It was over soon, and she found herself looking across the catwalk rail at Masters, who was just getting to his feet.
“Are you all right?” she called across to him.
“I’ve been better,” he replied, getting to one knee and rubbing his chest.
“How the hell did you get over there anyway?”
“I jumped,” he said sourly, stumbling to his feet and making his way to the kukri blade.
Andrews looked over at Keyz, and mouthed the words, “Did he say ‘jumped’?” Keyz just shrugged, eyes wide as he looked at the gap between the catwalk and the enclosures.
Masters slid the kukri blade into his belt, rubbing his face as he turned back in her direction. “What happened to the bitch that was standing over me?”
Andrews shook her head. “No idea. She just vanished. That was a she, right?”
“Used to be anyway,” Masters said. “Damn it! We’ve got to track that thing down.…Killing it is the only way we can stop this madness.”
At the sound of footsteps, Andrews turned, catching sight of the civilian consultant, who was limping in their direction. He looked quite a bit worse for wear, she noted, though between the two, the commander had to win the prize for the bloodiest mess of a face.
“She’ll be going back to her grave,” Norton said, painfully clutching his side as he approached, “and that’s a problem for us.”
“How’s that?” Masters asked, looking around. “Not that many graveyards in this burg…and how the hell am I going to get off this thing anyway?”
“She’s not from here, Hawk,” Norton growled. “She’s Eastern European. I told you that’s where this breed comes from.”
“She’s going back to Europe?” Masters asked, incredulous. “Are you serious? What, do these things turn into bats and fly cross-continental? ’Cause I’m telling you, I know that TSA agents suck balls, but even they’d probably notice a walking corpse with half its skull blown off.”
Norton snorted painfully. “I’d take that bet, but no, that’s not what I meant. She must have been shipped here with dirt from her grave — it’s the only way these things can survive. Not dirt from their homeland or any of that bullshit — dirt from their grave. The dirt they were buried in when they first died, specifically.”
“Who the fuck ships a vampire, in its grave, from Europe to Alaska?!” Masters demanded, throwing his hands up in the air. It was an act he seemed to regret shortly thereafter, as he grimaced and clutched at his chest again.
“Let’s just say that that’s a question I simply must have answered,” Norton said. “To get that answer though, we need to figure out where the hell she went to. I’m sort of hoping one of you guys has an answer, cause I’m at a loss.”
Masters sighed and sat down on the enclosure, legs hanging over the side. “Yeah. I may have an idea on that. First, though…”
He looked down. “Does anyone see a friggin’ ladder? I am not trying to jump back across from here!”
“Oh, holy shit.”
Masters thought that he probably would have said it a bit more colorfully, but he agreed with Robbie’s sentiment. The EOD man was standing next to him as they looked down from the rooftop of the power co-op at the horde of inhumanity that was now surrounding the entire place.
“You think that’s all of them?” Masters asked, watching the mass of bodies press around the building.
“Does it matter?” Norton asked from beside him. “If it’s not all of them, the risen will just go and turn others. If it is all of them, well…same thing, really.”
The group was standing on the rooftop, taking a few moments to work out their next move. The SEALs and their Asatru backups were all running lean on munitions by this point, assuming they had any left. Only Andrews and her splinter team had more than the rounds in their weapons, and even they were down to less than half of what they’d brought with them.
Norton let out a long breath, the chill air turning it to fog in front of his face. “It might be a moot point now, but what’s your plan for finding that bitch anyway?”
Masters shrugged. “Anything that got shipped here would have come in through the airport. That means there would be some record of the flight and the cargo.”
“Even for private planes?” Norton asked.
“Yes and no. There would be a record of the flight, if nothing else,” Masters said. “And if we can figure out what flight brought this bitch to Alaska, it might give us a shot at finding her grave.”
“I hope you’re right, but what about these things?” Norton asked, nodding out over the sea of corpses.
Masters looked past them, to the town beyond. He was mentally counting the numbers, trying to figure out how many bodies were there and how many people supposedly lived in Barrow. The numbers weren’t good.
“Robbie,” he said after a moment, sighing. “Go below and shut this place down. Captain, call up the Coastie bird. We’re going to need a lift.”
Robbie Keyz flipped a quick salute and disappeared below, not bothering to say anything as he did.
Judith nodded, stepping aside from the group to radio the chopper without complaining or commenting about him giving her orders.
Masters turned to look at the two Asatru and Hannah. “Your help has been invaluable, but you don’t need to come with us. It’s not your job.”
“You must be joking,” Hannah said, deadpan. “These filth invade our territory and kill our neighbors and friends, and you think we will let that pass? You, Commander, do not understand either the Asatru or the Rokkatru. If you want us out, you will have to fight us for it.”
The two soldiers behind her chuckled darkly, both of them grinning at her proclamation.
“Fine.” Masters rolled his eyes. “I’m not in a position to turn down competent help right now anyway.”
Any further conversation was interrupted when the low background drone of the generators fell silent, and the lights around the town blinked out of existence.
“Chopper’s inbound,” Judith said in the darkness.
“Flash infrared,” Masters ordered. “Mark out the LZ.”
They got to work, trying to ignore the groaning sound of the creatures that surrounded them, audible now because of the silenced machinery.
The local time was well after midnight by now, and with all the lights in town knocked out, there wasn’t even the twilight glow of the sun over the horizon. It was as dark as any of the people in the chopper had experienced, the only glow coming from the soft red glow of the instruments and the occasional twinkle below from what had to be emergency batteries or maybe personal generators.
If people were running the generators, Masters wished them all the luck in the world, because they would likely need it. Attracting attention like that in the current mess was suicidal.
“Captain!” the pilot called over his shoulder. “The admiral’s on the line.”
Judith grimaced, but nodded and pulled on a helmet. Masters watched her lips move urgently, knowing that whatever she was telling the admiral was going to sound completely nuts, and not envying her job at all.
So when she tapped his shoulder and told him to put on the ears, it would be an understatement to say he wasn’t pleased.
Masters sighed, pulling on a helmet of his own. “Hawk.”
“What in the ever-living hell is going on up there?” Admiral Karson’s voice brooked no smart-ass replies this time. Masters knew that he might have leverage with the admiral, but there were times to pull on the lever and times to realize that if you did you might just be dropping a rockslide on your own head.