More Than Human

Chapter 54: It Dwells in the Lake

They were running out of locations to check. Laswell had cleared out a bunch of the locations they had found in Soap's lab. She had gone through hundreds of records to figure out which of the labs had already been raided. That had left five locations that they hadn't previously been aware of.

Price had gotten Farah and her team to check out the nearest one to their location. They had sent the rest of the Vaqueros to investigate one in Mexico. He, Ghost, and some other soldiers cleared a location in Manchester. That only left two locations.

And if they didn't find the team in one of those, they had no other leads. It was making Price sick to think about. He kept running over both Gaz and Soap's reactions to being in the labs. Soap's story about them giving him an appendix and then ripping it back out echoed in his mind. He couldn't imagine the sort of things that the four of them could be going through right now.

Two weeks had passed, at this point he could only hope that they were being tested on. The alternative was that they were dead, and he couldn't let himself think that.

Ghost was clearly struggling. Price hadn't seen him this closed off since they had first met. That was another reason to find the team as fast as possible. If they didn't find them then Price feared all of the progress the vampire had made would be for nothing.

Laswell offered to take one of the two locations as it was in the states. In Atlanta, Georgia. That left the other one to Price, Ghost, and their team. The last location was in Austria.

That gave the Captain an idea.

As soon as they touched down on Austrian soil, he whipped out his phone and made a call. It went just as well as he could have hoped, so there wasn't a moment to lose. He hurried back to where Ghost was helping to unload their equipment.

Price found his box of magic supplies and rifled around to find the right thing. At the time of purchasing it, he didn't have a practical purpose for the item in question. He had tried to use it to wake up Kyle at one point, but it was a real shot in the dark and ultimately led to nothing. But he was glad he had it now.

He slipped the item into a foam padded case and hurried over to Ghost.

"Oi! Simon! On me. We have business before we head to that lab tomorrow." He tapped Ghost on the arm as he passed.

Ghost didn't respond, just looked up from what he was doing and followed behind him. Like a machine. It disturbed Price, but he was in the process of trying to fix it so he just needed to keep moving forward.

They hopped into a spare transport vehicle and Price floored it, heading in the opposite direction of civilization. At a certain point Ghost looked up from the window and turned to face him.

"Captain, where are we going exactly?"

"The woods." He said simply, "And then a lake."

"Why exactly? Shouldn't we be prepping for tomorrow?"

"That's exactly what we're doing, my boy." Price told him.

An hour later, they were pulling off to the side of the road and parking the car. Price briefly checked their location on a map before stuffing it back into the glove box and hopping out. Heading in a straight line into the forest. Ghost trailed behind him, clearly very confused as to what they were doing here.

"Why don't you find a deer or something, Ghost? You'll need the energy for tomorrow." Price suggested as they walked. Ghost didn't respond to that either, but slipped off into the quiet of the trees to find something to drain.

Feeding was now a miserable experience without Soap. He really had ruined everything else for him. And eating just felt like a reminder that Johnny wasn't here with him, where he belonged.

He managed to find a deer, just as Price had suggested. He melted into the shadows and waited for the buck to step into one. As soon as he did, Ghost emerged and lunged upward from the ground, latching onto its jugular and pulling.

When he finished and had cleaned himself up he tracked Price down. The man was on the edge of a lake. He was setting a small case down onto a rock and unlatching it.

"Welcome back, Simon." He called without looking up. Price was one of the few humans who could always sense his presence, "How was your meal?"

"It'll sustain me." Ghost grumbled, "But I would really like to know what we are doing here in a way that isn't entirely vague and confusing."

Price managed to chuckle as he removed the item from the case. Ghost eyed it. It was a large conch shell.

The Captain held it up, "Told you I could get us more hands. Since we were here I made a quick phone call to someone who owed me a favor. Got one of his men for our team."

"And why'd we have to come to a lake in the middle of nowhere-?"

Before Ghost could even finish his question, Price was blowing into a small hole on one side of the shell. It echoed across the water and the trees surrounding the clearing. When he finished his blow he pulled it away from his face and gazed out across the lake.

Nothing happened.

"Captain-?"

"Sh!"

Ghost full on glared at the man. Did he seriously just "Sh" him right now? The hell?

His attention was suddenly pulled away from Price as a deep rumble sounded from the water. The surface rippled, and bubbles began to emerge in the center of the water, slowly spreading out across it.

All of the rumbling and motion stopped leaving a tense silence. Ghost jumped slightly when a large wet tentacle suddenly slapped down onto the shore between him and Price. And then another on a nearby rock. And then another, and another, and another.

He looked back up at the water to see a head poking out and blinking at him and Price.

Price called out, "I am Captain John Price and this is Lieutenant Riley! You've been reassigned to my task force! We have a mission!"

A couple of bubbles popped up around where the thing's mouth probably was. The tentacles clenched and the thing was moving closer, Ghost realized that it was pulling itself toward the shore. It slowly started to look more human as it approached, and one of the tentacles reached behind a nearby rock and snatched a wad of fabric and pulled it back toward the individual. Before Ghost could get a good look at their face it was covered by a black hood of some kind.

By the time it reached land, Ghost could see it was a man. Some of his remaining tentacles draped a large towel over his shoulders and slipped back under the fabric.A few slipped under the hood, apparently having emerged from his face.

The man was fucking big. And Ghost was a large man himself. But this guy was even bigger. The man carefully stepped across the rocky shore toward them. He slipped and slid a bit, still adjusting to his legs on land.

He walked until he stood just in front of Ghost and Price. He would have been imposing if he wasn't slightly hunched in on himself and nervously keeping his eyes on the ground through the mask, occasionally looking at them as if having to force himself to make eye contact.

"H-hi there." He said, and Ghost took note of his accent.

Ghost turned to look at Price, "You got us a kraken?"

Price gestured at the man in front of them, "What has more hands than a kraken?"

"Tentacles. They aren't hands, Price!" Ghost told him, incredulous. He huffed and turned to look back up at the man.

He had to admit, having a kraken at their disposable made them extremely formidable. More than they already were. He could take on so many men at once.

He held out his own gloved hand to him, "What's your name, Squid?"

The man slowly reached a hand out from under the towel and gripped his confidently, although Ghost noticed the slight tremor of nerves, "I am called König."

"Well, König." He started, "Let's get you some clothes."

"Yes, Lieutenant."

"I brought some in the car." Price chimed in, looking him up and down, "I don't think they're quite big enough though."