Kelly Meding - Another Kind of Dead

“Pretty much,” she replied. “We haven’t gotten an official okay from the brass yet, but most of the other Handlers are on board. We can’t keep Reilly quiet unless we kill him, which we aren’t going to do, so—”

“If you can’t kill them, recruit them?”

Her lips quirked. Rufus chuckled.

Kismet’s cell phone rang. She checked the I.D., then snapped it open. “Kismet.” Her eyebrows puckered. “Adrian, slow down, I—” She went perfectly still, her already pale skin taking on a frightening pallor. Her mouth slowly fell open.

I exchanged a look with Rufus, whose face reflected the concern and confusion that was ripping through my body.

“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” she said, and hung up. “Fucking hell.”

“What?” I asked.

“Boot Camp is being attacked.”

“Attacked?” Rufus and I squawked in stereo. Again?

“I’ll call you with details,” she said, already on her way to the door.

Hell no.

I chased after her.

No way was I sitting this out.

She didn’t protest, and I waited until we were in her Jeep and on the road before demanding to know what the fuck was going on.

“Adrian got a call from one of the trainers,” she said, voice shaking. “She said the creatures we’d collected from Olsmill started going berserk. They were enraged like nothing she’d ever seen before, some of them bursting out of their cages. The six hounds got loose, too. No one realized it until they got out of R&D and started tearing through the compound.”

I bit my lower lip hard. Six hounds, plus fourteen other inhuman beasts, loose in an enclosed compound full of trainers and half-skilled rookie Hunters. It would be a slaughter.

“Thackery,” I said. “He created those things; it makes sense he’d have some method of controlling them. Some switch we couldn’t see to set them off. A fail-safe.”

As far-fetched as it sounded, given what I now knew about Thackery, it also seemed perfectly reasonable. He could control his newest breed of hounds. He had a trained fucking wolf. Who was to say he couldn’t also control the other creatures in his menagerie? We’d taken them into our most protected, private facility, and now he was attacking our heart.

Bastard!

Kismet tossed her phone at me. “Call the apartment. Tell Milo and the rookies to get weapons and be ready for us to pick them up in five minutes.”

I did, not even bothering to explain, and points to Milo for not asking. At Kismet’s direction, I called four other Handlers and repeated an emergency code. Two teams were remaining in the city, just in case. Everyone else was scrambling to Boot Camp. She repeated the message to her team after we picked them up. Her rookies were all teen boys, fresh-faced and completely forgettable, and probably about to become cannon fodder.

God, did I ever look that young?

They passed out weapons. Apparently, Milo remembered my fondness for knives, because I was given three—one for my ankle and one on each hip, plus a gun loaded with frag rounds and two extra clips. Kismet’s gun and various rounds went on the seat between us.

No one talked, each of us absorbed in our own thoughts. I kept imagining the trainees being cornered and slaughtered by those creatures. Being hunted in their own safe haven by monsters that shouldn’t exist. As a trainee, I’d been able to reconcile the existence of vampires and shape-shifters and Fey because they’d been here long before humans. But the hounds? That thing with the fish fin? The skeleton cat? Nature had been raped and abused to create them, and now we were paying the price.

The city fell away, and a black sedan appeared behind us on the dirt road that wound up to Boot Camp. Kismet raced along the bumpy path, and I swear I heard a tire pop. At a bend, the road was blocked by a second Jeep. She slammed on the brakes. I braced against the dash, my seat belt snapping me back. Tires squealed behind us. Just beyond the first vehicle was the gate.

We tumbled out, joined from the rear sedan by Morgan’s team. Four figures had gathered next to the front Jeep—a Triad I didn’t know. They waved at us to take cover, and I finally realized why.

Three creatures prowled the front gate, on our side of the barrier. The familiar hulking shapes of two hounds walked on their hind legs, darting in and out of the decimated guard hut, daring us to try and get inside. Both of them were bleeding in half a dozen places, but seemingly unfazed by the wounds. The third shape was the oversized gray wolf—Thackery’s wolf, with the intelligent silver eyes. Silver eyes seemed to be a theme with his sidekicks.

The wolf watched me from the safety of the hounds’ shadows, ears perked. Surprised to see me alive, maybe?

None of them were attacking. Shit. They were stalling us. Keeping us out. I said as much to Kismet.

“Kis, Morgan,” the oldest of the unfamiliar foursome said. Had to be their Handler. “How much firepower do you have?”

“Plenty,” Morgan said. He and Paul were lugging a trunk forward.

“Mix up the frags and a-c’s,” Kismet said. “It kills them faster.”

“We don’t have time for this,” I said, and gave her a hard look. “There’s no barrier spell that I can sense, so I could try three.”

“Take Milo.” To the Handler, she said, “Sharpe, I need two of yours.”

Sharpe shot her a sour look. His close-cropped brown hair and deep-set eyes gave him an Italian mobster air that wasn’t dispelled by the way he drew out some of his vowels. “Greg and Scott, do what she tells you. Everyone else, switch out your ammo.”

I rolled my eyes. Fools must have been using regular rounds. Then I surveyed my temporary partners.

Greg and Scott were perfect opposites as Hunters. The former was short and stocky, with the bulk of a midget wrestler, while the latter was tall and lean and tight sinew. They were also armed to the teeth. Scott even had a short sword in a sheath across his back. Nice.

Only Milo seemed to have some inkling of what we were about to do. I grabbed his hand, then took Greg’s. Milo reached for Scott’s. The other two men frowned.

“Take his fucking hand,” Kismet snapped before I had to.

“Don’t break the circle,” I said when they finally got over holding a man’s hand. “No matter what, because this is going to feel weird.”

I closed my eyes and ignored the sounds of clips sliding into place and Handlers shouting orders. I reached out to find my tap, then sought loneliness. With Wyatt gone, unreachable, untouchable, it wasn’t hard. The emotion flooded me, bordering on grief, and the Break snapped all around me. Around us. Someone shouted as we dissolved. I guided us through the familiar crackle of energy, toward the road just past the gate. A sharp stab of pain hit between my eyes. Warm wetness stained my upper lip.

And then we were out. Milo caught me before I fell, and I sagged against his chest, dizzy and nauseated.

“Holy shit, that was awesome,” either Greg or Scott said. The other asked, “She okay?”

A high-pitched shriek bounced off the trees from the direction of Boot Camp. “Go!” I said, and pushed Milo away.

The three took off down the road and disappeared around the first bend. I stumbled after them. Wouldn’t be very good in the battle today, but at least I’d gotten a few extra hands into the fray sooner.

An out-of-place whirring sound approached from the west, high above the trees. I gazed up at the sky as I half walked, half ran. A helicopter buzzed aloft, heading toward the heart of the compound. Airborne backup—that made me smile. Behind me, an eruption of gunfire added to the cacophony.

The trees parted. The smoking ruins of R&D lay straight ahead, burning from the inside out. Smoke stung my eyes. Two twisted, bloodied bodies decorated the sidewalk. Gunfire and screams still echoed from the rear, closer to the recruit barracks and training facilities. The helicopter was gone, and I hoped it had at least dumped a couple of capable bodies before flying away.