Blood Moon (35 page)

She checked her watch again. There was a flight to Wroclaw in three hours’ time. Poland was not the most glamorous destination on the planet, but it was part of the European Union so she hoped she’d be able to pass through customs relatively easily. Once she was there, she’d find a way to cross over into the Czech Republic or Romania. She didn’t have a lot of money on her – a couple of thousand pounds that she’d exchanged into euros over the past twenty four hours – but it was a start. The last thing she wanted to do was draw attention to unusual activity on her bank account. She would simply hit Eastern Europe and fade away. They’d be able to track her flight of course, but hopefully, by the time the shit hit the fan, they would be too concerned with other things to come straight after her. She would have a few days, and you could travel pretty far in that time.

She looked out across the village. It was like a picture postcard. The snow was still falling and the icy air formed glowing nimbuses around the streetlights. She was parked on a residential street, where hopefully it would take some time for them to find her car. She’d considered using one of the car parks at the airport, but with the CCTV coverage and the increasing unpaid parking charges, sooner or later someone would work out where she’d gone. Here at least, there was a chance of her vehicle going unnoticed for longer. She did her best to quieten the butterflies in her stomach, then got out of the car and retrieved her suitcase from the boot. There were no personal belongings. Everything she owned was either still in her rented flat in Crickhowell or in her room at Lindholme. She hoped her parents would understand why she’d done this. Grief welled up inside her, but she steeled herself. She needed to be strong and not act in any way that would draw attention. She’d simply go into the pub and call a taxi from the payphone near the toilets to take her the rest of the way.

Rose made her way across the road, cursing as the wet slush oozed through her shoes. It wouldn’t matter soon. She’d get to the departure lounge and reward herself with a large gin and tonic to calm her nerves. Not too many, though. She needed to be alert. But one wouldn’t hurt. Or two. Three at the absolute most.

The warmth of the pub hit her like a wall as she opened the door. The place was busy. It always was on a Friday. Good. People were not likely to notice a woman sitting in the corner for a few minutes until her taxi arrived. She made her way to the bar and ordered herself a drink, then walked towards the rear of the establishment where the payphone hung on the wall in a small alcove. She paused as she reached it. This was it. The point of no return. As soon as she made this call, she was committed. In all honesty, though, she’d been committed from the time she’d told Phil Fletcher of her plans and given him her key card. She hoped that he’d at least be able to find a way to get Steven clear. She’d given them both a fighting chance. That was really all she could do. At the end of the day, she needed to get the hell away from this place, and the monsters – both human and werewolf – could take care of themselves. She’d seen what a fuel-air bomb could do when she’d been stationed in Iraq and had no intention of being within a thousand miles of Lindholme when it hit.

“Here goes nothing…” she said, and reached for the handset.

A large hand grabbed hers before she could pick it up. She stood, frozen in place, expecting Colonel Richards or one of the base security team to be standing there. She turned to face her captor, but discovered that it was worse than that. So very much worse.

Standing beside her was the large German man who had broken into her flat on Christmas Eve with John Simpson and Marie Williams. The big werewolf bastard whose wrist she’d broken.

He smiled at her and tightened his grip on her arm. “Rose. It’s so very nice to see you again. I’d like you to come with me, if you don’t mind. We need to have a little chat.”

10th January 2009. Moorends Business Park, Doncaster. 01:20

Marie was on edge. She’d been unable to relax on the trip down from Newcastle. That the heaters in the minibus were broken and Melissa had insisted on tuning the radio to some godawful dance station hadn’t helped. Her heartbeat seemed to synchronise with the pulsating bassline of the music, heightening her state of anxiety. At least it had been better than Melissa’s relentless chattering for the first hour. The other members of the assault team had taken their seats and promptly fallen asleep, leaving her as the only person for the young werewolf to talk to. And some of the things she’d been saying disturbed Marie quite a lot. Melissa seemed far more concerned with vengeance against the people stationed in Lindholme than rescuing the captives. Well, she would get her wish. Marie had already decided to send the young woman in on the first attack wave. She could not afford to have another bloodthirsty rogue werewolf on her hands. In many respects, she seemed even more unbalanced than Connie had been. It was hard to believe that less than a month ago, Melissa had just been living with her family somewhere in Oxfordshire.

Marie felt a pang of guilt. The repercussions of her actions in High Moor had affected so many people – brought her species to the brink of extinction. She didn’t feel fit to lead them. Part of her wished that Krysztof had finished the job and executed her along with Michael. Then, perhaps, she would have been with her brothers and John again instead of existing with the terrible burden of responsibility, not only for her past actions, but for the choices she was about to make. It made her sick to her stomach, but there was no one else to do this. Daniel had seemed a shadow of his former self when she’d spoken to him, and the surviving members of the field teams were little more than soldiers, lacking any sort of vision or imagination. It was all up to her. The only consolation she had was that when all of this was over, she would not have to carry her guilt for long.

The minibus slowed then stopped by the entrance to an industrial estate. Melissa got out and unhooked a chain that ran across the entrance, then returned to the vehicle and drove down the long gravel track, past the dark silhouettes of skeletal trees against the flat white expanse of snow-covered fields. The moon was almost full now – Marie could feel its insistent tug and knew that the others could feel it as well. The newly bitten survivors of High Moor would not know what was happening to them, and tomorrow night they would transform for the first time. The thought made Marie shiver. She didn’t know exactly how many people were held in Lindholme, but chances were most of them would go moonstruck when the change hit them. Most of the moonstruck would slaughter each other or, if they were really lucky, turn on the soldiers guarding the base. Even so, she knew that to reach the pack wolves and mount a rescue they would need to get past not only the British Army, but a horde of ravening monsters. It was their biggest challenge, but also their biggest asset. With any luck, the military personnel would be too busy fighting for their lives to pay her pack of raiders much attention. She hoped, anyway. The worst case scenario really didn’t bear thinking about.

The minibus pulled up in front of a looming building – an empty warehouse on an abandoned industrial park. It was the best option for staging a mission such as this, with so many people involved, but the slaughter in Moscow was still fresh in her mind and it did little to dampen her anxiety. The sooner this was over and they were all out of the country the better. She stepped out into the frigid night air and followed Melissa through a fire door into the cavernous interior of the industrial unit.

The place was a hive of activity. Daniel had evidently been rather busy over the last few days. It looked as if he’d managed to empty every one of the pack’s weapons caches in the country. Everything from 9mm pistols to assault rifles and even a couple of high calibre sniper rifles littered the work benches, while eager conscripts stripped, cleaned and checked them, or catalogued the number of silver rounds available for each. The arsenal was impressive. Marie estimated that there were almost forty individual weapons here. Not enough to take on the might of the British Army head on, but hopefully sufficient for what she had in mind. Besides, it wasn’t as if firearms were their only weapons.

She spotted Daniel explaining how to strip an AK-47 to a small group of young werewolves. He looked up as she approached, smiled, then walked forward to embrace her.

“Marie, it’s good to see you. I’m so sorry about Michael.”

Marie returned the hug and swallowed the lump that had formed in her throat. “Thank you, Daniel.” She released him and turned away so he wouldn’t see the moisture dampening her eyes. “You seem to have things under control here. What’s the situation at Lindholme?”

“Not good. Follow me. It’s better if you hear this yourself.”

Daniel walked towards a series of prefabricated offices in one corner of the warehouse with Marie following closely behind. He opened the door and extended his arm, leading her inside. Marie wasn’t sure what she’d expected to find, but Rose Fisher had certainly not been it. The woman was sitting on a plastic chair, nursing a steaming mug of tea. She looked up when Marie stepped inside and managed a weak smile, then stood and extended her hand. “Daniel said you’d be arriving soon. I wish I could say that it was nice to see you again, Miss Williams, but… you know.”

She turned to Daniel. “What the hell is she doing here? If they realise she’s been taken it could put the entire operation at risk. What the fuck were you thinking?”

Daniel raised his hands. “I’d been watching the base, as ordered, when I saw her leave. I followed her on a whim, hoping I might be able to get some more concrete information about what’s going on in Lindholme. Turns out that Doctor Fisher was getting ready to abscond when I caught up to her. The rest… well, you really need to listen to what she has to say.”

She turned back to Rose. “I’m listening?”

Rose took a sip of her tea and sat back down, then looked directly at Marie. “They’re going to kill everyone in that base tomorrow night. They’ve got the essential personnel and research out, with just a skeleton security staff in place to keep things under control. The second the moon rises tomorrow night, they’re going to drop a thermobaric device on Lindholme and vaporise everyone and everything within two hundred meters of the place.” She gave a bitter laugh. “I was, apparently, not considered to be essential personnel. They were going to kill me along with everyone else. Those troops, the people that survived High Moor and your friend, John. All burned to ashes.”

Marie’s mouth fell open. “What do you mean, John? John is dead. I saw him gunned down when we broke Michael out.”

Rose shook her head. “They hit him with enough tranquiliser to put an elephant out then locked him up with the others. He’s alive and well – for now at least. In twenty four hours it won’t matter though. They’ve got two Reaper drones circling the place at high altitude, ready to drop a missile on anyone that even looks like changing before then, and there are still enough soldiers on station to make short work of any uprising. I don’t know what your plan is, but whatever you’re intending to do, you’ll have to do it soon. I’ve seen fuel-air bombs used in Iraq. There’s not a lot left afterwards.”

Marie’s emotions were in turmoil. She’d suspected the military would have some plan in place, but she never expected something so brutally efficient. And John was still alive. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing, and the thought both excited and terrified her. If she failed here, she’d lose him all over again. She’d been detached in many ways, believing that she no longer had any personal stake in proceedings beyond guilt and obligation. Now that had changed. Everything had. She’d hoped to use the chaos of the newly transformed moonstruck to her advantage, but now that option was denied to her. She felt lost, unsure of what the hell she could do to prevent the slaughter.

Daniel seemed to sense her concerns. “Don’t worry, Marie. I have a plan. Come on, I’ll walk you through it.”

10th January 2009. Lindholme Detention Centre, Doncaster. 16:15

Mandy watched the last golden sliver of the setting sun slip beneath the horizon and stifled a sob. That was it. The last time she’d ever see daylight and still be able to pretend she was a human being. Perhaps the last time she’d see the sun, full stop. She wasn’t alone in her observation. Almost all of the survivors of High Moor had maintained a similar vigil, either standing at the windows of their accommodation or in small groups outside. Every single one of them wore an expression of hopelessness and fear. In some respects, despite their surroundings and the constant training from the more experienced werewolves they were locked up with, they’d been able to push the impending transformation, and the awful knowledge of what was to come, out of their minds. Last night had been the worst so far though. The moon had almost been full and she’d felt that awful, alien thing within her stir – gnawing at the edge of her consciousness. Testing her. Probing for weaknesses in the defences she’d been putting up. It left her in no doubt whatsoever that when the moon rose tonight there would be nothing she could do to hold it back.

Oh, she’d listened to everything John Simpson and the others had told her. Tried to feel comfortable with the monster that lurked in the depths of her mind. It hadn’t worked, though. She’d done her best to appear calm and act as if the lectures and exercises had been effective – the alternative was to be banished to what the others had started calling
Moonstruck Mansion
; to join the ones who were, in all likelihood, going to die awful, violent deaths when the change tore through them. Almost seventy men, women and children, some as young as eight years old, who would transform into ravening beasts in just a few hours’ time. People like her. She knew some of them. A few classmates from her school. Mrs Matthews from the end of her street. Even now, it didn’t seem real to her. Like some horrible story she’d been told. In other respects it felt as if she teetered on the edge of an abyss. A deep, dark hole that contained terrible things. Hungry, savage things with razor sharp teeth and vicious claws, designed to rip and tear through flesh.