No Such Thing As Werewolves Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter 1- A Bigger Bullet

  Chapter 2- Prehistoric Aliens my Ass

  Chapter 3- Runaway Bride

  Chapter 4- Memories

  Chapter 5- Arrival

  Chapter 6- Ahiga

  Chapter 7- The Ark

  Chapter 8- Steve

  Chapter 9- Decisions

  Chapter 10- Answers

  Chapter 11- The Mother's Hand

  Chapter 12- Blair's Dead

  Chapter 13- The Worst Thief of All

  Chapter 14- Blair's Funeral

  Chapter 15- The Beast

  Chapter 16- It's Back

  Chapter 17- Doctor Liz

  Chapter 18- Not Dead

  Chapter 19- Numb

  Chapter 20- Hunted

  Chapter 21- Nowhere to Run

  Chapter 22- Not Just an Animal

  Chapter 23- Wrath

  Chapter 24- Need a Drink

  Chapter 25- Your She

  Chapter 26- Held Accountable

  Chapter 27- Naked

  Chapter 28- Sunburned

  Chapter 29- Clash of Wills

  Chapter 30- La Multa

  Chapter 31- One Who Fights

  Chapter 32- Surprise Guests

  Chapter 33- The Boat

  Chapter 34- A Spiral

  Chapter 35- Acapulco

  Chapter 36- More Questions

  Chapter 37- Old

  Chapter 38- Two Words

  Chapter 39- Field Test

  Chapter 40- Clash of the Titans

  Chapter 41- The Hunger

  Chapter 42- Bruce

  Chapter 43- Watched

  Chapter 44- Helio-seismology

  Chapter 45- Reconciliation

  Chapter 46- Moonlight

  Chapter 47- Gun Safe

  Chapter 48- Blur

  Chapter 49- Feed

  Chapter 50- Bonita

  Chapter 51- Sorry

  Chapter 52- We have them

  Chapter 53- CellScope

  Chapter 54- Silver nitrate

  Chapter 55- This is a .45

  Chapter 56- World of Hurt

  Chapter 57- On the Hunt

  Chapter 58- Mind Ride

  Chapter 59- Final Hour

  Chapter 60- Now

  Chapter 61- The Deathless

  Chapter 62- Permanent Vacation

  Chapter 63- Garland

  Chapter 64- Desperate Measures

  Chapter 65- Object One

  Chapter 66- Fight for Alpha

  Chapter 67- I Know Spanish

  Chapter 68- Hope

  Chapter 69- First Wave

  Chapter 70- It's Time

  Chapter 71- Infiltrated

  Chapter 72- Jedi Mind Tricks

  Chapter 73- Free

  Chapter 74- Unexpected Allies

  Chapter 75- Casualties

  Chapter 76- Waking the Mother

  Chapter 77- The First Ark

  Chapter 78- Too Late

  Chapter 79- Embarassing Accident

  Chapter 80- The Mother

  Chapter 81- Mother's Wrath

  Chapter 82- Answers

  Epilogue

  Note to the reader

  No Such Thing As

  WEREWOLVES

  Deathless Book 1

  Chris Fox

  This novel is fiction, except for the parts that aren’t.

  Copyright © 2014 by Chris Fox

  All rights reserved.

  Chrisfoxwrites.com

  ISBN-10: 1502918277

  ISBN-13: 978-1502918277

  For Lisa. The most imaginative part of O.W.L. yet…

  Prologue

  "How the hell did we end up in Peru? And not even the good part, down in Lima where the locals think we’re marines,” Jordan asked, shading his eyes from the sun’s relentless glare as he peered over the helicopter’s console at the wide valley below. It was flanked by high peaks, some of the tallest in the Andes. At eleven-thousand feet, it was a place none of the locals ever came willingly.

  “Is shit,” Yuri agreed, the Russian’s face hidden behind a large pair of aviator glasses and a thick black goatee. The wiry pilot eased the yoke, tilting the copter forward to afford a better view of the scrubby hillsides. “Should be in jungle, is pretty there. Birds. I like birds.”

  Why were they here? The team had been put together with incredible haste, dispatched from a dozen different countries to the Peruvian city of Cajamarca where they’d been given one day to acclimate to each other. They’d been dispatched here, given four old Boeing AH-64 Apache helicopters—the type that had been mothballed back in the 1980s after serving since Iran Contra.

  “Commander, are you seeing this?” a female voice crackled over the com. It was either Savinsky or Jewel, but having just met them Jordan couldn’t readily identify which was speaking.

  A massive chunk of stone broke loose from the southern face of one of the mountains, plummeting to the valley floor with a crash so loud he could hear it over the rotors.

  “Pretty tough to miss,” Jordan replied, studying the cloud of dust curling skyward. A smaller piece broke loose from a neighboring peak. Boulders began jouncing all over the place, bucking about like Mexican jumping beans. “Carter, this place isn’t seismically active, is it?”

  “Not even slightly,” Carter’s nasally voice echoed back over the com. “We’re nowhere near a fault line.”

  “Holy shit,” another voice broke onto the com. That one was definitely Jewel.

  A black spike bored out of the earth like the tip of some gigantic drill. It was nearly as large as the peaks surrounding it, a jet-black pyramid unlike anything he’d ever seen. Jordan’s eyes widened as the structure approached. “Pull up, pull up.”

  Yuri yanked back on the stick, guiding the Apache up and away from the approaching structure. Savinsky wasn’t so lucky. Evidently she’d been distracted or maybe just surprised by the structure’s momentum. The pyramid slammed into the Apache, unleashing a fireball of flaming wreckage as it continued its ascent.

  “Get clear,” Jordan roared. The other three copters veered safely away, hovering around the strange pyramid like angry wasps. Up and up it went, until it was towered over their comparatively tiny copters. He turned to Yuri, “What’s our current elevation?”

  “Nine hundred seventy-five feet above valley floor,” Yuri said, jaw still hanging open as he gaped at the pyramid. “Is taller, so structure eleven hundred feet. Give or take.”

  The pyramid finally stopped moving, its jet-black slopes covered in patches of dark soil. Jordan had a million questions. How old was it? Who’d built it? Most troubling, how had their employer known it was going to appear? That they’d been dispatched to such a remote location at the precise moment this thing had appeared was no accident.

  “Carter, are you getting any readings from that thing?” he asked, tightening his sunglasses. The structure seemed to drink in the light around it, reflecting none of the midday glare.

  “Nothing,” Carter’s voice crackled back. “And when I say nothing, I mean nothing. It’s not sending back radar. It just absorbs the ping. It’s eating the signal somehow. Never seen anything like it.”

  Something like a heat shimmer appeared around the structure. At first Jordan wasn’t sure what he was seeing, but eventually his eyes widened. The entire thing was vibrating. The dirt clinging to the sides slid off, like butter on Teflon, falling away until the structure was as pristine as it was on the day it was built, whenever that was. Great piles accumulated around the base of the structure. They surrounded the entire thing except one place where the di
rt was conspicuously absent.

  “Carter, check out the center of the western face. What do you make of it?”

  “There’s definitely something strange there, sir,” Carter said, a rare note of uncertainty in his voice. “There’s an area in the exact center of the wall that’s devoid of debris. If you use magnification, you can see that there are poplar trees scattered all about, but their branches stop at the edge of the clearing as if they were sheared through with a really sharp plane. I don’t know what to make of it.”

  “All units, make your approach. Prepare for field recon,” Jordan ordered, filling his voice with authority and confidence he didn’t feel. What the hell had they been sent into?

  Yuri eased back on the yoke, and the whirring of the rotors slowed. The craft descended smoothly, drifting to the edge of the ring of dirt now surrounding the pyramid. The copter set down just beyond, between a still-standing poplar tree and a cluster of boulders.

  A hawk wheeled overhead, screeching a challenge as the whir of the rotors finally died. Jordan pushed open the canopy over the craft’s rear seat. Intended more for combat than transport, it was just large enough to hold two people. An intimidating machine gun had been bolted under each stubby little wing, along with a boxy missile launcher on the right. Hardly the sort of hardware you’d send to scout unless you were expecting serious trouble.

  Jordan slid from the cockpit, dropping to the dry earth with a puff of dust. The high desert made his eyes water beneath his sunglasses even though the wind was bitterly cold at this elevation. He withdrew his pack from the boot, the harness jingling as he buckled it at his waist and chest. The black nylon was compact enough to not restrict movement and still contain the basic supplies they might need on such an op.

  “We’re going in hot. No sense in taking chances,” he said into the sub-dermal microphone that Mohn Corp. had so graciously provided. It was state of the art, picking up words people right next to him would miss. Jordan buckled his side arm, an M-411 smart pistol, into place. The weapon fed targeting data to his goggles, making combat nearly as easy as your average video game.

  “Is very strange,” Yuri said, dropping to the dirt beside Jordan. His gaze was fixed on the pyramid, or more specifically, the clear space in front of the wall some fifty yards from where they’d set down. He could tell the break in debris was clearly something the builders had intended, because it lay directly outside a gap in the structure. It was as if a square section had been cut away, allowing visitors to enter a tunnel that led inside.

  “Carter, what can you tell me?” Jordan said, turning toward the third helicopter as the short, sandy-haired tech fell awkwardly to the ground. He got up quickly, dusting off his pants and trying to act like he wasn’t as clumsy as they all knew him to be.

  The tech trotted over, taking a sip of water from the blue hose leading into his pack. “I ran a full scan on the valley. We use sonar imaging to build maps, which the satellites confirm. Only there’s gaps in my model, gaps caused by that thing. It’s eating the signal, sir. That shouldn’t be possible.”

  “Yeah, you mentioned that in the air. What else can you tell me?”

  “Not much,” Carter admitted, turning to face the structure. He withdrew a bulky black box from his belt and aimed it at the tunnel. It beeped and hummed for several seconds before Carter turned back to face him. “Sir, this is damn odd. That tunnel is emitting ELF.”

  “Ee el eff?” Jordan asked. Carter would speak in nothing but obscure abbreviations and acronyms if allowed to do so.

  “Extremely low frequency waves, sir. A very special type of signal we used back in World War Two to transmit codes. It’s slower than most signals, so you don’t see it much today,” Carter explained, adjusting his goggles as he watched the pyramid. “They’re also given off by power plants. Nuclear power plants for the most part. It’s possible there’s a power source inside, or maybe whoever built this place is using them for communication. No way to know without checking it out, sir.”

  “Then that’s exactly what we’ll do. Yuri, take Carter down that tunnel to see if you can find a way inside. If there isn’t one, then make it. No chances. If you run into anything, topside. If you have a question you can’t answer, topside. Back in ten minutes,” he ordered. Jordan could have sent a larger team, but with Savinsky’s team gone there were only six of them and he didn’t want to risk any more personnel than he had to—one tech and one experienced soldier to keep him alive.

  Yuri fished his M4 rifle from the cockpit. The smooth bored weapon menacing as he propped the barrel up over his shoulder. The weapon was standard issue, but in the hands of a crack shot like Yuri, it could devastate a battlefield.

  The Russian trotted toward the pyramid, bringing the stock of his rifle to his shoulder as he scanned the pregnant darkness that so neatly blended with the structure’s dark surface. Carter trotted a little ways behind, replacing his bulky black box with a smaller green gizmo. Jordan was good with technology, but he had no idea what either device did. He doubted anyone other than Carter could tell him. The tech was always tinkering, and the gadgets were both things he’d cobbled together in his spare time.

  The pair disappeared into the darkness, though Jordan could still make out their shapes. They stopped perhaps ten feet into the strange tunnel, a perfect square that could have been bored with a laser. Jordan shaded his eyes, watching as Yuri leaned a shoulder into the massive stone door and shoved. To the Russian’s apparent surprise, it gave easily, spilling him to the ground as the door slid soundlessly open. Damn. That kind of engineering could barely be accomplished today. How many tons did that door weigh?

  Jordan began to pace, his right hand settling on the grip of his pistol. Ten minutes. Such a short span of time, but it crept by. What was happening inside? Something echoed from within. Gunshots. He resisted the urge to order another pair inside, instead gesturing at both sides of the entrance. The squad moved to flank it, each soldier leveling an M4 at the opening. Long seconds passed.

  At nine minutes, sixteen seconds they heard the slaps of booted feet on stone as something approached. Yuri’s form emerged first, bent low, arms pumping as he hauled ass back into the sunlight. There was no sign of his rifle. Carter’s form trailed behind, the lanky tech clutching his side as if he had a cramp. Only it wasn’t a cramp. His black uniform was soaked with blood, and his face was ashen as he limped forward.

  “Jewel, get the medical kit,” Jordan bellowed, jerking the stock of his rifle to his shoulder as he scanned the darkness. The rest of the squad did the same, including Jewel. The weapon suited the tiny blond, despite the fact that it was nearly as large as she was. She lowered it reluctantly, trotting back toward the helicopter. She was the closest they had to a medic.

  Carter stumbled, sprawling to the ground just past the thick shadow provided by the tunnel. Yuri didn’t even stop to help. What the hell had spooked him so badly he didn’t stop to help a wounded squad mate?

  A third figure moved in the darkness. It was tall. Too tall. Maybe seven or eight feet, if the glittering amber eyes served as indicators. Then it stepped into the thinner shadow near the end of the tunnel, providing Jordan with far more detail than he’d ever wanted to see.

  The creature looked like some sort of dark-furred Egyptian god, with a head that clearly belonged on a wolf. Sharp white fangs bared over black gums, and the long claws on one massive hand still dripped blood—Carter’s blood. The creature wore some sort of golden necklace, a torque, Jordan thought it was called. Its clothing was cut from shimmering white cloth, something like a Roman toga.

  “End that thing,” Jordan roared, aligning the crosshairs in his goggles with the thing’s chest. He squeezed off three rounds, the gun bucking in his hands as it belched gouts of flame. Echoing fire came from all around him as the squad reacted instantly, every last member a veteran of one war or another.

  The thing didn’t move. In one moment, it was standing in the center of the corridor
. In the next, it stood next to Carter. The rounds they’d fired found nothing but stone, ricocheting down the tunnel. The beast knelt, savaging the back of Carter’s neck with those wicked teeth.

  Jordan adjusted his aim, firing again. So did the others. This time the thing jerked backward, raising a hand to its shoulder. Its amber gaze touched Jordan’s for an instant; then the beast disappeared.

  “Behind us,” Jewel roared. Jordan spun to see her drop the med kit. She jerked her rifle up, but it was too late. The beast raked its claws across her throat, showering the dusty earth with her blood.

  “No,” Jordan roared, sprinting toward the downed soldier as he squeezed off several rounds. None hit, but they did draw the beast’s attention. It blurred across the space between them, looming over Jordan like a linebacker over a toddler. Its claws descended, death’s embrace plummeting toward Jordan’s face with impossible speed. Jordan dropped to his back, bringing his rifle into alignment with the thing’s midsection. He didn’t take time to aim, just squeezed the trigger.

  The beast stumbled backward under a withering hail of fire, face twisting into an all-too-human expression of frustration. Then it simply vanished. Jordan scrambled to his feet, spinning around as he scanned for a target. Nothing. How did it move so swiftly? It defied reason. Yuri approached, offering Jordan a hand. The big Russian helped him to his feet.

  “Is crazy. Not paid enough to fight fucking werewolves,” Yuri said, shaking his head. He was staring at Carter’s corpse. There was no way the tech had survived.

  Jordan wanted to correct him. There was no such thing as werewolves. But he’d just seen one. How the hell was he going to explain this to Mohn? Maybe he wouldn’t have to. Perhaps this is exactly what they’d expected.

  Chapter 1- A Bigger Bullet

  Commander Jordan eyed the hangar thoughtfully. The silver dome was out of place, nicer than either of its neighbors. That didn’t fit Mohn’s low profile imperative, so who’d authorized this place? He’d never met the woman in charge of the Panama facility, though he’d seen her at a distance when he deployed to Cajamarca just a few weeks ago.