Fallen Stars (The Demon Accords) (34 page)

I had been aware of roaring from inside the park, just as I was aware the whumping sound was closer.  I/we moved back into the park, noting that no other fail safe units would be needed.  Two more armor soldiers had engaged Awasos.  They were understaffed for the job.   Did you know that a half-ton were-bear can launch a four-hundred-pound, suited man almost two hundred feet?  I didn’t either.  That was result of attempting to just charge directly into my bear.  One massive paw strike, claws catching under the helmet, and a black projectile was flying across the meadow and into a cluster of trees.

The other guy hesitated, clearly rethinking the head-on line of attack.  He raised his arm and pointed it like a weapon. A red muzzle flash and the burring sound of a full auto weapon firing confirmed that it was, in fact, a nasty little piece of ordinance.

'Sos took some rounds but then shimmered into a smaller, more agile canine package that ran into the woods where the first soldier had landed.  A roar accompanied by the sounds of metal tearing told the remaining single soldier that he was now all alone. 

Grim picked up the bent and battered street sign, using another glittery edge on my right hand to clip off the messy clump of shattered concrete.  He did it at an angle, leaving a bit of a spear point on the round metal pipe.   The sign that warned against parking between the hours of 11pm and 5am in place became fletching of a sort, making the sign spin when he threw it, javelin fashion, at the armored soldier.  It flew like a Hellfire missile from an Apache helicopter. Hit him in the hand—or, more accurately, the gun part of his suit’s hand.  The soldier spun to look at us, shaking his arm and pointing it futilely.  Behind him, the inflating package had become a round balloon that rose steadily into the sky, trailing a long line of rope.

Armor guy kept shaking his hand, trying to get his gun working.  He failed to see the streak of black and tan that left the woods in a blur.  It raced up to him, leaped into the air, shimmered, and came down as a much bigger animal.  All four pile-driver feet landed on the soldier at the same time. The energy involved must have exceeded the engineers’ specs.  The suit collapsed and I had another flashback.  The same wolf leap and bear landing, but this time on a nightmare seven-foot stretch of gray-muscled monster, deep in a night-dark forest. 

I blinked, back in the here and now.  Just in time to see the woman holding Toni clip the rope to the harness wrapped around my goddaughter.  Just in time to see, feel, and hear the helicopter shoot past overhead.  To see the balloon get snagged by the bracket on the helicopter’s side, yanking the stretchy rope and snatching my goddaughter into the air, dangling thirty feet below the chopper. 

Chapter 37

Grim ran through the options.  Clip the rope with aura—too dangerous to the dangling little girl, who had gone from zero to one hundred miles per hour in seconds flat.  Crash the copter with aura—again, too dangerous for the same reason.  Jump and grab Toni—we tried, but fell short by twenty-two feet.

Call for
Kirby
to appear in front of the copter and stop its forward movement.  That one almost worked, but the pilot was a pro and jinked the Bell Ranger around the giant shadow hawk that appeared from thin air.  Poor Toni swung like a lead sinker on a fishing line as the helicopter banked around Kirby.

We began to run, flat out, flashing by Gina and Roy, close enough to see the mother’s look of horror on Gina’s face mixed with the regular look of horror from watching us fight.  She’s seen the aftermath many times, but Gina had never been present during a Grim fight.  The fake lovers took off across the park in the opposite direction, but Awasos and I ignored them, concentrating on Toni.

The helicopter was straight-lining it northeast, moving at well over a hundred miles an hour, rapidly leaving us behind. Toni’s figure started to winch closer to the cabin of the helicopter even as she grew smaller to our eyes.

We hopped the fence and ran alongside the beltway that wraps around the top of the park.  Grim was still in charge, focused on the tiny receding image of the chopper.  Most of my emotions had stripped away.  Fear, doubt, compassion for others—all gone.  I was left with worry… tremendous worry for the little girl who had been taken so easily from me.  The worry fed the rage, an all-encompassing tsunami of raw hatred and fury.  The rage fueled our pursuit.

The many drivers on the beltway immediately noticed my furry companion.  Hard to miss a giant wolf running at fifty miles an hour alongside your Mini Cooper or Toyota minivan.  None of them seemed to notice me, though.  An angry man who could keep up with a speeding wolf ought to get at least some attention, but no one so much as looked my way. 

We caught up to a flatbed full of construction equipment and jumped aboard, worming our way in between a front-end loader and a small bulldozer.  Grim touched my wolf and the curious drivers around us promptly forgot about him.  Interesting, that.

The Bell Ranger was long gone, even the thumping sound of its blades having faded, but I knew exactly where it was.  I could even see the terrified little girl huddled in the padded seat, her hand clutching her bear-shaped necklace.

We couldn’t keep up.  But I had a dead lock on her location, one that wasn’t going to fade or disappear—at least as long as she kept her necklace.  So we would follow as fast as we could, taking as direct a route as possible.

The flatbed took us across the Brooklyn Bridge into Manhattan, but when it started to exit into midtown, we jumped off and ran down another loaded truck.  This one was staying on the FDR, heading north, so we let it haul us until it turned toward I-87.  The next truck was loaded with crated Polaris ATVs, and it was headed for I-95 north, which stayed closer to the path the copter had taken and the direction I
knew
Toni to be.  My phone rang and Grim answered it, giving Tanya the bare-bones details of what had happened.  She understood, completely, knowing we had to follow the helicopter as best and as fast as we could.  She would follow us, catching up as quickly as possible once she had marshaled her resources.  My vampire didn’t chastise me or attempt to have us wait for her; none of that.  Just instant comprehension of the problem and what was needed.   Her questions were geared to Grim: short and sharp.  His/my answers were just as brief and bullet quick.  Then I hung up and we settled back, letting the truck haul us along.

At New Haven, we left the flatbed, letting it continue on up I-95 while the compass needle in my head told me that I-91 would be a better choice for us.  We hopped off near the beginning of I-91 and, after a few moments without any appropriate trucks coming by, we headed off the highway and into the surrounding city.  An Italian restaurant near the overpass caught my attention.  First, its smell was amazing and both Awasos and I were starving.  Secondly, a big black Dodge pickup had pulled up just outside the front door, the driver heading in alone like he might be picking up take-out.  We could see him paying for two big aluminum trays of food through the window.  While he chatted with the pretty waitress who took his money, I ripped a set of license plates from another pickup in the lot.

When he came back out, Awasos sat in front of him, which stopped him in his tracks, and I relieved him of his food and keys.

We got back on the highway in our purloined vehicle, Awasos riding in the back with one tray of chicken Alfredo while I shoveled ziti and meatballs into my mouth barehanded.  There was no wrestling with my conscience over the car theft.  Nothing. We needed it, we took it.  Figure out the consequences later.  He was unharmed, just shocked, angry, and scared to death.  He’d get over it; Toni might not.  My Grim side was already planning ahead, the matter forgotten.  The next rest stop, I pulled into a secluded spot and put the stolen plates on the truck.

The truck’s radio did provide a decent news channel that was all abuzz about some strange attack in Brooklyn.  The reporters were frustrated by the lid that Homeland Security had clamped down on the site and witnesses.

We drove on, keeping the speedometer pegged at seventy-four, seventy-five miles per hour.  The truck was only a few years old, and the gas gauge showed a bit over half full.  We drove North, the link to Toni getting stronger, while behind us I could feel Tanya beginning to move our way. 

We drove north for two hours.  Grim was just under the surface, acceding control for regular activities like driving and navigating or stealing cars, but ready to take over for fighting and killing.  Awasos prowled the bed of the truck, alternately whining and growling, finally settling to put his massive head through the cab windows that I slid open.  He could just rest his chin on the broad center console, the rest of his bulk hunched against the frame of the cab.

I kept getting flashes of Toni.  She was scared, but okay.  Every time she clutched her pendant, I got a picture of her.  First, in the back of the chopper and then moving through some complex and now, finally, settled in a cell, talking with two young people who appeared to be prisoners as well.

The pull of the pendant finally took us off I-91 in New Hampshire, about halfway up the state.  We stopped in a little town, Alstead, grabbed McDonalds at the drive-thru to stay fueled, and kept on.  This truck would be a wanted vehicle by now, its description and original plates on every law enforcement system in the country.  Who knew when the other truck owner would realize his plates were missing and report them?

None of that mattered as our luck held and we failed to see a single cop anywhere on the back, wooded roads of New Hampshire.  I had to backtrack three times to find the right combination of roads to get nearer to where the pendant pulled me.  Finally, an hour after leaving the highway, we were there.  A long stretch of houseless road, deep in the woods.  One gated driveway that stretched back into the forest. 

Mounted cameras on the gateposts and
No Trespassing
signs confirmed what the pull of the pendant was telling me.  Toni was behind that gate, somewhere in a big complex.  Now it was time to go get her.

Chapter 38

I drove past the gate without slowing, holding 'Sos’s head to keep him from sitting up and staring at the cameras.  Two miles east of the driveway, I pulled off into a snow plow turnaround, which is basically just a short patch of tarmac poking out from the side of the road.

We left the truck and slipped into the woods, 'Sos on soft predator’s paws and Grim moving forward to guide my steps.  My senses expanded as they always do when he takes over, like a driver adjusting the seat and mirrors of another’s car.  It had taken close to four hours to get this far and late afternoon had settled on the hilly forest, the woods beginning to quiet as night approached.  We stalked into the wind, almost immediately picking up the scent of man and dog.

Grim slowed and stopped, pausing to build a mental map of what lay ahead.  Sounds echoed and reflected, scents swirled in the warm afternoon air, and a picture grew.  A softly burbling stream ran along the bottom of a small drainage depression that rose gradually toward the location we were interested in.  We moved into it, working our way upstream, letting the water sounds block what little noise we created, just as the westerly wind blew our scent away behind us. 

A mile closer, we paused, rebuilding the mental map with more detail and this time with the position of the first team of man and dog we had smelled.  There were two distinct teams who they appeared to be circling the property on opposite sides of the perimeter.   The closest team was two men and one dog, although its scent was odd.  We sank low in the thick vegetation and observed.

Two soldiers, both in digital camouflage, and an oversized dog.  The men carried odd-looking rifles that I couldn’t identify, and the dog was some strange mix of mastiff and Rottweiler.  It was built oddly, with bulging shoulders and a flat forehead that somehow looked too small.

The men were professional, quiet, and alert.  White cords trailed from their right ears and I focused my hearing on them.  At first, the distance was too great, even for my hearing.  But as their patrol path brought them closer to where we lay, I could first hear voices and then finally make them out.

“…
reports that the target is moving this way and could
arrive onsite in as little as two hours.  Drones will launch in thirty minutes to get on station.  Perimeter patrol, at 1700 hours, one team member will begin sweeping with thermal.  Acknowledge.”

Each of the soldiers immediately touched a small button on the wire that ran to their throat mikes and clicked it repeatedly.  The one with the dog leash clicked three times, the other four. That one carried an armored tablet computer which he kept checking as they walked.

“Won’t it still be light at 1700?” the dog handler asked in a whisper.

“Yeah, but Control wants us to get in the groove with all our gear long before this Brutal Asset guy can get here.  That’s why the drones are going up in a half-hour.  The drone drivers will have baseline reading on all their sensors long before the action starts.  They’ll be alert to the littlest thing.”

“Is all this really necessary?  I mean, that little girl just got here a couple hours ago.  How’s this asset guy supposed to find her so fast?”

“You pay attention to
anything
, Razor?  They don’t know how he does what he does, just that he does it.  The whole kidnap team is gone—dead.  The guys in the armor barely bought the others enough time to get the kid airborne.”