Do Or Die (Surreal Blue Rogue Agent 1) (6 page)

“Good,”
Viktor said as he whirled around, heading for the darkened hallway. “Alright,”
Viktor gave the three young werewolves a seething look, “It’s time now. Let
loose.”

The
three young women smiled at him. They had been trembling with the need to rebel
against the ordered operation and hunt for the men who had killed their friend
in the earlier ambush. From this moment forth there would be no holding back.

Viktor
led his rescue team through the corridor, which turned left four times before
it met a staircase. At the top of the stairs they met a barrage of bullets. Viktor
led his team down the stairs into the direct line of fire. The men kept firing
at him, backing up as they did so, shocked as they realized the fierce man had
walked by them unaffected by their gunfire. They noticed too late the snarling,
hairy beasts in front of them.

 The
petite femmes had transformed into werewolves, standing on their hind legs. The
men’s faces contorted in fear as they shrieked before they felt the ripping of
their tender flesh by large black claws, and their heads being seized between
the jagged teeth of supernatural creatures.

Viktor
brushed past each man with a machine gun, quickly drawing their fire and
leaving them unaware of the approaching doom from the blind spot over their
shoulder. He finally reached the door, where a sentry stood blasting at
Viktor’s head with rapid fire rounds from an AK-47.

Viktor
clutched the man’s head on either side. The man’s head became hot as it grew
colder and colder. He released the rifle, letting it collapse to the floor.
Thin streams of blood escaped his eye sockets and his nose. Almost immediately,
the man’s whole face turned blue, then a light purple, then black, in rapid
succession until the whole face resembled that of a black, charred, charcoal
mask. His whole head became light ash and crumbled in on itself. The man’s body
collapsed and blood from the hole in his neck pooled in the flimsy ash that was
once his skull. Viktor then turned purposefully towards the closed door and
kicked it open.

A lone
gurney lay before him in the center of the room. On it laid his wife.

Xin
felt the bullet land squarely in his right shoulder from behind, nicking his
collar bone on entry. He howled and nearly turned into a werewolf at that
moment. His teeth gnashed as the wound bled. He felt the hairs on his neck
nearly give way to the sharp bristles of his supernatural self. Luckily, he
reined in the werewolf transformation.
Not yet,
Xin thought, deliberately
calming his beating heart. Then he stilled. His nose twitched at a familiar
smell – vampire.

Xin
stood at his full height, his face a mask. If he was having fun before, now he
was deadly serious. “Vampires, here?” Xin snickered. He turned, spiraling out
of the darkest fringe of the clearing and slashing a gunman across the back
diagonally from left to right. He was dead. His body did not regenerate. He was
human. But there was a vampire…somewhere.

“Hmph.”
Xin placed his hand in his pocket, casually walking into the jungle canopy that
shrouded his presence. As he did so, three men with firearms walked into the
clearing Xin had been using as his vantage point since he had arrived on the
site.

Xin
watched the men closely circling the clearing. He studied their expressions.
The dead bodies they had encountered so far on their way to base headquarters
must surely have them spooked. If he weren’t so astutely trying to accomplish a
stealthy approach, he would surely have enjoyed having a fit of brazen laughter
at their expense. 

The
men were anxious and their movements were jerky. Beads of sweat leaked from
beneath their black berets down the side of their faces, disappearing into the
damp open collars of their black fatigues.  Their eyes frantically searched the
dense darkness of the tropical jungle around them.

Xin stood
up.  The clearing was not much to bolster his position: everyone was about six
or seven feet from each other. He withdrew his twelve-inch hunting knife and
held it by the blade, lifting his throwing arm. As the man farthest from him
turned around, Xin flung the blade with such force into the man’s chest that the
gunman was thrown back to land hard against a tree trunk. His rifle released a
few shots, drawing the attention of the two men closest to him.

Xin
used the diversion to come upon the remaining men from behind. He pierced the
shorter of the men through his jugular with his blade.

No,
Xin
thought to himself quietly.  

He
drew his sword upward, slicing through the rest of the man’s neck before the blade
entered the other man’s head, slicing it at such an angle that the head was
severed diagonally, leaving one eye intact. The third man was dead before the
body of the second man collapsed to the floor.

“No
,” Xin
thought again. “
Not a vampire.
” But there was no mistaking that dank,
familiar smell of rotting corpse. “Hmph.” Xin swung his sword to allow the guts
and blood that had collected there to slide off. He deduced that the vampire
must have been on the island a long time, having to deal with the Caribbean
heat, in order to allow its body to pass along its scent so strongly to a human.

The
gunman stuck to the tree was still firing at him. Xin grabbed the body of the
third man whose head-top was lopped off and proceeded to use it as a shield as
he advanced towards the gunman.  

The
man’s aim was irregular; the bullets from the rifle tore into the “shield’s” lower
abdomen and legs. Xin covered the few steps to the enemy right away. He drew
the corpse he held with his left hand up against the arm that held the rifle
and the handle of the knife in his chest. The burdensome weight preventing the
gunman from reciprocating, his rifle fired shots at the earth.

Xin
then pressed down on the corpse, placing pressure on the handle; he looked down
into the eyes of the gunman until they rolled back into his head.

Xin
stilled.

Another
one?

Smiling,
he swiftly swung the sword upward, overhead. The tip of the blade landed dead
center into the head of an armed gunman who had been hiding so as to catch him
unawares.

So,
the others exposed themselves to draw me out, did they?

He
slowly eased his index finger onto the trigger that rested at the collar of the
katana. Xin pulled the trigger, and a bullet escaped the spacer of the katana
and blasted the head of the gunman clean off.

The
unique magazine hidden in the hilt of his katana couldn’t retain many bullets,
so he made sure the ones there were capable of maximum effect. He normally
resorted to such tactics when dealing with vampires. Firepower that exploded on
impact made all the difference…against a human it was a total waste.

Hmph ,
all human…

Xin
heard the rest of the men heading in his direction. He turned right and darted
towards the building. A bullet entered his midsection from behind and he
released a fierce howl before he leapt a yard into the air.

In mid-air
he felt the proportions of his human form contort grotesquely into an abnormal
shape. The drastic change was so sudden and crippling a regular human
unfamiliar with the pain would have lost their mind to the agony. But for him
it was a clean and welcome occasion that he could acutely manipulate. His whole
body convulsed as he transformed. Thick, dark-grey, bristling hairs grew out instantaneously
along the stretch of his back. Brown fibers mirrored the effect on the other
parts of his body. Human ears gave way to long, thin ears that burst out on
either side of his head. His human face transformed into the massive embodiment
of an overgrown jackal.

With
the transformation into a
were
behind him, he landed onto the side of
the building. The strong claws of his  large, newly-formed jackal paws grappled
the stone face, chipping away at its white brick finish.

Xin,
now a fully formed were-jackal, scanned the crowed of overzealous pursuants
firing at him. He still wore the dark suit, which had been especially tailored
to suit his needs for transformation. A young pup would have been left bereft
without such attire in a sudden- transformation situation such as this.

Xin
turned his blade downward, his thumb rest handily on the butt cap. With one
sure press of the hidden button at the base of his katana-gun handle, he
detonated the grenade that was hidden inside the hunting knife that he had
planted in the gunman moments earlier. The gang of gunmen was decimated by the
explosion that ripped through the tropical jungle. Burnt body parts flew into
the air over the ball of fire that surged and threatened to go further than the
three mile radius it had impacted.

Xin
sheathed his unique sword and dutifully began the arduous task of climbing up
the side of the building with all fours, bullet wounds in his back.

Viktor
found it terribly disturbing that he had to fight for his composure  He stared
at his wife, lying unconscious on the gurney. His wife’s skin, the color of
dark chocolate, had lost its luster and was now ashen. Her cheeks were sunken;
her lips dry, and cracked. She wore a hospital robe that did nothing to veil
the fact that she was bare beneath. A catheter had been connected to her
bladder and was strapped to the inside of her right thigh.  

Viktor’s
teeth gnashed together.  His breathing quickened harshly. He raised his fisted
hands to pound either side of his head.

Get a
grip man, get a fuckin’ grip…

She
looked so small where she lay. At five feet, two inches, most men towered above
her.

She
was so small, so innocent – in all of this…Don’t lose it, man!

Her
scalp is what sent him over the edge. Her bare head was exposed and her soft,
relaxed hair was nonexistent. Viktor stared, unresponsive. Her head had been
shaved.

 
They
cut off her hair?!

Viktor’s
nails bit painfully into his palms; his chest ached as he tried hard to catch
his breath. His shoulders trembled. Closing his glistening eyes, he held his
breath and begged himself to remain calm. Then his eyes fluttered open to focus
on her peaceful face. They travelled down to rest on her hands. Finally, he
touched her, holding her soft, small hand…

Where’s
her ring?

There
was movement at the doorway, causing Viktor to take heed. An Asian man of
medium height and frail build, balding and wearing wire-thin frames, stood in
the doorway looking as though his heart had stopped beating the moment he entered
the room. The young, golden-haired nurse, who rivaled the old man in height,
looked just as pale, leaving Viktor to come to one conclusion - they were both
shocked stupid.

Viktor’s
eyes searched theirs for a brief moment before the nurse’s fear of his silent
warning got the better of her. She dropped the medical chart she was carrying,
whirled around, and bolted out the door. In the entryway she darted to her left,
but the strange snarling arrested her, and she turned to discover a menacing
creature advancing towards her. She screamed, staggering backwards before the
werewolf jumped her.

Viktor’s
attention was not caught by the happenings just beyond the entryway. His eyes were
still on the little man before him, whom he assumed was the person in charge of
this operation. He looked familiar, in his common, dull grey slacks and equally
dull shirt, his shoes well-worn. His appearance was belied by the cocky glint
in his eyes. His hand rose to slip his wire frames down the slender ridge of
his large, crooked nose. He gave Viktor a once over that spoke volumes of his
calm demeanor. Viktor was further taken aback by the guy’s nonchalant behavior.

Did he
not know his life was doomed to end right here-right now?

“Mr. Maxckmillian,
I dare say, out of the many countless scenarios I may have manufactured to have
to deal with, none of them included
you
. You often restrain yourself
above your wife’s activities, I thought us once to never meet.” The little man
then pushed the glasses, which were too refined for his deeply-creased features,
back atop the bend on his nose.

Viktor’s
head cocked sideways, and he sighed. Holding his wife’s hand with his left
hand, he reached to his side for Hell’s Embrace with his right. The weapon
hummed as he decided to go slow with this one.
The nuts cracked easily…at
least for Viktor…

But he
might not be the figurehead. There might be others involved, and he needed to
find them and destroy them all the same.

Viktor
kept his eyes on the dainty man. His eyes focused on him, he squinted. He
figured he knew him, most certainly his voice sounded familiar…

“You
don’t know who I am. Heh, heh, heh.” He was quite brash with his vitriol.

Viktor
was still considering what to make of this man before him. He was not afraid of
him. The old man was human, but
not
a fool. Viktor was in a fair mind to
grab his wife and take her home rather than to subject himself to the musings
of a soon-to-be-
dead
dog.