Blood Moon (9 page)

Michael’s eyes widened as the details of his sister’s plan fell into place. Once Marie and Daniel had positioned themselves under each arm, he slumped, allowing them to support his weight. They’d not made it far along the corridor before another fire-team emerged from the stairwell.

Marie looked over her shoulder, then turned to the squad of armed men. “It’s loose! Somewhere down near medical. The rest of them are… oh, God… we tried to… It ATE them!”

The squad leader nodded. “It’s okay. Get upstairs and find help.” He motioned to his team and they spread out into the corridor in a standard formation, weapons raised. He made a series of hand movements, and they moved away into the depths of the base.

Marie hit the call button for the elevator, and once the doors slid open, ushered Michael and Daniel inside before pressing the button for the surface level. She glanced over to Daniel, who arched his eyebrow.

“What’s the matter?” she said in an innocent voice. “I told you it’d be a piece of piss.”

The lift arrived at the surface level and juddered to a halt. After a moment, the doors slid open to reveal a squad of soldiers standing before them with weapons raised. A grey-haired man with a bristling moustache smiled and stepped forward. “Miss Williams, I presume? So glad you could join us. I’m Colonel Richards, commanding officer of this facility. Please, come with me.”

Chapter 6

25th December 2008. Parklands Close, South Molton, Devon. 00:10

Paul Patterson tightened his grip on the submachine gun and tried to bring his racing heartbeat under control. His hands were slick with sweat, despite his fingerless cotton gloves, and the polymer handgrip felt as if it could slip from his grasp at any moment. The silhouetted outlines of the other members of his team were just visible in the darkness. They flowed through the mist-shrouded trees without making a sound, their movements slow yet fluid. Not even the crack of a breaking branch underfoot betrayed their passage through the small patch of woodland. Paul’s own movements, while measured and stealthy, felt lumbering and clumsy by comparison. Not for the first time, he wondered what the hell he was doing here. The rest of the squad were elite Special Forces troops, whereas he was just a police firearms officer. To say that he felt out of his depth was an understatement.

Sergeant Peyton raised her right arm and made a fist. Corporal Raines and Private Lewis froze in place, then dropped into firing positions in a single co-ordinated and sinuous movement. Half a second later, Paul mirrored them, only too aware of the fact that he’d reacted slower than everyone else. It felt like he’d lost a game of musical statues for the tenth time in a row. The woods began to thin a little way ahead of them, and the hazy sky visible between the trees glowed orange with the reflected glare of the sodium streetlights against the drifting fog. Their target was just beyond the treeline. The realisation unleashed a surge of adrenaline that deadened his limbs and brought on a wave of nausea that he struggled to control. His mind felt fuzzy, heavy with the combined effects of the drugs he’d been given back at the base, and the first hints of panic began to bubble up from his subconscious.

I shouldn’t be here. I can’t face these things. Not again. Phil was right. Oh, God, I feel sick. It’ll be a massacre. Those fucking werewolves will tear through us like cattle. I’ve got to get out of here.

He shook his head and fought against the rising tide of terror. Remembering the reason that he’d agreed to come on this mission. The faces of his wife and daughter the last time he’d seen them. Happy, smiling and looking forward to the Christmas break when they could spend some time together as a family. The look of pain and terror on their faces when they’d died. The screams of Emma as she tried to shield Sam from the savage teeth and claws of Connie Hamilton, and the high-pitched shrieks of terror from his daughter as she watched her mother being slowly torn apart, turning into hitching, pleading sobs as the monster turned its attention to her.

He grabbed hold of the fear and doubt, forced it into submission, and moulded it into something he could use. He poured in the ache of his loss and his guilt, forging it on a cold flame of rage until it became a razor-edged blade of raw emotion. His heartbeat slowed and his vision cleared. He became acutely aware of the frozen, dead woodland around him. The distant hoot of an owl as it searched the frost-covered fields for prey. The shriek of a fox behind them and the answering call from its mate. The sporadic rumble of cars on the main road. The position of his squad mates, spaced out before him in the darkness, invisible but for the plumes of their breath as it reacted with the frigid air.

Sergeant Peyton gave the signal to advance, and this time, when the squad started towards their target, Paul’s movements were as graceful and silent as the rest of them.

The dark skeletons of the trees thinned, then vanished abruptly at a low, wood-panelled fence. Beyond it lay a neatly maintained garden. A frost-covered climbing frame and slide glimmered under the reflected light. A gravel path ran along the length of a small lawn, and a sand-pit sat beside a small wooden shed, its contents frozen as hard as concrete. The house at the far end of the garden was dark and silent, save for the twinkling lights of a Christmas tree, barely visible through the kitchen window.

One by one, the team vaulted the fence, clearing the gravel and landing on the lawn without making a sound. Sergeant Peyton gave a series of hand gestures, and the squad spread out in a combat formation, weapons trained on the dark openings of the kitchen window and back door. A shadow momentarily obscured the shimmering lights of the tree and Paul felt his heart lurch in his chest. Then Sergeant Peyton gave the signal to attack.

Private Lewis raised his weapon; a modified SA-80 with an under-slung grenade launcher, and fired one of the explosives directly at the kitchen window. The squad threw themselves to the ground as the 40mm grenade shattered the glass and exploded inside the house. Shrapnel peppered the wooden fence, and the rest of the glass in the window and back door blew out. The squad were on their feet before the blast had finished echoing around the neighbouring houses.

Sergeant Peyton, Corporal Raines and Private Lewis began making their way toward the smoking ruin of the back door, while Paul stayed back to provide cover. He knew that Lieutenant Foster would break through the front door with Private Cross in a matter of seconds, and they’d proceed to clear the house of hostiles. That grenade should have annihilated anything in the kitchen, but according to the intelligence reports, that still left two lycanthropes in the property. And Paul doubted they would go down without a fight.

Corporal Raines reached the doorway first. He didn’t bother checking the remains of the kitchen, no doubt assuming that the grenade had done its job and killed everything within a five meter radius. Instead, he shone his tactical light through the shattered doorway that led to the front hall and stepped inside the building. Paul couldn’t believe his stupidity. He’d
told
them how hard these bastards were to kill. Connie Hamilton had healed from a point-blank headshot in less than twenty seconds. He opened his mouth to warn the soldier, but before he could get the words out, the huge, muscular form of a werewolf burst through one of the upstairs windows in an explosion of glass and wood.

Private Lewis and Sergeant Peyton swung their weapons around to face the threat, but hesitated once they realised what they were facing. The beast was huge. Triangular, pointed ears lay flat against the monster’s head, and it’s long, tapered snout was wrinkled into a snarl, revealing rows of vicious, gleaming teeth. Muscles flowed like liquid beneath layers of coarse, black fur, giving a sense of the thing’s raw power. No matter how well trained they might have been, their minds struggled for that vital fraction of a second to comprehend the nightmarish creature before them. And that fraction of a second was all the werewolf needed. It tensed its muscles and leaped into the air, jumping over the hail of bullets the two soldiers unleashed with ease. It slammed into Private Lewis and clamped its jaws down around his neck, severing the man’s head in a single bite. Sergeant Peyton threw herself backwards just as the monster lashed out with its claws. The movement, along with her Kevlar vest saved her life. Just. The claws ripped through the protective clothing, but from where Paul stood, it didn’t look like the attack had penetrated all the way through. She scrambled backwards and brought her weapon to bear on the werewolf, just as Corporal Raines began screaming from inside the house.

The scream snapped Paul out of his stupor. He’d faced these monsters before. That was the whole point of him being here. As the massive creature stalked towards Sergeant Peyton, he raised his SA-80 and opened fire.

The attack seemed to take the werewolf by surprise, almost as if it either hadn’t noticed him, or had discounted him as a threat. He stitched the creature’s flank with bullet holes, sending it crashing against the side of the house, and fought to control the wave of revulsion that washed over him as he watched the werewolf’s bones shatter, twist and reform as it turned back into a naked man. Paul wasn’t finished yet, however. Drawing his pistol, he strode over to the creature and fired a silver bullet straight into its skull.

Sergeant Peyton’s mouth hung open. “What the hell are you doing, Patterson? We’re supposed to take these things alive.”

Paul felt his lip curl up into a sneer. “You’re fucking welcome,” he said to her, then shouldered his SA-80 and strode through the back door, into the darkness of the house.

It didn’t take Paul long to find what was left of Corporal Raines. His eviscerated corpse lay in several pieces along the hallway. Dark puddles of blood had stained the light carpet crimson around the stumps of his severed limbs, and his throat had been slashed. The front door hung open on shattered hinges, and the wood around the lock was splintered. He could make out a boot print just beneath the lock. The other fire team had clearly executed their part of the plan, but were conspicuous by their absence. Sergeant Peyton pointed to the closed living room door, then to the staircase. Paul nodded his understanding and crouched at the bottom of the stairs, his weapon pointed into the darkness while the Sergeant carefully turned the handle of the living room door, then pushed it open.

The twinkling of the lights on the Christmas tree glittered in his peripheral vision, but Paul kept his weapon trained on the stairwell. Sergeant Peyton stepped through the door, weapon raised, then fired two shots. A high pitched yelp came from the living room, followed by a thick, guttural snarl from the darkness at the top of the stairs. A pair of green eyes glowed in the shadows. Paul squeezed off three rounds in rapid succession as the werewolf burst from cover and launched itself into the air towards him. The rounds slammed into the creature’s body and he side-stepped out of its path as the naked, bloodstained body of a woman crashed into the wall behind where he’d been standing. He drew his pistol to administer the coup de grace, but felt Sergeant Peyton’s hand on his arm. She shook her head, then tapped her throat mike. “Charlie Oscar, this is Fire Team Tango. Targets neutralised. Requesting immediate evac and medical assistance.” She nodded to Paul, her face a grim mask. “We got the bastards. Now let’s see if anyone else is still alive.”

25th December 2008. Underhill Military Base. 00:18

The soldiers led Marie, Daniel and Michael through the upper levels of the complex, keeping a respectful distance from their captives, until they reached a pair of double doors that led outside onto a flat expanse of tarmac. Marie risked a backward glance at the nervous soldiers, and took some satisfaction in the fact that they all pulled their weapons harder into their shoulders. “Where are you taking us?” she asked.

Colonel Richards said nothing at first. When she repeated the question, he gave a grim smile. “Clearly this facility has been compromised, so we’ll be taking you to a new, secure location for interrogation. Now, please keep moving. I’d hate to be forced to have you shot.”

A hard knot of fear clenched her stomach. The fact that Michael’s injuries had healed so quickly meant that they were probably armed with standard silver bullets, not Steven Wilkinson’s silver and mercury rounds. Michael and Daniel would most likely survive a confrontation. The same could not be said for her, and she realised that her companions were only going along with this to protect her from harm. A wave of guilt and nausea washed over her. Whatever happened to them next would be her fault, and she couldn’t see any way out of the situation.

They made their way across the tarmac, away from the subterranean complex, towards the dark silhouette of another building that loomed up from the swirling mist. To her left, she could just make out the orange glimmer of the streetlights on the main road. Two hundred yards across open ground to safety. Even with the darkness and inclement weather on her side, she knew that she’d have no chance of crossing the distance before a bullet found its target. Their captor’s SA-80’s were equipped with IR scopes which would light her up like a bloody Christmas tree. She’d be lucky to make it ten feet.