“Help her,” the boy cried.
The woman’s eyes were glazed over and her body was still.
“Help her! Please!”
“She’s gone, son,” Adderson said.
“No,” the boy wailed. “I can hear her.”
The woman’s chest was moving. Adderson could see that and could hear her as well. The wet crunch of bones breaking inside of her was very distinctive. “Come here by me,” he said to the kid.
The kid wouldn’t budge. “No! You’re supposed to help us. Help my mom!”
“Mosier, come take this kid into one of the Humvees.”
A Marine stepped forward to carry out the order. He’d been with the IRD since its inception and seen enough to recognize the danger signs where the boy’s mother was concerned. His instincts were so finely honed that his HK never wavered from her as she began to jerk and twitch under heavier convulsions. His grip on the kid’s arm was firm but gentle at first. It became uncompromising when the boy planted his feet and held onto the woman’s dirty wool cardigan.
The woman’s eyes snapped open. Her jaw dropped and her back arched as the Breaking moved through her spine and ribs.
“Mommy!”
“Get that kid away from here!” Adderson roared.
Despite Mosier’s best efforts, the kid would not be taken easily. Adderson waited until the boy was out of the alley, but could still hear his screams when he aimed at the woman’s head and sent a three-shot burst through her brain. The kid screamed, and his voice was soon joined by others. Even though the woman’s twitching had stopped, he kept his assault rifle pointed at her when he said, “Scout ahead to see who else is here.”
Three soldiers replied in the affirmative, two Army Rangers and one Marine. They hurried down the alley in a shoulder-to-shoulder formation so all three of them could open fire if the need arose. Adderson couldn’t see much past them, but the shooting started almost immediately. All three of the soldiers fired in controlled bursts before going any farther. Since they hadn’t called for reinforcements, he knew they’d probably found a smaller pack than the one that attacked the convoy.
Adderson’s ears picked up on the howl right away. He heard its rising and falling tone woven in with a distant set of sirens. “There’ll be more coming,” he said to the others.
No response came.
“Take the kid back to the Humvees and get him out of here.”
Still no response.
Swiveling around, Adderson found one of the soldiers on his knees, hanging onto the kid’s wrist in a grip that caused the boy to squirm in pain. Mosier must have handed him off but now was fighting to get him back. From the Humvees, muffled cries could be heard along with the thrashing of boots or fists pounding against the interior of the vehicles.
More shots were fired by the scouting team in the alley, which meant they were unaffected by the most recent howl. The growls coming from that direction were definitely being made by Class Twos. Mosier struggled to pull the kid back while keeping his aim on the soldier who was being broken. “Come on, kid. Just relax and let me pull you loose.”
The kid jerked his hand free, but also let out a bloodcurdling scream as his head twisted to one side and the bones in his legs began to pop. Having seen more than his share of action, Mosier dropped the kid’s hand and took aim. Because he was a father of three, he wasn’t able to pull the trigger right away. Because he was a human being, he wasn’t about to let the kid suffer once his bones began to snap and the wolf’s teeth ripped through tender, pink gums. He fired, knowing he would remember every shot until the last day of his life.
“All teams in Delta Sector report!” Adderson shouted into his radio.
Two of the groups didn’t report back. The Humvee closest to the street opened fire with its .50 cal, causing a torrent of pained growls to fill the air. Soon, the grating sound of claws scraping against metal pierced Adderson’s ears.
“Hunter One, this is Duck Blind, do you copy?”
At that moment those names felt all too appropriate. While Adderson and his troops waded hip deep in blood, the IRD brass stayed where it was safe and watched the fighting through satellite feeds and online relays. Jamming his finger against the radio’s Talk button as if he wanted to smash it into the box itself, Adderson replied, “This is Hunter One. My convoy has been compromised. There’s been civilian casualties. We’re downtown on—”
“Pull your team back. We’re pulling the plug on this one. Over.”
“No, sir! We’re already embedded. The Class One is staying nearby. We won’t get a better chance than this to take it out. Over.”
“Do you have any specialists on site? Over.”
Adderson clenched his jaw while weighing the pros and cons of lying about the Skinners being there along with his team. In the end he knew their presence wouldn’t make much difference. If anything, having the Skinners at his side when things swirled this far down the bowl would only make the higher-ups think twice about allowing the specialists on another operation. “No specialists on site,” he said. “Over.”
“Then we’re out of options in dealing with that Class One. Pull your men out of there and clear a path for the bombers.”
“What about the civilians, sir?”
“We’ve already ordered them to take cover. The ones who haven’t are probably dead already. Now pull out, Major.”
Adderson stood so he could see his men in the fire team as well as the bodies on the pavement nearby. Mosier took up position beside him with his rife held at the ready. The fire team was alternating fire so they could reload, but were holding their ground. A few were enforcing the Cleanup Protocols on the troops who’d fallen to the last howl. After another burst of fire, the alley was quiet once again. Keying his radio, Adderson said, “Negative, sir.”
“What was that, Major?”
Although Mosier didn’t speak up, he looked over to his commanding officer with surprise written across his hard-edged features.
Gunfire had died down in the streets as well, and the howling had stopped, leaving the city with a silent pall and a gritty texture that left the taste of blood and burnt cordite in the back of Adderson’s throat. “Bombing runs haven’t worked on a Class One yet, sir. Soon as they hear the planes, they run away. Even if we get this one to stand still long enough for the bombs to drop, there’s no proof they’ll do any damage. This one is different, sir.”
“How so?”
Rather than try to explain how Esteban had faded in and out of a solid form, Adderson said, “It’s not like the others. I’ll file a report when I’m out of Shreveport, but I won’t be leaving until we put up a real fight.”
“A real fight? What the hell do you call what we’ve been doing?”
“We’ve been doing what we could while trying to remain safe, sir. It’ll take more than that to put these things down.”
“And if we don’t play our cards right, those things may just wipe us off the map. We just got a report that Hunter Four’s team was compromised by an unknown number of Class Twos in South Dakota. The entire platoon is gone.”
“All of them?”
“Affirmative. And there wasn’t even a Class One present.”
“Not that we know of, anyway.”
“That’s just a matter of checking one box or another on the reports, Major. All those soldiers are either dead or running around the Badlands with the rest of those fucking wolves, and I won’t have that happen to your unit as well!”
Adderson drew a breath and held it as he thought about the last time he’d seen the commanding officer of Hunter Four. Mark Jones had bought a round of drinks and charged it to the federal account under Essential Provisions. Adderson had promised to buy the next round. “We can’t pull back, sir,” he said. “These Class Ones are smart and they’re getting braver. This one’s staying in Shreveport just because it can.”