Omega Force 01- Storm Force (28 page)

Swimming
across the span of bayou toward the dock was Michael Benedict.

Target
identified. Game on.

The storm surge had finally dislodged Mori from her
cypress knee perch, and she’d had to swim back to the main channel of the
bayou. Finally, she struggled onto solid land and scrambled beneath a massive
water oak, curling herself between the roots that twisted through the shallow, landlike arteries.

She’d
give a lot for clothes right now, or at least one of those electric-blue tarps
sitting back in the cabin. But she rested in the shelter of the tree to catch
her breath and make a plan.

For
the first time in what seemed like hours, Mori thought the water levels had
dropped a little — or at least weren’t getting higher. The wind seemed to be
dying, and the rain, although it remained heavy, wasn’t hard enough to pelt her
skin. At the height of the storm, it had stung like buckshot.

She
had to get back to Kell, had to see if he’d regained
consciousness, had to make sure the water levels hadn’t flooded the cabin while
he was out cold. He’d been lying facedown last time
she saw him. It wouldn’t take much to drown.

She
had to make sure Michael wouldn’t return to the cabin and finish the job he’d
started by biting Kell.

The
first step would be to get within eyesight of the cabin. She looked out at the
water, which had calmed considerably, and realized she could see farther than
even a few minutes ago. The rain was softening.

This
must be the storm’s eye, then.

She
could move more easily now, and if she could, so could Michael.

Mori
stood up and decided to shift. She could move with more stealth on land as her
wolf, and she would try to stay on land until she got the cabin within view. Her
senses would also be sharper. If Michael were out here, she wanted to surprise
him for a change, not the other way around.

The
shifts hurt more each time, and drained more energy from her. She’d done it too
often, too fast, and it was taking a toll. Once the shift had been completed
and her bones and muscles and tendons had reshaped themselves unhappily once
more, she moved away from her shelter at the base of the tree.

The
air smelled of mud, and fish popped to the surface of their suddenly deeper habitat.
Dead fish littered the waters of the bayous after a storm surge, or at least
Mori remembered reading that somewhere. The fish couldn’t get enough oxygen
with all the influx of storm water.

But
the dead and dying fish would feed the gators and the birds, so it all evened
out. Too bad Michael couldn’t accidentally ingest a few mercury-riddled
catfish. It didn’t take much at all. Actually, one big, whiskered mudcat would do the job.

Mori
picked her way along the soggy ground, a paw occasionally sliding through what
looked like a solid patch of grass-covered earth and reaching water underneath.
Flotons had made her way into the inlet easier, but
now that she was walking, they posed a hazard.

Another
paw slipped through, and she found her front legs tangled in the mass of grass
and underbrush. Her wolf wanted to run, but she forced herself to remain still,
then back up the way she’d come. One front paw finally pulled free and then the
other.

She
had to move even slower, lowering one foot at a time to the ground to test her
weight. If it held, then she could attempt the second foot. At this rate, she’d
never get back to the cabin. Still, she pushed on. The last shift had exhausted
her, and she didn’t know how many she had left in her before her energy failed
and she was stuck in whatever form she happened to be in at the time.

She
reached the bend in the bayou that would lead her back to the cabin. Mori was
about to try and shift one last time, to swim the wide expanse of water to the
dock. But then she scented them.

The
stronger of the two was Michael, but farther away, she could sense Kell. They were out here somewhere.

Looking
around, her sharp eyes assessing any movement, she nosed along the bank. She
hadn’t realized before because of the dark last night and the storm this
morning, but the land jutted out a bit south of the cabin and offered a shorter
swim. Kell would know that.

Michael’s
scent was strongest, though. It was a human scent, so he wasn’t in wolf form.

His
trail ended at the water’s edge, within sight of the dock, although not at the
land’s closest point. She saw him, finally, his head bobbing above the smooth
water. He reached the dock, and maybe it was her imagination, but he held on to
the dock mooring for a few seconds before hefting himself up.

Maybe
he was as freaking tired as she was. She knew he had more injuries, and fatigue
would slow his healing. This might be her only chance.

Still,
she’d scented Kell on the bank, and it had to be new —
the heavy rains would have washed away anything from before the hurricane.
She’d keep an eye on the cabin but check on Kell
first.

Nose
to the ground, she snuffled and inched her way along the bank, careful to stay
behind trees and in the taller grasses as much as possible.

She
stopped to sniff an aluminum pole with Kell’s scent
all over it. He’d used it, and recently. A patch of burlap,
too.

At
the sound of a splash, she cautiously lifted her head above the line of thick
grass and looked toward the cabin. Michael had gone inside, apparently, as there
was no sign of him. Then movement in the water caught her eye, and she ran to
the waterline.

Kell was swimming to the cabin and had almost reached the
dock.

Mori’s
wolf opened her mouth to howl, to warn Kell. But then
she snapped her jaws shut. She’d also be warning Michael. Kell’s
best advantage would be surprise.

She
said a prayer of thanks as she lowered herself onto her side and willed her
body to shift one final time, hoping the prone position would make it easier.
She was thankful Kell was not only alive but strong
enough to swim and not injured so badly he couldn’t think. He had to have seen
Michael going into the cabin, and he was going after him.

The shift happened even slower
than before, and Mori knew she’d reached her absolute limit. She lay on the wet
ground, her lungs sucking at the thick, moist air for oxygen, waiting for her muscles
to stop screaming at the repeated abuse.

She rolled to her knees and
crawled down the slight embankment toward the water. This time, she welcomed
the floton when she splashed through it. The longer
she could stay camouflaged, the better.

Mori made her way parallel to the
bank, staying hidden while Kell hefted himself to the
dock. He flexed his left hand as he crouched low and shrugged out of what
looked like her backpack. He pulled a long knife from it,
along with something else she couldn’t make out, and crept along the dock
toward the cabin.

Time to get
moving. Once
she was slightly behind the cabin, Mori launched herself into the water,
swimming with as little splash and noise as she could.

She glided to the edge of the
porch, then reached up and used her fingertips to pull herself high enough to
peer over the edge. Kell’s feet disappeared through
the doorway. At the sound of shouts and a loud crash, she dropped back into the
water and swam for the end of the dock as fast as she could, no longer worrying
about stealth.

She finally reached the rope
ladder and pulled herself onto the dock. The adrenaline pumping through her
body like wildfire, she ran the length of the dock and reached the porch as a
loud blast sounded from inside the door.

She paused outside, trying to look
through the broken parts of the door to see who’d done the shooting.

“Missed the
heart, you little shit.”
Michael’s voice rasped with anger or pain — Mori couldn’t tell which.

She heard two clicks, and then Kell’s handgun hit the floor.

“Now you can meet me like a man.”
Michael came within Mori’s view. His chest was coated in blood. The bullet might
have missed his heart, but it could have nicked a lung.

“And there you are.” His gaze
landed on Mori, heavy as an anvil. “Just in time to see your
lover turn into an obedient little pet. One more bite, and even a bitch
like you won’t touch him.”

Mori pushed her way through the
door, glancing at Kell. He was breathing heavily, but
she didn’t see any blood on him. In his right hand, he clutched the long knife
he’d pulled from her backpack. She couldn’t see what was in his left hand, but
she doubted, given his injuries, it was any kind of weapon that required much
dexterity.

“Michael, it’s not too late to
end this and go back to your life, back to your fiancée.” Mori circled the room
until she stood facing Kell. Michael couldn’t go
after both of them at once, and she wanted him coming for her. Mori doubted she
could shift again, but maybe he couldn’t, either.

Kell was staring at her and frowning.
She caught his gaze, and he tilted his head slightly toward the door. Did he
really think she’d leave him here? But when she glanced toward the door, she
saw something barely visible on the shelf above it. It looked like a wooden box.
No, it was the handle of the rifle she’d seen in Kell’s
duffel back in Houston, when he had ditched his parents’ blue Terminator and
set this train in motion.

The only problem was, Mori had never handled a rifle. She’d used a shotgun back
at the ranch, however. When they’d go riding, it was a requirement in case of
rattlesnakes.

She dipped her head in a slow nod
to show him she understood, and sidestepped closer to the door. It wasn’t a
very tall door; Michael had had to stoop a little to come through it. She
should be able to reach the rifle without standing on anything.

“Planning on running away, Mori?
Leaving your little human here to his fate? Probably not a
bad idea.”

“Like you’d let me walk away,
right?” Mori took another step toward the door. “Because even
if you turn Kell hybrid, if I walk away, you lose.
So maybe I will walk out on the porch, take a swim. I’m a better swimmer than
you, you know? Actually, it’s becoming pretty clear I’m better than you at a
lot of things.”

Michael’s attention was riveted
to her now, his face an ugly shade of beet red. Kell
took the opportunity, running at Michael and burying the long knife hilt deep
in Michael’s bloody chest. Michael struck out with a powerful right arm as Kell gritted his teeth and tried to twist the blade of the
knife under the rib cage to get at Michael’s black heart.

With a feral sound between a roar
and a howl, Michael backhanded Kell, who hit the far
wall hard enough to jar a handful of the carved wooden pieces and unframed
drawings off a shelf several feet away.

Mori didn’t wait to see whether Kell was OK. She raced the remaining steps to the door and
pulled the rifle down, fumbling as she managed to chamber a shot and aim it.

The movement caught Michael’s
attention, and he turned to face her, holding his hands out to his sides. Empty hands. “You think you can kill me face-to-face, little
girl? With me unarmed? Go ahead, then. I don’t think you have it in you.”

Mori swallowed hard, her fingers
shaking as she wrapped her right index finger around the trigger. “I will kill
you,” she whispered. “I swear I will.”

Michael laughed and turned away
from her to face Kell. “She can’t do it, Sergeant.
Sorry. Your only hope just turned out to be what I said she was all along — a
spoiled, useless little girl.”

“Not so useless.” Kell’s voice was surprisingly calm and steady. It had to be
his training kicking in, because Mori was anything but calm and steady. She
tracked Michael’s movement within the rifle’s sight. “You still need her.”

“Don’t go any closer to him.”
Even to herself, Mori sounded shrill and scared.

Michael shook his head at her.
“Stop pretending to be what you aren’t, Emory. Your only value is as a
broodmare, so you might as well accept it. And I’ll have a new employee. I
think a man with military ties would be useful, don’t you? One who has to do
anything I say?”

He stood only a couple of feet in
front of Kell now, and Mori tensed. One more move,
and she had to pull the trigger. If he took another step, she might miss and
hit Kell instead. Why couldn’t she shoot him?

The
moment seemed frozen, until one motion set off everything at once. Michael made
another step, and Mori gritted her teeth and pulled the trigger. The blast was
deafening, echoing around the small cabin. Kell
shouted something and reached out with his left hand to press it against
Michael’s neck.

Michael’s
eyes widened, and he stepped back, looking down in
confusion. Mori was confused, too. She saw a bullet lodged in the wood an inch
or two past Michael’s head. Her shot had gone wide, thrown off by the
unfamiliar recoil. Fingers shaking, she managed to chamber another round and
aim again.

“You
told him?” Michael turned to her, his face a pasty mask of shock. “You betrayed
us? With him?”

Michael
coughed up a clotted red mass of blood and fell heavily to his knees. With one
long, shuddering breath, he collapsed. Mori waited for him to move, to reach
out with some new horror, to shift — to breathe. He wasn’t breathing.

She
kept the rifled trained on Michael, but he was dead. She still wasn’t sure how.
What the hell had happened?

“Holy fuck.” Kell closed his eyes
and slid down the wall, letting something clatter from his left hand onto the
floor. Nothing but a rusty old piece of metal with a Shell ad painted on it in
faded red and gold.

Mori looked closer, leaning down
to pick it up. Not just a piece of metal, but half of an old thermometer.

“Oh my God. Mercury.” Mori looked back
at Michael, now just a man — a very human looking, very dead man — with the broken
glass of a thermometer sticking out of his throat.

She
couldn’t quite process that it was over, but her muscles told her the truth of
it. She walked to the wall and slumped to the floor next to Kell,
staring at the dead king of the Dire Wolves.