Luke Irontree & the Last Vampire War (Books 8-10), page 51
As Jamaal fetched the night vision goggles, time ticked by, grinding the operation to a halt. They should have had them on hand, anyway. He huffed in frustration, pacing back and forth. When he was about ready to go in search of Jamaal, he jumped into the tunnel, panting. He handed the goggles off to Pablo, then bent over, his hands on his knees, as he panted. He’d hustled as hard as he could. It wasn’t his fault Luke was impatient. But time was not a luxury they had.
Pablo and Ramon took the first shift in the vault. At first, they went slowly in an overabundance of caution, but sped up as urgency outweighed caution. Soon, a steady, if not fast enough in Luke’s eyes, stream of crates emerged from the hole they’d broken in the brick wall. Luke directed his people, ensuring they moved the crates to their destinations. When it was his turn, he pulled on the goggles and took his round in the vault, lifting and handing off the heavy crates in the dimly green-illuminated near darkness of the vault.
It was going to be a long night. Jorge and Carl were well on their way to Portland. Luke’s body was telling him he’d be sore as fuck when all was said and done. He was in good fighting trim, but lifting and moving heavy, bulky objects was an entirely different thing. And though he was in decent shape, he doubted it was the same kind he’d been in when he was a common legionnaire. Then, his body was the primary tool as he carried his heavy load on long marches followed by fort building and trench digging. That Luke—the Lucius of old—would probably shake his head at modern Luke.
Swiping a dirty hand across his sweaty forehead, he looked for a cold sports drink. Someone had brought down a cooler full of drinks and food for those doing the heavy lifting. Anyone not working was getting much needed rest, so they’d be ready for the next part of the plan.
Pablo flopped onto the ground and grabbed a cold drink, opening it and taking a big swig. “We’re getting close to finished. All this manual labor is the pits.”
“Unfortunately, no time or place to rig up wiring for mechanized methods. If we can, we’ll give everyone some time off to recover.” Luke looked at his watch. “Three a.m. Not bad, I guess.”
Roldie appeared in the improvised brick doorway. “Owen needs to see you. He hears something happening on the other side of the vault.”
“Ugh. What now?” he grumbled and shook his head. “I’ll be along shortly.” He chugged the rest of his drink and tossed the bottle in the bag for recycling.
Groaning, he got to his feet and followed Roldie into the bowels of their operation. Making sure the way was safe first, he shimmied up the ladder, a sense of unease growing with each rung climbed. Someone thrust a set of night vision goggles at him. He put them on and climbed into the vault, ducking around the couple of people getting the last few crates out. He sidled up next to Owen.
“What’s up?” he whispered.
“I think I hear activity on the other side,” Owen replied.
Luke placed his ear up against the massive vault door but heard nothing but the people behind him working. His hearing just wasn’t as good as a werewolf’s. “I’ll trust you. I wonder if they’re getting ready to empty the vaults.”
“Could be.”
“You ready with everything?”
“Yeah.” Owen thrust something into Luke’s hands, who tucked it into his pocket.
“OK. Head up and see if Pieter needs any help with his proj…” Luke stopped, his sense of unease dropping on him like a ton of bricks. “Fuck. Vampires. Lots of them. Get out of here. Let everyone know we’re on emergency finish protocols.”
“Understood.” Owen darted out, disappearing down the ladder.
Luke slid up next to the two lifting out boxes. “We’re running short on time. Two boxes per load instead of one. I know that’s above the safe weight, but we need to pick up the pace.” He leaned out of the opening, calling a bit louder and relying on the acute hearing of his werewolf pals, “Stand back. We’re doubling the loads down.”
He nodded and stepped out of the way. Looking down at the pile of gear they’d stashed here for this situation, he grimaced. The thought of putting everything on when he was sweaty and dirty made him cringe. Sighing, he got to it, stripping down to his bare chest. He pulled on a fresh shirt, his armor padding, and his armor, then strapped on his tactical bandoliers with their nasty array of ordnance. He strapped his gladius on his back for a right-handed draw. Last he pulled on the oversized hoodie. When he was done, he felt like he had tucked himself into a furnace.
Over one shoulder, he strapped one of his trusty Winchester M12 Trench Guns. The other, he brought to hand. Loaded with wood chips and blended buckshot made of silver and lead, the trench gun shotgun was the perfect weapon for tight confines like this when fighting vampires or werewolves, although the stopping power wasn’t as good on bipedal-form wolves. They were too bulky. It would hurt like hell, and the silver would burn, but the shot couldn’t be relied on to consistently take them out of the fight.
Though he couldn’t hear what Owen had, he could feel the vampires. But he didn’t need either to hear activity on the vault door.
“Fuck.” He yanked off the night vision goggles and handed them one of the folks moving the boxes.
When the bolts groaned into movement, his awareness tightened, and a sense of calm descended over him as the action was about to begin. “Get out of here. Evac as planned. Defense plan one. Go!”
“But, there’s—”
Luke interrupted. “Go. Leave them. There’s not much left. It’s not worth the risk.”
They hesitated.
“Go! That’s an order.” Luke waved them out the exit.
They nodded and climbed over the ledge they’d cut into the vault.
Reaching into his partially zipped hoodie, he grabbed a grenade and stepped to the left side of the vault. He pulled the pin, the spoon secure in his grip, and waited. The vault door groaned open. As soon as a crack big enough appeared, he let go of the spoon and counted to two, then tossed it through the crack near the top of the door. Diving behind the remaining crates of silver, he covered his ears as the grenade went off. When the shock wave of the explosion cleared, screams washed over him. That would slow them down.
Yells and commands from outside the vault door tried to tame order from the chaos. He used the brief respite to climb out of the vault. Perching himself at the top of the ladder, he grabbed another grenade. He was about to pull the pin when he saw a small shadowy ball fly through the door and bounce off the wall.
Everything shifted to slow-motion as his eyes flew open wide. He ducked, sliding a few rungs down the ladder. Pressing one ear against the concrete, he raised his shoulder enough to provide his ear some protection. The explosion blasted debris, shrapnel, and smoke out of the hole they’d cut into the vault. He shook his head, trying to dislodge the momentary wobbliness.
“Go, go, go!” came the yells from just outside the other side of the vault.
He reached for the pin, nearly slipped off the ladder, and steadied himself. He managed to get the pin hooked around his finger and pulled, then tossed it over the rim. Not waiting, he put his feet on the outside of the ladder, gripping with his legs, and slid down, landing roughly on the ground. He let his knees collapse as the grenade went off, blowing more concrete and wood chips from the vault. Kicking out at the ladder, he tucked his head under his arms as the ladder slid down the wall and fell across his back. With a quick glance under his arm, he thought about tipping the other ladder, but voices growing louder stopped that thought.
He crawled over the nearby mattress and rolled off the edge of the corridor running down the back of the vault to the short drop down onto the ledge, landing on his feet. Before anyone could see him, he slid down the short ladder to the bottom corridor that led to the main tunnel between the vault and the stairs into the hotel parking garage and waited. He hoped his rapid evacuation hadn’t dislodged any of their surprises. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled both the triggers Owen had handed him earlier. He rolled them around in his hand, squinting to find the control labeled as one. When he found it, he tucked the other in his pocket.
Peeking over the ledge he hid behind, he could just see the bottom of the hole into the vault. He turned the key to arm the trigger and held up his hand as high as he could. He saw the first head poke out and disappear. A moment later, a couple more poked out as more and more voices drifted out of the hole, bounced off the concrete, and made their way to Luke’s ears. When one of the heads finally noticed Luke, he squeezed the trigger and ducked.
Flames erupted from the vault and flushed out along the high concrete wall opposite it, the heat washing above Luke’s head. He could smell the hot burning chemicals of the incendiary bombs Owen had set up earlier. After his ears settled from the roar of the explosion, crackling flames and screams poured out of the vault. The mix of chemical fire and flesh roasting gagged him.
Guns fired in the vault, and the screams halted. A whoosh of fire extinguishers followed.
He had no time to wait. As he stood up to flee out the hole in the brick, he saw ropes fly out of the hole in the vault. Sliding to a stop at the doorway out, he grabbed the other remote, turned the key, and pulled the trigger. Nothing. He squeezed the trigger a few more times. Nothing. Seeing a roll of duct tape, he grabbed it and ripped off a short strip, wrapping it around the device to engage it. Not looking to aim, he tossed it back toward the vault, hoping the proximity would help, then dashed out of the door into the tunnel separating the vault from the hotel, grabbing one of his shotguns.
Still nothing.
A confusion of yells and orders bounced around off the concrete and bricks, growing louder as more vampires and werewolves made it out of the vault. He had to buy more time for their teams to get away with their heavy loads.
Switching his shotgun to his right hand, he grabbed a grenade and pulled the pin. He wasn’t sure how many or how close they were, but he reached through the hole in the bricks and hurled it down the corridor. With a quick roll to his right, he did his best to cover his ears, even though there was a lot of brick and concrete at his back. A few seconds later, a quick flash of light followed by smoke filled the doorway. Grabbing another grenade, he moved closer to the door and waited.
He didn’t hear anything. Either he’d cleared most of them out, or they were being quieter to keep their presence concealed. Not wanting to take a chance, he pulled the pin and chucked it after the other one. After it went off, he patted his chest over his hoodie. Only two grenades left. He propped his shotgun next to the door and pulled out one more grenade and waited. He wanted to lull them enough that they’d send more people to be torn up by the fragmentary grenade. When he guessed he’d waited long enough, he pulled the pin, counted three, and tossed it in.
Two seconds later, it exploded. He gave it a couple seconds for the smoke to clear, grabbed the shotgun, and plunged through the doorway back into the corridor. Dust and smoke hazed over everything like a bad haunted house. The dark splotches of blood added to the effect. He saw a few faint movements of grievously wounded fangers or wolves, ignoring them as he kicked aside the weakly grasping hands. Although, their piteous moans were harder to shove aside.
Popping up, he saw the first bodies making their way out of the vault. Based on the piles of lumps, he’d cleared out a bunch of bodies, but they still fed more into the meat grinder he and his team had created. He took aim and fired off three shots rapidly. One body fell, and another exploded in a shower of dark goo. The last slid down the ladder. Anyone near the hole in the vault pulled their heads and shoulders back into safety.
With two possible fangers on the ground, maybe more who’d already made the descent, he backed away, feeding more shells into the magazine of his shotgun. As he stepped on something soft, he tumbled into the wall and steadied himself with his shoulder. Something grabbed his ankle. Skin crawling, he shivered and reared back with his other foot, unleashing a brutal kick toward where a head should have been. A thud that vibrated up his leg and the release of his ankle told him he’d connected.
Shaking his head to clear the creepy feeling of being grasped in the dark hell hole, he raised his gun and aimed down the corridor. Shadows moved in the smoke. He fired a shot to hopefully drive them back and continued toward the exit into the main tunnel. Jumping through the door, he dashed across it to the opening they’d cut in the concrete under the hotel. He fed another shell into his shotgun, set it aside, and grabbed the third trigger Owen had left by the exit tunnel.
With the brighter light of the hallway he stood in, he squinted as he peeked into the small periscope so he could see around the corner just enough to watch across the dark, abandoned tunnel. They’d left one low power light above the brick door just for this purpose. Time ticked slowly as he waited. He might have made them too cautious. Finally, he saw movement as heads popped out.
Still, he waited. Vampires, he could feel their presence, looked across the dark tunnel at the bright—compared to everything else—doorway illuminating the escape route up to the bottom level of the hotel’s parking garage. He was still too far deep under the earth, concrete, and steel to receive any signals and had no idea how the rest of the evacuation was going.
Once more, vampires and their werewolf muscle ventured to the entryway of the abandoned tunnel. Luke waited until several victims stepped outside of the relative safety of the brick wall. Poking his arm out, he pulled the trigger. Explosives on both sides of the door, running down the corridor, and a trio of fragmentary mines pointed toward the brick wall and the makeshift doorway ripped apart the darkness and silence with explosions. Dust and smoke blew out into the tunnel, and bricks and concrete cracked and fell in a cacophony of destruction.
Pulling the last grenade from out of his hoodie, he pulled the pin and stepped back. Blinking away the smoke and dust, he took a couple more steps back into the hallway until he found the incomplete booby trap Owen had left for him. He carefully looped the string around the spoon and the grenade, then set it down delicately, releasing his grip slightly to make sure the spoon was being held in place. Once he determined it was good, he grabbed his shotgun and backed away from it until he reached the stairs leading up and out of the charnel house he’d created.
Tired and exhausted, he took a deep breath and sprinted up the stairs. He could rest later. His legs burned and his lungs ached from inhaling too many noxious fumes and dust and smoke, but he dug deeper, the wind whistling in and out of his mouth. One more floor…
When he crested the last stair, he burst out of the door and dragged his flagging carcass down the last stretch of hallway. Sliding to a stop, he cracked the door and checked everything was in place. He only saw his getaway car and its crew.
Roxi spotted him and stepped out of the car, taking his shotguns. “Let’s go, dōšagīh.”
Nodding, he turned around and grabbed the steel crossbar and dropped it into the brackets they’d welded on. In quick succession, he dropped three more into their brackets. The vamps would have to bash out the door frame. Those crossbars would hold them firm.
Panting, he climbed into the back of the beat-up road runner and patted the headrest behind the driver. “Rhonda…go…go!”
Chapter
Twenty-Two
Rhonda fired up the car. It rumbled deep and loud, its massive engine pulling at the tethers to be let free. Luke took a minute to catch his breath as Rhonda wound her way up the floors of the parking garage until she pulled in behind one of their armored vans.
“Luke, there’s a small cooler on the floor with something to drink once you catch your breath. The bag has some more toys for you. And if you flip down the seat on the driver’s side, you can grab a variety of fun weapons,” Roxi said.
“You got the jammers running, Roxi?” Rhonda asked.
“Yeah. Since we pulled out of the base.” She turned back to Luke. “Don’t worry, we’re completely scrubbed clean. We dropped Alvin off at his house. When he wakes up, he’ll be a bit richer and none the wiser where he’s been. And as soon as we’re a good distance away, Jamaal will turn off his control of the hotel’s security cameras.”
Luke nodded, dragging a sleeve over his sweaty forehead. “Jammers? Jorge didn’t say anything about jammers.”
Roxi buckled her seatbelt. “He gave Rhonda a more thorough rundown. I think you make him nervous. Anyway, we have a variety of jammers in all the vehicles that should mess with any type of recording device within a reasonable range. It’ll make it hard to communicate, but everyone knows the plan.”
“OK. We’re rolling,” Rhonda said.
Their little caravan moved out, making the last turn before the exit. Once they pulled out onto Madison, Luke ducked his head as small explosions to his left flashed flames into the early morning darkness. In all the hustle, he’d forgotten about Pieter’s surprises. The cop cars that were stationed nearby wouldn’t be chasing them anytime soon.
A quick right on 1st Avenue and another on Spring Street pointed them toward I-5. Off in the distance, sirens sounded. He wasn’t sure what was drawing the authorities. Either it was the explosions they’d set off in the Federal Reserve Building or the blown-up cop cars. Patrice, driving the lead road runner, pushed the speed up gradually, allowing the armored vans to accelerate with her. A right onto 5th Avenue and a left onto Marion got them to the on-ramp to I-5. Without any red and blues visible and with their jamming equipment, Patrice drove straight through the red light, taking advantage of the empty streets in the early morning darkness, the tall buildings of downtown Seattle glimmering in the moonlight. The rest of the caravan ignored the light and pushed the speed up, gathering momentum to merge onto the freeway heading south.
As they settled into traffic, they kept to the speed limit. Luke turned in his seat as a swarm of flashing red and white lights descended on the blocks around the Federal Reserve Building. After several explosions, no doubt they’d be blocking access in and out, trapping the vampires and their allies and preventing them from mounting a pursuit.
