Vegas Run

by Rachel A Brune

  Calix depressed the button on the hand set clipped to her vest. "Team, this is base. Target positively identified."

  Click, click. "Got a bead on security?"

  Click, click. "Pretty standard perimeter. Internal as well."

  Click, click. "Roger. Base out."

  For all that the facility resembled a high-end Eurotrash resort, the picture on the ground resolved into a building into which someone had poured a lot of expertise into making it as hard to break into as possible.

  No chain link fence topped with barbed wire surrounded the place. However, the wall that did was made of two-feet-thick stone–at least–and topped with art deco lamps that would likely flood the well-maintained grounds, robbing any intruder of a convenient shadow in which to sneak.

  Any and all trees had been cleared away from the wall at least ten feet on both sides, and most of the grounds were flat and covered with either grass or some sort of sports equipment. Here and there, a large, old tree had been left so as not to completely de-nude the place. But still. Any intruders, like us, were going find it hard to move covertly. And that didn't account for things we couldn't see but assumed were there–motion sensors, alarms, roving patrols, etc.

  From the looks of the inside, they were prepared there as well–in addition to the interior guard, we caught a glimpse of a canine patrol. Likely, somewhere in there would be a second, hidden facility, much like the operation up north.

  Whoever these Black Mountain assholes were, they were well-funded and knew what they were about.

  "Does she look like she's being held under duress to you?" Calix mused aloud.

  Until she said it, I hadn't thought it. Being so laser focused on rescuing Dmitri's daughter, I hadn't actually stopped to think about what it might mean if she had maybe disappeared on purpose. After all, that's what Dmitri had as much told me he'd done. What if she had taken a page from her father's book, and we were going to rescue a damsel who preferred to shack up with the dragon?

  This is why I tried not to think too much and just get on with it.

  "She looks like she knows what she's about," I finally answered.

  "Good looking," Calix added, not reacting to my reply. "Even if she does kind of remind me of her dad."

  Ew. On so many levels.

  She stowed the binoculars. "Something is not right about this."

  "You want to tell Dmitri we're backing out?" I grinned at her.

  Calix frowned. Dmitri never really seemed to have the same effect on her he had on others, but that didn't mean she wasn't aware of his strange influence. "No. But I want to make sure we head in there with our eyes open."

  "Fair enough."

  Below us, the man on the stool caught Maria by the hand. From this distance, squinting, I could just make out his actions. He pushed the sleeve of her dress up to reveal something shiny that caught the glint of the sun and flashed it in our direction. I blinked away the sudden light flare.

  My cuff itched. Without thinking, I scratched around it. My thumb brushed over the slight lump of the tracker they'd embedded under my skin. More problems with no solutions.

  Yeah, something was weird. Story of my life.

  "We gotta get back, figure out our approach." Calix turned to me. "Are you getting anything else I should know about?"

  "Not much. This–" I held up my wrist, "–is pretty much damping everything I could find."

  "Just do me a favor and try once," she said.

  I shrugged. Sure thing. "I'm smelling pine trees, snow, dirt, and kimchi."

  "You're a fucking asshole, Rick." She smiled and let the points of her teeth sharpen just enough to give me a hint. "Just do it."

  "Okay, okay." I closed my eyes. I don't need to, but most of the time it helps to block out the most useless of my senses in order to concentrate on what vision can't show me.

  As I expected, most of what immediately came to me was information from my immediate environment. The pain of the silver in my cuff laid a miasma over most of it. The change inside me lay coiled tightly, perking up for a moment, then subsiding with a jerk as the cuff zapped me. Maybe I'd gotten used to it; it didn't seem quite as painful this time. The other change sat right below the surface, as if I could reach out and just, maybe…

  I pulled myself back from my inner space and sent my sense back out. Like I said, snow and pines and dirt. Maybe a little kimchi. Minute vibrations under my hands alerted me to the small vermin that had grown used to our presence and returned to their slumbers. In the distance, a bird of prey called.

  Careful not to try to call the actual change, I did my best to sink into the wolf, casting farther out with the sense that was neither sound, nor light, nor scent.

  The silence droned on, the buzz of the silver disrupting the calm that settled in the morning over snow. In the distance, the rumble of engines alerted me to traffic passing.

  What the hell? No, no–

  I started to scramble to my feet. Calix reacted in a split second, pushing me back down and holding me there with the weight of her body. I struggled, panicking, against the pressure, but she didn't budge.

  I ceased my efforts, stilled, reaching out again. The silver mingled with Calix's scent, but this time there was no confusion, and no denial.

  There, in the Czech forest, I picked up a scent I hadn't dreamed of in years–the harsh, yet sweet, smell of woodsmoke and charcoal ash, mingled with hints of hickory and yew. All buried deep in earthy scents of fur and sweat.

  The pack.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  "We got lucky." Karen didn't look up from the laptop screen. "One of their guests just called to confirm their arrival plans, but we were able to intercept."

  "Which one of us gets a poshy spa date?" Calix polished her sword, her kit spread across the bed in the Soviet-era hostel we were crashing.

  "Elishka Beranek, and her crotchety old grandpa, Jakub." Karen rubbed her eyes, still glued to the screen. I wondered if she'd gotten any sleep at all. "Plus, their two attendants–one nurse, and one bodyguard."

  Oh please, let me be the bodyguard.

  "Rick, you get to push the wheelchair."

  Of course I did. "Once inside, what's our play?"

  "My daughter carries a great deal of information we can use," Dmitri offered. "But she cannot be seen to leave the facility of her own choice."

  "We're doing a smash and grab, in case she needs to ‘escape' later and head back in?" Calix surmised.

  "Yes." Now it was her turn to get the best-student approving smile. "Our end game is not the total destruction of this organization–rather, the ability to know it, understand it, and observe and influence their activities."

  Trust a simple rescue operation to reveal levels of complexity Dmitri had conveniently forgotten to mention.

  "So … we aren't removing MONIKER's competition, just tagging their ears?"

  "You're not as thick as you pretend, Herr Keller."

  Hey, wait a minute…pretend? Also, did MONIKER know about this complicated scheme? I somehow thought Dmitri had failed to disabuse them of their assumption that Black Mountain, a potential rival, would be eliminated.

  "The Beranek party is scheduled to land at the airport early tomorrow morning," Karen continued, ignoring all of us, and giving no sign of reaction to Dmitri's words. "They–we–will be met by an escort shuttle from the spa."

  "Let me guess, the Beraneks land, and then we grab them and stash them away for a few days?" It's what we would normally do.

  "The Beraneks will never even get on the plane." Karen's face was as dead as her tone.

  I couldn't bite back the growl that escaped me. The tension in the room sharpened to a knife's edge.

  "Don't be sanctimonious, Rick." Karen continued to stare at me with her dead eyes. "She and her grandfather are both responsible for a laundry list of crimes, some of which would make you blush."

  A bold claim. I sometimes eat people.

  "Human trafficking. Weapons trafficking. Sex slaves.
Drugs. Ethnic cleansing."

  "I get the picture." Same old, same old. You would think eastern European gangsters would mix it up a little. I still didn't have to like it.

  On the bed, Calix finished the last bit of polishing with a flourish. She placed the sword back down on the covers and carefully put away her kit. Without saying a word, she walked over the table Karen worked at, picked up one side, and slid that side closer to the wall. Karen adjusted her seat to the new angle, also without a word of acknowledgement.

  Calix then approached Dmitri who stood and pushed his own chair back. "Please don't let me inconvenience you, Fraülein Solares."

  Addressing her by her last name caught Calix off guard. In one swift motion, faster than even I could track, she had her sword in a two-handed grip, resting lightly at his throat. The impossibly sharp metal kissed his skin, too close to fit a piece of paper in between, but so tightly controlled so as not to leave a mark.

  Karen and I froze. For my part, I neither wanted to get involved in, nor be around the aftermath of, a fight between Calix and whatever Dmitri was. The silence stretched out. In the hallway, a group of young men stumbled past the room, shouting to each other in a language I didn't recognize. Romanian? Then, their drunken merriment faded, and we were back to silence.

  I began calculating the number of steps to the door. Perhaps I could make good my escape, and when I got back, they would have figured it out.

  Karen turned her gaze back to her work. "Don't kill him, Calix. Unless you want to dress up like Grandpop Beranek and ride in the chair."

  Dmitri smiled. It wasn't a mocking smile, or even a smile of relief. Instead, his eyes twinkled in what looked to me like approval, as if Calix, in threatening him, had passed some sort of test we didn't even know we were taking.

  Abruptly, she removed the sword from his neck, holding it at her side and bowing to Dmitri, who acknowledged her with a nod. He picked up his suit jacket that had been hung carefully on the back of his chair and shrugged it on. "Dr. Willet, Miss Solares."

  As if the previous few moments had never happened, he nodded congenially and headed out the door.

  The three of us looked at each other, then Karen went back to typing. I had no idea what she was doing. Maybe updating her LinkedIn profile. The old Karen would be checking her weapons and loading ammunition, preparing for the next day's mission. This new Karen seemed to enjoy pushing papers more than my buttons.

  In the center of the room, Calix took a deep breath. She placed the sword on the floor next to her feet, closed her eyes, and reached up to the ceiling, arms spread in a meditative pose.

  Moving slowly and deliberately, controlling her breathing, she brought her arms down and joined her hands, palm to palm, in front of her.

  The next few minutes, the silence was broken only by the tapping of Karen's fingers on the keyboard, and the controlled breathing and soft susurrations of Calix's clothing as she started moving her deliberate way through a series of martials arts forms. She was mid-sword-thrust when my stomach growled.

  I shook my head, the hunger and frenetic energy of the impending change breaking through my calm. I headed to the door and opened it, pausing just a moment to return Karen's curious glance.

  "Going to grab some chow before all this New Age woo-woo rubs off," I offered.

  Calix paused and extended her arm slowly, giving me time to bask in the middle finger she waved in my general direction. "Not everyone functions best as furry little rage puppies."

  I laughed and headed out to run the moon as best I could.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  Night had fallen, the nearly-full moon just visible over the row of buildings lining the cobblestone streets. I'd swiped a couple of Euros from Karen's bag while she'd been distracted, which turned out to be enough to stop by a local restaurant and eat beef, cabbage, and potatoes until I felt almost full. I got a couple of curious looks from the locals, but I ordered in German, so they shrugged and ignored me after I paid.

  After I finished eating, I still needed more food, looking for something to fill the rest of the corners of my stomach. When the change is coming, I'm never full. I bought a couple of pastries and took them with me, ignoring custom and good manners by eating as I walked. Whatever. The weather was cold enough that most people were either indoors or hurrying on their way there.

  All I had on was a sweatshirt over a T-shirt, and the cold worked its way under my skin, combining with the wild moon energy and the sickness of the silver the cuff kept against my body. I kept walking. As long as I was moving, I would be fine.

  My steps led me along the bank of a small stream, the stone path skirting the river before rising up in an ancient bridge over the ravine. It was my fault–I wasn't paying attention to anything except the fact that I was hungry, and every time the clouds parted, my body reminded me of the change, and then the cuff sent another warning shot.

  The attack came out of nowhere. Something large and blurry tackled me, driving me to my knees. I tried to react, but my attacker rained down a series of well-aimed punches to my kidneys, knees, and other sensitive areas. He had the advantage of surprise, and every time I tried to escape, he met me with another flurry of blows.

  I curled up on my side, going fetal, feigning submission.

  The large blur started laughing and pushed himself up. As soon as he gave me the slightest bit of room, I scrambled away, coming back up to my feet.

  "Der berühmte Rickard Keller, black wolf of the family." My attacker topped out at six feet, with thick, black hair that covered his entire body, and an impressive beard. He spoke German with a thick Bavarian accent. "It's good to meet you, cuz."

  The cuff spasmed, shooting another jolt through me. By now, the spark had definitely weakened, and I clamped down on any external reaction. No way could I display any additional weakness in front of an unknown. Especially not one who smelled like pack.

  My silence didn't seem to perturb him. He extended a hand. I stared at it until he let it fall.

  "Who are you? What's your lineage?" There was a certain protocol to how things were done. Although, I'd been cast out almost a century ago, so it's possible things had changed.

  "Your mom."

  Well, now he was just being insulting.

  "Seriously." He grinned again. "Your mom is my aunt." He extended his hand again. "Gunther Markus Keller. At your service."

  This time, I shook his hand. He gripped mine with a firm and solid grasp, none of the tight-grip shenanigans powerful men and wolves sometimes indulged in. That told me a lot, namely he felt comfortable enough in his power to not have to play games.

  "Rickard Jakob Keller." I retrieved my hand and stepped back out of arm's reach, still wary. Pack or not, he'd taken me down easily, and I didn't want to give him the opportunity to do so again.

  "What the hell is that on your arm?"

  Of course, he would have noticed the cuff. "Mu'dir Wurst sein."

  He shrugged, not taking offense that I'd told him to mind his own business. The scent of woodsmoke and ash intensified.

  At that moment, clouds parted, and the moon momentarily shone through. Both of us involuntarily glanced up, growling in unison.

  Homesickness washed through me, a tangible discomfort. Longing. I'd made my choices, and mostly didn't regret them, but here together with a fellow pack member, the pain of remembering the past tightened my throat.

  "We've been hearing rumors," Gunther broke the silence. "Things changed after you left."

  Considering the continent had endured two world wars, fascism, authoritarianism, genocide, capitalism, communism and the Iron Curtain, reunification, the European Union, and currently seemed to be doing its best to start the cycle all over again–that was an understatement.

  "We lost about half the pack." He spoke the words without accusation, but I still felt it as such.

  "My … mother?" I wasn't sure if I wanted to know. She had exiled me and placed the threat of final death on my head and those of any pa
ck member foolhardy enough to stay in contact.

  Gunther shivered, but gave no other sign. "She leads not only our pack, but those of the Five Generations."

  Interesting. "You mean, the Four Generations?"

  "Five." Gunther shrugged. "About ten years ago, we started receiving an influx of new pack, refugees from the south."

  Each Generation contained packs of lineage from different geographical areas. Gunther and I were First Generation–wolves who came down from the north and settled in central and southern Germany. But there were other families, other packs, each of whom settled in other areas. I'd never had contact with any of them. We all kept to our specific territories. Only the Generation leaders, our pack grandfathers–and apparently my mother–ever ventured into other territory.

  At least, that's how it had been when I betrayed the pack and enlisted as a soldier in von Bismarck's forces, disowned completely and cut off from everyone I'd ever known because I had dreamed of this other pack called "nation."

  "Gunther–"

  He held up a hand. "I go by Markus."

  "Markus, then." My stomach growled. Or maybe his. "Why are you talking to me?"

  "Nobody was really sure anymore if you were real, or some cautionary tale." He shrugged. "No nations, including the pack, made it out of the last century alive and in one piece. We've had to make choices, and who knows? If you'd stuck around, you might have had your chance to wear your pretty uniform."

  "Go fuck yourself." I stood up and stalked away, heading toward the bridge. Who the hell was this asshole, sitting here, smelling of pack, judging me?

  The pack had been decimated; the pack had been adapting. Did this giant wolf come seeking me? Or was he sent? And fuck them all for finding me after all this time. And fuck me, for wanting them to find me, and for making the choices that led me to this meeting with a cuff on my arm.

  "Rick."

  Footsteps behind me. I stopped and whirled around, stepping back on an angle to stave off another attack.

  Gunther–Markus–hustled after me, drawing up next to me. The two of us faced each other across the bridge, the stone reflecting the moonlight, neither of us completely human in its glow.