The scientist reached up to adjust his glasses, ignoring the five behind him. “They are no different than me or you. My boss just has more advantages than you.”

  “Why don’t you wake up Gaku and Shiang and we shall see who has the advantage?”

  The scientist shook his head, and stepped back. “Let it be recorded in the notes that I tried.”

  “You did, sir.” The first guard, the one with the arc rod, came forward. “Step back, sir.”

  Tanith’s eyes narrowed. He had always come into the cage before, so his smirk should have warned her that he had figured out a new way to…

  “AAAHHYYYEEE!” she screamed when he touched the stick to the cage itself. The bars electrified her muscles, which spasmed. She fell toward the middle of the space, the tendrils of fire arcing through her body, but there was a moment of respite when he stopped shocking the cage.

  Then he touched her shoulder with the rod, and she tasted the blood of her tongue as the spasms made what had happened before seem like someone had just been tickling her.

  Chapter Seven

  Japan, Mount Fuji in the distance

  “We need her for these tests,” the second scientist sniffed as Isami lifted the shock-rod off Tanith. His partner Goro stepped through the cage door and slipped the noose around her neck as her body convulsed.

  “She can’t kill us, either,” Isami replied. “Dai is still in the hospital, and he will have only one eye for the rest of his life.”

  The six men turned in surprise as a deep laugh sounded in both their minds and their ears. “I wouldn’t worry about her killing you.”

  A man in a black hat and long coat stood behind them, his eyes flaring red. “I am Death, and I’ve been charged with bringing you to Hell.”

  Isami pushed Choki out of the way and raised his arc rod, the angry spitting of the electricity sizzling in the silence. “Over our dead bodies!”

  “That was the plan,” he agreed.

  “Who are you?” Isami asked as Choki and Zan stepped to each side of him and brought their bullpup submachine guns up to their shoulders.

  Michael’s eyes flicked to the men with the guns trained on him. “I’ve had many names. Which one would you like?” he asked obligingly

  “The one we should put on your tombstone,” Isami answered, and shoving off his left foot he jumped forward, wielding the rod like a foil and reaching forward to spear the man.

  His eyes widened in shock when the man caught the end with his right hand. “Hehehehe ,” he laughed merrily as the electricity jumped between his eyes and the blue reflections of the sparks played in them.

  A second later the rod suddenly dimmed, as if he’d pulled all its energy into himself. “It tickles,” he told them. “Let me hand this back to you,” he told Isami, and handed the now-dead rod back to him. “Where are my manners?” He smiled. “My name is Michael. ‘The ArchAngel’ to some, ‘the Dark Messiah’ to others. I believe I failed to give this back as well.” The rod’s energy fried the three security men in front of Michael as he passed it to them. Michael had to switch to Myst because two of the men fired spasmodically as their bodies jerked.

  Michael reappeared behind the scientists and shoved them toward the three security guards, and they stumbled into the streams of bullets.

  “That’s one,” Michael murmured as one of the scientist’s bodies jerked when bullets stitched up his torso, blowing small chunks of flesh out the back.

  The second scientist fell past both guards, the bullets missing him. “Pity, that.” The last security guard had pulled the noose off the Wechselbalg and was trying to get it out of the cage. Michael moved forward and grabbed the end of the pole, yanking it out of his hands and slamming the cage door shut. “Stay there for a moment.” Michael winked to the woman inside, who looked like she had control of her muscles again. “I’ll kill you in a moment if she doesn’t do it first,” he told the man while nodding to the woman behind him.

  The man reached for his knife but her foot slammed his face, bouncing the back of his head off the metal bars and causing him to lose focus.

  Tanith daintily pulled the knife out of his fingers. “Let me return this to you,” she said, as she slammed the knife into his skull, right above his ear.

  Goro’s body slid sideways and collapsed.

  She watched as the man in the coat reached down and lifted one of the submachine guns, turning it to the side and cocking it. The second scientist was stumbling toward the exit when three bullets stitched up his spine, the last round entering the back of his neck and exiting right above his mouth.

  “And that makes six.” Michael turned around, tossing the gun on the dead security guard as he spoke to Tanith. “They don’t make security guards like they used to.”

  Michael stepped up to the cage and unlocked it. “How do we wake your friends?”

  Tanith pointed toward the wall. There was a grey desk with a cabinet next to it. “Inside the locked cabinet are shots. The blue-topped ones will wake them.” She grimaced as she lifted the bloody lab coat. “He’s got some keys here somewhere…”

  She turned when she heard a loud slam to see that Michael had punched a hole in the cabinet door and simply ripped it off. A few boxes fell out as Michael looked around and then reached in and pulled out two syringes, their tops blue. He turned to her, lifting them. “These?”

  She nodded.

  He walked over to her and held them out. “Wake them,” he told her and continued past her. “I’ve got to prepare this place.”

  She accepted the syringes and turned to go to Gaku’s and Shiang’s cages, not happy to be ordered but really not wanting to piss off her liberator either.

  She could flip him off once they were outside.

  “If you flip me off,” he said from the far side of the room as he continued opening drawers and slamming them shut, “I will rip your finger completely off and shove it up your ass.”

  Ok, maybe she would just wake up Shiang and Gaku and get the hell out of here.

  “That is a much better plan,” he told her as she unlocked Gaku’s cage and stepped in, bending down to give him the shot.

  Stepping out, she did the same for Shiang.

  He walked up with a pile of paper and a lighter in his hands.

  Gaku was walking as if in a daze and she was supporting Shiang, his arm over her shoulders. “What are you going to do?”

  “Burn this place,” Michael answered. “I could do it another way, but I’m feeling the need to be an old-fashioned pyromaniac.” He reached over, placing a hand on Shiang’s shoulder. “One second.” He willed energy into the man’s body.

  “What are you doing?” Tanith whispered. “I feel that!”

  Shiang came out of his stupor as Michael did the same for Gaku. “Don’t push anything yet. The nanocytes will help you, but it will still take a little while.” He walked up to the door, grabbing the handle and twisting.

  The damned handle broke off in his hand, leaving a two-inch hole in the door—which was still locked. “Well.” He stared at the handle in his hand, and then the hole in the door. “Shit,” he muttered as he tossed the handle to the side. “Ok.” He set the paper and the lighter on a desk to the side. “This is going to feel weird, but I’ve got this.”

  He disappeared.

  Tanith drew in a breath when the vampire disappeared, and then…

  Keep quiet! a voice said inside her head. You are almost clear.

  Soon enough, Tanith, Gaku and Shiang appeared on the other side of the door. They checked their bodies and looked at each other in shock.

  “What just happened?” Shiang asked.

  They heard a voice from inside the room. “I pulled you out of there using a special ability I have. I’ve just got to start this fire…” The three Wechselbalg smelled the paper go up.

  “What about Demon?” Tanith asked.

  “Who?” Michael replied, his surprise evident.

  Me, a voice called in Michael’s mind.

  He peered into the back corner of the large room. “Who’s that?” Michael asked.

  “The mountain lion!” Tanith answered, her voice coming through the hole.

  Of course. Michael pressed his lips together, switched to Myst, and headed to where he could feel the other body.

  He found the mountain lion in a sealed glass cage and solidified outside it. “Damned airtight shit,” he muttered, then looked at the mountain lion, who was staring back at him in curiosity, “You might want to move to the far corner,” he said, and was surprised when the cat jumped to the farthest corner in the cage.

  Michael figured there had to be an air inlet somewhere, but he wasn’t going to spend the time to find it.

  That is really hard to break. I’ve tried, the soft voice told him. Raising an eyebrow in the cat’s direction, he smiled. “You’re smart,” Michael muttered as he slammed his fist into the glass, shattering it, “but you need to know your limits.”

  Michael reached up to knock some of the larger pieces out of the window and smiled at the mountain lion, who was still watching him. He clapped his hands together twice. “Come here!”

  Demon could smell the smoke, but she eyed the man and mentally shrugged.

  What did she have to lose? She was heavy, and if nothing else he would probably soften her fall.

  She jumped over the broken glass and had just touched the man’s chest when he disappeared.

  Her eyes opened in surprise as she disappeared as well.

  Lanzhou Region, China

  Benjiro glanced down at his handheld. It had been at least forty minutes since his last message, and still no response from Raiden.

  The soldiers around him had already dismantled the tent and loaded all their tech onto the chopper. He would get the all-clear for departure before much longer.

  He logged into the handheld again, hoping to dislodge any stuck messages.

  Nothing.

  He felt the anxiety in the pit of his stomach. He’d been in tense situations before. Combat situations, even. Nothing compared to this, though. This was their whole raison d’etre. It was the reason he had stayed in the service as a career officer. He had been honored when he was selected for this team, but when Chang Feng was assassinated everything had seemed lost.

  The locations. The leadership.

  Raiden had given them new hope.

  And now he wasn’t responding.

  The sunlight was starting to wane. He wasn’t sure about attacking the hangar in darkness, especially without having surveyed the building in daylight. Sure, satellite images were useful, but they weren’t the same as doing a few loops and getting down on one’s belly button with sights to see what they were dealing with.

  He wandered away from the remains of the camp to think.

  It wasn’t like Raiden to be out of communication even for five minutes. He would have thought the guy took his comm with him to take a shit.

  But even if he was down, the mission was still in play.

  He knew what needed to be done. What they’d been training for all this time. Plus, his country had little left except the legacy of the crates. The crates, whose technology could bring them back from poverty. Make them great again.

  Like Japan.

  He paced a little farther, vaguely aware that his behavior might disturb his men. He needed to walk this through in his mind, though. Assuming he could acquire the crates, as a worst-case scenario he was sure he knew someone who could find a buyer.

  One word on the dark net would see to that.

  He’d have to be careful, though. It wasn’t his domain.

  If not, maybe he could find someone sympathetic to their cause to help them leverage the technology. That would be the preferred option.

  His hand slid to his pocket, searching for his pack of cigarettes.

  Dammit. He’d already smoked them all.

  He took a deep breath, trying to remember the calming effect their smoke had had on his lungs. It was all imagination now.

  His men were carrying the last of the tent’s pieces into the chopper as the engines fired up.

  Ok, Benjiro, first things first. Take out the targets at the hangar and retrieve the crates.

  He strode back toward the chopper while pulling up the screen to contact all the other operatives under his command. He was going to have to call in all the firepower he could put his hands on.

  Chapter Eight

  Japan, Mount Fuji in the distance

  Where am I? Demon asked, perplexed. She could see the room and feel them moving through the room, but she couldn’t feel her body.

  I am taking you out of the room in a different type of…vehicle.

  What is a vehicle?

  What humans use to move around in, sometimes called a “car” or “truck” or “plane,” Michael answered, realizing that he needed to get her to stop asking questions. He had never had a cat in his life, and he wasn’t about to acquire one now.

  Cats were always curious, and he was holding at least a semi-sentient cat due to Fuckwad up there playing with nanocytes. He sighed mentally. What was he going to do with her?

  You know, she commented as Michael slipped through the door. The fire had caught and it was moving from the desk to a bookcase. Then the alarm sounded, and the fire sprinklers dropped from the ceiling and started spraying the room.

  Sonofabitch! Michael grumped as he grabbed the three weres, who were still waiting for him at the bottom of the stairs where he had left them. Would wonders never cease?

  He pulled the three of them into the Myst and was heading upstairs when the second-level door opened and two security guards headed down.

  The two male Wechselbalg started cursing, so Michael snagged those two security guys and rounded up the third as he flew up to the next level.

  “Who wants to play kill the security guards?” Michael asked, and wasn’t too surprised to hear all three of the Wechselbalg volunteer.

  The human security guys whimpered.

  The three Level One security guards were heading toward the stairs when they got there, so he grabbed them as well.

  One of them started screaming like a child seeing a monster movie.

  Michael sped up as he went down a long hallway, ejecting that guard ten feet from the corner where his momentum slammed him into the concrete wall.

  Michael stopped twenty feet later in a twenty-foot-square space, ejecting the three Wechselbalg first and giving them two seconds to prepare before he dropped the five remaining security guards one at a time, one second apart.

  Once he had completed that effort, he headed toward the office in the corner.

  He entered Raiden’s office, where the man was ignoring the fire alarm to focus on his work.

  Just as Michael had ordered.

  HIM! Demon hissed in his mind. He is the one who hurt me. He commanded those who captured me. Give him to me and I will work with you!

  Michael dropped Demon out of the Myst and solidified in the middle of the office. He would have informed the cat that he wasn’t asking her to work with him.

  But she was busy.

  She had Raiden’s neck in her mouth and had already bitten down. The blood sprayed his monitors as she pulled the struggling coder out of his seat.

  Michael’s eyebrows lifted as the man’s gurgling screams finished just four seconds later.

  Demon stood up and put her padded front feet on the desk as she growled her success. The fire in her eyes and the tail swishing behind her in exultation caused Michael to throw up his hands in defeat.

  “Fuck it. Bethany Anne has a dog, and now I’ve got a cat.” He smiled as he opened the door. “C’mon Demon, let’s go see how the others are doing.”

  Michael? Akio called.

  Yes?

  The fire department has been called.

  One second, Michael replied as he located the three Wechselbalg. Gaku had a clean hole through the muscle in his arm. “That will heal nicely,” Michael told him.

  Tanith was cleaning blood off her face. From the purple bruises and what was left of a cut, one of the guards must have given her a good crack in the head.

  Shiang was limping, and there was blood on his leg as well.

  None of Raiden’s guards were awake, however. “That one,” Michael pointed to a guard who had apparently been thrown against the wall, “is still alive.”

  “What would you have us do?” Shiang asked. He wasn’t asking belligerently, just wanted to know.

  Michael pursed his lips and pulled a ball of Etheric energy into his hands. He casually tossed it onto the body, where it started melting the flesh. “Justice is served,” Michael answered. As he started weaving a much larger ball of energy his writhing anger was barely constrained, and he focused on it until it was easily two feet across. “I will take you three away from this place,” he told them. “I hope you don’t need anything here?”

  All three were just telling him they didn’t when Michael pushed the ball away from him into a collection of cubicles. Flames immediately sprang forth. “Time to go!” Michael changed to Myst, grabbed the three Weres, Demon, and sped out of the room.

  Michael grabbed the other programmer too and commanded her to sleep.

  He would wipe her memory after they got out of the building.

  Not finding any other heartbeats, he sent a command to Akio to stay back from the building. Six seconds later there was a massive explosion in the lower three levels, which destroyed them and caused the foundations to crack. Parts of the upper floors tilted and two windows shattered on the top level as furniture went through them to fall to the ground below.

  Twenty minutes later the programmer walked back to her car in a daze. Michael, Demon, and Akio had left after speaking with the Wechselbalg.

  They had a new lead on one of Raiden’s partners.

  By the time they reached the Pod, even Akio was straining under the weight of the cat’s curiosity.

  Abandoned Airfield, One Hundred Fifty Miles North-Northwest of Chengdu

 

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