Pheromone Wars Ch. 01

The warehouse looked almost abandoned on this end. Filled with crates and cold, unmoving machinery. Jaren entered a room where the boxes made artificial corridors like a rat's maze. A single light hung from the ceiling. Past the crates, Jaren could see against the next wall a door and a window into another room. That room was well lit, revealing one of the men.

All of a sudden, Jaren heard the rapid sound of machine gunfire. Jonah saw the man pull out his gun and bust out through the door.

"Freeze," Jaren yelled.

The man wheeled around and fired blindly into the room. Jaren shot back putting two bullets in his chest, and the man fell back with the gun spraying bullets in a full arch above his head. A stray round bounced off the metal reflector on the light hanging from the ceiling, sending the room into synchronized states of light and darkness.

Jaren saw two other men jump into the room, leveling their guns at him. He ducked behind another box as burst pieces of wood chip exploded around him.

Standing there was going to get him killed. He started strafing to his left firing bullets over the boxes to keep their heads down. One of them was flanking along with him. They exchanged fire over the industrial equipment until eventually coming up against a brick wall.

As the strobe-light effect of the swinging skylight rendered everything momentarily visible and shrouded, Jaren quickly reloaded his magazine.

Jaren waited until the light was at the far end of its swing effectively putting his half of the room in darkness and then rushed his opponent. The man had a look of shock as the light swung back and Jaren was right on top of him, then he was dead from a point-blank gunshot to the chest.

The momentum carried Jaren forward, tripping over the body, and saving his life. The other man cursed in a foreign language and fired a full clip in a wide arch across the room.

Bullets bounced off the old machinery, making pinging noised, as Jaren kicked the body away from his feet, and crawled to cover.

Both of them were in a standoff position. Jaren knew he had to get to Gina. He had to do something, so he shot out the light in the ceiling. The man cursed and blasted another clip in his direction. Jonah saw the man illuminated in the light of his own flashing barrel. He waited until the man emptied his clip. He slowly moved closer to the man in the dark, his ear ringing by the roar of bullets.

He could barely hear anything over the ringing in his ears. He moved through the darkness, trying to find anything that would give away the other man's position without revealing his. The magazine clattered as it bounced on the concrete floor. Jaren couldn't hear it. Another magazine snapped into place. Jaren couldn't hear it.

Suddenly, Jaren could see the man in front of him like a glowing outline. The outline was like one of those Jaren used at the gun range, a black shadow with the silhouette of a man. Somehow, with the blackness of the outline on the gloom of the darkness, Jaren knew that what he was seeing was the man. It was a powerful aura that Jaren felt more than he saw.

As if in a dream, Jaren pointed his gun at the darkness and pulled the trigger.

His gun shouted twice, and then there was a thump as a body hit the ground.

Jaren raced through the rooms at breakneck speed. His partner was endangered, and he wasn't going to let these guys get to her. He burst through a door into the central part of the warehouse as the two convoys were leaving. Time moved in slow motion. He could see Gina wrestling with a man in the back of one of the vans. He tried to take aim, but the angle was wrong. He moved to the next trailer and fired through the driver's side window. The vehicle veered and crashed into some pallets. Jaren ran around to the other side right as the back doors opened. He saw a flash of light and dived to the floor, firing blindly into the cab. Another man fell dead off the end of the vehicle. Jaren could hear screaming. He leaped to his feet running off after the final van, but by then it was already thirty meters down the road, and it was too late. In the distance, Jaren could hear sirens, their siren sounding like Gina in his ears.

Jaren knew what terrorists did to FBI agents, especially female ones. His thoughts were interrupted by crying coming from the van; women's voices. He moved back to the side of the truck and looked inside.

Inside the van were six women. Two metal bars ran along the inside roof and all six were firmly shackled with handcuffs. Each woman was stripped down to lingerie, and all of them had ball gags in their mouths. All of the women had olive skin and black hair and were beautiful. An African was dressed in a red satin thong and panty set that was vibrantly set against her skin tone.

Jonah got into the van and pulled out one of the gags.

The beautiful woman looked at him, longingly and asked, "Are you are my new master?"

The sirens call grew closer.