Omega Force 01- Storm Force (27 page)

He barely had time to register the front door being kicked in, or Mori’s screams, or the bear of a man barreling toward him with a bellow of rage and arms as strong as a Louisiana cypress.

Before the splintered door swung
all the way open, half of it crashing to the floor, Michael had come
straight at Kell with the power of a locomotive. Mori
didn’t wait to see whether Kell was conscious after
his head had cracked into the footboard of the bed. She focused on calling her
wolf, and the wolf came with a painful, violent shudder.

Her
shoulder hit the desk chair as she dropped to knees, which were rapidly
replaced by paws. Her fastest shift yet.

She raised her head, watching for
a split second as Michael, screaming in rage, spittle flying from his mouth, beat Kell’s head against
the wooden footboard a second time.

Before
he could crush Kell’s skull, Mori gathered the power
in her wolf’s back legs and launched, landing on Michael’s back. She dug into
the nape of his neck with her teeth, biting hard, shaking her head. She tasted
blood, and she wanted more.

But not yet. She leapt to the side when
Michael reacted as she’d expected, releasing Kell and
grabbing for her.

When
he caught only empty air, he too shifted — but not as fast as she had. They
stared at each other, wolf to wolf. She waited for him to come after her, but
instead, he backed up. What was he doing?

Mori’s wolf didn’t react fast
enough when Michael spun and sank his teeth into Kell’s
calf. Kell was unconscious, so he couldn’t fight
back. And that was the second bite.

There
couldn’t be a third, or Kell would be a hybrid if he
survived, compelled to do whatever Michael dictated. Mori couldn’t let that
happen.

She
threw the full weight of her wolf into a shoulder tackle, and they tumbled away
from Kell, crashing into the desk. One of the
fluorescent lanterns fell on Michael’s head, and he responded with a snarl, his
gaze again coming to rest on the unconscious man.

Mori
had to draw him away from the cabin. Kell hadn’t even
been willing to undergo back surgery because it carried the risk that he’d lose
control over part of his life. He’d rather die than become Michael’s property
and become no more than a puppet. She had to protect him, and she had to win.

With
a soft growl, she backed toward the door, willing him to follow her. He looked
at her, glanced over his bleeding shoulder at Kell, then stared at her again. With a heavy thud of paws and a
low growl, Michael followed her.

The
rain fell in hard, heavy drops, and the wind blew it in horizontal sheets.
Visibility was all but nonexistent. The water seemed to be rising fast, which
had to mean the storm had gotten to shore and was pushing in the sea ahead of
it.

Wolves
were powerful on land, but not on water — at least not for distances or in this
kind of weather — and certainly not steering a boat. Mori needed her hands.

While Michael’s wolf watched from
the porch of the cabin, she turned and raced toward the end of the dock,
leaping into the
Belle Teche
. She landed on a middle seat, her paws scrabbling
against the wet fiberglass until she found purchase. Then she ran toward the
back of the boat, willing herself to shift.

By
the time she reached the motor and ripped off the cover, she had hands.

Again,
Michael’s reaction was slower, which told Mori she’d hurt him with her bite to
the neck today — and, with any luck, he had remaining pain from the fight
yesterday in Galveston. He’d lost a lot of blood from Kell’s
knife wound.

He
shifted as he loped along the dock, but before he reached the end, she’d managed
to propel the boat away from the cabin, using her hands to try and bail the
standing water out of the boat’s bottom.

Michael
glanced back at the far side of the porch, where a second boat had been tied
up, not visible from the front door. So that’s how he’d gotten here. All those
bumps and thuds hadn’t been Trey’s boat, but Michael’s. How had they let him
slip up on them? How had he managed to follow them?

A
chill stole across Mori’s scalp when she took another look at the boat. She
recognized the distinctive blue markings on the side — she’d seen that vessel
last night in the boathouse alongside the
Belle
Teche
.

The only way Michael could have
found them out here was through someone who both knew they were here and knew
the area well enough to give directions. Which meant Trey Kellison, who didn’t seem the type to have given up that
information easily. If Michael had hurt Trey or one of his family
members, Kell would never forgive himself.

But
before forgiveness, they had to survive.

Mori steered the
Teche
farther
along the bayou, forced to go slowly so she could squint through the rain that
blended water and shore into one gray blur. Finally, she reached the bend that
would take her out of sight of the cabin. She looked back and tamped the motor
down, scanning the dock for Michael. She wasn’t even sure she could see the
dock anymore. The water was rising fast, and the normally smooth water of the
bayou roiled and rolled.

The
roar of a second motor finally reached her, and she strained to see, scrubbing
the rain out of her eyes and putting the
Teche
back in motion. By the time
she saw Michael, his boat had rounded the corner and headed straight for her.

The
smaller boat was lighter and faster, and Mori had little experience in boating —
not like Michael, who took his yacht on the regattas that ran from Galveston to
South Padre. He was outmaneuvering her, and she wasn’t sure what to do about it,
except to keep going.

Michael
tried to pull the small boat alongside the
Teche
and got close enough for
Mori to read
Belle Bleu
on the hull
before she jerked the tiller to the side. The bump caused Michael to lose his
balance.

She
sped up, weaving the
Teche
from side to side to make it harder for Michael to pull alongside again. But he
tracked her movement and compensated for it. When she next cut left, the prows
of the boats collided with a crack of fiberglass, crunch of glass, and roar of
motors with no place left to go. Both motors died, and their sudden silence
made the roar of the rain and wind seem even louder.

Mori
found herself on her ass in the bottom of the boat, sitting in several inches
of water. She scrambled up to see Michael climbing aboard the
Teche
.

“Time to go home, Mori!” Michael shouted with enough force
for the cords to stand out in his neck, but Mori could barely hear him over the
storm. Behind him, the tops of bald cypress and water tupelos bent horizontally
with the wind, and Mori had to grasp the side of the
Teche
to stay upright.

Michael
used the side benches to pull himself toward her, while Mori backed up as far
as she could. Panic threatened to overtake her, and she shifted without meaning
to, her wolf’s feet underwater to the first joint. But with the lower center of
gravity, she handled the wind better on all fours.

Michael
laughed and shifted as well, pacing through the water toward her.

Damn
it, she would not go out whimpering and waiting for him to kill her. She ran
toward him, propelling herself out of the water and pushing him backward with
her momentum.

Water
was in her ears, her eyes, her mouth — but also fur and blood.

A
massive paw caught her on the muzzle and pushed her head under the water in the
bottom of the boat. Mori stilled, unable to breathe, and felt the sharp bite of
Michael’s teeth on her throat.

Once
he had her pinned, he allowed her to lift her muzzle from the water. They were
frozen in this position for what seemed like forever, although Mori knew it
couldn’t have been more than seconds.

The
stupid, stupid man still thought he could get what he wanted. He was giving her
the chance to submit, wolf to wolf, in exchange for her life. A few days ago,
she would have, thinking she could at least keep Kell
safe.

Now
she knew Kell’s only hope was for her not just to
survive but to conquer. And sometimes, to win, the good guys had to stop
playing by the rules.

She
willed her muscles to relax and whined to indicate her submission. Michael’s
wolf relinquished his hold on her neck. They stared at each other, rain dripping
off his face onto hers.

Mori
raised her head and licked the muzzle of Michael’s wolf in another sign of
submission and obedience — and then bit as hard as she could. She locked her
jaws and held on as he tried to shake her off, unable to reach her with his own
teeth.

Blood
poured into her mouth, and she relished it, keeping her jaws clamped as
Michael’s wolf tried to roll, then shake.

Finally,
he slammed himself against the side of the boat hard enough that she lost her
grip and tumbled overboard, hitting the water on her back and going under.

Mori’s
first instinct was panic, and she used her legs to bring herself to the
surface. Dires were big animals with heavy muscle,
which made them poor swimmers. But while Michael had more experience with
boats, Mori had been on her college swim team, her long arms and legs well suited
to moving her through water.

She’d
sink when she shifted, so she tried to steel herself for that and focused, but
nothing happened. Her wolf’s legs kept pumping, telling her survival instincts
they had to keep moving.

She
thought of Kell, lying on the floor of that cabin,
unconscious, with the water rising so fast it could be seeping through the
floorboards at any minute. The thought was enough to force her legs to stop
struggling to keep her afloat, and she let herself go under.

The
shift seemed agonizing and slow, and by the time it was done, Mori’s burning
lungs felt as if they would burst. She’d like to know where Michael was — and
whether or not he’d shifted before she resurfaced — but she couldn’t wait.

She
swept her arms to the side and kicked upward, trying to come up for air as
close as she could to the dark shadow of the boat visible from below.

With
a gasp, she surfaced face-first, struggling even then to get a deep breath of
air with the rough water and the blinding rain. The only consolation was that
Michael couldn’t see any better than she could in this mess.

Something
grabbed her ankle, and she barely had a chance to suck in a lungful of air and
rain before she went under again.

Beneath
the water, the world was eerily silent. The rain pelted the surface above her
with muffled beats, but the wind-driven currents remained silent. Visibility
was poor, but not so poor that she couldn’t see the big hand clutching her
ankle.

Using
the last of her energy, Mori twisted in an imitation of an alligator death roll
while kicking at Michael’s head with her free foot. The spin did it. He let her
go, and she swam not for the shore but for open water.

Normally
the water of the bayou, which came off one of many branches of the Atchafalaya
River, flowed south toward the Gulf. But with the hurricane pushing the water
ashore ahead of it, the bayou — and Mori along with it — pushed north, away
from the cabin.

She
let it carry her along, keeping her focus on breathing, on staying afloat. So
far, she hadn’t seen Michael behind her, although he’d proven himself adept at
sneaking up on her today.

To
her right, a portion of the bayou branched off, and she followed the swell of
water into an area of mixed water and land, the swamp grasses growing in
clumps. It looked like a dead end, but maybe it would give her a place to catch
her breath and hide from Michael.

Here,
unlike on the main branch of the bayou, she saw the cypress knees Kell had talked about, sticking out of the swirling, muddy
water like skeletal fingers next to the huge trees they helped nourish and
support.

Shoulder
and thigh muscles burning from the work of keeping herself above water, Mori
made her way to the most solid-looking of the knees, sheltered from the main
part of the inlet and tucked a bit out of sight of the main swell of Bayou Cote
Blanche.

There
wasn’t enough unbroken waterway to swim here, so she pulled herself along using
some of the flotons — literally “floating land”
covered in grasses — Kell had shown her last night.
It looked solid enough to step on, but there were no guarantees. One step in
the wrong spot, and a person would sink right through it and straight into the
water.

Finally,
Mori pulled herself to the cypress knee she’d been working toward. She wrapped
her arms around it, taking comfort from the smooth, wet wood and thankful for a
couple of knotty areas she’d found below to rest her feet on.

There
was no sign of Michael, and given her first chance to indulge in speculation
since opening the door of the cabin and finding Michael’s macabre calling card,
Mori’s mind went back to Kell. Would Michael give up
on her and go back to the cabin? Whether or not he thought she was dead, would
he try to finish turning Kell into a hybrid, just out
of spite?

He
would.

Mori had to get back to the
cabin.

A
swirl of water rose over her mouth and nose, and she scrambled higher onto the
cypress knee. The water had risen at least an inch in just the minute she’d
been there. At some point, and soon, her wooden sanctuary would be underwater,
and again, she’d have to swim for it.

Back to Kell.

Two of the earth’s biggest dust bunnies stared at Kell from beneath the bed. Or was it three bunnies? And why
was a high school drum corps pounding out a dissonant rhythm in his head?

Groaning,
Kell rolled onto his back and struggled to hang onto
his cookies until the wave of nausea subsided. Above him, two beams spanned the
ceiling of the cabin where he knew good and well there
was only one. He closed his eyes. Maybe if he slept a while longer, he’d wake
up from the world’s most realistic dream.

Except,
the vision his mind conjured up — a snarling, shouting Michael Benedict,
bursting into the cabin and knocking him to kingdom come and back — was no
vision. He remembered his skull cracking against the footboard of the bed, but
nothing after that.

Where
the hell is Mori?

Kell sat up too fast and had to grab the desk chair to keep
from fainting or throwing up from the nausea spins — or both. When the Tilt-A-Whirl
sensation eased, he rolled to his knees and pulled himself onto the bed with
his right hand.

Funny
how his left hand didn’t seem to hurt as badly now that jackhammers were going
off in his skull and his back was in full spasm mode.

He’d
closed his eyes and almost faded out again when the banging of the front door
startled him back to awareness. That big son of a bitch had broken his
grandfather’s cypress door. Part of it lay in splinters on the floor, while the
rest swung open and shut on worthless hinges with every gust of wind.

The
rain blew horizontally from the south, which meant either the eye of the
hurricane hadn’t arrived yet or he’d slept through it.

There would be time to have a
concussion later. For now, Mori was out there somewhere with that sociopathic
jackass, and Kell had to find her.

He stood up and congratulated
himself on staying upright — at least until he staggered to the desk and upchucked the remains of his protein bar in the trash can.

From
his new vantage point, leaning over with his face resting on the desk within
easy puking distance of the trash, he could see the dock — or, rather, the
expanse of water where the dock used to be. The storm surge hadn’t brought
brackish floodwater into the cabin yet, but another foot,
and he’d be in a wading pool. There was no sign of Trey’s boat. Had they taken
it, or had it become untethered in the rising water? Could wolves swim? Of the
questions he’d asked Mori, that one hadn’t occurred to
him. Dogs could swim, but not all of them liked it or were good at it.

No
time to worry about that now. Kell took a deep breath
and stood upright again, getting his legs under him before shuffling to the
door. No fast movements because his head might explode. No sudden turns because
his back might give way. He’d never felt more pathetic and useless. How could
he help Mori if it took his every ounce of strength just to walk across the
room?

Her
voice came to him, and the look on her face when
they’d talked this morning about going after Benedict together. They’d agreed
she was physically stronger than him, even if he were at a hundred percent. But
he had the ability to think strategically and to plan, even if he were injured.

Benedict
was strong and smart — he’d give the son of a bitch that much. But he also ran
on emotion, usually anger. Emotional people made bad decisions, and Kell would bet emotional Dire Wolves did as well.

He
could find them if he was smart, thorough, and dispassionate. This was just
another mission. The target, Michael Benedict, was on the move, with an unknown
destination. His choices were limited, however, especially in this weather, and
Kell knew the terrain.

Mori
might be with him, and she might not. His target had to be Benedict.

First,
he needed to be able to maneuver the best he could, given his injuries.
Pretending they weren’t there hadn’t worked out so well for him. The time for
being stubborn and stupid was done.

Turning slowly, he made his way
to the corner of the sleeping area and moved the fluorescent lantern off the
top of a trunk that served as a bedside table.

The
old leather trunk was one of the few things Kell had
of his grandfather’s. He’d found it in the attic of his parents’ house after
they died, and moved it out to Cote Blanche when he put the place in Jeanerette
on the market.

Pulling
open the lid with his right hand, he stared at the item on top. He’d been such
a fucking dickhead. He’d been given a back brace when he was sent home from his
last tour, and had he ever worn it? Hell no. Mr. Macho had seen it as a sign of
weakness. He was a Ranger, a man’s man. He could tough through the pain. That’s
what Rangers trained for — persevering through adverse conditions, never giving
up.

They
hadn’t
been trained to be stupid,
prideful idiots. No, he’d learned that all by himself.

He
fitted the brace around his waist and cinched it good and tight. The effect was
immediate, with the muscles surrounding his spine no longer straining to
support his upper body without help.

Next,
a weapons check. Kell dug in his duffel and pulled
out the lightweight black muscle shirt that went with the combat pants. They’d
been made of some high-tech fabric that didn’t absorb water, so they were
perfect for working in these conditions.

He pulled out the rifle and
looked from it to the rising water. There was no point in taking it. He made
sure it was ready to fire and stashed it on the ledge above the front door.
He’d know it was there if he needed it.

Kell’s head felt like it had been stuffed with cotton and
nails, but he forced himself to keep moving. He took the Beretta and strapped
on the shoulder holster. At the apartment in Houston, he had a specially fitted
holster that nestled the gun at the back of his neck, at his collar line, but
wishing for it didn’t accomplish anything. He’d have to keep the Beretta as dry
as he could and hope like hell it fired if he needed it.

His
knives had been lost in the Galveston fiasco, so Kell
returned to the trunk. He seemed to remember some of his granddad’s old hunting
knives being stashed there.

He
pulled out a box of letters and mementoes he’d always meant to go through, but
hadn’t found the time or the right frame of mind; a few photographs, mostly of
relatives he didn’t recognize anymore; a big, folded piece of burlap that had
been used for God only knew what; an old, rusty thermometer from the 1930s,
about a foot long and sporting a big gold and red logo for Shell Oil Company; and
below that, the knives.

One,
a pocketknife, had a cracked handle and was so worn Benedict would be able to
kill Kell before he ever got the damned thing open.
The other was a jewel — long, with a serrated edge and a good grip. It had been
well cared for, and even had an aroma of ancient oil. His grandfather had probably
used it to skin gators back when such things were legal. Now, a thirty-day
gator season was all the swampers had, and Kell thought it was plenty. Not to sound like one of Mori’s
tree-hugging friends, but people had almost killed off the gators in the 1970s
and they were as much a part of life in the bayou as the cormorants and egrets.

Kell took the burlap, wrapped it around the knife blade,
and looked around for something to carry it in. He’d left his own backpack at Nik’s, but Mori’s sat inside the door next to the life
jackets.

He
opened it, took out her wallet and phone, and set them on the desk, along with
an assortment of pens and a couple of small notebooks. And that damned contract
promising her to Benedict — it went on the desk, too.

Before
sliding the knife into the pack, he unwrapped it again
and used it to cut a big square out of one of the tarps. This, he used to wrap
the Beretta’s barrel and grip, leaving only the trigger exposed. Might work,
might not.

He placed the knife back in the
pack and looked around for anything else that might prove useful.

A
pole in one corner caught his eye — he’d brought it in off Trey’s boat when he
removed the cover. Brilliant. If he could swim to the
nearest bank without losing everything, it would be the perfect tool to use in
navigating flotons, to test their solidity.

He
took one last look around, mentally ticking through everything he saw and
gauging its worth. A tarp would keep the rain out of his eyes, but would be
cumbersome to carry and impossible to swim with. Foodstuffs were useless; he
didn’t plan to be out there that long. The life jacket would be helpful in the
storm, but too bulky with the other stuff he needed to carry.

His
gaze passed over the old Shell Oil memento, then returned to it. He stuffed it
in the bag with the knife.

Slipping
his arms through the straps of the backpack, he adjusted the fit to make it snug,
then secured the bottom strap around his waist. He
reached up and loosened the pack’s flap enough to stick his right hand inside,
and positioned the knife handle so he could make a quick draw if he needed to.

Taking
a deep breath, Kell stepped onto the porch and
squinted through the gray gloom. His watch said it was noon, but it looked more
like dusk. The dark, swaying outlines of the trees along the bayou were vague
shadows. Nearly unrecognizable as they were, if he hadn’t known them so well,
he might have thought them giants dancing in the storm.

The
water seemed to have crested in the last few minutes, which he hoped meant the
eye of the hurricane was drawing close. The dock remained passable.

A
gust of wind caught the backpack and almost blew him off the porch. He was too
top-heavy. Kell descended to a crouch, moving his
center of gravity lower, and splashed his way to the end of the dock, ignoring
the protests from his back.

He
knelt at the end and looked around. Nothing within his limited field of vision
looked out of place, so he scanned what he could see of the shoreline, which
wasn’t much. The water ran down his face in streams and hit him like a slap
when he faced the south, into the wind.

He
couldn’t see much, but he knew this bayou. The bank on the south side looked
closer, but the water between the cabin and the north bank was normally more shallow and less likely to be clogged with tangled
underbrush invisible from the surface. He doubted the storm surge would change
that.

Plus,
the north side usually had more flotons. In a boat,
they were a nuisance. On foot, they would help him navigate.

Kell wedged the end of the aluminum pole into the backpack
and took a few seconds to get centered, to transport himself mentally back to
his training. One of the tests to be admitted to Ranger School was a series of
water-combat survival exercises, including a distance swim wearing full combat
gear, and that shit was a lot heavier than what he carried now. The exercises
were the easy part, designed to weed out who would and wouldn’t get into the
program. Then they got to the real Ranger training. The final sixteen days of
Ranger School had been spent in Florida, testing swamp-survival skills under
extreme conditions and low rations.

So Kell had done this before. The hurricane added an extra
twist, but he could do it.

“Rangers
lead the way,” he announced to the wind, then took a deep breath and jumped in feetfirst. He let himself drop to the bottom, adjusting to
the pressure of the water and the weight of the wet pack before launching
himself back toward the surface.

Although
he hadn’t thought about it when deciding which way to swim, heading for the
north bank meant the wind and rain slashed at his back, helping to move him
along.

He
swam in steady strokes, cursing every time his swollen left hand hit the water.
Splash,
shit
, splash,
shit
. When the bank was clearly within
view, he pushed on for a few more strokes before lowering his feet. Normally,
from this spot, the water would hit him mid-calf. Now, it lapped just beneath
his armpits.

Can Mori swim?
He pushed the thought
aside and struggled to the bank. Benedict was his target. Benedict had to be
his focus.

He
pulled the pole free of the backpack and used it as a walking stick, placing it
on the muddy bayou bottom and pushing himself out of the water and onto the
bank. The land was solid there — at least by Atchafalaya Swamp standards — running
in a narrow, tree-filled ridge that, on summer days, was full of birds and the
lazy rustle of Spanish moss.

Most
of the moss was gone, and the trees were denuded of leaves. Probably
blown halfway to Lafayette by now. A lot of limbs littered the ground,
but the wind levels had dropped, and Kell no longer
worried about being hit by projectiles.

The
eye must have finally moved ashore. The rain slackened and, within seconds,
stopped.

Kell looked at the sky, where there was an impossible bank
of clouds to his north and, moving overhead, a clear patch of blue sky so rich
and clear it didn’t seem real. The eyewall
and eye of Geneva.

He
might have an hour, maybe two, before the back half of the storm slammed them
with even more force. It all depended on how big the eye was and how fast it
was moving now that it was over land.

It
was time to move.

Kell got to his feet and used the pole to test the land
around him, making sure he didn’t wander off solid ground and onto a floton. It wasn’t infallible, and twice, he ended up
stepping onto what he thought was solid earth before sinking waist deep. Then
the pole became a lever to get himself unstuck.

He
froze at the sound of a nearby splash, and crouched low, peering through the
grass. It was too big a splash for a fish unless it was a gator gar or catfish,
and the alligators would be chilling on the bottom of the bayou until the storm
passed.

Not
a fish or gator, but something bigger and nastier.