Risk Be Damned

by Natalie Grey

  “What is it?” Stephen looked over at him. He cradled a small glass of cognac in one hand,, and took a sip as he raised his eyebrows at Stoyan.

  “She says this man will take her out to clubs later, and she thinks she can get the key to his room.”

  “It would be easier to bribe the staff,” Jennifer muttered.

  “Exactly.” Stoyan stabbed a finger at her. “And less dangerous. I don’t like the idea of him buying her drinks and flirting with her in clubs.”

  To his surprise, the other Wechselbalg grinned at that. “And why not?”

  “Because…” he faltered a moment before replying, “it’s dangerous!”

  “And?”

  “And it’s easier to bribe the staff?” he continued.

  “And?” Jennifer tilted her head to the side.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” Stoyan said stiffly.

  Jennifer snorted with laughter. With the language implants ADAM had designed, she understood Bulgarian, but she didn’t need to know the words Stoyan was saying to see that he was speaking the language of men and women everywhere.

  Stoyan was jealous.

  “We will, of course, make sure she is safe,” Stephan said peaceably. “How about I bribe the front desk, and we can have Arisha go through Mr. Cordova’s room while the rest of us are out following him?”

  “You could stay and keep her safe,” Jennifer suggested wickedly.

  “My place is at the facility, rescuing my family.” Stoyan’s jaw clenched. “But I do not like the thought of Arisha searching the rooms alone.”

  “You could stay,” Stephen suggested to Jennifer.

  Jennifer shook her head, “No way. Someone’s doing experiments on Wechselbalg? I want to be there to take them down.”

  “We aren’t attacking tonight,” Stephen assured her. “First, we get information.”

  “All right, I’ll stay.” She jabbed a finger at Stephen. “But if I find out you attacked without me, so help me, I will strangle you with your own testicles.”

  “Testicles don’t—” he started before she put up a finger.

  Her lips compressed a moment before she answered, “I will make them! Don’t do it!”

  Stephen gave her a small smile.

  Dammit! She hated when he did that. She wasn’t sure if he got the message, or he thought her temper tantrum was just cute.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Filip woke up slowly. His wrists hurt, his head hurt. He remembered drinking rakia. A lot of rakia. He remembered Toma being his usual judgmental self. Filip grimaced in resentment without opening his eyes.

  He kept trying to bring Toma in on jobs, and the man kept acting like the jobs weren’t even worth his time. He was always talking about big targets and how Filip shouldn’t get distracted by pretty faces.

  If Toma wanted to go after banks, he could try running his own jobs from now on, Filip thought resentfully. He would learn how difficult it was. He would learn how the women in the best clubs in the city didn’t look twice at country boys.

  He would learn that he should go back to the dive bars and smaller jobs Filip pulled. And Filip would accept him back. Graciously. In his head, a woman was sitting beside him who was impressed by his elegant manners. Very impressed. Filip smiled.

  Then he opened his eyes and the smile faded. The ceiling above him was stained, the panels cracked. There was a single fluorescent bulb, but the rest were gone. He tried to sit up, but his hand was cuffed to the headboard. He cursed at the sudden rattle and clang as much as at the pain, then he jerked at it. The links didn’t even strain, but the edges of the cuff cut into his wrist and he winced. The rusted metal bed swayed slightly.

  What the hell had he gotten himself into last night?

  If some girl had cuffed him to this bed, he didn’t remember it, and his clothes were still on. Filip lay back with a wince—the bare bulb sent light stabbing into his head like a dagger … and tried to remember.

  And then he did remember. Cold settled into the pit of his stomach, and his mouth fell open again at the memory of the horrors he had seen. A man had changed into a wolf. Stoyan. Stoyan was a wolf. It wasn’t possible, but Filip had seen it. As they hauled him away, he had seen Toma’s body on the floor with long gashes on his chest from the wolf’s claws. He had known somehow that the other men in the room with Stoyan were also wolves, even though they did not turn into wolves. The quick memory of human skin fading into fur still seemed unreal. Was it real? Or was it an old music video coming to life? The real growl the wolf had given made his bones turn to water even now.

  Stoyan had used him as bait. Anger cut through the fear. Filip’s eyes snapped open in the dim room. Stoyan had used him to get to the American man, not whatever alias he had used, but a man called Stephen. They had spoken about the military facility in the hills—or, at least, what Filip had assumed was a military facility.

  Maybe he was wrong.

  Then there had been a scream in the hall, and Filip had been bundled out of the apartment as well, blindfolded, thrust into a car. He’d been sick, and one of the guys had growled at him. Like an animal. This was crazy. This was absolutely insane.

  Filip yanked at the cuff and yelled. He’d had a bad trip. None of it was real because it was impossible. Was he five years old and listening to his grandmother’s fairy tales? No. So he wasn’t going to believe it. He yanked at the cuff again and yelled for Stoyan.

  When the door opened, he quieted down. It was one of Stoyan’s friends.

  “Where’s Stoyan?”

  “He’ll be back.” The man gave him a look of contempt. “He said you were to stay there.”

  The door slammed again over Filip’s protest. He slumped back on the bed with a snarl of frustration. Who the hell did Stoyan think he was, taking Filip captive? And what had really happened yesterday?

  —

  Bethany Anne strode into the hangar bay, casting a look around herself. A dozen low-level mechanics looked up with their jaws hanging open. They hadn’t expected to see their Queen come in here, and especially not in Louboutins.

  “Where is Bobcat?” she asked them. “And, good morning.”

  “Uh, good morning.” One of the mechanics stammered back. “Bobcat is through there. He’s, uh….”

  Bethany Anne started walking.

  “I think he’s busy!” The man sounded panicked.

  “Is he brewing beer?” Bethany Anne asked. She smiled. “I know all about the beer, don’t worry. Who did you think the B was in BMW?” She lifted an eyebrow and grinned at them. “What are you all working on while he’s brewing?”

  A young woman with close-cropped tight curls answered her, “A device that blocks any sort of tracking signal. It has to work on shipping containers for some reason.”

  “Ah.” Bethany Anne was pleased. “Good. That will be very useful.”

  “If I might ask, ma’am—uh, I mean, your Majesty—what’s it for?”

  Bethany Anne laughed, “You don’t have to call me ‘your Majesty.’ And it’s for shoes.” She was gone a moment later, slipping into Bobcat’s office.

  All of the mechanics stared after her, their work temporarily forgotten.

  “Did she say….” One of them asked, eyes narrowed as he thought about her comment. “Shoes?”

  —

  Stephen slipped carefully through the darkness. As soon as they were safely outside the city and into the woods, their team had shed most of their cold weather gear. With their strength, it wasn’t going to slow them down, but it was bulky and inconvenient, and with their nanocytes, none of them needed it to withstand the cold. Now they moved with inhuman speed and silence through the forest, tracking Gerard up ahead.

  >>He will be in range of the first defensive mechanisms I can detect shortly,<< ADAM informed Stephen. >>I will watch how he interacts with them and report back to you.<<

  “If I had to guess, I would say he’s going to avoid them,” Stephen murmured back. He was careful not to let his voice d
rift on the wind. However softly he was speaking, it would not do for Gerard to have even the subconscious sense that someone was following him.

  >>Yes, he appears to be doing that. Why?<<

  “He wants to surprise them,” Stephen explained carefully.

  >>I thought they were on the same side.<<

  “Not exactly. They’re all our enemies for now, but to Gerard and his boss, the people at this facility are….” Stephen struggled with how to explain this particular dynamic of human behavior.

  As a new intelligence, ADAM did not always intuitively understand human behavior. “They are being forced to work for Gerard’s boss,” he said. “Gerard wants to make sure they do not try to escape or defy him. They would be dangerous if they all acted together. So he wants to scare them.”

  >>Even if they are scared, would they not realize that if they acted together, they could defeat him?<<

  “Look up Game Theory. Humans are prone to certain illogical fallacies.”

  >>That’s an understatement.<<

  Stephen smiled. He focused on the small shadow that was Gerard.

  Their quarry had more talents than just behaving like a businessman. He had exchanged his suit for top-of-the-line cold weather gear, paid for by a bank account that ADAM was currently tracing. Apparently, the computer systems in the shops of Sofia were old enough that ADAM had to learn now-obsolete languages—as well as being slowed down by their speed.

  The last time Stephen asked, ADAM had said that it was still waiting for the computers to finish requesting the money. Stephen knew that ADAM had no vocal tics, but he almost imagined that ADAM had sounded pained by the agonizing slowness of his target.

  Stephen, therefore, refrained from asking about the progress again. ADAM would tell him as soon as there was more information, and none of that information made a big difference right now. All they had to do tonight was follow Gerard to the facility.

  Stephen hadn’t mentioned it to Stoyan, but he was expecting there to be a fight. He’d made a promise to Jennifer, but the facts were: Arisha needed backup, and Stephen preferred not to have Jennifer see the things he was sure were waiting for them at the facility. She understood instinctively what was going on, but to see what was being done to her fellow Wechselbalg would be painful beyond belief.

  He preferred she not have to suffer the pain.

  Once, he hadn’t cared about things like this.

  He had assignations—or, as the young people today called them in a very uninspired parlance, “one night stands”—and longstanding affairs with noblewomen, serving girls, and merchants’ daughters … but he never cared much about any of them. He assumed they experienced some heartache when he inevitably disappeared, but human emotions were so fleeting. He had never wanted to protect someone the way he wanted to protect Jennifer since his turning.

  It was ridiculous in some ways because she was one of the best female Wechselbalg warriors he had met. But she could be hurt in more ways than bruises and bullet holes.

  Even thinking about that hurt him. He wouldn’t be able to shield her, heal her. He would be helpless to fix any of it.

  His fingers clenched as he strode through the underbrush, following Gerard’s trail. The man looked behind himself often, cautious by habit, but his pursuers didn’t need lanterns to see, and they didn’t make much noise when they moved—not enough for Gerard’s human ears to pick up, anyway. Gerard was hopelessly outmatched. He was going to lead them to the facility, show them how to open the doors…. And then, if he tried to hurt any of the experiments, they were going to kill him. Stephen looked over to meet Stoyan’s eyes, and both men smiled the same predatory smile.

  “It’s time for revenge,” Stoyan said quietly.

  “Life has just called in his note,” Stephen agreed.

  —

  “This feels weird.”

  “What feels weird?” Jennifer lounged on the bed one boot propped on top of the other, fingers laced over her stomach. She looked entirely at ease, but Arisha knew there were guns and knives strapped all over the woman’s body. The werewolf was also wearing what she told Arisha was her best leather coat: “to remind me not to shift. I don’t want to ruin this one. I couldn’t get a replacement easily. There’s just this one guy in Denver who makes them.”

  Apparently, shifters ruined their clothes when they changed and, when they changed back, were naked. Arisha had spent the hour since she learned that fact wondering if she could go on a mission with Stoyan.

  He’d have to change at some point to fight, right? She shook her head and stared at the closet. She would be useless in a fight. She needed to focus on Gerard’s room, not on the idea of just how amazing Stoyan’s muscles would look like without that waffle-weave shirt on them.

  She felt her face heat, she was blushing.

  “You okay over there?” Jennifer sat up.

  “Uh, yeah.” Arisha cleared her throat, her voice had sounded weird. “Fine.”

  “So, what’s weird about this?”

  “Well, I don’t normally sneak into people’s rooms and search their stuff.”

  “Oh.” Jennifer shrugged and gave a grin. “If you end up joining TQB, this will be one of the least weird things you ever do, I promise.”

  Arisha stopped dead in the act of moving one of the suits aside. She looked over her shoulder at Jennifer. “You think I could be part of TQB?”

  Jennifer frowned. “You know about Kurtherians—”

  “What?”

  “Long story. Werewolves and vampires are—”

  “Vampires?”

  Jennifer grimaced. “I’m usually not the one explaining this, sorry. Okay. So. There’s a group of aliens called Kurtherians.”

  Arisha leaned against the wall. She was feeling a bit faint, and she was sure her mouth was hanging open, and her eyes were probably bulging out. “You’re telling me there are also aliens? Not just werewolves and vampires, but aliens?”

  Jennifer waved away her question, “Here is the thing: the Wechselbalg—like Stoyan and me, and did you know you blush whenever I bring him up?—and what you would call vampires are all humans who have alien technology in them.”

  “But there have been myths about Wechselbalg for centuries!” Arisha countered.

  “Yeah. An alien ship crash landed here a while back, and a man named Michael was one of the first ones who got transformed. He was the Patriarch. He ran all of Europe and then he went over to America. You’d think of him as a vampire, but he did not prey on humans. He had a very strict code of honor. Our Queen, Bethany Anne, she’s the Matriarch now.”

  “She’s that old?” Arisha had learned everything she could about the owner of TQB - which wasn’t much. This was one of the first big pieces of information she’d heard.

  “No, she’s just equal to Michael,” Jennifer explained. “Probably more powerful. See, the alien technology doesn’t pass reliably from generation to generation, it usually gets weaker in the ones you would think of as vampires. Now, Wechselbalg—”

  “Wait, wait, wait. Backup.” Arisha held up her hands to stop the flow of information. “If you all have had alien technology for years, why wouldn’t you just build spaceships and try ruling the world and stuff?” She paused a moment, “Are you actually immortal?”

  Jennifer chuckled, “Vampires kind of are. And we didn’t know it was technology, not really. Not everyone, anyway. And we didn’t have access to much of the technology. It’s a really long story. Basically, the only technology we had was nano robots in our blood. Nanocytes.”

  Arisha swayed. “Holy…. Wow.”

  “I know it’s a lot to take in.”

  “I feel like such an idiot.” Arisha looked at her. “I’ve been looking up these old myths my whole life, trying to track down what I thought was real. Was I just an idiot for thinking it was magic?”

  Jennifer shook her head, “No. I mean, you don’t know how the nanocytes work, right? So it’s basically magic to you anyway. Me, too—I know the tec
hnology is there, but it doesn’t change how I live my life. I’m still a Wechselbalg. I still have to learn to control my powers—shift easily, fight in both forms, all of that.”