They spread out along the outer wall of the warehouse.
“Report on hostiles at warehouses?” O’Neil whispered over the channel.
“All holding position,” the drone operator came back. “Clear around the back.”
“Copy. Heading to A-Three.”
O’Neil took his team to the next warehouse, wondering what nightmarish horrors they would discover next.
After stacking up outside the door, the team pushed through again, rifles shouldered. They were met with another warehouse with only a handful of dim lights glowing from the ceiling.
They immediately ducked behind the cover of a line of crates near their position.
Along one wall, O’Neil saw oil drums just like those in Lithuania.
And in the center of the room, a group of frightened men kneeled. All four had tangled beards covering gaunt faces. Their clothes were dirty and torn, and the expressions painted across their faces radiated unadulterated terror. Each had one ankle wrapped with a metal cuff attached to meter-long chains bolted to the floor. Two Russian soldiers stood at the far end of the warehouse in front of the wide garage doors. Another four stood in the shadows at the back end of the warehouse.
All were watching the Moroccans, sadistic smiles emblazoned over their faces, made even more malicious from the dim overhead lights.
The only thing more diabolical than their expressions was the monstrous shape that emerged from the shadows.
A Skull.
The beast was taller and wider than most Skulls O’Neil had seen, as if it had been a bodybuilder prior to its transformation. Each finger ended in a long, hooked claw. Spikes pushed out from along its back, each corresponding to an overgrown vertebral disc. Its chest was bulwarked by massive ribs that had expanded its gray flesh. The creature wore black pants like the soldiers.
But instead of jumping at these men, it merely prowled in front of them, nose wrinkled in a snarl. It wore a utility belt like the Russian soldiers, complete with a holstered pistol.
It walked up to the first of the men chained to the middle of the warehouse floor. The man cowered, straining against the chain. Sweat beaded down his head. He was muttering what sounded to O’Neil like a prayer.
The Skull knelt in front of the man, pushing its maw inches from the man’s. The man tried to look away, but the Skull grabbed the prisoner’s chin between two claws, forcing him to face him.
Then it opened it mouth, baring its fanged teeth.
O’Neil prepared for the beast to rip into the man’s face and devour the poor guy.
He wasn’t prepared for when it spoke instead.
-22-
“Why are you here?” the beast spoke, its voice raspy and grating. The words came out in English with a thick Russian accent.
This was a man. Not a monster. Or rather, something between the two, a hybrid between man and beast.
The Moroccan tried to look way, but the beast wrapped its claws around his beard, yanking the man’s face toward his again.
“Why?” the beast tried again.
The man whimpered, mumbling in Arabic, tears rolling out of his eyes. He brought his hands up in a universal pleading gesture.
“You do not understand English,” the monster said.
The man kept mumbling, his words coming out faster, more panicked.
Looking at the others, the beast spoke again. “I know none of you understand Russian. So tell me, which of you can speak to me in English.”
O’Neil noticed one of the men looked down at his hands as he knelt on the floor. He did all he could to avert the beast’s gaze. But his attempt at avoiding attention was exactly what drew the creature’s interest.
The other two just kept staring at the talking monster, clearly not understanding his request.
With a grunt, the beast heaved the first man to the side. The guy slammed into the concrete floor, letting out a pained yelp, then cowered into a ball.
“I can tell you understand me.” The monster stepped in front of the man who had been averting his eyes. “I promise you, this will be much, much worse if you do not talk.”
“I… we… we ran from the djinn,” the man said. “My name is Hassan. I am just a man who wants to help his family. We need safety.”
“You were carrying weapons,” the Russian Skull said.
“We must protect our family. Please, you must understand, my brother. We mean no harm to you.”
The Skull laughed, shaking his head. “You could not harm me or my brothers if you wanted to.” He leaned in close, peering straight into the man’s eyes, his tongue tracing his jagged teeth. “I am not afraid of you or who you think you are. What I want to know is who told you to come here.”
“We see your walls and the helicopters. You are here to help, no?”
“You do not get to ask questions. Only me. Tell me, who sent you?”
Hassan quivered in the Skull’s grasp, his teeth chattering together. “No one tells us anything, I swear upon Allah.”
“I do not believe you.”
“I am not lying.” Hassan looked up at him, bottom lip shaking. “Please. Tell me, when can I see my wife again? Where are my children? We want only to escape the djinn.”
The Skull’s cracked lips twitched as though he were holding back a laugh. “When you tell me the truth.”
“I tell the truth. I do not come to hurt your people. I come for help. Please, please, please, help us. We do not want to be hurt by the djinn.”
The Skull released the man, letting him flop to the ground sobbing. He strode back toward the first man he’d questioned who didn’t understand English. The guy was still mumbling, his head bowed.
He crouched in front of the praying man. “I want to show you what happens to liars.”
He picked up the praying man by his neck. The man reached for the Skull’s hands, trying desperately to pry the Skull’s fingers free. Those claws only tightened as the man kicked. Blood trickled from where the claws pierced the man’s flesh.
O’Neil wanted to shoot this man-Skull monstrosity. He and his team could save these men. But he knew why Reynolds had refrained before. Why he couldn’t simply shoot their way out of this mess.
Because as he watched that hybrid soldier toying with these men, he realized it could just as easily be him and his men or anyone else in the troop with an ankle chained to the floor of this warehouse.
He tried to remind himself that they were making a deliberate choice to dig up intel on this operation and stop whatever was going on here. Trying to save a handful of people and getting killed while doing so would help no one.
The Skull-soldier squeezed his victim’s neck tighter. More blood dribbled away from his grip. The man kicked harder, his feet connecting with the Skull-soldier. But the beast ignored the man’s desperate struggles as the Moroccan’s face went white, the vessels in his forehead and neck bulging.
“Please, I promise I will tell you everything I know,” Hassan said.
“Yes, tell me.” The Skull-soldier continued to hold the praying man up, staring at the Moroccan as he slapped uselessly at the Skull-soldier’s hands.
“No one tells us to come. No one tells us. Please, we saw the walls. We saw the soldiers. We saw the ships. We want safety.”
The other two men were on their knees, reaching out toward the Skull-soldier, their voices rising, their words spilling out urgently.
“You are not lying?” the Skull-soldier asked again.
“I swear it. I swear to Allah.”
The Skull-soldier dropped the praying man to the floor. The man pushed himself up on his hands and knees, gasping for breath, saliva drooling out of his mouth as his chest heaved.
“Thank you, my brother,” Hassan said. “Thank you. Please, please, may we see our families?”
O’Neil felt a pang of regret. That poor man would never see his family again.