He picked up the second sentry. The werewolf was beginning to move, having just smelled the spilled blood of his pack-mate. The Zeiss was pre-zeroed for this load, and Earl settled the 300 yard stadia line on the werewolf’s chest. The target was moving, so might as well aim for the biggest part. There was no wind to compensate for. Earl exhaled as he tracked his target.
The trigger broke clean. The heavy G.A. Precision bolt-action rifle barely rocked on its bipod. Earl reacquired his target through the scope before the impact. He watched the werewolf shudder as 168 grains of lead and silver pierced his torso. The werewolf stumbled but kept running. Tough guy, huh? Earl worked the bolt.
Julie was the team sharpshooter, since the girl just had a remarkable natural talent for putting bullets into very small things, very far away, very quickly, but Earl had been the one who had originally taught her how to shoot, and he was no slouch himself. Gotcha. The werewolf was running directly away now. The reticle swayed across the target’s back.
He exhaled again as his left finger tightened on the trigger. Earl always shot on the respiratory pause.
CRACK.
This time the bullet hit the werewolf square between the shoulder blades. He spilled forward in a tumble of snow and blood.
Earl looked up from his scope. The mine facility had seemingly come alive with movement. Just like kicking an anthill. He smiled, because there was nothing more rewarding than a target-rich environment. There was a flash of movement from below as Nikolai and Heather sprinted through the trees. “What are you waiting for?” Earl shouted at the others. “Give ’em hell!”
This is more like it.
Nikolai could sense the Tvar’s pleasure. To the Tvar, it didn’t matter who they were hunting, just as long as they were on the hunt. The beast’s emotions always seemed to bleed across the lines into his own emotions when it was excited, making it hard to tell who was feeling what. So Nikolai also thrilled to the drama of the hunt. It was intoxicating.
Still in human form, he sped between the trees. The deep snow was nothing to him. Gravity was on his side. Leaping, he moved with incredible speed toward his objective. Faster and faster, he dodged around trees, under branches, and launched himself over logs. Somehow the young female was keeping up. She should have wrapped herself around a tree by now. Even the Tvar was impressed by her performance.
She does not move like a pup.
And she knocked the sense out of us when you threatened her earlier, Nikolai reminded both parts of himself. She was not to be underestimated again. One last jump, branches tearing at his arms, and they were in the open, over the road leading to the front gate. An enemy was caught, surprised and in human form, in the clearing.
But can she do this?
Still airborne, Nikolai aimed his carbine. The Val spat and hissed as the suppressor absorbed the muzzle blast. The burst stitched across the enemy werewolf’s abdomen and chest, sending him reeling back. Nikolai landed, sliding through the snow, and struck the inferior creature aside with the butt of his weapon. Two more bullets splattered its head into bits before it could even begin to arise.
His lips pulled back in a grin of semi-elongated canines, and a gush of steam poured out. Nikolai was in his element.
Down.
Tvar sensed danger first. There was another enemy closing. Nikolai dove aside as a bullet passed through the air above. He rolled, and came up ready to fire. The enemy was a black shape coming through the trees. There was a flash of gray and he was gone.
Nikolai blinked. The female had hit the enemy so hard and fast it was as if he had just vaporized. They landed some distance away, a tangle of flailing limbs. Kerkonen got up, grabbed the enemy by the neck, and hurled him into an ancient tree. The wood cracked with a noise audible across the entire clearing. Limbs broken, the werewolf slid down the trunk. Kerkonen approached her fallen antagonist as she freed the shotgun slung over her back. She shouldered the weapon and shot him, once, twice, three times. Satisfied that he was dead, she turned toward Nikolai and gave him a very American thumbs-up signal.
That girl is not normal.
“No. She’s certainly not.”
Sexy, though. I’d mate that.
For all its flaws, the Tvar was a remarkably straightforward thing. “Mission first.” Nikolai ran for the gate.
The ground underfoot rumbled. Earthquake. Nikolai lost his balance and fell as the earth suddenly ruptured. Snow flew into the air between the metal posts of the main gate. A square block of rusting metal was thrust into the sky. Three spikes extended from the end. The block crashed down, scrambling for purchase as ungainly limbs stretched behind it. A giant creature was leveraging itself out of the ground.
Burrower!
Despite never having seen one before, Nikolai recognized the creature from his training. They were minions of the Old Ones. According to the KGB analysts, despite their fearsome appearance, they were not supposed to be that tough. He lowered the VAL and fired as he charged. The 9x39 rounds sparked off the monster’s armor or tore hunks of stinking green meat from its hide. He would wrench its featureless head from its body. At the edge of the hole, Nikolai leapt for the monster’s neck.
One metal claw swatted him across the clearing. The air erupted from Nikolai’s lungs as he tumbled through the branches. He hit the trunk of a tree and fell, crashing, face first into the snow.
It appears the briefings were mistaken.
“What the hell is that?”
Earl finished shooting the leg out from another werewolf before he looked up to see what Aino was shouting about. A bubble had formed in the road at the gate. The bulge split, and a monster came crawling out. It was one of the Old Ones’ things from the supermarket. Nikolai ran at the monster and got smacked across the road.
“That’s the thing that ate Jo,” Jason said.
Stark aimed his. 308 SCAR at the monster and started popping off rounds. Jason and Aino followed suit. It was a noble effort, but Earl knew how tough these things were. Small-arms fire wasn’t going to be enough. “The Gustav! Bring me the big one!” Earl popped up from behind his rifle. “Hurry.”
Jason lumbered over with the Carl Gustav Recoilless. Earl took the tube from him, flipped the latch, and hinged open the breach. It was far more effective to run these in two-man teams, one gunner, one loader, but there hadn’t been time to train anybody. “And the case. Hurry.”
He hadn’t brought much on the trip. Each round of 84mm ammunition took up a lot of space. Jason hauled the Cordura case over and flipped it open. Earl picked a High-Explosive-Anti-Tank, slid it in, and locked the breach behind it. He took a knee and threw the Gustav over his shoulder. “Get back!” he warned. True to its name, the recoil wasn’t bad, but the blast was a real bitch. Military regulation limited the number of rounds a soldier could shoot through one of these things daily because they were worried about the damage it could do to your internal organs.
He found the creature in the scope. It was fully out of the hole and striding toward Heather. He just hoped the girl had the sense to get out of the way. Its curious, eyeless head was bobbing back and forth as folds of empty skin spilled and bounced from every unarmored joint. Earl braced himself and fired. The concussion shook the entire ridge.
His aim was true. The round struck the Old Ones’ minion in the midsection. It disappeared in a explosive flash. The HEAT round was meant for taking out armored vehicles. Nothing living, short of maybe a dragon, was going to survive that.
Earl watched through the 3X magnification of the Gustav’s scope. It was raining meat in the clearing. Come on, Heather. Where are you? As the smoke and dust settled, he could see that the monster’s torso had been ripped open right through its armor and green liquefied guts had been sprayed everywhere. It was toast, but there was no sign of Heather… There. Heather was alive and picking herself up out of the snow.
A bullet whizzed past his head. The werewolves were returning fire from the two-story building at the entrance. It would be difficult for them to aim directly into the sun, but throw enough bullets and they were bound
