“Let’s load,” Dr. Hammond called out from her console.
The Psychic Warriors headed for their isolation tanks.
Feteror watched the Omon smash the front door in. The house was well built, but the Omon used a shotgun to blast out the locks, then two men swung a small battering ram, splintering the wood. Feteror was in the virtual plane, hovering overhead.
The team, led by Deputy Commander Bredond, sprinted through the doorway. Feteror swooped down, passing through the roof flitting from room to room, watching as the Omon did his dirty work.
There were three people in the house— a woman and two children. The Omon had them gagged, hooded, and cuffed, ignoring the woman’s screams about who her husband was and how important he was.
The Omon hustled the three out of the house and into one of their cars. Feteror followed overhead as they drove through the streets of Moscow until they arrived at an old warehouse near the railyard.
Bredond exited the car, dragging the woman with her as two of his men brought the kids. Two armored BMWs waited in the shadows. Four men emerged from the lead one and took custody of the woman and two children. They pulled the hood off the woman and checked her photograph against one they had with them. Satisfied, they threw the woman into the trunk of the car, then crammed the two children in on top of her and closed the trunk, ignoring the muted cries and jerkings of the bound bodies.
As the men started to get back in the still-open doors, Bredond stepped forward. All four men paused, hands hovering near the front of their long black leather coats.
“This is going too far!” Bredond yelled toward the rear BMW.
Overhead, Feteror began forming in the real plane, his clawed hands hooked onto one of the large support beams holding the roof up, his wings folded in tight, unseen and unnoticed by those below.
There was no reply, either from the guards or whoever was seated behind the tinted glass in the second BMW.
Bredond shifted uncomfortably, his three men holding their AK-74s uncertainly.
“Her husband is a GRU general. We were seen picking her and the children up. There will be inquiries. I will have to answer for this.”
One of the bodyguards from the lead BMW put a finger to his ear. Feteror could see the thin wire, indicating he had a small receiver there. The man snapped a command and all four slipped inside the car.
Bredond raised his hand. His men pointed their weapons at the two BMWs, blocking the exit.
Feteror spread his wings and leaped. He swooped down, both arms out to his side, and went right between two of the Omon, claws ripping throats open in a gush of blood.
Feteror landed as Bredond and the last surviving Omon policeman spun about, searching for the cause of the other half of their party’s death.
Feteror stepped forward and swung low. The last Omon man caught a glimpse of Feteror’s form even as the claws punched through skin, into warm viscera. Feteror felt the man’s spine and he gripped it, practically ripping the man in two in the process. He lifted the man up, then threw him onto the car the Omon had driven.
Bredond stepped back, weapon raised. He could see the intermittent form of some large creature, the two glowing red eyes unmistakable, the red blood dripping off an almost invisible clawed hand very clear.
Feteror drew in more power and he slowly materialized, adding color to his form. His scaled skin was black, his wings streaked with red, his demon features hard and angular.
Bredond’s eyes opened wide, the weapon falling from his fingers as he dropped to his knees, hands raised in supplication. “Chyort! Please! Spare me!”
Feteror spun so quickly that those watching from the other cars only saw a blur. He lashed a backhand strike with his right wing, the six-inch claw on his middle finger extended. It sliced through Bredond’s neck like a paring knife through bread. Bredond’s head tilted back, held in place only by the spinal cord. The body flopped back, blood still pumping from the heart.
Feteror turned to the second BMW. A window slid down and the cracked face of Oma peered out.
“He was useful,” she said.
“His usefulness was over.” Feteror liked the sound of the avatar voice he had worked hard on. It was deeper than a human voice, with a rough edge. A true demon’s voice. “The Omon’s being involved will cause confusion. Their bodies found dead will make even more confusion. It will take the GRU a while to sort through. By then it will be too late.”
“Why do we need them?” Oma asked, indicating the trunk.
Feteror extended the same claw that had almost decapitated Bredond toward the first BMW. “They are important to our plan.”
“How?” Oma asked. “I did as you asked but I don’t see how a GRU general’s wife and children help us.”
Feteror glared at the old woman. He could see the fear in her guards’ eyes, the four men having jumped out of the front BMW, weapons at the ready at his appearance. He could not tell her why, because doing so would expose a weakness.
“Do as you are told, old woman.”
“You need me,” Oma hissed.
Feteror extended his wings, putting the car in the dark shadow they created. “Oh, yes, old woman, I need you.”
Feteror leapt up, translating from the real to the virtual plane in an instant and, in doing so, disappearing before the eyes of those watching, leaving behind the bodies he had torn apart as the only evidence that what they had seen had been real.
Chapter Sixteen
Dalton looked around. He was in a large open space, the horizon limitless. The ground beneath his feet was flat and a featureless gray. The air was filled with a white fog, making him wonder how far he was really seeing.
“I am bringing all of you here in your forms in the virtual plane first,” Hammond said.
Dalton noticed something above him. He looked up and saw a falcon and two eagles soaring. He immediately knew from Sybyl’s input that they were Jackson and the other two RVers, Sergeant Williams and Chief Warrant Officer Auer.
More forms began appearing on the ground around him. Dalton was slightly surprised that he could recognize each of his men, their forms very similar to what they were in reality, even though their facial features were white masks without features. There was enough variance in size and shape to allow him to separate them.
“Your weapons,” Hammond announced.
Right arms formed into tubes from the elbow forward. Dalton’s tube was about four inches in diameter, tapering to a smooth muzzle about a half inch wide. Two others were similar to what Dalton carried, two were the “shotguns” he had asked Hammond for, and two were the more powerful, slower-firing tubes.
“What about you?” Dalton projected the question to the RVers circling overhead.
Lieutenant Jackson’s voice answered inside of his head. “We need the power to fly. We can be your eyes for this mission. If we had weapons, we would take away power from yours.”
“All right.”
He saw another figure, Raisor, standing not far away, blank face watching.
The avatars gathered round. It was eerie to watch the bird forms of the RVers simply come to a halt overhead, wings folded. But Dalton knew that if he tried, he could hover off the floor and hang next to them.
“Mr. Raisor has set up a practice scenario for us at Fort Hood, Texas. They’ve closed off a tank range there and put in a bunch of targets, both stationary and moving, for us to attack. We have no idea right now what form the Mafia assault on the nuclear weapons train will take, but this is the best we can come up with on short notice.”
“Do we fire on full power?” Captain Anderson asked.