Enemy Below (Nocturnus Book 1) by Devon C. Ford

Author:Devon C. Ford [Ford, Devon C.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Aethon Books
Published: 2024-03-19T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 16

That’s why we got four

Odell walked beside Ryker, both armed, as they patrolled the interior of the perimeter. The acreage of the house was impressive, but it still only took them twenty minutes to conduct a full circuit to get back to the lake.

Odell sucked in a deep breath and let out a sigh that spoke more than words could convey. It said that his ass hadn’t yet touched the ground since he woke up in Korea, and more than that, he’d been on contact twice in the last week. Both of those times were with an enemy that he didn’t know or understand.

He’d fought on various continents, but each time the enemy was human. He understood that, and either their religion or indoctrination or patriotism was the driving force behind their desire to go to war on whatever scale.

Odell had ultimately been the invader, to his enemies at least, only now…

“Yeah, that’s about right, brother,” Ryker said, understanding how he felt from his own experience.

“I’ll adapt,” Odell said flatly, not wanting to dig too deep into those feelings and discuss them with someone else when he didn’t understand them fully himself .

“For what it’s worth, Tara’s grateful. She didn’t know how she would’ve gotten out of it if it wasn’t for you.”

Odell grunted.

“She wouldn’t have been in the situation in the first place if I hadn’t needed to get some stuff from a damn mall,” he said sullenly.

“From what we know, this group of familiars could’ve been tracking us for a long time. We haven’t been back here for about three months, so it isn't on you,” Ryker said.

Odell stiffened but bit back his retort. He didn’t think for a second it was on him. If anything, it was on them for not letting him know the full facts about the kind of enemies they might face.

“But also, for what it’s worth, this is some pretty messed up shit. We’ve gone up against familiars a lot of times, but they’ve never made a move on us unless we were close to taking down a sire,” Ryker went on.

“So, what’s different?” Odell asked, angling away from the house to head to the water’s edge. He looked out and saw a loose cordon of buoys bobbing at the water’s surface.

“Different? That goddam vampire, of course. None of our people have gotten close to him in a generation from what Kim says.”

Odell said nothing, just stood on the grass bank and stared at the water.

“Warning buoys. Anything triggers them it sets off an alarm,” Ryker explained after following the line of his gaze.

“And gives you about eight seconds to do anything about it,” Odell scoffed, seeing how perilously close the buoys were to the jetty to be worth serving as any kind of warning system. “I could cross that distance in a rowboat before anyone even got a weapon out. Twenty guys rock up here, and you’re screwed,” he said, hearing his own voice mark the difference between him and the others.

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