Do Or Die (Surreal Blue Rogue Agent 1) by E.R. Baine Read Free Book Online

wife.

CHAPTER 6
    Xin
felt the bullet land squarely in his right shoulder from behind, nicking his
collar bone on entry. He howled and nearly turned into a werewolf at that
moment. His teeth gnashed as the wound bled. He felt the hairs on his neck
nearly give way to the sharp bristles of his supernatural self. Luckily, he
reined in the werewolf transformation. Not yet, Xin thought, deliberately
calming his beating heart. Then he stilled. His nose twitched at a familiar
smell – vampire.
    Xin
stood at his full height, his face a mask. If he was having fun before, now he
was deadly serious. “Vampires, here?” Xin snickered. He turned, spiraling out
of the darkest fringe of the clearing and slashing a gunman across the back
diagonally from left to right. He was dead. His body did not regenerate. He was
human. But there was a vampire…somewhere.
    “Hmph.”
Xin placed his hand in his pocket, casually walking into the jungle canopy that
shrouded his presence. As he did so, three men with firearms walked into the
clearing Xin had been using as his vantage point since he had arrived on the
site.
    Xin
watched the men closely circling the clearing. He studied their expressions.
The dead bodies they had encountered so far on their way to base headquarters
must surely have them spooked. If he weren’t so astutely trying to accomplish a
stealthy approach, he would surely have enjoyed having a fit of brazen laughter
at their expense. 
    The
men were anxious and their movements were jerky. Beads of sweat leaked from
beneath their black berets down the side of their faces, disappearing into the
damp open collars of their black fatigues.  Their eyes frantically searched the
dense darkness of the tropical jungle around them.
    Xin stood
up.  The clearing was not much to bolster his position: everyone was about six
or seven feet from each other. He withdrew his twelve-inch hunting knife and
held it by the blade, lifting his throwing arm. As the man farthest from him
turned around, Xin flung the blade with such force into the man’s chest that the
gunman was thrown back to land hard against a tree trunk. His rifle released a
few shots, drawing the attention of the two men closest to him.
    Xin
used the diversion to come upon the remaining men from behind. He pierced the
shorter of the men through his jugular with his blade.
    No, Xin
thought to himself quietly.  
    He
drew his sword upward, slicing through the rest of the man’s neck before the blade
entered the other man’s head, slicing it at such an angle that the head was
severed diagonally, leaving one eye intact. The third man was dead before the
body of the second man collapsed to the floor.
    “No ,” Xin
thought again. “ Not a vampire. ” But there was no mistaking that dank,
familiar smell of rotting corpse. “Hmph.” Xin swung his sword to allow the guts
and blood that had collected there to slide off. He deduced that the vampire
must have been on the island a long time, having to deal with the Caribbean
heat, in order to allow its body to pass along its scent so strongly to a human.
    The
gunman stuck to the tree was still firing at him. Xin grabbed the body of the
third man whose head-top was lopped off and proceeded to use it as a shield as
he advanced towards the gunman.  
    The
man’s aim was irregular; the bullets from the rifle tore into the “shield’s” lower
abdomen and legs. Xin covered the few steps to the enemy right away. He drew
the corpse he held with his left hand up against the arm that held the rifle
and the handle of the knife in his chest. The burdensome weight preventing the
gunman from reciprocating, his rifle fired shots at the earth.
    Xin
then pressed down on the corpse, placing pressure on the handle; he looked down
into the eyes of the gunman until they rolled back into his head.
    Xin
stilled.
    Another
one?
    Smiling,
he swiftly swung the sword upward, overhead. The tip of the blade landed dead
center into the head of an armed gunman who had