Seven Deadly Sons (15 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

The agony of being burned alive, from the inside out, was still torturing him, but Bernhart fought past it, snarling and slashing at the soldiers packed into the hallway. His two brothers were lashing out as well, whirling dervishes of teeth and claw.

Had their opponents been flesh and blood, they would be reduced to smears by now. But these were more of the accursed Golems, like the one Friedrich had in captivity. And there were six of them.

Their machineguns had been terrible, spraying a hail of burning, paralyzing bullets into the überwolves' flesh that even their regenerative powers struggled against. Only sheer willpower had kept them going. Once in close quarters with their attackers, the überwolves regained the upper hand. They were far stronger than the Golems.

Bernhart was ready to start gloating when from the roiling melee of stone and fur, a knife sliced through his arm. It cleaved his flesh and bone, an irresistible force of metal. Suddenly, the sensation in his arm, from a point mid-way between his wrist and elbow was gone.

Bernhart staggered backwards, and another knife slashed through the air and his stomach. He felt his guts pour out, then his vision went white. Blue white.

The crackling discharge of lightning was unmistakable, and immediately followed by the smell of ozone and burnt flesh. Then something hard crashed into Bernhart's side and he was sent flying.

He landed roughly on his side, knocked clear of the mass of werewolves and Golems duking it out in the close confines of the tunnel. His eyes finally cleared, and he saw that yes, his right hand was gone, hacked off by a Golem. The flesh was already surging and extending from his stump, tentacle-like, growing outwards to replace the severed limb.

Bernhart
grabbed at his stomach, reaching for his guts—his intestines had spilled out of the two-foot-long slash in his torso. He stuffed the intestines back in, helping them as they were being drawn up inside him, like rope on a winch.

His brothers were not faring so well.

Gerhart and Erik were being carved up like prize steers now. The men of stone had them surrounded, hacking and slashing with what looked like short swords. The far larger überwolves tried to lash out, but even their strength was no match for the indestructible stone men.

Erik's head suddenly flew off his body, joining one of his legs on the floor of the tunnel.
Then another blast of lightning erupted from the flurry of knives slashing and stabbing the überwolves.

Bernhart did the only thing he could think to do. He leapt to his feet and ran
away.

***

Laura Olson was screaming now. In a pure rage. She couldn't turn into her new, demonic-looking form, because the stupid assault vest she wore happened to be made of dense, space age fibers meant to protect her from physical injury. And she didn’t have
the time to take it off.

Her skin was mottled, veins standing out, grotesque cords of muscles writhing beneath it. Her four horns had erupted from her head, just above her goggles. Her boots had exploded off feet now several sizes larger and tipped with ghastly talons like the ones on her hands.

It would have to do.

The second überwolf attacking Mark had left itself wide open. And now its back was wide open, its spine showing—sliced by her long nails. Unfortunately, the beast was able to ignore the horrific wound, turning and knocking Laura off her monstrous feet with a backhand.

She rolled with the blow and was quickly back up on her feet, ready to gut the enormous Nazi.

Mark Kenslir was recovering as well. Only his vest had saved him from the sneak attack of the second creature. But that attack had delayed him enough that the first überwolf had recovered
as well, its wounds fully healed. It and the Colonel were smashing each other into the walls of the tunnel, grabbing, pulling and punching, almost too fast to follow.

Laura charged at her own opponent, mouth bared wide, fangs displayed.

The überwolf took the bait and lunged to meet her. Its claws met hers, grabbing her hands as though trying to test its strength against the vampire's. Laura ducked her head down, clamping her mouth right on the top of the monster's snout. Bone crunched satisfyingly and blood filled her mouth.

The überwolf tried to break free, but Laura had it now. Blue energy crackled where their hands touched and from the monster's snout, filling her
own mouth. She was draining the creature of its very lifeforce.

Colonel Kenslir was sore and battered, his own regenerative abilities struggling to keep up. He blocked blows with his fists and knees and rained
down backhanded fists, elbows and even headbutts onto the creature. His knees slammed into the beast repeatedly, breaking ribs and compressing organs, but not doing enough to overcome the magically-charged creature's immense strength.

The whirling, spinning brawl was exploding rock from the very walls of the tunnel. Blows that broke bone in the Colonel and the überwolf shook the walls of the tunnel like explosives. Green flashes of cancelled magical energy flickered like lightning every time the two struck each other.

Kenslir's eye was regenerated now, the petrified hue of gray stone gone, the damage from the monster's claws repaired. The Colonel could see better, but knew the furious exchange of herculean blows was getting them both nowhere. He was holding his own with the creature, his strength, skills and own ability to negate the monster's energy keeping him alive.

Kenslir considered ripping out the German's heart. But even he could last without his heart for several minutes—more than enough time to grow a replacement. And he couldn't reach his knives, strapped to his back. The beast's speed required him to block and counter in rapid succession just to avoid mortal wounds. An ordinary man would have failed from exhaustion long before now.

Kenslir needed to go back to basics. To strip away the super strength, the curses and the years spent studying hand-to-hand techniques. He needed to remember how to deal with a wolf like when he was a boy in Montana. He'd never tried it himself, but his older brothers had assured him it would work.

Kenslir's fist slammed forward, surprising the überwolf as it smashed through the creature's teeth. He drove the fist deep into the monster's mouth, into the back of its throat.

The überwolf hesitated, halting its unending slashes. It chomped down on the Colonel's arm, feeling a satisfying spray of blood into its mouth.

Kenslir reached back with his left hand and drew one of his Bowie knives. He felt the monster’s claws grab him—one over his kidneys, one around his neck. But before the beast could do anything else, he drove the Bowie knife into the side of its head, right through its ear.

The beast shuddered and tried to howl in pain, but the Colonel's broken, torn arm was clogging its airway. Instead it tumbled forward, pushing Kenslir onto the floor and collapsing in a heap on top of him.

The Colonel kicked with his feet, rolling the beast onto its side, careful not to pull the Bowie free. He pulled his mangled right arm from its jaws and pulled the tomahawk from the ammo carrier on his left leg.

Half turning, he whipped the tomahawk up over his shoulder then sent it flying forward. It buried itself to the shaft in the back of the head of the shuddering überwolf wrestling with Laura Olson, splitting skull and brain in two.

Olson stepped back as her o
pponent collapsed to the ground, unmoving.

"Hey, I was eating that!" she hissed.

"Stop screwing around and take its head off!" Kenslir snapped.

He turned back to his own felled opponent, drawing his second Bowie knife from the sheath on his back, then set to work.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

"You kids okay?" Chad Phillips asked once the fighting had died out.

Josie nodded, watching as the stone soldiers scattered the pieces of the dismembered überwolves, to try and keep them from regenerating.

"Sir? What do we do with these?" Isaac Jacobs asked, holding an überwolf head in each hand.

"Winters? Can you burn those?" Daniel Smith asked. "And let's get an ammo count.
Everyone check your gear."

"Yeah, I'm on it," Josie said, then looked back to Phillips. "Glad you guys got here when you did."

"Zero effect with the bullets?"

"No, they seemed to slow down the first one..." Josie looked around. She didn't see a third head anywhere. Nor did she see Javan Wallach.

"Where's Wallach?" she asked.

Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked around.

"I thought she was with you," Jimmy said.

The tactical goggles all flashed >>>LIVE
<<< and Colonel Kenslir's voice came over the channel.

"Winters! Smith! Report!"

"We're fine, sir," Josie said.

"Two überwolves dispatched, Colonel," Commander Smith said.

"Heads up," Kenslir said. "We dispatched two here as well. No telling how many more of these there are."

An information box sprang up, displaying Jonson, who was dressed in a pair of pants he'd taken from the machine shop's lockers. "Any chance you guys brought my leg?"

"You'll grow a new one, next full moon," Kenslir said.

"Sir!" Josie interrupted. "Ms. Wallach is missing. And one of the überwolves."

Chad Phillips was surprised to hear this, as was Commander Smith.

"I think she's right, sir," Smith sighed. "We've got a lot of pieces down here, but I only count two heads. One has gotten away."

"Did it take Ms. Wallach?" Kenslir asked.

"No idea, sir," Smith answered.

"Get Kane transformed and tracking. And stick together!" Kenslir barked.

He turned back to Dean Johnson. "How many of these things are there?"

"How should I know—they all look alike."

"We're switching to burst contact," Kenslir said. "And radio communication between each other."

"Yes, sir," Smith answered.

"Keep together. You've got strength in numbers."

"Will do, Colonel."

"Bad news," Paul Briones announced, approaching Josie, Smith and Phillips. "In the fight, a lot of our gear got trashed. Looks like we're down to three '249s."

"Briones, Jacobson and Stevens—you're on MG duty," Smith directed. "Kane?"

"Right here, sir," Jimmy said. He was seated on the floor of the tunnel, taking his boots off.

"You think you can track these things?"

"No problem—and someone can have my M4. I won't need it."

***

In the machine shop, Kenslir's wounds were fully healed now. Laura Olson was bending inch-thick metal rods together, fashioning a crude crutch.

"Where's the portal device?" Kenslir asked Dean Johnson.

"Down the hall—not far from here. Can I have a gun?"

Kenslir started to unzip his assault vest, but Laura stopped him.

"Hold on, he can have my stuff," she said. "It's like wearing a damn straightjacket."

She unzipped her assault vest and the leg straps for her shotgun and passed them to Johnson.

"All you brought is a shotgun?"

"I travel light. And here," she said, passing Johnson the
improvised crutch.

"My rifle's shot," Kenslir said, examining the cracked plastic and bent steel of his autoshotgun. Slung across his back at the time he was attacked, it had borne the brunt of the überwolves' attack.

"I'm sorry," Laura said, coming over and patting him on the shoulder. "Tell you what, I'll take you gun shopping, you take me shoe shopping." She pointed down at her bare feet.

Johnson was adjusting the straps on the assault vest, so it would fit him. "What now, boss?"

"We need to secure the portal. If there are any more, we don't want them escaping, or calling for reinforcements."

Once Johnson had his vest adjusted and on, with the shotgun holster strapped to his good leg, he Kenslir and Laura Olson exited the room, heading down the long, glowing-brick tunnel. Like the aircraft hangar, the tunnel in this part of the base was constructed long before the Nazis, but had been blasted in several places, to make new chambers in the mountain.

"So where we at, boss?" Johnson asked, hopping along on his makeshift crutch.

"The construction is very similar to what we found in Greece. I'd wager this is another antediluvian structure. Much older than the one in Arizona."

"That's it," Johnson said, pointing to a double set of doors put in the smooth-walled tunnel. Rough concrete and steel welds held them in place, and the doors were simple swinging ones, with no locking mechanism.

The Colonel drew his OA-93 from his thigh holster and pushed cautiously through the doors.

The chamber beyond was nowhere near as big as that of the aircraft hangar, but it was large. It appeared to be a courtyard of sorts, with a large fountain in the middle–a gleaming metal ring, about nine feet in diameter, standing upright in the fountain.

Wires and tubes were connected to the ring, leading over to a huge assortment of machinery and equipment the size of a large delivery van
clearly added to the room by the Germans. Overhead an arched ceiling extended upwards three levels. On each level, balconies were visible, with corridors leading off of them.

"Did you see them activate it?" Kenslir asked, cybernetically switching his tactical goggles to record mode.

"No, sir," Johnson said. "They were on my ass as soon as I came through."

Kenslir walked over to the machinery, submachinegun still at the ready. Part of the machines seemed distinct from the rest, but w
ere connected by more wiring. This smaller block of metal cabinets and pipework featured an old-fashioned globe and a large, open bowl, the insides of which were charred black.

"I smell blood
," Laura said, walking up beside him. She rubbed a finger in the bowl while the Colonel looked through documents spread out on a table beside the machinery.

"Yep, burnt blood," Laura said, sniffing at a finger.

"Greenberg and Katz," Kenslir said, holding up a document. It was an old paper, yellowed with age, with a picture of Yadid Greenberg from the 1940s, when he was very young. At the bottom of the page, a long strip had been torn off, just below several paragraphs of German print.

Kenslir pulled another page from the table—this one was intact, the bottom edge stained a dark brown.

"Let me see that," Laura said, taking the page. She sniffed the brown at the bottom and then licked it. "Blood. Human blood."

She read the information on the paper. "Mr. Schwartz's blood, I presume."

"So what does all this stuff do?" Johnson said, looking at the machinery. It was ancient, with old style gauges and vacuum tubes.

"Blood sacrifice," Kenslir guessed, pointing to the bowl. "They burn the blood and the machine gives them a location for the target—
empathic resonance. Then they open a portal at those coordinates."

"Jackpot," Laura said, holding up a rack with seven vials of what appeared to be blood in it.

Kenslir took one of the vials and read the label. "Erik."

"And Bernhart and Friedrich and Sleepy and Dopey," Laura said. She took one vial and set the others down. Uncorking it, she sniffed at the blood inside. "Looks like we only had seven of these little dwarves to worry about."

"Seven?" Johnson asked, surprised. "That means..." he started counting on his fingers.

"Three. Three are left," Kenslir said.