03 - Evolution (17 page)

He pulled her to him with surprising strength. Her
passion rose and she surrendered to the moment. Their mouths still
locked in a ravenous kiss, she peeled off his jacket and the tattered
remains of his shirt. Her hands explored his naked chest, discovering
that his bullet wounds had long since healed. The unmarred flesh was hot
and irresistible to her touch.

She shrugged off her voluminous trench coat, which
joined the borrowed blanket upon the floor of the trailer. “Help me,”
she entreated huskily as she tugged on the zippers of her tight black
leathers. The tailored bodysuit was like a second skin, but suddenly she
couldn’t get it off fast enough. Michael’s skillful hands came to her
assistance, and the leather slid from her body, leaving her exposed and
vulnerable before his gaze. His eyes gratefully devoured every inch of
her bare white skin. He gazed at her in wonder.

Selene felt a wall crumble inside her, falling away just
like her discarded clothes. She fell back against the blanket and
scattered pieces of clothing. Her pale arms reached out for him. Michael
kicked off his soggy trousers and joined her upon the makeshift bed,
resting his weight atop her pliant curves. Their skin brushed together
in a tantalizing caress. Her fingers stroked the firm, masculine
contours of his back. His hungry mouth found her breast.

There was no biting, no sinking of fangs into tender
flesh. Her blood already flowed through his veins, and his through hers.
Instead they made love as mortals did, gasping and panting as their
intertwined bodies came together again and again.
Yes,
she thought rapturously, as they ascended the heights of
passion,
this is how it had to be.
Today she
didn’t want to be a vampire, a Death Dealer.

Only a woman.

Nestled in the forest, along the side of the
road, the mouth of a concrete drainage tunnel protruded from the bottom
of a snow-covered ridge. Ice water trickled along the floor of the
tunnel, passing through a carpet of dead leaves, silt, and animal
droppings. The fetid air within the shaft stank of piss and rot. The
dank cement walls were coated with slime and mold. It was a far cry from
the luxurious accommodations Marcus was accustomed to.

He dragged himself along the floor of the tunnel,
retreating from the dawn. Despite the changes he had undergone of late,
he was still enough of a vampire to fear the sun. Vengeance on Selene
and her hybrid lover would have to wait until nightfall.

His mutilated wings scraped against the roof of the
tunnel. They were already healing, but the sharp pains radiating through
his shattered pinions stoked the anger burning within his breast. He
cursed himself for letting go of the pendant when Selene had unleashed
her gunfire upon him. The prize had been within his grasp, and yet he
had let it slip away.

Tonight,
he vowed. When the
sun went down again, nothing would stop him from reclaiming the
pendant—and making Selene and Michael Corvin pay for their defiance. He
gnashed his fangs as he inched farther into the dark recesses of the
vile tunnel.

Tonight…

Sergeant Sandor Hadik was not in a good mood.

His head hurt from where that dark-haired woman had
clobbered him. He was cold and wet from lying unconscious in the snow
for at least an hour. A wanted fugitive was missing. And he had no idea
what was going on.

How the hell am I going to explain
this in my report?
he fretted.
Any of it?

He and his fellow officers searched the woods for
Michael Corvin and his female accomplice. Despite the brilliant sunlight
filtering down through the tree branches, the morning was still bitterly
cold. His breath frosted in front of his lips as he trekked through the
snow. Judging from the sullen expressions on the faces of the three
other men, they were just as angry and confused as he was. Fresh cuts
and bruises made them look as though they had just been beaten up by a
large gang of toughs, not a solitary female.

Who was that bitch? And how come Michael Corvin was
still alive anyway? The last thing Hadik remembered was he and the other
policemen filling the American lunatic full of lead. They must have hit
him nearly a dozen times, yet when they had come to, their heads and
battered bodies aching, they had found only a puddle of frozen blood
where Corvin’s body had been. What’s more, two sets of tracks had led
away from the site.

He tried not to think about the
third
set of tracks they had seen, the ones that looked like the
spoor of some ferocious beast, just as he tried not to remember the
American’s impossible black eyes and fangs. A chill ran down his spine
as he remembered the stories his grandmother had told him when he was
just a child, about ghosts and vampires and werewolves.
Such things do not exist,
he reminded
himself.
I must have been seeing things.

“Sergeant! Over here!”

The rookie, Olszanski, called excitedly. Hadik and the
other men rushed to join him. They emerged from a fringe of trees to
find themselves on a narrow road leading up to an old mine shaft at the
base of a rocky hill. Hadik vaguely remembered a bauxite-mining
operation that had been tapped out and abandoned back when he was a kid.
The door to the sealed-off mine was hanging open. Although fresh snow
continued to fall from the sky, he could still see the vague imprints of
footprints outside the entrance of the mine.

Had Corvin and the woman taken refuge in the old
tunnels? It made sense; they could hardly stay outside in this weather
forever. Maybe they were in there right now?

“Follow me!” he ordered gruffly. He unclipped a
flashlight from his belt and drew his service revolver. Despite his
bluff manner, his nerves were on edge as they approached the unlit
entrance to the mine. He was in no hurry to face either Corvin or that
woman again. Those eerie black eyes and wolflike fangs haunted his
memory. He glanced at the bruises on his comrades’ faces. The ugly
purple marks didn’t make him any less spooked.

How had one woman managed to take out four armed cops?

Their flashlights probed the darkened mine. Startled
gasps and exclamations burst from the men as the intersecting beams fell
upon the face of an enormous wolf. Unblinking cobalt eyes glared at
them. Dagger-sized fangs gleamed between the beast’s open jaws.

“Holy Mother—!” Hadik almost opened fire on the wolf,
before he realized that the animal was neither moving nor making any
sort of sound. “Hold your fire!” he called out to the other men. “I
think it’s dead!”

His heart racing, he swept his flashlight beam over the
shaggy monstrosity. To his relief, he saw that the wolf-thing was
hanging lifelessly inside some sort of cage. Lowering his gun, he
breathed for the first time in several seconds. His shoulders drooped as
he gave his heart a few minutes to slow down.
Christ,
he thought,
that thing almost gave
me a coronary!

The other cops lowered their weapons as well. Hadik
figured it was a minor miracle that there weren’t already bullets
ricocheting around the mine. Olszanski stared at the suspended creature
with wide, fearful eyes. “Sergeant?” he asked, a quaver in his voice.
“What is that thing?”

Hell if I know,
Hadik
thought. The carcass had the head of a wolf, complete with pointed ears
and a protruding muzzle, but its body looked more like a man’s, built
for walking erect. Fearsome claws dangled at the end of the monster’s
sinewy limbs. It was at least eight feet tall, larger than any wolf or
human he was familiar with. Some sort of ape? No, that wasn’t quite
right. There was something distinctly
canine
about the beast’s head and paws.
It’s a werewolf,
his brain shrieked at him, but he couldn’t bring himself to say that
word aloud. What was that old saying again?
Speak
of the wolf and you will see his teeth.

“Maybe it’s a fake,” Officer Andrassy said. He had a
reputation for creative thinking. “A prop for a horror movie?”

“It looks real enough to me,” Hadik grunted. He swept
his flashlight around the rest of the old mine shaft, which had
obviously been refurbished at some point. His jaw dropped at the sight
of a computerized communications center, a tray full of bloody surgical
implements, and enough guns and ammunition to fight a war. Racks of
automatic weapons lined the walls. Packets of whole blood rested on a
nearby counter.

Oh my God,
he thought.
What the hell have we stumbled into?

“It’s a terrorist base!” Olszanski blurted. “Corvin and
the woman… they’re terrorists!”

“Or CIA,” Andrassy added. “He’s an American, remember?”

The fourth policeman, Latja, just shook his head in
disbelief.

Oddly enough, Hadik found all this talk of spies and
terrorists strangely comforting. Terrorism was a fact of life, nothing
supernatural about it. Unlike, say, certain mythological creatures…

In any event, his course was clear. “We need to call
this in,” he said decisively. “Back to our cars, on the double!” A
thought occurred to him and he turned toward the rookie. “Olszanski, you
stay here and watch the exit. Don’t let anyone leave or enter until we
get back. You got that?”

“But…” Before the fresh-faced young cop could object, a
sudden wind blew the open door against the wall. The men jumped at the
unexpected clang, then looked in bewilderment at the open doorway.
Fallen leaves and snow came blowing into the bunker.

The cops rushed out of the mine into the open. Swirling
winds whipped up the cold white powder. A loud whirring sound drew their
gaze upward. They gawked in amazement at the sleek black helicopter
hovering directly above them.

Andrassy’s CIA theory was looking better and better.

The nose of the chopper dipped toward the cops. A burst
of automatic gunfire chewed up the snow in front of the men’s feet. An
amplified voice addressed them from the copter:
“Drop your weapons and stand down. Repeat, drop your weapons.”
Another spray of bullets punctuated the command.

The other officers looked to Hadik for guidance. He
shrugged his stocky shoulders.
I know when I’m
outgunned.
He glumly tossed his pistol onto the snow. His fellow
cops followed suit.

“Remain where you are,”
the
anonymous voice instructed, not bothering to identify itself. A half
dozen long cables came tumbling out of the chopper, followed by a team
of commandos who came sliding down the cables like goddamn ninjas or
something. They wore black uniforms with no markings. Balaclavas covered
their faces. Automatic rifles were slung over their shoulders.

Who?
Hadik wondered
impotently.
Allies of the woman in black?

Boldly striking in broad daylight, the nameless
commandos quickly eliminated any threat posed by the four police
officers. Within minutes, Hadik found himself lying on his side on the
snow, his wrists zip-tied behind his back. He strained to free himself,
but the heavy-duty plastic cable ties were too strong to snap apart. He
heard Olszanski and the other men grunting and swearing as well. For the
second time that morning, the cops were freezing their asses off in the
snow.

They were
not
having a good day.

At least we’re conscious this time.
He watched helplessly as the commandos went about their business,
emptying out the converted mine with practiced efficiency. They hauled
out the computers, the crates of ammo, the medical supplies, and even an
overstuffed body bag that almost surely contained the shaggy carcass of
the dead wolf-thing. The potential evidence was quickly loaded into the
helicopter, which had touched down on the road in front of the mine
entrance. By the time the commandos were done, Hadik guessed, the bunker
would be stripped clean of anything remotely incriminating.
I wonder if we’ll ever find out what this was all
about?

The armed cleanup crew finished in less than fifteen
minutes. The last commando out of the mine reported to the man who
seemed to be in charge, a tall, rangy individual with a military
bearing. The leader nodded and removed a handful of metal disks from a
pouch on his belt. The polished silver disks resembled oversize coins.
He hurled them into the bunker.

Hadik heard the disks skitter across the concrete floor
of the mine before coming to rest somewhere deep inside the hidden base.
A faint hissing noise reached his ears.

A commando unsheathed a knife as he approached the
immobilized sergeant. For a second, Hadik thought he was done for, then
the masked trooper stepped behind him and neatly sliced through the ties
binding the cop’s hands together. As the circulation returned to his
fingers, Hadik saw that other cops were being freed as well.

“If I were you, I wouldn’t stick around,” a commando
said tersely. He spoke Hungarian without any discernible accent. “And
stay away from the mine.”

Don’t tell me what to do,
Hadik thought angrily. He rubbed his chafed wrists as he stumbled to his
feet. His bones felt as if they had turned to ice.
I’m getting damn tired of being pushed around by strangers.

The commandos left as briskly as they had arrived. The
helicopter lifted off from the lonely mountain road, stirring up a
blinding cloud of fine white powder. Hadik and the other cops watched
the chopper vanish into the sky. Like the men, the black aircraft bore
no identifying insignia.

“I told you,” Andrassy said. “CIA.”

Inside the mine, unseen by the four cops, the metal
disks sprayed a fine mist from the tiny holes that had opened up along
their edges. Gas fumes soon filled the bunker, which had been stripped
to its bare walls. A timed mechanism caused one of the disks to split in
half. Two shiny contacts were exposed to the volatile atmosphere inside
the mine. A crackle of electricity arced between them….