Sharkbait Down Under

Hammer’s POV

If anyone had told me a month ago that I’d be on a plane filled with weapons, explosives, and vampires, I’d have laughed my ass off.

By the time we loaded into our vehicles outside of Mexico City, my whole worldview had changed. Vicki had made friends with two powerful vampires, and I was glad they were on our side. I got to spend some time on the flight talking with some of the other vampires. When Randall, a vampire from New York, said he would tell us how we should take on the Mexican vampires, he didn’t hold back. “We’re faster and stronger than you, and our claws can inject venom that is fatal to you. You think you are better off in your animal form, but you are not,” he said.

“Why not?” A dozen warriors were listening in, and most of them looked shocked at this.

“You’re still not fast enough, and your wolf is more vulnerable to tooth and claw. You have to fight in groups, two going after the hands while another goes for the neck, right?” That was pretty much how we had been taught and practiced. “Fighting new and even young vampires, you can get away with those tactics. They aren’t fast enough to keep you away, although you’ll lose some of your people going for the claws. Go against vampires like us, more than a century old, and you’ll end up as bloody fur. You’re better off in human form with body armor that can provide some protection against the claws. Speed and skill come with age, and it makes a big difference.”

“How big?”

“A Master vampire can take on a dozen newborn vampires or werewolves at once and not be in danger. It’s another level entirely. Luckily for you, we don’t think Vespucci has a large number of older vampires. If rumors are true, he has lots of young ones. It will not be an easy fight for you.”

I thought about what he said. “How would you go about it?”

“Technology has changed since the last war, and your attack plans have to change with them. How did they teach you to kill a vampire?”

“Fire, beheading, crushing, sometimes explosions too, but they have to be big and close,” I said.

“Vampires can regenerate flesh and heal in moments during battle as long as they have their head about them. You have the two ways, but not the why. Beheading a vampire prevents regeneration, while the other methods work because the damage overwhelms their ability to heal. It doesn’t matter how you do it; repairing damage takes energy from their reserves of blood. When they use up their blood reserves, they can’t heal anymore, and they die. Well, as much as the undead can die.”

“Weapons?”

He nodded. “Not how you’re used to it, though. You can’t double-tap a vampire and expect him to go down. Empty a thirty-round magazine into that fucker, and he’ll stop. He may or may not die, depending on how long since his last feed, but you’ll knock him down enough to take his head off. A bladed weapon is the best way to do that.”

“Coordinated attacks? Guns followed by swords?”

“That’s how I would do it. Flamethrowers and shotguns work better than rifles. It doesn’t matter where you hit them as much as how much damage you can create fast. If it’s too little or too slow, they’ll heal and get to you.”

I smiled a bit; we had a couple of flamethrowers along, and they were epic. By the time we landed, I had a lot of respect for the vampires in our group. They were highly trained men and women.

Big picture, our groups had two missions. The werewolf group was there to rescue Vicki, Amy, and the rest of the girls. The Vampires were there to take out Vespucci. Once the girls were free, our allied Masters would wipe out the Mexico City Coven for breaking the peace deal. It was the only way that would avoid war.

I got to know Maribel, a gymnast-sized mermaid, as we drove to our hotel. She was a bubbly brunette in her late teens who worked with her family on their shrimp boat. I learned about her home Playa de Chachalacas, a small tourist town an hour north of Veracruz on the Gulf of Mexico, and asked why she’d traveled all this way to help. “Vicki is important,” she replied. “For the first time in centuries, our kind has been embraced by werewolves. In Australia, she is working to bring us together with vampires and werewolves, bringing us into power and security we’ve never had. My father contacted Linda, asking how we could help.”

“I appreciate you driving, especially since some of us aren’t fluent in Spanish. We’ll keep you safe, I promise you.”

She laughed at me as she glanced over. “I’ll keep YOUR furry butt safe,” she said with a giggle.

“You fight?” She didn’t look or act like a warrior.

She giggled. “I’m a lover, not a fighter,” she said. “You’ll see.”

I wanted to ask more, but we’d arrived at our hotel. Master Emily went in and returned with our room keys; she’d booked an entire floor for us. As she handed them out, our Alphas laid down the law. “Nobody leaves the floor without permission,” Leo said. “Order room service or delivery, stay out of sight, and keep the weapons hidden but ready.”

I was sharing a double-queen room with Nicholas. We spent the day sleeping, eating, watching English-language news, and talking about Vicki. With nothing to do but wait, I told him all the stories about our time in Coronado. I was incredibly proud of what she and Amy had accomplished at a young age, after all. Nicholas had a growling problem when I talked about the men harassing her at the beach or her former boyfriends crashing his bike with her along, but he got over it. I even spent some time teaching him the basics of jiu-jitsu. We had a few meetings in Leo’s suite discussing rescue plans and getting to know each other. Without a target, however, all we could do was sit and wait.

The Navy made me a professional at sitting and waiting.

I was sleeping when Leo’s summons woke me in a moment. “We’ve got a location. Get your ass to my room,” he said.

I was inside the Alpha’s room in less than a minute. All of the Alphas were present, along with Ken Waltrip, a warrior from Three Sisters who had been a Marine Scout Sniper. Adrienne was in the middle of a videoconference with Alpha Steven back in Cancun. “The tip is credible?”

“We think so,” he said. “It was specific, and the person was worried about retribution. Here, I’ll play it for you.” I listened as a woman’s voice, clearly Hispanic, said the six girls were in an underground cell and gave the address. I thought about her words regarding vampires; they were specific, yet general enough if a human overheard. The caller was a vampire willing to betray her Master, yet she wanted to live.

Meanwhile, Adrienne had used Google Maps to bring up a satellite view of the building. It was in a business and light industrial area, a two-story office with a warehouse behind it. Alpha Steven hung up a few moments later.

“You guys are the experts; what do you think,” Adrienne asked as she turned to me.

“It’s a good place to hole up,” I said. “No other buildings nearby, it’s completely fenced off from the road, and the warehouse lets you drive inside and unload out of sight.”

“We need eyes on it,” Ken said. “The tip sounds good, but it could also be a trap.”

“I agree,” Leo said. “How would you set up surveillance?”

Ken and I looked at the surrounding area; we were looking for places we could set up a sniper hide, something with a good view of the building while the others planned an attack. It had to be close enough to see everything but far enough away that our scent and presence wouldn’t spook them. Ken and I had picked our spots when Maribel came in. He was going on top of a factory two blocks north o the target, while I found a cheap motel two blocks up the road from the front of the building. “She’s going to drive you,” Adrienne said. “Stay out of sight as much as you can.”

“Understood,” I said. “We’ll call when we are in place.”

Heading back to my room, I started packing gear. I’d cross-trained in the SEALs as a sniper, and I had urban combat experience. I pulled out the case holding my urban sniper rifle. It was a suppressed and scoped AR-15 chambered in .300 Blackout that I used for hunting wild boar. The combination of the silencer and the subsonic round reduced the sound to that of a hand clap. The downside was that the slow and heavy round wasn’t good at long distances. With the zero at a hundred yards, the bullet dropped eight inches at 200 yards, twenty-eight inches at 300 yards, and over five feet at 400 yards. I made sure my Glock was secure in its inside-the-waistband holder behind my right hip and made sure my loose shirt hid it well. “We’re going to have to get some food and water for the wait,” I told Maribel.

“I already have that,” she said.

Ken was ready a moment later, his weapons a scoped AR-15 with a collapsible stock, carried in a gym bag. He’d grabbed Matt, another Pack warrior, to serve as his spotter and backup. “You Marines can’t stand being alone,” I teased. SEAL snipers often worked alone, while Scout Snipers trained in pairs.

“Gets boring,” he said. We loaded into the SUV, and Maribel followed the navigation system to the first dropoff point. I handed out the radios and headsets as we drove; they were short-range but effective. We’d use the phone for anything else.

Maribel parked in the alley, and Ken and Matt ducked out. It was still pitch black before the sunrise, and nobody was at work yet. The two were scaling a fire escape as we drove off.

Maribel drove around and parked behind the hotel, and I started to get out. “No, stay here,” she said.

“You should go back,” I said.

“These guys won’t speak English, and you need a room. You also need backup. Wait for me to wave you in.” She got out and walked around to the front desk; a few minutes later, she had opened a side door and waved. I crossed the lot with my bag, and we took a stairway to the third floor.

She’d gotten us a corner room facing the street. I went to work setting up my hide; I’d be shooting at an angle through the window and down. I made sure the blinds were closed, then went to work moving things around. I ended up lying on top of the dresser, using pillows and blankets to make it more comfortable. The drapes and blinds were closed except for the hand-sized opening I would look and shoot through. The cheap hotel air conditioner was struggling as is, so I left the window closed. The thin glass wouldn’t affect the shots after the first one.

“Wolf one, in place, nothing visible,” I heard over the radio.

“Wolf two, same.”

“Wolf one, sending the tracker out on recon. He’ll stay well clear.”

It wasn’t a bad idea; six werewolves in one place for days would leave a strong scent, perhaps carried through ventilation ducts outside the building. It was just after sunrise when I got the word back. “Wolf two, wolf one, positive contact with multiple friendlies,” he said. “I’m calling it in.”

Bingo. Daylight would bring people and traffic, so we would have to wait until after dark to go in. Meanwhile, I’d make sure none of these fuckers got away.