Blue Curse (Blue Wolf Book 1) Read online

  “Hear that?” Baine said, coming up beside me. “Those are munitions. Not as innocent as you thought, huh?”

  I turned and with my entire two-hundred-fifty-pound frame smashed the butt of my M4 into his face. Baine dropped like a sack of dirt, blood spouting from his broken nose and mouth.

  “Every village in Waristan has munitions, you asshole,” I said coldly.

  When I stepped toward him to deal more punishment, Olaf aimed his BFG at me. The rest of Team 5 responded by turning their M4s on him. “Don’t even fucking think about it,” Segundo growled.

  Olaf ignored him and spoke directly to me. “Leave him alone. I take.”

  He grabbed the strap on the back of his groggy companion’s body armor and began dragging him down the collapse. The team looked at me for direction. “They’re going to need rescue and medical help,” I said of the Kabadi, breaking into a run back toward the compound.

  The rest of my team followed.

  8

  “Muzzles down,” I ordered. “I don’t want our return to be mistaken for a follow-up attack.”

  Ahead, smoke and screams rose above the compound wall. We arrived to find the gate open, children and the elderly streaming out. Several were dust-coated and bleeding. One child stopped to stare at us, blood trickling from his right ear, before an old woman seized his wrist and pulled him after her. We filed past them and ran toward the large building.

  A dense, metallic smoke stung my eyes and burned my lungs. Through the haze, I could see where the building’s hospital wing had once stood, now sheared away and pulverized into a crater. The able-bodied women and men of the village had already begun climbing down, pulling away stones and digging into the blasted wreckage in an attempt to reach anyone still alive. They cried back and forth to one another, coordinating their efforts.

  “Mauli and Dean,” I said. “Begin triaging any wounded you see. Segundo, I want your split team helping the rescue effort outside. Parker will remain with you to interpret. The rest of us will see if we can extract anyone from inside.”

  I led three men through the building’s blown door and up the stairs. The blast had knocked lanterns from their hooks, and oil fires trickled past us, but the main building was surprisingly intact, as though held together by magic. At the top of the steps, I snapped on my weapon-mounted tactical light and shone it down the dust-filled corridor that had led to the infirmary. After ten or so feet, the corridor ended in a collapse.

  Behind us, the barking from earlier continued, though more feverishly now.

  “Start excavating, but watch the ceiling,” I said, eyeing the timber beams. “I’m going to see if there’s anyone back this way.”

  I hustled down the opposite corridor, my flashlight beam slashing across the walls with the strange wolf art. When the corridor took a sharp left, the barking became so loud that it hurt my ears. I soon spotted the source of the sound: a shaking wooden door banded with metal slats. A thick crossbeam sat in a latch, locking the door from the outside.

  As I neared the door, the barking and shaking stopped. Several powerful noses snuffed along the top of the eight-foot-tall frame. I pressed on, but the corridor only turned left again and ended at another collapse.

  I called and then listened, but couldn’t hear anything above the barking, which had started up again. I turned around, approaching the door from the other direction. Now I noticed a greenish current moving across the metal bands, seeming to stiffen every time the door shook. Was some sort of energy field reinforcing the door? If so, what in the hell was powering it?

  Fresh shouting broke out, pulling my thoughts from the question. My men were in trouble. I raced past the rattling door, rounded the corner with my M4, and stopped cold.

  The old witch had emerged from her shrine room, ragged robes dragging across the floor. Green tendrils of light seemed to lash around her as she spoke in a shrill voice. I crept forward and shone my light past her. My men were no longer in the collapsed corridor. Groans sounded from down the stairwell. I peered around the corner and aimed my tactical light down the steps. My men lay at the bottom in a heap as though they’d been thrown.

  “You guys all right?” I called.

  At the sound of my voice, the old woman whipped her wrinkled face toward me, her eye sockets puckering and relaxing like tiny fists. She sniffed the air, then broke into a toothless grin.

  “Something hit us,” my junior weapons sergeant answered groggily.

  “Yeah, felt like another bomb went off,” one of my engineers put in.

  The witch scuffed toward me on the leathery soles of her feet, the tendrils of light seeming to feel their way forward. I didn’t know who or what she was, but something told me she was the reason my men were in a heap. I trained my M4 on her chest and started to sidestep around her.

  “Get outside,” I called down to my men. “Now!”

  They complied as I continued to move around the witch. Her face followed me, black gums showing through her insane smile. I was almost to the steps when her right hand shot forward and grasped my lead wrist, her grip as strong and solid as a metal cuff. I tried to twist away but couldn’t. A sudden lethargy had overcome me. I felt like my limbs were strapped with hundreds of pounds of weights. I fought to keep my rifle trained on her.

  Leaning forward, she spoke into my face. “Sarbozi kavi.”

  Whatever she’d said evoked a giggle, making the small wooden cube that hung from her neck shake. The beasts continued to bark. The witch angled her face past me, as though listening to them. Coming to some decision, she nodded and trained her face back on mine.

  “Ozad ba.” She giggled and nodded some more. “Ozad baaa…”

  The breath that broke against my face might as well have come from the rotten wolf head mounted in her shrine room, it was that putrid. But I remained rooted to the spot, unable to move.

  What the hell is she doing to me?

  “Gurgi Kabud?” she asked.

  “Can’t understand you,” I slurred.

  “Ha ha, Gurgi Kabud,” she repeated, apparently answering the question for me. The tendrils of light surrounding her seemed to arrange themselves into a monstrous wolf shape, similar to those adorning the walls. I noticed that my M4 was no longer aimed at her, but fallen to my side, too heavy to hold aloft now. She pulled me closer, as though I were a helpless child.

  “Let me go,” I demanded.

  She grinned broadly and lifted a gnarled hand to my face. A horny thumbnail caressed my cheek, the contact sending a chill through me. Suddenly her face clenched into a horrid grimace, tears squeezing from the flesh of her eye sockets. Fierce heat seared my cheek as her thumbnail cut into me and began carving the skin with sharp strokes. I strained to pull away.

  “Gurgi Kabud,” she said decisively, and released me.

  I stood for a moment, my cheek on fire. The witch wavered in front of me like a nightmarish mirage, and then my legs folded. I collapsed down the staircase. My helmet and body armor absorbed a lot of the impact, but I arrived at the bottom battered, my rifle clattering down beside me.

  I recovered my weapon quickly and aimed it up the staircase, but the witch was gone.

  Pushing myself to my feet, I stumbled outside into bright light and confusion. Beyond the smoke and rescuers racing back and forth, I found my men standing in a huddle away from the demolished wing.

  “What’s going on?” I asked them. “Why aren’t you helping?”

  Dean, my senior weapons sergeant, nodded at where Nafid was shouting at Parker, Segundo standing beside him. When I walked over, Segundo gave me an aggrieved look.

  “Parker’s been trying to explain that the bombing was a mistake, that we’re here to help, but she’s ordering us to leave. She keeps repeating, ‘You don’t know what you’ve done, you don’t know what you’ve done.’”

  “Parker,” I said, “tell her—”

  But before I could finish, Nafid spun on me and began beating my chest with her fists. The lethargy that ha
d overcome me in the witch’s presence dissipated, and I gripped her forearms forcefully.

  “Listen, we didn’t order the bombing,” I said, Parker translating quickly. “That was a mistake. A horrible mistake, and I am so sorry. But let’s think about the ones we can help right now. We can bring in rescuers and medical supplies. We can evac the seriously injured. Tell us what we can do.”

  She stopped struggling long enough to glare at me. “You have done enough,” she said, the accented words sharp and venomous. “Leave now if you and your men want to live.”

  I released her, and she stormed back toward the demolition.

  “That sounded a lot like English,” Segundo said. “And was that a threat?”

  “It doesn’t matter, we’re clearing out,” I said. “We can’t force ourselves on them.”

  And Nafid was right, we had already done enough. I’d known Baine and Olaf were mercenaries. I should have kept a closer eye on them, goddammit. I turned and walked toward the gate. The rest of the team followed.

  Outside the smoking compound we moved into a single file and trudged back toward our valley, the cries slowly fading off behind us.

  I looked from where we had set up the 240s the night before down to the valley floor. A circle of blasted sand showed me exactly where the helicopter had landed and picked up Baine and Olaf as well as our heavy guns.

  Son of a bitch.

  “Our rucksacks are gone too,” Hotwire said, emerging from the building.

  Make that an effing son of a bitch, I thought. The rucks held most of our computers and commo equipment, not to mention our spare food, water, and ammo.

  “Think Centurion has any more helos coming for us?” Parker asked timidly.

  “No, we’re gonna be on our own,” I said, remembering Baine’s smug, defiant face the instant before my rifle stock smashed home. There was no way he was sending help. “Hotwire, see who you can get on the radio. Start with Stanick. Give him a full update on our situation. If he can’t get us anything today, try Pete. We’ll have to rely on what’s left in our packs and vests in the meantime.”

  “Anyone need medical attention?” Mauli asked.

  I answered in the negative along with the rest of the team.

  “Hold on, sir, what happened here?” Mauli asked, gesturing toward my cheek.

  I brushed the crumbs of dried blood from the burning wound. “An old woman scratched me.”

  “Well let’s get some antibiotic in you.” He reached into his medical bag and pulled out a syringe. “No telling what’s in her fingernails, and you don’t want that getting infected.”

  Now that he mentioned it, my face felt flushed with fever and I had the beginnings of a goring headache. Didn’t think an infection could spread that quickly, I thought as I pushed up my right sleeve. Mauli scrubbed a spot behind my bicep with an alcohol wipe and plunged the needle in.

  “There,” he said, depressing the plunger and withdrawing the needle.

  One moment I was thinking about how pale everything looked and in the next I was in Mauli’s arms, my big medic struggling to hold me upright. The tingling sensation of recovering consciousness filled my head.

  “Whoa there, Captain. Why don’t we get you inside and lying down?”

  I noticed the rest of the team watching us. I had never so much as caught a cold during a mission much less fainted. “I’m fine,” I said, patting his arms. “Just a head rush. Segundo, can I talk to you?”

  Mauli’s brow bent in concern. “You might need some fluids.”

  “I said I’m fine.”

  I left Mauli’s side and led my number two to the far side of the bunker, out of earshot of the rest of the team. My head was still swimmy, and my legs weren’t all there, but I disguised both by leaning an arm against the wall. Now wasn’t the time to show weakness.

  “How bad’s our situation?” Segundo asked.

  “That depends on how long it takes to get a ride. Who knows what Baine is telling his superiors right now, but you can bet it’s not good.”

  “When I get my hands on that little…” Segundo muttered.

  “Which means we can forget about Centurion’s help,” I continued. “That leaves the other services, most of which are going to be committed to the capital. If Stanick can’t find us something, Pete might be able to work some magic. But I think we should prepare the men to spend another night out here.”

  “Without air support or heavy weapons?” Segundo asked, scanning the opposite ridge. “Fuck.”

  “Yeah, we’ll have to assume there are still fighters in the area, but we have another eight hours of daylight. We’ll bolster our defenses, scout out retreat routes and rally points.” My face felt like it was on fire, and I could hear my heart pounding in my ears. I wiped my drenched brow with a forearm. “Tonight we’ll run security at fifty percent and deal with whatever we have to deal with.”

  “Captain?” Hotwire called.

  When I turned, the image of him sitting on the ground wavered. He had screwed in the long antenna on his radio and was working the knobs with one hand while holding a headphone to his ear with the other. “Stanick is headed to D.C. for a meeting, but I spoke to the deputy commander. He doesn’t think he can get us anything until early tomorrow. I’m trying Pete, but no luck so far.”

  Segundo swore under his breath.

  “Keep trying,” I mumbled, then landed face first in the dirt.

  9

  In my feverish sleep, I was twelve again, on the bank of Mission Creek with my best friend, Billy. It was Labor Day, the final day of summer break. We’d gotten up early, packed four peanut butter and jelly sandwiches apiece, and hiked the two miles with our fishing poles to our favorite spot, splitting for a container of night crawlers and a big bottle of Pepsi on the way. Now we sat against a pair of shady tree trunks, slowly reeling our lines through the muddy water.

  “If I could quit school and fish for a living, I’d do it in a second,” Billy said.

  “Yeah, school sucks,” I agreed. “And I heard seventh grade sucks worse than sixth.”

  I hadn’t heard that, but it felt good to say. My family lived in the country in a house my dad had built. He owned a machine that split wood, which he sold by the truckload along with pine straw. Between that and his construction projects, we did fine. I figured I’d carry on the work when I grew up, so what did I need earth science and pre-algebra for?

  Billy took a swig from the Pepsi bottle. “There’s good squirrel hunting in those woods back behind the school, though.”

  “Maybe we can hit it on the weekends.”

  “Weekends? I’m talking about after school.”

  I was about to tell him that I didn’t think we could bring our shotguns to school when a branch snapped behind us. I turned my head expecting to see a deer—the woods were full of them—instead, three teenaged boys were wading toward us through the brush. They wore denim jackets even though the morning was warming quickly and would hit ninety by noon. The shoulders of their jackets were littered with leaves, suggesting they’d slept out here, maybe just woken up. I’d never seen them before, but I knew right off they were trouble.

  “Well, looky here,” the lead one said. He was thin with a scruffy blond beard and a dirty John Deere hat that was too big for his head. “If it ain’t Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn.”

  I peered over at Billy, then squinted back at John Deere. The boys on either side of him were built like linebackers, but they looked sick, their faces pasty and dull, dark rings around their eyes. A coldness seemed to encompass all three of them, making my throat tighten with fear.

  “You boys catching anything?” John Deere asked.

  “Not yet,” Billy said in a tone of annoyance.

  “Well, maybe you’re not doing it right,” John Deere said. “You ever try bleeding the waters? Good way to lure fish in. Might even attract some sharks.” The other boys chuckled. John Deere only grinned, his eyes seeming to glint from the shadow beneath his green bill.


  “We know how to fish,” Billy said. “And there aren’t sharks in fresh water.”

  Because of his size, Billy could usually get away with being defiant. But these guys were bigger—and there were three of them. I stayed quiet, hoping the less said, the less reason they’d have to hang around.

  John Deere stared at Billy, his mouth straightening. “Is that right?” he asked thinly. The boy to his right whispered something to him that seemed to restore John Deere’s charm. “Say…” He coughed into a fist. “Our car broke down, and we could use some help. You boys wouldn’t have any money you could spare so we can fix our ride and get outta here?”

  “We didn’t bring any money,” Billy said.

  But that was a lie, and John Deere knew it. He was looking at our foam container of night crawlers, “$2.50” written in black ink across the plastic lid. I thought about pulling out the two bucks and change I could feel sitting in the bottom of my pocket, but instead I gripped my pole tighter in both hands.

  “Didn’t bring any money,” John repeated. “So you must’ve stolen that.”

  Billy followed his gaze to the container. Seeing he’d been caught, he muttered, “What’s it to you? You want money, go earn it yourself.”

  “What did you say?” John demanded.

  “He told you to get a job,” the boy to his right said, laughing dully. His front teeth were brown, one of them chipped in half. The other boy laughed too. This time John didn’t even grin.

  “Bring him over here,” he ordered.

  Billy dropped his pole, but by the time he scrambled to his feet, the two boys had him by either arm. He swore and tried to stomp their feet, but they only laughed and lifted him into the air. I stayed sitting, icy fists clamped around my pole, insides frozen through.

  The boys carried him struggling to John Deere, whose lips had turned up at the corners again. This time a pair of canines flashed, their tips filed to perfect points. He stuck both hands into Billy’s front pockets, his left hand emerging with three five dollar bills, money Billy had earned helping his dad deliver hay bales.