Midnight Squad: The Grim (39 page)

           
“Janine?” I asked

           
“Yes.”

           
“I need to borrow you for a moment. Can you hop inside
for a few?” She nodded and slipped into me. The cold gnawed at me already. We
phased through the entire transport. When I finished I was holding a very large
quantity of explosive. “That son of a bitch is sneaky I’ll give him that.” I
moved the explosives into the other transport. I was careful to make sure that
the mechanic never saw me. Then I went back to Danika. Janine left my body and
we kept searching for guns, money, and any other useful equipment.

           
We had built a good cache of stuff when I heard Penny’s
scream. My arms and legs pumped frantically as I made my way to her. Rounding
the corner, I saw her. Penny had a knife sticking out of her chest. The wound
wouldn’t kill her, but it was serious enough that she wasn’t able to move
without causing herself more damage. Alhambra lay sprawled out on the ground. A
soldier had a firm grip on the knife, and tried to point the MP5 at Katy. The
witch was just frozen. Hurdling over the Jinn, I shoved Katy to the ground, and
then drove my shoulder hard into the soldier. Blind rage burned through me, and
muscle memory guided me. Both of my thumbs found the two soft, spongy areas on
the face. I shoved both thumbs deep into the eye sockets, and was rewarded by
agonizing howl of pain when the eyeballs popped like two overripe grapes. I
anchored my thumbs to the inside of his skull, and pulled back lifting the
screaming man’s head and upper body off the ground. Then, with every ounce of
strength I could find, drove his head back down to the ground until I heard a
meaty crunch. His scream stopped immediately, but I didn’t. I kept rising and
falling like an angry gorilla. I felt bone crack and shatter in my hands, but I
still didn’t stop.

           
“Grimmy?’
Penny’s voice was
soft, gentle, and full of concern. It pulled me out of my red haze of anger,
and I turned to her. She’d healed already, but left a large bloodstain that ran
down her shirt. “Penny? Are you ok?” I slowly pulled my hands from what was
left of his skull, and got to my feet. I kept telling myself that she was ok,
but my stomach knotted every time I looked at the bloodstain. When Penny
stepped closer I reached up, and started to caress her cheek. My hand left a
red smear. Penny nuzzled my hand and then taking my hands in hers, she began to
lick them clean. I found myself starting to grow aroused.

           
Katy retched, “Oh that’s just gross!” Some of the
soldiers began vomiting again. By now, I’d have thought their stomachs were
empty, but apparently, some of them had a little left. Even Janine turned away.
Alhambra ignored us and rose to her feet. “Little witch, you’re far too
squeamish for this. If you had been doing your job none of this would have
happened.” Katy’s eyes glistened with tears. She was embarrassed and ashamed.
Her lower lip trembled, “I’m sorry. I…I just froze up.”

           
“The vampire should have just let you die!” Alhambra
snapped. Katy’s shoulders sagged under the weight of her own guilt. I wasn’t
sure about what had happened exactly, but the first chance I got there would be
answers. I turned my attention back to Penny. She was sucking the last bit of
blood off my thumb. “So is this the vampire equivalent of licking the cake
bowl?” Penny’s lips curled up into a predatory grin. She gave one last long
lick and then turned back to the others. I stepped over the body and walked
towards the remaining men.

           
“I told you that if one of you tried anything that I’d
kill all of you. I can’t afford to waste the ammunition on you, and we
certainly aren’t going to be able to hold you in any type of custody. I want
you to divide into two groups. Anyone that has had enough of the fighting and
just wants to go home needs to stand at my right, and everyone else should gather
to my left.” The men separated. I made sure that even the wounded had to make a
decision.

           
“Ok, now all of you that want to keep fighting. Once
we’ve removed all the weapons from your vehicle, we will let you take that
transport back to the nearest base. The rest of you are a two-day hike from the
nearest city. Just keep following this road and you’ll reach the city. When we
are twenty miles down the road we’ll stop and drop off all the water and
medical supplies you could possibly need. We’ll even call the authorities for
you when we make it into town. There is just one last thing. I’m going to need
five volunteers to ride with us. Those five will serve as hostages in case any
of you get sneaky. When we get to our destination, we will release the transport
to those five, minus the weapons and anything useful of course. Now which of
you want to volunteer?”

           
Nobody moved, I guess I can’t say I blamed them. Being a
hostage isn’t exactly the type of thing that gets people to volunteer. “No
volunteers? Well then, I suppose the easiest thing is to divide you all. The
injured and dead go with us, the rest go in the first transport.”

           
I sent Danika and Katy to scavenge through the first
vehicle. They took anything that might be of use to us and put it in the second
vehicle. Alhambra and Penny searched all the men one at a time. We took all
their cash, and any identifying items. Finally, we were ready. We filled our
transport with any wounded that still wanted to fight along with the dead.
Luckily, there were some zip tie handcuffs, and we were able to secure all the
men together in the back where they couldn’t hurt anybody. The others that
still wanted to fight filled up the first transport and it slowly rolled away.

           
I looked over. Eight men stared back angrily at us. They
may have stopped wanting to fight, but they were still pretty pissed. Two of
them had bullet wounds, but they could still walk. I barked, “Move your ass!
We’ll drop off supplies down the road. The quicker you get there, the better
you’ll be.” We then closed up the transport and began to rumble down the road.
The men disappeared behind us, and it wasn’t long before we had the first
transport in our sight.

           
Penny steered the transport while I turned to the others.
“So anyone care to explain why Penny had a knife sticking out of her boob
earlier?” I tried to stay calm, but it was obvious I was still in the mood to
kick someone’s ass. Alhambra hissed, “The witch tried to heal one of the men.
The stupid little bitch was so busy healing the man up that she never saw him
pull a knife. Your vampire stepped in front of the blade or else we’d have been
rid of one nuisance.” Katy was already starting to cry again.

           
“His vampire?”
Penny growled,
and I heard the steering wheel groan under her grip. Janine tried to calm
things down, “Ladies! It was a mistake. We’re all still here. There weren’t any
injuries that won’t heal right?”

           
“I’m still trying to figure out how it became a grade-A
number one goat fuck! They stabbed Penny, that still doesn’t explain how Ally
was on the ground, and it sure doesn’t explain why Katy didn’t use her powers
to flambé that jackass! I’ve seen you do it a dozen times on the clones. So why
didn’t you handle these guys. They were green as leprechaun shit.” The Jinn
jumped in, “Oh let me cover this one as well! See the little witch just stood
there and so I had to move around her to take aim. I thought you might
disapprove of me shooting the little bitchy witch. The problem was when I got
around her I was too close and he punched me in the face and took the gun.
Being without my powers is barely tolerable.”

           
“So Katy, what happened?” I tried to keep my temper in
check. Katy kept sniffling and crying, but finally she started sputtering,
“It’s different. They…they were clones. They aren’t r-r-r-really alive.
Not really…not
like you and me. If I toasted them then we’d
just make another four or five to replace him. These guys are real people
though. If I kill them, then we can’t just make another. I’m sorry Grim, I know
I fucked up.”

           
“Fucked up doesn’t do it justice bitchy witch! We nearly
died because you are too chickenhearted to do your job! You’re pathetic, and we
should have left you with those men back there. At least they might have found
a job for you.” Alhambra’s words were like knives. Each sentence opened a new
wound. Finally, I snapped, “Shut it Ally! There’s nothing for Katy to be
ashamed about. She doesn’t want to kill anybody. Well hell I’m not real sure
what’s wrong with that. Katy’s in this shithole neck deep with the rest of us!
We are about to have to throw down with the rotten son of a bitch that set us
up, and in case you haven’t noticed….we’re seriously outmanned, and outgunned
here.”

           
The Jinn glared at me, “Fine, but when we get to the city
she needs to go. She’s a liability!” Katy covered her face and started crying.
I punched the front window. The glass spiderwebbed, and I already felt a
trickle of blood sliding down my hand.
“Ally!
We don’t
need your shit right now! The General wanted her for experimentation. Keeping
Katy with us is a win. It’s a win because if we have her then he doesn’t. Right
now, we need all the wins we can get. Besides, there’s going to be plenty to
do, and don’t forget. Eisen is planning to use those clones. Katy has no
problem stomping the shit out of those science fair rejects. So when the time
comes Katy’s gonna be able to whip some clone ass…won’t you Kate?”

           
The little witch wiped away her tears. She nodded at me.
I don’t know if she really believed in what I was saying, but she appreciated
the support. I smiled at Katy, “Besides, with Ally’s powers cut off, you’re the
only one with any magic.” The Jinn grumbled, but kept to herself.
A quiet Jinn
would do some good for my temper. I wiped my
hand on my pants leg. There wasn’t much blood to begin with, and once I wiped
across my leg it looked like I’d just scuffed my hand.

           
Janine got closer to me. “So what’s the plan?” I kept
watching the other transport. “Grim?
Grim?
What are we
going to do?” My eyes turned towards Janine. She was worried. They all were.
“Survive…we are going to survive.”

           
“How?
What are we going to do?”
Janine needed to hear a plan. Maybe they all needed to hear something. I wasn’t
sure that I really had anything to give them, but they needed something. “The
General has all the supplies he could ever want, and more manpower than we
could ever match. It takes time to move all those resources. So they’ll be
strong, but slow. What we have going for us is that we’re small, so we can move
quickly. So first thing we have to do is get to safety. Then we can start
planning for quick strikes. The general wants to take over this country. That’s
going to take many of his resources away. He’s going to have to fight the U.S.
government, and that’s not going to leave a lot of time for him to hunt us
down. Once we get to the city, we can scramble until we find a good safehouse.
From there we can plan our attacks. We don’t have to fight all his soldiers. We
only have to find the general, and kill him. Cut off the
head,
and the snake dies.” Okay that was the big plan. It was vague on the details.
That was mostly because I didn’t have any. I only hoped that the girls didn’t
catch on to that part.

           
We reached the twentieth mile and I popped open the back.
We tossed out some water, and some medical supplies. Katy was working her ass
off trying to unload as much of the stuff as possible. I guess she was feeling
guilty about earlier. “Kate, come here will you. The rest of you, unload as
fast as you can. We need to catch up to the other transport.” Katy walked
towards me. Her shoulders sagged, and she looked like she was ready to cry
again.

           
“So you won’t kill people?” I tried to make my question
as neutral as possible.

           
“I can do it. I just…I mean I don’t have any problems
with the clones. So I can kill a real soldier.”

           
“Really?”
I asked.

           
“I…have to. Don’t I? I mean if I don’t then what good am
I?” Her lower lip trembled.

           
“Listen, I’m not angry that you can’t kill regular
people. You have no reason to be ashamed. The world needs a lot more people
like you than it does people like me. Now be honest, can you kill these people
if I need you to? Don’t fuck with me on this? No bullshit on this at all. If
you don’t think you can kill, then I need to hear it right now because I need
to know what we can, and what we can’t do. If you say you can do it, and it
turns out you can’t, then some of us might get killed because of it.” Tears
started streaming down her face, “I’m sorry! I…I just can’t!”

           
I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her into a hug.
“Listen. I don’t want you to feel bad because you won’t kill. There’s going to
be more than enough work to go around so you’ll have plenty to do. Just help us
where you can, and know that as far as I‘m concerned whatever you can do is
plenty.” Katy gave me a hard squeeze back. “Now I have one last question.”