“All clear.” Luke pulled himself up on the container and took out his shotgun to cover his team as they pulled themselves onto the top row of containers, each of them helping the next person in line. “OK, Sam and I will take point. Ahmed, you bring up the rear. I don’t want anyone sneaking up on us. Everyone else in the middle. Let’s spread out a little.”
Luke jogged forward, checking quickly to make sure there weren’t any vamps hanging out on the walkway below. Finding the walkway clear, he leaped across the narrow gap between stacks of containers. He slipped a bit as he landed but quickly righted himself. He kept moving forward, checking the next gap to ensure it was clear. Glancing back, he saw everyone had made it across the first gap. He took a few steps back, then leapt to the next stack of containers.
As Luke got closer to the bridge, he could only make out the dim glow of the instruments and a few vague human-shaped outlines moving about. Whoever was running the bridge had turned out the cabin lights to keep things a mystery. Luke hated approaching blind but had little choice at this point. He jumped across to the next container, picking up speed before jumping to the last container and sprinting to the end so he was just under the window of the bridge, tucked away and out of sight. The rest of his team joined him.
“Grappling hook, please.” Luke held out his hand. “Pablo, can you do your werewolf thing and let whoever’s up there know not to shoot when we come over the top?”
Ahmed pulled the grappling hook out of his backpack and handed it to Luke. Luke stepped back, spooling out some rope. Swinging the hook around in bigger circles, he released it and gave it a tug to set it. He walked back to the rest of his team before putting all his weight on it to make sure it was truly set. With the engine noise and the groaning of the freighter and the containers, one clank would hardly be noticed.
Luke smiled. “Nice, got it on the first time. Pablo, we safe to start climbing?”
Pablo gave him a clawed thumb up.
“OK, Ahmed, you first. Keep an eye out for anyone unwanted.” Luke pulled the rope around his back and grabbed it with his other hand to give Ahmed a stable rope to climb. The small man strapped the shotgun around his back and then zipped up the rope like a rocket. When he crawled over the top, he unhooked the grappling hook from the rail and wrapped it around and re-hooked it for a more secure placement. Satisfied, he leaned over the rail and gave everyone a double thumbs up. One by one, the werewolves, both in warrior werewolf form and human form, joined Ahmed on the roof of the bridge until only Luke and Delilah were left at the bottom.
Delilah leaned closer to Luke’s ear. “Um, Luke. I’m not really good at climbing ropes and the hit to my shoulder is not going to help. I kind of skipped that part of gym class.”
“It’s only a short distance.” He could see the worry on her face. “OK, no problem.” He made a loop at about the height of his head before bending over and making another in a lower spot. He held up the lower loop. “Foot in here, grab the other loop, and we’ll pull you up. Can you hold the rope while I go up first? I’ll get to the top, then we’ll pull you up.”
Looking relieved, Delilah took the rope from Luke and wrapped it around her lower back like Luke had. An old pro, he was at the top lickety-split. He unhooked the grapple and handed it to Pablo before grabbing a section of the rope. Looking over the edge, Delilah gave him the thumbs up she was ready. Between Pablo’s werewolf power and Luke’s freshly juiced strength from the vampire earlier, they pulled her up easily.
The sound of a shotgun discharging yanked their attention to the back of platform. Luke unslung his shotgun and jogged back as more shots rang out. The wolf they’d sent over first was firing down the stairs that lead up to the roof. Luke split off towards the left side of the platform. The stairs were exposed below him. He leaned over the rail and began unloading shells into the back of the vampires trying to make it to the top. After five or six went down, the rest retreated into the interior that led to the crew quarters.
“Delilah, you take my spot here. Everyone, hold steady.” Luke jogged back to the front of the roof and found the remains of the body of the vampire sniper. Sam must have put the arrow down the top of its shoulder into its heart. That’s about the only way she could have killed the sniper with them laying prone. It was a hell of a shot. He picked up Sam’s arrow and the rifle. Extending its strap, he threw it over his shoulder.
Rejoining his squad, he handed Sam her arrow and began issuing orders. “Ahmed, you join Delilah down at that end. Cover us while I clean off the stairs. Pablo, you’re with me. Everyone else, wait at the top of the stairs until I signal you. Delilah, you and Ahmed follow them and guard the rear as we break into the cabins.”
There were still a few bodies down below, a couple still moving. With a fresh stake bayonet attached to his M12, he popped around the corner, barrel leveled towards the door. When it open and a head poked out, he fired. The vamp yelped and pulled back. Luke gingerly stepped over the bodies still on the stairs, keeping the door covered. Pablo was following him, staking anyone that needed it. When Luke got close, he fired toward the door, hoping to angle at least some of the shot inside. A vampire, using its speed, yanked the door closed.
“Pablo! Get the door before they can lock it,” Luke yelled.
Pablo leaped down the rest of the stairs and grabbed the wheel door handle, using his considerable werewolf strength to keep it from being turned by the vampire inside. He growled, his muscles bulging under his fur covered skin as he heaved with all his might in a tug of war. Luke watched the door as the struggle progressed, hoping Pablo’s effort wouldn’t be in vain, even as the gap between the door and the wall shrank.
Luke readied himself to pop through the door and sweep it clean of opposition as soon as Pablo yanked the door open. Making eye contact with his lupine friend, Luke nodded. Pablo put all his strength on pulling it open. As the seal broke on the door, shouts drifted from inside. Luke couldn’t tell what they were saying, not sure if it was because there were too many speakers or too many languages. He got the gist of it; the vampires were trying to pull the door shut so they could seal it.
Luke flattened himself against the wall as another werewolf in bipedal form joined Pablo. A third stood ready, and as soon as the crack was wide enough, they stuffed their clawed hands in and pulled.
Luke raised his shotgun, taking aim at the hands and forearms he could now see. Making sure the wolfs’ fingers were clear, he fired off a shot, blasting through one of the vamp’s arms, leaving its disconnected hand dangling from the door wheel. Blood misted in the air as the silver and wood blasted into other vampire arms. The three wolves pulling on the door nearly fell over the railing at the sudden loss of a counterforce on the other side.
Stepping into the void, Luke unleashed the other five rounds, blasting left, center, right, center, left. He kicked a body out of his way and rammed his bayonet into the chest of a fallen vampire. Getting out of the way for whoever was following, Luke stepped out of the doorway, back against the wall, and pulled out his double barrel from its hip holster. Delilah followed him and fired off a steady barrage of shots further down the hallway, clearing a path through the vampires caught up both advancing and retreating. Luke, returning his sawed-off to its holster, hurriedly fed more shells into his shotgun. A wolf still in human form burst through the door and laid down another cover barrage before hiding behind a wall on the far side of the room.
Luke stepped back into the path and began blasting his way further down the central hall into the crew cabins. Delilah, fully reloaded, followed him.
“Can you get these doors?” Delilah asked.
The wolf in bipedal form reared back and kicked the door in for her. She stepped into the cabin, leading with her shotgun.
She poked her head out and shouted, “Clear!” before repeating the procedure with the cabin across the way.
The other wolf in human form fell in behind Luke, handing him her shotgun when he fired his last round. Working with supernatural werewolf speed, she rammed shells into the magazine, waiting for Luke to hand her another empty shotgun to refill. The resistance was literately melting in front of Luke’s onslaught. The scatter gun was designed for this kind of messy work—short range with a spray pattern. Luke slowed his advance as the vampires in the rear fled back the way they’d come. Watching his step, he kept up his advance through the quickly slickening floors covered in dissolving vampire goo, the wood and silver pellets of the shotgun shells sending the vamps onto a true death.
Delilah kept calling out “clear” as she advanced behind Luke, checking inside each cabin. It wasn’t until the second to last door on the right side of the corridor that her tune changed. “I found someone.”
Luke shook his head hoping to clear the whine from his ears, although it was a futile gesture. Firing off guns in such tight confines had their consequences. He’d have to rely on draining a vamp to clear the shotgun induced tinnitus. “Alright. Everyone, halt here. Hold the line if anyone advances.”
As soon as Luke crossed the threshold of the cabin, he was assaulted by the stench of waste. A Black man with gaunt cheeks and a pallid complexion sat in a corner, his legs and arms chained to multiple points on the wall. The manacles glinted in the dim light, the flesh around them angry and red with festering blisters. Angry breaths sizzled in and out of his mouth.
“Do you speak English?” Luke asked.
“Ja, I speak some.”
“I speak German, if you prefer,” Luke said in German.
“Thank you,” replied the captive in the same language.
“What’s your name?”
“Johann Wagner.”
“Are you a member of the crew?”
“I’m the captain,” Johann replied.
“Where’s the rest of your crew?”
“Some are dead. I don’t know about the rest.”
“Are you a werewolf?”
Johann looked sharply at Luke, wariness returning to this face.
“Your wrists. Those manacles are silver, aren’t they?” Luke asked.
Johann’s face relaxed, his face sagging in defeat. “Yes.”
“Are the rest of your crew werewolves?”
“The dead ones. When these fucking blood drinkers, these vampires, took over, they tossed all my wolves overboard into the Atlantic. They kept me alive because they needed me. They threatened the lives of the rest of my crew if I didn’t cooperate. My crew follows their orders; the vampires use their magic eyes to control them.”
“How did the vampires get on board?” Luke asked.
“They were hiding in containers.”
“How’d they get out?”
“I found one of my crew letting one out. She was a new hire. She betrayed us.” He spat in disgust.
“Probably a thrall.” Luke nodded, acknowledging the betrayal the captain felt. “Do you know how many vampires there are?”
“No. I’ve only seen their leader and the few that captured me. They got me when I was asleep and locked me in here.” Johann shifted his position, trying to get comfortable.
“How long have you been locked up?” Luke asked.
“I don’t know…weeks.”
“Can you move?” Luke felt for the poor captain. They both knew the responsibility of leading other people and the keen pain of failing them.
“Yeah. I think so. They’ve kept me fed and watered and walked, like some animal.” His lip curled in a silent snarl.
“Do you know who has the keys to your lock?”
“The leader of the vampires. She’s vicious. If I had the strength, I’d rip her to shreds.” His face twisted in anger.
“Well at this point, I’m not sure if we’ve taken her out yet or not.” Luke stuck his head out of the door and called out in English. “Archie. Can you grab the axe out of the fire suppression station, please?”
“Johann, I’m Luke. This is Delilah. Archie will be coming in shortly to bust you out of these chains. If we can, we’ll see about getting those cuffs off you. I can offer you the protection of the North Portland Pack until this is over and you’re healthy enough to figure out your plans.”
“How can you speak for a pack?” Johann asked. “You’re not a werewolf.”
“True, but right now I’m leading everyone here, including the wolves. The pack beta is around here somewhere and will also officially extend the pack’s protection. I can’t speak for the Coast Pack in this matter, although I’m leading them as well for this mission, but only as it comes to this raid.” Luke turned his head when motion outside the door caught his attention.
Johann nodded.
“Hey, Luke. Got the axe.”
Luke stepped out of the way. “Thanks, Archie. Would you mind securing the release of our new friend? He’s under our protection. His name’s Johann. He speaks some English, not sure how your German is…”
“I speak a bit. I think we’ll make do,” Archie said.
“Delilah, let’s go see if we can get onto the bridge.”
Luke was just about out of the cabin when Johann called his name. “Luke, my cabin is at the base of the stairs up to the bridge. I keep a spare set of keys hidden in the compartment above my headboard. There’s a false bottom. I don’t think they’ve found the spot.”
Luke nodded at Johann. Rejoining his crew at the end of the hall, Luke looked both directions. “Anything down that way?”
“No, just more empty cabins. We didn’t go to the left,” Ahmed replied.
“Anyone poke their head out?”
“No. I can hear some shouting, but I can’t quite make out what they’re saying, though.”
“Thanks, I’m going to pop into that cabin below the stairs. Cover me.”
Luke pumped his shotgun, loading a shell into the firing chamber. Checking the doorknob first and finding it locked, Luke solved the problem by kicking the door just to the side of the doorknob with the bottom of his foot. The door flew open and bounced back into the door frame. Someone behind him snickered. Poking the door with the barrel of his shotgun, he pushed the door open, finding the captain’s cabin empty. It stank of vampire. They’d been using the room regularly. The sheets were mussed with a few drops of blood splattered on them.
Luke walked over to the bed to search for the false bottom in the compartment Johann had mentioned. Finding the edge, he lifted the lid, exposing the false compartment underneath. His fingers tripped across something that felt like a credit card. He tried to get a fingernail under it so he could pry it away from the wall, but at the angle his arm was twisted to reach it, he couldn’t make his body move that direction, not with the bulk of his armor making it more difficult. He pulled the dagger out of the sheath on his belt and used it to lift the card away from the wall. Success was the sound of plastic clacking lightly on the floor. After sheathing his dagger, he bent over and snagged a magnetic key card.
He gathered his advance team and took them back to the crew cabins corridor, speaking quietly so the vampires wouldn’t be able to hear with noise of the freighter and the thick walls and doors separating them. “I’ll unlock the door. I imagine they’ll try to hold the wheel shut again. Pablo, can you get it open?”
The giant werewolf nodded, a feral grin spreading across his wolfy snout.
“It looks like it opens inward, so when Pablo gets the door opened, we’re going to have to push our way through.” He pointed to Jung-sook, still in human form and holding a shotgun. “You loaded and ready with that?”
“Yup.”
“Good, you’re with me. We’ll go through first. Fire at anything that moves. If they’re coming at us, they’re hostile. Once we secure the door, we can assess. If they’re any humans in there, we can sort them out if they allow us to.”
Everybody nodded at him.
“Delilah, you and Ahmed will follow us in. Just make sure you don’t shoot us by accident. Also, let’s try to be gentle on the instruments. We might need that bridge intact. Understood?”
They gave him a round of thumbs up. Luke waved them after him. Everyone fell in line in the order they needed to be in to execute Luke’s plan. Walking slowly so as not to raise an alarm that the bridge door was being approached, Luke snuck up to the door, putting his back up against the side opposite of the hinges. The vamps knew they were there, but they didn’t need to know Pablo followed, doing his best to keep his claws from clacking on the metal decking. He gripped the wheel and got his body into position to give the maximum amount of torque his supernaturally strong werewolf body could give. Jung-sook took her position next to Luke. Delilah and Ahmed took up theirs a few steps back.
Luke looked around at this team, making eye contact with them one at a time. Each time he did, he got a nod back, indicating they were ready. He raised the key card to the pad and held it for a second. The red light blinked, then turned green, the sound of a lock signaling the plan was live. As soon as the lock stopped making noise, Pablo wrenched the wheel as hard as he could but only found the resistance it would normally have. When it stopped turning, reaching its terminus, Luke backed up to the door and shoved hard, adjusting his steps to swing with the door.
Someone was shouting into a radio in a language Luke wasn’t familiar with. Another person, Luke got a strong vampire vibe, held an AK-47 pointed toward several humans in a corner. The barrel swung toward Luke but didn’t finish its arc before Luke unloaded two shotgun shells into the vampire’s chest, sending him flying into the instrument panel. Once he collided with the hard metal, he burst into a cloud of dust. The vampire shouting into the radio reached toward something on the panel Luke couldn’t see. Whatever it was, the vampire’s body blocked it. Luke didn’t wait to find out. He pumped two more shells into its body, turning it into a matching pile of desiccated vampire dust. He turned and pointed his shotgun toward the corner, replacing the AK-47 with his Winchester M12. Jung-sook strode into the room, pointing her barrel toward the humans cowering in the corner. The rest of his squad followed them in.
“Any of you speak English?” Luke asked.
“Ja, I do,” pipped up one man, his shaking hands held high above his head.
“Good. If there are any here who don’t, please relay this message. I want you all to line up against the wall facing outward. Sit down. Keep your hands on your knees. If anyone moves, you will be shot. Do you understand?”
He nodded his head emphatically.
“Good. Please relay my instructions to the others.”
The man spoke in rapid German. He didn’t know Luke was fluent in the language, and there was no need to betray this fact. The man told his fellow crew mates Luke’s instructions and what the consequences would be of violating them.
The man turned back to Luke. “I told them. Is it safe for us to move into the positions you asked us to?”
Luke nodded. “Yes, but slowly.”
They shifted carefully, keeping their motions slow and deliberate until they were arranged as requested.
Luke addressed the man who spoke English. “Are you all the original crew? Translate that question, please.”
The man rattled off more German. No one responded with an affirmation or rejection. Instead, they all got incredibly still, except their eyes, which all shifted toward a woman in the middle. Whether they’d done it intentionally or not, they’d identified the fox in the henhouse.
Luke pointed his shotgun at the woman. “Pablo, Jung-sook, would you mind locking her in one of the cabins? I don’t think her presence here will be useful.”
Jung-sook leveled her shotgun at the woman while Pablo grabbed her by the shoulders and yanked her body into a standing position.
Luke walked up to her. “I’m assuming you speak English, thrall.”
The tightening of her jaw and the narrowing of her eyes betrayed her understanding and apparent disdain for the word thrall.
“If she resists or tries to flee, shoot her.”
The grin spreading across Jung-sook’s face seemed to convey that she’d only be too happy to have an excuse to put a round into the vampire’s pet. It convinced the thrall to go along, her face sagging in defeat. Keeping a clawed paw on one arm, Pablo marched her out of the bridge and back toward the crew cabins, Jung-sook following with her shotgun at the ready. As soon as they crossed the threshold out of the bridge, the remaining humans appeared to relax some.
Luke waited until they were well out of the way. “You don’t seem nearly as surprised by my werewolf friend as I’d expect.”
“We knew who and what our captain and crew mates are, were…” He collected himself. The memory of the treatment of his werewolf crew mates watered his eyes. “They were our friends and these fucking blood suckers murdered them. Then they made us do things…”
“And you’re not under their control?” Luke asked.
“No…I mean, I don’t think so.” He sighed. “It’s hard to know anymore what’s real and not. I think after a while, they just decided that normal terror was enough to control us and so they stopped doing that eye thing. They had no need to fear us. They had their…thrall, is that what you called her? Anyways, their thrall kept an eye on us constantly. They outnumber us. They’re stronger and faster than us. We did what we were told. We knew what would happen otherwise.”
“That’s understandable. How many vampires are there?”
“I don’t know exactly. Dozens, maybe hundreds. They don’t let us see much beyond maintaining the ship’s operations or the galley.”
“Have they been feeding off of you?”
The man shook his head. “No. Their leader won’t let them.”
“Did they bring thralls along? More than just that one?”
“Not that I’ve seen. I guess they could have brought bagged blood. We have refrigerated containers, too.”
“OK, are you in good enough shape to show us around down below?” Luke asked. “It’d be better if we had a guide.”
“Yeah. I can do that.”
Luke sighed quietly in relief. The undersides of these big ships could be a maze, and he’d like to get off this ship before too much longer. “Good. Tell your crew mates we’ll protect them from the vampires. Does anyone else here speak English well enough to take and relay instructions? I’m not sure if I have anyone else on my team who speaks German.”
“Ja, Hilda speaks English some.” He gestured toward a blond woman with short hair.
Luke addressed Hilda. “Hilda, you’ll follow Delilah. She’ll get you to a safe spot on the deck away from the fighting.” He turned to Delilah. “Delilah, take them up to the bow. Grab a couple wolves to guard them, then head back here. Grab Pablo on the way by to help you. Also, if you see Pieter, send him my way. I think we’re going to need his special prize.”
“Got it.” Delilah lowered her shotgun slightly and addressed Hilda, “Tell your mates to move toward the bow. And no fast movements. We wouldn’t want any misunderstandings until this is all cleared up.”
Hilda relayed the information. The crew stood up and filed out the door, being careful and deliberate so that no one could mistake any of the movements as hostile.
Luke looked back at the remaining human crew member. “What’s your name?”
“Matthias.”
“OK, Matthias. Can you draw me a map of the access points below deck and the layout of the engine compartments and their access points?”
“Yes. May I move? I need to grab some paper.”
“Go ahead.” Luke tracked him with his shotgun, not raising it, but keeping it at the ready in case Matthias tried anything. “Are there any guns on the bridge?”
“Ja, captain kept an old luger under the center console, about halfway back. I don’t know if it’s still there.” He reached into a drawer slowly and pulled out a pad of paper and pen and set about drawing some maps of the information Luke had requested.
Luke bent over and checked under the dark console. He didn’t see anything. Getting on his knees, he reached back until he felt the grip of a pistol. He pulled it out of the holster attached to the underside of the console. Checking the firing chamber, Luke found it loaded and ready. He ejected the bullet and stashed the gun in his hoodie’s pocket. Not wanting to leave the AK-47 for anyone to find and figuring it would be a nice addition to his growing arsenal, he picked it up and handed it to one of the human-form werewolves.
“Might as well keep it. Make sure to get it back to me when we hit shore.”
She nodded and replied, slinging it over her shoulder. “Got it.”
* * *
Luke was wrapping up with Matthias and the maps when someone called up into the bridge. “Luke, you better get down here!”
Luke worked his way down the stairs, werewolves and people squishing up against one side of the wall to make room for him to get through. When he got to the bottom, he found out who’d called him down.
“What’s going on, Archie?” Luke asked.
“Take a peek out the door. Something doesn’t look right.”
He took the handle and cracked the door, inching his head out until he could see what Archie was talking about.
“Well, fuck. They’ve set up a nice little killing field out there…” He pulled his head back just as a shot rang out and blasted into the door, yanking it out of his hands and flinging it open. After the relative calm of the bridge, his adrenaline started pumping again. “Yup.”
The vampires had moved the various vehicles that had been rolled onto the freighter and set up a wide-open space with the vehicles forming a fortified wall of steel and glass. If the vampires had heavy arms, as it appeared they did, they’d open fire and create a wall of bullets in the open space. It would be a massacre.
He turned toward his team and looked them over. “They’ve moved all the cars down there to form a killing field that starts just outside this door and runs for quite a ways down the deck. Then, it’s cars turned sideways forming a barricade. They’re lined with rifles and automatics. No one’s going out there and living.”
Luke took a deep breath, darted out, grabbed the door handle, and yanked it closed as another round of bullets flew toward where he’d just been. He fished the key card out of this pocket and used it to lock the door. He shoved on it, making sure it was firmly latched after the damage it had taken. “Alright, everyone back upstairs.”
As they made it back upstairs, Jung-sook and Ahmed emerged from one of the cabins with the captain. He’d taken a few minutes to wash off the collected weeks of his own filth and put on some clean clothes. His wrists still looked nasty with red pus-filled blisters where the silver manacles had kept him tied down and powerless.
“Captain Johann, you're looking a bit better,” Luke said.
Johann rubbed his wrists. “Ja, thanks for letting me get cleaned up, and thanks to your crew for prying the manacles off. Please, call me Johann. I’m not much of a captain if I can’t keep control of my own vessel.”
Luke could hear the dejection in his voice. “A massive swarm of vampires is more than you and a handful of other werewolves and humans can handle. What was your crew, fifteen? Seventeen people?”
Pieter stepped through the door leading to the stairs from the roof of the bridge along with a couple of the North Portland Pack’s wolves. Luke held up his hand to stop Pieter from speaking until he was finished speaking with Johann. When Pieter acknowledged Luke, he gestured for Johann to continue.
“Twenty-one,” Johann replied.
“Twenty-one, even with some of them being werewolves, isn’t enough against those odds. But right now, I need a captain’s knowledge of his vessel.”
Johann nodded, straightening up. “That I can provide. How can I help?”
“I can’t get to the engine room through the decks below. They’ve got a killing field set up, and I’m not risking my team to take out a few hundred vampires with heavy firearms in a fortified position. I need to get explosives on the diesel tanks.”
“You’re…you’re going to blow up my ship?” Johann’s jaw dropped, his eyes opening wide in shock.
Luke hated to be blunt, but time was not on their side. “As you’ve said, it’s not your ship anymore. It’s theirs.” He pointed toward the stairs. “And I need to make sure they don’t make it to land. I don’t have enough werewolves to take them all out, and they’ll get someone out here who can steer this thing into port. I need your knowledge to protect Portland, both humans and werewolves.”
Johann stood frozen for a few moments before he collected himself. “Right. Right. I can do that. It’s going to be cramped, and we won’t be able to get everyone down there this way. Also, you’ll need ear protection. It’s loud down there.”
“Right. Ear protection we have.” Luke pointed to the two werewolves who had the C-4 explosives and detonators. “Pieter and Rhonda, you’re with me. Anyone got a box or two of shells I can have? Also, I need one more volunteer with a shotgun.”
Jung-sook raised her hand as people rifled through backpacks, pulling out what spare shells they could find. They distributed them to Luke and Jung-sook.
“OK, Jung-sook, you bring up the rear. I’ll go in first with the captain behind me. Pieter and Rhonda, you’ll be in the middle. Delilah, you and Pablo get everyone onto the deck and back on their boats. I want as many people off this boat as possible, so when we’re done, we can get out of here. Archie, pick a couple of people and hold the top of that stairwell. They may decide to see why we aren’t trying to attack their position and come see what’s up.”
Archie saluted, then pointed to a couple of his packmates still in human form and toting shotguns. They disappeared back up the hall toward the stairs that led to the lower decks. Pablo and Delilah began organizing the pack and made sure everyone was loaded and ready to go. Luke pulled out his radio and gave the evacuation code to anyone listening. The other squads responded in the affirmative.
“OK, Johann. Lead the way.” Luke gestured for the captain to proceed.
The captain, mustering a last reserve of strength, took them through a warren of gangways and narrow, winding paths through the inner workings of the ship until he signaled they were there.
He pointed toward the end of the room. “That door leads to the engine compartment.”
“OK, you guys get the explosives planted.” Luke walked down the last few stairs and over to the door. He found a huge wrench on a shelf and used it to wedge the bulkhead door locked, fitting the wrench head into the crook of the wheel and placing the other end in the corner of the door. If anyone tried to crank the wheel open, it would block them, using their motion to further lock the wrench in place.
Pieter called down to Luke, “Luke, we’re done here.”
Luke climbed the stairs, stopping to inspect the rows of C-4 plastic explosives wired together.
Rhonda tossed a remote at him. “Twist the dial to arm it, push the button to detonate. It’s got an OK range, but with this much hull between us and the receiver, you might have to be pretty close to light it off.”
Luke nodded. “Alright, let’s get out of here.”
They made room for Johann to get in front to lead them out. Luke brought up the rear this time. Once they got back to the main structure, they grabbed Archie and his packmates and made their way back on deck to the central walkway.
Luke clicked the talk button on his radio. “Spartacus calling Foxy Lady, we’re finished up here. How’s your end going?”
“Good. All the survivors are split up and on boats. We’ve got a few people up here keeping an eye on the ladders down, but most people are on their boats and floating away… Hold on.” Delilah clicked out. A moment later, a static burst announced her return. “You better get your ass here in a hurry. Our hosts just intercepted a message from the Coast Guard. They’re a few minutes out and prepping to dock with the freighter.”
“Fuck. Just what we need, the government poking their nose in our business,” Luke said.
“I don’t think it’s the government who are in control of the boat coming in. Captain O says they’ve been communicating with the freighter as if they know each other,” Delilah replied.
Luke sighed and shook his head. “So, the vampires have a Coast Guard vessel now…”
“Looks like it. O is moving everyone to other side of the ship so the freighter is blocking them from the Coast Guard.”
“Does he have any idea what vessel is coming in?” Luke heard Delilah shouting something away from the mic as she left the button depressed.
“He says it’s the cutter out of Astoria.”
“Well, hell. Alright, we’re moving as fast we can. We’ll be coming out hot, so keep your fingers off the triggers. Out.” Luke turned to the seven people following him. “Johann, we’re going to need to move fast. Can you keep up?”
“Do I have a choice?”
Luke reached out and squeezed Johann’s shoulder, before addressing the rest of the remaining team. “A Coast Guard cutter out of Astoria is nearly here. Owen’s not sure, but it sounds like it’s under the vampire control, or they’re collaborating somehow. We’ve got to move fast. We’re going down the central lane. Archie, you take your team down the right side, call out clear or not. Jung-sook, Ahmed, you’re with me on the left. Pieter, you stick with Johann and make sure he can keep up.”
They walked through the hall under the bridge. Archie grabbed the door and waited for Luke to give them the go ahead to open it. Luke popped out and swept the deck making sure no one was waiting for them.
“Clear! Go.”
For once, things moved smoothly. Archie called out “clear,” on each crossing as did Luke until they emerged onto the bow. Luke was relieved to see Pablo and Delilah waiting for him. Although the other werewolves had performed admirably, he’d grown accustomed to Pablo and Delilah’s presence at his side. He almost felt naked without them.
“Pablo, you and Jung-sook help Johann down onto the fishing boat. The rest of you, with me onto Owen’s boat. We may need some extra crew.”
Pablo, still in wolf form, went first in case the captain fell. Jung-sook followed. Luke sent everyone else down the ladder onto the PT Boat while he kept watch. When it was finally his turn, he threw his shotgun over his shoulder and vaulted over the rail and down the ladder while several shotguns were leveled at the deck in case anyone got too close.