Sela
Kahne sat at her desk, staring at the computer screen and wondering
why she hadn't taken one more day of vacation time. An extra
day would have meant another layer of tan on her normally pale
skin, another couple of chapters of the latest James Patterson
novel read, and a few more hours' reprieve from typing up reports
that all said the same thing in conclusion: HOAX.
She sighed heavily and reached for the bag of Skittles she
kept on her desk. She popped two into her mouth and cringed.
She'd lost a filling during her vacation and desperately needed
to see a dentist.
"ACRO's dentists are the best in the area," Torrence
Olivia, the only other psychic besides Sela who worked in the
Agency for Covert Rare Operatives' Cryptozoology department,
said as she walked by.
"I hate it when you do that," Sela grumbled, mainly
because her own psychic ability was restricted to reading people
only during orgasm.
"Hon, I didn't do anything. You have 'dentist' written
on your to-do list." Torr tapped the notepad next to the
computer with a crimson-painted nail.
"Oh."
"What's wrong?" Torrence crossed her arms over her
chest, her dark skin contrasting beautifully with her cream
blouse. "You just got back from vacation. You should be
vibrant. Unless...was Puerto Rico not as relaxing as it should
have been?"
Sela stiffened. "How did you know I was in Puerto Rico?"
"Hello?" Torr tapped her temple. "Psychic."
She never knew whether or not Torr was kidding when she said
things like that, but given that Sela had told everyone, including
her immediate boss, Mitch, she was going to the Bahamas and
not to Puerto Rico, she could only assume that Torrence had
gone psychic on her.
"You didn't tell anyone, did you?" Not that her change
of plans had been a huge secret, but she was supposed to have
been drinking fruity cocktails on a beach instead of investigating
the origins of El Chupacabra.
She couldn't wait to debunk the myth of the "goat sucker"
once and for all. Confirming that the crazy things people believed
in were false was a passion of hers, and it made her one of
the few cryptozoologists in the field who were in it to disprove
mythical creatures' existence.
And the cryptid she wanted the most to prove didn't exist was
the one highlighted in the book in front of her, Chupacabra:
Myth No More. The author, an eccentric, ego-maniac billionaire
she'd met half a dozen times at cryptozoological society gatherings,
claimed to have spent years in the jungles of Central America
observing chupacabra behavior like one of those nuts who infiltrated
a pack of wolves.
The chupacabra is a solitary creature that will kill others
of its kind, though they do appear to mate for life. They give
birth to a single offspring, which is capable of living on its
own within six months. Males are larger than females, and they
mark their territory by spraying scent and clawing trees and
fences. Their ability to heal from wounds is nothing short of
amazing, something I witnessed after a young female was attacked
and nearly killed by a jaguar...
What a freaking blowhard con artist. The book had made Parker
Grady a celebrity in the cryptozoological circles, but Sela
thought it only made him look like an idiot.
"Earth to Sela..." Torr waved her hand in front of
Sela's face. "I just said I won't tell anyone about Puerto
Rico. It's not my place." She shoved her glasses up on
her nose. "I'm going down to the lab. Oh, I almost forgot.
A messenger delivered that package on your desk. He said after
you watch it, you're supposed to call Dev."
Dev. The big boss. Head of ACRO, whom she rarely saw...and
she preferred it that way. He hadn't exactly hired her under
normal circumstances five years ago, and while she didn't regret
how she'd come to ACRO, she did feel a little sleazy about it.
Twenty-one, cocky, and just sure she was smarter than ninety-five
percent of the planet's population, she'd pretty much forced
her way into the agency. Only later had she realized that Dev
could have taken her apart and made her disappear so completely
there wouldn't have been a trace that she'd ever existed.
For some reason, he hadn't. He'd played her game, let her believe
she had the upper hand...and even after she figured out Dev
had been one move ahead of her from the beginning, he never
rubbed it in. But he knew she knew. It was in his gorgeous brown
eyes every time he saw her.
Stop thinking about it.
She shook out of her past, out of the things she'd done before
she'd come to the Crypto department, and opened the padded envelope.
Inside was a DVD. She slipped the disk into her computer, entered
her individual access code, and palmed a handful of Skittles.
The screen filled with trees. Thick brush, vines...a jungle.
The camera shooting the scene was in motion – a helmet
cam? Yes, definitely. The person wearing the camera turned to
the side, and she made out two men in camouflage, their faces
painted, their rifles aimed and braced against their shoulders.
She
popped a piece of candy into her mouth, remembering too late
to chew on the left side. Pain shot from her molar into her
skull.
On the screen, one of the men made a hand signal, and the camera
panned to the right. Slowly, it moved forward. The camera jolted,
and then focused on the ground.
Sela slapped a hand over her mouth to hold in a gasp of horror.
What was left of a man lay strewn about on the forest floor,
his bloody mouth frozen in a terrified grimace.
And then came a scream. All hell broke loose. The sound of
guns firing, men shouting, and something screeching
had Sela reaching for the volume.
The camera jerked around wildly, giving her only glimpses of
the action, but what she saw sent chills up her spine. The men
seemed to be fighting off some sort of creature. It moved fast,
and if the film could be trusted, it had red eyes and huge fangs.
What the hell was it?
Suddenly, the camera stopped moving, its angle skewed, apparently
lying on the ground. Sela saw clawed, scaly feet approaching.
Her heart shot into her throat, blocking the candy as she tried
to swallow. Between the thing's legs she could see the men.
Well, parts of them, lying in a growing pool of blood.
A snarl vibrated the camera, and then there was a gaping mouth,
a splatter of blood on the lens...and all went black.
Sela choked on her own breath. Dear God, those men had been...slaughtered.
Dismembered, disemboweled.
Her phone rang, and she nearly bit her tongue. She'd seen some
gruesome things during her career as a cryptozoologist, but
nothing could have prepared her for seeing humans torn apart
before her eyes.
She picked up the phone with a shaky hand. "Sela."
"It's Dev. You watched the video?"
"Yes."
"Meet me at my office in ten minutes." He hung up,
and she slumped back in her chair. Something told her it was
a good thing she hadn't unpacked yet.
* * *
Logan Mills smelled the hot, fetid breath of the beast hanging
heavily in the humid air of the Amazonian jungle. They were
close but somehow no closer than they'd been since they'd begun
this mission.
The animal was smart - and Logan had a sickening feeling that
he and his team were actually the ones being hunted.
He took a swig of water from the canteen that hung from a line
on his pack and then capped it and checked his weapons again
- an M14, a Sig and two tranqs with enough juice to put down
a hippo.
His body had finally adjusted to the heat after thirty plus
days in this place - he'd gotten used to sweating as his body
tried to keep up with the constant water loss and all of this
reminded him of his days in Special Ops.
"Hey, Lo - we gonna call it a day soon?" Dax, one
of his men, called quietly. Logan glanced at his watch. 1600.
Thanks to the overlay, they'd find themselves in total darkness
sooner than later.
They'd been on the move since 0600 - non-stop except for water
breaks and, while they'd found evidence of the escaped beast,
they still hadn't been able to track it down.
His men were tired - of the jungle, of this mission, of Logan's
non-stop barking and near-obsession with recovering the creature
he didn't know anything about, beyond the fact that it was lethal.
His men didn't understand the full consequences - and if he
had his way, they never would. No one else would either, and
that's why Logan planned on continuing his search for a few
more hours.
"I'm not paying you to sleep," he answered Dax evenly.
The man shook his head and held up his arms in silent surrender
and Logan sighed. He got it - they were exhausted. It was a
feeling he could barely remember, and so garnering sympathy
for it was harder than he'd expected.
He wasn't tired - never got tired anymore. In fact, he often
had to force himself to sleep so the still-human part of his
mind could take a rest.
He was a product of his father's company, a company he now
oversaw - one he had controlling shares in, thanks to his father's
continually bad decision making. Global Weapons Corporation
had been his father's brainchild and was now Logan's baby, having
rescued the company from nearly complete financial ruin to a
growing enterprise in four short years.
It
had been severely mismanaged, thanks to his father's ego - the
old man could never see past the get rich quick aspect of the
weapon's development - to see that GWC could be a huge asset
to the American government in the fight against terrorism.
Except his father insisted on making decisions behind Logan's
back. Like this most recent one - the re-acquisition of some
kind of species - labeled UnClass 8 - that killed an entire
SEAL team last month when GWC had accidentally released it after
nearly three years of modifications.
Logan's gut twisted as he thought back to his own accident
four years earlier - when the helo had crashed into the side
of a mountain, killing his own SEAL team and leaving him maimed
and dying at the bottom of a ravine for three days.
After he was found by the Marines, his father had him airlifted
from the military hospital in Germany to a private hospital
in London where a team of scientist and surgeons waited to save
Logan's life.
He'd been rebuilt with special bioware - his arms, his heart,
part of his brain. He functioned with an efficiency that scared
even him, wondered if maybe the company had taken things too
far.
But how could he have told his father he did the wrong thing
by not letting his son die?
"We'll work for another hour and then head back to camp,"
he told Dax, who nodded and turned to let the other four men
know there was an end in sight to today's mission.
Logan turned back toward the twisted path and studied the broken
branches, tipped with the blood of the animal's most recent
kill – a deer they'd found fifty yards away. He'd told
his men they were hunting something that looked like a komodo
dragon when, in all honesty, he didn't know what the hell this
thing was, never mind what it looked like.
He and his own team had been in the jungle for only two days
searching for it when they'd stumbled on the massacre - four
Navy SEALs killed - torn to pieces hours earlier.
According to reports that Logan still had access to, there
had been five SEALs on that mission, not four, and a search
and rescue team was on the way. And Logan had made it his mission
to find that man, because the thought of him being left behind
made Logan physically ill - especially when he'd realized that
it was his own father who'd caused the entire catastrophe.
Just after he'd given the order to his men to continue their
search for a fifth body, he'd tripped over something - cursed
and turned back to kick the branch out of the way.
But it hadn't been a branch at all. It was a human - or what
was left of one. Immediately, he'd motioned to Dax and the two
of them brushed the leaves off the body and uncovered what Logan
believed to have been one of the missing SEALs.
Tentatively, he'd felt for a pulse and nearly jumped out of
his skin when the man later identified as Chance McCormack grabbed
his wrist and whispered, "Watch out - it's coming for you."
They'd gotten him back to base camp, and because of that decision
Logan was forced to leave the massacred SEALs behind for the
Navy search and rescue to find. Which they had - and they also
had evidence of the slaughter, thanks to a helmet-cam one of
the men had worn, but no clear shot of the animal that was responsible
for the rampage.
And so Logan had been hiding Chance for the better part of
the month, even after the Navy had called off their search.
Hiding him, healing him...and figuring out what the hell to
do next.
Watch out - it's coming for you.
Now, as he moved forward through the ever-darkening jungle,
those words continued to echo in his ears.
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