Dogs of War Episode 5
Read Dogs of War Episode 5 Online
Authors: Monica Rossi
Dogs of War Motorcycle Club Series
Copyright 2014, Monica Rossi
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author / publisher.
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of characters to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. The author holds exclusive rights to this work. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited.
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The cold wind whipped through his hair and Demon enjoyed the bite of it on his skin. Summer was all well and good but Autumn had always been his favorite season. He watched as the breeze ripped the leaves off the trees and made them dance through the air before decorating the ground, he smelled fire in the distance, some homeowner disregarding the rules and burning their grass cuttings and leaves, he listened while Red and Sidney fucked like wildcats, and he chewed on a hangnail.
He’d just gotten back in town and had immediately went to find Red, so he could tell him what he’d found out in Asheville and possibly kick his ass for hanging up on him during their last conversation. But, of course, because life could never be simple, Red wasn’t at the clubhouse, at home, or at work. That only left somewhere with Sidney. So Demon had gone by her house first, and praise Allah, and he’d gotten lucky. But not as lucky as Red was getting at the moment.
He listened to the little moans and deep breaths Sidney was making and his body responded, mind filling in the scene without his permission. Sometimes extra keen hearing wasn’t so much of a gift as it was a burden. He tried to occupy his thoughts with other things so the sounds coming from the tiny rental house wouldn’t affect him, though he’d have to save the fantasy image he’d gotten of Sidney for later use. Sleeping with Red or not, that girl was filled out in all the right places.
The trip to Asheville, even though it had gotten off to a slow start, had been very productive. He knew who was behind all of the mess that had happened, he knew what the crazy fucker wanted, and he knew who he was using to get it. Not a bad recognizance mission at all if you asked him. And on top of that he’d gotten that little bitch Rhythm, or whatever her real name was, to take him to the lab and show him what they were experimenting on. She hadn’t wanted to, of course, but when you only give people a couple of choices, ‘Do what I say’ or ‘Die slowly and painfully’, you tend to get a high rate of compliance. He had had to kill her regardless, of course, after she’d done what he needed her too, but she deserved it. Still, she’d been a halfway decent lay, enthusiastic at least, so he’d made it quick and painless. He wasn’t a monster, after all, at least not one on her level anyway.
What he’d found at the lab she’d taken him to had turned his stomach, and that wasn’t something that was easily accomplished. Room after room of not quite human test subjects, some passed out, some screaming and writhing in pain, all strapped down tightly to stainless steel metal gurneys. Their exposed skin a mess of half healed scars or oozing skin. Demon found it hard not to make her suffer the same fate those poor people had endured, but a promise was a promise, and she’d held up her end of the bargain, so instead of flaying her slowly, enjoying her screams as the skin peeled off of her like an over ripe peach, he’d just pulled her heart out. Not as humane as a snapped neck maybe, but he hadn’t wanted to miss watching the light as it left the bitches eyes.
“I believe the, uh, festivities are over,” said a disembodied voice from somewhere in front of him.
Demon snapped back to the present, letting the image of Rhythm dying slip from his mind, though the smile remained. “Good, maybe he’ll be out soon.” He shifted his stance, finding a more comfortable position as he leaned against his bike.
“Or you could go knock on the door so we can go. I’m sick of standing around.”
“You aren’t standing anywhere, you dead gash, and you may go wherever you want, the further away from me the better,” Demon was going to have to do something about this fucking ghost following him around. She had something to say about the way he ate, the way he washed his clothes, hell she’d even felt the need to chime in on the way he fucked. He was one hundred percent done with her bullshit.
She didn’t respond. He hoped she decided to keep it that way. But she was right, the sounds coming from the house had calmed down to just some heavy breathing. Maybe he’d hear some love talk he could rag Red with, maybe a baby name he could let slip while the rest of the guys were conveniently within hearing distance. As if ‘Red’ wasn’t bad enough.
Despite his inner monologue, Demon really hadn’t been paying attention to what the two were saying until the voices grew tense. Then he heard the damning words, “I’m a witch” and his breath caught in his throat.
Demon pressed his lips together as he listened to the scene across the street play out. No surprises there, he knew exactly how Red felt, and as soon as he’d heard the words leave her mouth he knew how this would end. Badly. Sidney was finding out something he’d already learned first hand, something he’d had to learn the hard way.
How shallow Red’s ‘love’ really was.
***
Red slammed the door behind him, the sudden afternoon sun blinding him as he walked out onto the porch. His insides were twisted like the melted metal left after an explosion. How could she have left out the fact that she was one of those... people, those things, the entire time she’d known him. Oh, she said she just found out but he found that a little hard to believe. But now things were beginning to make some goddamned sense. The unexplainable sound during his fight with Tinker, the way she’d healed him when he’d been poisoned, even though he should have died. The fact that she’d been able to kill that Hellhound bitch should have tipped him off. No regular human could have done that without taking some serious damage, and she hadn’t had much more than a few scratches on her. And then there was the way she’d wormed her way into his heart, into his life. He’d fallen for her almost immediately and not only that, he’d claimed her in front of the Dogs, something he could never take back. He spat on the street in disgust. She’d used her filthy magic to do it. Of course she had. There was no other explanation.
And she was lying about not knowing, she’d just lied right to his face, there was no way she hadn’t known what she was doing. Making him think he’d found someone he could make a home with. He’d let her close to Morgan for God’s sake, there’s no telling what she’d done to her when he hadn’t been around.
He threw a leg over the seat of his motorcycle, prepared to ride until he couldn’t think anymore, but then he looked up and saw the last person he needed to see standing across the street.
Demon.
He got back off his bike and strode across the street until he was less than a foot away. He considered that smug face for a moment and then he punched him in the jaw with all the strength he could muster, which was considerable.
Demon staggered to the side, unprepared for the blow, and came up holding his jaw. A jaw that would be shattered if he were a human, “I’ll give you that one, brother, for old times sake. But that’s the only one.”
“You heard what just happened in there,” Red’s voice almost shook with rage. Here was the one person who could twist the knife deeper and he just happened to be standing outside Sidney’s door.
Demon shrugged in response, “I could not give a shit less what you and Sidney do or don’t do. I came here to talk about what happened in Asheville.”
“Yes Demon, tell me what exactly did happen in Asheville, because unless you’ve got him stashed in your back pocket, I don’t see Big Dog or the other two with you.”
“I told you on the phone Red this shit is bigger than Big Dog, we need to think about it, talk about it with the guys, make plans before we run in half cocked and fuck things up.”
“What does any of that shit have to do with Big Dog, Trainz, and BillCo? That guy you were talking about, he’s got nothing to do with us. Nothing to do with Three Rivers.”
Demon’s eyes hardened, “You’re angry right now, you’re not looking at the bigger picture. You need to calm down and think things through.”
“Oh I’ve thought about it,” Red’s voice trembled with rage, “I’ve thought about it every goddamn day since he helped someone take my daughter and lock her in a fucking metal storage unit. I’ve thought about it Demon, about ripping him limb from limb and letting him bleed out slowly. I’ve thought about all the different ways that man could die and all of them at my hand. So don’t hand me any crap about thinking things through because that’s all I’ve thought about.”
“And I’m telling you that we may need Big Dog in the future, we don’t know anything about this guy or whether or not he does have plans for Three Rivers. And until we know, we shouldn’t do anything that would jeopardize a tool we could use against him.”
“The only thing I need for Big Dog to do is die, and if you won’t bring him to me then I’ll go get him myself.” Red turned on his heel, leaving Demon with his jaw clenched. He didn’t care. Fuck him, fuck Sidney and fuck anyone else who wanted to get in his way.
“Yes, sir. Every single test subject except one is dead,” the small bespectacled man’s voice carried a tremor, a tell that he was scared of Fredrick’s response.
“And how exactly did they die?” Frederick kept his calm, this small man had obviously had nothing to do with the break in at the lab. He was about to piss in his pants at having to report about it as it was, there was no way he’d have the balls to actually cause the destruction that had been left in the wake of the break in.
“Sir, they were all stabbed, directly through the heart.”
“I see, and why was that one left alive,” he pointed towards the door with his one remaining test subject.
“We don’t know. It’s possible the people who did this thought they’d already killed everyone and just missed him, or either it’s some kind of message, though I don’t know what it could be. We took the feeding tube out so that we could ask him some questions, if he’d heard anything or if he had seen anyone, but he just kept screaming and begging to be killed. He probably heard the intruder as he killed the rest of them, you know those kinds have exceptional hearing. ”
“Hmm, yes. Well, unlock the door and let me see him, maybe he’ll answer a few questions for me.”
“Sir, I’m sorry, we had to sedate him. He tried to swallow his own tongue, we didn’t want to lose the only subject we have left,” the lab technician looked at the floor. Frederick didn’t know why these people were so scared of him. He’d always treated them fairly and only a few had been terminated due to incompetence. He always tried to keep his people happy. Happy people produced the best results.
“That’s fine,” he looked at the man’s name tag, “John, I’ll question him later. So tell me about Carol. Any idea how she came to be here, and dead?”
“The security team thinks she let in whoever did this. We did an internal autopsy and found that she’d had consensual sex prior to her death. The general theory among security is that she’d found someone to bring in and instead of waiting until the staff was here to admit him, she lured him here thinking she’d admit him herself, and he overpowered her.”
“Hmm, well that explains why she’s dead, but why would somebody then try to sabotage the lab? Killing the subjects and destroying all of the powder? What about the security cameras, do we have any footage from the events of last night?”
“No, sir. All of the cameras flashed white and stopped recording at around one AM.”
“And the security on duty?”
“All dead, sir, knife wounds to the heart.”
“I see, well what is your theory, John. Security isn’t paid to think, but you are.”
“Sir, I can’t give you conclusive data because there are too many unknowns,” the poor man was beginning to shake.
“I didn’t ask for conclusive data John, I asked for your thoughts.”
“I.. um… Sir, if I had to guess then I’d say someone found out who Carol really was, seduced her, and used her to let a team in here to destroy the lab.”
Frederick nodded, that was more plausible than a single captured test subject taking down all the security, disabling the surveillance, killing all the subjects, stealing the powder, and getting out without anyone being the wiser.
“Good work John, lead the team in cleaning up and then start manufacturing more samples to test. No permanent damage has been done, we’ll just be delayed for a bit. I’ll have the field team work on getting you some more test subjects.”
“Yes, sir,” John gave an odd little bow and turned to walk away, his white lab coat swishing as he went.
Frederick was annoyed, but no more than that. He was playing a long game, and this was just a bump in the road to a much bigger destination.
He walked to the door where his one remaining test subject was housed and looked through the window. The meat that lay on the table was only just recognizable as human, the flesh of his legs and arms seemed to be disintegrating, making his limbs into four red lumpy masses that stuck off his torso. They’d had to remove the straps that secured them down because there wasn’t enough muscle there to hold them up, the straps just cut right through, like a spoon through gelatin.
Frederick was not satisfied with the result. The powder was performing, but not the way he wanted it to. He didn’t need something that would torture a patient while it demuscled him over days. He needed something that would kill on contact. He needed something that looked and smelled innocuous enough that he could mass produce it and distribute it amongst the general population. He needed something that would kill anything that had the tiniest drop of supernatural blood in its body, while leaving humans unharmed.
It was going to be tricky, and it might take years to come up with the correct formula, but he had no doubt he would be successful.
In the meantime, he had other plans to work on.