Coalition of the Damned - 03 (7 page)

“As a heart attack.” Matt’s eyes dared him to accept. “Come with me back to Tinker. I happen to have a vampire on staff out there,” he offered. “And I have another vampire that is the leader of…well…let’s just say, ‘the good guys’ and he’s visiting for a little bit.” Mitchell pulled on his cigar again. “You come out there, take a tour, meet the boys, say hello to the bloodsuckers, and if you aren’t convinced…fine. The Vampire Armageddon happens and the world goes up in flames and we all die and you can die believing that vampires aren’t real and nobody will have ever touched your precious Groom Lake base.” Matt sat the c
igar in the ashtray on McAfee’s desk. “But when you come out and see that the vampires are real, you don’t argue, you tell Groom Lake’s base commander to secure operations, lock up any sensitive materials, get all non-essential personnel off the base, secure all classified materials and anybody who can’t fire a weapon gets the hell out of there. Then he hands over
temporary
control to me. No questions asked.”

McAfee stared at him for a long moment, rolling the cigar in his mouth. Finally he pulled the cigar away and said, “Book us a flight, Mitchell. I fly first class.”

“We both fly military hops, General. You’ll be lucky if your old wrinkled ass won’t get bruised on a wooden plank in the rear of a C-130 cargo plane.”

McAfee shook his head and chuckled. “Yup. Balls as big as Volkswagens.”

5

While Jack and the remaining members of First Squad sat around the campfire with their new friend, Benburr the Gnome, Gunnery Sergeant Tufo had waited patiently along the edge of the tree line trying to make contact with the Lesser Elves. Jack had introduced Benburr to every flavor of MRE that the squad had opened that night and so far, Benburr’s favorite was the chicken and rice casserole. He gave an honest opinion of each one that he tried, but his most constant comment was that it ‘needed mutton’.

Benburr had asked why the humans were out here looking for the Greater Elves and Jack explained to him about the looming vampire threat. Benburr nodded and as he lit his pipe he mentioned that this would explain the unease of the elders of late. Jack inquired why the elders may be uneasy and Benburr took his time answering again. Jack began to realize that answers to questions took a backseat when one is lighting a pipe after a meal. Or enjoying a pipe. Or if one isn’t sure of the correct answer and just wants to appear wiser than his years would reflect.

Benburr informed him that many of the Gnome elders had the gift of sight. Some more clearly than others, but of those who did have the gift, they had seen visions of something very dark looming on the horizon and it frightened them. In fact, it frigh
tened them so badly that many Gnomes dared not reveal themselves any more, and some had gone so far as to move underground, risking the wrath of the Ogres and Orcs.

Jack and the squad members listened to Benburr, who they now affectionately called Bennie, tell of the Gnomes who had been lost horribly due to the fears of the elders. Jack was about to offer some measure of solace when Tufo returned to camp.

Mark trudged into the camp appearing completely worn out. “I do not
ever
want to have to do that again.”

“Bad night at the office, dear?” Lamb asked with a chuckle.

“Bite me,” Tufo proffered. Lamb laughed at the offer.

“So what did you find out?” Jack asked.

“That those little bastards are scared to death of you guys, for one,” Tufo said.

“And, two?” Jack asked.

“The Greater Elves are on the next ridge. Over there.” Tufo pointed to the next ridge which appeared to be about five clicks away. “If we take off at first light, we can be there by breakfast.”

“Sweet. Good job, Gunny.” Jack gave the man a solid slap on the back.

“Thank you, thank you, throw money, not jabs.” He smiled. “Now…spill it.”

Jack gave him an innocent look. “What?”

“You know what. Spill it. You promised me the real deal once I was done.” Tufo glanced down at the Gnome smoking his pipe and poking the fire with a stick. “Don’t take my word for it, ask Travelocity here. He heard you, I’m sure.”

Bennie looked up at the two of them arguing and shook his head. “No idea what he’s talking about. Unless you have some grog? Maybe a little mead?” he said smiling, a twinkle in his eye. “That always seems to loosen my tongue.”

Jack chuckled and told Tufo to grab some chow. He’d fill him in while he ate. Mark stepped around Jack to pull an MRE out of his pack when Jack noticed something on his shoulder. “Tufo, What’s this?” Jack reached for his shoulder when the strange object took flight and flitted around the front of Mark and landed on his other shoulder.

“Aw, shit. I thought she stayed in the woods,” Tufo groaned.

“What is it? I can barely see it in this light,” Jack said. Jacobs and Lamb got up and tried to get closer to look as well, but Donovan sat back on his log and began to snicker. “He’s got himself a Sprite, Chief!” Donnie said as he crunched on a granola bar. “From the looks of her, I’d say she’s probably a woodland nymph.”

“Oh, hell, she’s cute as a button,” Lamb said.

“She looks like Tinkerbelle…” Jacobs said in awe.

“She’s annoying as hell.” Tufo swatted at the little sprite. She flitted around his head and landed on his other shoulder.

“Hey! Don’t do that. You might hit her,” Lamb said. He stuck his finger up toward her hoping she might land on his finger so that he could get a better look.

“I wouldn’t do that, buddy,” Donovan said.

Lamb turned and looked at him. “Why do you say that? She looks totally harmless…OOOWW! Holy shit!” he yelled and jerked his finger back with a snarl. He saw a dark fluid dripping from the side of his finger and knew it was blood.

“‘Cuz they
bite
,” Donnie said quietly and laughed to himself. “If they get attached to you, you can’t beat them away with a stick. They’ll even defend you with their own lives. But don’t let somebody else get too close.” Donnie looked at Tufo and wiggled his eyebrows. “That includes
wives
, buddy. Those little bitches get JEALOUS.”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” Tufo muttered and threw his pack down. He kicked a chunk of log into the fire and watched as sparks flew into the air. “How the hell do I make her go home?” he asked Donnie.

“There’s a couple of ways.” Donovan finished his granola bar and threw the wrapper into the fire. “You can do something to
really
hurt her feelings.”

“Like tell her that her little ass is fat?” Tufo asked.

“Naw, she wouldn’t care about that,” Donnie said. “But maybe if you caught her and chunked her cute little butt into the fire…
that
might piss her off enough to leave.”

Jacobs jumped up. “Dude, don’t you dare torch Tink!”

“I’m not going to torch Tink!” Tufo yelled back at him. “Christ, do you think I’m a monster?” He looked back at Donovan. “What’s the other way to get rid of them?”

He grinned at him like the cat that ate the canary. “Knock her up.”

Everybody but Bennie and Jack stared at him open mouthed. Finally, Tufo flipped Donovan the bird. “Up yours, Donovan. She’s barely three inches tall. I’d split her like a banana peel if I even tried to…well, if I…just…
never mind!
”

“Dude, you don’t understand, just because she’s tiny doesn’t mean that you can’t still…”

“I don’t want to hear it, Donovan,” Tufo barked.

Donnie chuckled. “Okay, man, but I’m telling ya, that’s the only way you’re going to get rid of her.”

Lamb crawled over close to Donovan and whispered to him, “How do you know so much about these things?”

“Got stuck with one once,” Donnie said sadly.

“No shit?” Lamb asked.

Donnie nodded. “Three years ago.” He looked down into the fire and kicked a loose log with his boot. “You’re right. They do look like Tinkerbelle.”

“Okay, so I gotta ask. How did you get rid of yours?”

Donovan looked him in the eye and without smiling said, “I didn’t throw her in the fire.”

Tufo sat next to Jack, the Sprite sitting on his shoulder playing with his hair. “Okay, Chief. Clue me in.”

Jack sighed and poked the fire with a stick. “I guess I might as well. You’re probably going to find out anyway.”

“Find out what?”

“That we’re werewolves,” Jacobs said straight faced.

Tufo snorted and almost choked on his beans with bacon. “Yeah, right. We fight those things, remember?” He was grinning at the team and turned back to Jack. “So what’s the real deal?”

Jack nodded, “Yeah, that sort of
is
the real deal, Mark.” He looked at Mark and saw that he wasn’t really buying it. “Remember when Mitchell first let you go? You were so pissed about it?”

“Of course. I’m still pissed.” He shoveled another spoonful into his mouth.

“Well, it was a little before that time that the CIA had sent some spook scientists down to do some research and they came up with the first ‘augmentation’ plan. Ring any bells?” Jack asked.

“Yeah. Vaguely.” Tufo set his MRE to the side and started paying a little more attention here. “Why?”

“The ‘augmentation’ that they came up with was really just the werewolf virus. They figured out that if they give subjects a combination of wolfsbane and some other stuff, it would prevent them from actually shifting. So you still have the strength, the speed and the stamina, but you don’t shift on the full moon. You still get better hearing, a more sensitive nose and way faster reflexes—”

“But we don’t hike on the furniture,” Jacobs interrupted, smiling.

“Or shed on the couch,” Lamb added.

“Or chase the mailman,” Donnie put in.

“Okay, okay, knock it off,” Jack said.

“Wait, you’re really serious here, aren’t you?” Tufo asked.

Jack nodded. “And the reason Mitchell let you go was because you had a family. He knew that if he allowed you to be infected with the virus, you could pass it on to your wife by accident. Or if you two had any kids after the infection, then the child would be a carrier, too.” Jack told him. “Mitchell told me himself that you were the closest thing to a true friend that he had and there was no way in hell that he would let that happen to you. He cared about you too much.”

Suddenly Mark felt like a total tool. All of these years he had been directing all of his anger and animosity toward Mitc
hell, when the man had simply been trying to protect him. “He still should have told me,” he said softly as he reflected on the days when he and Matt were still friends. He suddenly wasn’t feeling very hungry as his stomach knotted up on him.

“He couldn’t, Mark. He was under direct orders. He didn’t even tell us until just recently. He’s made a lot of ‘changes’ lat
ely and broken a lot of rules.”

“So, now that I’ve forced my way back, will I have to go through the augmentation?” Tufo asked.

“No. This is only temporary. Just until we get Dom back,” Jack said.

Tufo sat silently for a while before he turned to Jack again. “What if I wanted the augmentation?”

“It wouldn’t happen,” Jack said. “You’re married. You have a family, Gunny.”

“Yeah,” Tufo agreed, staring into the fire. “Yeah. You’re right.”

*****

Dom stepped tentatively into the dark room and allowed his eyes to adjust, but he simply couldn’t see anything. He felt his vampire host pass by him and he could hear him moving about in the room. Dom heard the scratch of a match and smelled the sulfur of its burn before the room glowed from an oil lamp in the middle near its center. When the vampire placed the glass globe over the open flame, the entire room lit up and he could see the many tapestries on the wall, most from the Middle East. He saw a small desk in the corner and a mattress along a wall. Pillows were scattered about and it appeared to him to be somebody’s place, but long abandoned.

The vampire turned to Dom and gestured to the room. “This shall be your room during your stay with us.” He pointed to a door across from the one they entered. “Your private restroom and shower. You will find a change of clothing in there as well. I shall see to having the clothes you are in laundered before you depart here.”

Dom shot him a less than trusting look. “You still expect me to believe that you’re going to allow me to leave here?”

“As I have explained to you, Dominic, you are worth much more to me alive.”

“Really?” Dom kicked a pillow out of the way and fell onto the lumpy mattress. He propped another pillow up behind his shoulders and eyed the vampire. “How do you figure that?”

“You have information that I require. You will give it to me and then you shall leave.”

“What about this ‘message’ of yours that you want me to take back to my people?” he asked sarcastically.

The dark vampire bowed in the glow of the lamp’s flame and Dom realized how dead his eyes truly were. “You already have my message, Dominic. I gave it to you when I gave you the vision of my life and the future that awaits you.”

Dom shivered involuntarily when he spoke of the memories that flashed through his mind. “So I’m supposed to go back and tell my boss that a vampire with delusions of grandeur intends to destroy the world, enslave mankind, eat everybody we ever knew and make breeders out of a select few, all because he thinks God is mad at him?” Dom eyed the vampire, hoping he was getting under his skin. “Yeah, that ought to go over like a fart in church,” Dom shot at him. “Look, Drac…I’d much rather go back to my boss and tell him that this was all one big misu
nderstanding. That…maybe you skipped a few meds and that now you’re all better, okay? Maybe you’re not crazy? Maybe you just have a mineral deficiency? Maybe you’re just a little low in high velocity lead? I’m sure we could hook you right up.”

The vampire stared at him stonily. “Are you quite through?”

“Naw, I could go on all night if you let me.” Dom grinned at him. “I’m full of insults for shitbags like you.”

The vampire turned his back to Dom and stared at the floor, the oil lamp casting an eerie shadow against the wall and making him appear much larger than he truly was. “Mr. DeGiacomo, you have insulted me. You have tried to appeal to my humanity. You have tried to reach me through spiritual ways. You have tried to reason with me. And now you are back to insulting me.” He turned back to face Dominic. “When are you simply going to accept that my path has been laid out and I can no more change the fates than you can? Your attempts to reach me are futile.”