Everyone lowered their weapons but didn’t put them away. Out of the gloom came two creatures, both massive in their dimensions, and again the voice spoke. “Ah, you bring assistance to supervise your new prizes.”
Then laughter, low and mocking. Gillian’s stomach clenched. She could feel the sickness permeating from the speaker, the depravity, the self-assurance that he was providing a service. Her analytical mind wrapped around it. Generally with most Paramortals she’d dealt directly with, there was not this sense of “unrightness.” Well, with the exception of the Dracula Vampires she’d worked with and Jack, though she hadn’t actually worked with him. Even Dante hadn’t been this bad when he was pissed off. Fighting to keep her control and temper in place, she waited.
Emerging from the trees was a huge man, followed by something even bigger with some sort of misshapen branches above its head. The first man was as tall as Aleksei and Tanis but much, much bulkier and heavier. The Shifter trait of good looks held true. The man was strikingly handsome, but any attractiveness he had in the long dark brown hair and intelligent liquid brown eyes was lost since they all knew what lurked in his heart.
One massive hand held a leather leash wound into a heavy chain. Said chain was attached to a harness on a . . . Moose? The look was all wrong, the antlers were twisted and bent, not the flat heavy rack of a true animal. As it became more visible, they could see it was bipedal.
To their horror they realized the Moose was a Shifter too or had been magically torqued into Shifter form. Held in place by the heavily chained leash, the creature looked woeful and lethargic. Only its melting, pleading brown eyes displayed any life and that life had been hard. It was radiating distress and Gillian shielded frantically. In her mind she felt the now familiar brush of Aleksei’s touch.
“I am with you, piccola.”
Gratefully she sent him her equivalent of a warm fuzzy thought then focused on the scene in front of them. It was nice of him to try to comfort her, but she couldn’t afford the distraction.
Daed looked relaxed, calm even. Pavel moved a little to the right, opening up a corridor in case the women’s heavier firepower was needed. The new Shifter eyed him warily. Pavel was still partially in Wolf form and looked intimidating as hell. Unfortunately, the other didn’t look intimidated, he looked interested. “Ew!”
“You come early. Our scout scented you or we would not come now.” The man spoke again, jerking hard on the leash unnecessarily and causing the Weremoose to flinch.
“Easy, Kemo Sabe,” Kimber murmured to Gillian, who was reflexively fingering her knife. Their Captain’s temper was well-known. Gillian was a bully to bullies. She hated deliberate mistreatment with a passion and had been known to do very bad things to someone over just such an act.
“I’m fine,” she whispered back.
“Gillyflower.” That was a quiet warning from Trocar.
“Fine.”
Shit, everyone else collectively thought.
Gillian’s shields were firmly in place. She was blocking everything except what they had to do, even Aleksei’s gentle touch. Right now, getting in and getting the kids out was top priority. Maybe she’d get to hurt one or two of the perpetrators in the process. Yeah, it was good to be armed and dangerous again.
No, no, stop thinking like that. If necessary she would come back later and then hurt them. Yup, that was the ticket. Come back, bring silver weapons, make it a Marquis de Sade Free for All. A little pain, a little torture, a little dismemberment . . . The bastards would pay if they’d hurt any of those kids and this pitiful moose-like creature. Satisfied with her thoughts, a slight, chilling smile crept onto her face, scaring the hell out of the members of her Team who could see her.
“I am Boris and dis is Natasha.” The pervert laughed at his own humor.
“I was thinking more like Bambi-zilla and Thumpersaurus Rex,” Jenna muttered.
“I was thinking ‘Kill squirrel, save moose.’” Gillian was already moving forward to stand beside Daed and Pavel. Kimber and Jenna followed with Luis bringing up the rear.
“Please don’t let her kill him just yet,” Kimber prayed to no one in particular.
Her Captain wasn’t thinking about killing at the moment. Dismemberment, torture maybe, but killing, no. Bad, wicked, evil thoughts for a psychologist who helped heal minds and souls. Still, she was a soldier right now, and a Special Ops Expert. Assassin. Executioner.
No. NO! Psychologist! Think Gestalt thoughts! Bad Captain Key! Good Gillian and Bad Gillian were currently at odds in her psyche.
Gill watched Boris’s eyes. There was no direct threat. He obviously had expected to meet someone and didn’t know whom. This could be turned to their advantage. They could nail the traffickers and also their supplier at the same time. She glanced at Daed and, with the camaraderie born of years of working together, saw that he mirrored her thoughts.
“Lead on,” Daed said pleasantly.
His Team watched his back nervously. Daed, like Gillian, had a short fuse with situations like this. The more charming and cooperative he was, the more dangerous for their adversary.
Boris turned the shifted Moose and moved down the pathway with more assurance than when he’d arrived. He was thinking about the money, thinking about the others like him who believed children in their innocence were perfect to train as sexual toys. He wasn’t thinking about danger or subterfuge. That was their leader’s job. He was the muscle not the brains behind the organization.
Boris led them unerringly another mile into the forest, where there was a surprisingly big compound; there were at least seven buildings they could immediately see, probably barracks of some kind, an office and a mess hall, positioned in a crudely formed circle around an open courtyard. Uncomfortable thoughts of Auschwitz, Sobibor and Treblinka crossed Gillian’s mind. It looked like a concentration camp.
She felt herself go into mental lockdown—cold, empty and without feeling. It was automatic. Her empathy, as much as she blocked, couldn’t help but leak through with the enormity of emotions emanating from the children in this terrible place, so her mind took over and shielded her. It was as inherent within her as the Paramortal’s magic.
Then she saw the crates. They. Had. Crates. Huge, ugly, air-holed wooden crates. For shipping. Rage started to rear its very ugly head and she forced it down with effort. Now wasn’t the time.
A door opened in one of the closer buildings and another large, imposing man came out, walking toward them. Human from the look of him, red haired and bearded; his walk was arrogant, confident, authoritative.
“Hello, you are a bit early.”
The voice was level, with a Russian accent. He walked straight to Daed, hand extended. Daed took it and shook it, applying a bit more pressure than necessary and causing the redhead to grimace a little. The man continued, assuming they were who he thought they were.
“The merchandise is almost ready,” he looked behind them curiously, “but I do not see a vehicle for transport?”
“It’s coming,” Daed said in a noncommittal tone.
“Where are . . . is the merchandise?” Gillian asked, her voice level and calm.
“Of course,” Red Hair said, and barked a command in Russian.
Pavel nodded to Daed and Gillian that the redhead had indeed called for the “cargo” to be brought out. Dozens of children streamed hesitantly out of two of the apparent barracks, followed by armed adults, both Human and Paramortal by the way they moved. They lined the children up in front of the Team; the youngest was a girl who looked about three, the oldest was a boy who looked about fifteen.
Gillian did a quick head count of the kids, the adults and the weapons, knowing the rest of her Team was doing the same. There were about twelve adults not counting Red, Moose and Squirrel, er . . . Boris. Red had a sidearm and the rest except Boris and Moose had rifles. Probably because Boris didn’t need one and they weren’t absolutely sure which side Moose was on yet. That thought wasn’t comforting. Two thousand poun
ds of battle tank deer meat had better indicate real damn fast which side of the fence it was on if things went South or there would be a venison barbeque at the end of this.
A thought suddenly occurred to Gillian. There were more kids on their missing roster than were visible.
“Where are the rest of them?” she asked softly, taking the time to smile in what she hoped was a reassuring way to the kids.
“The rest?” Red seemed confused. “But your order was only for these forty. Our message was no babies, nothing under the age of three and nothing over sixteen.”
“That order has changed,” Daed growled, his voice deepening.
Pavel, Gillian and Kimber flinched almost imperceptibly. Daedelus sounded like a Shifter who was about to let loose a can of USMC industrial-strength whoop-ass on the perpetrators. Jenna was either scanning the surrounding forest wondering where the hell the Brownies had disappeared to or she’d seen something interesting to look at and wasn’t tuned in to current events.
Gillian hoped that her dingbat ass would focus so she wouldn’t flame anyone on their side by accident. Trocar was listening with half an ear but still keeping Luis in his line of sight. The Vampire had been moving almost mechanically, hadn’t spoken unless spoken to and had gone entirely too still.
“Certainly,” Red said, backing up a little from Daed, his face going curiously blank, “we will show you everything we have.”
He barked another order in Russian. The others in the compound responded by leveling rifles at the group and jacking bullets into firing chambers as Pavel simultaneously whirled back to his Team with a howl of warning.
CHAPTER 3
PAVEL snarled, “Kill themowwwooooo!”
His voice changed to a howl as he dropped and shifted fully, clothes shredding and dropping off the massive body. Suddenly a blond blue-eyed Wolf the size of a pony stood in everyone’s midst. A shot rang out from the other side, the children screamed and all hell broke loose as Pavel launched himself at Red. Gillian and the rest of the Team dived behind the crates, which were the only cover in the yard. Everyone but Luis, who stood trembling in the open.
Trocar’s slender black shape was a blur as he slammed into the Vampire, taking him to the ground and partially behind a crate, where Kimber dragged him the rest of the way. Luis looked horrified and threw his rifle away from him. Shots were zinging around their heads and putting more holes in the crates, the kids were still screaming and Gillian knotted a fist in Luis’s sweater, yanking him to her.
“What the fuck is wrong with you, Clemente?” she snarled savagely in his face, completely disregarding the fact that he could dismember her easily. She was his commanding officer, he had just royally fucked up and she wanted answers.
Luis shook his head then grasped it with both hands, mouth opening in a silent scream as he bucked against the ground, jerking out of her hand. Fury gave way instantly to fear as Gill watched her trusted friend twisting in obvious agony at her feet.
Frantic with worry, not knowing what else to do to stop his apparent torment, Gillian punched him in the jaw with the side of her gun, hoping to render him unconscious. He didn’t lose consciousness but curled into a near fetal position, still holding his head tightly. Apparently you couldn’t knock out a Vampire even when it was for their own good. Pity that. If he’d been Human, she would have shattered his jaw. As it was, there was a red mark where she’d belted him but otherwise he appeared uninjured.
Barking orders, Gillian positioned everyone as best she could behind the crates when a thousand little voices shrieked as one and the Brownie horde swarmed over the compound. The bad guys all reacted, trying to aim at Gill’s Team and at the throng of tiny beings who were grabbing children and dragging them to safety while stabbing feet and legs with very sharp little toothpicks of death and twanging miniature arrows into soft bellies.
It was too much for several of them, mostly the Shifters, though one Human broke and ran. All at once there were six, no, seven Wolves (counting Pavel, who was somewhere chewing on Red), a Snow Leopard and a Lynx—all oversized, all standing next to discarded weaponry and clothing. They began batting Brownies around like footballs, trying to separate the remaining children, who were shrieking in terror at the toothy faces coming after them.
Jenna was muttering, “Wereleopards and Werelynxes and Werewolves, oh my!” while torching anything furry that moved close to their area.
Mentally Gillian was compartmentalizing her thoughts. Shit! Guns! Kids! Post-traumatic stress disorder! Sexual abuse! Lycanthrope trauma! Guns! Brownies! Bullets! Shit!
That wasn’t helping so she found something to do: shooting the new Shifters in vulnerable parts like the knees and hips to cripple their escape while yelling at the kids to stay down. It was a futile attempt since none of the kids spoke English to any degree, but she couldn’t help it.
Trocar was making some arcane motions in the air and murmuring softly in some esoteric magical dialect. The children simply vanished from sight. Picking up Luis’s gun, the tall Elf drew down on the Shifters then started firing back at the remaining Humans who had stayed to fight.
The crate in front of Gillian shattered on one side. She looked up in time to roll left, avoiding a massive Bear paw coming at her head. Jenna’s flamethrower carried searing orange fire toward the paw and set the crate on fire.
Kimber was commando-crawling toward where the kids had been and feeling around. She’d noticed that the Brownies hadn’t stopped pulling things into the forest, even if she couldn’t see them. Several of the little beings pointed toward the wood and she crawled there. Hopefully whatever spell Trocar had thrown would wear off quickly and she could help get the kids away from there while the rest fought.
“Jenna, go! Take Luis out of here! Help Kimber!” Gillian snapped.
Not bothering to look at her companions, she was shooting the enormous Werebear from point-blank range. It was coming through the fire and smoke toward her, crunching the crate pieces like matchsticks under its one-ton bulk.
Jenna obeyed her, firing the flamethrower to give them cover, grabbing the prostrate Luis by the collar and unceremoniously hauling his ass back and away. Gillian couldn’t spare the time to see if they made it. She danced around another crate, the Bear right on her heels, hot breath on her neck, when she heard a reverberating bellow that nearly stopped her heart.
What. The. Hell?
She froze; the Bear froze; Jenna holding Luis froze; everyone in the compound froze except the Brownies, who were still frantically reabducting children. Some had made it to the compound buildings, thanks to Trocar, who was, amazingly, across the yard with them. He was keeping the remaining child traffickers busy by having them continue to try to kill him, while the Brownies persisted in sneaking kids out the back of the barracks.
The bellow came again. The remaining Humans in the yard suddenly panicked, scrabbling backward, over each other, never taking their eyes off the yard. Even the enemy Shifters were backing up, turning their guns from Trocar toward whatever it was.
What the hell would spook a Shifter? Gillian had only a moment to wonder.
Boris, and it had to be Boris as the Bear bore a striking resemblance to the man, appeared to get over his shock more quickly than the rest of them and growled. His face was twisted in a parody of Human expression. Smirking at Gillian, he began to stalk her again.
She bolted, trying to put some distance between them. Once she made it away from the fiery crates, she could turn and fight him in the open with the silver blade. Her gun wasn’t having much effect against his sheer bulk. She had to hope that her speed and utter gall would keep her in one piece until she could shove the blade into his eye, ear or other vital spot. Hopefully before he clawed her to ribbons or bit off her face.
The crate she’d maneuvered behind exploded into fragments as his huge paw crushed the wood. Gillian rolled to the right and clear. Bouncing to her feet, she leveled gun and knife at Boris, then stopped and stared openmouthed, much as Bor
is was now doing.
Both of them gaped in disbelief as a colossal Minotaur, straight out of Greek legend, formed through the smoke like a demon from the Gates of Hell. It was all of eight feet tall, bipedal, broad shouldered, heavily muscled and black as pitch from nose to tail. The eyes were black on black, the red flames of the fires reflected in them, giving the bull-man a hellish look. Above its ebony-furred face, curving horns as thick as Gillian’s thigh rose from its immense skull, arcing forward to wickedly sharp points, gleaming like hematite in the firelight. The great beast kicked the remainder of the crate which separated him from Boris away with a huge black cloven hoof, its long tail swishing in agitation.
“Daed?” Gillian asked hopefully, taking a quick mental headcount of who it could possibly be.
If it wasn’t Daedelus, they were all seriously screwed, starting with her and the Bear. Minotaurs were legendary for their brute strength, short tempers, sharp intelligence and supreme dedication to tearing the living shit out of whatever got in their way. They also happened to have rows of sharklike teeth, being flesh eaters, and they weren’t picky about whether their prey was still moving or not when they started to bite chunks out.
The massive, horned bull head swung briefly toward her on a neck as thick as a tree trunk. A disturbingly Human but mammoth hand came up in a brief salute in acknowledgment, before it turned back toward the hulking Werebear. Actually, the Bear didn’t look quite so hulking while being faced with over a ton of pissed-off walking hamburger.
Gillian breathed a quick sigh of relief then got the hell out of the way as the Minotaur and Werebear launched themselves at each other. Deciding she would be of better use getting the kids out while letting the behemoths fight, she started to run for the barracks when a movement to her left got her attention.
The Weremoose, or whatever it was, was cowering by the burning office building, its chain leash tied to one of the support beams. It was honking softly, great tears running from its liquid eyes, foam around its muzzle as it strained at its chains in an effort to get away.
Key to Conspiracy Page 3
