“I had to fight the influence of these ‘pheromones.’ It comes from the energy ball-not from the creatures,” she told him as he expertly chambered a round in the Walther.
“The dire wolves,” Rook corrected.
“They are in the main room. Six of them. I had to pretend to be under the influence still. Walking like a hypnotized woman. Glassy eyes. They let me pass, but they still paid attention. We have to be careful. Do not get too close to the light ball. But if it gets you, you get very happy. You feel everything will be fine. The antidote is to get very angry. Frustrated.”
“Getting angry is rarely a problem for me. Where’s Queen?” There was a note of deep concern in Rook’s voice.
“I do not know. I have not seen her.”
“And Fossen?” Rook’s voice took on the glistening edge of a razor.
“I saw only four guards, in a security room. They are all dead now. I haven’t seen any of the people in lab coats for hours, but I saw them in the security feeds, sleeping in beds. Also, one of the doors to the outside was open. Perhaps we should just get out of here.”
“That open door was me coming back inside,” Rook said. “Listen, you already figured out that Stanislav was not my real name. Queen and I are a part of an American military team. We deal with this kind of stuff. Evil nutjobs like Fossen. Weird crap like the dire wolves. It’s all part of the job. I don’t know exactly what’s coming through that portal out there, but Fossen believes it will destroy the entire planet. We’ve got to stay and try to stop him.”
“I understand, but what can you do?”
“There’s a big machine around that glowing monster testicle. I’m gonna smash the crap out of it and hope that turns it off.”
“Eloquent plan,” Asya said, sounding unsure.
“What can I say,” Rook added. “I’m the brains of the outfit.”
He moved back to the light and Asya followed him, pulling the second gun from her other pocket and chambering it. When Rook reached the lit end of the tunnel, he moved against the left wall, shielding him from the view of any dire wolves that might still be in the massive portal chamber.
Rook held the gun up near his face and looked back at Asya. “On three, we jump out and if there’s any of the dire wolves, we shoot them in the heads. Besides holding me hostage, you ever fire a gun before?”
She nodded. “I was in the army a long time ago.”
“Okay. In the heads, remember. You said there were six, right?” She nodded again, holding her own pistol at the ready. “Right. One, two…
“…three.”
Rook leapt out from behind cover and Asya followed, but neither of them fired a shot. “Aww. Son-of-a-”
Thirty dire wolves turned toward him. Eirek Fossen stood at the center of the pack. He stood calmly and the beasts around him held a relaxed posture.
“Stanislav,” Fossen said with a nod of greeting. “I’m afraid this is where we part ways. For good.” He backed away toward the portal. “The time for my ascension has come.” He raised his hands out to either side, making him look like Jesus on the cross. Even tilted his head to the side a little. Then he stepped back into the light. As the glow wrapped around his face, he grinned and said, “Kill them.”
Then he was gone, transported to another world.
The demeanor of every creature in the room shifted from docile to hostile in a second. Moving as one, they rushed toward Rook and Asya, some running on two legs. Others loping on all four. Each and every one of them out for blood.
SIXTY-ONE
Gleipnir Facility, Fenris Kystby, Norway
4 November, 0230 Hrs
Rook fired four shots-hitting a lumbering dire wolf in the head with each-and then ran across the massive chamber, remembering Asya’s warning to stay far from the glowing orb that stretched to the ceiling behind the creatures. Asya stayed at his side, firing as she ran. He didn’t have to tell her what to do, she just did it. Once again, the thought that there was more to this woman than she was letting on flitted through his brain. He wondered if she was a Russian spy or something. She certainly moved like it.
A dire wolf made it past the barrage of 9 mm fire that Rook and Asya sprayed around the room. It lunged low for Asya’s legs, and Rook marveled to see her deftly sweep her legs up and over the creature, with the fingers of one outstretched hand resting on the back of its head. It looked to Rook like a gymnastics move. Then, while still in the air, in mid leap over the beast, she pointed the Walther down and fired a round into the back of the dire wolf’s head-inches from where her hand balanced her entire body above it. She followed through on the graceful leap and landed lightly on her toes before the dire wolf’s now inert body slumped to the concrete floor of the huge room.
Rook fired his eighth shot and the breech locked back, telling him his Walther was out of ammunition. Another dire wolf reached him, swiping its glassy claws across his midsection. Rook jumped back, narrowly avoiding being eviscerated, as the claws traced shallow red lines across his stomach.
Barely noticing the wound, Rook punched hard, mashing a tennis-ball sized eye into the muscle and bone beneath it. The creature howled and twisted violently, swiping at Rook with its clawed hand, but he stepped back out of its range. He was about to go for its other eye, when the orb burst into a spray of sticky white liquid. Asya had used her last bullet to shoot the thing, and while the eye had detonated, the creature wasn’t dead-the bullet had not penetrated the beast’s skull. It rolled on the floor in agony and blindly swept out its claws at Rook and Asya.
They were both out of bullets and the rest of the dire wolves were still coming at them from across the huge room. They were no more than thirty feet away. “The stairs!” Rook ran as fast as he had ever run in his life. He might be able to take one of these things down, but he didn’t think he could take the horde, not even with Asya’s Ballet-Fu.
She reached the metal stairs before him. They led up to the catwalk, over a hundred feet above them. She raced up the stairs to the first landing, the metal steps clanging with that bong-thap sound metal stairs always made. Rook raced up the first flight behind her, then suddenly swiveled around, holding the railing, and swung his booted foot down the stairs to smash into the face of the first dire wolf on the steps behind him. The creature instinctively turned its head so the large eye on the side of its cranium could see him better.
Bad move, Bonzo. Rook had identified the large eyes as the dire wolves most obvious weak spot. So he aimed for it when he kicked. His booted foot hit the delicate eye. It squelched like a smashed grape. The creature’s body sprawled backward away from the assault and it slammed into the next beast behind it, sending them both flying to the floor.
Rook raced on up the stairs. He made it past the second landing before another dire wolf nearly reached him on the steps. Asya was a few flights above him. Rook glanced up the stairwell. Too many friggin’ steps.
The dire wolf swiped at his back and he felt the claws tear through the thick fabric of his wet coat. Then instead of taking another step, he threw his body backward, slamming into the creature. They both plunged down the flight of steps.
The dire wolf hit the landing hard.
Rook landed on top of it. He turned and slammed both hands on either side of the dire wolf’s head, pounding its eyes, and then scrambled to his feet. The dire wolf pistoned its legs where it lay on the landing and clawed at its now blinded face. The body turned slowly on the landing and Rook thought of the Three Stooges. He shoved hard with his foot and the beast’s body slid to the edge of the landing and under the knee-height guardrail. With a second shove, the creature fell away from the stairs.