had picked up on the “Second Era of Blood” and had done scathing exposes on the local mob organizations. The police, responding to the human public, was racing to handle the explosions of violence that had occurred between the lycanthropes and the vampires. So, instead of maybe a couple of police officers responding to the gunfight behind the bar, there were several police cars and plenty of police officers on scene. Getting out of the area with all of my gear was going to be tricky. The last thing I wanted to do was to have to kill a police officer – not because of any sentimentality towards the value of human life, but because it would draw even more attention to us.
The trick was to try and look like I belonged in the area and keep the police from searching me. I didn’t want to lose the rifle because Gunny only had the one, but I knew that it may become necessary. I moved slowly through the shadows of the grassy area, trying to avoid the beams of light stabbing through the safety of the darkness. Probably the best course of action would have been to let the Guildmaster know what was going on, and see what my boss thought of the situation. I hesitated over that idea, mostly because my boss didn’t know that I was out on a job. He knew that I was doing something for one of the hit packs, but not exactly what. I had a fair notion of what the conversation would sound like once he found out all of the details of what I was actually doing. It would not be pleasant. Unfortunately, I didn’t see another good option.
“Yes, what is it?” came the gruff and tired voice of my boss, “This better be good.”
“Hi boss, I’m in a bit of a bind,” I said, trying to sound light, “I’m, uh, kind of stuck near the Forum.” There was a pause on the line. I awaited the oncoming onslaught of my boss’s tirade.
“Uptown’s job?” he asked, “I wondered if you were working on that job.”
“Oh, you guessed,” I replied, sounding crestfallen, “I was kind of expecting one of your famous ass-chewings.” I actually was strangely disappointed. I had been building up my nerves to withstand the fury of my boss, and it was kind of anti-climatic to hear that he had already figured out what I was out doing. I mentally shook myself. I didn’t have time for my own vanity – not when my own life was on the line.
“Listen, I’ve got vampires looking to kill me and human police officers looking to arrest me if they find me with my gear,” I said into the phone, “Now, I would like to get out of Channelside without either of them finding me.” I had to duck through a parking lot to avoid a pair of vampires that suddenly appeared out of the darkness. “Hold one, boss.” The vampires weren’t Bleeders, but they would spot me in the darkness. I checked the surrounding area. The police were still searching around the bar and hadn’t managed to get out to my position. I quickly brought up the rifle, and placed single shots into each of the leeches. Thank the Ancestors the suppressor on the rifle was damn good. “Sorry boss, needed to put a couple down.”
“I would kind of expect my personal hitter to be able to extract himself from such a situation,” the Guildmaster said with an unusual severity, “So, why are you calling me?”
“Listen boss,” I told him, “Normally, I wouldn’t’ve bothered you at all, but I didn’t think that you wanted me to cause even more of an incident than already had happened.” There was a silence on his end that I took for me to continue. “Now, do you have anyone to pick me up?”
“No, but I’ll see what I can do to get the humans off your back,” the Guildmaster answered, “Just keep away from the leeches and try to get out of there without causing the aristocracy or me more problems than your worth.” He quickly hung up the phone. I had managed to extract pretty far from the bar, but I could see the edges of a police cordon. The human police officers looked nervous, and I couldn’t really blame them. I managed to keep in the shadows, which would hide me from the casual look. My real concern were the leeches that were walking around – particularly the two that had managed to escape from the bar rooftop. If the police hadn’t been swarming the area, I would’ve gone hunting for them. They showed survival instincts that should be rewarded with bullets to the head. As I scanned the area, I couldn’t see any leeches near me, but that wouldn’t last long. I was going to have to move soon. I watched the cordon hoping that the Guildmaster would be able get the police to back off. When they hadn’t moved after a few minutes, I decided it would be best for me to keep moving. I slinked back into the shadows and began heading towards the Selmon Expressway. I wouldn’t be able run on the elevated highway, but the overpass would give me more places to hide. I needed to break the police cordon first, then make my way out of the city proper.
The sudden flash of silver was all the warning that I got. It was just barely enough. As the knife flashed out, I turned towards it. I knew that I needed to catch it on the trauma plate of my Kevlar vest. The leech’s eyes were wide in shock as I moved into his stab. I could feel the silver blade slice into the layers of fabric and scrape across the metal plate embedded within. I wasted no time and counter attacked. The butt of my rifle slammed into the bridge of his nose. He staggered back holding his nose. It would heal almost instantaneously, but the momentary stun of the blow was what I needed. I rushed the leech, tackling him to the ground. As he struggled against the weight of my body on top of his, my hand found the waiting hilt of my own silver knife. I managed to clamp down his mouth as I began stabbing his side. The pain shocked the leech enough to make him stop fighting. It was a quick matter to stab him through his chest. As the silver punctured the leech’s heart, all movement ceased. I had only a moment to stash the body in the shadows before a light from the police cruiser swept over the area. They might see where the leech bled on the ground, but the black fluid was easily mistaken for many different things. They wouldn’t know what had happened not more than thirty feet from them.
I couldn’t wait anymore. If a fucking untrained amateur leech could sneak up on me, then something was wrong – and it was probably something with me. There were too many things going on within me. I needed to sort some of it out, but I had no time to do it at the moment. There was a quick way to break the cordon, but it would probably get me in trouble with the Guildmaster. I brought up the rifle and took aim. Three bullets shattered the light bar above the squad car. The two police officers went diving for cover, screaming into their radios. I wasted no time and began running north as fast as I could. They might get a description of me, but I was pretty sure that they were too busy ducking from the sudden fire. They didn’t even have time to get a shot off at me as I ran from shadow to shadow speeding towards the overpass.
For the record, it is not easy to run at top speeds while trying to conceal a sniper rifle under your trench coat. That said, I did manage to make it north of the Selmon and across several parking lots before I finally had to find a place to hide. I ducked behind a row of cars as I saw the convoy of cars. Four cars loaded with leeches will make a lycanthrope hide – even a hunter. I had the rifle ready in case they decided to come out of their cars and do a more thorough search, but some of my luck was still holding. Apparently a sweep with their lights was enough to satisfy their curiosity. I waited a few precious moments as the vehicles moved down the street. The sudden sensation of my phone vibrating at my side was almost enough for me to accidentally loose a round at the vampires.
“You have an odd notion of what won’t piss me off,” the Guildmaster growled into my ear, “I had almost opened a hole for you before you decided to blast one of your own.”
“Sorry boss, but I needed to move,” I explained, “The leeches were starting to close on me.” That was all I needed to say. The Guildmaster knew my position and what I was facing. He didn’t like it, but he was willing to trust me. It was what made him a damned good Guildmaster.
“Where are you?” he asked.
“A few blocks west of the Suntrust building,” I answered, using the biggest landmark I could see, “I’m taking cover in one of the parking lots.”
“Okay, JB and his crew is maybe a couple of miles north of you,” the Guildmaster said, “I’m sending them into retrieve you.” I wanted to groan, but I knew better. Beggars really couldn’t afford to be choosers, especially not in my situation. JB and I may have hated each other, but I knew he was professional enough not to fuck up an extraction on purpose. Still, I was going to have to help him get me out of Tampa. It wouldn’t do for him to get killed trying to find me. The county didn’t have enough hunter as it was.
“Tell him to meet me on the north side of the Suntrust building,” I said to the Guildmaster. The Guildmaster acknowledged the meet point, and I made my way out of the parking lot. At this time of night, the streets were mostly deserted. Downtown Tampa was a commercial district. Those who wanted afterhours excitement went to Ybor or Channelside or over to some of the areas in Pinellas. I had enough concealment to make my way to the tower. Police cars passed by, but the officers just made cursory inspections. The police still thought the shooter was still within their cordon. I skulked through the shadows and waited for JB.
JB’s van came rushing through the streets. It was speeding, but not enough to draw the attention of the police. The side door slid open in front of me and I wasted no time jumping into the vehicle. The pain of the HK digging into my side was welcome. With me safely aboard, JB wheeled the van around and began to head north back to lycanthrope-held territory. The Crazy Boys ignored me. They were busy watching to make sure that the vampires weren’t pursuing us. JB was driving, and he was concentrating on the road. Farmer, though, turned to talk to me.
“What the fuck, Ranger?” he asked, “How the hell did you get stranded down here?” I wasn’t sure if Farmer was pissed at having to come get me or actually had some concern for my hide. Or he could have come to the same conclusion that there were far too few hunters for any to be risking themselves needlessly.
“Uptown had a job. I came along. Things got TARFU’d,” I replied, with a nonchalant tone. “How was your night?”
“You know you could have infiltrated yourself out if you had just ditched the rifle,” Farmer commented.
“This is the only one of these that Gunny has managed to lay his hands on. Would you want to face his wrath at the moment?” I asked holding up the Model 417. Gunny and Boomer had been working almost continuously since the war began. While Boomer was mostly his normal self, Gunny had become far less reasonable. The hunters had been very cautious around the armory. We wanted to give Gunny a break, but we really couldn’t. He was too essential in tracking the precious silver rounds and making sure there were enough weapons not only for the Guild, but for the packs as well. Farmer just shook his head at the prospect of facing an irate Gunny. He settled back down in his seat while I did the same. Thankfully, the rest of the night went by without any more problems. Murphy must have had his fill for one night.
I was resting in my room, reassembling my USP after I had lengthily cleaned the weapon. Guildmaster had me run through another three operations in very quick succession. Two had been assists for prominent pack leaders, while the last one had been a try at assassinating Silanti, the Inner Councilmember that had been causing so much trouble before the outbreak of the war. I missed him and had ended up tangling with a pair of Bleeders and about four of their new students. I had managed to kill all of them, but I was a bloody wreck afterwards. The Guildmaster forced me to downcheck myself for the previous days. He pretty much told me he would permanently take me off active jobs if I didn’t take some time to heal, rest, and repair some of my equipment. I wasn’t happy about it, but I knew better than to cross the Guildmaster at the moment. With the exception of my Commando, most of my stuff was sturdy enough to go for long periods without maintenance. That said, it been a long few months since Lord Vollen had gone to war, and my gear badly needed thorough maintenance. I had to replace my Kevlar vest with a new one, which required breaking the new one in and doing the minor alterations to fit it properly. My knives had been cleaned and sharpened. The steel ones just needed some scrubbing with WD-40 and a green pad. Silver blades actually needed an in-house cleaner that was just fucking nasty and took forever to sharpen properly. It was enough for me to consider just carrying wooden stakes. Each of my personal guns had been completely stripped, cleaned, lubricated, and reassembled. I always left my USP for last. Of all my weapons, the USP was my most personal. I liked my other guns, but my USP just felt right in my hand from the moment I picked it up. The phone rang and the Guildmaster’s voice came through clearly.
“Get up to my office please,” the gruff voice of the Guildmaster said. I could tell by the tone that it was something important, and immediate. I quickly finished the pistol, slapped a magazine into place and worked the slide. I decocked the gun and put it into an SOB (Small-Of- the-Back) holster. I strode out of my room and up the stairs to the second floor. I knocked a couple of hunters out of the way, but I really wasn’t worried about their sore bottoms. I was worried about the tone that the Guildmaster was using on the phone. If the Guildmaster was bothering me when he had gone to great pains to make me take some time off, then there was something really bad going on. I didn’t bother knocking as I walked into his office. He looked up me with an odd look of relief. That look almost scared me, but I tried not to let it show on my face.
“Okay boss, I’m here,” I said, “What do you have for me?”
“I received a call from the Knights,” the Guildmaster told me, “They need some heavy assistance on a rescue operation. For what they are rescuing, I want my personal hitter to handle this, but you’re going to need help. Marcus, you will take Nicholas and Samuel, since you seem to work well with them, and meet with the Knight Smythe. I know how much you dislike him, but do not argue with me on this. You should meet him at University Square Mall as soon as possible. Marcus, don’t start picking fights with the Knights today. There is too much at stake.” I wondered what was so important as I got up and left. Normally the Guildmaster gave me all the information that I wanted, but I could tell from his look and body language that he wasn’t going to tell me anymore. The only reason that he wouldn’t tell me anything was to keep me from over-reacting to what was happening. I admit that I was a bit on the dramatic side a lot of the time, and it worried me when the Guildmaster had to protect me from myself. I left the office to find Nicky and Hangman, get a car, and then get the three of us out to the mall. Oh, and get some weapons that could handle all of the possibilities that we were facing.
From the Guildmaster’s office, I went down to my room on the fourth floor of the Guild’s headquarters. The barracks were designed in a utilitarian fashion, so the rooms were not extravagantly furnished. The floors were covered with a light carpet that matched the off-white walls. The bed was little more than a cot with a mattress, and was dressed with simple sheets. A small metal desk and chair stood in the corner of the room with a telephone and computer gracing it. Light was provided by a single bright fluorescent fixture. A small closet held a few of my clothes that Nick and Hangman had gathered for me from my townhouse. The hectic pace of the war kept me from getting more from my townhouse. They had been nice enough to run that errand for me while I ran errands and jobs for the Guildmaster. I had a small gun safe for my personal weapons. I took off the jumpsuit that I had been wearing and put on a black t-shirt and jeans. I was putting on my work boots when I heard a knock at my door. I opened the door and let Nick and Hangman into my room. I was a little surprised, but I had figured the Guildmaster had told them to get together with me.
Nick looked as if nothing unusual was going on. He was dressed in a similar fashion as me, jeans and a shirt. He still had that “thousand-mile stare.” The only concession to the changing times was his revolver was openly worn in a thigh holster. I really began to wonder what happened before he had come to Tampa, if a full-fledged war didn’t seem to faze him. Hangman had calmed noticeably since I had talked with him, and had the confident stance of a veteran hunter. From the rumors, Hangman had distinguished himself not only as a lone wolf, but as a leader. Some of the rumors were saying that Hangman was being groomed for Deadeye’s job. Considering that we had lost nearly a quarter of the Guild since the beginning of the war, I couldn’t say that was a bad thing. The pup – no, the lone wolf - had certainly proven himself to have the right instincts for that kind of a job. Some more seasoning, I had no doubts that Hangman would be able to lead the lone wolves.
“Are you two ready for the job?” I asked the two of them, as I finished putting on my boots. Nick gave me a questioning look as he walked over to the desk and pulled a CD out of his pocket. Sitting down, he started up the computer and inserted the disc into the drive.
“Ranger, I want you to take a look at this. I intercepted this from a lycanthrope courier on my mission last night. He didn’t identify himself fast enough. He isn’t dead, but he dropped this packet. I was going to give this to our intel section, but I decided that this would be more useful to us. I wish that Skiff was here for this.” Now I knew what he was referring to, that meeting back at the rodeo ring, what seemed like years ago, to try and piece together Stephen Vollen’s murder. The CD held a group of various files.
“This one, “HIST” is a spreadsheet with a compilation of residency files of Hillsborough County for a period of about fifty years. This is another list of birth records from about thirty years ago, with the names of lycanthropes marked. This one, however, is strange.” He entered the word processor on the computer and accessed the file. The first page of the document was a map of Florida, divided into its sixty-seven counties. Hillsborough, Dade, and Broward counties were colored in black, several were colored in red, and the rest were green. No legend appeared on the page. The second page held a second map of Florida, this one had Polk and Pinellas counties also colored in black, most of the counties red, a few green, and two blue. Orange County and Hernando County. It was strange.
“I figured that the black counties were the ones that were in open war with the leeches, the red ones that could easily be allied with the lord that murdered Vollen and the green one allied with the Prince. The blue however, I haven’t figured out,” Hangman said, his uncertainty showing in his voice. I really had to teach him how to control his tone. Part of being a hunter was keeping your game face in place at all times. The packs needed to believe that the hunters always knew what they were doing. It gave the packs confidence. “I think they may be contenders for the head of the war council that is going to form in Tallahassee. Again, I’m not sure, and Hernando had a recent change of lords. I don’t think Lord Proset has enough power to challenge Lady MacMurtry or the Prince. I could be wrong, though.” I lay down on my cot, my head swimming with the dark thoughts that this brought about.
The phone beside the cot rang and Hangman picked it up. After answering he listened for a minute, his face began contorting into anger. Finally he shouted into the phone: “Alright already. We’ll get right on it.” Slamming down the receiver, he looked directly at me. “Were you supposed to brief us on some job for the Knights?”
“Shit,” I said, bolting off the bed, “I thought that was why the two of you had come down here in the first place.” I grabbed my holster and pistol and placed them in the small of my back. My revolver was hastily placed in my boot. I led them out of my room, after carefully shutting off my computer and hiding the CD. “Okay, we’re supposed to meet the Knight Smythe over at University Square Mall. The Guildmaster said that it was some sort of rescue job, but it has him worried. We better get outfitted quickly before the Guildmaster comes out and rips the three of us apart.”
The elevator toned softly as we reached the first floor. Walking to Gunny’s office, we were met by Deadeye, who seemed busy going over some piece of paper that he held in his hand. “Hey, you three,” he called out, “Your gear has already been loaded. Hurry up. You have no time to fuck off.” He threw Nicky a set of car keys, and then walked back to his office. The tag on the keys told us where to find the car.
Parked in one of the houses’ garage was a plain sedan, a few years old. We opened the trunk and found our gear. Concealable kevlar body armor for each of us. SWAT jumpsuits in black. Personal radios equipped with throat mike pieces. So far we had encountered standard gear. We left them in the trunk. The strange gear was the three odd sized weapons cases. They didn’t seem big enough for decent submachine guns, which was I was expecting in the form of weapons. I pulled them out to inspect the weapons in the car. Nicky slid in behind the steering wheel, while Hangman took the shotgun seat. It would take twenty minutes for us to get to the mall, and that was before we tried to find the Knights. As we drove, I opened the cases. Inside was a surprise. The weapon was small, compact, and had HK written all over it. The weapon was obviously a submachine gun, but it was smaller than the already tiny MP5K I used frequently. My mind finally conjured the answer. So, this was HK’s new MP7. It had a nice collapsible stock and a fold-up foregrip. The whole weapon wasn’t much bigger than my USP, except when the suppressor was added. The best part of all was the new cartridge that it fired. It was tiny a 4.6 mm, but it would penetrate most of the commonly available body armor. Pretty damn spiffy, except for the fact that the Guild had very few silver rounds in that caliber. Gunny had sort of remedied that by stacking the magazines with what looked like a three to one ratio. For every three standard rounds, there would be one silver round. It wasn’t a perfect solution, but it was a workable one.
“All right, do we know where to meet Smythe?” asked Nick as we neared the mall’s entrance.
“The Guildmaster didn’t say,” I answered, “I don’t know if he knew where the Knights were congregating.”
“Isn’t that Smythe there?” Hangman asked, pointing to a group of lycanthropes gathered at one of the auto service stores that were placed around the mall. Nodding at his question, Nicky pulled the car into mall, neatly swerving through two lanes of traffic, and around several cars. He parked the car next to another sedan in the growing group of lycanthropes that were huddled in the parking lot. It was a mixed band of Red Knights, warriors from a few different packs, and a few shaman. We were the only hunters present, which didn’t make me feel any better. Smythe motioned us over to a group of them that were surrounding the hood of one of the cars. Pushing our way through with our gear, we found that the layout of the mall was spread out on the hood of the car. Smythe was directing a group of Knights to one of the other outlying auto shops. Everyone else seemed to understand what was going on, so I felt a little stupid when I asked what the situation was. Smythe, the arrogant little prick that he was, looked smugly at us as he answered my question.
“A group of leeches has kidnapped some of the pups that were in tysach. Your hunters apparently didn’t do their job right. From what the shaman said, there were about five or six leeches. The pups number about twice that. The leeches took them inside the mall. We are about to go in and retrieve the pups. Your job is as troubleshooters and to provide us with suppressive fire.” From what I had heard so far, I did not like this idea. The lycanthropes gathered around us were fiddling with compact sub-machine guns under long coats. They would stand out in the mall, and even if they didn’t, these amateurs would cause more trouble than not with gun fire from those SMG’s. Furthermore, it was still light out. Dusk wasn’t even for another hour and a half. How were leeches moving around during daylight hours? Contrary to belief, vampires are not vulnerable to sunlight, in the flammable sense (unless you have a magnifying glass – which is a fun interrogation method). However, the vampires’ power, it is believed by lycanthrope scholars who actually study the vampire, is derived from the night, forcing them to sleep during the day. During the day, they don’t have their strength or invulnerability. My guess was that it was ghouls that were holding the pups. Ghouls can walk about during anytime of the day, and they look as normal as we do in our human form. Plus, with a little creative magic, they can look like vampires to lycanthropes.
Going on this hypothesis, our job became both easier and harder. Ghouls are not fully supernatural creatures, much like our kin. They can see any vampire for who it is, but cannot do the same for other supernatural creatures, such as lycanthropes. Therefore, we could walk in as humans and the ghouls would not even notice. However, the ghouls had a fanatical loyalty to their masters, and would stand and fight in situations where vampires would cut and run. If a fire fight broke out, it was likely they would fight until they were all dead, or we were. In such a public place, the consequences were dangerous.
“Where are they?” Nick asked, looking down at the map of the layout of the mall. He looked like he had already figured it out and was working on the solution.
“We don’t know. None of us has gone inside.” My head whipped up at that. The speaker was another Red Knight, but I didn’t recognize him. I wasn’t surprised that Smythe let one of his underlings admit this failure. If they knew that the pups were in the mall, the Knights should have already sent one of their own in to eyeball where the pups were. Okay, Knights weren’t hunters, but they were professional enough to know how critical real time intelligence would be to a situation like this. Hangman started before Nick or I could recover from the shock of such incredible foolishness.
“What kind of clusterfuck is this job?” Hangman growled at the Knight that answered. I doubt Hangman saw the angry glint in Smythe’s eyes, because he continued. “You have almost an entire pack here, and not one of you has gathered any real, hard data. What did you expect, to wade into a mall full of humans with all guns blazing. You’ll kill the pups quicker than the ghouls, assuming the fucking pathwalkers just didn’t come down and pluck you from this life.”
“Listen to me, you little shit. We are doing this by the numbers. First, we secure the outlying areas, then send in a recon team, then we attack once we spot the pups. It is a proven method, and we will do it the right way.” Smythe looked at us with a mixture of smug self-confidence and anger. He had assumed that we would forget our training and follow him blindly. I decided to step in before Hangman, the crazy pup, got us into more trouble than we needed right now.
“Smythe, how about we go do the recon in the mall?” I interjected, “We’ll spot the ghouls for you and then you and the rest of your group can come charging in.” I was trying to sound reasonable and conciliatory. Slowly, I was learning the use of sometimes placating a rival. I could tell that more than a few of his team agreed with my idea. This was something that hunters were better suited for anyway. Smythe took a step back from the three of us. He nodded rigidly. That sent the three of us into action. First, we broke open our gear bags. The Kevlar vests went on under our shirts. The SWAT jumpsuits that Gunny packed were nice, but we would stand out in the mall. Shoulder holster harnesses went over our shirts with the MP7s secured in them. Our personal sidearms went into our personal favorite holsters, mine being a small of the back holster. The radios went on our backs secured to the straps of the shoulder holsters. The throat mikes were put into place and covered with some donated jewelry from the pack warriors and the collars of our shirts. We finished the dressing with the last few weapon placements and special coats going over everything. The coats were cut to resemble those fashionable with the young adults this time of year, all while concealing our weapons and giving us a free range of movement. Most importantly of all, they didn’t look like bad police windbreakers, like the coats that Smythe’s team was wearing.
I looked over the length of the mall. I decided that we should enter on one side and search through to the other side. If these ghouls had any tactical sense – which they showed by being able to grab the pups in the first place – they would find a nice secluded place to hole up. The humans in the mall would provide them with enough cover. Therefore, the shops were out. There were too many ways for their hostages to cause trouble, and the lack of available exits would cause most tacticians pause. Somewhere in the main mall, probably. After all, the ghouls still needed to stay visible in case we came down on them. Everyone knew that blatantly operating in such a public place was fucking dangerous. To complicate matters, there was an annex that had a second floor which was home to the mall’s food court and several stores, including a movie theater. We would have to leave that for last, because getting up to the second floor of the annex would have plenty of problems that could be better ascertained once we were actually on scene. That left the west entrance. There were fewer places that were advantageous for them on that side, and it was closer to the center of the mall than the east side.
After a quick check of our radios and our weapons, the three of us casually walked over to the west side. We entered the sports department store briskly, trying to appear like normal shoppers. Once we entered, we scanned the store as far as we could see. All that was in the store was a mob of humans and their consumables. We strolled through the store, occasionally stopping to pretend to browse over some of the wares. Nick did a quick check of the backrooms as Hangman and I checked the second floor of the department store. The progress was slow, as evidenced by Smythe’s impatient muttering over our radios, but we made it to the entrance of the store before an hour was up. The din of the mall invaded us. Aromas from hundreds of consumers, food stands, and some of the more exotic materials were both intoxicating and nauseating.
The flows of humans were loosely gathered into four lanes, two on the right and two on the left. Each side had an east to west and a west to east lane, both the right lane of the side. There were humans that deviated from these lanes, but they were the exception, not the rule. Nicky moved off first, taking the right west to east lane. Hangman and I waited for him as he quietly moved up the stream of humans. When he reached about twenty feet, I nudged Hangman on the arm and motioned for the left west to east lane. He nodded and merged into the traffic of human bodies.
I waited for him to get twenty feet in head of me and I made my way up the far left lane, going against the traffic. Nicky acted as point and would scout his side. Hangman backed him up and scouted the center of the mall. I protected the rear and scouted the left side of the mall. I was also in position to back up Hangman or Nicky. We kept tabs on each other as we carefully scouted the mall. Each store was searched by either Nicky or me, while Hangman stood outside and waited in case either of us needed him. There was little chance that the ghouls and the pups were in one of the stores, but it was in our blood and training to be thorough, especially where pups were concerned. We searched the length of the mall with no luck. We walked back to the center of the mall and radioed back to Smythe that we had found nothing in the main mall, and that we were going to check the annex. He was extremely upset with our “slow” progress, but he knew better than to make an issue of it. He just told us to hurry it up, and if we couldn’t find them, he would start sending in Knights to back us up. That didn’t make us as upset as our normal rivalry would dictate. With Knights in the mall, we could make up roving teams in case the ghouls were moving the pups around behind our backs. With Smythe dealt with, the three of us began to decide on how to deal with the annex. We scanned the visible rim of the second floor. That’s when I caught a glance of her. It took me a moment to recognize her, but after that I was sure. It was Jennifer Denton, the young pup that Nicky and I had rescued about and had recently seen into tysach.
I looked over at Nicky. His face told me he had seen her too. She was standing with another pup just behind the glass and metal banister at the edge of the second floor in the food court. She didn’t look down. In fact, she stood rigidly still, which was what caught my eye. I couldn’t see behind her, but I knew that her captors were up there also. Her posture dictated it. My two companions had also figured that out by the looks on their faces. We moved towards the escalator that connected the two floors. About five feet from it, and under the annex, we discussed our options. We had to get up there, but each of us was worried that one of the pups would spot us and point us out. When that happened, all hell would break loose which is what we trying to prevent.
However, there were no other options. We could have gone through the department store at the end of the annex, and then used it to go up, but that delayed us longer than any of us wanted. Besides, the store was about forty feet from the food court. That gave the pups about two to three minutes to see us on our approach, even if we did it right. The escalator gave them less than thirty seconds. I went up first. Of the three of us, I was the best marksman, and therefore had the best chance of taking the ghouls out fast and carefully in case everything went down badly. Nicky stepped on as I was half way up. Enough distance to cover me if I ran into trouble, but also enough to allow him to sneak in. Hangman was about five steps behind him.
I kept my back to the pups as I came up the escalator, quietly prepping the MP7 under my coat. I moved from the escalator over to an unoccupied table on the far east. Behind me were a couple of the eateries of the food court and some humans. As I scanned the food court, I picked out the pups. They were in a central group of four tables, with two to three at a table, a total of about eleven pups. The tables were in a square configuration, with Jennifer’s being the one of the closer ones to the banister. A ghoul sat at each table, with another sitting next to the escalator. I grinned as Nicky stepped off and walked by him without the ghoul as much as realizing that a lycanthrope was less than a foot away. Hangman got off and looked over at me. I rubbed my throat, cuing the mike. He nodded and walked towards the department store, his back to the pups. I heard him in my earpiece.
“Hunter Three to Knight One. Packages in sight. Eleven total. Handlers total five. Location is the food court. Hunter Group will wait for response. Over.” I grinned. Hangman told Smythe everything and didn’t even give the bastard time to say anything back. I watched as Hangman walked to the newsstand at the center of the food court and purchased a magazine. He walked over to a false plant behind the ghoul guarding the escalator and began to pretend to read his magazine. He rubbed his throat in a way to double click his mike telling me he was ready.
Two clicks came from Nicky. After getting off the escalator, he slowly moved to the west corner of the annex’s edge. From there he had casually moved from table to table until he was two tables behind Jennifer. He was hunched over his table, and I could see his hand under his jacket. We were set and ready, and that’s when it went all to hell.
One of the pups saw us. Actually he noticed Hangman, and then pointed him out for the other two pups at his table. The ghoul at the table quickly saw what was happening and looked in the direction of Hangman. Although he couldn’t see Hangman for a lycanthrope, he could tell that Hangman wasn’t just standing there for any good reason. The ghoul stood up from the table and motioned at the ghoul by the escalator at Hangman.
Hangman saw what was going on and punched the ghoul, concealing the small blade in his hand. The ghoul screamed in pain and staggered back. Hangman pressed his attack, grabbing the bleeding ghoul and threw him over the railing surrounding the escalator well. The ghoul slammed into the handrail of the escalator with a sickening crack and then tumbled to the floor. He smacked into the tile floor and didn’t move. The humans in the food court began panicking at the sudden violence in their midst. Screams filled the food court as the humans began stampeding away from Hangman, which was good for Nick and me. As the other ghouls sat stunned for a moment at the sight of Hangman with a bloody knife in his hands, Nick and I pulled out our weapons and placed suppressed rounds into them. They collapsed before they had even had a chance to react to us.
“Smythe, things went to hell,” I said over the radio, “Get your ass over to the parking garage for a pickup.” He began screaming over the radio, but I wasn’t really listening. We had pups to organize and evacuate. Amidst the swirling mass of terrified humans, it wasn’t going to be easy. I looked over to Nicky, who was already trying to get the pups into some semblance of order. Most of them were just as scared and confused as the humans surrounding us. Fortunately, the pups could see that there were three lycanthropes with them, and they sort of clung to our presence. Although it was going to make it easier for us to move the pups when Smythe finally showed up, it was making it difficult to see if there were any more –
Nick was thrown down as thunder boomed through the food court. Hangman and I turned towards the source of the booming sound to find a single ghoul with a Desert Eagle standing next to the stand-alone box office for the movie theater. He was already aiming the weapon at Hangman, so I placed a burst into the ghoul. The ghoul was thrown back from the burst. The humans scattered as they realized that the food court had just turned into a shooting zone. Two more ghouls emerged from the movie theater entrance. Hangman and I turned to gun them down as well, but two solid shots knocked both of them down. I expected to find that Nicky had recovered from getting shot and had joined us, but I was shocked to find the real reason.
Jennifer Denton stood over Nicky who was busy rubbing his chest where the bullet hit him. In Jennifer’s hands was Nicky’s monster .44 Magnum revolver. That’s when I saw it. Maybe I had seen it when Nicky and I rescued her, but I didn’t recall. She had it. The stance, the look, the complete focus on her target – this pup had the makings of a hunter. Female hunters were rare. Some thought female lycanthropes just didn’t naturally have the instincts that hunters needed. Most females, maybe, but definitely not all of them. The female hunters I did know were just as deadly as male hunters. It didn’t matter. Jennifer had the instincts.
“Hangman, cover us!” I yelled, moving back towards Nicky and Jennifer. From the expression on Nicky’s face, he saw in Jennifer the same things that I did. Nicky staggered to his feet as I moved next to him. Jennifer gingerly handed Nick back his revolver without saying a word. Nick’s face twisted into a half-smile that was kind of eerie – at least to me.
“You did well Jennifer,” Nicky said quietly, “Now move back with the others. The Knights will be here momentarily. Ranger and I have to secure the area.” Her expectant face turned into stony flint of stubbornness.
“I want to fight,” she said with a familiar determination, “I can do it.” I looked at her. She reminded me of some of the other pups that I had guarded that had later been given invitations to the Hunters Guild. She was definitely someone the hunters wanted.
“Jennifer,” I said calmly, “You understand that the Nick and me are going hunting for any other ghouls that may have been with this group.” She nodded. There was still that determination in her face. That was good, because she was going to need it. I reached down to my ankle holster and pulled out my backup piece.
“Okay pup,” I continued, holding out the revolver, “This is a Ruger SP101 in .357 Magnum. It holds five rounds in the cylinder and has quite a kick to it. Not quite as much as Nicky’s, but enough that it might be uncomfortable for you to shoot. To fire, put the dot of the front sight on your target, line it up with the dots of the rear sights, then squeeze -squeeze, not pull -the trigger. Do you understand?”
“Front sight, rear sight, then squeeze. Yes sir,” she answered in a calm and confident voice as she took the revolver by the butt. She had the same voice right after her capture and torture by vampires. Then, I thought it was from shock, but now I wasn’t so sure. I looked up at Nicky. He nodded – and then was thrown back onto the tiled ground as the sound of a machine pistol stuttered through the annex. I rolled to the side and began to bring up my pistol. A responding roar came from beside me, and I watched as a bullet slammed the ghoul in the right shoulder. The machine pistol clattered to the ground as I placed my pistol’s sights on the staggering figure. His eyes went wide with fear as I put five rounds into the creature before it finally collapsed.
I scampered over to Nicky who was coughing, and holding his ribs. The vest had saved him from bullet penetration and the bruising and breaking of his ribs would be taken care of by his own healing in the next minute. I glanced over to Jennifer, who joined us. She looked at Nicky with great concern.
“Are you okay?” she asked him, in a soft voice.
“Fine. What the hell just happened?” he asked, a little angry with himself.
“You got shot,” I answered in my best Forrest Gump impression.
“Very funny, asshole,” he replied, staggering up with the help of a chair. I turned to Jennifer with a bright smile on my face.
“Nice shooting pup,” I said to her. It was then that she remembered she still had my revolver in her hand. She looked at the gun with a fascination that amused me. I was pretty sure she had never even used a gun before now. I recognized that look. She had found a weapon that suited her. Jennifer offered it back to me. I shook my head with a smile.
“Why don’t you hang on to it?” I said, “You seem to be able to handle it.” Her blue eyes gleamed as I unstrapped my boot holster and handed it to her. She holstered the pistol and strapped the holster on with some pointers from me. Nicky smiled, his healing finished with fixing his wounds. At that time, Smythe and the other lycanthropes flooded the food court. Smythe didn’t look very happy, but I really didn’t give a flying fuck. The pups had to come first, and Smythe and I could settle any differences between us after the pups were safe. To his credit, Smythe seemed to have the same idea. He directed a few of his lycanthropes to surrounding the pups while the Red Knights began opening a path towards the parking garage.
“Ranger, I need your people to rush ahead and see if you can clear out any of the humans that might be trying to block us off. Lord Vollen has asked that you keep human deaths to a minimum,” Smythe ordered. I nodded, even though his pompous tone grated on my spine. The pups had to come first, and I knew Lord Vollen would risk even the pathwalkers’ wrath to protect and secure them. Wars were fought over protecting the pups. They were almost as sacred to our society as the Ancestors. I looked back to Nick and Hangman, who both nodded in response. I scampered down the escalator to get down to the first floor. There were a few human security guards, but they fled as soon as they saw three heavily armed individuals running towards them. The security guards didn’t worry me. It was the police forces that worried me. The gun fight between the ghouls and us took longer than it should have, and by now the police heavy forces were either en route or already on scene. With our luck, both the Hillsborough County Tactical Response Team and the Tampa Police SWAT group were converging on the mall. We needed to make sure that those police forces would be unable to follow the van holding the pups.
“Got any ideas?” Hangman asked as we ran into the parking garage. We were faced with several police officers leveling pistols, shotguns, and assault rifles at us. My mind raced through our options as the police screamed at us to drop our weapons and surrender.
“I’ll do the distraction. Run for the cars,” I told them, “Form a barricade to draw the police away from the ramp. We fight for a while and then we slip away. We might have to leave our stuff.” None of us liked that option, but we would gladly do it to keep the pups safe. I snatched a flash-bang from inside my jacket and tossed it at the police, who began opening fire on the three of us. As the device detonated, I ran after Nick and Hangman who had made it over to a line of parked cars. They shifted for true, keeping their true forms out of sight of the police. The last thing we needed was for witch-hunters to emerge from all of this. Working quickly, Nick and Hangman began putting cars on end to form an impromptu palisade against the fusillade of police gunfire. The gunfire slackened noticeably as the police pondered what to do. Fighting people armed with automatic weapons was bizarre enough. Having to deal with individuals that could upend automobiles was beyond anything the police would normally deal with.
“Smythe, I think we’ve got the police distracted,” I reported as Nick and Hangman finished the fort of cars and shifted back to human form, “Extract with the pups, and we’ll find our own way home.”
“We’ve already exited the parking garage,” Smythe answered, “I do not anticipate any further problems that the Wolf’s Growl cannot handle.” He was such a pompous ass. He could have just told us he had managed to get the pups out of the area. That would have opened up my options for our own extraction. Hangman and Nick looked over at me with similarly annoyed expressions.
“Well?” Nick asked, “How are we going to get out of here?”
“I don’t think we can use another flash-bang on them and hope to run,” I told them, “My original idea was to fight it out with the cops for a bit and then slip out as a wolf. Gunny will kill us for leaving the PDW’s, and I hate losing my sidearm and gear, but we then we thought we needed to keep the cops away from the pups. Any other ideas?” The three of us looked at each other as bullets spanged off the metal and plastic cars forming our barrier. The police were yelling for our surrender, but that wasn’t going to happen. We couldn’t use the MP7’s on the police. The little bullets were designed to punch right through basic body armor. Good for killing ghouls, bad for not killing police officers and sheriff’s deputies.
“Actually, I think that we could drop another flash-bang,” Nick said, “Then we run down towards Twenty Second Avenue. Once we get into one of those apartment complexes, it’s not going to be hard to sneak into the hospital, and then across to the university.” It was going to be risky and fast, but it might work. On the north end of University Square Mall was 22nd Avenue that stretched all the way out to Bearss Avenue, which was the northern-most east-west road for the majority of Tampa. On either side of 22nd were some apartment complexes. The eastern ones backed into the VA hospital. The hospital had a walkway over Bruce B. Downs Boulevard to the University of South Florida. It had been constructed so that the students at the university’s medical college wouldn’t have to brave the barrage of insane drivers that populated Bruce B. in order to do research or act as residents for the veteran’s hospital. The good part was that we could easily lose ourselves in the university’s grounds until we could get a pickup. It was a somewhat risky, but doable plan. It involved a lot of running, and possibly a lot of gunfire, but that was what made our jobs so exciting.
“First things first,” Hangman said, looking between the cars, “We’re going to need to knock out some of those cruisers. You think the PDW’s will screw up an engine block?” There was only one way to find out. Poking our weapons through the small gaps between the cars, the three of us triggered short bursts into the centers of a few police cruisers. There were pleasant sounds of metal being shredded as the tiny bullets punched through the grilles of the cruisers and tore through the components behind. Nick’s began leaking liquid. We finished off the magazines in the MP7’s and took out four more police cruisers. If they tried to follow us, it was going to be difficult. We made sure that the ones we hit would temporarily block off the rest of the cruisers. It would give us a short head start.
The flash bang sailed over the barricade as Nick shoved a car out of our way. The thunderous roar echoed through the concrete parking garage, amplifying the effect on the police officers. Nick, Hangman, and I bolted out of our little fortification and ran as fast as we could through the parking garage and out across the rear parking lot. I could hear the distinctive sounds of police helicopters. That could really screw us over. The helicopters wouldn’t have any problems tracking the three of us and directing additional forces our way. Damn it all to hell. The three of us made it to a copse of trees that was on the edge of the mall’s grounds.
“Didn’t think about the copter,” I admitted to the others as we took cover. I looked out as more police cruisers began flying towards where we were hiding. “Guess we ditch and shift.”
“Guess so,” was the quiet reply from Nick. We quickly made makeshift harnesses out of our belts. One of those things that they teach us at the camp. Escaping using the wolf form was effective. Humans really didn’t think much about dogs, which was how they saw our wolf form. The trick was carrying out as much gear as possible. The biggest things that needed to be saved for us were the MP7’s and our sidearms. Our phones were quickly smashed and the sim cards swallowed. It sounded disgusting, but we weren’t going to get hurt from a sim card banging around inside of us. No silver. The slings were rigged so that we could pick up the MP7’s and our sidearms and carry the weapons in our mouths. As the Tactical Response team prepared to storm our cover, we shifted forms for wolf, and snatched up our gear. As soon as Tac Rep tossed in some flash-bangs, the three of us ran up 22nd Avenue.
A few blocks north, the three of us reached 131st Street, and a nondescript van pulled up to us. Three lycanthropes were in the van and pretended to herd us into the vehicle. Will Leafdancer, the young pup I had extracted out of Ybor a month or so back, saw what was happening on the local news and decided that he and his friends were going to try and help out. By sheer luck, he and his crew had come across Nick, Hangman, and me. As many times as Murphy had fucked me over, it was nice to turn the tables on the bastard.
Leafdancer stopped briefly at a Target to pick up some clothes for Nick, Hangman, and myself. One of the bad things about shedding forms was that we often lost our clothing – or destroyed them. Most of my work clothes were designed to be able to expand to take the extra volume of my true form. Some lycanthrope in Plant City did the work for us. It involved hiding extra material with threads that would release under the stress of the shedding. I didn’t know all of the details beyond it worked and that it saved me a bunch of money on clothing. Shedding for wolf form, on the other hand, almost always meant that I lost my clothes. What was worse, I lost my vest and some of my electronics. I wasn’t worried about the human authorities. Ghouls and kin within the police agencies would obscure any attempt to use those to track us through the serial numbers. Both sides had an interest in keeping the humans out of our affairs. Replacing the vest and the communications gear was going to be difficult. The accelerated pace of operations because of the war compromised too many of our cutouts for hiding the buying of what would be considered suspicious items. Private persons didn’t usually buy Kevlar vests. Once we were dressed in some basic clothing, Leafdance dropped us off at the armory. Very few in the packs knew where the Guild was located. Granted, it was a bit of paranoia on the hunters’ part, but we had a long institutional memory. There had been more than one attempt to disband and destroy the Guild since its inception. The armory’s gun shop front was still operating, but most of the weapons had been transferred to the Guild itself. If the packs needed weapons, the hunters would transport the weapons to the armory and distribute them there, but only if Gunny approved. The Guildmaster trusted his head armorer. With many thanks of gratitude and praising of the Ancestors, Leafdancer and his crew returned to their pack while the three of us walked into the gun shop. I can’t speak for Nicky or Hangman, but I was surprised to see Gunny and Boomer standing behind the counter.
“Well, look what dragged themselves in,” Gunny drawled as we stood for a moment in surprise, “I hope my weapons are in good condition being dragged around.” I shook my head and walked over to the counter. Gunny looked more relaxed than I had seen him in since the war had started. Boomer was gleefully playing around with an auto pistol on the far end of the counter.
“What’s the damage?” Nick asked with an almost grim tone to his voice. The job in the mall was successful in that we rescued the pups, but it had been too open and too loud. If it had gone properly, we should have taken the pups out of the mall and removed the ghouls without any humans noticing us. The problem was that ghouls, on the most part, didn’t take things like the pathwalkers into consideration when they were following out their masters’ orders. They did what they were told to do and they just didn’t give a damn if the humans got in their way or not. Bradon told me once that it took intensive work with a ghoul to get them to overcome their basic zealousness. At the moment, we were concerned that the job had caused enough noise that our normal covers would be blown.
“Minimal,” Gunny answered, “The humans managed to convince themselves that it was a gang fight that got out of control. We didn’t even need to get too involved beyond disappearing the ghoul bodies.” He motioned to a small television in the corner of the gun shop. “Unconfirmed rumors of gun fire, conflicting reports of who was involved, all the good things that keep the humans from looking our way.”
“Well that’s good news,” Hangman said with a relieved expression on his face. I couldn’t blame him. If the humans were blaming themselves, then the pathwalkers would have little reason to come down and restore the balance. “Anything else going on besides all the fun we’ve been having?”
“What do you mean?” asked Gunny, sounding slightly confused by the Hangman’s tone. Hangman did sound a slightly bit suspicious, which even I found odd. Hangman was a gifted young hunter, but he still did and said things that were a bit off. Still, sometimes Hangman could pick up on small details that escaped the rest of us.
“Well you’re here instead of at the Guild,” Hangman answered, “You haven’t been here since the war broke out. If the Guild provides weapons to the packs, the other hunters are the ones that make the deliveries. Yet, here you are.” I had to admit, I was surprised to see Gunny in the armory, but I really didn’t think it was an omen of something going on beyond the normal course of the war. Hangman was getting too good. Gunny gave a knowing grin and walked around the counter.
“The Guildmaster was worried that I was burning out with all of the work I was doing,” Gunny said, “So he told me to come out here for a day or two. I’ve got a couple of others working the armory in the Guild.” Just getting out of the Guild had done wonders for Gunny. He was smiling with a real amusement, not just his normal sarcastic grin that he had given sparingly since the war had started. “By the way, I’ve got a new toy for you Ranger.”
“And it’s not even my birthday,” I replied with over-hyped enthusiasm. I walked over to the counter where Gunny was motioning. On a gun blotter was a USP, but it was different than mine. The regular sights had been exchanged for better, adjustable sights. The barrel extended beyond the slide and had been threaded for a suppressor. I knew that the trigger had been replaced with a match trigger. This was HK’s USP Tactical. It had been designed to combine the best features of the USP and its bigger brother, the Mark 23, or SOCOM pistol. I had seen the pistol in some of the magazines that I read regularly, and I had some curiosity in seeing if it was just as good as my USP. I hefted the pistol, feeling the slight weight increase in the Tactical. The sights were much nicer than those on my USP, which was a definite plus because of my reluctance to use laser sights or other aiming devices. I just didn’t trust them to blink out at a critical moment. Iron sights, on the other hand, didn’t fuck up at critical moments. I removed the magazine and checked the chamber. Satisfied that the pistol was empty, I dry fired it a couple of times to see how the new trigger felt. Double action was smooth, and single action was a bit more responsive than my USP. Replacing the magazine, I laid the pistol back on the blotter. “I’m sold, how much?”
“No charge. The Guildmaster wanted you to have this as soon as I got a hold of one,” Gunny answered, “It also comes with this nice little kit.” A small black plastic box materialized on the counter. I opened it up to find a suppressor and a Sure-Fire flashlight ready to mount under the barrel of the Tactical. I was pretty sure that I wouldn’t use the Sure-Fire, but it was nice to have. Gunny turned from me and looked over at Nicky.
“Nicholas, the Guildmaster wanted me to see if you wanted to try this,” Gunny said, hefting a large pistol case onto the glass counter. The weapon inside was one of the largest handguns that I had ever seen. I had heard about the new Smith and Wesson, but this was the first time that I had seen it up close. Nick hefted the massive revolver with an appraising eye. The new Smith and Wesson was chambered for the enormous .500 Magnum cartridge. The rounds were designed to take down light to medium game. To me, the Smith was like the Desert Eagle .50 AE – an interesting niche weapon, but had very few real applications for the type of work that hunters do. Nick, by the look in his eyes, had a different train of thought. He had the gleam of a child with a brand-new toy that he had been praying to Santa for the entire year.
“We finally managed to find a supplier to give us silver rounds for that caliber,” Gunny said, “We also had some penetrator rounds produced so that you can take out a leech using cover as well as some anti-personnel rounds that will drop an enormous amount of K-dump into a target.” Gunny handed the rounds over to Nicky. They were gigantic bullets compared to the .45 ACP bullets that Hangman and I had in our weapons, and were even larger than the .44 Magnum rounds that Nicky normally carried.
“This is going to be fun,” Nick answered quietly, almost caressing the monster revolver, “It’s going to require some training, but I like it.” Nick’s fascination with huge, powerful handguns was funny to me. I prefer a larger caliber than most hunters, but Nick didn’t seem like he was satisfied until he had a handgun that would take down a semi. Nick placed the revolver back on the counter and waited as Gunny placed it back in a hard pistol case. Nick turned to my smirking face and gave me a nasty look. “What’s the problem Ranger?”
“Not a thing Nick,” I answered, “After all, there are so many APC’s in the leeches’ inventory. I am so glad that you can now take them down without a problem.”
“The name is Nicholas,” he answered with a cool tone that I knew was mostly faked, “At least I don’t have to worry about car doors anymore.” That was a point.