Obsessions: A Monster Squad Novel 7 (4 page)

Big fell into an overstuffed chair in the living room and slipped his cell phone from his cargo pocket. He scrolled through the numbers until he found the one he wanted. Punching in the code, he waited for a tone.

When the voice on the end answered, he patiently stated, “Walter Simmons, please.” Big closed his eyes and waited.

“Mr. Simmons, my name is Archibald Bigby. I worked with Major Sheridan.” Bigby waited for the man to say his piece then interrupted, “Sir, we’ve run into a spot of trouble. Major Sheridan is no longer with us. Neither are your wolves. It would seem that Mitchell’s boys stumbled upon us during the full moon, and they assassinated the lot of them while they were confined.”

Bigby waited while his comment soaked in and then listened while the man went off on his tirade. “Sir, if I might…” He tried to interrupt. Bigby held the phone away from his ear while the man yelled. When the volume reduced enough, he brought the phone back to his face. “Sir. I may have a solution. Not all of the weapons were lost, and if you still have wolves incoming, then I believe I can pull off a counter attack that will level them. They believe that they’ve destroyed your forces entirely. They aren’t aware that there is a second wave incoming as support.”

“You want me to sacrifice the rest of my manpower?” Walter Simmons screamed into the phone. “Are you daft?”

Bigby inhaled deeply and closed his eyes again. “Negative, sir. I’m simply saying that if you still want your revenge, I can assure it. They won’t be expecting a secondary force to muster so quickly and strike. We have the weapons and you have the wolves incoming, do you not?”

Walter Simmons paced the floor of his grand office, his eyes darting from corner to corner. “There is a possibility that my daughter is on her way there. Can you guarantee her safety if she arrives before my wolves do?”

“If you can get me her picture, I can guarantee that we will do everything in our power to secure her prior to the attack. Perhaps we can even intercept her.”

Walter slammed his fist into the wall and clenched his teeth. “How did this happen? How could they have known that my men were staging there?”

Bigby sighed and shook his head.
Better to be truthful, old boy.
“In all honesty, sir, Major Sheridan recruited an inside man. It is my belief that he may have tipped our hand. Perhaps inadvertently, but regardless of whether it was him or not, he’s no longer part of the equation. I removed him myself.”

“You…how?”

“A silver bullet to the head. I refuse to suffer a traitor to live. Even a suspected traitor.” Bigby listened to the older man breathe heavily into the phone.

“You
suspected
that he was a traitor so you killed him?”

“Correct.”

The old man laughed; Bigby wasn’t sure if that was a good sign or not. “You are a hard son of a bitch, aren’t you?”

“Operationally tactical, sir,” Bigby corrected.

“Either way, I think you might be one I can work with. Just between us, I wasn’t sure if I could trust Sheridan.” Bigby heard rustling over the phone as if the old man were settling it in the crook of his shoulder. “My men are still on their way. And if you need support equipment, it’s yours.”

“Very well, sir. I’ll check back in with you this evening after I’ve secured another location to base operations from.” Bigby clicked the end call button and glanced out the window once more. Satisfied that the construction workers would be staying on the other side of the subdivision, he leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes. After the night he had, he needed to rest his exhausted body.

*****

First and Second Squads pulled into the gravel parking lot behind the large, green two-ton trucks that the clean-up crews used to transport the bodies of the wolves. Spalding stepped from the truck and felt both physically and emotionally spent. “Ing, do you mind escorting the clean-up crews?”

Jacobs shook his head. “Whatever you need, boss.” He elbowed Lamb. “Wanna tag along?”

“And miss them incinerating these guys? I’d rather have my eyes gouged with hot pokers.” He tossed his pack to Little John. “Want to hang that up for me, brother?”

Little John caught the bag and gave him a mock salute. “Gotcha covered. You two have fun.” He turned and jogged to catch up with Spalding. “They just incinerate the dead?”

Spalding gave him a weary nod. “Reduces the chance of spreading the virus.” Spalding held the door for him then hit the button for the roll away door. “Used to be, they would do autopsies and whatnot, but…we already know what killed them. There really isn’t a need. They bag up the bodies, spray that bio-foam crap anywhere there’s biological contamination then bring ‘em back here and torch ‘em.”

Little John paused at the staging table and hung up Lamb’s pack then his own. “What about…” He trailed off then met Spanky’s eyes. “When it’s one of our own?”

Spanky nodded. “Same thing, brother. No fancy funerals for us. No coffins to be buried in Arlington National. No twenty-one gun salute.” Spanky leaned against the table and sighed heavily. “That short memorial we had for Carbone? That’s actually pretty rare. Part of the requirement for being a member of the squad is no ties. That way, nobody will miss you when you’re dead. No screaming families demanding a body to bury. No wife or kids demanding…” He trailed off and ran a hand over his face. “Sorry, buddy.”

“No, I’m…I shouldn’t have asked. I know you and Apollo were really tight. I barely knew him. He seemed like a good guy, what little I did know.”

Spalding nodded. “He was.” He turned and stared at the hook holding Apollo’s gear. “I still can’t figure out what made him snap like that.”

“I thought it had something to do with that gal that didn’t make it out of Nevada.”

Spalding nodded solemnly. “Yeah, but, there
had
to be more to it than that.” Spalding turned to face him and fought back his emotions. “I just can’t accept that everything that went south was because someone like Sheridan was able to get under Apollo’s skin.”

John shrugged. “Maybe Apollo saw an opportunity to infiltrate the bad guys and took it?”

Spalding shook his head. “Nah. He turned to the dark side. Even if he lived to regret it, he still did it.”

Little John watched his team leader as he played out events in his mind, trying like hell to make sense of it. When he couldn’t, he watched as Spalding tightened up, ready to put his fist through an inanimate object. He took the opportunity to lay a gentle hand on his shoulder and remind him that striking out did little more than hurt yourself. “If you want to work off some of that anger, let’s go grab some chow and then hit the heavy bag in the gym. I’ll spot you if you’ll spot me.”

Spalding turned to him and gave him a questioning stare. “What do you need pounding therapy about?”

“I’ll give you a hint.” Little John turned and started walking for the stairwell. “She’s about 5’8”, shares the same parents I do and drinks blood.”

*****

Evan watched the monitors as Laura carried out the last of her belongings and climb into her Jeep. He could feel his heart threaten to start beating again just so it could break on him. His gut tightened and he fought the urge to dart upstairs and out into the sunlight to scoop her into his arms. If he didn’t think that he’d burst into flames for trying, he would have pulled her back down to his lab and shackled her ankle to the corner of his desk.

He felt his lower lip tremble as she loaded the last of her bags into the back then walked to the door of the Wrangler and opened it. She paused and took a lasting look at the rusty old hangar then slipped in behind the wheel and started the engine. He watched the monitor as she backed away and drove off.

Evan slumped in his chair and fought the urge to cry. He knew that she’d be back, but in his mind and in his heart, he felt that she was leaving him. She was rejecting him. The logic portion of his brain screamed at him that it just wasn’t so. Of all of the humans he knew, she would never abandon him. She loved him. She stood up for him when nobody else would.

He backed up the digital recording and watched her again, his vision blurry from unshed tears. He watched as she tossed her gym bag into the back then rearrange things. She picked up her other duffel and shoved it on top of a box then reached for the back door and slammed it shut, her head turning on a swivel before walking to the door of the Jeep.

Something piqued Evan’s interest, and he backed the image up again. He watched her actions. Something didn’t
feel
right. She wasn’t acting appropriately. Why would she check her surroundings before getting into the car?

He watched as she loaded her bags again then shut the door, her head turning both directions, looking for…what?

Evan rewound the recording and watched again. He backed it up further and watched as she carried out other items. A box, another bag. There was already a large box in the back of her Jeep that she scooted to the side to make room for…he zoomed in on the box she carried.

He could barely catch it, but it was there. An aluminum case. He didn’t remember her having an aluminum case in her office. Where could this one have come from? Evan rubbed at his chin as he studied what he could see of the case.

He adjusted the image again and tried to focus on the contents. For the briefest of moments he became distracted by her cleavage as she bent over to move things around in the back, but there it was. He sat back and stared at the image that he paused on his monitor.

A confused smile crossed his pale features as he reached for his telephone. Punching the numbers he waited for her to answer. “Miss me already? I’m barely out the gate.”

“Why, yes, Pumpkin, I did miss you. Actually, I missed the case that you took when you left.” He waited and listened to her on the other end. He could hear the Jeep slowly roll to a stop and her voice dropped to a whisper.

“I can explain.”

“You had better.”

*****

Lilith awoke and stretched, her body aching in all the right places. She allowed her eyes to adjust to the gloom, and her hand reached out beside her expecting to feel the warmth of Samael next to her. Her hand brushed the soft crumpled sheet, still warm from his body. He was not where she expected.

Rising from her bed, Lilith strode to the door and reached for the light. “Leave it off.”

She snapped around, her attention drawn to the depths of the shadows. “You surprised me. I thought maybe you had stepped out.”

“I was watching you sleep.”

She squinted in the darkness but couldn’t make out his form in the shadows. “Why do you stay in the shadows, my love? Step out so that I may hold you.” She stepped toward him, putting the full sway of her hips to good use.

“Stay there. I like seeing you in silhouette. The light from the windows…it allows me to see you just the way you should be seen.”

She paused and stared into the shadows. “And how is that?”

“As a beautiful creature of the dark.”

She heard him rise, and the chair he had been sitting in creaked under the strain of his weight. A rustling sound caught her ears and she smiled. “Your wings?”

“Yes.” He stepped forward and she caught the first glimpse of his completed self. She looked up at his chiseled jaw, the bright blue of his eyes, the blonde locks curling just above his brow. “Although not as I expected.”

She stepped forward and ran her hand across his massive chest. Her fingers brushed his strong shoulders and she squeezed when she felt the meatiness of his massive arms. “What do you mean, my love?” Her voice was breathy as she drank him in with her eyes. “You look perfect to me.”

“My wings. They’re not like they were.” He pulled them in and they settled over his shoulders like a great leather cape. “They’re no longer feathered.”

Her eyes widened as she ran her fingertips along the black leathery cape. She could feel the veins and connective tissue under the thin black skin. “What happened, my love?”

“I do not know. I can only surmise it is because I took this dead flesh as a palette.”

“And it is reflected in your wings?”

He shrugged his massive shoulders and she noted the bat like wings rising with the action. “I can only assume so.” He turned and stepped away from her. “It’s not like I can go to my brethren and ask them, now can I?”

“What does it matter, my love? Wings are wings. You never needed them before. You can travel at the speed of thought.” She ran her hands across the back of his shoulders and felt where the wings connected to his massive back.

“An angel is an angel, my dear. But it is all about perception.” He spun on her and extended his wings, letting the blackness blot out what little light shone into the room. “They will see me as a demon on this plane.”

Lilith sighed and wrapped her arms around his waist. She laid her head against his chest and felt him relax, his wings lowering and wrapping around her. “Once we have dominated them all, who cares what they think. All will bow before us.”

Samael closed his eyes and squeezed her gently. “It matters, my love. For the subterfuge to work, they need to believe us holy at first.”