Matt Archer: Bloodlines (Matt Archer #4) (2 page)

The howls weren’t like the giant porcupines from last
night’s raid. These sounded more like hounds.

“Great,” I muttered in the direction of the desert. “Looks
like the Dingoes are back.”

“Dingoes?” Dad asked, following me to the center of
camp—which was basically our vehicles surrounding the two tents to form a
makeshift perimeter. “Aren’t those just wild dogs?”

I laughed, but it was definitely not funny. “Yeah, they’re
‘just dogs’ in the same way not-Will is just a confused teenager.”

Uncle Mike met us just inside the Humvee perimeter, his
expression wary. Despite the bags under his dark eyes, the arm sling and
rumpled BDUs, he looked alert. “Those howls sound familiar.”

Aunt Julie joined him, impatiently brushing a strand of
brown hair that escaped her ponytail behind her ear. “Too familiar.”

“It’s Dingoes, no doubt about it,” I said.

Which meant huge trouble. Two years ago, the Dingoes had
been seven feet tall and built like dog-headed pro-wrestlers. Now that we were
in the second lunar eclipse cycle, we expected them to be even more advanced. I
wasn’t sure I wanted to see the upgraded version.

“We’ll start with ordinance, not that it worked last time,”
Uncle Mike said. “Bad time to be down a wielder.”

“Think Will’s blade would transfer to someone else?” Aunt
Julie asked, nodding at the bronze-handled knife sheathed in my belt.

I’d forgotten I had it. “Not sure. The spirits are long
gone, so probably not.”

“You’ve been forsaken!” not-Will screeched. “The spirits are
banished from this place, leaving you alone to die!”

“I really wish he’d shut up,” Uncle Mike said.

“Yeah, he seems to be stuck on the whole banished thing,” I
said. The howls were growing louder and now there were yips mixed in, like a
pack of dogs preparing to hunt down a fox.

“My mistress has you trapped! And the knife-spirits will not
help!” not-Will shouted. “You are forsaken here!”

Aunt Julie shot Uncle Mike a grim look. “Can I go knock him
unconscious? Please?”

I was starting to think that was a good idea. All that
banished talk was giving me a complex.

Then it hit me: he kept saying we were forsaken
here
.
But what about somewhere else?

“Wait. Major, remember that pentagram burned into the dirt
in Africa? The one hidden under the rock outside of camp?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Tink said something about someone ‘calling the darkness.’
That was right before we got ambushed, remember?”

“That was a bad night,” Uncle Mike said, nodding slowly.

“What if the same thing is happening here? What if the other
side marked this spot somehow? Tainted it so the spirits are locked out?”

Aunt Julie didn’t wait for me to finish my argument.
“Captain Johnson? Get everyone into the vehicles. We’re moving!”

The captain rumbled some orders. Within seconds guys were
breaking camp and piling into the Humvees.

“Don’t forget Will!” I called. “We can’t leave him behind.”

“I’ve got him.” Captain Johnson staggered into view with my
best friend flopped over his massive shoulder in a fireman’s carry. That had to
be quite a load; Johnson was a strong man, but Will was dead weight.

“Put me down before I smite you and all your relatives!”
not-Will howled, thrashing around.

Johnson swayed and wrapped a big, brown hand around Will’s
ankle. His bald head was slick with sweat, but his deep voice was calm as ever.
“Behave, Cruessan. I’m still the CO of your wielder team, whether you’re
possessed or not.”

“Get him in the Humvee and I’ll help you watch him,” I said.
I turned to Uncle Mike. “We should go west, following the last of the sunlight.
That’s our only chance.”

“How far are we going?” Dad asked, looking confused.

I didn’t have time to explain it to him. “However far we
need to.”

Not waiting for his follow-up question, I climbed into the
back seat of the nearest Humvee, dodging the kick not-Will aimed at my head.
“God, dude. Just
stop!”

“You’re going to die!” he sang. “Die, die, die, dead!”

Captain Johnson hopped in next to me, smacking not-Will’s
boot away before it connected with his belly. “I’m going to gag him if you’re
okay with that.”

“Please do,” I said, exhausted by the whole mess. A glance
out the back windshield showed dark shapes gathering in the shadows outside
camp. A crowd of them. “We need to roll. Now!”

The first Humvee pulled away, then the rest followed. I’d
purposefully chosen to ride at the back of the convoy, thinking if we got
overrun, I could fight the Dingoes off to give the others time to escape. But
even with two knives, I didn’t think I’d last long enough to save everyone.

We bounced over the rough terrain and not-Will yelled around
his gag as he banged his head on the door. Despite our increasing speed, the
shadows behind us became more distinct: elongated heads with pointed ears on
top, wide torsos, and long legs. They were running after us.

And they were gaining.

Badass Aunt Julie had elected to drive my vehicle, while
Uncle Mike had gone in the lead Humvee. They had an unspoken rule about not
riding together when we were on ops. Too much risk, and Baby Kate needed at
least one of her parents to come home. I still kind of hated General Richardson
for thinking he needed his best intelligence officer in the field with us,
taking Katie’s mother from her, in addition to her dad and her cousin.

I put a hand on Julie’s shoulder. “Gun it. The monsters are
catching up.”

“Get on the radio,” she told my dad, who’d decided to ride
shotgun with us. “Tell the others not to fall behind.”

Then I was thrown backward as the Humvee lurched from thirty
miles an hour to fifty. The axles rattled underneath the frame and the tires
skidded on the loose sand, but Julie passed the other three vehicles in short
order. Luckily, they got the hint and stayed close behind.

Julie leaned on the gas pedal, pushing us up over sixty
miles an hour. Johnson sat next to not-Will, doing his best to keep him from
getting tossed around, not that Johnson was earning any thanks for it. Not-Will
tried to kick him in the face more than once.

I closed my eyes, steadying myself with one hand on the door
and both feet braced against the floor. “Come on, Tink. Find me.”

Silence.

We drove for ten minutes before the Humvee bounced hard,
rattling my teeth in my head. “What happened?”

“Blown tire,” Julie said. She slowed down and in the sudden
quiet, I could hear the Dingoes howling at one another across the desert. The
howls were fainter than before, but closing.

“Can we drive okay on it?” I asked.

“Yeah, Humvees are built to run on a flat if need be. Just
not as fast.”

“Keep going, then. Fast as we can,” I said.

“Anything yet?” Johnson asked, shoving not-Will back into
his seat. He’d been trying to jimmy to door open to jump out, as if we didn’t
have enough to worry about.

“Not so far.” I laid my hand on my knife’s handle, willing
it glow or vibrate. Anything to tell me that I was getting closer to Tink.

It stayed dark.

The Humvee wobbled like a drunk on the rough terrain and
Julie cursed up front, her arms taut on the steering wheel as she fought the
lost back tire. We’d slowed to thirty miles an hour; easy targets for the
Dingoes giving chase.

“They’re gonna catch us,” I whispered. This had been a
terrible idea. Better to have stayed in camp and made a stand there.

Not-Will’s laugh was muffled by his gag. He said something
and I didn’t have to catch the words to understand the insult. I fought an urge
to punch him. He couldn’t help the garbage coming out of his mouth, but I
feared what would happen if he got loose during the fight. I couldn’t kill my
best friend.

I might have to.

“We’re coming up on a bluff,” Julie said, pointing outside.

A twenty-foot tall wall of rock rose out of the desert
floor, a shadow that stretched hundreds of yards in either direction.

“We can’t go much farther,” Julie said. “What do you want to
do?”

As soon as she said it, I felt this weird, awful prickling
sensation across my skin, as if I was swimming in electrified water. Then it
was gone, like I’d traveled through some kind of barrier.

Immediately, a tingling started at the base of my neck. Yes!
“Go as far as you can, Captain. We’re nearly there.”

The tingling built, burning its way down my back, into my
chest, through my limbs and then…

Did you miss me?
Tink asked.

“I missed you more than I’ll ever admit to out loud,” I
said, pumping my fist in the air. Tink couldn’t hear my thoughts, but the team
was used to hearing me “talk to myself” so I didn’t try to hide our
conversation. Dad didn’t know the drill, though, and he watched me over the
front seat with his eyebrow raised.

I jerked my chin at him. “Just roll with it for now. You’ll
get an explanation as soon as those Dingoes catch up. I can’t guarantee you’ll
like it, though.”

This is a good spot to stop,
Tink said, interrupting
Dad’s concerned, “What does that mean?”
We will make our stand here.

“Yes, ma’am,” I said, so relieved to have her bossing me
around again, I was willing to forget that we’d been really angry at each other
for the last week or so. Admitting that she’d been willing to let my uncle die
to transfer the knife from him to me had shocked me to the core. Given our
current situation, it seemed like a good idea to let it go. At least for now.

I touched Julie’s shoulder. “Stop at the bluff.”

She pulled over and we climbed out while the other Humvees
parked nearby. The tingling in my spine had gotten so intense that I was
panting, willing myself to stay upright while Tink poured her consciousness
into mine.

And it wasn’t just her.

Young man?
a strong male voice asked.
Mind if I
hitch a ride?

I started laughing. “Can I fight with both knives?”

Will’s knife-spirit laughed, too.
I sure hope so.

Uncle Mike strode over. “Well?”

“Back online,” I said. “Both of them.”

Captain Johnson dumped not-Will on the ground next to our
Humvee and tied his leash to the D-ring on the front bumper. “
Both
of
them? You mean Will’s knife transferred to you?”

“I think it’s just temporary, until Will’s back to normal,”
I said…hoping that was true. We were due for something to go right, anyway. But
the howls and yips had closed in, and a pack of very angry monster-dogs would
soon put my assumptions to the test.

My mouth stretched in a cold, angry smile. Having one
knife-spirit living in my head had been a lot of power to handle. Having two in
there was downright trippy, and they both wanted blood. I took great gulps of
air and paced back and forth, waiting for the Dingoes to show their ugly
snouts. Tink and Will’s knife-spirit keened in their own language and the sound
ricocheted inside my skull.

“We’re going to kill every last one,” I said in a voice that
wasn’t quite mine, but rather some weird mix of male and female. “Kill them and
send their dark spirits back.”

“What the hell is wrong with my son?” Dad asked from
somewhere behind my back.

“Just a little knife-spirit possession,” Johnson answered
with a chuckle, probably at Dad’s reaction. “This happens from time to time,
usually when we’re outnumbered. You’ll get used to it.”

“No, he won’t,” Uncle Mike muttered. “I never have.”

“Finally something we agree about,” Dad answered, sounding
thoroughly freaked out.

I was too far gone to care what either of them thought,
struggling to maintain some sense of myself while Tink and Will’s knife-spirit
warred for dominance over me. Will had nicknamed his spirit Coach Shaw, because
he sounded like one of Will’s assistant football coaches. From all the pompous
commands being issued in my head, I decided Will had picked out the perfect
moniker.

We should take the fight to them,
Coach Shaw said.
Run
hard, Matthew. We’ll cut them down on the plain and they won’t know what hit
them.

We need to stay close to the other men,
Tink snapped.
They have weapons, which are good distractions, and if these dark brothers
are vulnerable to fire, they can help us cull the herd as well.

The boy doesn’t need their help. He’s ready now!

“I take my orders from Tink, okay?” I told Coach Shaw. “She
knows how I work.”

That’s right
, Tink said smugly.
No side-seat
driving.

I don’t see why she--

I groaned. “Enough! We’re about to get very busy, so why
don’t you two can it and hit me?”

I’ve waited to hear you say that for a long time,
Tink whispered.
You might want to sit down for this.

That sounded alarming, so I dropped to my knees. The rest of
the soldiers had formed a semi-circle at my back. Most of them had seen
something like this before, but a few hadn’t and Dad probably wouldn’t react
well to it, either.

I closed my eyes. “Ready.”

The burst of power came out of nowhere and everywhere. I
collapsed, pressing my forehead to the ground in supplication as the spirits
fed me from their own power. My eyeballs felt like they were melting and my
brain crackled with spectral static. I groaned through my teeth, praying it
would be over soon.

Through the pain, though, I could feel them spinning me up.
My hearing, always the first sense to change, increased so I could make out
words in the yips coming from the Dingo pack. I didn’t understand them; they
weren’t speaking English, but rather some kind of canine language. Chances were
good, though, that they could understand us just fine. I figured they’d come
strolling up, calling me “mate” and alarming everyone with their ability to
speak perfect Aussie-English.

Then my sense of smell grew sharper and the scent of sweaty
dog, Will’s piss-stained BDUs and the scorched rubber from our blown out tire
assailed my nose to the point that I gagged.

Finally, I opened my eyes. The desert stretched out before
me in a weird blue haze—almost like I was wearing night-vision goggles. Across
the plain, a mass of silver shapes ran at us full tilt.

Without warning, I threw back my head and howled something
that made those silver shapes stop dead two hundred yards from our position.

“What did we just tell them?” I asked. My jaw creaked under
the strain of using my own voice.

That death waits here
, Tink said, ice cold and ready
to rumble.

“Okay, then.” I pushed myself to my feet and stretched. I
felt alive, bursting with the need to do some bodily harm to the monsters just
out of my reach. “Major?”

Uncle Mike came to stand at my right side. “You ready?” He
let out a grim chuckle. “You know what, I don’t even have to ask. I can see it
on your face. Want me to have Dorland fire into the crowd out there, see if we
can’t stir them up a little?”

“Grenades first, I think, but have guys ready with
flamethrowers. If this doesn’t work, though…”

“It’ll work,” Uncle Mike said, sounding more confident than
I’d ever heard in the face of this kind of trouble.

A long, lonely howl rang out. Others answered it.

“What’s the range on the grenades?” I asked, pulling my
knife from its thigh sheath with my right hand, then reaching for Will’s with
my left. Strangely, the bronze handle of the other knife felt comfortable
there. “Can we reach them?”

“You’re kidding, right? Of course we can reach them,” Uncle
Mike said. “Sergeant Dorland!”

At his call, Dorland, our ordinance man, came trotting over.
“Sir.”

“The enemy’s two hundred yards away. Pull out everything you
have.”

“Sir, yes, sir.” Dorland flashed me a wicked smile. His
teeth gleamed bright against his dark brown skin, and I was glad I wasn’t the
only one itching to start some mayhem. “Be ready. Once I start firing, they’ll
come for us.”

I nodded and crouched low. Being downrange on a live-fire
exercise was a little scary, but the alternative was worse.

“Fire,” Uncle Mike commanded.

The deep
thump, thump, thump
of multiple grenades firing
sounded behind me. Less than three seconds later, the pack of Dingoes lit up
with a brilliant flash.

The howls are terrible, but I couldn’t see what happened
because a cloud of debris, smoke and dust hid our targets.

“Again!” Uncle Mike said.

More grenades whistled over my head. More howls, then they
fell silent. An optimistic person would think we got them all. I knew better;
they were planning something.

When the smoke cleared…all thirteen monsters were still
standing. The ordinance hadn’t even make a dent.

“Cease fire! Cease fire!” Uncle Mike yelled, as the pack
started running at us in a wave.

Fine, then—now it was my turn. I relaxed, letting Tink’s
calm and Coach Shaw’s battle lust sing in my blood. My body felt loose, and
time seemed to slow. I could see distinct shapes in the pack. The leader was
huge, with a notched left ear and a scar on his muzzle.

Now
.

Tink’s command hit me like a rush of adrenaline and I
sprinted to meet the monsters head-on. Most of them skidded to a halt, but I
was on the front three before they knew what hit them. I took out two at
once—one with each hand—then stabbed both blades into the third’s chest, before
whirling to face the rest.

To my surprise, a portion of the pack, four of them, started
whining, and one cried—in English, “Blade wielder! Run, mates!”

I heard a few exclamations of, “Holy shit!” behind me. Some
of the new guys hadn’t heard the monsters talk before, and the Aussie accent
was especially unsettling. But what bothered me was that of the ten still alive,
only six Dingoes stood their ground. I’d seen monsters run from me before, but
it was a rare thing.

Were they getting smarter? Did they think this was a fight
they couldn’t win? Or did they have something else planned for later?

I tightened my grip on the white bone handle in my right
hand, and the bronze handle of Will’s knife in my left. The six remaining
Dingoes paced back and forth twenty feet away, like they were waiting for me to
make a move. Sensing a trap, I tensed and held my ground.

The big leader chuckled deep in its chest. Two of the others
came to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with him. They weren’t as wide through the
shoulders and their snouts were narrower…were they female? Didn’t matter; they
bared their teeth at me in horrible grins as their boss laughed. Female or not,
they’d gut me if I gave them a chance.

I didn’t plan on giving them that chance.

“You gonna fight, or stand there?” I jerked my chin at the
leader. “Or are you planning to send your girlfriends in to do your dirty
work?”

The boss growled. “Look at the little man. So brave now that
you have your knives back, but you ran before. Coward.”

Okay,
no one
got to call me a coward, especially not
when half the leader’s posse bailed. “Bring it on, dog-face.”

With yips and snarls, all six rushed me. The females reached
me first, and I whirled in a circle, cutting them both down, one in the
abdomen, the other in the back. A big male followed behind, jumping to tackle
me. I dove out of the way, rolled, then came up ready. It spun around and
lunged to wrap me up in its long arms. Mistake to let me get that close, and I
slammed the knives into its chest. It gave me a shocked look before the light
in its eyes went out.

I pulled the knives free only to find the boss right behind
me. It punched me in the sternum with a huge paw, sending me flying off my
feet. I hit ground hard and all my oxygen whooshed out. Struggling to breathe,
I tried to get up, but it was right there, coming at me with jaws snapping.

A shot rang out. Something black and hard smacked into the
boss-Dingo’s eye and bounced off. It reared back with a yelp, covering the
right side of its face with a paw. I didn’t waste time, scrambling to my knees
to swipe both knives across its torso. He fell, spitting curses in a mix of
English and its own language, before crumpling to the ground. The wounds in its
abdomen wept orange blood into the red earth, staining it dark. Tink cried out
in triumph.

With the boss dead, the remaining two hung back. What were
they waiting on?

I hazarded a glance behind me, thinking I’d see Aunt Julie
pointing her Beretta at the monsters. Instead, I found my dad, kneeling on the
hood of a Humvee, with an assault rifle in his hands. He gave me a curt nod,
then fired at one of the monsters.

The bullet hit it in the nose. It swatted at its face, and
both of them ran toward the team, taking a route that would make it impossible
for me to catch them first.

I hauled ass, wincing when something popped in my ankle.
Ignoring this new pain, I arrived at the Humvees two steps behind the Dingoes.
One of them swiped at Captain Johnson. He ducked at the last second, and the
monster banged its arm into the vehicle. The Humvee shuddered under the blow.

“Down!” Dad barked.

We threw ourselves to the ground as three rapid shots fired.
Both Dingoes staggered backwards and I took my chance. Barreling at them as
fast as my bum ankle would allow, I jumped between them, slicing at their
throats with either hand. Both of them went wide-eyed and clutched at their necks
before collapsing, one on top of the other.

In the sudden quiet, not-Will sang out, “Well, that’s just
too bad.”

Aunt Julie, her dark hair pulled free from its ponytail and
sticking to her sweaty face, clenched her fists and started toward him. “His
gag’s going back in or I’m going to knock him out.”

“Wait,” I said, breathing hard. “Give me a second, okay?”

I limped over to him and sank into a crouch. My ankle shot a
searing pain into my leg and I decided sitting down was better. I did keep
enough distance that Will couldn’t snatch a knife or punch me. “Tink, can you
do anything to help him out?”

I think we can, if she and I work together,
Coach
Shaw said before Tink could answer.

I decided to cut him some slack for butting in, given that
Will was his responsibility. “Now, or do we need to wait for the sun to come
up?”