“We’ve heard about sightings of at least one Class One shifter in the area, sir.”
“You heard the command. Focus on thinning out those packs. If you find any wounded, all Priority Cleanup Protocols are in effect.”
There was a longer pause before Tate gave another tired affirmative. After that, Adderson signaled for the connection to be cut and handed back the earpiece.
No matter what he’d seen since the beasts came in from the woods, he felt sickest when enforcing the Cleanup Protocols. Every instinct he had was to either help the wounded or find a way to move them to where they could be helped. Those instincts had to be squelched after the first wave of police officers were attacked and turned in Kansas City. There had been rumors about werewolves before then, but most of them relied on whatever was cranked out of Hollywood or fairy tales. For a man who’d been polishing his boots since the third grade, that sort of thing simply didn’t cut it. Adderson was a military man brought up by military men. Even his grandmother had done her part by serving as a gunnery instructor in World War Two. His uncle had been in ’Nam and used to get drunk and brag how his skin was the same color as his jungle fatigues. All of them held one solid belief where battlefield ethics were concerned: nobody was supposed to be left behind.
Cleanup Protocols mandated that those attacked by any class of shifter couldn’t be allowed to change into one of them. Plenty of the medics and lab coats still wanted to do their research, but when times got bad, the protocols stated very plainly that no chances should be taken. The wounded were put down. No exceptions. Adderson hated that order, and he hated himself for giving it, but there just wasn’t anything else to be done.
Looking out between the cold wooden slats nailed in place over the electronic store’s front door, he watched the shadows pull away to reveal an empty street. If he squinted hard enough, he could make out the scratches left behind by a pack of shifters. Their claws had dug into the concrete and spilled blood that dried into cold, dark stains on the curbs and sidewalks. The sounds of panting, barking, and scraping reached his ears. They came from the other side of the window, and as he closed his eyes to savor one last moment of morning sun brushing his face, he could tell the sounds were getting closer.
“Do you have any details on where the survivors are taking shelter?” he asked.
The Marine at the keyboard searched a few files and said, “There are a few local postings about a gym a few blocks away. Other than that, it’s just the usual scattered basements patrolled by Neighborhood Watch.”
“Send some men to that gym.”
“Should they be ready for cleanup?”
“Only if absolutely necessary. The shifters may try to sniff them out. Rather than move any survivors into the open, let’s post some explosives at the safest minimum distance and vaporize some of those Class Twos.”
“Yes, sir!” the Marine said with a grateful smile.
“There are packs moving into the area,” Adderson announced to everyone in the room, without taking his eyes from the window. “A scouting team has picked them up thanks to the new satellite relays, but we all know there could be a lot more than that. We also know there’s at least one Class One in the vicinity and no reason to think it would have left just so we could go out for breakfast.”
Despite every soldier feeling the same fighter’s twitch that accompanied the thought of running away, none of them could argue with the fact that Esteban had allowed them to survive. One of the pilots who’d escaped from a downed NH-90 had something else to say.
“What about those Class Threes? I saw them burrowing underground when my crew was turned. I think it was attacking the Class One.”
“Just set the explosives and get ready for a fight. If those things are turning on each other, we’ll let them rip each other to pieces. Stay back and give them room. Our top priority is in keeping this city from falling. If we can’t do that, we’ve got to at least keep those Class Ones in one spot long enough for an artillery strike.”
“Those things are too fast to be hit by artillery,” one of the soldiers pointed out. Adderson recognized the man’s voice but was too tired to come up with a name.
“Then we’ll have to get creative and find a way to keep them in position. Nobody will turn their noses up at a target if we can make it juicy enough.”
All the soldiers could muster up by way of enthusiasm was a few nods scattered among the dirty faces.
The wolves were coming in from the forests.
Chapter Sixteen
Randolph awoke at the bottom of a small crater. Several feet of drifted snow had broken his and Kawosa’s fall, but the impact of their bodies was still enough to put a dent in the ground. The trickster was gone. Judging by the tracks left behind, Kawosa had dragged himself up less than a minute before he came around. The Full Blood’s head ached and there were thick layers of blood frozen into his fur. He pulled in a deep breath and found a few promising hints residing within the currents of air. The trickster’s scent was fresh. More than that, Kawosa was wounded.
Both of Randolph’s feet were buried in the snowy wall of the hole, and his hands formed fists around solid clumps of ice that had been loosened on impact. After a short search, he found one curved talon stretching up from the center of the flattened area where his back had been resting. Not only did it explain the nagging pain at the base of his spine, but also why Kawosa hadn’t reclaimed the piece of him that had been lost. Although the First Deceiver would more than likely be able to recover from the loss, having the missing wing would speed the process along nicely. Randolph stuck his hand into the packed snow and removed the wing he’d pulled from Kawosa’s back.
It was lighter than a tree branch and stank like lard that left to burn for too long at the bottom of a poorly made lantern. Still, as the tattered flaps of skin ruffled in the breeze, Randolph couldn’t help but smile. Finding the trickster was the most difficult part. Freeing him from Lancroft had been a trial. Getting Kawosa to trust him well enough to stay close until an opportunity like this arose was a small miracle. If not for the recent Breaking Moon, he might not have had the strength to chase the wily Mist Born down. While Esteban, Liam, and Minh were channeling their share of the Torva’ox into newly awakened powers, he had added to his foundation. Speed and strength. Two things that every Full Blood had at their disposal, but not in the amount necessary to run down an elder shapeshifter, survive an encounter with its purest form, and claim a piece for himself.
After bounding up the side of a nearby mountain, Randolph buried the wing beneath enough cold rocks to keep it safe for the short time he needed to hunt. It didn’t take long for him to find a small family of mountain lions consisting of a mother and two cubs. He chased them down easily, weathered a brief but intense flurry of claws and teeth from the panicked mother, and was soon feasting on warm, bloody meat. He scooped out the carcasses, discarded what he couldn’t consume, and fashioned a crude sling by knotting the hides together. When he retuned to where he’d buried the wing, he was able to strap it across his back within the sling. That way he could shift into his four-legged form and run at full speed without having to worry about losing his precious cargo.
He ran south through Wyoming and Colorado, skirting the Rockies until they led him to the southernmost portion of the state. Cold wind blasted across his face, broken occasionally by the scent of burning buildings. He did his best to avoid civilization, simply because he no longer had any business there. Human screams and Half Breed howls reached his ears in a mush, entwined with the rustling breezes like a few noteworthy strands in an otherwise uniform bolt of fabric.
Using his instincts along with knowledge gained from centuries of patrolling the same territory, Randolph knew when to point his nose to the east and run toward Kansas. Confronting the trickster was no small feat, but there was much more business to conduct before he could get the quiet he so desperately wanted.