The second dark ages box.., p.32
The Second Dark Ages Boxed Set, page 32
part #1 of The Second Dark Ages Series
“Where’s Michael?” Jacqueline asked.
Akio turned towards the north.
Michael?
Are you done, gunslinger? Michael asked, joy coloring his speech.
I am done for now, Akio agreed.
Good. Everyone but Sabine noticed the piece of wood that shot up into the sky above the hill, but even she noticed when it exploded in flame.
I’m in need of some more fun.
The building was made of cement. Its windows were up high, and the morning sun was starting to stream through them. A middle-aged man walked through the double doors, a rifle held casually over his shoulder. “They’re coming, Kirk,” he called. His walk was neither fast nor slow.
The rusty-brown haired, bearded man looking over the maps on the table called back, “Which ones, James?”
“The Yellows,” James replied as he arrived at the table. “From the west. Early reports give us maybe an hour, hour and a half tops.”
Kirk nodded and moved an old bolt he had painted yellow closer to the city. “So it begins.” He tapped the table twice. “I wonder how the Yellows were chosen as the first pack to come after us?” They had named all the packs by color to distinguish them.
James shrugged. “Not sure it matters, but it’s something that will forever bug the hell out of me now that you’ve planted the question in my mind.”
Kirk smiled grimly. “Are the teams in place?”
His friend and second nodded. “In place, or heading there. It’s just you, me, and the six who stay with us.”
Kirk nodded. “We have the snipers?”
James scratched his chin. “Yes, and they have some balls to be out there, willing to take those early shots without protection from the others.”
Kirk shrugged. “We all have an appointed time to die.” He reached down to a chair on his left and grabbed a vest. It had many sewn loops with cartridges in them.
Large cartridges.
Turning to his right, he grabbed a sawed-off shotgun. “Let’s go out like the heroes we are.”
Adorjan was running free with his tongue hanging out of his mouth, a howl ready in his throat. There were five hundred fifty-three Weres strung out behind him. He had been ordered to take out the groups of humans in Paris so that his master could finally subjugate the once-amazing city. Over the last decades, he and his pack had first silently, then not-so-silently attacked the humans after the Duke had taken control.
And taken control he had. Quickly and decisively. Adorjan had been third in the pack when the Duke ruthlessly and efficiently took out the Alpha and his second. Adorjan had taken all of five seconds to decide the Duke was an acceptable Alpha for him. The news had come this morning that the Duke expected to be able to enter Paris without problems in just a few days, should he want to.
The silhouette of the old city skyline was lighting up, the early morning sun reflecting from panes of glass still in the windows after so many years.
Paris would be the Duke’s.
“We have a large contingent of Weres approaching from the city north of us,” Eve said.
“Send a puck to disrupt their flow, Akio,” Michael said.
Akio turned to look at Yuko and raised an eyebrow.
“Yes, three are available,” Eve said.
Michael turned to look at her. “You only have three?”
“It has been a very action-heavy hundred and fifty years, Michael-san.” Yuko replied. “We are making more, but we have only three with us at this time.”
“The technology we have,” Eve added. “It is the ability to make some of the parts we lack. We are slow to build them.”
“There was a large fight in China some five months ago,” Akio continued the explanation. “The only way to deal with them, I felt, was to pummel the location with pucks.”
“And by pummel,” Yuko interjected, “he means bomb them until nothing was standing.”
“What kind of enemy was this?” Michael asked.
“Chinese Weres in the jungle.” Akio replied. “They preferred to stay there instead of engaging in a straight-up fight.”
Michael smiled. “Okay, if three is all we have, then let’s send one right into the middle of them, or inside the biggest group between the center of the pack and the first wolf.”
“Why not just bomb the Alpha?” Jacqueline asked.
“These are going to be under the control of the Duke, I’m sure,” Michael said. “There are already instructions in place and whether they have an Alpha or not, they will complete the mission.” Michael looked around. “Let’s grab a ride and see if we can make a difference.”
Sabine was strapped into one of the drop seats in the container that Yuko was using to transfer the materials Akio had requested. Michael had one of the two doors on the end open. He clutched a handhold and was looking out of the door.
She averted her eyes and looked at Jacqueline, who was answering a question. “No, we came from America.”
Sabine forgot the uneasiness in her stomach. “Really?”
Mark nodded. “Yes, we were on a ship on the way here when Akio picked us up, and then we landed in front of you last night.”
“That was an accident?” Sabine asked, remembering her panicked run. They had shared food with her, which had helped her stomach and given her energy as well. No one had asked if she wanted to stay behind. Sabine looked over to see Akio talking with Yuko and Eve.
“Yes, I will be a part of this!” Yuko hissed, her eyes fiery with anger.
“You have stayed out of most of the fighting for a hundred and fifty years, Yuko,” he observed. “What is causing this strong desire to be a part of it now?”
Yuko clamped down on her first response. With her left hand, she reached out and covered Eve’s mouth.
Akio raised an eyebrow and Yuko shrugged. “Eve is always guessing out loud. I want to answer this myself.” Yuko thought for another couple of moments. “It is time that I carried some of the load,” she said finally. “I was charged, just as you were, to await Michael’s safe return to Bethany Anne and to do that, my role was as the diplomat.” Her eyes flashed red once as she looked out into the space beyond them.
Akio stayed out of her mind. He had promised he wouldn’t ever read her unless it was a life or death situation, and it hadn’t reached that level.
Yet.
His own eyes narrowed as he realized what was pushing her buttons. Yuko, for as long as he had known her, was the biggest romantic he had ever met. Her belief in the power of love and her wish to see it blossom and create happiness were the reasons she opened her eyes every morning, he was sure.
Why she was so unlucky in her own love, he never understood.
Yuko was shocked a moment later when her taciturn friend reached out and pulled her into a hug. Her eyes, round with surprise, looked over at Eve, whose own expression was disbelief. Eve shook her head slightly.
“I got nothing!” she whispered.
Michael was busy looking out the door, a small smile playing at the edges of his own lips. Yes, keep her there for a few moments. This is the way you center your friends, Akio.
This is strange, Michael, Akio replied, his mental voice halting.
Welcome to the opposite of killing your way to answers.
Akio felt Yuko’s body lose some of its rigidity, and she hugged him back.
“Stay behind me, little one,” Akio whispered to his friend. “I am responsible to the Queen for you as well. She wants you back.”
She nodded into his shoulder. “I have your back, old man,” Yuko replied, a small tear running down her cheek. “Sorry, old wise man.”
Akio chuckled.
Once.
When they separated, Yuko reached up and put a hand on Akio’s arm. “You taught me to dance, as well. I will not embarrass you.” Akio nodded his understanding and watched as she untied the front of the pretty robe she was wearing. Jacqueline and Sabine watched as she took it off.
Yuko wasn’t paying attention when the two women’s jaws dropped as she stood there in polished, black form-fitting armor. She folded her robe and grabbed two swords, inserting them into her hip sheaths. Then she grabbed a set of shoulder holsters and slid her arms through the openings. The butt of the guns lay along her ribs, and she clipped the tiedowns to her belt to hold them in place.
Michael’s voice was gentle, if firm, when she turned around. “Bethany Anne would approve of your clothing choices.” She smiled when he winked at her. “Now,” he continued as he looked across the weapons laid out along the wall, “let’s see if you have something a bit stouter than this Wakizashi, hmm?”
“Oh!” Mark jumped in. “We can go shopping for weapons now?”
Yuko looked him up and down. “First armor, then weapons.”
Chapter Twelve
In the last one hundred and fifty years Akio had yet to meet anyone who could best him in hand-to-hand combat. At one level that had been satisfying, but on another level it meant he didn’t know what he could achieve.
Now, as the container they were riding in slowly started to descend, he took a moment to look at Michael. Really look at him, and size him up.
His stance, his graceful way of moving. A tic by his eye was the only sign that he was annoyed with himself.
If he hadn’t known who Michael was, he wouldn’t have guessed him to be so deadly, which meant Akio had a blind spot.
It wasn’t that Michael didn’t have a certain fluidity to his movements, but he didn’t announce his abilities with every move, every decision.
Michael’s eyes would crinkle in amusement at times. Usually it would stay there unless he touched his head. It was obvious that his lack of hair was bothering him. Even that annoyance went away quickly though, when something else caught his attention.
He had a certain boyish charm to his manner, to be sure. But when he was angered or felt slighted, the person Akio had heard described in the past came out.
The Patriarch was just under the skin, waiting to take over. Michael wore his easy-going personality like a new set of clothes. He was trying to grow into the man they represented, but his old clothes fought to stay relevant.
Akio didn’t give the old clothes much of a thought. Bethany Anne would see that they were tossed out eventually. “Akio?” He turned to see Yuko unlatch the bottom shelf that held the sword Bethany Anne had given him. He nodded to her, and she pulled it out and lifted it to offer it to him.
He hadn’t used it in a long time, mostly because he felt it needed to be a special occasion. Right now, his first battle by Michael’s side would be just such an occasion.
Yuko approached him, a sense of peace emanating from her as she held it with two hands. “Our Queen provided this sword for your use. It seems fitting that it should go into battle by Michael’s side.” Akio turned and found Michael smiling at him. It took only a half second before Michael shook his head.
“Oh, no,” Michael told him. “Bethany Anne would have a fit if I accepted the sword from you. She gave it to a Queen’s Bitch. That Queen’s Bitch needs to be the one to use it for her.”
Akio’s lips tried on a size-two smile, something just a bit bigger than he would normally show. The muscles in his face screamed in agony, as they weren’t used to the man stretching them to smile. His frowning muscles, however, were in top shape. Good thing the nanocytes in my body helped overcome the challenge, he thought.
“Hai!” he agreed, and accepted the sword from Yuko.
“What the hell is that?” James asked, as he pointed to the sky to their left. They were all standing on top of a tall building, waiting for the pack to reach them.
“The hell…” Kirk wondered.
“It’s a box,” Timothy answered from behind them, a scope to his eye. “And get this—there’s a man in it looking out an open door.” He pulled the gun away from his eye. “Want me to take him out?”
“The Duke?” James asked.
Kirk shook his head. “No, if the Duke is truly a vampire, he can’t be in the sun and this guy certainly is.”
With the rifle up to his eye, Timothy spoke again. “He seems to be looking down at the werewolves and pointing at something.”
Timothy yanked the gun from his shoulder. “What happened?” James asked, noticing that Timothy seemed spooked.
“Uh…” Timothy turned to look towards the dust billowing where the Yellow pack was flowing towards them from the west. “I get the impression he didn’t appreciate me aiming my rifle at him.”
“Okay,” Kirk said, perplexed. “I’ll bite. How would he even know you were aiming at him? He’s too far away.”
“Apparently not.” Timothy shook his head. “Might seem weird to you, and certainly seems weird to me, but I’d put my hand on my grandmother’s grave and swear that he just told me to aim my rifle somewhere else or he would come over here and shove it up my ass.”
All seven men on the roof turned to look at Timothy, who held the rifle in one hand, and put the other up. “This hand will swear right here.”
The men all had a good laugh as they turned to the west when they felt, more than heard, a deep sound and saw a large eruption of dirt from the direction of the wolves.
“Now what the hell?” Kirk asked.
Timothy put the scope up to his eye and looked. “Kirk, you ain’t going to believe this shit, but it’s raining wolves out there.”
Adorjan barked twice and stopped running. He turned around to witness something he never expected to see: his pack falling from the sky along with massive amounts of dirt and rocks. He heard two yips from his left where one of his wolves was hit by falling debris.
The humans had used a bomb on his pack.
His pack!
His eyes glowed a deeper yellow as he howled commands for them to catch up. The wounded would have to heal on their own. His anger was all-consuming. Now he didn’t want to taste the death of these humans because he had been ordered to, he wanted their blood all over his teeth because they dared to hurt his people.
As the stragglers made it to the larger group, he changed and stood in his large human form. “They dared to bomb our people!” He turned and faced the city where many of them could make out tiny flickers of movement. “Leave not a one alive!” Adorjan changed back to a large sand-colored wolf and howled his anger as he bolted towards the city.
That’s when he saw the flying box take off into the sky. There was a new group of humans between his pack and the city. More to rip and tear before they reached the main concentration.
That worked for him just fine.
The men watched as the wolves stopped to regroup. The floating container lowered itself to a large swath of ground between the city proper and the wolves advancing on them.
When the container left, there were seven people on the ground.
Kirk could hear noises from Timothy’s rifle, and turned to see him sliding the scope off. “What?” he asked. “Your sights are gonna be all sorts of fucked up now.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Timothy agreed as he put the scope up to his eye. “But I don’t have to worry about shitting out the barrel of my gun an inch at a time either,” he said. “We got one weird-ass group out there, boss.”
“Here, let me see,” Kirk ordered, and Timothy passed the scope over to him. He put it up to his eye, then pulled it down and used his shirt to clean it
“What are they doing?” James asked as he watched Kirk look at the people in the distance through Timothy’s scope. “Kind of a motley crew.”
“The Motley Seven?” Kirk snorted.
“Just answer my question. You’re hogging the scope.”
“Looks like they’re dressing their line.” Kirk responded.
“What line?” James asked in confusion. “There are only seven of them.”
“James?” Kirk asked. “What does your cousin look like?”
“Gracie?” James responded. “You can’t miss her, redhead and skin white enough to blind you on a full moon night.”
“No,” Kirk snorted, “not Gracie.”
“Sabine?” James tried a second time.
“Yes.”
“Well, when she was alive, she had black hair.”
“Uh huh,” Kirk replied. After a moment, he gestured. “Keep going.”
“Blue eyes, thin. She was a runner.”
“No,” Kirk told him as he turned and handed him the scope. “It’s not ‘was.’”
“What?” James grabbed the scope from his friend and put it up to his eye. “The hell?”
“That’s my line,” Kirk said.
“She’s got guns,” James blurted. “She... She’s alive?”
“And she along with six others are about to take on five hundred Werewolves.”
“That’s not a motley crew, guys,” Timothy said. He had taken the scope from James and was looking through it. “Whoever those two older men are, they’re killers.”
“How can you tell?” Kirk asked.
“Because they wear their weapons like extensions of themselves.”
James smiled. “Fuck it! I'm going down."
They whooped in delight as Kirk called over the old radios, “All hands, do not fire. Eagle’s Nest is coming down and joining the Magnificent Seven.”
“Michael,” Akio stated, “you are in the middle, with Jacqueline, Mark and Eve to your right. Sabine, Yuko and myself are to your left."
Michael raised an eyebrow. “Eve?” He looked over at the tiny woman, who smiled up at him.
“It took me three decades to come to the conclusion that killing wasn't against my protocols,” she told him.
Michael glanced over to Akio before returning to Eve. “Protocols?”
“She had to figure it out for herself,” Yuko said as she checked her pistols. She had a sword on her back, but wasn’t planning on using it. “She had a dump of ADAM’s programming, including a special section that he didn’t tell anyone he had included. She had to find it out for herself, let me tell you.” Yuko pulled both pistols and shot four times with each hand.
