Chapter Three: The Zero Dog Crib
Mercenary Wing Rv6-4 “Zero Dogs”
The Zero Dog Compound
Second floor, South wing
1330 Hours PST April 10th
The more I thought about the Captain Jake Sanders thing, the more I didn’t like it. He was an unknown factor, and I didn’t like the unknown. No commander did. The unknown could get your people killed.
Besides, I had a bad feeling having Sanders around might negatively affect my performance. That initial flash bang of attraction had unnerved me, had kicked the legs out from under my confidence a bit, and that was dangerous heading into a mission—especially heading into a mission against the cannibalistic undead. Not that I had much choice. We were in no position to dictate terms to this particular client, and that fact also made me edgy.
First thing first. I had to get with Sarge and discuss developments. If I could count on anyone to give me the straight dope, it was Sergeant Nathan Genna.
Finding him in the untidy vastness of Zero Dog Compound was another story. I walked the length of the house searching all three floors, the tower, the library, the dojo and the kitchen before Rafe bothered to inform me Sarge had gone to our underground shooting range.
Let me take a moment and tell you a little bit about Zero Dog Mercenary Wing Rv6-4. Technically we’re not a wing, as in squadron, though we do have a V-22 Osprey painted black and white we call Chilly Willie. We were currently under strength, totaling only eight people on the roster, and I use the term
people
extremely loosely. Most were handpicked by me, and that’s why I always felt this crushing weight of responsibility for each of them. Our Tooth to Tail ratio—the ratio of war-fighting types, ground-pounders and trigger-pullers to non-war fighting types, medics, mechanics and such—ran something like eighty-twenty, with only the medic Hanzo and Gavin in the second category.
The Zero Dogs belong to the larger Hellfrost Mercenary Group…something of a mother Union that sets rules, collects fees, administers fines for minor violations, comes down hard on war crimes. No Merc Wing or PAT could operate legally without being part of the mother group.
I’d been team leader for four years, following the retirement of Captain Mackey Black. Stupidest thing I’d ever done—take control and responsibility for this group of misfits and rejects—but I guess maybe I’d come to love it too, and that’s all the dewy-eyed sentiment I cared to spill.
The Zero Dog Merc Wing’s motto was
The First Bullet is Always Free
. We chose that motto only after our lawyer rejected
Kill ’Em All and Steal Their Fillings
as a possible cause of future legal trouble. Our unofficial insignia had a super-deformed pit bull with vampire fangs, red eyes, one paw grasping a lightning bolt, the other holding an olive branch on fire. That’s what you get when you hire a Hello Kitty-obsessed college kid to do your graphic-design work. Our real insignia was a black long sword on a beige field with an inverted red chevron. That banner fluttered on the lightning rod atop the house that made up our living quarters.
The Zero Dog Compound was eleven acres of training ground located in the Tualatin Mountains—a group of forested hills, really, though we did have a stunning view of downtown Portland, the Willamette River and far to the southeast, a snowcapped Mt. Hood. We had no immediate neighbors, but if I stood on the perimeter wall and looked down I could see the top of the Pittock Mansion a ways off through the trees. Regardless, the Zero Dogs were not beloved due to the copious amounts of noise we generated. We bunked in a massive eighteen thousand square foot main house complete with dojo, gym, billiard room, porticos, gun range, infirmary, breakfast nook and Jacuzzi. The landscaping bill alone was atrocious. The electric bill made me want to swallow rusty staples.
Each member of the team had a suite of rooms. Sarge and I had the largest rooms with the best views since rank had its privileges. Other rooms included the conference room, a massive kitchen with two sets of double wall ovens, two Sub-Zero fridges and a walk-in freezer for sides of meat and stored blood, and a weight-lifting room. A gnome-proof walk-in pantry, three river-stone-fronted fireplaces, a great room with twenty-foot ceilings and wood beams carved from Dryad deadwood, a small theater that might or might not be haunted, our own vending machine that dispensed energy drinks, chai tea, soda and miniature sample bottles of booze, in that order. A turret-tower library which held all kinds of media. A detached six-car garage that had been converted for our Bradley, a launch pad for the V-22 Osprey, an underground firing range, a brig and an armory.
Not a bad place to call home.
It was just really, really hard to pay for.
Chapter Four: Happiness is a New Gun
Mercenary Wing Rv6-4 “Zero Dogs”
The Zero Dog Compound
Lower
Level Shooting Range
1342 Hours PST April 10th
I found Sarge at one of the gun stands toward the far end of the shooting range. He held an oddly shaped rifle in his arms. I watched through the soundproof glass, approving of his intense focus as he stared along the weapon’s sight. The gun didn’t have a barrel, just three long antennae-like rods jutting out beyond the stock. He squeezed the trigger and a bolt of lightning arced through the air with a loud
crack
I could hear even through the soundproofing. The lightning obliterated the dark silhouette target. Only a tiny piece survived, dangling from the clip, its edges burning.
Holeeeeee shit. I wanted to play with that too.
I slipped on ear protectors and safety glasses, entered the range and walked toward Sarge. Fallen angel color pallets seemed limited to black and sometimes red, and Sarge held true to the pattern, dressed in a black T-shirt so tight that his biceps seemed poised to burst his sleeves, black cargo pants and combat boots with a perfect shine. He wasn’t handsome so much as striking, with a shock of dark hair, short and unruly, and reddish-purple-colored skin. Some people called him a demon, lashing the term at him like an insult. Sarge had always preferred the term Paradise-challenged, though I had no idea why. To me, the term Paradise-challenged applied to politicians, lobbyists, bank CEOs and certain church leaders who preached one thing while merrily lying, cheating and stealing from the devout. Demons ranked last on a list like that.
Sarge had told me three things the day I brought him onto the team. The first: he’d been bounced out of Heaven for speaking his mind. The second: he was gay. The third: he liked to blow shit up. The first I found surprising—I’d thought they’d be less draconian in the afterlife, but apparently things weren’t as rosy as they claimed in the brochure. The second was peachy with me, though I’d known a few women who would’ve sold their soul to win a bronco ride with him. The third, well,
that
was my kind of attitude. I’d hired him on the spot. A year later I’d promoted him to Sergeant. The rest, as they say in the clichés, was history.
He sensed me coming and glanced my way, and then set the long, strange-looking weapon down on the table, careful to keep the dangerous end pointed downrange. No salutes, of course. We were mercs, not soldiers. I only enforced absolute discipline in hot situations, when the blood and the bullets got intimate and didn’t respect each other in the morning.
He pulled off his ear protection. “You like my little friend?”
“What. The. Fuck.
Is
that thing?”
He grinned. “MK203 ARC rifle. A friend with the Hollow Point Mercs sent it over to try out.” He swung off the bench and stood. I wasn’t short for a woman by any measurement standard, but Sarge towered over me by at least eight inches. This close, his skin had delicate gradients of red-purple and violet, like a fading sunset. His eyes, however, had the old black iris, red pupil thing going on that terrified small dogs and Jehovah’s Witnesses. He waved a hand at the strange rifle. “Care to try?”
I wanted to. I really did. Except I knew what would happen. Sarge and I would be in here all afternoon and night vaporizing targets and I’d miss the meeting, the accounts would never get done, and Captain Jake Sanders might just kill our contract. With no money rolling in, it’d only be a matter of time before some vendor got pissed and I’d end up short on shotgun shells or Stefan’s red vintage from the blood bank and I’d have a genuine crisis on my hands. Oh, and we’d get our asses evicted too. There was that.
“Love to. Can’t.” I leaned against the wall. “We’ve got problems. And then we have
complications
for our problems. Finally, we have a solution, but with our luck it’ll end up being the worst of the problems.”
He seemed unfazed by my cryptic predictions. “Fill me in.”
“A new job, just in time. Unfortunately, we picked up some kind of Special Forces barnacle who’s gonna be advising us on how to kill zombies. As if we need help. So we have to call a meeting and get briefed by the magical Green Beret. Likely a BOHICA adventure, but we need the business.” BOHICA was an acronym meaning Bend Over, Here It Comes Again, and honestly, who couldn’t relate to that once or twice or, in my case, three hundred and six times in their life?
He rubbed his chin, fingers rasping against his stubble. “Meetings never go well.”
Last meeting, Mai had gotten bored and summoned a bunch of Death Chibi Bunnies, who’d managed to eat all the donuts and chew the hell out of the couch before she’d shoved them back into their alternate universe. One of our cushions had gone missing—I knew it was in a digestive tract somewhere—and the couch still had teeth marks and a drool stain on the back.
Although, honestly, the drool stain could’ve been Rafe’s.
“This meeting will be different,” I lied.
“Mmm. So what’s the first problem?”
“Money.”
“When isn’t money a problem?”
Touché. “It’s shoving its way to the absolute top of the list. As in, we’ll soon be forced into rolling drunks, selling our own blood, and returning bottles and cans to keep the doors open.”
“That government guy I brought in today. What agency was he with?”
“Homeland Security—from one of their octopus-tentacle offshoots.” I shrugged. “I took the job. Had to.” While mercs might run looser ships in downtime, the right to accept or reject a job offer always fell to the captain. The weight of command and all that good stuff. “Twenty-five million.”
Sarge looked at the lightning gun. “A lot of money. Makes me think the job is going to be slogging through a lot of hell.”
“Nah, it’s pure cake. A zombie kill hunt. Some necromancer’s running loose, transporting zombies across state lines or some stupid-ass thing. Our people can cut through zombies like a chainsaw through cream cheese.”
“Easy. Unless there are too many of them.”
“We can take them. This is nothing like that situation with the rocket launcher and the damn witch house walking around on chicken legs.”
He stayed quiet for a moment. I hadn’t expected a lot of dancing-naked-in-the-street-style rejoicing because Sarge stayed reserved at the best of times. On second thought, maybe his reticence had more to do with my pessimistic conversation opening. Note to self: work on motivational skills.
“There’s something you’re not saying, Captain.” He crossed his arms and cocked his head at me. “It’s that guy. The Green Beret. He smelled of magic. You smelled of…desire.”
As a hardened mercenary, I was beyond things like blushing or blanching. “Yeah, and apparently when that yeti busted your nose last summer, it stayed busted. And
you
were the one dropping those damn winks.”
He shrugged. With his massive shoulders, the shrug made me think of a shelf of ice falling off a cliff into the Antarctic. “It’s just good to see you interested again. The last time we talked about your love life you were crying into a shot glass of tequila at—”
“Let’s focus on the
issues
,” I said. “Our new Special Forces comrade is going to brief us at 2030 hours. I want you to keep an eye open. This whole thing seems a bit too fall-into-our-lap easy.” Maybe I just mistrusted the benign hand of providence. With one hand it giveth, with the other it stabbeth you in the face.
“Guess we have some work ahead.” Sarge paused and looked back at the ARC rifle. “I’ll bring the gun.”
I hurried off to round up the last of our usual suspects and let them know about tonight’s briefing. I’d already told Rafe and Mai in the course of my search for Sarge. He’d promised to take care of informing Stefan, who was still asleep, and our medic, Hanzo. It was up to me to find Tiffany and Gavin.
Tiffany answered the door dressed in what I could only describe as a shapeless purple, yellow and red frock, which complemented her about as well as a circus tent draped over a Lamborghini. Her wings were neatly folded behind her, and she favored me with a shy smile.
I grinned back. “You have a moment, Tif?”
As a succubus, she had vertical slit pupils like a cat—which was either cool or creepy depending on which side of the monster kink scale you fell on—and her irises were deep blue. Her gaze dropped from mine and contemplated my boot tips before she nodded and let me in. She had long, jet-black hair cascading past her shoulders in a careless tousle. I’d have bet all my ill-gotten filthy lucre she didn’t have to spend hours at the mirror and hundreds of dollars in hair-care products getting it that way either. Damn succubus genes. Her skin was pale and lustrous, a cousin to vampire skin but warm, and a succubus wouldn’t incinerate in sunlight, which made her more useful than my slacker vamp Stefan, who collected a paycheck sleeping in his bloody coffin half the time. She had flawless features. Perfect cupid-bow lips. And if she weren’t so damn shy, I’d secretly hate her to death.
Tiffany turned and walked to a stool with alluring grace. Her hips swung side to side in a seductive saunter…beneath the frock. I knew from experience she wasn’t consciously aware of it, since there sure as hell weren’t any men in the room, and I wasn’t into women in that way. I’d called her on it once and she’d been mortified, claimed it was all unconscious body language, the way her programming worked.
I closed the door behind me. I don’t know what people think a succubus’s room should look like—heart-shaped beds and mirrors on the ceiling, maybe. Statues of people screwing. Vibrating chairs and whatever. Tiffany’s rooms were decorated in some kind of ad hoc minimalist style, unadorned chairs, few decorations and neutral colors. In one corner stood a gray, granite pedestal holding a single translucent jade vase with a bright red crystal rose, which was about it for the opulence.
Tiffany sat on the stool, adjusting her frock to make sure it covered her ankles, and folded her wings so she could sit comfortably. I slouched in a slat-back chair across from her and watched her for a moment, not saying anything. She fidgeted on the stool and pulled her knees up to her chest, but at least she didn’t wrap herself up in her wings like she did when she wanted to avoid all scrutiny.
When Tiffany had first been reassigned to me from those idiots in Merc Wing Pvb6-25 aka the Salt Lake City-based Scarlet Mushrooms, I’d been pissed enough to spit fire after reading her psych evals. What did I need a
repressed
succubus for? The entire concept was absurd. The whole point of a succubus was using a target’s sexual lusts against it, feeding on the erotic and using sexual energy to make the succubus more powerful. They had certain charm spells that could hypnotize weak-minded creatures, typically males—and that’s a thoroughly redundant correlation if I’ve ever heard one. Every succubus or incubus I’d ever seen in action had reveled in their body, in their sexuality, in their power of pleasure. In contrast, Tiffany kept herself in baggy, unappealing clothes, seemed to flinch away from the male gaze, kept quiet and to herself much of the time and was still unsuccessful in suppressing the allure of her sex magic.
Yet, after spending ten minutes with her, my inner big sister had taken the reins. I’d set down the laws with the other mercs (out of her hearing range, of course), especially with that scumbag vamp Stefan and horndog Rafe, making it crystal clear if I found anyone putting the moves on Tiffany, macking, gaming, pimping, acting like a player, circling her like a shark, staring at her ass, or in any other way making her uncomfortable or harassed, I’d start imprinting my boot on some backsides with extreme prejudice. I had deeply mixed feelings about the power of the male gaze, but in my book, if sex made her uncomfortable, then I’d do what I could to make her happy. Though a part of me still wished she’d learn to love herself for who she was, both inside and out. I wasn’t big into shame. If shame were a physical thing, I’d burn it down to ash and then piss on it…but that’s just me.
“What’s up, Captain?” Tiffany kept her voice low, but it still came out throaty and sexy, something one would expect to hear after dialing certain 900 numbers shown on late-night television.
“How you holding up? You’ve been kind of quiet since the TastyTech job.”
She gave a soft smile. “I’m okay, thanks. Sorry I couldn’t get that guy on the roof. And…sorry the building blew up.”
“Forget about it. Not your fault.” I smiled to show I meant it. “Anyway, we got a briefing at 2030 hours. A major new job’s in the pipe.”
“I’ll be there. Sure. What kind of job?”
“It’s no big deal. Cannibal corpses knocking over banks or something.” I shrugged and gave her a conspiratorial grin. “You know me. Any excuse to light some stuff on fire before we’re done.”
She giggled, yes,
giggled
. “Captain, you’re terrible. Remember when we went to that nightclub? And that guy with the comb-over kept hitting on me?”
“Good times,” I said. We both fell silent. Maybe six months ago I’d managed to drag Tiffany to a club on ladies’ night. Big,
big
, oh-so-huge mistake. Tiffany wore something modest. I’d been the one slinking around in what felt like ten-inch fuck-me shoes, but she’d earned all the lustful stares, provoking venomous vibes from a good many of the club’s patrons of the female persuasion. From the instant we’d walked in, she’d had all the males locked on her like guided missiles. Nobody paid me any attention, and I’m not exactly tenderized hamburger.