Chapter 4 Element of Surprise #2
The stealth phase of Operation: Duck & Cover officially gave way to what military strategists have historically termed a complete shit show.
One moment, the dire wolf was crouched beside me, the picture of attentive subordination. The next, he was airborne, a charcoal blur of fur and questionable judgment launching himself toward the unsuspecting ducks with a battle cry that nearly blew out my mental eardrums.
“Abort! Abort!” I hissed, but it was too late. The element of surprise was replaced by the element of “Oh, shit.”
Like the fool I was, I followed him and, in that split second before my body propelled itself into action, I had a moment of clarity.
This must be how Cas feels most of the time. Watching helplessly as his idiot brother hurls himself into disaster.
The ducks exploded into motion, their previously peaceful swimming transformed into a panicked frenzy of wings and alarmed quacking.
I lunged forward, arms outstretched toward the closest duck, a plump female with iridescent blue wing tips.
My fingers brushed feathers, victory tantalizingly close, then the duck pivoted and wing-smacked me in the face.
“Noctem maledicta!” I spluttered, staggering back as the duck honked and took flight, narrowly missing my head with its webbed feet.
Brumous wasn’t faring any better. His dramatic leap had ended with a spectacular belly-flop, sending water spraying in all directions, before he started to sink into the mud.
“Hang on, buddy! Extraction team inbound!”
I changed course, wading toward him, but slipped, arms windmilling, and landed on my ass in a foot of muddy water. A cloud of displaced silt bloomed around me, turning the crystal-clear lake water into something resembling chocolate milk.
“What are you doing, Zoodle?” Seri’s voice rang out.
Slowly, I turned to face our audience.
She stood at the edge of the dock, her gray eyes wide with both shock and amusement. Behind her, Ko had already succumbed to laughter, doubled over with his book clutched to his chest like a life preserver. Cas had one eyebrow raised to heights previously unknown to mankind.
“Would someone please explain what the hell is happening?”
“I, uh.” I cleared my throat and squared my shoulders even as my ass sank a little deeper in the mud. “Tactical acquisition mission. Minor setback. Situation normal.”
“Bleeding night!” Ko doubled over, heaving helplessly as tears streamed down his face. “You’re a mud monster!”
Seri wasn’t in much better shape. Her cheeks were red and her gray eyes sparkling.
“Are you okay?” Helpless giggles punctuated her question.
“You know, there are days when I wonder why I haven’t moved to a remote island.” Cas pinched the bridge of his nose. “Today is one of those days.”
Brumous chose that moment to flounder free, dripping wet and covered in muck, looking like the world’s most pathetic swamp creature. His telepathic message contained nothing but confused embarrassment and something like, Again?
“Negative, Agent Fuzznuts,” I muttered. “Mission compromised. Retreat.”
But the ducks, having scattered in all directions during our initial assault, had regrouped. And reorganized. And, if the synchronized way they were now turning to face us was any indication, declared war.
“Uh, guys?” My voice rose slightly as I scrambled to my feet. “We might have a problem.”
Seri, wiping tears of laughter from her eyes, managed to gasp out, “What were you even trying to do?”
“Negative, HQ.” I backed away from the advancing duck armada. “Cannot disclose mission parameters at this time.”
“I think he’s trying to catch you a duck,” Ko supplied, still burbling with laughter.
“Classified information, Alpha Boom!” I shot him a betrayed look. “Court martial offense!”
“A duck? Why would you—”
“For petting purposes!” I explained, dignity in shreds, but honesty intact. “You like petting soft things! Ducks are soft! Ergo, acquire duck for beloved!”
“Oh, Zoodle.” Her eyes softened into something so fond, it made my heart hurt.
“Less sympathy, more assistance!” I howled as Commander Quack rose from the water.
His wings extended to their full span, water droplets sparkling as they fell from his feathers. He quacked once, the sound carrying across the suddenly still lake like a general’s command.
“Incoming!” I shouted as the mallard took flight, followed by three of its compatriots.
Seri shrieked as the ducks flew past her. Ko, still wheezing, held his book over his head. Cas, who had been gathering Seri’s fishing supplies, completely uninvolved in this disaster, suddenly found himself in the path of an avian missile.
The duck adjusted its trajectory, and Cas turned at the last second, his supernatural reflexes kicking in, but it was too late. The duck released its payload onto Cas’ left shoulder, splattering his black t-shirt with a generous serving of white-green excrement.
For a moment, nobody moved. Nobody breathed. The universe itself seemed to pause.
Casimir Leif Cimmerian, dhampir son of the Vampire King, lethal enforcer and embodiment of cold dignity, had just been shat on by a duck.
His face. Oh, his face. The progression from confusion to realization to abject horror was poetry in motion, a symphony of expressions that culminated in a noise I had never heard him make before, a strangled, choking sound that was part gasp, part growl, and entirely un-Casimir-like.
The duck let out a triumphant honk as it banked away, wings spread wide in victory, and Ko hit the deck.
I don’t mean he fell to his knees or sat down hard.
I mean he literally collapsed, folding in on himself like a puppet with cut strings, shoulders shaking with silent laughter so intense, he couldn’t even make sound anymore.
He curled into a fetal position on the dock, face buried in his arms, body convulsing.
Seri had one hand pressed to her mouth, tears streaming down her cheeks, the other hand clutching the dock railing for support as her knees buckled. The sound that escaped her was somewhere between a sob and a laugh, high and breathless.
“Simmy, your face!” she managed between gasps for air.
I remained frozen in the water, caught between twin impulses to flee for my life and to preserve this moment in my memory until my dying day.
Which, judging by the look Cas was now aiming at me, might be sooner than expected.
MISSION LOG
TIME: T-plus 30 seconds after realizing I created a monster
CASUALTIES: My dignity, Brumous’ battle strategy, Cas’ shirt
UNFORESEEN DEVELOPMENTS: Simmy has a sense of humor. Who knew?
The universe holds certain truths sacred. Gravity. Tax audits. Lucian never smiling. So when the hostile bogey scored a direct hit, time itself stuttered.
Cas’ jaw muscle twitched like a metronome set to ‘regicidal’ as the duck circled back for a strafing run, wings backlit by the sun like some avenging angel of avians.
“Man hahaha down,” Ko wheezed. “I repeat hehehe man hahaha down!”
Soaking wet, panting, covered in feathers and mud, Agent Fuzznuts and I watched in disbelief as Casimir—methodical, controlled, “I iron my socks” Casimir—reached for the hem of his ruined shirt and stripped it off.
“You want war?” he growled. “You’ve got it.”
Oh, shit. The Cimmerian Winter Soldier has finally snapped.
The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. Seri’s laughter choked into a startled squeak. Even Koa paused mid-wheeze to stare.
I’d seen my brother shirtless approximately ten thousand times in my existence, but I’d never seen him strip down with such deadly purpose. His green eyes locked on the duck with the kind of determination usually reserved for tracking serial killers.
“Cas?” I ventured, but he was already moving.
With dhampir speed that blurred his edges, he twisted his poopy shirt into an improvised net and took three running steps. The offending duck, perhaps sensing its imminent doom, quacked in alarm and changed course.
Too slow.
Muscles coiled, Cas lunged up, twisting in mid-air with the kind of grace that would make Olympic gymnasts look clumsy.
The shirt-net whipped outward, slicing through the air with a soft whistle, and ensnared the bird mid-flap.
Duck and dhampir landed on the dock, one in superhero crouch, the other with indignant quacking.
“Night’s teeth,” I breathed, truly impressed, and Brumster sent me a feeling that could only be translated as, Whoa.
Seri was doubled over laughing again, one hand pressed against her mouth in a failed attempt to contain her giggles.
Koa was still on the ground, having progressed from silent wheezing to gasping like a man who’d just run a marathon while smoking a pack of cigarettes.
Every time he started to calm down, he’d look at Cas standing shirtless and victorious with a duck-stuffed bundle and collapse into fresh convulsions.
With the dignified bearing of a conquering general, Cas strode toward me, holding his quacking conquest at arm’s length.
I struggled to my feet, squelching unpleasantly. Brummy shook himself, sending a spray of lake water in all directions and somehow making his fur stick up in tufts that resembled a dozen mini mohawks.
Up to his shins in mud, Cas stopped in front of me and, with great ceremony, extended the shirt-duck-bundle toward me.
“Your target, Agent Dumbass, has been acquired.”
I accepted the bundle, feeling the duck squirm indignantly within its cotton prison. It poked its head out between folds of fabric and fixed me with a baleful stare. It quacked once, which I’m pretty sure translated to, “I will end you in your sleep.”
“Tactical assessment?” Cas crossed his arms over his bare chest and stared at me.
“I may have underestimated the opposition.” I spat out a feather that had somehow lodged itself between my teeth.
His mouth twitched. Just the slightest movement at the corner, hardly noticeable, but I knew that twitch. It was the Casimir equivalent of rolling on the floor laughing.