Seven Deadly Sons (8 page)

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

"I want to know how this happened," Mark Kenslir said. He was seated at a large conference table, wearing a multicam uniform.

Around the table the remainder of the Detachment watched him nervously. Josie, Jimmy, Chad Phillips, Victor Hornbeck, Pam Keegan, Doctors King, Guerrera and Olson, Detective Sierra and Javi Wallach—all were present for a debriefing in the detachment's large conference room. A room with walls lined with wall-hanging televisions and work stations.

"I believe that the portal was similar to the one we found in Greece," Dr. King offered. He was in a fresh labcoat, his glasses once more concealing his one stone eye.

Kenslir looked up from the computer tablet he had been using to review building security video. "How did they even know to come here?"

"Maybe they tracked Mr. Greenberg here," Jimmy suggested. Like the Colonel, he was now in multicam uniform. "I might even be able to track the one who fled on foot," he added, touching a finger to his nose.

"Doctor Olson?"

Laura Olson, now wearing a dark green silk blouse, her hair styled and wearing makeup, sighed. "Who knows what these things' capabilities are. We shouldn't rule it out." She looked back down, going back to painting her fingernails a bright red.

"Who cares how they got here," Javi Wallach, now in a dark business suit said, hands palm down on the table. She'd kept quiet so far, but this meeting was a waste of time. Yadid Greenberg was dead and his killers had gotten away. Sitting wouldn't solve that. "We should be out there finding them."

"I'm with Ms. Wallach," Pam Keegan said. The tiny FBI agent was particularly somber and had worn all black, with her blouse buttoned up for once.

Mark Kenslir looked around the table. "Before we take these... creatures on again, we need to know what we're up against. Specifically, are they vampires or werewolves?"

"I think they might be both," Dr. Guerrera said quietly.

"The research wouldn't be so different from our own," Dr. King added.

"The Nazis did all kinds of stuff like that," Jimmy said, drawing surprised looks from around the room and a few rolled eyes.

"What?" he said. "They're murdering Nazi hunters, and they're some kind of vampire-werewolf hybrids. Sounds like Nazis to me."

"That's ridiculous," Josie said. She had changed into tan slacks and a blue polo shirt bearing the embroidered Department of the Interior logo.

"We'd have encountered them before now," Chad Phillips offered. Phillips and Hornbeck were dressed like Kenslir and Jimmy in multicam. The green, black and brown pattern looked strange against their gray, stony skin.

"Perhaps they are from one of Stalin's programs," Dr. Guerrera added.

"No!" Javi Wallach said loudly, quieting the group. "Your werewolf must be right. It's the one common thread between all the victims."

"Nazis? Wouldn't they be ancient? World War II was like sixty years ago," Victor Hornbeck said.

Javi regarded the stone soldier and Chad Phillips beside him coldly. She made no effort to hide her dislike for the two men of stone.

"Hey," Laura said, breaking the moment of silence. "I'm sixty-three, and I look damn good." She blew on freshly painted nails to dry them and to emphasize her point.

Dr. King leaned forward. "There could be something to this.

"A werewolf or a vampire could still be alive and healthy today, just like Doctor Olson."

"Why strike now, all these years later?" Pam Keegan asked.

Silence filled the room. Not even Jimmy, with all his many bizarre, internet conspiracy theories could come up with an answer.

"Maybe their handlers are dead," Detective Sierra at last suggested. He felt stupid bringing it up, but he'd seen it before. He brushed at nonexistent lint on the borrowed Bermuda shirt the Colonel had given him. He was reluctant to continue, but finally looked up and did.

"Gangs often act up when there's a power vacuum—before new leadership emerges. Maybe whoever was in control of them died recently. Of old age?"

Laura Olson winked at Alvarro. "Vampires do the same thing. Without a central leader, they'll act out, exposing themselves. Or at least they used to. Before we hunted them almost to extinction."

"This is too organized," Javi countered. "They're striking at precise targets—targets they shouldn't even have the identities or locations of."

"Let's not worry about the how and why," Kenslir said. "We need to locate and eliminate. That takes priority. Particularly for the one running around Miami."

"Assuming he hasn't already escaped through another portal," Dr. King said.

"Yeah, how does that even work?" Chad Phillips asked. "I thought there had to be a portal device at each end."

"Yes, the portal you discovered in Greece was paired to another device, according to Father Schuler," Dr. King said. "But I theorize that a portal could be generated from one end only, so long as there was a means to direct it to a specific location. Like a hyperspace wormhole, but created by magical means."

"And these Nazis have one," Josie said. "That's just great."

"Washington is concerned by this development as well," Kenslir said. "Location and neutralization—or seizure—of the portal device is our top priority after the more immediate hybrid threat is neutralized."

"So we have to split up," Phillips said. "Focus on our super werewolf here, and the one wherever that portal is."

"
Überwolf
," Dr. King corrected.

"Pardon?" Philips asked.

"An überwolf," Dr. King repeated. "The Germans were obsessed with creating the perfect soldier—a part of their efforts to create the Master Race. The Übermenschen—super men. These chimeras appear to be the next step in that process. A blend of Vampire and Werewolf to create something superior."

"Split up?" Javi asked as everyone considered Dr. King's theory. "Is that wise?"

"Not just yet," Kenslir said. "Until we can locate their base of operations, we concentrate on the one here." He thumbed the screen on his tablet and the monitors hung on the walls around the room flickered to life, showing a still image from the building's security cameras. The image was from the laundry room, of the überwolf that had killed Yadid Greenberg, transformed into human form.

"He looks just like the one outside!" Phillips exclaimed.

"Twins?" Josie asked, dreading the other possibility.

"I can get that out as an APB," Alvarro said. "With all our traffic cams in Miami, we might get lucky."

"Already being done," Kenslir said, then looked back up at the rest of those assembled around the table. "And they don't just
look
like each other."

Now the images shifted to the left and a new photo slid on screen. It was black and white for a moment before it was colorized.

"Hitler?" Jimmy said, astonished.

"No."

The image was of Adolph Hitler, flanked by two generals. The picture slid to the left, over the überwolf's. One general's face matched perfectly with that of the überwolf's.

"Heinrich Himmler, one of Hitler's inner circle."

"Himmler?" Josie asked, confused.

"It's a common misconception," Kenslir said, "that Hitler was behind the Reich's obsession with the occult. It was actually Himmler who guided the SS in that direction."

"The Ahnenerbe," Jimmy said.

"
Ah-nenn-erb
what?" Pam Keegan said.

"
Ah-na-nerb-uh
," Jimmy pronounced carefully. "Himmler's followers who-"

"They're clones of Himmler?" Alvarro Sierra interrupted. He wondered when he would stop being surprised by this military detachment. "How could they even do that back then?"

"No," Dr. King corrected. "Not clones in the traditional sense." He glanced at Kenslir. "After the war, we recovered a great deal of research from the Germans. They had perfected the means to suppress genetic information in fetuses—to suppress specific genetic traits—all part of their efforts to engineer the Master Race. Their research enabled them to force the development of a fetus, so that it possessed all of only one parent's DNA. They could also force a split of developing fetuses, in the same manner identical twins occur naturally. Modern cloning research is geared toward introducing foreign DNA into developing zygotes to overwrite their own DNA and create a duplicate—a
doppelgänger
."

"Yes," Kenslir said. "Enhanced duplicates."

"Werewolv-" Jimmy started to say, then caught himself. "Überwolves."

"How do we kill them?" Pam Keegan asked. "Silver didn't do squat."

"Nor did stabbing their hearts," Josie said. "The one we have here underground even survived flash freezing."

"Is he one of them?" Alvarro asked. "Eric Mosley doesn't look anything like them."

"Vampires and werewolves are able to pass along their curses," Laura said, looking up from her nails. "They can create more of their kind. It makes sense these Nazis can do the same thing."

Pam Keegan stood up and slapped both hands on the table. "Who cares? Who cares who they look like, or where they come from or how they made them? We need to know how to
kill
them."

"She's right," Phillips said, breaking the awkward silence. "These are tough bastards. Their regeneration is off the scale—I'd have to maintain a continuous current through them for Lord knows how long to completely kill their cells. Assuming that would even work."

Kenslir looked around the room, finally settling his gaze on Dr. Olson. "Doctor?"

"They're part vampire," Laura said, putting the lid back on her bottle of nail polish. "And part werewolf. The weaknesses each of those normally have were suppressed—but that doesn't make them invincible."

She blew on her nails, making everyone wait. "Fire will work. Curses or no curses, they're living tissue, and a hot enough fire will destroy their cells. No tissue, no regeneration."

The people around the table looked at each other, some mumbling under their breath as they considered the Doctor's suggestion.

"Or we could just cut their heads off," Laura said, smiling. "That usually works on most monsters. Separate the heads from the bodies and even if they can grow a new body from the head, it'll take time. Time we can use to incinerate them."

"What if they grow a new head?" Alvarro asked.

"Let's find out," Colonel Kenslir said, standing.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Colonel Kenslir was wearing a sidearm now, and his tactical glasses. Laura Olson was in a labcoat, over her green blouse and black slacks. She walked beside the Colonel, down a long hallway in the sub-basement. Behind them, Phillips and Hornbeck walked along in full combat gear, cradling M60 machineguns. Both the stone soldiers were in black uniforms with assault vests, sidearms on one leg, large Bowie knives on the other.

"He might not be an überwolf," Laura said.

Colonel Kenslir paused at the door to a vault. "I thought you said-?"

"He's different—not a pure vampire, not like the überwolves that visited us. Maybe transitional—not yet all the way there."

"What are you trying to say?"

"I'm saying we can't trust these results," Laura said. "Those big nasties are stronger than a werewolf or a vampire. Meaning they're stronger than your boys." She nodded toward the two soldiers standing at the ready.

"They might be stronger than you. Faster too."

"What about you?" Kenslir asked.

Laura smiled. "Well, I've always been faster than you."

Kenslir pressed a palm against the scanner mounted in the wall beside the large blast door. Hydraulics in the walls could be heard working, then the door slowly cycled open. White fog poured out of the room, flowing across the floor.

"Watch your feet," Kenslir said, looking to Laura.

Laura leaned a hand on his shoulder and slipped off her bright red, stiletto heeled shoes. "Good call, I love these." She tucked one shoe in each pocket of her labcoat.

Kenslir walked in first, looking around the room quickly out of instinct. The concrete room had a single operating table in the middle, equipped with metal shackles. Several rolling carts full of medical instruments sat nearby. Along the back wall, spaced a few inches apart from each other, were open drums of liquid nitrogen. White fog hung over the floor, several inches thick, attesting to the frigid temperature of the room.

"Fries are done," Laura said, crossing to the first drum and pulling on a handle sticking out of the top. A wire mesh basket came up out of the drum of liquid nitrogen.

Laura turned and carried it to the surgical table and dumped the contents out.

"Leg bone's connected to the foot bone," she said, almost singing.

The door to the chamber began to cycle shut.

***

Josie and Jimmy were in the third floor cafeteria of Argon Tower, eating burgers and chatting as they sat by the windows looking out over nearby Biscayne Bay.

"Mind if I join you?" Dr. Guerrera asked, walking over with a tray.

"Sure," Jimmy said, moving his tray closer so the doctor had room at the four person table.

Josie hesitated in mid-chew, not sure what to say. Since finding out about Dr. Guerrera's memory lapse, Josie felt very uncomfortable around her. She didn't want to be the one to slip and say something the Doctor shouldn't hear about her forgotten past.

Dr. Guerrera sat her tray down next to Jimmy, across from Josie. "I was wondering if we could talk."

Josie smiled, swallowing and wiping her mouth with a napkin. "Sure, Doc."

"Call me Maria," Guerrera said, opening a pack of croutons and sprinkling them over her salad.

"Funny how tastes change after so many years... asleep," she said.

"You hold the record, right?" Jimmy asked. Josie kicked his shin under the table.

"Yes, I suppose I do. Although there are still a couple of subjects from before me that haven't been revived yet." She took a bite of salad and chewed it quickly, then sipped at her iced tea.

"Cafeteria might even be better these days," she said.

"I sure love it," Jimmy said, happily taking a large bite of his burger. Josie glared at him.

"You, uh, see stuff like this in the sixties?" Josie asked. She immediately winced at her slip up. This was exactly why she'd avoided conversations with Dr. Guerrera.

Maria paused, about to put another forkful of salad in her mouth. "Fifties. I was petrified in fifty-nine. Missed New Year's and the whole decade."

"Right," Josie said, looking down then stuffing several french fries in her mouth.

Maria set down her fork and looked intently at Josie. "It seems I know less about myself than most of you do."

Jimmy finally got it and continued taking large bites to keep his mouth full. Josie just shrugged, trying to avoid eye contact as she continued to chew.

"Look," Maria said, pushing her salad aside. "I know Dr. King has been pretty strict on my acclimatization to the twenty first century. And I understand that—I am a doctor. But watching videos and reading history books has left a lot of blanks."

"Try Wikipedia," Jimmy said around a mouthful of food. This time he managed to dodge Josie's kick under the table.

Maria leaned in, closer to Josie. "What do you know about me and the Colonel?"

***

"It's alive!" Laura Olson said, laughing in a deep voice as she pumped electrical-like lifeforce into the frozen shards covering the surgical table. Her fingers were splayed wide, each touching a different chunk of what used to be Eric Mosley.

The blue energy crackled and sparked among the frozen pieces, jumping between gaps like electricity. Steam began to rise from the shattered body.

Laura was frowning at Kenslir who watched the procedure like a statue. "You don't have much of a sense of humor, did you know that?"

"Karloff was better in person," the Colonel said, intently watching Mosley's shattered body.

The frozen flesh was rapidly thawing now, more and more steam rising from the pieces as moisture drawn previously from the air to form the icy shell around Mosley when he was frozen evaporated away. The pieces now began to shake, almost vibrating in place. Then they began to move.

Like pieces of magnets, many jumped together, clicking into place. Others made a wetter sound as they smacked into one another then fused into larger pieces.

Laura held out a hand. "He needs a bit more, I think. Hit me."

Kenslir frowned and reached across the table and held Laura's hand. Blue-green light flashed between their hands as she drew lifeforce from the Colonel.

"You always make me so tingly," Laura said, then placed her other hand out. This time she didn't touch the pieces of Mosley. Streaks of blue sparked from her fingertips, dancing across the remains on the table, causing them to glow and spark briefly.

Kenslir pulled back his hand, now turned to stone to the elbow. "You're faster now."

Laura shook her head affirmatively, still watching over the pieces. They were coming together more quickly now. Mosley was only a few dozen pieces now. "Yep. Neat, hunh?"

She stepped back and signaled Kenslir to do the same. The Colonel lowered his right hand to the butt of his pistol as he stepped back a pace. Phillips and Hornbeck lifted their M60s to their shoulders, ready to shoot.

Mosley's body finally was reformed, the last pieces fusing back together. The steam and water coming off him dissipated, the last of the excess moisture evaporated by his regenerative abilities. His body twitched two times, spasms of life in the formerly-broken man.

"Am I good or what?" Laura asked.

The rebuilt vampire suddenly sat up, mouth wide, fangs exposed. He looked to Laura then Kenslir and hissed loudly.

The Colonel's right fist whipped out, backhanding the vampire in the mouth, shattering most of his teeth. The blow was so strong, Mosley collapsed back onto the table.

"What the hell?" the vampire whined. He raised his hands to his mouth, trying to catch the blood and fragments of teeth dribbling out.

"Time to do some talking, Mr. Mosley," Kenslir said. He slapped a hand down on the vampire's chest, producing a bright green light.

"Hey!" Mosley said, trying to sit up again. But despite his best efforts he couldn't budge under the hand holding him down. He looked to Laura in a panic.

"Don't look at me—I'm just the doctor here," she said, grabbing one of his wrists and guiding it into an open shackle. She had it closed before the pinned vampire could protest.

"Let me go!" Mosley yelled. He raised his other hand, trying to grab at Kenslir. The Colonel grabbed it calmly and placed it in the other wrist shackle, which Laura promptly closed.

"What the f-" Mosley yelled. He began to thrash, his legs kicking.

"Ugh, lets cover that up," Laura said, draping a cloth over the restrained vampire's groin. Now that he was fully thawed, the bits and pieces of what had been his clothes were falling off his body in dry flakes.

Laura moved to Mosley's feet and calmly grabbed one ankle, then the other, locking them into place as well.

"I'll kill you!" Mosley hissed, his fangs and teeth regrown.

Kenslir grabbed the vampire's nose with his right hand and gave it a crunching twist.

"Agh!" Mosley yelled, blood spraying out from his mangled nose.

"Calm down," Kenslir said, leaning in so the vampire could see his intense green-black eyes. He moved his left hand off Mosley's chest.

The security guard relaxed, laying his head back and moving his eyes from side to side, from Laura to the Colonel. He wasn't to full strength yet. He'd have to bide his time.

"What is this place?" he asked. His nose was shifting back into place, repairing itself.

"You were bitten by a werewolf," Kenslir said.

Mosley sneered. "Not quite."

Kenslir snatched his hand out, grabbing one of Mosley's fangs between his index finger and thumb. The vampire tried to move his head, but Kenslir's grip and strength were too much.

The Colonel snapped the tooth off and pitched it into a nearby drum of liquid nitrogen.

When Mosley stopped screaming he glared at Kenslir but said nothing.

"Hey," Laura said, leaning in and lowering her voice to a husky whisper. "My boyfriend here is not the kind of guy you want to piss off." She opened her mouth wide, revealing her own fangs—canines that elongated as Mosley watched.

"You're a vam-" Mosley started to say hatefully. His eyes flitted toward Kenslir and he stopped. When he spoke again, his tone was less hateful. "You're a vampire. Big deal."

Kenslir thumped Mosley on the forehead to get his attention. "You were bitten by a werewolf."

"Fine. Yes. I was bit. What of it?"

"Why?"

"How the fuck should I know?" Mosley said. Seeing Kenslir leaning closer he started talking again. "He bit my hand, but when he heard the other guard coming, he jumped into the light and was gone."

"When did you start to turn?" Laura asked.

"Couple of hours," Mosley answered. He strained against the shackles holding him, ever so slightly, so his captors wouldn't see. They still wouldn't budge.

"Why didn't you seek help?" Kenslir asked.

"From who?" Mosley said, repressing the urge to sneer.

"Kill anyone?" Laura asked, still being sweet and nice.

"What? No. Not 'til those cops showed up." He frowned, remembering the fight he'd been in.

"Where am I?" he demanded.

Kenslir stepped back and nodded to Laura. "It's time for you to serve your country, Mr. Mosley."

The vampire looked back and forth between Laura Olson and Mark Kenslir, confusion on his face.

Laura took a small recorder from a nearby cart and turned it on, then placed it in the upper pocket of her labcoat. Then she drew out a small silver-bladed knife.

"Subject has been resurrected without any apparent memory loss or physical impairment," she said loudly. "Test One—a three inch incision with a silver blade over the right pectoral."