Rubin directed the owl to sweep the forest floor in the area where Diego had gone to ground. If he was right, his brother would be pinned down by the sniper, unable to change positions while their assassin would be slowly stealing up on him. If Diego chose to defend himself against the one on the ground, the sniper would kill him. He was dead either way. Rubin had to find the assassin on the ground.
Movement caught the eye of the owl, and Rubin’s heart stuttered for just one moment. The assassin was close, coming up on Diego from the south side. He knew he’d given Diego knowledge of him by the sudden stillness in his mind.
Don’t move. Keep very still. Sending the owl. The leader is watching. Don’t know if he’s a sniper as well, but we have to assume that he is.
His heart accelerated overtime, something very unusual for him. Rubin always kept himself under control, but this was Diego in danger.
The great horned owl was a raptor, a ferocious hunter. This was her territory and she defended it without fear. She left the branch, lifting into the sky on her wings. She was a deadly killing machine, coming out of the darkness in complete silence and dropping low, talons outstretched toward her prey. The first slash was straight at her victim’s eyes, tearing at the orbs with such strength she rolled the man over, removing one eye completely and leaving the other hanging out.
He screamed and threw his arms up in an effort to protect his face and continued rolling. She struck a second time, a terrible blow to the top of his head, leaving behind three four-inch gashes in his scalp. The owl was relentless, striking a third time, tearing with her talons down his arm as he rolled.
Rubin was up and running, leaping over fallen trees and shortened brush, calling to the owl, forcing her away from her prey. Rifle shots reverberated through the night. One from the sniper covering Diego and one from Rubin’s quarry, the team leader who clearly was taking a shot a mile out through trees, both aiming at the owl as she attacked the assassin.
It was too late, Rubin had already called her off and she had risen, circling back toward the sniper closest to Diego, her menacing yellow-orange eyes staring straight into his while her talons slashed at his chest and ripped the rifle from his hands. The sniper nearly fell from the tree and had to leap from one branch to the next in an effort to escape her.
Rubin called to the owl as he ran, using a series of hoots to get her to come to him, fearing the leader would shoot her. Sure enough, the sound of a rifle firing several shots told him the man was doing his best to hit his hunting companion. It only took a couple of minutes, but those two minutes were enough for someone enhanced, such as Rubin, to cover ground fast. He was nearly to the leader’s tree.
Diego was up and running toward the wounded squirrel man on the ground, distracting the leader further. The leader was a little larger than the original squirrel man, but still able to move easily through branches and leap from tree to tree with blurring speed. He was small enough that he could land on the limbs of trees that might not hold bigger men like Diego and Rubin, so he could get higher in the canopy without fear of snapping off the more fragile branches.
Without hesitation, Rubin sent the horned owl straight at the leader, not wanting to risk allowing him to get a shot off at Diego. He hated risking the beautiful bird, but he couldn’t let his brother get shot.
That wouldn’t happen. I’m not that slow. Diego sounded aggravated with him.
Ignoring his brother, Rubin leapt for the lower branches of the tree and pulled himself up fast, using sheer brute strength while the owl began darting in and out of the branches.
An agonized scream heralded the arrival of Diego to the location of the original squirrel man. The leader squeezed off a couple of shots toward Diego and leapt for the next tree. He yelled as the owl tore a gash down his back before he was able to get into a protected shelter of branches where he could fend off the bird’s repeated attacks.
Rubin was up the tree and into the next, climbing higher, keeping the pressure on the leader, not wanting to give him a chance to turn the rifle on Diego or the owl again. The great horned owl helped by continuously flapping its wings and darting in and out of the branches trying to get at the man with beak or talons.
Without warning, thunder rolled overhead, a continuous, ominous booming so loud the ground shook. Rubin, not a man given to cursing, knew, once again, the enemy had backup.