"We were bound by chains of blood, of our past, and
all we had was each other. Alfenwehr stripped away
our humanity in ways an outsider wouldn't understand,
our officers turned us into animals, and we could trust
nobody in that frozen hell hole but a select few.
But dammit, we had each other."
2/19th Special Weapons Group
Restricted Area, Alfenwehr West Germany
Late Winter- January, 1986
Day 11 of Repairs
Day 3 of the Second Incident
Evening
They both stared at me for a long second. A flicker of shame came and went, but the sight of my uniform covered legs reminded me that I wasn't that silent boy that stood there and let others do what they wanted to him any longer. The lizard hissed and rage filled me, warming me, pushing back the stomach ache, the buzzy feeling in my head, and the strange longing feeling I had toward Aine.
"Keep going, honey," Nancy told me, taping off the IV line to make sure it was secure. She'd hung the bag from the shelf's support. My whole arm was getting chilled, but she was worried about the vomiting I'd done dehydrating me.
Plus, the hemlock tea would give me the shits very soon if I hadn't thrown it up fast enough, which would just make it worse.
"My father was a drunk. A bad one. He was a drunk before he was drafted for Vietnam and came back worse. He worked for Weyerhaeuser, on the logging crews, which was probably the only reason he could hold a job." I closed my eyes, remembering how more than once the sap on his hands had stuck to the skin of my cheek when he slapped me.
"That doesn't sound like the father you and William described," Bomber said, handing me a cold beer from the fridge. It wasn't Gatorade, and a doctor would probably frown on me swilling beer after hemlock tea, but fuck him, I was here and he wasn't. Let's see him survive.
"Yeah, well, I'll get to that," I told him, unable to keep the bitterness from my voice. Bomber just nodded and moved over to the stereo, queuing up the CD player before sitting back down.
"He liked to play cards, and he liked to drink. He'd go to the tavern before coming home after he got his paycheck." I shook my head. "He'd been wounded in Vietnam, if it wasn't for his pension and the house he got when he came home from war from the family, we'd have been out of the streets in no time flat." I took a long drink off the beer, stifling the sudden urge to smash the bottle against the edge of the desk and then go down and slit Aine's throat.
"I guess my father got in trouble gambling, or he just wanted money, or maybe he just wanted to get rid of me, but when I was three he sold me to Aine's father." I shrugged. "Aine knew it by the time we went to kindergarten. She'd demand to sit by me, when we got older she had me carry her books. She told me why when we were in first grade, that her daddy bought me from my daddy which made me her boy." Something small hurt in my chest for a second as I continued, but I crushed it beneath rage. "When I went home crying my father beat me for crying and my mother beat me for talking to a girl."
"Jesus," Nancy said. She'd taken my hand sometime during it and now squeezed it.
"Aine would delight in kissing me on the bus. My mother would see it, and I'd get a beating. I quickly figured out that if I didn't do what Aine wanted at school, she'd kiss me on the bus, and I'd get beaten for 'defiling' her." Another long swig and suddenly my beer was almost empty. "I figured that shit out in the first grade. The first grade was the first time my twin sister..."
"Woah, woah, you have a twin?" Bomber asked.
"Triplets, actually. You met her at the hospital," I told him. I smiled, it felt good. "She's an officer candidate at West Point, in her third year now. She'll be good officer, make a difference, do some good."
"She's the dominate one," Nancy broke in. I nodded. "Figures. Even if she wasn't from birth she's a girl, and you learn fast."
"Yeah. Anyway, it was in the first grade that my sister stood up for me." I winced. "My mother beat her bloody, then beat me until my father got angry at me for screaming and choked me out." I shrugged. "I tried not giving them the satisfaction of screaming, but she'd hurt Innie until I screamed, telling me if I screamed she'd stop."
Bomber stood up and got another beer. The back of his neck and ears were deep red and he was shaking when he handed it to me.
"Please tell me the cops shot your parents one day," Bomber half-begged.
My hand rubbed my left elbow. "No. My mother went too far one day when I was ten. I'd had a nightmare and climbed in bed with Innie. My mother caught us sleeping. She broke my elbow and my cheekbone, beat Innie's crotch bloody, and..." I took a deep breath.
...please don't tell anyone...
...I'm sorry, Innie...
"Our da checked to make sure Innie was still a virgin."
Nancy's grip on my hand suddenly tightened and her face went white.
"I stabbed my mother in the hand with a fork and we ran to the school," I told them. Bomber looked stunned, repulsed, and for a second the fear was there that he believed the same our mother had believed. "They called the police."
"And then they shot your father in the face?" Nancy asked hopefully. Her grip on my hand was almost painful.
"No. The cop was Aine's father."
"Oh shit," Bomber said. "I swear to God, Ant, if this story has you chained in a basement I'm going to get on the next flight to Washington and shoot everyone in this story in the dick."
I shook my head. "No. He took me to my Uncle Tiernan's."
"William's dad," Bomber guessed. "The Sergeant Major."
"Yup." I shrugged. "He adopted Innie and me, paid back Aine's father, and did everything he could for Innie and me. I call him my Father instead of Jed. Now you know."
Nancy was silent a long time, staring at me. The look in her eyes made me nervous. Part sorrow, part fury, and part disbelief. Not in what I'd told her, but that it was the whole truth. She knew I was keeping things back.
...My Nancy...
"What's with what she called you? And what the hell is with the name Aodán?" Bomber asked. "I mean, it sounds like a shortened version of that other name, but I thought your name was Anthony, that's what you always told me."
"My Father gave me that name," I said.
"Damn, you can hear the difference in the way he says it," Nancy broke in. I kept speaking.
"The other name is the name on my birth certificate. Before puberty everyone called me Annie, after puberty they called me Anthony at my Father's insistence." I sighed. "When I got married and my wife had children or I came home from war the matrons of my family would have called me by the name she keeps calling me."
"Then why did your father change your name?" Bomber asked.
"My Father was told by the Matrons to return me to my father or Aine's family, and my Father laughed at them and told them to make him." I grinned. "My Father had it out with the Matrons about certain things after the Korean War. The Matrons tell him to do something, and unlike most of the men in my family, if he didn't want to do it he'd tell them to pound sand."
"Why?" Nancy asked. "Wouldn't the rest of the family back up the Matrons?"
I shook my head. "No. After Korea my Father was 'unruly' according to the Matrons, so six of the cousins, following the orders of their girls, came for my Father one night." I grinned. "Apparently he sent them back beaten almost to death, and let the Matrons know that if they ever tried anything like that again he'd kill the next ones and maybe worse."
Bomber chuckled. "Yeah, that sounds more like the Sergeant Major."
"Yeah, my Father defied the Matrons and didn't pull his boys out of school around the third grade," I told them.
"Why the hell were they pulling boys out in the third grade?" Nancy asked.
I looked at her and blushed. "Until after World War Two, boys weren't allowed to read or do math. Most of the males in our family were functionally illiterate up to World War Two."
Nancy shook her head. "That means you guys are basically unskilled laborers, except for what you learned in the military."
With a wave of my hand, I indicated the FM's and correspondence courses that several shelves were lined with. "Except for after World War Two you need to be able to read, which meant that the women had to let us go to school enough to read so we could pass initial testing and Basic."
"That's fucked up." Bomber summed it up.
I just laughed. "Property, except for weapons, was owned by the women, despite what legal documents said. Our wills all give our property to our wives or our nearest male relatives."
"What happened to the widows?" Nancy asked.
"Unmarried cousins or brothers courted them. If the man had married into the family, and she had children already, she usually just carried the title 'widow' and lived alone unless she met someone, but they rarely remarried," I answered.
She opened her mouth, probably to ask more questions, when someone hammered on the door. We all turned to look, hands reaching for knives, when Stokes' voice came through the door.
"Psst, Nancy, open up."
Nancy gave a slight frown as she hurried over to the door. Bomber grabbed his knife and followed her after hitting the room light, stepping slightly into the bathroom. When Nancy opened the door, nobody in the hallway could see him standing there.
"Jesus, there you are," Stokes said. "Let me in."
Nancy grabbed her by the arm and yanked her in. "What the fuck is going on?"
Stokes glanced at Bomber, who was leaning against the doorway of the bathroom, his hand behind his leg so she couldn't see the knife. "Hey, Bomber." She turned back to Nancy. "The LT told me to come up here, told me to tell you that he's having the barracks searched for Stillwater."
"Why? I thought the story was Stillwater came back up here?" Nancy asked. Stokes came in and she shut the door. "Does the LT want us down there?"
"The SEALs are claiming that Stillwater killed one of their men, even though Aine's claiming that it wasn't him." Stokes saw me in the room and looked at me for a long moment before turning and looking at Nancy. "What the hell? I thought he was missing."
"Long story, Miranda," Nancy told her, coming over and standing behind me, one hand on my left shoulder. "Why aren't you helping?"
Stokes shook her head. "I don't trust those guys." She shivered. "Something about them, you know?"
"They aren't SEAL Team Three," Bomber said, sitting back down in his chair.
Stokes frowned at him. "What? How do you know?"
Bomber grinned at her. "My uncle is a bonafide SEAL, didn't get out of the Navy until last year after doing thirty years. I can't picture him acting like those dicks. All of those guys are way out of regs, but close enough to be spotted as military." He grazed his hair over his ear with a forefinger. "Unless they're in the zone most SOG keep their shit dress right dress." He shook his head. "Plus they don't move like active military. The way they hold their weapons, the way their LBE's are fucked up, and their fucking uniforms."
"They're not SEAL Team Three," I told them. They all three looked at me. "I gave a briefing to Three this summer, and not one of those guys was at the briefing. SEAL Team Three is like thirty or forty guys and I'm pretty sure they were all at that briefing."
Nancy looked at me. "All right, tell us what went down. You went downstairs talking to the LT and the next thing we know the LT is telling us to head back to our room, then Lanks tells us that Aine tried to tell her not to come back to her room for a few hours and she had a weird feeling, now we find out one of the fucking SEALs is missing?"
I explained the entire thing to them.
"So what do you think Major Chokeaho is up to?" Stokes asked. I could tell by Nancy and Bomber's expressions they'd forgotten she was there. Stokes look at everyone and realized what she was seeing. Both of them with their little green notebooks out, were sketching maps or jotting down notes, and weren't just ignoring it.
"He's cashing out," Bomber said. Stokes looked at him in disbelief and he shook his head. "No, the 'Colonel' and his men aren't Russian, more than likely he's selling out to someone else."
"No, Major Mallory isn't selling out, the 'Colonel' is running some kind of game on all of us," I said. I tapped the IV. "Take this shit out, will you, Nagle?"
"No," Nancy answered, then turned to Stokes. "We need to come up with a plan." She turned back to Bomber. "What do you we know? Let's run it down."
"We've got three men missing, all of them vanished. Reasons unknown," Bomber said. We all nodded. I started peeling the tape back on the IV needle and Nagle slapped my hand. "We've got twelve men of unknown origin accessing secure records despite Group policy against anyone without authorization from Group and V Corps even knowing those records exist."
"They're making copies of the records, which is a clear violation of policy," Nagle added. Bomber nodded. "Rather than get Ant medical help they dumped him outside." Nagle growled slightly before continuing. "Then they told everyone he returned to his room, meaning they doubted they would get caught. Ant managed to get up and kill one of them."
"The LT told us to fall back to our rooms. Lanks told us that Aine had tried to get Lanks to stay out of their room and we know that was because Aine somehow managed to get Ant to her room and poisoned him," Bomber finished. "Anything we're missing?"
Stokes looked at us, and then took a deep breath. "Major Mallory told the LT that he was going to assume command of Rear-D until the snow lifts enough for them to leave. He's told everyone to return to his or her rooms until further notice. Breakfast will be MRE's, and he's told the LT that right now there is no need for a CQ."
"All right, that means that the fake SEALs and the Major have the run of the barracks, and we've got no security patrols," Nagle said.
"And blood has been spilled, we've got broken windows, and there's a blizzard," Bomber finished.
We sat for a few long seconds thinking. There was the sound of tap shoes running by and a blood curdling scream echoed down the hallway.
"Threat list and estimation?" Bomber asked.
"Twelve supposed SEALs. Unknown skill level," Nancy said.
"Easy to take one on one. Hell, I fucked up two of them before the third got me," I said. Nancy snorted and Bomber shook his head. "What?"
"Nothing, man. All right, Major Mallory and SFC Tashton, neither one of them are as badass as they act," Nancy said. She smiled, a ruthless thing. "Personally, I hope either one of them put up resistance, I'd love to slit their throats."
"At ease that shit," I told her, glancing at Stokes. "How dependable is Rear-D?"
Stokes snorted. "Maybe a handful I'd trust at my back. Most of them are GI Bill Babies."
"All right, how are our resources?" I asked.
"We've got our weapons here in the room, access to the armories is iffy. There are four vehicles in the motorpool that are winterized and secured. There's no access to the War Fighter Tunnels, we've lost commo, and have limited access to supplies," Bomber said.
"All right." I managed to get the IV loose and stood up, sucking on the hole in my arm. I moved over to the desk, pulling out a spiral notebook and paging past the AD&D campaign notes. I found a couple pages between the Battle of Wolf Run Pass hand-sketch maps and the treasure list from when they'd ambushed a caravan. I sat back down and when Nancy went to grab my arm I pulled it away. "Enough."
"You've been poisoned and had your head cracked. I want..." she started. I cut her off.
"I want a twelve inch dick. What's your point?"
"That sounds good. I wouldn't mind getting twelve inches and have it hurt without getting fucked twice and slapped." She grinned. She wrapped up the plastic IV line and the half-empty IV bag and tossed the wad in the wastebasket. Stokes blushed, and Bomber cracked open beers and passed them out.
I sketched out the area, then started listing accessible resources, probable problems, and regular ways Tandy could access the barracks as well as places that were dark and cold that nothing could be done about. I listed down numbers and key codes, which made Bomber raise an eyebrow.
"How'd you get those?" he asked.
I laughed. "When we did up the CO's Office and the Orderly Room I found a brick of the Red Cards with all the codes. I listed them as missing, presumed destroyed, and memorized them." They all shook their heads and I looked at them. "Last time we got fucked because we couldn't access the War Fighter Tunnels, couldn't use the blast doors, and couldn't access shit that might have made a difference. I ain't letting. that. happen. again."
They all nodded.
"You think it's going to come to fighting?" Stokes asked. "Paranoid much, Stillwater?"
I opened my mouth but Bomber was the one who spoke. "The evidence is right in front of us, Miranda. They never planned on letting Ant leave, and if they're stealing the data with the intent of selling it to foreign powers they sure as shit aren't going to leave any witnesses behind." She opened her mouth and he cut her off. "Last time we weren't paranoid enough and a bunch of us died or were badly wounded."
"You think it'll get that bad this time?" Stokes asked.
"It's already starting," I told them. Bomber and Nancy nodded and Stokes started to say something but went silent. "We're down three men, right now the only answer is that the 'Colonel' and his men eliminated them for some reason. Tandy might have taken them, but it lacks the fear element. He feeds off of fear, gets off on it, or maybe just needs it for some reason, so I doubt it was Tandy."
"And the barracks doesn't feel right," Bomber added.
Nancy and I nodded at that.
"It feels like it did the day before the CQ got ganked," Nancy said. "That weird feeling."
There was a cracking rumble as part of the glacier above us broke free. The barracks shuddered as there was a crashing noise in the distance.
"And the helipad is fucked," Bomber added. For reasons known only to God and the Army, they'd put our helipad in a location where every year the glacier would calve off a huge chunk of ice right onto the helipad.
"Which means that it just caused avalanches just now between the noise and the compression," I added. "That means we've completely lost the roads. Main post won't even try to bulldoze the roads now."
"We're stuck here for at least a week, maybe longer," Nancy said. "That's what took the Rangers so long to get here. The avalanches shut down the roads, increased the possibility of more avalanches like the one that smashed the MP's vehicle when they came up to check on us last time we lost commo."
"All right. We need to know what's going on. Bomber, Nagle, if you or I go down there it's gonna cause a lot of problems." I looked at Stokes. "That leaves you. Go down, find the LT, find out what he wants us to do, if you can't do that, find out what's going on." She nodded.
"Watch out for Aine," Bomber added.
Nancy nodded. "If she asks, tell her that Ant's really sick, feverish and delirious, and drop it at that."
"What if the SEALs ask me questions?" Stokes asked, standing up.
"Plead ignorance. Tell them that the LT moved you in here with us because you're dating Bomber now and he wanted to consolidate rooms," Nancy suggested.
"All right," she said.
"Shave and a haircut, then knock three times at the end instead of two," Bomber said, walking with her. She nodded again and left the room, Bomber locking the door behind her. He came back and sat down after grabbing another beer.
"What do you think they're going to do when they find out you're alive?" Bomber asked.
I shrugged. "Probably kill me anyway."
Nancy smiled. "Except everyone knows you took a serious head wound." She stood up, tossing John her notebook. "I'm going to tell the LT that we found you in the stairwell and you're having a seizure. You don't remember anything after dinner, and I need a medical kit to take care of you."
"I don't like that plan. It leaves you exposed and alone," Bomber said.
"Go with her," I told him.
"No. Absolutely not," Nancy said. "That leaves you alone. You're injured, you're poisoned, and Aine is after you."
"I can handle it," I told her. "I can handle her. I'm not all fucked up from getting dumped off the loading dock."
She stared at me for a long moment, then nodded. "All right. We'll try it your way."
They left, and I sat there in the room, thinking hard. The light dimmed, came back, then sunk to a sullen glow, plunging the room in darkness broken only by the feeble attempts of the nightlight. I just sat in the dark and thought.
Aine acting like nothing was wrong, but that didn't surprise me. She was a lot tougher than she looked. I'd seen her carry a deer out on her shoulders, and she bounced back from injuries just as fast as anyone in my family would. Her crotch probably ached from what Nancy had done, but I doubted it would slow her down at all.
Still, the memory of Nancy taking the boots to Aine warmed me.
My head was still pounding so I took another swig off the beer and finished it. I set it down and killed the light, which wasn't doing much good anyway. I went into the bathroom to wet a washcloth with cold water, and laid down on Bomber's bed with the cold cloth over my eyes. Even the dim light from the nightlight was making my head pound, but the washcloth made things a lot better. I had to keep my muscles tense or the muscle tremors for the tea came back. The big muscles in my thighs were the worst, rapid tremors making them vibrate and twitch. I concentrated on keeping them relaxed.
The door unlocked and I listened to boot steps slowly enter the room. At first I figured Nancy and Bomber, but they felt wrong. I bent my knee so I could draw my boot knife, then slipped it under my right buttock as I straightened my leg out and braced myself for whatever was coming.
There was the sound of rifles being set down on the desk, and I heard the light switch flip on and off and then someone curse as the light didn't do shit. The boots moved closer to me and stopped.
"There he is." I didn't recognize the voice.
"This the guy we dumped in the snow?" The black guy who'd dropped his weapon. I could hear his hate for me and it warmed me.
"Yup, that's him." SFC Tashton's voice.
"Figured the punk was dead." Same unknown voice. "How the fuck did he survive outside?"
"He's arctic survival qualified," Tashton grumbled. "He's supposed to be some kind of tough guy." He snorted. "His dad's supposedly some kind of Special Forces hardass or something. Him and his brother have been scouted by SF a couple of times. His brother does OJT with them, this little punk thinks he's too good to join SF."
Not really. While Will wanted to be an operator, I really didn't feel I had what it took to do it. I just wanted to do my MOS and survive as long as possible before the Soviet Union killed all of us and I took as many of them with us as possible. Our family had a long long lineage of military service, and my brother wanted to follow in our Father's footsteps and join Special Forces, and between his test scores, his reviews, and his abilities, the Rangers had started sniffing around him last summer, encouraging him to sign up. I didn't want that. I was happy with Atlas and my crew.
"Didn't seem that tough down by the vault," the black guy said.
...yeah, you didn't, wanna do round two...
"Yeah. He got his skull broken or some shit last month. That's probably what put his lights out," Tashton said.
...motherfucker...
Someone poked me and I didn't move, just laid there. I let my breathing get ragged and just let go, which caused me to lose control of the muscle tremors from the tea and the injuries.
"Nice job, he's having a seizure," the first voice said. "Damn, he's all fucked up."
"So what do you want to do with him, Chuck?" the black guy asked. "It's not like he knows anything."
Tashton grunted, leaning down and poking me again. "The little bastard knows we copied the records. He could blow the whistle on all of this."
"Do you think he could cause problems?" the first guy, "Chuck" asked.
"No. He's pretty fucked up," Sergeant First Class Tashton said. "He'll probably die on his own."
...you fucking wish...
"So what do you want to do about him?" the black guy asked.
"If he's not dead by then, we'll take care of him when we take care of the rest of Rear Detachment," Chuck said. "As soon as 'the Colonel' gives the word, we'll handle them and destroy any evidence." He chuckled. "We'll blame it on Corporal Stillwater and his two friends going crazy."
"You sure they'll buy it that these guys tore up the barracks and killed everyone?" the black guy asked, poking me. "Right now this one doesn't like in shape to make it through the night, much less do what we're planning."
SFC Tashton chuckled. "Believe me, everyone in Group will believe it. Half of Group believes him and his two little friends were the ones who killed all those people. Nobody believes that a bitch killed the guy. Everyone knows that chicks aren't dangerous." He sneered.
"Then let's kill him, and then kill his two friends when they come back," Chuck said. "Grab him, Ted, I'll just smother his ass, and we'll wait for the hick and the scar faced bitch." Someone pulled the pillow out from under my head. My hand was under my ass.
"We don't have to kill her fast." Ted, the black guy, laughed. "She got some big ol' titties."
"She's a fucking nasty whore," Tashton grunted.
The door opened quietly and closed.
"Best kind." Ted chuckled. "You gonna do it?"
"What are you three doing in here?"
My blood ran cold at the sound of the new voice.
Aine.
"None of your business, bitch, leave," SFC Tashton snarled at her. I could hear her bare feet coming closer. The smell of apple blossoms filled my nose.
"I'm supposed to be taking care of Corporal Stillwater," Aine said. Her voice sounded tight, and I knew she was angry or frustrated. "The LT said he might die from his head wound if someone doesn't take care of him." I felt her weight on the bed and her hand touch my chest. The warmth spread through my T-shirt and into my body, making my heart pound and the lizard hiss with hate.
"Go back to your room, bitch. Stillwater isn't your problem," Tashton said.
"I've known him since he was a little boy," Aine said, reaching up to stroke my face. The warmth spread through my face, eased my headache. "If he dies our families will never forgive me." Her hand adjusted the washcloth on my eyes, then came to rest on my brow. The warmth pushed back the headache completely, filling my body with a buzzing feeling.
...her touch...
"Go back to your room, bitch," Ted snapped.
"As soon as I give him his medicine, like Lieutenant James ordered," Aine said. Aine's hand disappeared and I heard something unscrewing.
"What the fuck is that?" Tashton asked.
"Anti-seizure medication. He needs a lot of it," Aine purred. An eyedropper pushed past my lips and squirted liquid into my mouth. Milk, honey, blood, and something else. I swallowed reflexively and she did it again. My mouth was full of fire, the feeling spreading into my sinuses and making my teeth feel weird. The third time it no longer burned my throat. The fourth made my mouth go instantly numb, only the taste of iron left behind. I heard the eyedropper being returned, and fire started filling my veins, spreading out from my mouth.
"Without the medicine he'll keep going into seizures until he dies," Aine lied smoothly. Her weight vanished from the bed. "We wouldn't want him to die, would we?"
I knew she'd be standing there with her hands held in front of her, her eyes cast down, looking through her eyelashes with those big deep green eyes. If her hair was still undone it would be cascading to either side of her face, covering her breasts. I could almost see her, I could smell her.
Images of carnage swept through my mind. The attacks on Atlas. The fights in the stairwells. Spring rituals. The Wickerman. The trembling in my arms and legs went away and I felt strength return to my limbs. Better than before Aine had poisoned me. Better than before Captain Duloc's little buddy had slammed my head into the doorframe.
Better than before the killer had stomped a mud-hole in my ass.
"I'm going to report to Lieutenant James I took care of Corporal Stillwater," Aine purred. Her voice was going further away.
Images of violence rocketed through my brain. The lizard gnashed his teeth and tore strips of metal out of the floor with the claws on his hind legs. The taste of bloody raw meat filled my mouth.
"Oh, and gentlemen?" she asked.
"What, bitch?" Tashton asked.
"Goodbye," Aine purred.
"Get out." Tashton had raised his voice and sounded angry, but Aine just laughed.
Aine chuckled, a low throat and wicked sound. I could hear her bare feet on the floor as she moved away. Her footsteps stopped and I heard her snap her fingers. "Oh! I almost forgot." I knew she was by the entryway to the main room, between the sets of lockers, without opening my eyes.
"Forgot what? Goddamn it, get out of here, you stupid little bitch," SFC Tashton half-yelled.
"Give me the gift of blood, Aodán," she breathed. "Kill."
"What did she...?" Chuck started to ask. I hadn't even realized she hadn't been exactly speaking English.
I opened my eyes, which were already adapted to the dimness of the room, reaching out with my left hand and grabbing 'Chuck' by the LBE. My hand came out from under with the knife, which went in smoothly as I plunged it into Chuck's stomach, pulling myself up with the motion. I pulled the knife out as Chuck dropped the pillow onto my head and stabbed again, twisting the blade hard.
The lizard hissed with pleasure.
Chuck fell back when I let go of his LBE and came to my feet, the knife sliding out of him before I stabbed him again. I shouldered him off the blade and turned to face SFC Tashton and the other guy.
Aine gave a whimper of pleasure. I could hear her panting.
Both of them were stepping back as Chuck hit the ground, holding onto his stomach and trying to stop the bleeding from where I'd stabbed him three times. I knew I was smiling as I stepped over Chuck.
"Corporal Stillwater, I am..." SFC Tashton started. Whatever he was going to say vanished in a squawk of panic as I grabbed the front of his BDU top and yanked him into me.
And onto the blade.
His body went rigid as the long steel blade went smoothly into his skin, a slightly crackling feeling as it tore through the abdominal muscle wall and into his internal organs.
The smell of apple blossoms increased, and I could smell a wild, feral smell again that my brain translated into something else.
...her pale petite body writhing on a bed of moss, the shafts of sunlight falling through the trees to turn her body into a glowing white as her hands stroked her own skin...
Not that I cared what movie was playing in my head, or the smells, or the sound of Aine whimpering. I was paying attention to Ted, who was staring at me with wide eyes and backpedalling toward the weapons that had been left on the desk.
SFC Tashton was hammering on my chest with his fists, but stopped when I stabbed him again, kneed him off of me and stepped forward. He folded forward around the stab wounds and went face first into the floor.
"Hey, pumpkin." I smiled at him. There was a sharp pain in my upper lip and I knew the scar had torn.
"Boy, you do not know who you're fucking with," Ted told me, but I didn't care. I could see he was sweating in the dim light as I took another slow deliberate step toward him. "I'm a fucking Navy SEAL, and I'll fuck your ass..."
...don't talk, do it... My Father's voice warned me.
I closed the distance in two quick steps, coming in fast. A sweep of the arm knocked his hand away and I saw resignation in his eyes when our bodies crashed together. I tightened my grip on the hilt of my knife as I powered into him.
I could feel Aine's green eyes staring at me. Smell that unique smell that surrounded her. Almost taste her on my tongue.
Ted bent backwards over the desk as the cartilage in my fingers crackled. A knee to the balls made him gag and try to bend forward but I tightened my grip and kept bending him backwards over the desk as I kneed him again. He clawed at the arm of the hand that I was using to crush his trachea with, completely ignoring the knife.
Until I slammed it into his left shoulder and yanked it out in a spray of blood.
He screamed and I headbutted him while his mouth was open. Sparks went through my vision, but I was beyond caring. He choked, gagged, and I kneed him again before throwing him to the floor, standing there and panting from the exertion, shaking with the need to finish it.
Aine gave another whimper and the smell of apple blossoms got thicker.
"You don't know who you're fucking with," Ted choked from the ground. Chuck was trying to scream through a ruptured diaphragm, not accomplishing much beyond a whistling noise. SFC Tashton was curled around his stomach, shivering, and making gagging noises. I walked over to Ted and looked down, flicking my knife to get some of the blood off of it and deliberately spattering him.
I just stared at him. His nose and mouth were bleeding freely, but I knew I'd missed the lung. His throat was already purpling up, fingerprints around his trachea and Adam's apple. He was holding onto the stab wound in his shoulder.
"Parstone's gonna kill you for this, you little punk," Ted said.
I knelt down next to him, looking him in the eyes for a long moment. He stared at me then shuddered. "You think you're going to get away with stabbing Navy SEALs?" He tried for a tough tone but it sounded more like whining to me.
"You're not SEALs, pumpkin," I told him, angling the blade and pushing it inside the front of his uniform. The buttons fell to the side as I brought the blade up, severing the thread.
"We're SEAL Team Three, motherfucker," Ted tried.
"No. You're not," I told him, digging my knife point into his brown shift and slowly bringing it up. The cloth parted with a whisper.
"We're SEAL Team Three, goddamn it." Ted's voice sounded a little more desperate as the knife came up and sliced the collar of his shirt.
"No. You're not," I repeated, then smiled at him. "I worked with Three this summer, and none of you are from Three."
"Oh shit," Ted breathed.
"Oh shit indeed," I told him, holding the knife up where he could see it.
Chuck coughed and I grabbed Ted by the front of his throat, digging my fingers into it, before looking at Chuck when he coughed again. Red sprayed onto the waxed tile, almost black in the light. Shit, I must have nicked the lungs. He'd be useless. I turned back to Ted, smiling, and held up the knife.
"You, me, and Ms. Pointy Thing are going to talk, Ted," I told him, still hyperventilating.
The smell of apple blossoms was almost cloying. The lizard yawned and curled up.
"You might not tell me, but you'll tell Ms. Pointy Thing," I told him, squeezing his throat for a moment, cutting off the blood supply to his head. I could feel his heart hammering through the thick blood pipes on either side of his throat.
I felt fingers touch the back of my neck, at the base of my skull, and fire swept through my body. I realized I'd stopped speaking and begun to growl low in my throat, my face twisting, and the knife was coming up.
"I want blood. Give me their blood," Aine purred from behind me. The heat at the base of my skull spread, wiping out thought. I turned and looked at her.
She was naked. Her dress, all she wore, was puddled in the opening of the room. She was beautifully, gloriously naked. Her body illuminated by the dim light of the nightlight and the room, making her into an otherworldly creature.
I looked back at Ted, Aine touched the base of my skull, and suddenly Ted wasn't human any more. Wasn't anything that mattered. All that mattered was what Aine was whispering in my ear. What she was telling me to do.
"Hamstring them. I'll gag them," Aine said, bending down to rub her fingers in the blood that was seeping through Ted's uniform at the shoulder. "I'll sacrifice them, use their blood to make you whole." She looked over her shoulder and smiled at me. "Then I'll allow you to have me, to take me, and flower my belly."
Rage burned in my chest, filling me, pushing back the warmth of Aine's touch.
Looking back at Ted, Aine touched the blood again and put her finger in her mouth, closing her eyes. An almost orgasmic look came over her face and her eyes rolled back in her head. Her skin was glowing in the soft dim light of the room, the blood was almost black, and her reddish auburn hair was gleaming like fire.
My hands curled into fist, the knuckles popping as I clenched them tightly.
Aine didn't notice as she turned to Chuck and pressed her fingers into his stomach wound. He gave a breathless scream as she smiled with those too sharp teeth.
I growled.
She looked back at me and smiled as she raised her fingers up to her mouth and sucked at the blood on the tips. A thin strand of bloody saliva connected her fingertips to her mouth for a second when she withdrew them. I could hear boots thundering down the hallway, moving fast, coming closer.
"That's right, my boy, together we'll..." she started. The boots stopped at the door.
The door opened with a squeal. The lizard woke up with a jerk and a snarl.
I stepped forward and punched her in the middle of her upraised face.