Stone Soldiers 5: Black Knight Down (3 page)

CHAPTER THREE

The blast door popped open, then slowly swung outwards on silent hydraulics- a heavy, reinforced steel barrier designed to withstand the most intense bombing of the site. As he stepped around the edge of the opening door, Kenslir noticed the deep scratches in the metal in the inside.

"Kane?" he called out.

The hunkered, hairy form in the corner twitched at the sound of a human voice. Then it began growling.

Kenslir stepped into the room, holding thick chains in both hands. They dragged the floor on either side off him, the ends terminating in thick manacles.

What had once been Jimmy Kane turned around slowly, lips curled back to reveal a mouthful of slavering teeth. It narrowed its yellow eyes at the Colonel and its body tensed.

All at once, the werewolf lunged, a leap that carried it across the chamber in one bound. It landed on its feet, directly in front of Kenslir, rising to its full height of seven feet.

"Good morning," Kenslir said calmly.

Kane leaned in an inch or two, sniffing the air between himself and the Colonel. His long muzzle twitched and his clawed hands opened and closed. A monstrous cross between a man and a wolf and something else, the creature formerly known as Jimmy Kane was thin and tall, with rippling muscles beneath a coat of fur the same color as Jimmy's natural hair- a dark blonde.

The vaguely wolf-like head stared at the Colonel, almost daring him to do something.

Kenslir narrowed his eyes. "Sit."

Kane growled again, but held his ground.

The Colonel took a step forward.

Kane's growling, wolf-like face flinched in surprise, and the huge beast backed up two steps.

In a room not that far away, Josie Winters watched the feed from the closed circuit cameras in the vault. "What's going on? Why isn't he attacking?"

"It knows the Colonel carries the curse as well," Dr. Farb said. "It was his blood that turned Kane, remember. We use the Colonel's blood for all the men."

"But Mark isn't transformed."

"Not on the outside," Dr. Farb said. "But he's not entirely human anymore either."

In the vault, Kenslir took another step forward. "I'm going to put these on you. With your cooperation, or without."

The werewolf looked at the thick chains the Colonel held in both hands. Its eyes narrowed to thin slits. Then it struck him.

The blow was fast- inhumanly fast. A slash of claws across Kenslir's face that ripped the flesh clear to the bone, and narrowly missed his left eye. Despite the swipe packing the force necessary to splinter the thickest of wooden doors, the Colonel didn't even flinch.

"Without then," the Colonel said, dropping the chains.

The werewolf couldn't help but glance down at the chains hitting the floor. That made it miss the fist aimed squarely at its snout. A fist moving so fast, even if the creature had seen it, there would have been no dodging.

Tightly balled fist met wolf's snout with terrific impact. Bones audibly crunched and Kane was knocked off his misshapen feet and sent sprawling.

Colonel Kenslir calmly began unbuttoning his black combat fatigue shirt. Underneath the shirt he wore a tight black t-shirt. The three furrows in the flesh on his face had now turned gray, like stone. They were slowly fusing back together, while what little blood that had come out of them was soaking back into his skin- absorbed as if by a sponge.

"I would say I didn't want to hurt you," Kenslir said, pitching his shirt aside. "But I'm not exactly keen on you and my granddaughter sharing quarters."

The werewolf was now back on its feet. Its snout had been compressed to half its length, and most of its teeth were missing. But the wound was already starting to heal.

"Last chance," the Colonel said. "But one way or the other, you're coming out of here in chains."

The werewolf growled and leapt again.

***

The plains of Oklahoma were flatter than Simone particularly cared for. She had grown up in an area with gently rolling hills and lush forests. The wide open pasture lands of this part of Oklahoma were as alien to her as the satellite now plunging to earth.

"And all proceeds as I planned," Simone said, raising her glass in salute to her sisters.

As one, the six women gathered raised their own thin-stemmed glasses and touched them together lightly. They all drank deeply of the rich wine, then threw their glasses aside.

"I hope so," Gwen Putnam declared, brushing imaginary flecks of debris from her expensive business suit. Her sisters were all dressed similarly- wearing the female version of corporate powersuits that matched the dark limousine behind them.

"Thor!" Simone snapped, turning toward the chauffeur by the limo.

A hulking brute in a gray suit, he rushed over, presenting a small laptop, holding it for Simone so she could open the lid.

"Right on target," Simone said, taking the thin laptop and showing her colleagues. The feed from NORAD- a pirated signal she had arranged through her connections- showed not only Anomaly Five's current position, but its estimated point of impact- two miles from where they were all standing.

"And we're safe, watching this close?" Miranda House asked. Like her sisters, she had bleached blonde hair and pale skin. From a distance, she and the others might be mistaken for sisters. They had ensured their appearances matched early in their partnership.

"Well of course, we are, you nitwit," Colleen Harper sneered. "Did you or did you not pay attention earlier? It's slowing its descent even now. It wouldn't do us any good smashed to pieces, would it?"

Before Miranda could rise to the baiting of her sister-in-conspiracy, Simone took command of the situation. "Ladies! Now is not the time for bickering! Rejoice! Soon, the Vessel will be here and we will have all the power in the world."

"Should we go to our positions?" Louise Gardere asked with her normal, thick French accent.

"No," Simone said. "Let the Air Force play their games, then we'll have them removed."

"What do we do until then?" Colleen asked.

"I saw a nice looking steak place on the way in," Georgina McMillan suggested. "I'd love
fresh meat right now."

A bright flash erupted on the horizon as the Black Knight, Anomaly Five, smashed into the Oklahoma soil. A boom carried across the plains as earth was hammered with kinetic energy.

"Touchdown!" Simone declared. "Let's go get those steaks!"

The women all smiled and nodded in agreement, then filed back into their limousine.

***

Outside the heavy vault door, Captain Daniel Smith waited impatiently. He had wanted to enter the vault with the Colonel, but Kenslir had been insistent that the nearly indestructible man of stone wait. Werewolves could tolerate their own kind- just barely- but any scent Smith would have given off was stopped by his petrification. Stone didn't sweat- to the werewolf, he was just another human.

The fight inside the vault had lasted a surprising several minutes. Surprising to Smith, in that he would have thought the Colonel wouldn't take near as long. Of course, he wasn't trying to kill Kane, just subdue him until they could get him to the Fountain Chamber.

At long last, the door to the vault popped open again and swung out on its hydraulics. Colonel Kenslir stepped out from around it, his black t-shirt in tatters, large cuts in his chest turned to gray stone and slowly mending. The marks on his face from Kane's first attack were fully healed now- the stone of his face having reverted to smooth skin once more.

"One down, one to go," Kenslir said.

Smith looked around the door and into the chamber. A battered, broken and beaten werewolf lay in shackles, its hands and feet bound by manacles and thick chains behind its back- looking as though it had been trussed up for roasting. A chain was even looped through the slavering, growling jaws, pulling the head back- the chain connected to the same bound hands and feet.

"You've got to do that again?" Smith asked.

"Wait'll you help me lower them into the Fountain," Kenslir said, grinning.

CHAPTER FOUR

It had been the most agonizing, painful experience of his life, and now it was finally over. When Jimmy Kane had first decided to become a stone soldier he had experienced the beginnings of the werewolf transformation. The bone breaking twisting and stretching of his body into something terrible.

But the Fountain had stopped it.

Just as the pain had engulfed him, the healing waters had halted the transformation and started to reverse it. Then Kane had looked into the petrifying eye of Medusa and a basilisk and his body had been turned to living stone. He'd done it twice now, and didn't relish a third time.

Until he turned into a werewolf.

After being turned to flesh and bone by the magic-absorbing power of the necromancer Clint Kerrick in Georgia, Jimmy had at first been excited at the prospect of being human once more. It meant he could lead a normal life with Josie. Or as normal a life as they could have within the supernatural combat unit they had joined.

The problem was, that while the magic keeping Jimmy Kane a man of living stone had been drained from him, the werewolf's curse, used to give him superhuman strength, was still with him. And sure enough, on the first full moon after Georgia, Jimmy had turned.

He had been glad that they had locked him in one of the basement vaults. Until the transformation hit him. Then he hadn't been glad of anything. He'd been filled with an intense pain and an equally intense rage. Then his sense of self had been lost.

All this came back to him in a flash as he was lifted out of the Fountain of Youth. He was face down in the water, his hands and feet bound behind him. His limbs nearly slipped from the manacles around them as they shrank back to human proportions.

Then he was laid on the cold floor beside the Fountain.

"Get up, Kane. This isn't summer camp," the familiar voice of Captain Smith announced.

Jimmy rolled over onto his back and coughed out the last of the Fountain water. He noticed that he had hair on his head again- not shaved like it had been before his last petrification.

"Cover up, Kane," Colonel Kenslir said, throwing a towel on Jimmy. He glanced up at the observation booth looking down into the vast Fountain Chamber, where Josie Winters was pressed against the glass.

"How long?" Jimmy croaked, wrapping the towel around his waist. When he stood, his legs felt rubbery, as though he'd just run a marathon.

"Just a few hours past sunrise," Colonel Kenslir said.

Jimmy looked over and saw Colonel Phillips drying himself off- the lean, muscled man with brown hair and a boyish smile winked at him. "Some night, hunh, kid?"

"What now?" Jimmy asked looking at his hands. He appeared perfectly normal again- flesh and blood with no sign of lycanthropy or petrification.

Kenslir checked his watch. "In just over eleven hours, you get to be petrified again."

"Do I have to?" Jimmy asked.

Phillips stopped drying himself off, and even Smith, with a stone face, showed surprise.

"You want to do that again?" Phillips asked.

"No, I just..." Jimmy stammered.

A door opened and Josie ran into the chamber. She sprinted across the floor and grabbed Jimmy in a tight embrace. "Jimmy!"

The brunette kissed the awkward-looking teen then hugged him tight again. "I was so worried."

"Uh," Jimmy said, pushing away gently. Colonel Kenslir was standing there with arms folded across his chest, sternly watching him.

"If you don't re-petrify," Kenslir said. "You'll turn again. Tonight."

"Isn't there some other way?" Jimmy asked, looking back and forth between the Colonel and Josie.

"Hey, what about that collar thingy?" Phillips asked, drying his hair once more, a towel around his waist.

"You know- the one we used on that Russian."

Kenslir glared at Phillips, while Smith cocked an eyebrow.

"Collar?" Josie asked, looking at her grandfather. "Is there a way he can stay human?"

"It's not that simple," Kenslir said. He turned to glare at Jimmy. "In fact it's quite painful. And there's no guarantee it will work."

"Well, what're we waiting for?" Josie asked. "Where is it?"

***

Lieutenant Colonel Brian Hunt wanted to know the same thing. About Black Knight. He was reading a map in the back of a UH-60, desperately trying to straighten it out as the helicopter raced along, wind whipping in the open sides.

"Where the fuck are we?" Hunt asked over the headset he was wearing.

"Oklahoma, sir," the pilot answered.

"Well, no shit, Sherlock," Hunt responded. "Where in Oklahoma?"

The helicopter banked and began its decent, allowing Hunt to put his eyes on the Anomaly for the first time.

A gleaming, smoking tube of what appeared to be black glass, it was laying in a large crater the size of a small football stadium- some thirty feet below ground level.

"We're ten miles from Salem, Oklahoma, sir," the pilot said as he eased the Special Ops helicopter down. "Farm country."

As soon as the helo's wheels touched the ground, the eight Air Force men on board leapt out, ducked low and running away from the helicopter. Three other helicopters similarly disgorged more men- each having landing on a compass point around the strange anomaly and its crater.

Hunt gave up on his map and wadded it up, throwing it out of the helo. He stepped down and unslung his M4 rifle and calmly walked away from the helo. Once he was clear, the Blackhawk lifted back into the air.

"Man that perimeter
, boys!" Hunt growled into the whisper mic around his throat. Slightly taller than average, with dark, dark skin and a shaved head, Hunt had almost no neck and the thinnest of moustaches under his wide nose. He looked more like a brawler than an Air Force officer.

To the west, he could just make out the flashing lights of police cars- holding a perimeter more of his men were slowly taking over. He checked his watch- he was ahead of schedule. Now he just had to wait for the eggheads to get here and decide what this thing was.

"Crawford! With me!" Hunt barked. He walked up the slight rise of dirt and debris pushed up around the edge of crater.

Stopping at the top of the massive impact crater, he looked down at the Anomaly, steam still rising from it.

"What is it, Sir?" Senior Airman Crawford asked. He was a scrawny young man, barely up to Hunt's shoulder, with a baggy uniform that seemed too big for him. Politics had put him in the Special Operations Unit and on the Crash Recovery Team- against Hunt's wishes.

"How the fuck should I know, Airman?" Hunt said. He pulled a cigar from a pocket of his shirt and put it in his mouth, chewing it.

"C'mon," Hunt said, and walked down into the crater.

Crawford followed him, carefully watching where he stepped, sliding on loose rock and nearly falling several times.

When they finally reached the bottom, Hunt handed his M4 rifle to Crawford and pulled a camera from a pouch on his belt.

The Colonel walked up to the gleaming black tube and began taking pictures. After his third, his camera died.

"What the hell?" Hunt said, examining the camera and even shaking it.

He reached up and keyed the whisper mike around his throat, but again, nothing happened.

"Sir?" Crawford asked. He was gripping his rifle a little too tightly now, nervously staring at the glassy tube and all the ornate markings on it.

"Damn radio is out. Stay there."

Hunt walked partly back up the slope of the crater, trying to key his microphone again. "Perkins? Perkins- you read me?"

Airman Crawford seemed more relaxed now, still staring intently at the strange, fallen satellite. He began walking toward it.

"Hold fast, Airman!" Hunt barked. Then he turned and walked further up the slope, trying his radio again. "Perkins! Dammit, Sergeant, answer me!"

Crawford was right in front of the anomaly now. He slowly extended his left hand toward it. Despite the many intricate carvings in some alien alphabet, he could see his reflection in the obsidian-like material.

His fingers brushed the surface of the Anomaly and he felt a shock. Then he fell to the ground.

"Perk-!" Hunt was yelling- he stopped when he heard the clatter of Crawford hitting the ground. "What the fuck, Airman?"

Hunt jogged down the slope and raced over to Crawford. "Did I not tell you to hold fast? What is your malfunc-"

Hunt stopped when he reached down to touch Crawford. Steam was rising from the Airman's body and his face was pale, his lips blue. He looked like he had just stepped out of a freezer.

Hunt backed away from the Anomaly, keeping his eyes on it while he put his hand on the pistol holstered on his hip. "Son of a bitch!"