So bright that it blinded Kharker, the explosion
sent shock waves that tossed his helicopter away as if at the flick of a mighty
wrist. Even as it tumbled through the air, the bird started to disintegrate
under the pressures of the sudden force. When it tilted so that its propellers
could no longer keep it upright, the helicopter began a descent to the thick canopy
of trees below, a plummet slowed somewhat because, even as it fell, the crumbling
bird was still in the grip of the shock wave.
The propellers struck the highest treetops,
snapping and spinning the dying bird towards the ground. It smacked up against
tree after tree, tearing it into sections. In six separate pieces, the bird plowed
into the snow and came to rest.
Time passed.
Kharker did not move, stunned by the recent
developments and pinned as he was under the wreckage of a large chunk of what
had once been a formidable attack helicopter. Then, as he began to regain
control of himself, he shoved his way out from under the wreckage and searched
about for survivors. He saw nothing.
He set off in the direction of the ridge that the
missile had come from,
then
stopped dead. He’d been so
completely blown off course that he no longer knew in which direction the ridge
lay.
“Hell,” he muttered, and noticed for the first
time that his cigar had been lost.
As he started to retrieve another one, a better plan
occurred to him. Instead of him going after the Libertarians who’d fired the
tactical nuke—it could have been nothing else—he’d let them come to him.
“Step into my web, you bastards.”
Would they come? Surely there would only be a
handful, for how many werewolves could Liberty
claim to possess, and how many would their leader devote to so simple a task?
Just a few, surely.
And, being of slim numbers, they would
not approach the site of the explosion for fear that a pocket of Castle
soldiers had survived.
On the other hand, they’d have noticed Kharker’s
bird and concluded that it may yet hold some survivors. Since it was obviously
a perimeter scout, it would not likely be armed very heavily. It followed that
if the Libertarians wanted Castle soldiers to interrogate, they would descend
on the downed chopper.
Kharker climbed a tree and waited.
In less than a minute, four shades approached,
carrying machine guns that would shred even the flesh of an immortal. At their
hips they wore wicked sabers.
Bastards
, Kharker thought.
Cowardly ambushing bastards.
As he took a bead on the leader of the quartet,
he made a mental note to keep at least one of them alive for questioning.
He fired. The round of the elephant gun tore
through the head of the leader and slammed through the chest of the shade
directly behind him. Without a sound, the leader fell to the ground, the
remains of his shattered head leaking gore across the snow. By the time he
struck the ground, the other three had fanned out and were lifting their big
guns to target their attacker.
Kharker fired again. A second Libertarian fell
to the snow, nearly decapitated by the powerful round.
At this second shot, the surviving two located
Kharker and opened fire. Kharker, anticipating this, had dropped to the ground
immediately after his second kill. Above him, the bullets of the machine guns
tore apart his place of concealment, but he was already on the move, finding
cover and circling for an attack.
Realizing that their shots had failed to bring
down the sniper, the two Libertarians slipped into the scarce underbrush, their
guns at the ready. One of them, hearing something behind him, swiveled in time
to see Kharker barreling down on him.
The Libertarian raised his gun and fired,
blowing a hole in the Hunter’s abdomen, but this did not slow the arc of
Kharker’s machete. The blade cut through its victim’s neck, separating the
Libertarian’s head from his shoulders. Even as the body fell, Kharker grasped
the head by its sweaty hair and brought it in close so that he could stare into
its awestruck eyes. The mouth opened, tried to say something, but could not.
“Don’t worry, my friend,” replied the Hunter.
“I’ll be back for you shortly.”
The last Libertarian, having heard the battle,
emerged from the underbrush. Half a dozen rounds tore into Kharker before he
found cover behind a nearby tree.
“Damn,” he said, feeling the wetness with his
fingers.
His attacker continued firing and the bullets
slowly began to tear the tree apart. Angered beyond the point of reason,
Kharker leapt out and hurled his machete at the last Libertarian. The blade
buried itself in the man’s face.
Once the body had fallen, he retrieved his
machete from the remains of his enemy’s skull and slipped the blade back into
its sheath, not bothering to wipe off the blood.
Making his way back to the beheaded Libertarian,
Kharker placed the head back on the shoulders and let the immortal’s innate
power do its work. As the wound mended, Kharker rose to his full height and
placed a booted foot on the chest of his enemy, then pointed his rifle at the
man’s face.
The wound healed quickly, although a vicious
scar remained that would only disappear after the creature had fed. The man
blinked and cleared his throat to test the limits of the damage, but he
couldn’t contain a smile when he heard the sound of his throat working once
again. Then he looked up at Kharker and his smile faded.
Kharker pressed his boot more firmly on the
man’s chest, pushing him into the snow. “Talk,” he said.
The Libertarian set his chin. “I’m no rat. You
can kill me now if that’s all you want.”
“No.”
Kharker yanked out his machete and severed one
of the Libertarian’s arms. As the man screamed, the Hunter pressed him further
into the snow.
Once the man had subsided, Kharker said, “This
can go on all day if you like, son. However, I think it would be in both our
interests if you loosened your tongue a little.”
“If I talk, will you release me?”
“If you don’t, I’m sure to kill you. And I’ll do
it slow. Now tell me this: why did you bring the nukes along? That wasn’t part
of the plan.”
“Just in case.”
“In case of what?”
“Mistress Maleasoel thought that you might
betray us to Roche Sarnova, so she obtained some leverage. If, in the raid on
the Castle, we found ourselves trapped, we were to use them to barter for our
lives. If Blackie wouldn’t let us go, we’d bring the whole place down with us.”
“The threat of killing Jean-Pierre wasn’t
enough?”
“That was just to bring
you
into line, but Malie wasn’t sure that you held enough sway over
the Dark Lord.”
“How many nukes?”
When the man hesitated, Kharker raised his
machete for another swing. “How many?” he reiterated.
“Four,” said the werewolf.
“Why should I believe you?”
“Because I’m telling the
truth!
Please, let me go. The sun is up. With my wounds, I can’t survive in daylight
much longer. I’ve got to get underground.”
Kharker pondered, not yet willing to dismiss the
man. Of course, he was right; a werewolf could not use his powers to heal
during daylight—not much, anyway. Really, though, Kharker should deliver the
creature to Blackie for a more in-depth interrogation. After the major loss that
Roche had just suffered, he deserved some answers. Not only that, but, wounded
and still stunned by the turn of recent events, Kharker couldn’t think of the
proper questions.
“What of Jean-Pierre?” he said. “How’s he
doing?”
A grin crept across the Libertarian’s face. “The
albino is dead.”
“What?”
“He tried to escape and the Captain killed him.”
Mind reeling, Kharker almost fired his rifle,
but stopped himself at the last moment.
“Did you see his body?” Kharker said.
“No, but I trust in the Captain’s word.”
“That would be that D’Aguila fellow.”
“Of course.
He’s taken—”
The Libertarian stopped himself just before he
divulged anything more.
Kharker sensed his captive had been about to say
something important and twirled his machete around menacingly. “What is it?”
“Nothing.”
The man squirmed. “Can
I go now?”
“You’ve got more to spill, but I’ve not the
patience to sit here and talk to you further. So get up, you’re coming with
me.”
Unable to stop himself, the Libertarian spat at
Kharker’s leg. “Fuck you, Khark! I told you, I’m no rat! I’d rather die than be
taken to the Castle for interrogation.”
“Then die.”
The Hunter sheathed his machete, bent down,
grabbed a handful of matted hair and pulled the Libertarian to his feet.
Shoving his captive before him, Kharker moved back into the area where his
helicopter had come to rest. Hopefully, a radio would still be functioning and
he could contact the Castle.
Just as he was thinking of how to phrase news of
the disaster, his captive lunged to the side and started running.
“No!” roared Kharker, and ran after the man.
As soon as the Libertarian had gone ten feet, he
slipped into his wolf form and kept running on all three legs. Werewolves can’t
roam the surface in daylight, not in their beastly form, and as soon as the
Libertarian found a clearing, the sun drenched him in fire.
The werewolf screamed as the sun found him. His
momentum carried him beyond the clearing, but by the time he reached the
shadows he was already disintegrating. When Kharker came to stand over him, he
found little left but ash and bones.
“Son of a bitch!” Kharker said, as it hit him.
“The question.
The stupid question ...”
In that horrible moment, he realized the most
important piece of information the man could have
provided,
the question that he hadn’t thought to ask.
“God damn it all to hell,” he said. “It
should’ve been the first thing I asked him—where the fucking Libertarians have
gone to!” Still swearing, he looked down on the charred bones. “No wonder you
killed yourself. I guess you were right, you stupid loyal bastard. You weren’t
a rat.”
Behind him, he heard stirring. He spun, rifle at
the ready, to find three Castle shades watching him curiously. Kharker
recognized one as the pilot of the bird that had carried him here.
“Lord Kharker, I’m glad to see you alive,” the
pilot said. “We were thrown from the chopper when it hit the ground, and when
we didn’t see you …”
The Hunter waved the words away. “Do any of the
radios work?”
“No, sir.”
“Then follow me.” Kharker started back in the
direction of his skirmish with the Libertarians. Without question, the others
followed.
Shortly Kharker stared down at the place where
the leader of the Libertarians had fallen. The man was gone, and so was the
second one that Kharker had felled. From the tracks in the snow, the Hunter
surmised that the second one had recovered from the wound in time to hoist his
leader up and carry him off into the wilderness. They would be long gone by
now.
Which left the forth
one, the one that had taken both a blade through his face.
Kharker grinned when he stumbled across the
still unconscious form. His wounds were mending fast, though, and Kharker could
not allow this one to turn into ash as had his previous captive. So, without
further thought, he severed the werewolf’s head. Hoisting the head by the hair,
he turned to his three companions and pointed to the body with his machete.
“Carry it,” he ordered, and marched off in the
direction of the tactical nuclear explosion. Behind him, he could hear the
Castle soldiers fighting over who got to carry the headless corpse. He smiled wider
and entered the wasteland.
*
*
*
When
communication was lost with the attack force, Roche Sarnova dispatched a lone
unarmed bird with a human pilot to investigate the fate of Colonel
Wheatshear’s
company. Ten minutes after the pilot had
departed,
he called back in to relate his findings. First,
he described the scorched piece of earth that had so recently been the
Libertarians’ headquarters.
“A tactical nuke,” suggested De Soto, who sat with the other officers in
the War Room, listening to the human’s grim voice.
Sarnova nodded, his worst fears confirmed. Now
he would have to get a relay to his spies in the mortal governments of the
world, the ones that would’ve seen the nuclear explosion on their satellites.
He had to erase that fact from mortal knowledge. Relaying that message would
not be half as difficult as facing Ludwig’s widow.